Connections

“By the age of 6 I knew that I should have never have been born. I knew that my mom didn’t want to have a kid,” she said. For a long time, Carly said the message she got was that feeling suicidal was not a reasonable response to the pain she was experiencing.

“When somebody is suicidal, it gets really isolating, and not in the way that we tend to discuss,” she said. “People are really scared, shamed, into hiding that they’re suicidal. What I really like is in our friend group it is so normalized.”

A comrade in activism

Last month, Jess cried because in Denver, where she lives, many homeless people don’t have a safe place to shelter that isn’t fraught with risk of infection.

As Jess witnesses the virus’s toll – especially on the most vulnerable – the emotional intensity of her suicidal thoughts gather. She shares them with her friend Leah Harris.

Jess and Leah, a mental health activist, met through suicide prevention work. While both have survived multiple attempts, they say their friendship is predicated less on shared experience and more on shared values. They believe part of the responsibility of being alive means working toward a world that works for everyone.

“I feel like she’s someone I can always count on to know what is right,” Jess said.

The pandemic has been a nightmare for Leah. She has been reporting on COVID deaths in psych wards. Leah has been hospitalized, so the work touches on personal wounds.

Sensations of panic and terror sometimes overwhelm her, and often at inconvenient times.

Friends are getting sick, and she has lost loved ones to the virus.

“I wake up daily with a sense of dread and foreboding,” she said.