Life wasn’t easy when I was in my late teens. I was 17 and completely lost. I was sleeping all day and awake only at night, a soon to be high-school dropout fighting depression and the realization that I was gay. Therapy was gradually helping me out, but there were many days when the thought of living life as gay man would churn my stomach. Those days were extra dark, mostly spent staring at the ceiling, contemplating the best way to end my life. Sometimes I’d be on the phone well into the night and early morning, talking to one of the few friends I had. Unfortunately, she was also suicidal and shared a very dark place. Instead of lifting each other up, we’d compare notes on the best and least painful ways of making it all go away. My mom picked up the phone once and overheard the conversation. Unable to process what was going on in my life, she started yelling at me… screaming… words of desperation… saying I was “sick” and then she broke down crying. Mom was fighting her own demons, trying the best to raise us without our father around, while her youngest son, her baby, was slipping through her fingers before her eyes.

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