I was walking down by the lake near my house the other day and I came across a small sand crab. At first I wasn’t going to bother picking it up. But then I built up some courage and decided to get a closer look. When I picked up the sand crab its first instinct was to bite me. Hence the apprehension in picking it up to begin with. But after a couple of minutes he finally came out of his shell and started trusting that I wasn’t going to harm him.
I started this particular piece out like this because, all of us come to a point in our lives where we have to “Start all over” and trust again.
About a year ago, I was severely depressed, and simple task like getting out of bed took a lot of energy for me. I had lost my way in life; I lost me, my sense of purpose and belonging. I was walking around like a zombie, high off prescription meds and usually lashing out at any individual who even attempted to shine light on the darkness that had become “My Life”.
I took a sharp blow in Nov 2003, when I lost my brother Robert F.Patton to a rare disease that attacks the liver called “Wilson’s Disease”. It wasn’t so much that he died that was so crushing. It was how he died. It was as if the Doctors came in and said “We are sorry, but there is nothing more we can do, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when”. I could live a million years and I will never get that particular phrase out of my head.

Watching my brother die was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. Holding his hand and hearing him try and say “I Love You” one more time, even though it hurt for him to speak, he did it anyway because he knew it would be his last.
Even as I am writing, tears are running down my face. I never thought that losing someone could cause so much damage to your life, and like me, if you are not careful, it can steal what little ability you do have to keep going right out from underneath you.
I am now beating the doors down on thirty (not quite there yet) but soon, and I have arrived at a point in my life where I realized that completely starting over was the only way for me to continue to live here on this earth. I have already attempted suicide 4 times in my life, 3 times before I was 16 and once as an adult. Some people may say that when you attempt suicide you are screaming out for help. But I am here to tell you that not only was I in a place where no one could HELP me when I attempted. I made sure no one could get in even if they wanted to. I even left a letter. I felt the room go dark. I was ready to cross over. Then I woke up in the ER, with a nurse shining a light in my eye. Asking me if I knew my name and what I had done? How many pills did I take? I will never forget the silhouette of my mother and father in the door. My fathers arm clung tightly around my mother and she was trying her best to breathe through the tears. Although I still didn’t understand how I had gotten there?
It took me years before I could come up with an answer to that reoccurring question in my head…..