The Circumstances

Recently divorced and relocated 20-something with no family for hundreds of miles. A diagnosed history of chronic depression dating back several years, and an undiagnosed history that can be traced back to childhood. A short, failed romantic relationship or two.

Debt. Loneliness. Despair.

It’s time to do something about it. It’s gone on this way for too long and this isn’t the first time l’ve felt this way in recent years. So I construct a plan. If something significant doesn’t change, and soon, I’m taking drastic measures.

The Plan

If in the next three months or what may have been Christmas or the new year, I haven’t turned something around significantly, there are going to be consequences.

I need a stable, happy relationship. I need a job that doesn’t fill me with dread. Or I need a roadmap to financial solvency.

To tell the truth, I don’t recall exactly what the circumstances I said I needed to achieve were. They were along these lines. The whole thing seems so surreal to me now, it’s hard to remember the details clearly.

Having failed any of those goals, there were three potential outcomes:

Give up. This had a very specific meaning. Give up meant pack my bags and move to Ohio to live with my mother. Find a job that would pay the bills, go to school for something I wasn’t interested in so I could get a job to pay the bills. Accept that my life was going to be nothing special and abandon aspirations of anything further. To anyone who’s never been in the rust-belt parts of the Ohio Valley, it’s where giving up lives. It certainly was back then. Once, my mother’s hometown was a bustling place. In the early 2000s, it was anything but. It’s not somewhere you went, but somewhere you ended up.Into the Wild; like the 2007 film based on the story of Christopher McCandless. Pack whatever fit in my Jeep; whatever food was in the pantry and what little money I had, and just leave. Maybe I’d find my place. Maybe I wouldn’t. I could fall into an odd job somewhere and limp along a little further, or I could starve to death on the side of the road. It really didn’t matter. The idea was just to run out the clock on my own terms. I couldn’t afford to get to Alaska McCandless, but I’d end up somewhere I’d never been. And one day, I just wouldn’t wake up. At least it would be interesting.The last possibility was garden variety suicide. I don’t use the term glibly, but compared to other options, it was simpler. I hadn’t decided how I was going to do it. When I made the plan, it didn’t really matter. It was the least likely option because I didn’t want to leave a literal or figurative mess for anyone to clean up. I didn’t want anyone blaming themselves. No one needed to get hurt; my parents, my brothers, my friends in Florida. I wrote the letter, anyway. I saved in on my desktop with the icon right in the middle of the screen. It wouldn’t be easy, but eventually people would understand.The Outcome

Since you’re reading this, it’s safe to assume the second two possibilities did not come to pass. In an ironic twist, the first did, but not under the plan’s circumstances and by a wildly circuitous route. I “ended up” in Ohio, right in that same small town where my mother lives. I’m not living with her, didn’t get a generic degree, and I didn’t become a townie.

In fact, between the creation of the plan and today, I have earned a Bachelor’s and two Masters’s degrees and have built a reputation in my chosen career. I’m married and own a home.

I made it past my expiration date.

I haven’t shared this story with many; partly because it’s sad and many of my loved ones do not know how far I’d sunk, and partly because it’s pitiful. It sounds almost silly. The plan was a cry for help, but since I never spoke of it to anyone, it was a cry only to myself.

I didn’t beat the plan alone. Before the expiration date, I met my wife. I learned just how good a family I had and clawed my way out of debt; at least enough to tread water. I put one foot in front of the other, sometimes stumbling, sometimes in long strides. I made it to another page on the calendar and took another step in my mental health journey.

Remembering

I’ve come a long way from that 20-something sitting at an oversized desk in a one-bedroom apartment in Florida. But I think back on Project Expiration Date often. Sometimes I shake my head at the absurdity of it. Sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t such a bad idea. What would life have looked like if I had moved to Ohio in 2007 instead of 2011? Where might I have ended up if I’d just taken to the road?

One thing I reflect on the most is that no one knew. Certainly, the few people closest to me knew I wasn’t doing well, but just how poorly was my secret. I held a steady job that, for all intents and purposes, I was good at. I had collegial relationships, had a few friends I talked to at the local coffee shop. I took reasonable enough care of myself that no one noticed. After all, the plan wasn’t to throw in the towel, but to try for a limited time before I finally called it quits.

I had miles to go on my mental health road before I found stability. There would be periods when I considered that final option of Project Expiration Date again. But eventually, I would find my way. No one who walks this path is ever truly done with it. There’s always a chance of sliding back, of a crisis. Recovery takes many forms and there are many ways to get there, but it’s a process and it takes maintenance and mindfulness.

In my darkest times, I look back on that plan and I see a signpost for how far I’ve come.

The Message

How many people around us are thinking the way I was when I wrote that plan? How many people do you encounter every day who have made the same kinds of promises to themselves; that they will not do this much longer? How many people have a bag packed or put that letter on their desktop?

More than you’d think.

According to the WHO, an estimated 703,000 people take their own lives every year, and for every suicide, there are likely 20 who have attempted it.

Now, that isn’t exactly what Project Expiration date was about; not entirely. But the despair was there. I was fortunate to have made enough progress battling my demons that I had other options. I saw a path to at least some minimally acceptable degree of wellness. But many haven’t and many don’t.

Not everyone has the support network I discovered I had. Not everyone finds the people and other resources they need to dig their way out. But there is a way out of that hole.

I’ve been struggling to find the right ending for this article. It’s a story I’ve always felt I needed to share. But am I writing it to suggest awareness, to suggest we’re mindful of those around us who are suffering and offer them grace and support? Or am I writing it for those who suffer to tell you that I see you and show you there is hope; a road to recovery?

Maybe a bit of both. Be kind to one another. Ask for help.

*In the United States, dial 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

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