Finding Another Option

by Kristen Abell

I was barely thirteen the first time I considered suicide as a solution to my problems. I remember feeling as though there wasn’t another way out – that I couldn’t possibly deal with the pain and hurt and confusion another day. I remember multiple times standing in the street in front of my house – to be fair, a street that was not terribly busy, but I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and at least that way maybe I couldn’t be totally responsible for it.

Within a few years, I had planned and unplanned my death several times. I’m sure I didn’t know the limits of pain as a teenager, but it certainly felt like I did, and it wore me out. Multiple times I was just certain that I could not go on, that death certainly had to be easier than what I was currently facing.

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