The first time i attempted suicide i was fifteen years old. I had just quit the Canadian National Diving team; walking away from something i had spent eight years training for. Being an athlete had been a source of immense pride and extreme anguish. At fifteen years old i knew that i was good, but not quite good enough. I would never go to the Olympics. I would never be the pride of my hometown. It was a hard conclusion to come to when my peers at school where most worried about whose house they were going to watch Friday Night Videos at.

Being an athlete i had had more adult experiences than childhood memories. I could travel on my own without a worry, i could manage my own education even if i only attended school a few days a month, i could shoot tequila at late night parties in hotels in winnipeg, i could keep my weight down with vomiting and laxatives, i could manage my anguish by slashing up my arms with a rusty swiss army knife.

What i didn’t know was how to be a teenager. How to be around happy, normal kids. Kids who didn’t self-medicate.

When i think about it now, about my lifetime of struggle with depression, i wonder why nobody ever stepped in. Why didn’t anyone help me? All the signs were there, from an early age. Why was my family so scared? Why was ignoring the problem easier than dealing with it? Why am i so angry about this?

When depression is ignored it doesn’t disappear. It may retreat for moments, or even years. But, left untreated, it will almost always come back.

It is difficult to talk to someone who is on the brink of madness. It is so important though. To reach out, to try and reach out. Often when people ask me how i am doing i will just say “fine.” But, the caring question remains with me. I hold them close to my heart and when it is aching it helps me to remember that people care about me.

Having four kids i am all to aware of their genetic predisposition for mental illness. As i percolate and try to work through my life and that first suicide attempt. A suicide attempt left totally ignored. (I was left, unconscious, in my room for three days and sent to summer school on the fourth.) I have paid a huge mental toll for that ignorance. I am completely, age-appropriately, open with my children about my struggle with depression and anxiety. I am hoping to lay the foundation for an open discussion of their feelings as they enter adolescence.