#anna borges

This is true; no one is immune. At the same time, the sense of alarm and urgency in these sentiments gives the impression that suicidality is solely standing on the brink, inches from death, waiting desperately for someone to notice and intervene. And that’s how it is for some people.

But for me, and I suspect for countless others like me, the threat of suicide isn’t like being carried over a waterfall - it is like living in the ocean. Not as sea creatures do, native and equipped with feathery gills to dissolve oxygen for my bloodstream, but alone, with an expanse of water at all sides. Some days are unremarkable, floating under clear skies and smooth waters; other days are tumultuous storms you don’t know you’ll survive, but you’re always, always in the ocean.

And when you live in the ocean, treading to stay afloat, you eventually get the feeling that one day, inevitably, there will be nowhere for you to go but down.