Depression: Not Always An Obvious Problem

I’ve grown a lot in college, first in undergrad and now in my master’s program. There have been ups and downs, friends who have come and stayed as well as those who have left, and plenty of adventures. There have already been resounding successes and bad mistakes, and God continues using both in my life. It has been a worthwhile ride.

But almost four years ago, before many of those things happened, I didn’t think life was worth it at all.

On the surface, I probably appeared to be doing fine, perhaps even well. Even today, when I tell people that I came close to ending my life before my sophomore year of college, many who knew me before that point seem shocked.

That's likely owed to the fact that I was in some ways the antithesis of the stereotypical depressed adolescent. I was an all-state football player, was voted homecoming king by my peers, had just finished a successful season in college football and earned a 4.0 my freshman year, and earned a reputation as someone who loved to help others.

We often don't play close attention to the behaviors of others, though, and even if people did notice something off in my demeanor, I often perked up if they checked in. Sharing my problems with friends and family wasn't going to fix anything, I reasoned with my private logic –I presumed it would just make them worry.

Suicide and Perceived Hopelessness

The weight I carried around through high school and my first year of college was a pervasive loneliness. I was well liked and successful, sure, but I really didn’t have one close friend outside of relationships, and I often turned to those romances looking for the comfort I was missing in friendships.

At the time, I thought I had tried everything to fix the situation. I tried changing things about my personality (minor things that seemed major at the time), but quickly found that the changes made little difference so far as making friends. Naturally outgoing, I tried meeting new people and developing close friendships, but found a lot of these friendships to be the kind that only truly existed when the other person needed help.

Some of those friendships would develop, and a few did indeed last, but in adolescence the truth is that people are often unreliable, something that was true of me as well. I knew that in many ways I was more mature in my interests than my peers, and as many an adult told me, that might have made it difficult for others to relate with me. For some reason, knowing this didn’t help – I just wanted to have friends in my age group, and I felt that there was nothing I could do to get them.

I saw my situation as truly hopeless. Again, my private logic at the time was that a life without close friends was not a life worth living, an indicator that I was a failure as someone who wanted to help others. I was living with helping as my purpose, and I hadn't a clue how I was supposed to help people if I couldn't get close to them. I felt I had exhausted all other options, and so I felt that it was time to consider death.

Lots of people reach that point. In 2015, suicide was one of the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States, and the second most prevalent cause of death among both 15-24 and 25-34 year old Americans. In fact, nearly 10 percent of 18-25 year old Americans considered suicide in 2016 alone, excluding other years in which they might have had ideations.

The truth of the matter is, suicide is an option people turn to when they perceive that there is no more hope. It's no surprise, then, that some individuals who commit or consider suicide reach out to others one last time before attempting to take their life. They're testing for evidence of hope one last time.

By the end of my freshman year of college, I had lost hope – I felt like there was nothing I could do to change the situation, and to me that situation was the most important thing in my life. After years of trying to fix it, I felt ready to die.

Why to Hope/A Change in Perspective

Clearly, I’m still alive.

I wouldn’t be, though, if not for the courageous intervention of two friends and the love of my family once they were told by those friends of my intentions. I’m very thankful for that.

Of course, that would have come as a surprise to the version of me who was hurting himself and writing a suicide note in the fall of 2014. To that Wilson, the future looked only like the same battle I had been fighting without significant process – struggling to find friends, failing to do so or losing them, and then growing increasingly miserable.

Life did indeed get better. However, it wasn’t because the natural course after averted suicide is upward; rather, it was because God, myself, and the people around me offered help as I worked to change my perspective.

Even so, before long I was mad and even depressed again for a time, largely because I felt that God would send me friends right away as a way of saving my life. His plans were better than mine, though; instead, he spent time teaching me (and still teaching me today) to be content on my own.

I changed my perspective; rather than making my life's purpose be about helping people, I started (sometimes slowly) turning towards living to glorify and enjoy God, and helping people followed. I found my joy in Something that nothing could take from me.

In time, wonderful and close friends did come, and they were and are some of the greatest things to ever happen in my life. Loneliness, mistakes, self loathing and doubt also showed up at times, but all things considered, life wasn’t hopeless as I had predicted.

As someone who helped save my life told me, “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” If you’re in the thick of your depression and things seem hopeless, I cannot honestly promise you that things will get better in the exact way you want them to in your timing, but I can promise you that they will get better.

If I had taken my life, I would have missed a significant portion of what would make up my 22-year highlight reel. The people I met after that point, the times we had, and above all the God I keep coming to know, they make it all worth it.

I couldn’t see that back then, but I thank God for the people that tried to get me to keep fighting, even from a new perspective. If you’re reading this and you haven’t heard it yet, know that life is unpredictable, and six months from now everything could be different. Just hang on a little longer and keep reaching out for help.

It might not be a satisfying answer right now, but I promise that it worked for me.

If you are considering suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or click here to chat online with a crisis counselor.