Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts, actions, and descriptors.

A permanent solution to a temporary problem? Downplaying an emotion that feels eternal. Doesn't anyone get it? Our problems are not temporary. They stain the walls of our minds like a coat of fresh paint. It never dries. It just drips down constantly and covers the floor with our suffering.

We try to silence all of the voices that tell us this is the only way out. But what no one seems to understand, is that this silence is the last thing we need. We need conversation. We crave empathy.

It isn't about attention and the want for it. It is about compassion and its necessity to sustain life.

Why are you constantly closing the curtains on the portrayal of self harm? Is it because it makes you uneasy?

Good. You should be uneasy. Your stomach should be in knots. You are so afraid to feel and so afraid to face the demons that haunt others.

So you hide.

You hide behind statistics and theories about how you, just you alone, could not stop this. But you could. And you know that.

That is why you grieve. When someone is at the edge and ready to plunge, in that moment, there is nothing anyone can do. The voices will tell us we need this permanent solution and we will believe them.

But in the years prior... In all of the blaring mistakes that we are reminded of, it is so alarmingly apparent that we are not good enough.

Every spewed insult will apply a little more pressure to that blade. And you just want to sit there and pretend you aren't responsible for the blood that spills over?

Ignore it. Ignore the smell of thousands of pennies. Ignore the earth shattering screams from a parent as they cut the rope from their stairwell banister in their family home.

The last thread that ties their child to this world. Where Sunday morning memories become daily night terrors. Where family dinners become a lot of silence and not much eating. Where that bedroom down the hall to the right across from the bathroom becomes a place where a mother cries nightly.

Her daughter's belongings haven't moved since that dreadful day and she can't bear the thought of throwing any of it out. It's all she has left. If you pay close attention you may catch her inside of her closet, trying to still smell the jasmine and remnants of lilies. Hoping the scent has still clung to her daughter's favorite t-shirts.

But you don't see this. Why would you? You have no reason to make home in the house of another. Her mother can't even make that house a home any longer.

Let me paint you a picture for a moment.

It's Saturday, June 16th, 2007 and to you that is one day into your weekend, but to a young girl, it was going to be her last Saturday.

Shaking hands hold shaking paper and the scribbles of a broken mind write apologies over and over. It's going to be quick. She's just going to take a little nap and she will be okay. She will wake up from this nightmare and finally be at peace. She had been planning this for weeks and nobody was any wiser to it.

V8 Splash. Sometimes when she smells it or sees it, she can still taste the powder of the 30 something pills she choked down before chasing it with a glass of Strawberry Banana V8 Splash.

Eyes foggy and hardly aware of her surroundings the only thing she remembers is her mother's blood curdling scream. Her mother's shaking hands as she examined an empty pill bottle next to her own lifeless hand.

And then the sirens as the ambulance pulled in. And then the rough ride to the closest hospital.

Charcoal. Vomit. Charcoal. Vomit. Charcoal. Vomit.

Paperwork. Tears. Looks of disgust. Looks of concern.

All eyes were on her and if you think for even a moment she wanted this attention, just remember that she wore long sleeves on the hottest of summer days just to hide the scarring on the inside of her left forearm. Because she never wanted anyone to see them.

Each scar was that time she was called fat. Or that time she burned supper by accident. That time she was called a loser. Had homophobic slurs thrown in her face. That time nobody wanted to sit next to her on the bus. That time her entire math class chanted Ms. Piggy and the teacher did nothing to stop them.

Each scar told a story she refused to tell herself. So she marked her arm with every life event that plagued her heart.

Do you have children?

If so, can you imagine for a moment... that during dinner... you asked your child how their day was… And they give the same innocuous response that they always give. You don't push. You don't need to. You believe in the open door policy and your child has always been aware that they can come to you for anything.

Now imagine that, maybe for your child, it isn't enough.

Imagine that you wake up one Saturday and you are met with feet that are suddenly at eye level.

Because your child decided that hanging like a wind chime from the banister of the staircase was easier than lying about how much life really hurt.

Did your stomach turn? It should have.

And lucky you, if you've never experienced that sort of pain. But I know people who have.

I've seen the tears. The photographs. The fight for more. And they always end up with less.

They just want answers. They want answers they will never get.

Because a permanent solution for a temporary problem... took a permanent life and left a world with a temporary black hole.

The pain will ease. Eventually. But it could have been prevented.

She didn't have to do what she did. But she did. Because she didn't know any better. She didn't know her worth. No one ever told her how much she meant to them.

There's a million reasons why someone may think that this life isn't worth living, but we all need to show the world that their story is far from over.

It's all temporary. A permanent solution to a problem that never should have existed to begin with.

We just need to look. Stop looking through people and start really looking at them. Stop listening to give a response… and really start listening to hear.

The cries may be silent, but the pain is deafening.