“Most of all, I remember her laughing. It filled my ears. Her smile, her sparkling eyes, and her infectious laughter, along with the vistas, were limitless and unending and powerful.”

“I remember thinking I wanted to die rather than live through another February day of grayness; I didn’t tell anyone because I knew it wasn’t normal. And normal was all I ever wanted to be.”

“Most teenage suicide attempts are cries for help; the teens survive, succeeding in bringing them the wanted attention. Mine was not a cry for help. I wanted to end my life and my misery.”

“I call it an Aha! moment. It is the moment when I can hear, when I know, that an answer is being offered to me. All other sounds measurably fade, including the banter in my brain. It is when the answer travels from my heart to my head and says, “This is so.” No questions follow, no objections interrupt; just the recognition that I must listen and follow.”

“I could accept my circumstances, my life, people, and even events around me, without giving my approval or releasing my control over such. I don’t have to like what happened; I just need to accept that it indeed occurred.”

“As we each began our journey, we learned the importance of connecting, of laughing with one another (not at one another), of sharing our lives.”

“I did the only thing I knew how to do: I built my own walls of silence to disguise my desperation and what later came to be recognized and diagnosed as depression.”