Page 7 of Zero Chance

January 2025

Here’s a secret to keep in mind about the depressed: We don’t really want to die.

I mean, I didn’t, anyway.

I definitely thought I did at times.I convinced myself it was absolutely true.I would get stuck so deep in my own head that I just wanted it all to end.

Everything felt hopeless.I was stupid and small and insignificant.I was a worthless drag on the world who couldn’t do or say anything right, and everyone would’ve been better off if I was just…gone.

I mean, who’d even care if I ended it all?It wasn’t as if I was important or particularly good at anything.

But those thoughts—even if they did feel absolutely true—were just the pit talking.The pit I fell into and couldn’t climb out of.But the pit was evil.It lied and manipulated, only reminding me of all the bad inside me.

The pit swallowed souls whole.

What Ireallywanted was to stop hurting.I wanted to stop being useless and sluggish.I wanted out of the cycle of self-blame and guilt for not being perfect.I wanted to care again.Care about anything.I wanted to connect—honestly connect—with another person and feel accepted by them with all my guts and ugly parts on full display.I wanted people to care about me in return.And I wanted to stop messing up everything I did.

But mostly, I just wanted to live.

Except dying was the most alive thing I could think to do to accomplish that.So that’s the direction my thoughts tended to turn.

I had considered all the different ways I could die.

When I was nine, my babysitter—my best friend on the planet—cut his wrists in my kitchen and bled out on the tiles.I woke up and went downstairs to get a drink and found him there, already gone.

Up to that point, I think that was the most alive I’d ever felt.The most terrified, the most confused, the most shocked, the most hurt and abandoned.But also the most alive.My blood had pumped through my veins with a speed that defied logic.My head buzzed.Heck, my entire body just…vibrated with the awful fear of death swirling inside me.

It was the first, up-close-and-personal experience I’d ever had with dying.And from that point on, I’d been hooked.

It made me wonder if that was why so many people participated in death-defying feats like skydiving, BASE jumping, wall climbing, stunt work, bull riding.The closer to death they crept, the more alive they felt.

My problem with those things was I wasn’t brave like those people.I couldn’t do any truly death-defying feats.

But my mind still wondered about them.And wished…

After Zane’s funeral, when the reality set in that he was honestly gone and I’d never get to see him again—when the dragging sadness swept over me—that was my first stint with depression.

At nine years old.

I was lethargic yet anxious.I wanted to be with him, to follow him to wherever he’d gone.

The only thing that made my blood pump with that thrilling fear of life was to think about death.His death.My death.Any death.

I was fifteen before I actually tried to kill myself.Except I used pills, not a knife like Zane had.I thought it’d be less painful.I just wanted peace and quiet from my own tormented thoughts.From the embarrassment of being me.From the guilt and humiliation of everything I’d never done right.

My blood had pumped hard with fear and anxiety when I’d palmed those tablets; it was the very hit of life and vitality I hadn’t known I’d been seeking.

Until afterward, when my savior had found me, rushed me to the hospital, and I’d gotten my stomach pumped, then witnessed my parents fall apart over what I’d done.I knew I couldn’t do the suicide route again because I guess my family hadn’t wanted me to actually die either.

I still thought about death though.I wished for it in different ways, ways that wouldn’t traumatize my parents quite as much as ending my own life.

I hoped maybe I could catch cancer.Except slow suffering didn’t sound fun.

A car accident, then?Quick and painless.

Except with my luck, I’d probably survive and become an invalid, and I’d be worse off than I’d been before.

There were other options.Sudden brain hemorrhage that dropped me flat where I was standing.Getting struck by lightning.Hit by a train.Have a piano fall on me.

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