The empty chasm
“I don’t know why I feel this way,” I cried out to the stranger on the other end of the line. It was almost precisely 10 years ago that this happened. I had rapidly spiraled into depression, and was failing school. My mother had threatened to pull all support for my schooling if I didn’t turn my grades around. Distraught by this threat and the resulting argument, I took my car and disappeared into the dark. I drove around for a while. Aimlessly. Here and there, navigating through the snow and blustery cold. Finally I found myself in a church parking lot-- the church I had grown up in, actually, off Lincoln Road. The urges to kill myself were no longer bearable, and I knew I had exhausted all my internal resources and needed help. “I have a good life,” I cried to the operator who had picked up the suicide hotline. “I have great friends, I have a job I love, I have great family. I don’t have anything to complain about. Why do I feel like killing myself?” The stranger was kind and...
