Pick up the phone. Please. Call 1-800-273-8255 or text 838255. The person who responds will listen to anything you want to say. They will talk with you for as long as you need. You can say as much or as little as you would like. They will not leave you until you want them to, and they can connect you to others who are willing to do exactly the same. Regardless of your age, gender, or sexual orientation, there is someone out there who truly wants to help you.

If you are afraid you might be an immediate danger to yourself, call 911 or go to the local emergency room. First, you will be assessed. Then you will be given a treatment plan, which may consist of inpatient or outpatient therapy, depending on your needs. If you can, take someone you trust with you to act as your advocate and sounding board when it comes to communicating and making decisions. You should also take your identification, insurance information, and a list of all medications you are currently taking.

You’re not alone. Depression is the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for people ages 15 to 44 and affects more than 15 million of your fellow American adults. That’s nearly seven percent of the population. The symptoms and effects of depression are mental, physical, and social. While these effects vary from person to person, they can include increased irritability, poor performance at work or school, exhaustion, withdrawal, and substance use or abuse.

Many of those who are dealing with major or persistent depression also experience suicidal thoughts. While no one knows exactly how many people struggle with suicidal ideation, an estimated one million people attempt suicide each year. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. But it doesn’t have to be.

You’re not alone. Every single day, you encounter people who have been right where you are. Hurt, confused, overwhelmed, sad, lonely, scared. You pass them on the street. You see them acting in TV shows and movies. You may even sit next to them at the dinner table. Depression does not discriminate. People of all ages, races, and walks of life suffer from it. We just don’t talk about it.

But talking about it is actually one of the best things you can do to cope with long-term depression and suicidal thoughts. It can be someone close to you like a partner, family member, or friend. In most cases, you should also pursue a relationship with a professional counselor, psychiatrist, or psychologist.

Additionally, many people find that prescription anti-depressants can help ease some of the pain and reduce suicidal ideation. You can work with your doctor or care provider to develop a safety plan, a written document outlining what you’ll do when you have thoughts of hurting yourself. You should also ensure your home is a safe place by removing objects like guns, pills, and razorblades that you may use to self harm.

The thing about suicide is, your circumstances are unique to you. No one knows exactly how you feel. No one necessarily understands what you’re going through. No matter how much you choose to share, no one will be able to comprehend the pain you’re feeling… and no one will claim to. You may not even completely understand it yourself. But you’re not alone. Please don’t be afraid to get the help you need.

The post Depressed? Suicidal? There is help first appeared on Lesbian.com.

It’s been quiet on the western front here in California, though mostly pleasant. After I fixed the broken water line that sprayed the front of my house all night, I got to work on my taxes. Yep, annoyances included, everything was life as usual for me until I read about the suicide of a north county San Diego transgender youth named Sage.

I learned of Sage’s death on Facebook. The family asked for privacy, which I understand. I hope they felt the outpouring of support and love from our community expressed in the accompanying comments. I couldn’t leave a comment, but my moment of silence is over. Here it is, a mere two months after the well-publicized death of Leelah Alcorn, and I have to wonder if the people who need help are listening.

As much as I wish this was an exception, Sage is not alone. The CDC website reports that around 4,600 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 take their lives each year, and a whopping 157,000 receive medical care for self-inflicted injuries. Other sites I visited reported higher figures, but we can never know the true numbers when you consider unreported attempts and those who remain undetected, suffering emotionally without visible wounds as they anguish over whether or not to end their lives — or perhaps more to the point, to end their pain.

The number of suicides among LGBT youth is higher than their straight demographic, approximately four times higher. Estimates by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center state between 30 to 40 percent of LGBT youth consider suicide. That number rises to over 40 percent for transgender youth. LGBT youth are more likely to be depressed, use illegal drugs and engage in risky behavior. As meaningful and tragic as these numbers are, accurate statistics are hard to come by as sexual orientation and gender identity may be hidden.

The accurate statistic I know is the life of a young person is gone and nothing will change that fact. A few weeks ago, I read about another young person elsewhere in the county who also committed suicide. Seeing these articles makes me feel sad for what could have been. To me, they are not just statistics. I did not know them, but I know their lives mattered.

This month marks the 35th anniversary of my sister’s suicide. I can tell you the questions surrounding her death linger to this day. It saddens me to know she was in so much pain that she took her life. To this day, I despair that she could not get to a place where she could have begun to thrive again, to be the happier person I like to remember, and when I see articles about other young people in similar situations, I feel sadness for them and their loved ones. Yes, it’s personal.

Beyond the sadness, there is hope; hope that other young people will listen to others who say “It gets better.” When you take your life, you remove all chances for that better life. You remove the chance to help others in a similar situation.

Help is available. The It Gets Better Project is a way you can help others and is a great resource if you need help. They recommend the Trans Lifeline, a transgender crisis hotline at (877) 565-8860. The Trevor Project specifically addresses LGBT youth concerns at (866)-4-U-TREVOR (866) 488-7386. You can also call the national Suicide Prevention Lifeline at (800) 273-TALK (8255).

If you or if someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, end your moment of silence and make the call. Lines are open 24/7. You will be directed to people who understand and can help you. Don’t delay. Your life may depend on it.

Zoe Amos brings her lesbian point of view to articles and stories on diverse topics. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter. Read her stories on Kindle and Nook. Check out her other life at www.janetfwilliams.com

The post From A to Zoe: A moment of silence on the LGBT front first appeared on Lesbian.com.

As details continue to emerge in the tragic suicide death of Robin Williams, it occurs to me that one of the things that makes depression so insidious is the stigma (and – judging by some of the reactions surfacing in the media, social or otherwise – ignorance) which surrounds the disease.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my almost 53-years, it’s that there is very little in this human experience that is truly unique – and yet many continue to suffer alone with their challenges, whether that be depression, mental illness or something else – because we are embarrassed, believing our feelings, thoughts or circumstances are exclusive to us. We view others’ lives as more perfect, more in control, more successful; simply put – happier.

We’re embarrassed to reveal our weaknesses, our imperfections for fear of embarrassment or ridicule. So we bottle them inside and our insecurities and negative thoughts become the stuff of which sleepless nights are made and those sleepless nights amplify the insecurities and negative thoughts and the downward spiral continues until those destructive thoughts become our only – and seemingly inescapable – reality.

Taking a cue from an acquaintance who “came out” on Facebook regarding her own struggles with depression, I’m going to take one tiny step toward dispelling the stigma and ignorance of the disease by sharing that I, too, went through a time about four years ago where I required therapy and medication to recover from a period of depression. While I never want to be in that murky, irrational, hopeless place again – nor would I ever wish it upon anyone else – I can say that it provided me with insight I’d not previously had regarding the disease.

We can read all the “10 things not to say to someone who’s depressed” or “5 differences between being sad vs. being depressed” or “10 ways to support someone who’s depressed” articles we want, but – much like child birth – unless someone has actually been there, it is impossible to fully comprehend how the mind functions while afflicted – how alone, how angry one feels; how insurmountable the situation seems; how nonsensical our thought processes become.

I don’t presume that my experience with depression is universal; I feel quite fortunate in that my episode was “event-induced” and fairly easily overcome. (My recovery was actually far shorter in duration than was my initial suffering as I waited ten months to seek help.) I know that there are nuances to each person’s experience and, sadly, some struggle a lifetime with the disease. But I want to share some of the signs I should have seen as I sank further into the abyss four years ago.

Please bear in mind that I do not purport to be a mental health or medical professional of any sort and the list below doesn’t constitute an official “are you depressed?” litmus test. That said, if you see yourself feeling or thinking or experiencing several of these things and you aren’t already talking to a therapist or doctor, please consider doing so.

“It’s everyone else!”

What I mean here is that as things progressively worsened for me, I found myself with an increasingly short fuse and blaming everyone else for every confrontation. Already not the most passive driver or best sufferer of fools, my tolerance for the even the tiniest mistake or act of incompetence on the part of someone else set me off. I was angry all the time – less patient with co-workers, more likely to lay on the horn for any perceived traffic infraction and far more apt to storm out of a line at the post office or grocery store grousing about ineptitude. Once restored to my more rational self via the wonders of modern medicine, it became crystal clear to me that at any point in one’s life when it appears everyone else is wrong all the time, there is a problem. Because “everyone else” can’t be wrong all of the time. It just doesn’t work that way. The problem was me; I just couldn’t see it.

“Sleep, you are not my friend.”

Or rather, sleep was a friend who abandoned me in my hour of greatest need. I went weeks – probably months – without getting more than a few hours of sleep at night. While some may think that the fast track to productivity, it’s also the express train to hopelessness. My most memorably miserable moments all seem to have occurred between 2am and 5am, for during those hours my mind would shift into overdrive, churning with questions to which I had (and, really, there were) no answers, thoughts of “woulda, coulda, shoulda” haunted me and, as I approached Full-blown Depression Depot, thoughts of ending it all in some form or fashion crept into my consciousness.

If you’re single, there are few times more lonely than 2am to 5am, regardless of the coast on which you reside. I found myself not wanting to “bother” my friends with a call, either due to the late hour or because they’d already heard my rehashing of events too many times to recount. (I should explain that my depression was triggered by the end of an 8-year relationship.) Mostly, though, I knew that there was nothing they could say to make me feel better – if that were possible, they’d already have said it. The standard issue advice – just give it time, you’ll get over her; she wasn’t good for you anyway; you deserve better – just doesn’t register when you’re depressed

In reality, when your mind, and hence your emotions, are completely out of whack, off kilter due to the chemical imbalance that is depression, nothing makes sense; there are no answers and there is no hope. Yet, at least in my case, my mind worked overtime to pose the questions over and over and over again and to search for answers that didn’t exist. As a result, I didn’t get the precious sleep that I needed then, more than ever. And that only made things worse.

“Tears fall like rain.”

Already a sap known to cry at everything from lesson-laced sitcoms to major sporting event outcomes, my tear ducts shifted into high gear as I slipped further into the depression. How I, a normally rather rational individual, didn’t realize that it simply wasn’t “normal” to wake up every morning and cry in the shower, or for a simple work-related question from a colleague to trigger tears, is beyond me now. But I cried morning, noon and night, again with those frustrating hours of 2am to 5am seeming to be my most prolific.

I cried because I felt angry; I cried because I felt sad; I cried for seemingly no reason at all. And many times, particularly late at night, the crying wasn’t of the gentle spring rain variety – it was the torrential downpour of agony, a wailing inspired by an emotional pain so deep, so unrelenting, and – perhaps most revealing of an issue – so completely unrelated to anything that was actually happening in my life at the moment. Unless you’re suffering from a hormonal imbalance of some sort, when you’re sobbing uncontrollably at 3am countless nights in a row for no apparent reason, there’s a problem.

“They’d be better off without me.”

This is where things get really dark and dangerous. In my irrational state, I actually started to enumerate the ways in which those around me would be better served should I no longer exist on the planet. My status as a mom served double-duty here – one minute I was thinking about how my son would be set for life financially if I were to kill myself (making it appear as an accident, of course, so as not to void my life insurance policy) and the next I was thinking how terrible it would be to burden him with the task of clearing out the garage by himself if I went through with it. Mind you, I wasn’t considering how upset he might be that his mom was gone – I’d discounted my own worth sufficiently by then so as not to factor that into the equation at that point – but rather I fretted about inconveniencing him with a day’s work of sorting and purging.

If we’re honest, there’s probably not one of us who doesn’t reach a certain age without having had a momentary thought about suicide. It’s one of those things that, as humans, may flit through our minds quickly, but never truly takes root. But when I was depressed, that thought settled in and made itself comfortable. It branched out from a late night notion about over the counter sleeping medications to broad daylight impulses to gun the engine of my Mustang and point it toward the closest and sturdiest roadside obstacle. And it was on the heels of such a thought that I made a beeline to my general practitioner’s office, unannounced and without an appointment. I’d perhaps not yet hit rock bottom, but I knew if I stretched out my toes it was within reach. I remain thankful that she and her staff welcomed and consoled me that day and set me on the path to recovery.

So those are the notes from my depression story. Yes, the woman many know as the life of the party with the huge smile and the quick one-liners has come out as once having been clinically depressed. Some may find it more surprising than the fact that I was married (to a man) for 11 years, and honestly, it’s a secret I’ve kept from far more people than I have my sexual orientation.

I share these bits of my personal story not to garner sympathy or accolades, but rather with the hope that someone may recognize herself in the reflection of my experience and seek help as a result. If you’re going through a rough time, reach out to a friend or a relative; talk to your doctor; call a suicide hotline. It doesn’t matter what time of the day or night it is, there is always someone to talk to somewhere. And while true depression cannot be healed by mere words – there’s no “cheer up” pep talk to overcome the chemical imbalance – those words may be just enough of a lifeline to hold you over until you can get the help you need.

Most importantly, please remember – regardless of what your irrational mind may be telling you at the moment – you are not alone; you are not weak; what you’re feeling is not permanent; you are loved; and you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed about in seeking help. All you have to do is “come out” about your disease.

You can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling 1-800-273-8255. Their phones are staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The post ‘Coming out’ to erase the stigma of depression first appeared on Lesbian.com.

The author Ellen Forney likes to say she’s had three coming outs. First, she announced that she was bisexual — not too hard for someone who lives in Seattle and whose mother is a lesbian. Second, she came out as a cartoonist (rather than becoming a therapist, as she had originally planned), landing gigs at Seattle’s alt-weekly “The Stranger” and writing comic books including “Lust” and “I Was Seven in ’75.” But her third coming out was the most difficult. She had to tell her friends and family that she has bipolar disorder, a long-term mental illness that, when left untreated, can even lead to suicide.

In the 12 years since she was diagnosed, it has gotten easier to tell loved ones about her condition, as well as to manage it. But her new graphic memoir, “Marbles,” raises the stakes. In it, she publicly lays bare her affliction: For her it entailed hypersexuality, a pharmacopoeia of medications, and friendships that were strained and broken. She tracks the ups and downs of her illness from its highs, when she was “vibrating with sexual energy” and hooking up with friends and strangers alike, to the crushing lows, when she took Tegretol (Carbamazepine) and could no longer have an orgasm. Forney, with a darkly funny honesty and powerful imagery, illustrates what it means to have a disease that affects only 1 or 2 percent of the adult population—but that most people are afraid to talk about.

Read more at Curve

Curve, the nation’s best-selling lesbian magazine, spotlights all that is fresh, funny, exciting, controversial and cutting-edge in our community.

The post ‘Marbles’: Coming out as bipolar first appeared on Lesbian.com.

Rachel Maddow is known for her perennially sunny attitude on-air, but in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, the MSNBC host talked about her darker moods, which she said can sometimes sink into depression.

The profile by Ben Wallace-Wells is partially built around Maddow’s infamous “Meet the Press” argument with GOP strategist Alex Castellanos about gender pay equity. That was about as angry as viewers have ever seen her get, and it was hardly off-the-charts anger.

Read more at Huffington Post Gay Voices

The post Rachel Maddow discusses her battles with depression in Rolling Stone first appeared on Lesbian.com.