MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS

Finding the Silver Linings After My Suicidal Dark Night of the Soul

Good things came out of it eventually — they’re just not ‘rewards’

I’ve shared the photo before, but it documents the mental health journey well | Photo by author

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Just five years ago, in the early months of 2021, I came so close to “succeeding at suicide” or killing myself. There’s no other way to say it, no softer, more palatable way to beat around the bush.

I can show you the strip of highway where I hoped to step in front of a semi truck. That highway’s busy-traffic sound haunted me all night and most mornings, calling me to a destiny. I can show you the parking structures where I assessed if the height was enough to ensure death and not just injury. I can take you to the street with the unguarded train crossing, the one I walked to five separate times, so determined, then berated myself as a weak loser on the walk home because I hadn’t thrown myself in front of a moving train as planned.

If I’d had access to firearms, I can tell you with utmost certainty I wouldn’t be here today. From my vantage point now, I’m grateful for it. But not in the moment. I was enraged to be living in California, its more stringent gun control laws hampering another, easier possibility.

Those seven months in late 2020 and early 2021 were nonstop emotional pain, brought on (we now believe) by a brain chemistry change in the after-effects of acquiring West Nile Virus, a sort of mini-encephalitis. (Don’t worry, this doesn’t happen to everyone getting the virus, just a tiny percentage.) Lucky me! We’re talking full-on Severe Anxiety and Depression, two conditions I previously belittled and never took seriously as being debilitating. “Just pull it together,” would’ve been my judgmental response.

And all happening in pre-vaccine Covid days when healthcare resources were overwhelmed and therapists and services were transitioning to remote-only care.

Since you’re reading this, you can guess I made it through — whew — but I’ll link to my previous mental health writings at the end of the article if you want more specific details on my struggles. Some of them are still my most-read stories.

But last week, a good friend reached out to remind me May 17th was the fifth anniversary of the day I returned to normalcy and the clouds parted, and that remembrance humbled me. How fortunate I am to even still be here. And since it’s still Mental Health Awareness Month, I feel I must briefly revisit the tale and most especially recognize silver linings.

Because there are oh so many.

But…

When in the depths of despair, there’s nothing worse than some well-meaning friend throwing one of these tired sayings in your face:

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger… It’s always darkest before the dawn… God doesn’t give you more than you can handle… The comeback is always greater than the setback…

Picture my fist going into that person’s face. That’s exactly how I felt, hearing such clichés in the moment. My high school best friend, supremely worried about me at the time, texted me a well-meaning quote from a mental health professional about depression being “a lie of the mind,” and I threw the phone against the wall in disgust.

So believe me, I hesitate to use the term “silver lining,” as it almost implies something like, Oh, it was all worth it in the end — you had to go through that to reach your higher frequency. Nope, it wasn’t “worth it” and I wouldn’t wish it on an enemy. I put loved ones through torturous worry. Still, I can’t help but recognize monumental positives after my dark journey.

First and foremost, my entire persona as a writer, this activity that now brings me joy, all started “post-mental-health-event.” Every story that’s tumbled out of my fingers online and occasionally in print only came about due to the man I became after that nightmare. It makes me tremble a bit to realize there’s a parallel life out there where I never discovered I had a writer’s soul.

Pre-2021, I wasn’t writing essays or putting personal work out there. I was strictly an actor, voiceover artist and part-time event worker. Plenty of folks commented on my encouraging emails and texts and handwritten letters — You’re such a good writer, Joe! — but I only thought of fiction writers as “real writers.” This despite actively reading writers like Bill Bryson, David Sedaris and Ann Lamott for fun!

It was literally ten days after my return to normalcy that a good friend said, “I don’t know if you know this, but May is Mental Health Awareness Month. I think you should share what you’ve gone through on Facebook. You disappeared for seven or eight months. Tell folks why.” What followed was an immediate 16-paragraph blow-by-blow, no-holds-barred account of what I’d been through mentally, all flowing out of me in under 20 minutes. No sugarcoating.

And the response was epic. A door, a portal, was opened.

I was now officially “a safe space.” Casual Facebook friends came out of the woodwork, reaching out for advice on a loved one exhibiting anxiety or depression symptoms, the thinking being, “I don’t have to worry about Joe judging this sensitive situation or not understanding — he’s been there, he’s just bared his soul.”

When you’ve admitted to the world you almost ended yourself, when even your parents know this is true, the ordinary shackles of life, the filler B.S., it falls away. A first-time fearlessness ignited within me. My horrid dark night of the soul focused me, allowing me to be authentic for the first time in perhaps 20 years, packing away the people-pleasing and cutting to the chase more often in once-taboo subjects or discussions.

A few more silver linings.

I journeyed to see a Northern California waterfall, one that had resided on my “must-see” list for nine years due to its distance from home. That waterfall almost didn’t get seen with my own eyes. I almost put an end to my ability to see nature ever again. So it was time, and only one month after recovering, I placed myself before the McArthur-Burney Memorial Falls. Travel was now back atop the “Important to My Sanity List.”

A celebratory moment of reflection after a life-changing seven months | Photos by Joe Guay

A favorite silver lining involves Eddie, my stalwart partner who endured being isolated in a house with me, a sudden stranger, and then the difficult choice of sending his beloved away to recover. He had no guarantee I’d ever return, but he took the risk and let me go, knowing I needed serious help.

A call went out on social media that introvert Eddie was going through rough times. Former professional-dancer colleagues he hadn’t interacted with in over 20 years, offered walks, food, days out or places to stay by the beach to decompress. Best of all, those friendships were re-cemented, and since then, road trips and memories have been created. Eddie’s back with almost-forgotten friends and I’m accepted as part of the gang now too.

Eddie reunited with former dance partner Macarena, who reached out to help | Photos by Joe Guay

Most importantly, I now have a window into what truly goes on in a severely suicidal person’s brain. You’ll never hear phrases like, “They were weak,” or “That was so selfish of them,” or “How could they do that to their friends and family?” ever again. I remember the brain space. Despite all of Eddie’s love, despite best friends who cared and cute nephews nearby, my normally-kind brain didn’t care and was obsessed with only one thing.

I have empathy and understanding and have chatted with many a surviving family member, trying to relieve them of the burden of “what they should have done differently to stop it.” I know the strength of the monster their deceased loved one was facing internally.

My mother reached out last year asking for copies of my writings on mental health and some advice for a church friend dealing with debilitating depression and anxiety.“Tell her to deal with the anxiety first since the meds kick in faster, and then she’ll have one less thing on top of the depression,” I said. Two months later, mom forwarded an effusive thank-you note from her now-recovering friend. How amazing.

I don’t kid myself that I’m some George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart’s character from the classic It’s a Wonderful Life, but after my seven months of darkness, I found a cause where my journalist-like curiosity about other humans and my empathetic conversational skills could be best used — as a volunteer “phone buddy” for four senior citizen gentlemen, to help fight social isolation.

All four have tearfully expressed gratitude that I’m part of their lives. The gents appreciate my sensitivity and the way I treat them like human beings requiring dignity. They’re grateful for me.

It hits home — I almost wasn’t here for this connection.

The final silver lining is having writer and reader friends on multiple continents — colleagues and kindred spirits I interact and collaborate with regularly. I love all of it. I look forward to the day we can hug, get a drink and hang out in person. This “found life” as a writer? Most of it is predicated on being released into my most-comfortable self — dare I say purpose — after that once-in-a-lifetime extreme pain.

This “link,” this trajectory, it still makes me uncomfortable. I never want to imply the suicidal ideation, the sleepless nights, the unpaid bills and the lost professional connections were all “worth it.” No, it was a weighted black cloud I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

But for once, instead of hauling off and punching Toxically-Positive Tina with her high-on-life affirmations, I’ll sigh, nod my head and say,

Yes, I must admit, those silver linings are achingly beautiful.

©2026 Joe Guay | All Rights Reserved

Thanks for reading words written by a human for humans. The detailed mental health stories about my journey are below. Thank you to Michele Maize for publishing them originally.

[embed]List: My Mental Health Stories | Curated by Joe Guay - Dispatches From the Guay Life! | Medium My Mental Health Stories · A collection of stories detailing my mental health challenges · 5 stories on Mediummedium.com