My Story
I didn’t set out to tell this story.
I told it because staying silent nearly cost me my life.
In my early twenties, I reached a breaking point I didn’t know how to explain. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and carrying a pain I didn’t have language for. I believed my life was disposable. I believed the world would be better off without me.
No one ever told me that simply being alive could hurt that much.
At my lowest moment, I didn’t suddenly feel hopeful or strong. I made a terrifying decision to stay—not because I had answers, but because I realized I hadn’t given life everything I had.
That decision didn’t fix my life.
But it opened the door.
What followed wasn’t a dramatic turnaround. It was honesty. Naming what I was carrying. Letting people see the parts of me I had worked hard to hide. Slowly and imperfectly, I began to understand that silence had been doing more damage than the truth ever could.
I lived long enough to build a life I once thought was impossible. I finished my master’s degree. I paid off more than $90,000 of debt. I ran a marathon. I traveled the world. I stood on over 250 stages across the country. Not because these things saved me—but because staying gave me the chance to live again.
For a long time, staying quiet felt like the safer option.
But I learned something important: talking about suicide doesn’t make it more likely—it makes it far more likely that someone will seek help.
No one ever talked to me about it. So in 2016, I decided to go first.
If it could make the path to healing even a little easier for someone else, it would be worth it.
That decision shaped everything that followed.
I started writing and speaking to be the person I needed in my lowest moments—someone willing to name the hard things without fear, without polish, and without turning pain into a performance. Over time, I saw what happens when one person tells the truth. Rooms soften. Stigma loosens. People stop pretending they’re fine and start asking for help.
This work isn’t about fixing people.
It’s about making it safer to talk.
I can’t take pain away. But I can help people find language. I can help leaders push back against stigma. I can help communities create space for honesty, connection, and real support.
Everything I do—my speaking, my writing, my books, and the Recklessly Alive Foundation—grows out of that choice:
to stay,
to tell the truth,
and to go first so others don’t have to feel so alone.
