Reuben Drosdeck

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I have existed in a place so far below rock bottom that words seem inadequate to describe it — a place where every moment felt like wading through a substance heavier than grief, where even the act of lifting a hand or drawing a breath required a courage I didn’t know I possessed. In that darkness, the world felt relentlessly hostile, and my own mind became a cage, a prison where hope had been erased, leaving only the echo of despair. I’ve faced multiple suicide attempts, moments when the thought of living was not frightening because life itself seemed unbearable, but because the alternative felt impossibly out of reach. Time in that place stretches and distorts, each day an eternity of shadow, where every thought bends toward hopelessness and the light of the world seems laughably distant.

And yet, even in that crushing void, I discovered something quietly unyielding: the stubborn resilience of the human spirit. Recovery does not erase the scars, nor does it pretend the trauma never happened. It is not linear. It is jagged, slow, and often painfully fragile. It is measured in small, almost imperceptible victories — a single conversation that resonates, a hand that stays when everything else falls away, a fleeting thought that refuses to surrender. It is the recognition that life, even when unbearably heavy, can hold moments of meaning, and that these moments, however tiny, are enough to whisper back the possibility of hope.

There is a peculiar courage in choosing to keep living when every fiber of your being resists it. It is quiet courage, invisible to the world, yet enormous to the one who carries it. It is found in allowing yourself to hope, again and again, even when hope has failed you countless times before. It is in the act of standing up when the body and mind scream for stillness. It is in noticing a sunrise, a word of kindness, a shared silence — fragments of light in a world that often feels constructed from shadow.

By sharing my story, I want to reach those who feel trapped in their own darkness and remind them — with the full weight of my experience — that survival itself is a profound act of defiance. There is no shame in struggle, no failure in despair, and no journey that must be taken entirely alone. Even in the cruelest, most isolating moments, hope can return quietly, subtly, stubbornly. And when it does, the simple act of continuing to breathe, to move, to exist, becomes a testament: that life still holds worth, that you are not alone, and that your story, your presence, matters beyond measure.

Pain can be relentless, but so can resilience. Even when it feels impossible to imagine a way forward, even when every night seems unending, there exists the potential for connection, for meaning, for moments that slowly accumulate into the fragile but enduring truth: life can be endured, life can be lived, and life, in its raw and imperfect beauty, can once again feel like something worth holding onto. Every heartbeat in the depths of despair is a victory. Every step toward the surface, no matter how small, is proof that light can return — not as a grand triumph, but as a quiet, stubborn, miraculous reclamation of existence.