It was 4:30 a.m. on a freezing cold winter morning when I dragged myself to my car and started down the street to the hospital. I was working in the ICU for the month, and sleep had become a commodity I no longer enjoyed. I tried to shake my brain out of the dense fog it seemed to always be in lately.
I looked up in time to see my car drifting across the middle line, and for a split second, I did nothing: the voices in my head had been telling my tired, depressed brain to end it all for weeks now and maybe today would be the day I finally went through with it. In my delirium, I grabbed the steering wheel, and the car lurched back into my lane. Tears streamed down my face as I drove on through the darkness. The urges were harder to ignore lately. I was so miserable: Beyond miserable, actually. I was numb with pain and my body was overwhelmed by months of sleep deprivation and I was battling extreme depression. I felt as though I were trapped, trapped in a dark box filled with desperation and hopelessness.
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