A mother that didn’t want to be pregnant at a young age that led to her to a hatred of me. I fell into trying to be perfect to gain her attention. Failing at every turn. Alone, different, and rejected. This spiraled out of control. I tried to kill myself multiply times before 12. I was sexually abused, verbally abused, emotionally abused and physically abused my entire childhood existence. I was raped, and abused by parental figures and boyfriends. I was cold, bitter, and angry, unfulfilled, and didn’t care whom I stepped on in the ladder to be the best of the best to earn approval. Never touched drugs, and didn’t drink until well into my 20’s. I had many relationships with women, and men. Still always looking for approval. I aborted a child at 19, after a rape. I locked my heart into a cold tomb for safety. I miscarried a baby at 25, which spiraled me to try to kill myself four times in the same week. As I was trying the 5th time, I stopped and told myself “THIS ISN’T YOU.”

At this point I was well into a career with government, on top of the world, so to speak. I hated my life. I hated not feeling. I put myself into a behavioral health center and began the journey to heal. When I was done I found myself at a church… this is when God began helping with my healing. A Pastor pressed my buttons until that cold tomb broke open and God has poured my heart out since. Am I perfect? No. I have a long way to go, but I am nowhere near where I was. It has taken me 10 years of solid hard work to get to where I am.

With God’s grace and direction and people to support me along the way I have grown. I can now have healthy relationships with people. I can display an array of emotions instead of just angry and happy. I know my worth and I know what is ok and not ok. I feel incredible peace. I am not on any medicine of any sort. I still battle with depression on occasion, and find that gratitude and appreciation to God has helped tremendously in this department. I don’t desire to die and for the first time in my existence I have purpose on this earth. I am a missionary. I share love across the world and I love people that don’t get love. I have learned the true meaning of Love through Christ and I have never felt more “full” internally then I do now. So, if I can encourage you… keep going, don’t give up. Find someone to talk to, there are resources. God will provide people. Your story is not over.

Hello, my name is Dillon Tate and I am a musician. I have struggled with my health since I was young; constantly battling depression and exhaustion, which has plagued me with night terrors, self-esteem issues, negative thoughts and suicidal tendencies. Throughout my teenage years I pursued relationships, in hopes that their acceptance would drown out my discomfort in which I felt towards myself. No matter how much time I heard the words “I love you” I rejected them. How can anyone actually love me, when I can’t even love myself? I forgot what happiness felt like. In fact, I believed I was incapable of it; for anything that brought me joy in the past had been taken away, or became unappealing. I was unable to engage myself with anything; the weight of my depression stopped me. I became consumed in despair, bitter and frustrated, and believed that no one understood, and that I was a lost cause, Damaged beyond repair. I first considered suicide at the age of 20 in hopes to put a rest to these thoughts. The people surrounding me made me think twice about it, but instead of accepting their love and support, in my ignorance, I came to the conclusion – They needed to go if I was going to go through with this. I then became reckless, purposely destroying friendships and medicating myself in attempt to numb the pain and escape how alone I felt. But escaping the pain became harder as time went on and my tolerance increased, taking away the last bit of control that I felt I had. I felt sheer panic. I then fell into trouble with the law, which took 4 years of my life. I rejected support groups that were offered. I was convinced they wouldn’t help. I had been put on medication but gave up on it and stopped seeing my doctor out of frustration. When I was 25, I attempted suicide, in hope to end my struggle. Since then, my life has been spared twice, in two fatal car crashes; I miraculously walked away from both with minor injuries.

At the beginning of April 2015 I reached out to Amy, founder of Project Semicolon. Through the semicolon symbol, many relate to the struggle of depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide and their will to continue on. The title, “Project Semicolon,” also represents a goal – to believe that this is not the end but a new beginning.

After seeing the amount of support and people longing to continue their story and live a life that would inspire others to continue on as well, I was encouraged and made the decision to continue mine as well. I am now currently under the care of Fraser Health taking steps towards recovery. MY STORY ISN’T OVER YET.

It all started when I was in Jr. High. Nobody could understand how a kid who was always happy, smiling and telling jokes, suddenly started being afraid of everything and depressed about “simple” things. My mom decided to take me to the psychologist and after some treatment; the psychologist thought it’d be a better idea to go with a psychiatrist who started giving me anti-depressants.

Things didn’t change much as I continued with suicidal thoughts and going from medicine to medicine, I felt like I was a guinea pig for the doctor. I started going out more but only so I can have an excuse to drink, it was a long-term suicide but as the drinks kept coming the mood swings got bigger and bigger until I started seeing other doctors who all agreed that I didn’t have depression but bipolar disorder type two.

My family supported me but somehow didn’t give my disorder as much attention as they would give to any other disease. I screamed quietly for help while drinking to hide from myself. I saw many other doctors but I kept bouncing from one to another because they all said that I should be in a mental hospital but my parents weren’t ok with this idea. This is where the stigma started to kick me hard and I couldn’t find a way out but only ending with my own life.

I remember that day when I had my first suicide attempt; I was at my brother’s house and I was feeling at peace with myself. My job in this life was done so after a talk with my brother, I took a bottle of rum and some anxiolytics I had hidden in my backpack. I took them and swallowed them with almost half the bottle, then I waited for everything to kick in. I woke up in a hospital with some tubes inside my nose and the image of my brother crying.

After that attempt my parents watched me closer but still refused to put me in a mental hospital. I kept dealing with alcohol and some drugs came to seduce me. From wine to wine, bed to bed, party to party I was lost inside my pain but the outside wasn’t a day in the park either. It was no one but me calling death, I took dangerous roads trying to find a feeling that would kill the one I was having. So one day, out of the blue, I took my car and drove while drinking a bottle of whiskey, I stopped at a strip club to watch a “friend” dance and also, of course, the rest of the girls. I got drunk and decided to hit back home but on my way out some guy started pushing me for no reason. He then took a small baseball bat and hit me with it… I don’t remember much but some pieces in my memory tell me that I woke up in some street, hurt and with my face all disfigured, I looked like a monster, now not only from the inside.

I had some brain damage and stayed in the hospital for one week and a half, my sense of smell and taste don’t work the way the used to and since then I became more aggressive and started hallucinating.

After trying different kinds of medicine and my parents still refusing to follow the doctor’s advice to put me in a mental hospital, I found on the Internet a 10k race. To be honest I still don’t know why I chose to do it, maybe it was the eco of my parents and ex-girlfriend saying that I was so unstable that I couldn’t finish anything. It wasn’t a big deal but I wanted to show them that I could finish a race. I prepared for it, ran it and finished it.

I noticed that running kept me motivated and away from alcohol, I followed racing plans to finish other races but in one of my trainings I broke my ligament. I had a surgery, an implant and terrible news; after my knee rehab I couldn’t run but only short distances… so my demons came back with bottles of wine.

A year after, I got tired of it all, tired of not being able to run, not being able to feel stable. I began to run again and thought that if I could handle inner pain, physical pain wouldn’t be a thing and if I could drink to death, I could run, either way I was harming my body.

I can say now that alcohol isn’t an issue now and I’ve ran 6 marathons, an ultra marathon and tons of half marathons without having to visit the doctor again. My knee is fine and I’m better, I still struggle with hallucinations, my bad temper and mood swings, but now I have a blessing that God gave me; running.

My story is one that has been in the making for close to ten years now.
Like the seasons, it’s ebbed and flowed. Some seasons being shorter and sweeter than others. But tis life I suppose.

In it’s simplest form, I’ve struggled with depression and self harm for almost ten years now, with two suicide attempts in that time span as well.

I buried my dad when I was 13. I buried my mom when I was 25.
I’m now 26. And an only child. So as you can imagine, I’ve had to bear the brunt of the reality of being without my parents for the rest of my days on this earth.

Self harm became my way of escaping when I was 17. By the time I was 23 and still struggling, I realized that self harm was much more than I ever thought it would be. With some scars faded and others still very much visible, it’s taken a long time to lay this in it’s entirety at the feet of Jesus.

Hope was something that I never thought possible. It was something that I never thought I could have. Recovery seemed like this fairy tale and I figured out at a young age that fairy tales didn’t exist.

But then I met an incredible group of people that made my story part of their own. And with that, recovery became intentional. And messy. And beautiful.

Through every slip and relapse, they have been there. They were living out the mission of the church. They were my hope on the days that I had none. And when I buried my mom, they were my strength. They refused to stop loving me and refused to let go. The fought. Some days harder than others, but they still fought. For me. For my story.

There is something so simple and yet so peaceful about feeling a breeze blow through the trees. It’s refreshing. It’s renewing. It’s healing.

I feel the love of my parents and other loved ones that I’ve lost in those breezes. I feel His love in those breezes.
I see His love in the face of my students.
I see His love intertwined in the precious stories I’ve had the privilege of hearing.

I am more than the scars that are scattered across my body.
I am more than the two suicide attempts.
I am more than every relapse I’ve ever had.
I am more than those moments.
And I am more because of those moments.

My story is far from being finished.
Hope is very much alive.
It’s alive in all of us.
Sometimes it gets hard to hear, but it’s always there.
Always whispering.