Trigger warning of mention of suicidal ideation in my past and people I've known who have. I am ok currently. I am fine because I have learned to live in survival mode for the past 40 years but I do have PTSD scars and have to be careful of how much I can tolerate each day.
Especially it can be difficult when a role model or hero - people I look up to takes their life and still dealing with my sister's drug overdose death from one year ago.

I am 60 years old and with life's challenges, paradoxes and traumas, life definitely is not easier than say 40 years ago in 1983. I have always been a person of low self-esteem. I was overprotected by my mother growing up and never exposed to deal with fear, disappointment and other stressors. When I graduated high school and told I had to leave home and go away to school (by my father) I dealt with suicidal ideation for the first time. Currently I am in ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics/ Dysfunctional families) and that is helping me. It is also helping me understand my codependency and why I remain codependent and can't get out of, stuck into a marriage of convenience since 1988.
I am a person who also deals with gender dysphoria (diagnosed and in therapy for). But am also married and it is an incredibly slippery slope and threatened regularly about it. As such, of course have to keep in the closet.

I have coped with myself over the years with multiple addictions, sex addiction and workaholism. That reminds me I need to get back to my music lesson practice. Thanks for reading! -Alec