Listening to Hester

Great post from Amy's blog about listening, story, and community:

When I was 14 years old, the summer after the 8th grade, my Dad told me that I needed to get out of my head, and he sent me to Friendship Manor, the nursing home, to volunteer for the summer. At that point, my parents didn’t know that I’d been depressed enough to make one small, feeble suicide attempt. My despair and ennui at that time weren’t sufficient to overcome my aversion to pain, so the slim cut across my wrist that I’d made with the razor blade didn’t draw anyone’s attention. It didn’t even leave a scar… but I knew, and I had come to be very frightened of the power of my own depression. So, I decided that my Dad was probably right. If I spent the entire summer indoors, as was my usual routine, I literally wasn’t sure I’d make it through alive.

read the rest here.