I'm Fine

Five years ago, my 16-year old daughter, Aeryn, took her own life. Even now, those words still don't feel real. I have found it virtually impossible to separate thoughts and memories of my daughter from the cold, hard, terrifying fact of her death, from the depression that robbed us of her. I want my daughter to be so much more than just a statistic, another suicide in an age of increasing mental health troubles in our society. But the truth is, for those that didn't know her, she will be defined by her death. And I need to make that count. I need to tell her story. Aeryn's diaries provide a frank, brutally honest account of teenage depression, while her haunting yet beautiful poetry paints a graphic picture of her feelings. Interspersed with Facebook posts, email correspondence and her mother's diaries, they document the last few months of her life and the aftermath of her death. In sharing Aeryn's story, Ellen hopes to help other families going through similar experiences, and to increase understanding of the depth of pain that depression can cause, a pain so deep and all consuming that there appears to be only one way to escape it.