“Sean knows me, recognizes these lows after 18 years together, and has mastered worrying from a gentle distance.” When Amanda feels herself sliding, she trusts those closest to her to shepherd her toward the sunshine.

For Alex DiFrancesco, coming out as transgender — even to themself — wasn’t possible without first disappearing.

Alexis Kanda-Olmstead contemplates finding faith in the depths of her despair: “Depression is like being dead in a world that is cruelly alive.”

#BellLetsTalk is a day devoted to ending the stigma around mental illness: “So please, allow yourself to grieve and feel. Seek help, talk to your peers, talk to your doctor, find a support group, reach out. Life is too short to be depressed but even cancer warriors get the blues.”

“But the boy had not been able to stop giving away the pieces of his heart, you see. And he had run out. There were none left to share with the girl.” A sad (and true) tale of depression, adultery, and divorce, made all the more moving for its simple storytelling style.

“The fear of deportation never leaves our thoughts. Some of us might be protected under DACA, but our loved ones are still at risk.” Life in the US as a DREAM Act beneficiary — with parents still undocumented.

“Suicide was not a ‘truth’ I held dear. . . . With help and effort, I have learned to distinguish between my own, actual beliefs and that other voice that is just a misfire occurring in my brain.” Amy Bee discovers that she doesn’t want to die.

“I needed my sobriety to stand on its own, rather than ebbing and flowing with the tides of my fickle faith.” An unflinching essay on religion, self-image, and the writer’s complicated path out of addiction.

“You celebrated the death of a mentally ill person. In doing so, you told people everywhere, ‘Some people with mental illness are better off dead.’” Sam Dylan Finch responds to a woman who writes that the death of an old friend was a blessing.