30 Years. The Story of a Love Lost and a Life Found.

I first saw him, really saw him, on the bus taking us from Campus to the Centre of Bucharest. He was leaning on the rail, his gaze lost somewhere in that indefinite space between where I was, two meters away, and the window, through which the orangy light of late October was coming in. I remember having a strange feeling of dejá-vu - as if I had lived this before - I, secretly glancing at him, he, pretending not to notice me. Suddenly, he raised his eyes straight towards me and I found myself suspended in a space beyond time, flooded by a strange sensation of familiarity, awkwardness and a "something" I couldn't quite name - a thrill, a longing, an impulse to get lost in his big, brown-green eyes. After a few moments, which seemed a lifetime, he extended his hand:

"I believe we're in the same study group, right? I'm Stefan"

I replied trying to seem sure of myself, even slightly indifferent:

"Hi. I'm Alis."

We were nineteen - barely out of our teenage years - stepping into the "big world" of college at the University of Bucharest, majoring in Political Science. I had chosen this school because in 2002 Romania, when everybody wanted to study Economics and Law, it sounded "exotic" to me. Moreover, it was in English. I had dreamt about studying Psychology because I was fascinated by the intricate Universe inside each one of us, but my father, a surgeon and a skeptic, who believed that the real suffering was that of the body and the only "real" doctors were those treating "real" injuries - had convinced me to choose a more "interesting" career. So I thought I would work in diplomacy. That would be an interesting career, right? Traveling all over the world, meeting fascinating people and discovering diverse cultures - what could be better than that?

It was hard not to notice Stefan in class after our meeting on the bus. He was a brilliant student, a walking encyclopaedia, a great lover of history and philosophy, he was loved by professors because he always had some intelligent question and always delivered great papers. He was the only one of us who had actually read Plato's "Republic" from start to end. And, on top of all that, we was good looking too - tall, slim, with a sporty and intellectual air at the same time and that kind of slightly melancholic look that made girls gravitate towards him. He was charismatic and a good public speaker when he chose to; otherwise he was rather quiet and seemed to have an air of mystery about him, even of slight sadness. He was serious and mature beyond our 19 years.

I too, as I'd discover later, was secretly in love with Stefan. My love was a secret even to myself at the time. I was enjoying a wonderful relationship with my high school boyfriend, my first love - a kind, honest, funny guy who studied engineering. He was a year older and we had just spent a long year separated by a seeming endless 200km - I finishing high-school in our home-town and he attending junior year at Uni in the capital city of Bucharest. It had been a year full of longing, as painful as longing can be when you're in love for the first time. We were relishing the joy of finally being together again and I wouldn't have dreamed that I could ever find room in my heart for another man. Not even for a charismatic guy like Stefan, who - I was telling myself, with the naivety of the beginner in the art of self-deceit - was nothing but a good friend.

My blessed state of denial was nearly shattered when, about two months after our meeting on the bus, Stefan suddenly invited me to go out with him. I was shocked to notice the "yes" bubbling up from my mind and threateningly slipping towards the tip of my tongue, got a hold of myself and politely explained that I had a boyfriend whom I loved very much and I'd rather be friends. Those kinds of friends who don't go out together. I glimpsed a fleeting look of disappointment cross his face and then, a second later, disappear - replaced by his usual calm smile. He told me he understood,  turned around and, for the next two years, ignored me without ever being truly impolite.

It was again October, two years later. The flame of adolescent love had burnt out and my four-year relationship had finally reached its natural end. Suddenly Stefan, who, in the meantime, had had a few relationships himself, reappeared in my life. I don't even know how we got to chat on Yahoo Messenger - yes, I too have trouble believing there was life before Facebook! I don't know how we ended up spending endless evenings in a beautiful teashop whose owners had had the unfortunate idea to keep it open until 1 am. We were the ones who made sure they never closed early. Although we were regular customers, I don't think they loved us too much. But we loved each-other too much. And little did we care that we were the last to leave teashop five times a week. Nor did I care that I was going to work every day with my eyes swollen from lack of sleep.

I had got a dream job - the manager of the British Ambassador's Residence. At 21 I was managing a team of five, organising official functions for hundreds of people and overseeing endless formal dinners and visits by foreign dignitaries. I loved my job and felt deeply motivated to be trusted with responsibilities well beyond my years. Lest I disappoint my manager, I worked 16-hour days - juggling studies and job and there were nights when I felt my body throbbing from the tiredness when I finally got in bed, at the end of a long day. But I was happy. I was one step away from the diplomatic career I had been dreaming of. Now, on top of that, I had met the love of my life. Things could not get any better.

That following year was a dance - literally and metaphorically. There were countless nights when we danced together in my tiny studio apartment on the 4th floor of a crammed apartment block where most other residents were over 70. If our youthful steps in the middle of the night ever bothered our neighbours, I will never know. What I do know is that few things could bother the two of us then. Our minds were dancing too, caught up in long conversations about anything and everything. We studied together. We read together. We dreamt together. The bookworm I had always been had found its mate and the woman I was hoping to become had found her man. Our minds, bodies and hearts vibrated in unison. The feeling of dejá-vu from the bus visited me again and again that year. Such a love could not be other than predestined, could not be from here and now, but from long ago. A thought about us and fate kept creeping up in my mind - both mysterious and strangely threatening. I had no idea then just how big of a role fate would play in our story.It was 2005. We were approaching the end of our third year at the University and were already planning for the future. We had big ambitions. A Masters from a prestigious university abroad. London School of Economics. Warwick. Johns Hopkins. A bright career. Stefan came up with the idea to enrol in two international summer programs where we could both learn new things and get references from renowned professors to help with applications for the Masters we were dreaming of. He had attended, the year before, the Vienna University Summer School in European Studies. He had liked it a lot. He urged me to enrol; I was accepted. He, in the meantime, got accepted in the London School of Economics (LSE) summer program. Both took place in July/August, with a difference of one week - he left earlier, I came back to Romania later. 6 weeks apart after almost a year of living in a kind of symbiosis.

I remember the infinite green of the hills near Salzburg, where the month-long program took place. The forest. The lake. The school camp in Stroebl seemed built in a corner of heaven. Small, stylish houses. A pontoon from which my colleagues form 15 countries happily jumped in the clear, cool water ever afternoon. Smiles. Conversations in English, French, German. I saw all that, I heard it, but I was not part of it. I felt nothing but the burning longing and overwhelming desire to be near him again. I had never felt such painful longing before. Physically painful. Overwhelming. The emails we sent each other every day did little to relieve my pain. I went to classes like a robot, read all the full course bibliography to keep myself busy. I was annoyingly studious, to the admiration of my teachers and to the frustration of my colleagues who had come there to have fun and meet people from other countries, not to study like mad people. I didn't want to meet anyone. I just wanted to see the diploma "cum laudae", get the precious recommendations and go back home to him.

The longing turned to panic on the 7th of July. That day, less than 4 years after 9/11, there was a bomb attack on the London subway that made headlines worldwide. Stefan was in London. I was relieved to find out he was all right, he had been nowhere near the site of the tragedy. However, the yearning for him became unnatural, and took on an ominous vibe, as if some danger was lurking somewhere, as if it was possible never to see him again. I was telling myself that it was nothing, that there was no reason to feel like that, that the attacks were over and I had to be patient. It was already my third week on the summer school camp in Austria. Time flew at a snail's pace. Days went by maddeningly, excruciatingly slow. I told myself that Stefan was now already back in Bucharest and waiting for me. He was safe. That should have made me feel better, but it didn't. Then it happened.

I called one day, as I did every day to talk to him for a minute, and he didn't answer. I called again. Again. Again. I called frantically, tens and tens of times, a whole afternoon. The panic felt like hot lava flowing through me and burning me from the inside out. I was overcome with a feeling of catastrophe, a feeling of the end of the world. I felt that I was suffocating, that something horrible was happening, that I was in some kind of nightmare and I couldn't wake up. I was trying to tell myself it was absurd to overreact like this, maybe he had gone somewhere and forgotten his phone, there were hundreds of sensible reasons why he couldn't answer. Reason stood no chance in the face of the irrational feeling of gloom, of disaster that was slowly, implacably creeping into my conscience. After hours in which I had desperately called him in vain, I finally got a call.

I answered, desperately hoping to hear the news that would take me out of that cold, horrible grip of fear. It was his mother. She told me that Stefan was not feeling well, that he was "a bit troubled".

"What do you mean, troubled?"

"Oh, it's nothing, he's in a...sort of state... He decided to go to a monastery for a couple of days to reconnect with himself".

"Go to a what????"

"Don't worry, dear, see to your classes, finish what you have to finish. He'll be just fine when you come back".

That was all. No details. No explanations. Monastery? He was a spiritual guy, not necessarily religious, but I knew for certain that he'd never go to some spiritual retreat without letting me know. Instead of relief, I felt even more fear. I now knew for certain that something really bad had happened. And I was stuck, more than 1000 km away, with one more week to go until the much-needed recommendation.

I believe that some sort of emergency system exists within us all, that's suddenly turned on by life-changing moments. All of a sudden I realised I was strangely lucid, as if in a state of altered consciousness. I knew I had to, HAD TO, see him. I went to the program coordinator, told her I had a family emergency back in Romania and asked if I could be excused from the program for a few days. She told me I could be away for only two days without my grades and diploma being affected. It was Thursday. The weekend was free. I had just enough time to go back to Bucharest for 2 days and return. I still had 250 euro left which I had almost spent a few days before in Salzburg, when I wanted to buy a particularly beautiful ring by an artist I admired. But still, 250 euros? It was hugely expensive for me at that time. I had not bought it. It was fate.

The two-way bus ticket from Stroebl to Salzburg and the train ticket from Salzburg to Bucharest and back cost exactly 250 euros. I got home on Saturday morning. My parents were blissfully ignorant of my adventure and believed me to be safe and sound back in Austria. I had called Ana, Stefan's mother, telling her I was coming. They both waited for me at the train station and we went together to the family's country house, some 60km outside of Bucharest, where his parents lived, Stefan and his brother had an apartment in Bucharest. I wondered why Stefan had moved back in with his parents. Another bad sign. I didn't dare to ask out loud.

On the one-hour drive, his mother talked incessantly. About anything. About nothing. He was quiet the whole time. He was happy to see me and smiled tiredly; he seemed thinner, his face was paler, and he had big circles under his eyes. I couldn't figure out what was wrong but knew for certain something was. I thought he didn't want to share it in front of his parents.

When we were finally alone, he told me all was fine. I wanted to believe him, but couldn't. Finally, late at night, I gave us asking questions and told myself that all would be clearer in the morning, after a good sleep. I snuggled beside him, happy we were finally together again. Then, in the middle of the night, I understood. He suddenly got up and, in a changed voice that sent cold shivers down my spine, started telling me that he was hearing strange voices. I remember being so frightened that I ran away from the bedroom. He followed me into the living room. He explained exaltedly that something unbelievable had been happening to him, ever since that day of the attacks in London. Somehow the fear of that day had triggered something in him and the voices had started. Some voices were telling him to jump from a window. Others were telling him that he was a messenger of God and we would have a baby that would be the Chosen one. I was petrified with the horror of it all.

Seeing my beloved torn apart by mental illness before my very eyes was perhaps one of the hardest things I have experienced in my life, and remains so, to this day. In the next 24 hours, before having to leave back for Austria, we talked a lot. Stefan veered between lucidity and hallucination. In his moments of clarity, he used his intellect - sharp as a scalpel - desperately trying to dissect the spectre of madness that was overcoming him. He described in chilling detail his fight with psychosis. He told me how those voices were talking all at the same time - some benevolent, others full of hatred - how he knew he was more than them, but couldn't stop them. He described his fear, his confusion, his struggle to make some sense of what was happening to him.

"Something is pulling me up, something is pulling me down. I don't know what to do. But I know all will be well. And I know I love you. I love you!"

These were the last words I heard at the train station. They gave me a bit of hope. A last hug, a last kiss. We both cried. Our love seemed the last stable thing in a world of sifting sands. I went back to Stroebl and got my diploma "cum laudae". I got a raving recommendation from the most respected teacher in the program. I felt nothing. Just sadness and a sense of mourning.

When I finally came back to Bucharest, Stefan was no more. I found a body tormented by visions. A body that didn't sleep, sometimes laughed hysterically, unexplainably and the rest of the time had a frozen, unmoving expression. Often he stayed still for hours, frighteningly catatonic. He didn't want to eat, didn't want to talk. He seemed to recognize me sometimes, when he automatically, repetitively, told me we needed to break up. I was looking into his green-brown eyes and could see nothing, absolutely nothing behind them. Stefan whom I had known, Stefan whom I loved with every cell of my body, was dead. And I couldn't even mourn him.

The next two months were a desperate attempt to convince his family that Stefan badly needed psychiatric help, and medication. His mother stubbornly refused, perhaps blinded by pain, to accept that her son suffered from grave mental illness. She was convinced his crisis was of a different kind - a "spiritual" crisis that could be solved with prayer and rest. She dragged him - and I followed suit - to a string of "healers" - from experts in alternative therapies, to reiki masters, and clairvoyants - some professionals, some impostors. Some suggested he needed medical help and she dismissed them. Some fed her fantasies about her son "waking up to a deeper reality". We went to monasteries on top of mountains where women didn't even have access, we kneeled in churches because priests had told her that her son needed nothing more than prayer.

I had and have respect and confidence in the value of alternative therapies and, despite not being particularly religious, I considered myself spiritual. However, at that moment every part of me told me that Stefan's emergency was a medical one and that no church or energy healer could help him. It was then that I fought with the Universe itself. If God even existed, I was furious at him for doing this to me, for not opening Ana's mind, for not helping her see the truth. I was furious at her denial and revolted that she could put her son in danger by refusing to help him in the only way he needed to be helped. It was then that I put aside - for many years to come - any shred of spirituality, of openness to something greater, beyond myself. If a higher power existed, it was not my friend. It was also then that I, unknowingly, started numbing myself to the voice of intuition, to any deeper calling from within myself. What good was it to listen to it if it only brought pain?

I went to work during the day, to school in the evenings and then drove 60 Km to be with him and stand by him in his sleep, or, better said, to watch him not sleep. He just lay there, nights on end, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. At 6 am I'd get up, get dressed and drive back to work. My peers at the embassy were telling me I had lost weight and were asking what was wrong. I kept telling them I was fine, just out of appetite. I didn't tell anyone except my parents what had happened and they too tried - and failed - to convince Ana to take Stefan to a psychiatrist. I only later understood how scared they too must have felt as they saw me get lost in that tragedy with no end in sight. I felt no tiredness, even though I was exhausted from sleeping two hours per night. I just felt pain. Borderless, endless pain. And clung on to hope. Hope for a miracle.

One night I thought the miracle had come. Suddenly, as if his spirit had come back into his body, his eyes became alive again. Out of nowhere, Stefan smiled at me again. He told me he knew it was hard for me. He asked me to forgive him. He told me he loved me and promised everything would be all right. He hugged me and then, 2 minutes later, disappeared as he had come. Suddenly. His eyes went blank again. Again he stood still, a living corpse, his eyes on the ceiling. Then I knew I had lost him forever. And that was indeed his last moment of lucidity for the rest of our time together.

The end came weeks later, on the day his mother, fed up with my desperate attempts to convince her that Stefan was more than a troubled soul, that his brain and body needed medication so that he could regain control of his mind, clearly and firmly told me that she forbade me to get involved in their family's life anymore. I was forbidden to see him again. My mission had ended. It was the autumn of 2005. Stefan and I parted ways. Beyond my immediate family, nobody knew what had happened to me. Nobody knew for more than 8 years until I decided to write my story.

In the months that followed, I was like a widow who couldn't accept her beloved was no more. I stubbornly pushed on to finish our dearest project. I applied and got accepted into one of the most prestigious International Relations Masters Programs in Europe - a joint program between Science Pô in Paris and the London School of Economics in the UK. There had been hundreds of candidates. There were only 10 places. I was the only Romanian who got in. He would probably have been the second. I even got a scholarship. I never went on to do that Masters. It seemed pointless. It was enough to know I had succeeded. When I saw the congratulatory letter from the University, I felt nothing. I didn't tell anybody about my greatest academic success, one that, before, I would have bragged about at the top of my lungs. I didn't realise it then, but that was the beginning of a long string of moments when I felt absolutely nothing.

Less than 6 months later, my maternal grandmother died. She had been a second mother to me - she had been the dearest, closest person to my heart - the person who had always loved me unconditionally, who had always looked at me as if I could do anything and had always supported me no matter what. She had been frail for some time and I had dreaded the thought of losing her. I had been convinced I'd suffer terribly. When she finally went, I cried. But what I really felt was nothing but a sort of terrible numbness. A general anaesthesia of the spirit.

In that state of anesthesia, I started frantically looking for goals to somehow fill the existential void that threatened to swallow me whole. My mind became hyperactive as my emotions were numbing until they almost disappeared. I told myself I would be happy if only I succeeded in life, as most people around me defined success. I decided that, by the time I reached 30, I'd build a career. Something other than diplomacy. I couldn't even stand the sound of that anymore. I promised myself I'd be successful. I would have money; a house; a family. If that was what people thought happiness to be, then I'd have it all. I was 22.

I deleted all the emails, all the pictures, everything that could ever remind me of Stefan. I refused to talk about him and I was convinced I could erase him from my mind and my life as if he'd never existed and just start over.

Once I graduated, I gave up my Embassy job and found a good corporate job, that opened up promising career prospects. I started a relationship with a nice man, whom I cherished as a friend and convinced myself that that's the way love is supposed to be. No butterflies in the stomach. No longing when I was away from him. No anguish. No suffering. Warm. Gentle. Safe. Flat. We bought a piece of land together.

Later, I left the corporate job and joined a leadership development company. I became a facilitator. I loved my work so much that I hardly did anything else. Also, working non-stop was an extraordinarily effective way to not have time to feel much. I got a mortgage. We built a house. I got married. I became serious, conformist. I no longer danced in the bedroom at night. I was a successful, responsible "grown-up", or so I liked to tell myself.

Throughout all of these years of numbness, I did hold on to one aspect of my old personality - the thirst for knowledge and love of learning. I read tens and tens of books on psychology, neuroscience, and even psychiatry. I became very knowledgeable about a lot of aspects of human development, but also of pathology. All of this knowledge helped me in my work as a group facilitator and I kept telling myself that this was the main motivation behind all of my readings. I would later become aware that I was actually reading whatever might have helped me understand what had happened to him, to make sense of that traumatic experience which - I had falsely convinced myself - I had overcome long ago.

I ended up learning more psychology by self-study than I would have had I attended the University program I had dreamed of in my teenage years. Paradoxically, Stefan's loss brought me back to the profession I was meant for all along. I was 28 when I reached all of my "success" goals. I had the career, the financial prosperity, the house, the husband. Everyone around me was happy and proud. I felt absolutely nothing.

And then, only then, when my plan had been completed before the deadline, I started waking up. I don't know how and when exactly it happened. It began as a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, heaviness, and restlessness, which was annoyingly chipping away at the protective shell of my emotional numbness from the previous 6 years. It was like a ray of sunshine breaking through the fog and the light hurt my eyes. I started wondering if I was really happy, if my life had any meaning.  

I was still enjoying my work but felt there was a painful chasm between my professional and personal lives. I finally found a great therapist, who, I felt, did not judge me and who challenged me with kindness and made me face my self-deceit. With her, I found the courage, for the first time, to speak openly about what had happened to me. I cried, for the first time in years, for Stefan and our lost love. I cried for the future we never had the chance to build together. I cried for the great life this brilliant young man never got to live. I was also finally able to truly feel the pain and loss of my grandmother's death and mourned her, with a delay of 6 years. I felt all the pain I hadn't allowed myself to feel, but this time I was not alone. I had a compassionate companion on the road to reconnecting with my lost soul.

With help, I let the blood flow from the wounds I had so prematurely covered years before and finally allowed them to heal. I left the marriage, the house, the life I had built. I understood that I couldn't please everyone else and I gave myself permission to love and accept myself for who I was - imperfect, scarred but alive. I fulfilled my objectives before 30 and then abandoned them all because I found something much more precious. I found my meaning.

This process of personal transformation finally bridged the gap between who I was at work and who I was at home. I started coaching and facilitating from a place of wholeness. I managed to support others with similar experiences and trials and hold space for them in their hardest moments because I had been in that cave and knew what the pain and loneliness felt like. I studied even harder, driven by the need to understand - myself and others - so that I could be a clearer mirror for those who had lost themselves and needed to find their way back. Self-knowledge had been an obsession for me since childhood; it had pushed me towards studying Psychology in the first place. I was now remembering, slowly, who I really was.

The love for Stefan and the terrible suffering of his loss became the crucible in which I transformed into what I am today, into what I had the potential to be all along. It took me almost seven years to understand that he was the catalyst of a metamorphosis - from child into adult, from girl into woman, from sleepwalker into conscious inhabitant of this Planet. I finally embraced my mission - to open gateways towards more wisdom in the world.

I do this every single day, by facilitating team dialogue that helps people see that there is more than just one truth; by accompanying individuals on their journeys of transformation; by writing and by continuously asking new questions. I finally managed to give some meaning to what had seemed to be nothing but a senseless tragedy and to give Stefan back his rightful place in my heart and in my history. 

I had to know the pain, to know love and loss, then I had to understand what it is like to run away from yourself and walk on a road that is not yours, what it is like to lie to yourself that you are happy when you're not, that the things you're aiming for are good just because they're socially desirable and because others say that's how you're supposed to live. I discovered there is no "right" order of life stages: college, career, marriage, house. This is just one road. It's good for some people. Not for all. There are thousands of other roads. Not all of us are built the same. Not all of us can fit into the norm. And some of us get to live more than one life in the same lifetime.

Now I can stand before others and talk about self-deceit, authenticity, suffering or trust. My journey so far, with its good and bad, hard and easy, offered me a great gift - the experience I can use to authentically accompany others on their own journeys.

When I was 25 years old and 20 kg heavier, people who saw me in the corporate classroom were convinced I was at least a decade older. Now I am turning 30 and people say I look younger than my age. Sometimes I joke saying that I feel like a sort of Benjamin Button - I lived my old age when I was a child and now I'm ready to live my real age. Also now, at 30, I rediscovered life's magic and made peace with the Divine, with that "something" beyond us, with that universal intelligence that connects us all. I still am not religious. But I allow myself to be spiritually open again. I allow myself to decide with my mind, heart and gut and respect them equally. At 30 I made peace with my soul.

From Stefan I learnt that all people have a story, but few choose to share it, because that would make them vulnerable. I kept my story secret and I know many others with equally dramatic tales, which they kept locked in the prisons of their souls for years, maybe hoping that somehow they will forget. Now I understand that we can't erase the past, we can't deny it. When we bury it, it comes back to haunt us. But when we bring it out into the light, we can honour it, learn from it and let it be the foundation to consciously build a different future.

Stefan taught me that we often run away from suffering by numbing ourselves - we over-eat, over-drink or otherwise keep ourselves over-busy lest we have time to think. Yet by doing all of that, we end up losing some of the most important things in the world: the capacity for love, for joy, the sense of being alive. When we numb the pain, we numb everything. To be able to feel alive again, I had to allow myself to feel all of my feelings.

This means I am sometimes sad. Other times I'm fearful. Angry. Impatient. Vulnerable. But this also means I can now burst in fits of giggles, and enjoy the rain, the sun, the playfulness of a child I fleetingly see on the street. Only now do I truly understand the value of emotion. Thanks to Stefan, I learnt to appreciate the miracle of living while I'm alive.

Alive. Conscious. Meaningful.

I don't know what happened to Stefan. I never got to find out how his story ended. I was never allowed to make contact with him again, nor were any of our common friends. I will always hope that he too somehow found healing and peace. What I do know is that he will always have his place in my heart and I will never stop cherishing his memory and thanking him for what loving and losing him have taught me. I will never stop thanking him for taking my life away so I could regain it again with more wisdom.

I chose to publicly share my story for all those who are silently working through their own pain or perhaps running away from it. It is my present for every human being who ever felt overwhelmed, hurt, or meaningless. It is my gift of hope and faith that we are all capable of rising from the ashes of our tragedies and growing into more conscious human beings, more loving of self and others, more beautiful, more connected with each other and with life itself. I believe that in the darkest moments of our existence, we can discover our light.

Today I turn 30. I gave myself the ring as a present - that same ring, by that same artist, that I had wanted to buy from Salzburg 8 years ago. I will wear it proudly and happily, as a reminder of who I never got to be to become who I am.

Later edit: This story was written in 2013, the year I turned 30. Thousands of people read this article, which I published mostly for myself, as an act of closure. I got hundreds of messages from people who had lost someone they loved. From people who had encountered the spectre of mental illness. From people who were swimming in the ocean of their pain. I was overwhelmed by a wave of love and compassion from strangers and by the extraordinary confessions from people I did not know. Virtually all said the same thing: you are not alone. Thank you for showing me that I am not alone. Pain does not need to be lived in silence. Shared pain brings forth hope and healing. Sometimes you might be saved by the story of a stranger you will never meet. And your own story might end up saving somebody else. We are, in the deepest sense, all connected.