Voices in My Wilderness
Depression, diagnosis, and the voices who delivered me
In the next 24 hours almost 1500 teens will attempt suicide and twelve young people between the ages of 15 and 24 will die by suicide.
Young people are caught in the middle of a war – not a war of politics or theological viewpoints, but a fight between voices on the front lines of a battle for their future. This war takes no prisoners, and its only goal is to steal, kill, and destroy.
This is good versus evil – heaven versus hell.
The clock is ticking, and an entire generation is hanging in the balance.
In this short, thrilling, and easy-to-read page-turner, Brandon Triola tells the true story of starting his senior year of high school with everything he could have hoped for in front of him: a promising season on the basketball team, a girlfriend, and scholarship offers from prestigious art schools. However, he soon finds himself in a battle with the life-altering diagnoses of not one, but two mental illnesses. Suicidal thoughts and tormenting "voices" begin to flood his mind and lead him towards the unthinkable. Brandon's detailed plans to take his life are delayed and disrupted by several people from his small hometown in northeast Ohio who decide to stop, speak up, and speak to Brandon in the midst of his pain.
These people introduced Brandon to another voice, one that in his final minutes spoke through the noises of self-hatred and death that tormented him.
Find out what happens to Brandon, meet the brave souls whose words illuminated his path to healing, and learn how to become a voice for someone else who needs the same hope and healing Brandon found.
From the book
January, 2006
Icy clouds from my breath filled the car as I sat in the dim parking lot. Silent shadows danced violently in the flickering light cast from the half-broken lamp post above me. I tried to keep my shivering hand still, but it shook so hard the pills inside the bottle I was holding rattled violently. I kept an eye on the back door to the apartment complex to make sure no one walked out and came towards me. I was waiting for the right moment–trying to work up the courage.
I was ready. Ready for the pain to stop. Ready for the shame that I wore like a hooded sweatshirt to be stripped away for good. I was ready to be finished with hurting this much–feeling so alone, forgotten, and worthless. It didn’t matter who cared or not, I just wanted the voices to stop. Constant. Unrelenting. They were like a drum inside my brain, beating to the rhythm of a song I couldn’t stand to listen to any more. Berating. Shaming. The voices seemed like my own. They blamed me night and day for the life I didn’t have. The torment bound my thoughts, crushed my imagination, and with every waking second of every day they made me ever more certain that I no longer wanted to live.
Everything I tried to make work had broken apart. It seemed the only thing I could control was the beat of my heart–the blood pumping through my veins. The plan I made to end my life was as much about grasping for something to control as it was about breaking free from the unrelenting torture I was experiencing.
Between 15 and 20 percent of high school students think about ending their lives.
Why? The data shows it’s not always for the same reasons. We’re exactly not sure. But what we are sure of is that young people are hurting. Hormones are raging, bodies are changing, and minds are developing strong opinions about the world. Adolescence is a super intense time, especially in the west with so many parents working a lot and distant from the real ins-and-outs of their kids’ lives. For me, suicide became a strategy to solve a layered set of emotional issues I didn’t have the tools or ability to solve by any other means.
As far as how I got to that point, I didn’t just wake up and decide to end my life suddenly. It wasn’t like I had one bad day and figured it was time to throw in the towel. For me, depression became a gradual decline towards suicide. It was a journey over several years.
This little book is the real, true, and documented account of the emotional pain that built up inside me–pain which led to two medically diagnosed mental illnesses.
This is the story of how I found myself alone at 18 years old with a bottle of sleeping pills, ready to swallow as many as possible.
It’s also a rescue story.
If not for the other voices that battled back the vocal cords of death in my brain, you would not be reading this book. My name would be somewhere on a headstone in northeast Ohio where I grew up, and I would be another casualty of mental and spiritual illness.
That comes later as you read, but for right now if you’re reading this book chances are you’ve heard the voices too. You’ve heard them tell you you’re not enough. You’ve been lied to just like I was. You’ve been talked into seeing yourself as a worthless, broken, failure–something no one else will ever want or love.
Or maybe worse...maybe like me you’ve been told to believe the lie that being gone from this earth would be better than staying here and living with the circumstances you’re currently in. Or maybe you haven’t heard any voices, but you know someone who has or is. Please read this and give it to them. Mental ilnness is a matter of life and death and my goal for this book is to equip you to fight back, not with medical advice (I’m not a doctor and this book should NOT be taken as medical advice) but with faith.
By the end of this book those voices will be called out, challenged, and silenced. Whether you struggle with hearing voices or not, this book will be an invitation into a deeper conversation with the voice of all voices–the person who is the perfect embodiment of love.
But for now, buckle up. It’s going to get dark.
Not your mom’s fluffy devotional
This book is a raw, real, graphic immersion into the darkness–a trail through the tormented mind of a teenager trying to end their life.
01
Short but powerful
Written like a short story, this book is barely 100 pages long. You can read the entire thing on a short flight, or on a lunch break.
03
Helpful respurces
While this book is not to be considered medical advice of any kind, the book is also filled with practical resources, numbers to call, and organizations that hurting people can and should turn to.
02
Spiritual activations
Each chapter ends with a “Wake up call” activation that can be used together like a devotional, or guiding steps for people actively suffering from suicidal thoughts or depression.
03
Designed, not written
Most books are just typeset on white paper. This book is a graphic journey through the tormented mind of Brandon during his story from darkness into light.
In the next 24 hours twelve young people between the ages of 15 and 24 will die by suicide.
In the next 24 hours twelve young people between the ages of 15 and 24 will die by suicide.
Who this book is for
01
Young people between the ages of 15 and 24
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For you to give away to hurting people in your life
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Anyone struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts
04
Churches, ministries, and youth groups
About the author
Brandon Triola is an author, speaker, artist, and entrepreneur... but like so many other young people he almost became another statistic.
This pic was taken in art class just before the year that began his spiral into depression.
See for yourself
Look inside
Book Info
ISBN: 978-0-578-34362-4
Page count: 104
Dimensions: 6 X 9 Inches
Manufacturer: Amazon
Author: Brandon J Triola
A legit miracle story
It was Jesus. I felt Him. I couldn’t see Him physically but I remember feeling His presence attached to the words I was hearing. As I heard Him speak and sensed His very real person hovering over me it was as if He froze my body to allow my mind to process what was being offered to me. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to. I was overcome with awe.”
-Excerpt from Voices in My Wilderness
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Speaking
Brandon speaks at events, churches, ministries, and youth groups about this miraculous story of healing and deliverance.
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