When Love Turns into a Blizzard

July 30th:

I just drove across the country. I believe this may be the fourth or sixth time this month? I’m not sure I’ve lost track; all I know is that I got an oil change three weeks ago, and I’m already due for another one.

Now, I’m home, EXHAUSTED and collapsed into my bed.

But before I pass out, here’s the deal: tomorrow, Thursday, July 31, at our regular 9/8 Central time slot, I’ll be here, promise!

. . .

July 31:

Last Episode, I invited you into a moment that feels suspended in time: me, cramped in the backseat of my grandfather’s old car, hot leather pressing against my legs as the salty Maine air whooshed past a stuck window. It’s a memory that carries clarity, and one that I believe crept out because of my upcoming plans.

My great-grandfather recently passed away, and as his life was much longer than most anticipated, it was more of a celebration than a funeral. The celebration was on Tuesday in Northern Maine, just a few miles from the Canadian border, where every farm is Guerrette-owned, and the air somehow feels even cleaner than Tennessee’s. So yesterday, Wednesday, during our regular What Sheridan Said time slot, I was busy driving 1,000 miles across the country to get back home… once again.

I learned so much about my family while visiting Maine; we have our own cemetery, and we dig our own graves. Yes, you heard me right; it still hasn’t sunk in yet for me. The day before the funeral, my dad, his dad, and my brother went out to the cemetery and dug an eighteen-inch hole for great-grandpa’s ashes. And yes, I like to be dramatic; it was only eighteen inches deep, since he was cremated, but still? The Guerrettes dig their own graves. It is a true and dramatic statement.

I have so many lessons that are valuable to someone, if not many, and someday I will get to all of them. Adult life, adolescence, childhood, and, of course, my strange high school experience. Several of you have asked me to share some of these hard-earned lessons I walked away with from my chaotic and strange time in high school, and since this lesson has come up recently, as I was helping another friend, I’ve chosen which to share first on What Sheridan Said.

So, here is what to do if someone you care about threatens to hurt themself or end it all.

It was 2 a.m., and the world outside my window had melted into a five-foot snow bank while darkness only glowed from the stars. My phone buzzed: Wyatt, the boy next door who’d become my high-school boyfriend, typing in all caps, “IF YOU LEAVE ME, I’LL KILL MYSELF.” No argument, no fight, just the promise that my walking away would cost him everything.

I scrambled out of bed in half-zipped pajamas. I ran through the cul-de-sac like a white-washed battlefield, each step frozen with the question: What the hell do I do?

I started dating Wyatt sophomore year, just after middle school and freshman year had beaten me down with bullying and small-town whispers. In a place where everyone’s business is highway gossip, my family was the outsiders. Then this new boy moves in next door, a blank slate with no hometown rumors known to him, and suddenly, I’m the slow-burning Hallmark heroine. I was attracted to him because he didn’t bring any of my past to us.

We dated for maybe three or four months, and in that time, he did things like say, “I’m so glad I got you before you got hot.” I’m not sure how I suddenly got hot in that short amount of time, but okay. I remember one afternoon he told me to hop in the car for a “surprise date,” and three hours later, we were still barreling down country roads into nowhere. I had no clue where we were headed or why, no fancy dinner reservation, no promise of a sunset walk, just him, voice cracking, begging me not to trade him for bright city lights, saying I’m going to leave him soon, repeating how much better I am than him.

Soon, that became our pattern: midnight calls, knife shows, guilt trips. No adults ever stepped in. Someone must have known I was slipping out of my front door in slippers and tears, but nobody said a word.

Then came the Youth in Government weekend in St. Paul, where I roomed with Monica, my best friend since soccer tryouts. Friday night, over hotel-room fries, I confessed everything: the knives, the sobbing, the fear of breaking up because I’d be damned if guilt became my permanent roommate. We devised a Sunday-night “safe split” where he wouldn’t be alone, and I’d communicate with his closest friend.

The relief hit me like a sauna after a long winter: confidence replacing that icy knot in my chest, the burden I’d been carrying suddenly lifting off my shoulders. My mind snapped into focus, the plan felt bulletproof, and we actually smiled, because we were at peace, and we slid back into our weekend routine.

Youth in Government is a full-immersion mock state legislature and press corps where high-school students from every corner of America come together to write bills, hold mock trials, and report on all the drama. It isn’t some backyard theater; we’re talking real hotel-ballroom hearings, gavel-to-gavel debates in the morning, then sprinting down corridors with notepads in hand for the afternoon press briefing. I was one of the “journalists,” which meant I spent Friday scoping out trial rooms, scribbling quotes, and filing stories on everything from voting on faux bills to heated floor speeches about imaginary tax reform.

Saturday night, there was a dance for all the students in Youth in Government. We danced at the mock-government ball. I flirted with some kid named Ben and even gave him a kindergarten kiss at midnight, just to prove I was free.

Because it’s in the heart of the city, they lock the kids in the hotel after lights out and even before; you can’t just wander off into downtown traffic. Instead, you crash in twin beds with your roommate. Monica and I shared one of those rooms, complete with carpet that smelled vaguely of ambition and stale pizza.

Sunday morning, Monica had to sneak out for a Catholic service or face being grounded until graduation, and there was no way I was letting her wander those city blocks alone. So bleary-eyed and whispering like conspirators, we tiptoed past the chaperones, made it through the pews without a hitch, and slipped back into our hotel before anyone even noticed.

Double Oh Seven.

We took the long bus ride home, and by Sunday evening, Operation “Safe Split” was a go. I remember sitting Wyatt down in my mother’s office, my stomach a tangle of nerves. I needed it as much as air, but the second I spoke those words, my heart fractured all over again. The plan went as planned; he was surrounded by friends and family, and for the first time in months, I felt he was safe.

Monday morning arrived like a surprise trial I never signed up for. I hadn’t spoken to Monica since the bus ride home, yet there she was, the second I walked into the locker bank, shoulder-to-shoulder with Wyatt. A half-circle of their little clique and some of the “popular” crowd hovered around them, heads bowed in a hush that felt like a conspiracy, a conspiracy about me.

By the looks on their faces and their body language, I made the decision to walk past them and head to my locker. That’s when I saw it: anti-suicide notes plastered across every inch of my locker, then my gym locker, even my assigned desk. One had a giant teddy bear clutching chocolates and a tag that said, “Don’t kill yourself.” Throughout the next month, on my locker, on my assigned desk, I would receive anti suicide notes, which were left too out in the open to have any sense of real sincerity.

In that moment, Monday morning in the locker bank, I realized Monica and Wyatt had teamed up, spinning the lie that I was the one on the edge, not him. That “I was the one” threatening to harm myself, instead of the truth.

Monica was raised in a fiercely religious home, and with that, she convinced herself that my harmless Saturday-night kiss was a bigger sin than his midnight knife threats. Somehow, they managed to get every kid in school to believe I’d been the one trying to end it all, instead of the truth.

I knew if I tried to correct that story, I’d only give them more ammunition, and I’d rather lose a hundred friends than my own voice. I simply lowered my head, walked through the gauntlet of pity, and let them play villain. I never said a word, not a denial, not an argument, nothing. This battle wasn’t worth my strength, my time, or my focus. I chose silence because sometimes silence is the strongest boundary you can draw.

I’m proud of the way I handled it, even if I did lose many friends along the way. I’m a firm believer in moments like these, narrow down who is good for you, who is true, and who is not. And so, all those who taunted me, a girl they falsely thought was suicidal, showed me enough regarding who they were and the distance I wanted them from my life.

However, I’m sharing this because I want you to know: when someone tells you they’ll kill themselves, hurt themselves, or anything related, you don’t hesitate—you call 911. I wish I’d known that. I wish someone had pulled me aside and said, “Sheridan, this is not okay. We need to call for help.” That’s why I’m laying every detail bare, the 2 a.m. runs across frozen asphalt covered in snow, the “safe split” break-up plan, the locker-bank betrayal. Because maybe hearing my story will give you the guts to speak up, to draw a line, to demand real support before it’s too late. I want this to land in your heart and stay there, so you never feel alone in the snow like I did.

Resources:

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (U.S.) – call or text 988

• Crisis Text Line – text HOME to 741741

• NAMI HelpLine – 1-800-950-NAMI

And through all of this, the thousand miles driven last week, the graves we dug with our own hands in Northern Maine, the education of family roots… I’ve learned that some stories have to be told in full. Not so you can relive my chaos, but so that if you ever find yourself tiptoeing across a frozen yard in slippers at 2 a.m., you’ll remember you’re not alone. You have permission to call for backup, to set a boundary, to refuse guilt as currency.

When someone threatens to end it all or harm themselves, you don’t wait for permission; you call for help. You call 911, then you loop in a friend. You insist on real help. And you honor your own worth enough not to drown in someone else’s crisis.

Thank you for sticking with me through every detour, every soul-searching road trip, and every painful memory. I promise to keep sharing these hard-earned lessons so they can light a path for you or for someone else.

With fierce love and zero guilt.

xo,
Sheridan Guerrette
WhatSheridanSaid.com
Life Behind the Artist: Wed at 9/8C