I have a very close friend who has been dealing with depression and suicidal ideation for the last couple of years or so. Part of her struggles were triggered by a miscarriage at the beginning of last year. My husband and I struggled with infertility for five years which she knew of. When I finally got pregnant, I made a point of telling her privately before we announced it publicly and letting her know I understood if she needed to distance herself and I wouldn’t be offended. I also mentioned that she might want to, at least temporarily, unfollow myself and my husband on social media if she thought seeing pregnancy updates might trigger her. She insisted she was only excited for me and didn’t want to unfollow me because we live several hours away. I am currently 23 weeks and we’ve only posted 6 things with entire time that had anything to do with the baby because we really aren’t that big on social media. The only reason we’ve posted the few things we have were because my family is very large and very spread out and they appreciate the updates.

Anyway, that was a lot of background information building up to the fact that five of the six times I’ve posted something on social media, she has a suicidal crisis of varying degrees within hours. The first couple of times, I thought it was just a coincidence because she always listed some other reason as to what had upset her but it’s happened yet again today and she won’t tell me what’s upsetting her. She did go to her therapist and is being looked after by some friends for the next couple of days but I do worry I am triggering her but I want to be able to share this exciting time with my family. I just needed to vent a little. Thanks to those who read this whole rambling thing!