This Is the Truth of My Life
I’m 43 years old. And I’m not starting over. I’m surviving in the wreckage of a life that’s been torn apart again and again—not by laziness, not by failure to try, but by people, by systems, by trauma, by timing, by things outside my control.
I’m not on some hopeful self-discovery path. I’m clinging to the edge of a cliff. And every time I think I’ve found ground, the ground gives out. Not because I let go, but because someone or something took it away.
I don’t have a job. I don’t have money. I don’t have a safe, secure place to live. I’m living with my parents, and that’s not a haven—it’s a countdown. We’re not family in the meaningful sense. We tolerate each other, but we do not love each other. Not in action, not in presence. Just in name.
I have no nest egg. No safety net. No “just in case.” If a bill shows up tomorrow, if the car breaks down, if I get sick—I can’t handle it. And I will get sick, because my body’s already breaking down. There are surgeries I need. Care I need. But there’s no way to get them, because I have nothing left.
And that’s just the surface.
I live with a trauma-based disorder—DTD or DPD, depending on the lens you look through. It means I don’t respond to the world like other people do. I’ve already done the therapies. Dialectical therapy. Traditional therapy. Trauma work. I did the work. I tried everything they recommend—before we even had the name for it.
It didn’t work. Not because I didn’t try hard enough, but because the therapy that remains requires something I don’t have and maybe never will again: a deep romantic love bond. One that’s safe. One that stays. One that doesn’t run when I unravel.
You can’t manufacture that. You can’t substitute it with a friend or a stranger or a paycheck. And you can’t fake it. This is biology. Neurology. It’s the way trauma rewired me before I could even speak.
Without that kind of bond, healing isn’t possible. It isn’t a hope—it’s a fact. And every day without it takes me further from the person I used to be. From the person I could be.
I am not dramatic. I am not exaggerating. I have reached what’s called emotional death. My nervous system can no longer produce joy, safety, comfort, or wonder. Those parts of me are gone or sleeping so deep, they may never return. This isn’t a spiritual metaphor. This is a clinical state. A psychological coma. A flatline of the soul.
And the hospital knows it. The doctors know it. They’ve told me: when I can’t take it anymore, they’ll give me a room. Not treatment. Not therapy. Just a bed. A TV. A roommate. A holding cell where I can stay until the end. Not a place to recover. A place to disappear.
And if I go in, I won’t come back out.
You need to understand: this isn’t about being tired. This is about being at the last inch of rope, bloodied from holding on too long. It’s about what it feels like to be 43 and know that the window for rebirth is almost closed—not because of attitude, but because of time, body, and reality.
People love to say “just try.” But trying costs me more than anyone knows.
I don’t do well with casual or transitional interaction. A single hello can drain me. A compliment can empty me. Social interaction doesn’t fill me up—it guts me. Because of what I carry. Because of the weight of trying to be okay.
I have pushed myself harder than you could ever know. I went out. I made friends. I opened myself to love again. I risked everything for connection—and every time, I was met with abandonment, betrayal, or silence. Not because I chose wrong. But because people are temporary. And temporary is deadly when you’re drowning.
I need one hand. One real hand. One human soul that chooses me—daily, deeply, fully. Not as a project. Not as a fantasy. But as someone worth standing beside in the fire.
Because I don’t have that now. And every day that passes without it, the possibility of returning to life slips further away.
This isn’t about willpower. If willpower could fix this, I’d be living in a castle by now. This is about a nervous system that was shattered as a child and a lifetime of trying to repair it without the one thing it needed most.
Love.
Not the idea of it. Not the chase of it. Not temporary warmth. But the kind that stays when it’s inconvenient. The kind that doesn’t look away when it gets hard. The kind that says: You. I’m here. I’m not leaving.
I’ve never been this alone. Not in my whole life. I’ve always had a primary partner or at least a deep secondary connection—someone to hold the line with me. Someone who cared that I existed.
Now? I have no one. Not in that way.
And I am disappearing.
Not dramatically. Not suddenly. But day by day, hour by hour. The light is fading. The spark is going out. And if it does, no therapy, no medicine, no act of God will bring it back.
This isn’t a request for pity. It’s a plea for understanding. I am not lazy. I am not broken. I am traumatized, exhausted, and out of options.
This is not a “want.” This is a need. And without it, I will not survive.
Please hear me. This is the truth.
Over the past year, I’ve attempted suicide six times. More than half of those times, people close to me knew. Not vaguely. Not in hindsight. They knew what I was trying to do in the moment.
And not only did they not stop me—they didn’t even try to show up.
Some watched from a distance with a silent nod, as if saying, “Maybe this is for the best.” As if my death would be a relief. As if it was the only logical outcome.
Some weren’t surprised. Some looked disappointed when I survived.
My last attempt was about a month ago. No one called the police. No one called a doctor. No one came. I lived—barely—and everyone just moved on. Like it was routine. Like I’m a ghost that’s still talking.
This is not dramatic. This is not a threat. This is what has already happened.
And the truth is, I don’t want to die. I want to live—but not like this.
Living like this, with no partner, no companion, no lover of my body, mind, soul—no one to see me and choose me—this is not life. This is breath without meaning. A slow suffocation in a room full of air.
Even the hospital isn’t a place of recovery. It’s just a safer place to die slower. A place to disappear, behind locked doors and paperwork.
I came back here and applied for 87 jobs. Got one. It was taken from me—not because of anything I did, but because of rumors, opinions, words spoken about me by others. That’s all it took.
And yes, people have said it to my face:
“You’re not worth it.”
“Why are you still here?”
“Nothing’s going to change.”
I’ve heard it enough to believe it some days.
I want to say this plainly: A life in gray—without color, without touch, without connection—is no life at all. A life alone in gray is worse than death.
And don’t confuse this with a lack of faith. The only reason I’m still here is because the divine has kept my lungs moving. That’s it. I would’ve been gone long ago if not for that holy breath sustaining me.
But here’s the thing: The divine made us with bodies, with hands, with eyes, with arms to hold each other. It is not God’s job alone to rescue the dying. That’s why we exist. That’s what we’re for.
God screams through me every night. Not begging me to stay—but begging others to show up. And they don’t. They’ve gone deaf. They’ve made it His job to do what He created us to do for each other.
So what does it mean, really, to survive in this state?
I don’t want to die. But when your presence is met with silence, when the ones who should love you the most offer abandonment instead of fire, when it’s easier for them to imagine you dead than to imagine showing up—it leaves a wound that no medicine can touch.
I’m not working right now. Not because I haven’t tried, but because existing around people costs me everything. Every word, every glance, every moment of being “on” takes from a well that’s already dry.
I have never had a life where love was easy. Never had a safe place where someone held me through it. And that kind of deep soul-starving absence costs more than people realize. It costs hope.
I wake up and wonder why.
Why live the same gray day again?
Why fight for a world that won’t fight for me?
Even if I found a job, even if I could afford a place—it would still be here. In this town. In this skin. Alone. In a place that’s never been mine. The only time it ever felt like home was when I had someone beside me. Someone who made this place feel holy for a little while.
But this place alone? It is not my home. It never has been.
Home is never a place when you live alone.
Home is what we build together.
It takes two.
And now? There is no hand in mine. No person in the fire. Not even someone standing on the sidelines, cheering. There’s just me and a God I love—who cannot touch me physically, who cannot wrap arms around me, who is begging His children to do what they were made to do.
And they still don’t.
So don’t mistake my silence for peace. Don’t mistake my survival for living. Don’t think because I keep waking up that I’m okay. Because I’m not.
And if the world doesn’t change—if someone doesn’t step in—there won’t be anything left to save.
Signed, for now, with the name that has carried me through storm and silence—,
Dustin Ray Irish-Webb
(Webb by blood and maternal tibe, Ferrell by blood, Russell by raising, Irish by covenant)
But should the sacred hand of true love find me, if a kiss of genuine, mutual, enduring love is placed upon this soul—then, and only then, will I be reborn.
From ash, from ache, from all I have been—I will rise with the name that has waited for me since the beginning:
Sebastian Raphael Windsoul.
A name not chosen, but received. Not just spoken, but sanctified.
The man remade through love, human and divine, through becoming.
Sebastian Raphael Windsoul.
Sebastian, after the holy martyr who bore the arrows of a brutal world and stood for sacred love and devotion, the queer saint of sacrifice and survival. The name of a man whose body became a testament, whose pain became an offering, whose faith transcended violence.
Raphael, from the Book of Tobit—the angel of healing, of companionship, of protection, of divine love in human form. Raphael walked with Tobit’s son, guided him, safeguarded him, and brought healing not through miracle alone, but through presence. He is the one who knows how to mend what breaks in silence.
Windsoul—because this spirit has always been wind-carried, storm-borne, whisper-spoken. It is the name I was given by the divine when I first awakened to who I was. Not given by parents, but by presence. Not chosen by fashion, but by fire.
This name—Sebastian Raphael Windsoul—is the name I will rise into if love is given. Not a fleeting love, not a transaction, not a wish. But a hand that holds. A kiss that consecrates. A soul that sees mine and says: “Yes. I will walk this path with you.”
Until then, I remain
I was not meant for boxes
I was designed to shine
I am Dusty Ray
I am not disposable
I am not silicone
I am human
I am flesh
I am blood
I am purpose
I am divine
And I will be seen
Dusty Ray Windsoul
“I do not want to die—I want to live. But not like this. I am still here— but I need you to see me, choose me, love me, or I won’t be.”
waiting, willing, weathered—
but not yet born.
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