Much of the world was shocked this week when Stephen Boss, the longtime DJ for the Ellen DeGeneres Show, killed himself in an act of suicide.
Among those who responded to the tragedy was director Tyler Perry, who took to Facebook to share his own experiences with suicidal thoughts. In his video, Perry encouraged viewers to "reach out to someone" and "ask for help" if they are "dealing with anything that is emotionally taking you to a place where you think you want to end your life."
Here's the most moving and insightful part of Perry's address:
What I realized now, looking back on all those dark times is, sometimes, the pain is a buy-in. I know that's hard to understand...that's the way I had to learn to look at it, to get through it. What I mean by that is, all that pain, all of that hell, all of that struggle, if I had given up, if I had stopped, I wouldn't have seen the better part of my life. So I was buying into something. I was paying for something.
