Angel Dust saved my life. No, kinda.. really. (TW: Mental health, suicide attempt).

(I just wanted to share this, and I hope it is OK. I read the rules and it seems to be OK, but apologies if it's not.)

TW- Mental heath/suicidal thoughts and attempt.

I discovered this series and its fandom last year and adore it. All my life, I have had occasions of getting heavily into series/books/movies, and sometimes, fictional characters make themselves at home in my head. It's always been a thing...

For example, in this context, I could be grocery shopping, and Angel would pop up, organically commenting on my shopping, or making bitchy comments around the store. It's mainly audio in my head, but I can visualise the characters interacting with the real world space too. (It happens with some other fandoms, and my own original characters too when I write, but I'll leave off those examples since they're not Hazbin-centric.)

This last year, my health went down the toilet. Really badly. Bad enough that one day I couldn't see an out and began making a plan with what I had to hand (I won't detail it for obvious safety reasons,) but in that moment, I was 100% going to go through with it.

That moment, loud and clear, as if he was sitting next to me, I heard Angel's voice scream "What the F*** ya doin' toots!?!" It was loud enough I literally jumped out my skin. Obviously I was alone... but it was enough to shake me and I just broke down.

All I could hear was me crying and Angel's voice telling me earnestly that "Of course you deserve to live...you're more than this shit ya know? This is some bad shit happening to ya, and besides you've got through worse...."

It was enough to shake me, get me to back off and call someone for actual real help and I didn't go through with it.

I suppose what I'm posting this for is just to show how powerful the love of fiction and fictional characters can be, as well as the complexity of human psychology and imagination. I never imagined I'd be in this situation, much less that my own brain would summon a self-preservation mechanism in the form of a fictional character! But I'm grateful - really f$ing grateful.