An open letter to the one who no longer wants to live: Right now, you’re sitting on your phone, the weight of the world on your shoulders and a vise squeezing your chest. You are tired — of fighting, of trying, of attempting to convince your brain that things will get better when tomorrow has yet to bring the hope that others tell you will arrive with the sunrise. You’re exhausted from the war in your mind, from trying to drown out the voice inside of you that somehow whispers “you’re not worth it” louder than the shouts that you are loved. The medication and therapy and meditation and treatment haven’t worked, and you’ve given up hope that they ever will. You hear those around you saying that things will improve, that someday you’ll wake up and be grateful that you’re alive, but it’s been days or weeks or months or years of waiting and you are just done with empty promises and false hopes. And maybe death isn’t a paradise, but it seems like a better alternative than the hell you wake up to when your alarm goes off. This is a battle I can’t fight for you. This is a life I can’t make you choose. It’s unfair of me to expect you to want to keep fighting, because maybe the only reason you’re still here at all is because you’re desperately trying to stay alive for everyone but yourself. Even though they say they love you, even though they say their lives are better with you in them, you can’t help but think that they’re lying — that it would be better for everyone, especially you, if your heart just stopped beating and your lungs stopped expanding and you just weren’t here. You’re allowed to feel how you feel. No matter how hard I try, I can’t argue against what you believe to be true — or what your mind has convinced you *is* truth — and I can’t yell louder than that voice inside of you is shouting right now. Despite debate and prose and a list of one thousand reasons why you are one in a million, vocabulary lists have nothing on the litany of lies and vicious emptiness sitting squarely on your shoulders. But, I need you to understand something at this moment where the darkness is absolute and there’s no light shining through: you are loved more than you will ever possibly be able to imagine. I can’t stop you from making this choice, but I hope I can show you what the truth of the situation will be. The day your sister gets that phone call will be the worst moment of her life. Her phone will ring on a Sunday afternoon, and she will pick up to the sound of her dad’s voice catching and breaking as he explains that life was more than you could bear. And you won’t be there to see it, but her knees will buckle and she will curl up on her dorm floor, sobbing because this reality hurts worse than she ever expected it to. Your mother will go through suicide prevention trainings at work and blame herself the whole time, wondering how she missed the signs that she is studying. Your father will never forget walking in the door of your apartment, finding you in your bed without a note or a reason or a warning. And life will go on, but oh my God, the world will change in an instant. Your sister will sob so hard that she can’t see the words she’s reading because, somehow, she’s taking a test in 24 hours but you don’t have a heartbeat, and suddenly a diploma seems meaningless in the face of death. Your brother won’t sleep through the night for three weeks because nighttime reminds him that your world once looked this dark and no light switch could make you see that things can get brighter. Your best friend won’t be able to inhale fully and she’ll feel guilty for laughing or smiling or for enjoying a moment because the last time she did, that she forgot to worry about you for the first time in a decade and suddenly you weren’t there for her to check in on. The world needs you here, the world wants you here, and the world is a better place because of the fight you are going through to exist. And the people who love you will be left with a gaping space where your name should be, with empty chairs or moments where your body and your voice should break the silence and fill in the memories. They will never stop blaming themselves, never stop wishing that they had sent one more text or remembered to call or that they hadn’t thought school or work or friends or fun was more important than you were. Your mom will walk out of the room when a TV show reminds her that your body was once the one lying on a bed without breath, that the ambulance may have gotten there on time in SVU, but that the call was placed 20 minutes too late for you. If you’re one of the lucky ones, if you wake up because your manager called at 6:32 because you weren’t at work and suddenly you’re in a hospital surrounded by beeping monitors and blips on a screen that remind you that your heart didn’t stop, I hope you know that the worst moment of your life will be the best one of theirs. I hope you know that your sister will feel guilty that you’re hurting, but that there will be more relief than she ever knew she could feel because you are still there to love. Your parents will always remember finding you, but will never stop being grateful that you didn’t call off work because didn’t think you’d be missed enough. Reality will be painful and you’ll spend your time at home agonizing over what could have gone differently — you’ll wish you’d take a few more pills or cut a little deeper or drank a little faster, but you’re still here and I hope you know there’s a reason that goes far beyond any mistakes on your part. I hope you know that, as painful as it is, a heartbeat is worth celebrating. If I could make life better, if I could take your place, if I could crack the window to let the light in, I’d do it in an instant. I’d paint on canvas to paint over the lies that tell you that the world is better off without you or that you don’t deserve to be here. And on world mental health awareness day, in the midst of the moments that are the hardest to live through, I hope I can help remind you of this truth: the world needs you here, the world wants you here, and the world is a better place because of the fight you are going through to exist. 1 (800) 273-8255.
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LizWriting, running, reading, and keeping it real along the way. Archives
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