I don’t know you. But I know how you feel. I know what it feels like to be on the outskirts of the crowd. I know what it feels like to be smack dab in the middle. I know what if feels like to feel inadequate. Unloved. Unappreciated. Awkward. Alone. Nervous. Sad. Depressed. Anxious.
High school sucks. I had some really good times but mostly I just waited for it to pass. I couldn’t wait to get out of my little small town. To leave it all behind and start fresh. Where I got to pick my friends. Where no one knew me.
I read the articles about you. You couldn’t handle it anymore. You wanted the pain to go away. You ended your life. The words and hatred beat you down. The constant pressure to be perfect and popular. The meanness of your peers. The loneliness of bearing this weight on your shoulders. This deep dark pit of something you can’t quite put your finger on. There is a sadness inside of you that you cannot shake. You feel empty. Your thoughts are negative and become twisted in a way that there is no logic to them. The numbness hurts.
It might seem no one understands how you feel. There is only shame and disappointment associated with depression. Society makes it seems that this is how the world is now. You are the only one not living the YOLO life. But that isn’t true. I know how you feel.
You see, I have been where you are and still battle it everyday. I have held that knife to my wrist wondering if I am so worthless and pathetic maybe I do need to do something about it. Maybe if I just felt something then this numbness wouldn’t hurt so bad. I have driven down the road covered by the darkness of depression wondering if I just jerked my wheel to the right that light pole might just make it all stop. Or maybe, I will just stop breathing. Because attempting to take the next breath is too hard. It is too painful to keep living. I am such a burden to my friends and family. They would be better off without me. All I do is cause them pain from having this mental illness. I will never get better so I need to end it so they do not have to deal with it. I am hurting them by being alive. This right now will never go away. I can’t do another step. I cannot bear it if my heart beats one more time. I will never be happy again. No one will miss me. Right?! How could they if they are so cruel to me?
Please believe me when I say, you won’t always feel this way. Help is real. It works. But I can’t say, that right now, this is the worst your life is going to be. Or that life gets easier. Because that would be a lie. Life is hard. Really hard. And no matter how you avoid the struggles and downfalls of life, it still happens to you. It does get better. Or maybe you come to realize there are people and aspects of your life that makes life worth living for. Even when the depression never goes away.
If you are reading this and are thinking that if you end it all, the pain will go away. You gone makes the pain end. Unfortunately, that isn’t how it works. The pain doesn’t go away, it just transfers over to your family and friends. They now have to bear the weight of the disease. But it sits differently on them, for maybe they didn’t even know you were suffering. It becomes guilt for them for not being able to help you. It becomes hurt because you couldn’t share with them with what you are dealing with. The pain is now permanent rather than temporary. For the grief of losing you never will leave them.
Because you matter. Your life is important. Your struggles and hurt is significant to someone else. What you bring to your family and friends is vital to them. They CANNOT live without you. You. You and all of what you includes. You and depression. You and anxiety. You and your future. This. This right now is not the rest of your life. Unless you make it that way. If you end your life today, then this pain is permanent.
It doesn’t have to be. Just say the word. Help. I need help. I need to not feel this pain anymore. And it is yours. For you are loved. I know it doesn’t feel that way. But you are. By the people in your life right now. And by people you haven’t even met yet. You are loved by your future husband/wife. You are loved by your children and their children. You are loved by the best friend you are going to meet in college. You are loved by God and Jesus.
I want to find you and hold you. I want to hug you so tight you start to believe what I am trying to say. I want to shake away the mental illness away from you. I would carry that burden for you if it just meant that you would wait 5 more minutes. Please hold on to me for 5 more minutes for the pain to pass. Then wait 10 minutes. Then an hour. Then 12 hours. Then a day. Just hold on till tomorrow. Please just hold on. You are in the darkest part of the night. Dawn will break. It always does.
You are not alone. You are not the only one who feels this way. I do too. You are never alone.
Pick up the phone. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. 1.800.273.8255.
Go to http://www.metanoia.org. Read it. All of it.
Hold on.
Lovely in the Dark 