It's a cold October day and you're walking home. The clouds are hovering over you when suddenly, you start to feel raindrops across your cheeks.
Of course.
At this point in your life, you pretty much expect things to not go your way. They never do.
When you walk, it rains. If you have a typed school paper due, your computer crashes. You car doesn't start at the most inconvenient times. Your significant other takes out their frustrations on you. Nothing ever seems to be in your favor.
Well, after your frigid long walk, you're finally home. You shut the door and collapse to your knees. You've put on a brave face all day, but once you enter your comfort zone, the mask is done.
It feels like life is constant battle of balance. Nothing ever aligns how you want it to. Your social life could be awesome, but you dread going in to work. Maybe you're trying to finish your master degree, but you're so overwhelmed that procrastination has become your default mode.
Life carries so much strife that many of us reach this point of apathy.
Why should we live? Why should we care about anything? Shit always hits the fan, so why not beat it to the punch?
Mental illness of any form is extremely powerful. Whether it be depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, OCD, eating issues, and so on, they all lead many victims to a common mindset: "I should kill myself."
Dying seems like a brilliant solution. You won't be in pain anymore. Those around will hardly notice you're gone. You'll finally be free.
Well, I'm here to tell you that's not the case. There is absolutely no scenario where your death is justified.
If you need a reminder as to why, listen up.
1) Someone loves you - your presence will be missed.
You may feel like you don't have a single soul in your life that cares about you. Maybe your family treats you like garbage, you can't seem to sustain a social life, or you hardly feel love for yourself. I need you to think about this though.
If you kill yourself, someone has to be the one to find your body. Imagine that person is your mother, your sibling, or even your dog. They can never forego that image.
Any bad remark they have ever made to you will replay in their minds until the day they die. Your dog won't understand why you didn't wake up. If anything, don't do it for your pet. Their lives revolve around you. They won't know what to do if you're gone.
2) There's so much left to experience (no matter how old you are.)
You'll never see another sunrise or sunset. There's so much music you haven't discovered. Books you haven't read. Movies you'll never see. People you'll never meet. All in all, you would be missing out on a whole lot.
Think about everything you've experienced thus far. You probably didn't expect half of it to happen. That's the beauty of life. Experiences are thrown our way when we least expect it and in time, we appreciate them.
Yeah, maybe you didn't get in to your dream college, but if you did, then you would have never met your best friend through a last-minute volunteer program. Get excited about the fact that the world is our oyster. You never know what could happen.
3) Things may suck now, but if you die, you don't even give them a chance to get better.
Life is completely unpredictable. You don't know what could happen tomorrow. Tomorrow could be the day where everything finally falls in to place.
But wait, you killed yourself today.
You're gone. Your family is in shambles. Your old friends wonder where they went wrong. If you had just made it one more day, there would be no hurt. You would have started getting better. You'd look back on these dark times as a distant memory.
If you just make it through each day at a time, your tomorrow will finally show up. Your solution will arrive. Don't cut your life short because things didn't fall in to place on your time frame. The Universe had a different plan all along.
4) Nothing in your life is worth dying over.
What constitutes death? If your peers treat you terribly? If there's a string of alcoholism in your family? If loving yourself just doesn't seem possible? There is no problem you're given that you can't overcome. It just isn't possible.
We're all incredibly strong human beings. We're given our personal set of issues and we work through them how we choose. Everything can be solved. Maybe it will take time, but everything is temporary. Don't end your life over a problem you were built to combat. You can beat anything. You're a fighter.
5) Think about how awesome it would be to give your life a beautiful ending.
An ending where you grew old with the love of your life. You traveled to all seven continents. You started your own business. You raised a few kids. You moved to your dream city.
Your life ended with a period. You gave all you could to the world and it was your time to go.
If you pull the plug early on, your life ends with an ellipsis.
There's a "to be continued" filed under your name. The story wasn't over and you didn't stick around to finish it. How awful would that be? There was so much left to be said and now we'll never know the true ending.
Every single one of us will pass someday.
We all exist on this planet for our personal stretch of time. Some of us live to be thirty while others live to be a solid one hundred years old.
There's beauty in the breakdown of this mess we call life. Trust me, our lives will end in due time. I beg of you, don't rush your story.
Side note: I am in no way a professional. If you or someone you know is in need of serious help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255. I love you all, I couldn't bear a single one of you hurting yourselves.
