Hi friend.
I don’t know you, but I know something about you. I know you’re tired. I know you live with demons, and I know how relentless they are. I know that you spend your days trying to silence them and your nights trying to hide from them. I know how hard you work to act as if all is well with your battered mind.
I know that all of this has left you exhausted, and that you’ve numbed yourself in the hope that their voices will become silent.
I know that right now it doesn’t seem like that moment will ever come.
I know right now you’d rather leave than live.
I know I can’t understand exactly what you’re going through. And it doesn’t really matter what experiences I’ve had or how similar they are to what’s making you feel so hopeless you’d rather die than continue experiencing them. We are individuals, and we are different. But I love you. Right, I know, "I can’t love you because I don’t know you" and "therefore my love is nothing more than words to keep you on the planet".
Don’t resist my love. I’m serious. I love you in the way that humans are capable of loving people they don’t know.
It’s like the thin icing on top of a cake; the love is made up of all these ingredients that don’t cost much—patience and gentleness and hugs—but when spread across the surface they make everything better.
And even though I don’t know you, and even though I have no right at all, I’m asking you to stick around. I’m asking you to stay.
Asking you to hold on another day might not seem fair. You’ve probably been holding on for what feels like a painfully long time already. Chances are, people don’t even realize how strong you’ve been, so you’re not getting any credit for that either. Congratulations, you. I see you. Congratulations for holding on.
I can see your glorious, blindingly beautiful future if you continue to do so.
If you stick around, you will reach a spot that the sadness won’t let you see right now. And that place is filled with possibility. Life may look like it hasn’t in a long time: it may look worth staying for. I want you to give yourself a chance to dance with life, with hope, with tomorrow, to rest in it, to dream within it, because you deserve it.
If you stick around, you’ll travel to amazing places that’ll take your breath away and see sunsets that have yet to be painted in the evening sky. If you stick around, you’ll eat that meal, the one that’ll cause you to make an actual audible noise in public, and you won’t regret it.
If you stick around, you’ll hear that song that’ll change your life and you’ll dance to it like no one’s watching, and then not care if they are.
If you stick around, you’ll find yourself in the embrace of someone who waited their entire lives to embrace you, whose path you’ll beautifully alter with your presence.
If you stick around, you’ll study and learn and grow, and find your calling, and create your place.
And you’ll lay in the grass, feeling gratitude for the sun upon your face and the breeze in your hair.
If you stick around you will outlive your demons.
And yes, there’ll be painful seasons. You’ll mess up and be let down. You’ll hurt, and you’ll wonder how you’ll ever make it through.
But then you’ll remember the pain you walked through to get there.
So, from someone who sees what you may not see from here, the future will be a lot better with you in it.
This is a plea and a promise.
Stay.
Hang on.
You are loved.
Things will get better. They have to. You want to kill yourself, it literally cannot get worse, this is it. It's gonna get better.
No one else may ask you not to kill yourself today. Please don’t let my letter be a missed opportunity. Don’t let the bond we are developing as you read pass us by. I want you. The world, all of us, we want you. You are so needed and important. I love you. Please. Stay.
With warmth,
Your friend
*National Suicide Prevention Lifeline- 1-800-273-8255 *Crisis Text Line- 741741 *Trevor Lifeline - 1-866-488-7386 or text 678678
Some parts taken from letters by Nik Wiles and John Pavlovitz