To my friends that may be in a dark place,
I don't want to start this letter by saying that you are not alone and many people go through what you are going through. Your experience is unique to you and although you are, indeed, not alone in this world, you may be alone in this moment.
Instead I want to share a thought that I have written in my journal and read every time I feel the sweet songs of suicide calling. In one of my darkest nights eight years ago, I scoured the Internet for any reason to stay alive. This comment from a stranger was found on a Quora thread–I have never been able to find this thread or comment again in my web browsing. It is as if it was written just for me in my moment of need (though I know that's not true). And even though I have never been able to find it again, I treasure it in my journal and write the days that I pull out these three pages because they are the only thing I need to hear when I am unsure if life is worth living. I have six dates; six anniversaries that I look back on and can appreciate because I overcame the desperate urge to end my life.
But now I want to share it with you so that maybe you will feel as if it was written for you, too:
"It is the most profound choice you can make in this world; whether to leave it forever or stay and be a part of it until you cross the threshold, however that may come about. It is a powerful, unalterable thing that you are considering, and no one but you, your very self, can make that decision for you. There will be lots of opinions, lots of advice, and lots of tactics thrown in your direction if you bring up these thoughts of ending yourself to others, but if you are wrestling with questions that amount to 'what's the point', that point essentially has to come from you and what you ultimately care about.
Suicide doesn't erase just some of your suffering, it erases everything you know about and interact with in reality. You cease in every identifiable way. If there is anything in this world that holds interest for you, if there is anything you care about or enjoy, be it a sensation, an idea, a person, a grudge, an activity, a color, a vendetta, the shimmer of silence, a mote of sun crossing your ceiling; you have to realize that all of that, all of it, will be gone if the light goes out in your bodily case. Relationships come and go, love originates but it also fades. Meaningful connections to people and their institutions and projects are hard to forge with any reliability. I do not dispute any of this. I do not say that there are no fundamental flaws in the system of life which we were never asked about participating in in the first place. But better times can come as well as bad ones, and this is your one shot at getting something good out of it before it's over; because it's over for all of us sooner or later. Why rush headlong into the unknown when there is no guarantee it's any better? If you're counting on oblivion, you may be disappointed; just because death is an impenetrable barrier doesn't necessarily mean it is the end, and that is worth considering before stepping out to search the great beyond.
What I'm trying to say is, if life is terrible, seek help within its framework before you start planning to seek a path that would cause you to exit that framework altogether. Think of it as time you're not going to miss if you're dead, it's a bonus round. Let someone hear what's going on in your head. Often if we are asking questions like 'why' and 'how' can it be so hard, it is because we are struggling for answers that can only be found here. It shows that we don't want to go. Not just yet."
