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I know there are a lot of iconic “don’t kill yourself” posts out there. They helped me a lot. The only thing is that I never felt I could relate. The post would always mention friends and significant others and the like, and because I felt so utterly alone, it almost made me feel worse. So, here’s my don’t kill yourself post.

There’s a girl who walks the hall every morning going to her class. She always passes your locker, noticing your funky hair colour or a cute outfit. She never says hi, but she notices you, she sees you. She’s going to miss you.

The boy who sits in front of you in class. He’s popular or an athlete or something, so he doesn’t mingle with you. But every time the teacher says “take one and pass it down,” he turns around and hands you a stack of papers. If you’re gone, don’t tell me he won’t miss that.

There’s your teacher. They don’t seem to care, right? They don’t ask you how you are or check up with you. They just teach and mark your assignments. If you kill yourself, they’ll look at your name on the attendance sheet or look back on assignments they didn’t get the chance to hand back. They’re going to feel so guilty for missing the signs.

The cashier at your favourite convenience store knows you come in every day after school to get a chocolate bar. One day, you stop coming. It’s weeks before he hears the news, you’re dead. He’ll restock those chocolate bars that you loved, and he’ll always think of you. Always. He didn’t know your name, he never started a conversation with you, but he knew you would still come in and buy a chocolate bar. Now, you can’t anymore.

An old man sits at the bus stop with you every morning. He asks you for the time or how your school is going. He’s always there, every morning. He’s always sitting there when you walk up. When you stop coming, he’ll have to check his watch for the time. He only asked you because his wife is dead and his kids aren’t around, and he wanted to talk to someone. You were his saviour, even if it was just for a couple of minutes. He never got to thank you, and he’ll sit alone at the bus stop until he dies, too.

Maybe you have a job. Maybe you have an awful boss or uncaring coworkers. When they get the news, you think they’re not going to go over every interaction with you and wonder where they went wrong? Your boss won’t ever be able to get mad at another employee again because they're stricken with the guilt that they caused all this. When the new employee replaces you, they’ll wonder why everyone is so quiet. It’s because they miss you.

I often wonder how it got this bad. I always hear the saying: “the only way out is through,” but our society has somehow crafted the idea that we can create our own outs by cutting our life short.

I remember my tears, and I remember myself counting out the pills from my bottle. I looked at all the brightly coloured anti-depressants and wondered if they coloured them that way to bring light into our otherwise depressed lives. I remember how I’d take three little pills every morning and see the contrast between the bright blue and my tongue. The pills that were supposed to help me get through my depression were now going to help me end it.

I counted out all the pills and took a sharpie, writing the amount on my forearm, just in case someone found me and called 911. I guess there was a part of me that thought that suicide was a cry for help, and not a decision that could be so permanent.

I cried and cried my eyes out, my bedding soaked by my salty tears.

Then, I put my pills back in their bottle and wiped my face with my sleeve. I am alive. I am doing the best I can. We are all doing the best we can. We should be grateful we are alive and we should rejoice that we kept going; that we are strong enough to keep going.

Whatever you are going through, trust me when I say it’s not permanent. This situation feels like hell, and it is hell, but it isn’t forever.

For if I let them take me, I will drown in their words.

They are stuck in my brain, inside of my head, and I must get them out.

I have to get them out.