Real or not real?

I don’t personally know you, I don’t know what you’ve gone through, I don’t know what you’re still going through, but I know that there are people who need you here. You’re still here for a reason, and if you don’t know what that reason is, then your reason is to find your reason. There are people out there who are not only willing to listen, but they’re more than willing to try and help in any way they can.

Those people don’t help because they ‘have to’… They help because they care. Plenty of people who work on hotlines don’t get paid, they volunteer to help people. You might not want to admit that people care about you, because you don’t want to know that people will miss you if you push that blade an inch too deep. If you swallow one too many pills. If you pull the trigger. It might not always be evident who does care, but people do, so even if finding those people is your motivation to stay, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re still here to read this now. You’re still here, to look out the window and you have a chance to see beauty and peace in the world again. 

Your life is still yours, and you can take back control in a healthy way. Depression convinces you that it’s your friend and then beats you into the ground, pins you down and forces you to stay. It takes from you until there is nothing left to take and then it stays purely to see you slowly bleeding out on the floor.

Again, I don’t personally know you, but I know that you have so many reasons to live, even if you don’t think you do. So fight it. Fight the urges to die, to give up, to listen to the voices in your head.

Fight until you reach the end of a rainbow.

Fight until you find someone who you fit perfectly with.

Fight until you finish your shampoo and conditioner at the same time.

Fight until you remember the title of that song you used to listen to.

Fight until you draw the perfect circle.

Fight until you muster up the courage to finally talk to that person you’ve been interested in lately.

Fight until you see a double rainbow.

Fight until you finish that level.

Fight until you put the blade down.

Fight until you put the lighter down.

Fight until you untie the noose.

Fight until you admit your feelings.

Fight until you put the pills down.

Fight until you feel food against your lips again.

Fight.

It doesn’t matter how small the motivation seems. Slow progress is still progress. Depression isn’t something you can just wake up and get rid of. Neither is anxiety, neither is any other mental illness.

But

Please

—

now I’ll know what to avoid.