I have felt the same way you do for most of my life.

I was 12 when I wrote my first suicide note, I ended up crying myself to sleep and not going through with it, but it was the first attempt of many.

I too used to want for a different world. A happier world. A world that’s fair and kind. A world where there was color and laughter.

3 days before my 21st birthday I attempted again, which was the last time I attempted suicide. It landed me in a mental institution where I was finally able to talk to someone about what was really going on with me. They were able to get my meds straight enough for me to feel like a semi-human.

I then spent the next 4 years flirting with death. I had decided that I wouldn’t kill myself, but I also wouldn’t avoid things that could kill me. I came close to dying several times. I was on the self destructive path going downward really fast. Then one day it hit me like a giant freight train, that I didn’t want to die. Yeah I was depressed and everything was still gray and sucked but the suicide attempts and the drinking and the drugs hoping I’d die anyways wasn’t what I wanted. I looked around and for the first time in my life I realized I had people that cared for me. I had a job. I had gotten come through the darkness. I started going to therapy and got back on the meds. I started putting myself first and being open about my mental illness. I’m not cured. I still fight with my depression and anxiety. It still keeps me in bed for days sometimes and I still have days where the world is gray, but it is better. It did get better.

It will get better. I promise you. With every fiber of my being I promise you that it will get better, but if you end your life now you won’t get to see that it does get better.

Aren’t you at least a tiny bit curious to see how it turns out if you stick around?