Breathe

I find it insulting when people insist to a suicidal person that “they have so much to live for,” and that “they are stronger” than their suicidal impulse. As if the person in question isn’t entirely aware of those things, as if the chemical, neural imbalances or possibly external factors in them that are creating those feelings can easily be “overcome” if only they’re “strong” enough. Does that imply that they reason they’re suicidal in the first place is because they’re not strong? That they’re weak, in fact, for feeling the way that they do? It is not encouraging or helpful to say these things to a suicidal person, in my opinion. It smacks of shaming them; “oh, nothing’s really wrong, you’d be just fine if only you were strong enough. You should get on that.”

Suicidal people who are still suicidal and not dead have already proven their strength, as far as I’m concerned. And even those who commit suicide and “succeed” in the end can’t fairly be discounted as weak - everyone makes mistakes, sometimes deadly ones, and theirs wasn’t even their fault provided it was inspired by a mental illness. I’ve had plenty of people try to bring me back from the brink of a devastating depression by telling me that I’m so much stronger than it, and I can safely say that all I felt in those moments was shame, for not being strong enough to simply not feel that way. I’m not trying to speak for anyone else, but as far as I’m concerned, hearing that hurts more than it helps when you’re that low. So fuck you, I don’t need to hear that I’m stronger than my depression. I knew that already, it doesn’t change how I feel. You can’t sprinkle magic sparkle unicorn words over a chemical imbalance and make it go away. Don’t trivialize, invalidate, what I’m going through like that.