“If I Had Killed Myself” Letters (2008-2012)

So, growing up, I fucked up a million times easily. One of those many fuck-up moments was trying to kill myself… Multiple times. After the first time I tried and then stopped myself, I called one of my closest friends and asked for help.

He told me, “Every year you feel the need to kill yourself, I want you to write a letter at the end of that year of all the things you would have missed out on if you’d succeeded.”

I found the old letters again this year. So over the next few days I’m gonna type them up. If any single teenager who needs encouragement to put off hurting themselves finds comfort in these, then maybe I’ll have done some good. I’m 20 now, and yeah, sometimes life sucks. Sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and cry. But I’m glad I stuck it out.

Because now I can roll over in bed, with tears still in my eyes, and he’ll hold me closer.

And everything just seems like it finally worked out.