Suicide, it’s a selfish thing. Suicide is selfish, it’s something that often happens when a person feels hopeless and helpless. I remember someone who told me that. It was actually after I just had been released from inpatient for a suicide attempt. Those two words always stuck with me: hopeless and helpless. What on Earth could possibly have been so bad that I felt so hopeless, and then why didn’t I see the people in my life who would have gladly given up everything to help lift me up. The answer? There isn’t one. My depression clouded my judgement so much that I wasn’t able to see the people around me who wanted to help. It’s a hard thing to understand. That’s why I am strongly against guilt tripping people who are suicidal. It doesn’t help at all, in fact it often hurts. Still it’s important to remember the people left behind. There’s two sides to the suicide coin. There is the person who attempts and the people who are left behind. I can personally tell you that the people left behind are forever changed. There was a girl in my community who committed suicide, her name doesn’t matter. Even though I didn’t know her, I knew many of her best friends. When I heard this wonderful girl killed herself, I literally cried for an hour. Looking at the people around her made me want to make a change in the world. That was a moment that inspired me.

Suicide is a hard thing to talk about, and I personally have a ton to say. As a survivor of not one, two, even three attempts, (somewhere in the neighborhood of 17), I always will tell everyone and anyone out there that there IS help to be had. You are not alone, you are not helpless, and I will not rest until this IS NOT the end of your story.

My name is Michael, and that’s a small piece of a large story that has made me who I am. I’m always here to talk for anyone in need. Anyone.

Michael

livelifebyliving.tumblr.com

livelifebyliving:

My ultimate goal in maintaining this blog isn’t about followers, it’s about getting the message out that people are NOT alone in fighting depression and self injury (or really whatever battle in their life that they are fighting). To continue to get this message out to as many people as possible, would everyone just consider a quick promo? I don’t care if you have 2 followers or 200,000 followers. Even if my blog gets in front of a single person and that person is helped, we all have accomplished our goal. If you tag it ‘livelifebyliving’ I’ll make a page with links on it for you. This isn’t about followers, its about helping the most people possible.

livelifebyliving.tumblr.com

livelifebyliving:

My ultimate goal in maintaining this blog isn’t about followers, it’s about getting the message out that people are NOT alone in fighting depression and self injury (or really whatever battle in their life that they are fighting). To continue to get this message out to as many people as possible, would everyone just consider a quick promo? I don’t care if you have 2 followers or 200,000 followers. Even if my blog gets in front of a single person and that person is helped, we all have accomplished our goal. If you tag it ‘livelifebyliving’ I’ll make a page with links on it for you. This isn’t about followers, its about helping the most people possible.

livelifebyliving.tumblr.com

livelifebyliving:

My ultimate goal in maintaining this blog isn’t about followers, it’s about getting the message out that people are NOT alone in fighting depression and self injury (or really whatever battle in their life that they are fighting). To continue to get this message out to as many people as possible, would everyone just consider a quick promo? I don’t care if you have 2 followers or 200,000 followers. Even if my blog gets in front of a single person and that person is helped, we all have accomplished our goal. If you tag it ‘livelifebyliving’ I’ll make a page with links on it for you. This isn’t about followers, its about helping the most people possible.

livelifebyliving.tumblr.com

My ultimate goal in maintaining this blog isn’t about followers, it’s about getting the message out that people are NOT alone in fighting depression and self injury (or really whatever battle in their life that they are fighting). To continue to get this message out to as many people as possible, would everyone just consider a quick promo? I don’t care if you have 2 followers or 200,000 followers. Even if my blog gets in front of a single person and that person is helped, we all have accomplished our goal. If you tag it ‘livelifebyliving’ I’ll make a page with links on it for you. This isn’t about followers, its about helping the most people possible.

livelifebyliving.tumblr.com

Reposting this from months ago, it needs to be seen.

Whoever you are, whoever you may be,

I won’t sit here on the other side of this page and tell you that ‘this is bad’ or ‘you can’t do this’. What I say doesn’t matter. The choice is yours. If you want to injure yourself that badly, there is nothing in this world that I can do to stop you.  There simply aren’t the words.

Before you cut, know something. Once you start, you won’t want to stop. Most people will look down upon you. You will feel ashamed. You will be stuck. Even if it’s just once, you will be hooked. It doesn’t matter how resolved you are to jut go once. Once you make the decision to self injure once, you will do it again. The once will turn to twice, the twice to three times, and so on. You will continue this habit whenever you feel anxious, angry, afraid, sad, or even when you aren’t feeling anything at all. 

This will continue until your entire life has become cutting. When you constantly wear long sleeves, or long pants. When you’re always afraid of someone finding out your secret. There’s always help, but once you start, it becomes much harder to listen to anybody (who are just trying to help). You will see the help as attacks on you. You will get defensive. 

Think about what this would do to your family. Imagine if they found out. Well, you may want to start finding excuses. If you start, someone will find out, and believe me, they will question it. It doesn’t matter how much you try to hide it, they will find out, and even if you give them an excuse for what happened: they will figure it out. 

I don’t know you; I don’t know your situation, all I know it that the life I once lived was not one I enjoyed. If you’re going to do this, be ready. If this is the life you want to live, by all means: it is your life. As someone once said: “As long as you’re happy”.

-Michael

If you need to talk, leave me a message: livelifebyliving.tumblr.com

‘Letter to a Self Injurer’ by Michael Garrett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

There’s that familiar feelings that creeps on all of us. 

We could be with friends, or being with the ones we love. having a great time. Smiling, laughing, enjoying ourselves for a short period of time. But the happiness doesn’t last, does it? 

The feeling that slowly but surely crosses your mind. You try to let it pass and think about something else, but no. It doesn’t go away—Does it? It sticks with you until it takes over your mind. All the feelings you wish would just go away. The feeling of sadness, pain, and hopelessness. Sometimes, there’s nothing to be sad about, and sometimes there is. But you feel trapped, don’t you? You feel like there is absolutely no way out. It’s like being in the largest darkest tunnel and not finding a way out. No light, just pure darkness, with no way out. It’s like falling into a trap. No control. You can feel it all over your body too, can’t you? Everything starts to feel numb. You feel all alone too, don’t you? It really sucks. Trying to be happy, faking smiles, trying to get yourself through the day. Feel like your losing control of yourself? You can’t calm yourself down cant you? THE FEELING JUST DOESN’T GO AWAY. All of these racing thoughts and there’s only one thing you want to do, you want it to all stop and you feel all the adrenaline start up and everything is rushed and then it goes black. Everything is gone. ”So you want to kill yourself? Because no one cares about you. Your family hates you. Right? No. Your parents walking in your room in the morning to only find a dead body. They’ll try their hardest to not think negative, and to just think that you’re fooling around. Then they’ll start shaking you. Why aren’t you breathing? They’ll be broken. Tears. Many tears. More tears than you ever shed. Was it them? Were they the reason you did this? More tears. Pain. Every day. Every night. Every single second of every day. Guilt. More guilt. What about your best friends? They’re not going to care. Right? No. What’s the first thing that will go through their mind when your principal comes in and tells the class that you’re not alive. While your best friend sits there in tears. That girl that you’d smile at but never talk to? She’s now crying. The boy who used to kick you under the table just to annoy you? He’ll be shocked. He’ll be devastated. He’ll blame himself. What about your teacher? Thoughts crossing her mind. She’ll question if you did it because she didn’t make school comfortable enough for you. Pain. Devastation. All in one. Who organizes your funeral? Who has to go through your stuff? Clothes? Notes? Those few older girls who used to give you daggers at school? They’ll feel regret. They’ll blame themselves. See, if you killed yourself today, you’ll never know what might of happened tomorrow. You’ll never know because you’re dead. Plain dead. Not breathing. Not alive. Just dead. Your family hates themselves for it. Your best friend then falls into depression. Tears. Tears. More tears than a river. All because you killed yourself because you thought noone would care. Right? You are loved. By many. Someone right now is thinking of you. And right now, I’m thinking about anyone who has thought or is considering suicide. You are beautiful. No matter if you’re black, white, homo-sexual, tall, short, overweight or anorexic. You are beautiful. You want to kill yourself? Think about it first. There’s no coming back. And I promise, if you do it, you are not only hurting yourself, you are hurting many. You are creating more tears than you led yourself to. You are making everyone miserable and making them all feel guilt and pain. Never will they feel whole like they used to when they had you. You are beautiful. And you are never ever alone.”

I just want to say, anyone out there that sometimes feels the way I do, before you take a bottle of pills, pick up a blade, burn yourself, or do any sort of self harm to try to end your life, think about this; It’s not helping anyone. It will bring more pain to people then you could ever imagine. Just remember, you. are.  loved. and there are people to help you get through whatever you’re going through. 

-http://h-e-a-d-l-o-ww.tumblr.com/

This was a submission from a friend of mine, who’s really more of a sister to me. She has captured the words I’ve wanted to say for so long. Thank you Erin.

-wilderthanyoumightthink.tumblr.com

Well said.

Whoever you are, whoever you may be,

I won’t sit here on the other side of this page and tell you that ‘this is bad’ or ‘you can’t do this’. What I say doesn’t matter. The choice is yours. If you want to injure yourself that badly, there is nothing in this world that I can do to stop you.  There simply aren’t the words.

Before you cut, know something. Once you start, you won’t want to stop. Most people will look down upon you. You will feel ashamed. You will be stuck. Even if it’s just once, you will be hooked. It doesn’t matter how resolved you are to jut go once. Once you make the decision to self injure once, you will do it again. The once will turn to twice, the twice to three times, and so on. You will continue this habit whenever you feel anxious, angry, afraid, sad, or even when you aren’t feeling anything at all. 

This will continue until your entire life has become cutting. When you constantly wear long sleeves, or long pants. When you’re always afraid of someone finding out your secret. There’s always help, but once you start, it becomes much harder to listen to anybody (who are just trying to help). You will see the help as attacks on you. You will get defensive. 

Think about what this would do to your family. Imagine if they found out. Well, you may want to start finding excuses. If you start, someone will find out, and believe me, they will question it. It doesn’t matter how much you try to hide it, they will find out, and even if you give them an excuse for what happened: they will figure it out. 

I don’t know you; I don’t know your situation, all I know it that the life I once lived was not one I enjoyed. If you’re going to do this, be ready. If this is the life you want to live, by all means: it is your life. As someone once said: “As long as you’re happy”.

-Michael

If you need to talk, leave me a message: livelifebyliving.tumblr.com

‘Letter to a Self Injurer’ by Michael Garrett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.