Dear Unsealers,

Before you decide death is the solution to relieving your depression-move to that new town you always dreamed of living in. Separate yourself from the traumatic memories that were created in your current home. Take your child or your best friend on that road trip you put on your bucket list when you were ten years old. Apply for your passport and plan your trip to that country you always wanted to vacation to. Leave that one sided friendship. Create an exit plan for your toxic relationship.

When I was laying on what I intended to be my deathbed, I replayed all the moments in my head that led me to my decision to end my life. I thought about my friendship with my sweet, beautiful nana. She gave me my first journal, she taught me how to cook, and she introduced me to arts and crafts. She simply talked to me. She was the only one who truly made me feel heard. However, our time together was cut short when she was diagnosed with liver cancer. She passed away a couple months after her diagnosis-two days before my fifteenth birthday.

I thought about the first time I ever cut myself. I was so angry with my mom for always taking the side of her boyfriend and their daughter. I ran upstairs after the argument and just cried. I couldn’t catch my breath, my heart was rapidly racing and I was sweating profusely. I went into my bathroom, grabbed my razor and shaved and shaved and shaved until the top layer of my wrist turned red.

I thought about the violence that was normalized within my family. My mom told me stories about how my father was always in and out of jail for drugs and assault. She told me stories about how my father would beat on her as well. Unfortunately, I got to witness my mom get hit by her boyfriend, who was also my youngest sister’s father. I watched from the crack in my room door as he slapped her and made her cry. However, that wasn’t the last time we saw him. My mom ended up marrying him.

I thought about my father and how his inconsistency in my life, normalized inconsistency in my relationships. I didn’t date a lot of people, but the people I did date, treated my life like a revolving door-coming in and out as they pleased-and I let them.

I thought about my very first abusive relationship. For an entire decade, my ex sexually assaulted me, manipulated me into going back to him when he felt me trying to move on, argued with me from sundown to sunrise and, at times, physically assaulted me from sundown to sunrise. He would hit me in places no one would notice like my arms and thighs. I started to hit him back, but that just made him angrier because he wanted the last hit.

I thought about the people that I dated after him. Instead of healing, I jumped into another situationship that left me heartbroken. I tricked myself into believing that he was good for me just because he wasn’t physically assaulting me. This cycle continued of me dating the same men in different bodies until I met my second abusive ex that ended up being the boiling point to me wanting to end my life.
I thought about how I should have been sent to therapy when my depression first started in middle school. Had I gotten help earlier in life for my trauma, the likelihood of me trying to end my life would have greatly decreased. However, my community and family did not believe in therapy. They had it ingrained in my head that therapy was only for “crazy people.”

I thought about how my family and friends would feel hearing the news, but I just wanted the pain to end.

So here’s a thought- instead of ending your life- end that toxic relationship. Instead of ending your life- end the negative stigma surrounding mental health. Instead of ending your life-remove the people and things in your life that bring you pain or add to your pain. From someone who tried ending there’s-I am glad that I wasn’t successful. I get to try one more time. I get to try one more day. I learned to find joy in removal before removing myself from this life.