I just watched 13 reasons why

This is hard for me to write…

Suicide has affected nearly every person in this world and yet most of us still don’t talk about it. There isn’t enough awareness. We don’t speak up. When people tell us how we are, we say good even when we’re not. I know that I do it. People don’t realise that not everyone is ok and that’s ok. These people don’t need to be accused of attention seeking and they don’t need to be labelled.

I have spoken in front of hundreds of people who have lost someone to suicide for the last 3 years. There are children there with giant stickers on them that has their Mums name or their Dads name written on it and that breaks my heart. Everything about this does.

When people call it a selfish act, I remind them that it is our lives and our bodies. It is the one thing in this life that we can be selfish over. They say “think about your family” when these people thought about their families so much. The fact that it still wasn’t enough to save them shows just how much they were hurting.

We have all said hurtful things to people. I look back at things I have said in the past and I am mortified by it. I still sometimes say things that I shouldn’t. I’m still learning. We need to keep learning and relearning. We have to stop being silent about this. We teach mathematical sums that we never use. We elect people based upon how it affects the ecomony and yet we have nothing in place to teach us about our emotions or how we can make this world happier rather than wealthier.

It is hard to speak up. It’s hard to be open about these things but the more it is discussed, the more we can make a difference for the better. I can tell you right now that I am crying writing this and that is ok. Everything we are feeling is ok. So if you are sad right now, you are not alone. You can talk to me and there are other people who are there for you too. And if you’re not sad and don’t fully understand it, that’s ok, you can talk to me as well. I will explain it in every possible way until hopefully you are able to be there for someone who is struggling.

There are always reasons why people want to commit suicide and sometimes these feelings don’t leave them no matter what is said or done. In these cases, we can’t always change their reasons as to why, but we can create reasons as to why not. We can create awareness and we can make a difference.