A way a young version of myself found to not give up on getting better.
(TW: Suicidal Ideation, heavily alluded to)
Evil is Eternal.
There is no escape from pain and death. For as long as there has been life, there has been suffering. Large and terrible, yes, beyond what any one person can truly understand, but hurt rings close. It rings loud and indelicately and terribly just below your skin and it never ever stops.
Pain in the body and the mind and the heart and the soul and snaking through your veins and in the marrow of your bones and and and and. It is everywhere, and maybe now it rests quiet if you're lucky, but it is always somewhere.
>Now tell me something I don't know.
If you're reading this, then, presumably, you are alive. You have known this for most of your life. Nearly every child the moment they are born cries. When an animal is born, a new pain is born alongside it.
I'm not here to tell you to see the bright side of things because there is happiness as well. You have heard that from a hundred people in a hundred-thousand words. Yin and Yang. Because if your pain has overtaken you, your hope may be the faintest trick of the light. You may believe it is dead and gone and buried. You may not believe there is any light in your dark.
I'm here to tell you that if your hope is dead and gone, you can make another. A belief is not some grand thing- it is simply a story you tell yourself until it's true. (Which is why you shouldn't self-deprecate, but that's a different conversation.)
>My Pain is Truth. Hope is not distinguished from Denial. Do you want me to lie to myself?
It doesn't have to be. Hope is as shifty and clever a beast as pain, but they are not opposites. If you can't believe it, search not for hope in miracles- one day, everything will be better- search for it in tomorrow. Maybe i'll find something to be happy about tomorrow. or even, Maybe i'll feel a little less bad tomorrow. Reach for tomorrow by reaching farther. I want to see that movie/show, There's something I want to do before I die. That will be there no matter how much you're hurting. It doesn't need to be anything grand. Keep living because you don't want to leave your shampoo half-empty.
Also, yeah, kinda, I do. If the light at the end of your tunnel is a train and not an exit, well, wouldn't it be nicer to go out thinking you're going to be free?
>What's the point? I'm never going to be as happy as a normal person. Even if I keep living, tomorrow will be the same (or worse).
Maybe not, but you will be happy. Maybe not often. Maybe not all the time. Maybe not near as often as you like. But if you survive today, you might be a little happy tomorrow, or someday. If it feels like you can't handle a second more... Then handle half a second more, and you're halfway there, so, fuck it, might as well. Survive today. That's all you have to do. Maybe then, if you do that, you'll get the chance to try and survive tomorrow, too. There's always going to be at least one happy moment in your future left. You can't experience that if you're dead.