Art/Walk "Instead of killing myself" poem

“Wait until a year from now

When you say,

“Holy shit, I can’t believe I was going to kill myself before I etcetera’d…

Before I went skinny dipping in Tennessee,

Made my own IPA,

Tried out for a game show,

Rode a camel drunk,

Learned to waltz with clumsy old people,

Photographed electric jellyfish,

Built a sailboat from trash,

Taught someone how to read,

Ect. Ect. Etc.”

The red washing down the bathtub

Can’t change the color of the sea at all.”

 

This poem helps me a lot when it comes to myself. It helps remind me that if I end my life, if I let things get to me so bad to where I am at the point when getting out of a bed is a pure struggle, that no matter what, the world doesn’t stop spinning. If you end your life, tomorrow will still come, people will still go to work and school, everyone in the world will wake up and get ready to start their day while you’re laying six feet under because you thought that this would make your problems stop and make everyone pay for how awful they were, well, yeah you’re problems are gone, cause you’re gone, and yeah people might feel bad for how bad they treated you, but most of the time their indenial and don’t even want to think they played a part in someone ending their life and usually, continue to be as shitty to everyone else just as they were to you. So with all of that cold hearted, but true, statements being said, why not just stay on earth, know that tomorrow will be a new day and better day, and if you hang in there, it will get better. I know its hard, and easier said then done, but I promise it is all worth it. I know by the things I write and say, most probably think “Wow Katie, you talk about it getting better but you seem just as bad now as you were then.” But I can honestly say I have come a long way since then with depression, I am not as hopeless about the future as I once was, I realized that everything gets better and anything worth having doesn’t come easy, and happiness is worth having, so I will continue to stay on this earth and strive for that every single day, because I now know because of this poem that ending my life wouldn’t fix anything, as it wouldn’t if anyone else did.

So, as a survivor of suicidal thoughts for four years, I can tell you it gets better. I know you may be thinking “You are a survivor of suicidal thoughts? That doesn’t even make sense.” Well if you have depression and suicidal thoughts, you know how hard it is, but imagine how hard it is, and everyday for four years of your life. It’s the thoughts that drive people to ending it, and having those thoughts for four years and still being here, and better than I once was, hell yeah, I am a survivor.

To whoever may feel like this, it gets better. To whoever may have felt this, let people know it gets better.