The questions you left behind

“Cuz what if everyone saw?
What if everyone knew?”
You’ve heard “you’re not alone” but you don’t feel the support or peace.

You’ve heard “the sun will rise” but right now you can’t see the end of the darkness.

So fogged by the intense amount of crushing pain, your mind won’t stop as endless questions stack up without answers to clear them….the weight continues.

You don’t see the end where the story gets good again and the carefree happy song plays in the background assuring you that all is now well.

All your “what if” questions and your “why” questions. You ask “how do I make this all go away?” You’ve reached out for help and it partly gets you by but it doesn’t feel like enough.

So to shut out your crushing questions and to shut out the never ending voice, you plan. You justify. You plan because it FEELS like a resolution. It gives you an inauthentic peace because you forgot what real peace feels like. The peace you craved and didn’t believe you could find or get. The numbness fakes peace. So one last time you’ll feel again but only under your control….

Maybe you thought about who you were leaving behind. Maybe you thought about what they would think, do or feel once you were gone. Maybe that’s the only way you felt important again. Maybe in your fog you couldn’t imagine any pain other than the weight of your own.

It may feel like fake wanna be words but you were NOT alone. So many people have felt the way you did. So many people that cared and loved. So many that would have done anything to help you. If you would have said something. If we would have known.

The questions that weighed you didn’t stop…they morphed into new questions that you left for us.

I can answer a few questions.

You were loved. Your smile brought a smile even though your dog always barked at me. Your life had more meaning than you ever thought. You’re thought of. You will be missed.

Dear ones,
You matter so much to more people than you will ever be able to comprehend. There is help. There is a light and the darkness can end EVEN when it feels like there’s no possible way. You will be found again. You are loved.

24 hour suicide hotline 1-800-273-8255

https://twloha.com/find-help/local-resources/

The four

There is a part in all of us that wants and longs to be understood, it just depends on the depth in that moment.
A need and desire to be accepted and supported, it just depends on the depth in that moment.
An ache to be loved, cared about and cared for, it just depends on the depth in that moment.

The depth changes and morphs though the seasons. A child that looks for guidance and craves love. A teenager that feels deeper than ever before, desperately wanting to be known. An adult holding so much on their shoulders, just aching to be supported by someone simply walking alongside them. Knowing they can do it alone, but relieved to know that they don’t have to.

Through our ages and seasons:
Understood
Accepted
Supported
Loved

They are all things that are feelings. They are also things that are choices. They are gifts. They are things we cannot teach through surface disposable words, but are taught through meaningful actions.

Kindness is the postage to deliver all four.

Some people might think that these are things to be earned, so they pick and choose to give to who they feel deserve them.
They miss the small fact that these are all a human need and shouldn’t need to be earned. They should be freely given.

It could be as simple as listening to someone, standing alongside them or a small act to show them love. It doesn’t have to be this huge moment, it can be simply standing in the gap for someone. Making them feel important enough to be cared about.

So as you walk through your day, your week, your year think….what is something small I can do to make someone feel:
Understood
Accepted
Supported
Loved
And do that as often as possible.

“My wife’s the reason anything gets done.
She nudges me towards promise by degrees.
She is a perfect symphony of one, our son is her most beautiful reprise.
We chase the melodies that seem to find us
until they’re finished songs and start to play.
When senseless acts of tragedy remind us
that nothing here is promised, not one day.
This show is proof that history remembers.
We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger.
We rise and fall and light from dying embers.
Remembrances that hope and love live longer.
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.
As sacred as a symphony, Eliza tells her story and fills the world with music love and pride.”
-Lin-Manuel Miranda

You Matter

My heart aches when I think too much about how people are in pain.
We don’t wanna talk about it.
We might laugh when we hear people joke.
We might sweep it aside and just tell someone to “cheer up you just need to choose to be happy”. Thinking it’s casual.

Anxiety. Depression. Panic. Loneliness. Bulling. Self harm. Suicide.
We can laugh about it online because it doesn’t feel real or personal. Or do we laugh and joke because it’s too real. Too personal.

Dear one, I know you’ve heard it before and it seems like it’s not true. Though you’re in this dark place there is a brighter season ahead.

My part of the truth to be told…
When I hug him there are moments when I close my eyes and I thank God. I thank that best friend he had then that I don’t know. For without, I would not know him. I would not get to laugh, to smile or share days with him. What if I never got to hear his laugh? I wouldn’t know this kind hearted, deeply loving and incredible person. My heart breaks at the thought that I almost didn’t get a chance to know him.

Dear one, the darkness may seem unchanging. Pain through other’s actions or even your own thoughts may feel like they are never ending. The loneliness you are feeling may feel crippling.
But.
Don’t go.

What if meeting your best friend is around the corner? What if meeting a forever kind of love is only a few years away? What if you’re meant to save someone? What if you’re meant to save yourself? What if you don’t have to feel alone?
You are not alone.
Please Stay.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1-800-273-8255

“i hope you know you’re not the only one who feels the way you feel. You are not the only one who struggles. You are not the only one with questions. You are not crazy. You deserve to be heard, to be known. You deserve love.
You deserve love.

You deserve a place that feels like home. You deserve some hands to hold. Hands to pull you past the broken moments, hands to catch you when you fall. Eyes to see you. To say you’re there, that you exist, that you change a room, that your presence is significant. Ears to hear you – hear your stories, hear you laugh. Ears to hear your questions and to say they matter.

Your questions matter.
Maybe call a friend today or invite someone to coffee. Tell someone they matter or tell someone you could use a conversation. Write a letter or ask someone how they’re doing. Like a song too much. Feel the drums or get lost in the chorus. It means that you’re alive.
It’s good that you’re alive. Who else could play your part?
i hope you get to a place, wake to a day, where that feels true. You deserve to know it’s true.

To Write Love on Her Arms is a community of people with questions and struggles. It is for broken people and it is led by broken people. Life is heavy and light. Life is both. Beauty and pain, aches and dreams… We are saying that it’s okay to talk about those things. We are saying that we need to. We are choosing to believe that stories deserve better endings. That hope is real, that help is real, that people need other people.

You are not alone today. You matter very much.” By Jamie Tworkowski

https://twloha.com/find-help/local-resources/