An Open Letter to any Suicidal Teenagers
If you are still in junior high or high school and contemplating suicide, don’t - I promise you, everything gets better.
However, once everything has gotten better, everything will get worse again.
It will, in fact, get worse than you think things are right now. For starters, your body will start to age. I know you take that for granted, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking of dramatically driving your car off a cliff or hanging yourself. You don’t have the creeks and groans that come with age, the graying hair, the pot belly that no amount of sit-ups will drive away, or even the face in the mirror you don’t recognize because of the lines and hairs growing in places they shouldn’t.
This is what will happen after things get better. If you can just hang on, you can look forward to freedom - freedom from parents namely, which translates into freedom to get laid, do recreational drugs, and stay up as late as you want to.
You’ll know that bit of better has gone away when you suddenly have a job you need to get up for. You may be married, you may even have kids of your own. You’ll almost certainly be in debt. No one tells teenagers about the unavoidable debt just staying alive causes. No one tells you this for the same reason no one tells children Santa Clause doesn’t exist: When you find out, the look on your faces is priceless.
Your debt will likely come from your college loans, or that credit card you think will be so “neat” to have. You’ll have to get a place to stay which will cut into your budget. You’ll probably also get a car, but even if you can pay that off there will be the cost of the title and insurance. And those kids I mentioned? They’re little debt creation machines you’ll be saddled with for a minimum of 18 years. Ask your parents what you cost, and I’m sure it’ll start with a heavy, bleak sigh.
On second thought, don’t ask them - I’m trying to keep you alive, after all. I want you to stay alive if just for a little while longer, so you can enjoy all the music and movies that are created just for you. Once the next generation comes in, and all the music and movies are made for them, you’ll think it sucks. And you will be right, it will suck. It will suck incredibly. And the music you do like won’t come back, except on the “oldies” satellite radio station. Seriously. You can’t imagine it now, but eventually you’ll be hearing DJs saying, “here’s an oldie but a goodie from Lady Gaga - say, what ever happened to her?”
So all of the things that make life great are all around you, and are all for you. Now is definitely NOT the time to kill yourself. It will come eventually, though, and a lot sooner than you’d think.
So just hang on a little longer. I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, a time will come when you REALLY want to kill yourself. The good part about that, at least, is you’ll be able to get out of paying for all that shit those collection agencies keep calling you about.
Did I mention the collection agencies? Well, never mind that - you’ll find out. :)
