Read a letter.

Write a letter.

It is often the hardest battles for us to fight… The struggle to keep breathing. The war to stay alive.

Stupidly enough one of the things that keeps me here is someone spent a good amount of energy not only hating me but trying to destroy me in any way he could.

I promised myself that if anybody was going to take me out it would be me. Not him.

It’s not a promise a 10-year-old kid should make to themselves but it was the only way I think I could survive it. It was a mantra that kept me breathing even though I was pretty fucked up and such a hot emotional and screwed up mess. I walked through childhood confused and hurt and lonely and angry with little to no control over my emotions other than to be driven by fear and to every corner I could find. The adult that came out of my childhood wasn’t one that I would want to be friends with even though I understood how they got there.

But while I did incredible damage to myself with that mantra, it kept me alive because I just wanted to die.

That was the only way I could think of to keep myself going. I promising myself I wouldn’t let him be the one who killed me.

Along the way he no longer was important to me and that mantra lost its purpose. But the longing to just stop and rest forever remained.

I’m not going to apologize for that. And there never will be any fixing it because it is gouged down into my very being and my soul. It doesn’t go away. Sometimes it’s silent but it lingers. And sometimes it whispers and says wouldn’t it just be easier to stop?

And that’s usually what I’m scared to reach out to others and say I need help because it’s hard to stay alive. It’s hard to stay alive when you are so used to the expectation of being murdered, even if it is by your own hand. I’m afraid to reach out because for so many years, being erased was an active danger so it’s impossible to trust that somebody actually would want you to remain. Would want me to remain.

Sometimes taking the next breath is hard. I get that. But what’s harder is when you look around and you see nothing but the darkness around you. Yet there is light outside of you and sometimes it doesn’t matter of letting it find you.

So I wanted to share this website with you all. If you need to read a letter, or five, they are there for you. And if you have it within yourself to write a letter to someone who needs those words, and please do so.

You never know who you’re going to reach. And you never know what comfort you’re going to find.

https://reasonstostay.co.uk/