I know your life sucks...

but stay in it

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

Today, waiting for my oil change, I walked to Starbucks and was behind a car with a bumper sticker that read, “I know your life sucks, but stay in it.”

I laughed out loud. A nice hearty guffaw.

It resonated with me.

I feel that no truer words could be spoken to those who are in throes of depression.

Some really need to hear that.

I love that the bumper sticker comes with a validation of your present pain, suffering and circumstances.

Because it doesn’t matter how great your life is, how many blessings you have and how much you have to be thankful for—

If you have depression, it’ll still suck to you.

(This is why those trite and flippant comments of “Oh, you just need to have more faith: just trust in God,” and “Look at the sun or the flowers” are so deeply painful and dismissive to those experiencing major depressive disorder. They can’t make it all okay through just taking in beauty, having faith, or expressing gratitude. And while God may provide comfort to those who believe, much like a heart condition or diabetes or cancer, simply praying does not alleviate the situation and immediately resolve the medical condition.)

And yet, still, amidst all of that—

I understand and believe wholeheartedly in the message:

Though all of that is true, despite all of that, I implore you: please, stay in it. (Life)

As someone who lost two family members to active suicide, I know the pain that suicides leaves on the family members and loved ones left behind. I struggle to put it adequately into words.

I also know—from my own experiences in depression and having suicide ideation—the very sharp, keen moments where I wanted to die.

And then, I know the other moments when, sometimes days or weeks, months or even years later—

Where I’m so glad that I didn’t die, to experience a moment that I could not have even imagined I would have again, when in the firm, blinding and choking grasp of depression.

Moments when I was swimming in the clear blue waters off Cozumel Mexico, or sipping a delicious coffee, or simply smiling amongst the green trees and blue skies and bright sunshine, balanced and well, and happy to be alive.

The scary reality is how depression clouds your ability to remember a time when you didn’t feel this way and it restricts your vision to see any other possibility. It’s not just present despair, even though that’s retched.

It’s the way it obscures your vision. That is why people want to die.

That is a living hell.

Regardless of your personal beliefs, when an eternity in hell is depicted, all ablaze with the fires of damnation—

What is the worst is that we know the fire and brimstone supposed lasts forever, for all eternity, which the human mind cannot grasp, the idea of time that does not end.

That is what depression is like, we see no before or after, and that is precisely why it is so dangerous.

It is especially life-threatening for those who don’t have the experience to know that they have weathered these storms before and they won’t always feel this way. Especially younger folks.

That is why we need voices of survivors, those who have been there, and come out on the other side, who can offer perspective.

Even if it is in the voice of a bumper sticker on the back of a Jeep Grand Cherokee, even a glimpse of a word of encouragement, in passing, though gone in a flash in the Walmart parking lot.

I could laugh about this. This time. But it is precisely because I am mentally well, though I know there have been many points in my life, where I would have heeded those words, as a gentle reminder to—in the words of my best friend—

“Keep fucking going.”