Dear Reader,
Hannah’s letter includes experiences of suicidal ideation. We advise those who may be triggered by this topic to exercise caution when reading this letter.
Sincerely, the IfYou’reReadingThis Team
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If you’re reading this, then you may be with me, down here in the dark. We’re dancing around the room, aware of each other but never quite touching, and even though our feet ache in our shoes, we cannot sit down. We cannot stop.
I will turn 24 this month, which means that for the first time, I will have lived more years depressed than I have not. A legacy of empty, soulless nights; ice clinking against my chin as I drain another glass of whiskey. Not-so-long faded scars on the inside of my left forearm. Failures and disappointments and another town left behind.
I love solving puzzles: crosswords and sudoku and chess and the mystery novels I write. I wish I knew what the answer was to the puzzle that is my brain, but I do not. There is no more hopeless a feeling than this: doing everything right and still getting it all wrong.
I am trying. My will is a physical thing: a weight on my spine and behind my eyes and in the clench of my jaw that wants to break so badly it’s chipping away pieces of me in its efforts. And I let it, because giving up these things is better than giving up everything. I lose nights with my friends. I lose days and days of my finite number. I lose more than I can ever hope to win.
But: I leave the whiskey on the shelf at the store. I leave the thumbtacks in the wall. I greet my psychiatrist with a smile every month and take the medication she prescribes even though it sticks in my throat. I thank my friends and my family for saving me, over and over—even if I hate them for it, sometimes.
I sleep. I pray I don’t wake up. I always do. I am forced, against my will, to try again.
I sleep. I wake up. I try again.
I try again. You try again. We try again.
It is all we can do. And in the dark, it’s a light under the door that keeps us spinning a bit more.
Hannah M. (she/they), Washington State University Graduate Student ‘24
