Against All Odds, You Are Still Here

I was talking to a girl in one of my therapy groups recently about a time in her life when she had tried to commit suicide.

We were sitting outside, the weather beautiful and serene, a sharp juxtaposition to the dark discussion we were having and she explained to me that she had lined her stomach with Pepto Bismol, and took a whole bunch of pills in an attempt to end it all.

She then blacked out and woke up in the hospital with doctors and nurses around her, pumping her stomach and trying to put a tube in her so she could release fluids.

Listening to her, as the breeze hit both of us lightly, all I could think of to myself, is that she survived for a reason.

That in spite of what she was feeling during that time in her life, and in spite of the fact that she was close to death’s door, she is still here because the work in her life is far from over.

For myself, I have been suicidal many times. For anyone who knows depression, it can come and go and sometimes when it comes back, it can come back with a vengeance. It’s an illness that you have to manage and for most people who know it well, it can be very exhausting.

It can look at if it is such a huge part of your life that you will never escape it, and sometimes, many people want a way out.

But not only with depression, a lot of us go through many things in life that affect us, horrible things that we wouldn’t wish on anyone else, and we want a way out of that as well.

We want a way out of poverty, constant financial struggles, low-self esteem (which I deem as big as an issue as depression), self-harm, eating disorders, domestic abuse, bullying (whether it be at school, work or online) or even just feeling like you are just living, but don’t have any sort of purpose.

But you are here for a reason, even against all the odds that have been thrown your way.

I’m not just looking for a reason to make your situation sound better and to be cliche, but I am telling you that you do have some sort of mission to fulfill while you are on this earth and that is why you are here.

Sometimes, it just takes immense pain to talk to us and guide us towards that mission. Maybe you are here to write so you can reach out to others, speak perhaps, be a voice for something bigger than yourself, or maybe you are simply here to go through everything you have endured just so you can prove to others that no matter what you have gone through in life, you can come out on the other side and make it. 

Because I think it can be said that at some point in all of our lives, we question our existence and whether or not us even being here matters. But take a look at how many times you have wanted out, but you are still here.

You do matter and you do have a mission and a purpose to fulfill while you are here, it is just up to you to find it that purpose.

Don’t think for a moment that you don’t matter or that your existence is by mere chance. We are all on borrowed time and believe me when I tell you the creator could have it that you weren’t here, but you are.

That’s not a coincidence.

Because against all odds, you are still here.