1. Things don’t always get better, but they do get easier.

One of the most cliché things people can say to you when they find out that you’re depressed is “It will get better,” but that is not always true. Depression doesn’t go away, it doesn’t get cured, you have it for the rest of your life, but it does get managed. You learn how to live with your depression, how to make it fade into the background so that the bad days will get less frequent with time, and eventually the good days will start to outweigh the bad days.

2. Someone else’s world will be impacted in a significant way if you kill yourself.

Even if you think that you being gone will not impact anyone’s world, everyone’s world will be different without you in it. No one’s world would be the same without you.

3. Time really does heal all wounds.

When you get a cut, at first, it bleeds. Then, it scabs. When the scab heals, a scar forms in its place. Once a wound has healed and a scar has formed, the wound no longer hurts, but sometimes when you look at the scar, you’re reminded of the wound, and how painful it was at the time of the incident. It is okay to look at the scar and remember what happened from time to time, just like it is okay to look back and remember what happened but you have to remember that it is in the past and not in the present.

4. There really are so many wonderful things to live for.

There are so many things worth staying alive for, like the people you could meet, seeing your favorite bands live with your best friends, eating your favorite foods, or doing the things you love. We so often don’t appreciate the beauty of life but there are honestly so many beautiful things to live for and you don’t know what is in your future until you live through it so why not stick around and see what is in store for you.

5. Your struggles do not define you.

You are absolutely not your struggles. You are not your depression. You are not your self-harm. You are not your anxiety. You are not your eating disorder. These struggles, these things that you are going through, they might be a part of you, but they are not who you are. You are so much more, you are a human, you are beautiful, you are worth it, and you are alive. Do not lose track of who you are or what you want because of something you are going through. Do not lose yourself in your struggles and let those absorb you. Let your struggles shape you and become stronger because you overcame them.

6. There is always someone who cares about you.

Despite what you might think there are always people who care, and there is always someone who is willing to help you, you just have to be willing to find them and to accept their help. They might not be someone at your school or someone you see every day, they may live halfway across the country or even the world but, nonetheless, they care about you, they love you, and they want to see you be happy. They want you to laugh and smile and be happy, they want you to get help, and they want you to love yourself.

7. Having someone to confide in and support you is one of the best things in life.

Being able to talk to someone about what you’re going through or how you’re feeling is one of the most important things when you’re struggling with something. Even if they don’t understand it perfectly and can’t give you advice, just being able to talk to someone and express how you’re feeling helps. Sometimes talking to someone else can help you better understand how you’re feeling.

8. Your friends won’t judge you for your struggles, but if they do they’re not really your friends.

Telling someone what you’re going through can often seem like one of the most intimidating things for fear that they’ll judge you, or walk out on you, or just not understand what you’re going through. But even if your friends don’t completely understand what you’re going through, they will love you and support you and try to help you as much as they possibly can. If they walk out of your life after finding out about what you’re going through, they aren’t really your friends.

9. Even good things can come out of bad things.

Whatever you’re going through, no matter how bad, can teach you a good lesson if you learn to view whatever happens to you with a positive outlook.

10. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, you just have to keep pushing until you see it.

Even if you can’t see even a future for yourself, if you keep pushing through what you’re going through, one day you’ll realize that you’re living in the future that you didn’t think you would have. Live your life day by day and take things as they come, worrying about the future only makes things more complicated.

11.You can’t wait for someone else to come and fix you; you have to fix you.

You have to want to get better. You have to be able to realize how you’ve been feeling isn’t healthy, and you don’t want to feel like that anymore. You can’t wait for some knight in shining armor to come and sweep you off your feet and you ride off into the sunset together, leaving all your troubles behind. If you wait for someone to come and fix you and make you feel better, if they leave you, you could fall apart all over again. Being happy and learning to deal with your sadness is your battle and you can’t rely on someone else to fight it for you. You can have people fighting by your side and supporting you, but you have to learn to stand on your own two feet and fight your own battles.

12. There is nothing beautiful about being broken or sad.

There is no beauty in feeling broken or sad. It’s not beautiful to feel so sad that you don’t want to wake up in the morning. There’s nothing beautiful about feeling like there is no oxygen left in your body and crying so hard your eyes begin to burn and you can’t see anything because you’re blinded by your own tears, all at once. There is nothing beautiful about not being able to move off your bed and having tubes stuck down your throat and through your nose because you haven’t been eating enough and your body is beginning to shut down. There is nothing beautiful about being hunched over the toilet with the water running and a finger down your throat, punishing yourself because you think you ate too much. Being broken or sad is awful and scary because you don’t know what you’re capable of doing.

13. You have to choose recovery and then continue to choose recovery every single day.

You don’t just wake up one day, decide you’re going to get better and then all the negative feelings go away. You wake up, decide that you don’t want to feel that way and you live your life making choices that fit the way you want to live, and you have to wake up every day and continue to choose recovery. The urges are still there and you will still have bad days. But choosing recovery means that you will begin to choose healthy coping mechanisms and turn your life around.

14. You can’t rely on anyone else for your happiness.

Your happiness is your happiness and that should not rely on a significant other, a best friend, or any other person. It should be about you and being happy with where you are in your life.

15.The internet really is like a huge support system.

Some of the best support out there is on the internet. Sometimes you can come across a post that can make you realize that you do want to get better, you can make a friend who helps you realize you are not alone, and sometimes you can help someone and by helping them you have also helped yourself. If you feel like the help you need is not found in real life, you can find that same support, if not better, on the internet.

16. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

While this may seem like such a huge cliché to some people, it is completely true. No matter what your problem is, it is temporary, and if you go and get the help and support you need, you will realize that your problem won’t last forever, even if it feels like it at the time.