I’m not really sure when it started, but one day I heard my friend say the words, “I hope you die” when talking about a person she hated. I was kind of confused but shook it off, hoping that I misheard her. Later, an other friend told me that she saw a girl that we do not like at a concert and that she had screamed in her face “I hope you die”. This time I got upset.

I soon found out that this saying was a new little ‘catch phrase’ that my friends often said. Why they think it is cool, funny, or clever to say I will never understand. I’ve attempted to express how awful this new habit of theirs was but they just don't seem to understand why it bothers me so much.

A few weeks ago, a boy from my friend’s high school took his life. The first thing that came to my mind was, "I wonder what was said or done to make him feel as if his life was no longer worth living?" I did not know this kid so I am not at liberty to say what was going through his mind, but from what I heard he was a great kid; happy, funny, and athletic. I can not state whether words caused this person to end his life or if it was a mental illness, but I can tell you one thing... words matter.

I’m really bad at remembering things, I probably can’t tell you what I had for dinner last night, but I can tell you almost every bad thing that has ever been said to me. I can tell you about the time people made me feel so shitty that I wanted to fade into oblivion or about the time a kid in grade school called me ugly. I can tell you almost word for word what a random man on the street called out to me or give you the context of the multiple times people called me a bitch.

With all of that being said, I can tell you that words hurt, that something that takes a second to slip out your mouth will most likely stay in someone’s mind forever. I often replay hurtful/horrible conversations in my head over and over until I want to scream. I sometimes find myself thinking back to an old text that made me lose my sanity for a short period of time.

Every time I hear my friends make a joke about death, I find myself struggling to even fake a smile. Maybe it’s because I just can’t see the humor in the ending of a life. Or maybe it’s because I truly understand the power of words, but every time I hear they say “I hope you die”, I feel my throat almost close up and everything inside of me tightens. I picture that person they are talking to (or about) hearing these words, allowing them to play over and over in their mind. I picture that person crying because of the fact that someone thought it would be funny to make a joke about their life. I picture that person maybe taking the joke as advice, as a reason to end it all.

Although I have not ever considered taking my life, I know that often people are driven to do so because of the piling up of hurtful words. Words have so much more weight than most people realize.

So, sorry guys, I don’t really understand this habit. I know it’s not meant to be as hurtful as it is, I know you’re just joking, but words have a much stronger impact than you know. I know that when you say “I hope you die”, that you are simply blowing off steam, but the person you say it to might not see it that way. Please, just consider the weight of your words, you never know how many times a person will hear them played over and over in their head.