Dear Daughter, A Letter to My 9-Year-Old Explaining Suicide

Dear Daughter,

Life is like a movie and you, my love, are the main character in your movie.

How boring would it be to watch a movie where everyone was happy all of the time, nothing sad or scary happened, and the main character just stood there smiling the entire time...Pretty boring, right?

That’s not how movies work, and that’s certainly not how life works. Our lives are filled with all sorts of excitement and happiness, but we wouldn’t know what happy was if we didn’t also experience sadness right along with it.

Life can get hard, like really hard. During these times we often feel like this pain will never end, and that things will never get better. I’ve been there, and if you haven’t ever felt this way before, you will....We all do. Experiencing stress and getting through those difficult times is an important part of the human experience. We can actually even become stronger, wiser, and more compassionate people because of these times and learn some pretty important lessons from them.

The absolute hardest time in my life happened right before the absolute best time in my life. Please know that whatever you’re going through, there’s always something amazing about to happen right around the corner. Rainbows don’t happen without a storm happening first.

Now, I want to explain something to you about our brains because it helps to explain why a lot of people do what they do…

We have two parts of our brain, one is a thinker and the other is a feeler. When things are going well, these two parts of our brain work together well. However, when we get emotional (sad, mad, scared, etc.), we can no longer think clearly because the feeler part takes over. This happens to us every single day, but it happens even more to people who are stuck in the middle of their movies…When things get really hard.

Sometimes, people get so stuck in the feelings part of their brain, that they feel like they’ll never get out of it. This combined with the fact that they can’t think clearly is when people make really bad decisions. THIS is what happens when some people choose to end their lives early. We often ask ourselves "why did they do this, or what were they thinking?" The answer is they weren’t thinking…They were too stuck in the feeler part of their brain.

Remember when we talked about Martin Luther King Jr.? He did some pretty amazing things for our world, didn't he? Well, did you also know that he tried to end his life early as a young boy right after his mom passed away?

He was so sad that he couldn't get out of the feeler part of his brain.

Lucky for us, he got the help he needed and ended up being okay. Just look at the millions of lives he's affected in a positive way, this wouldn't have been possible had he ended his life early. God had big plans for him. He's got big plans for all of this, which is why it's so important to let our movies play out until the end.

I need you to know a couple more things about this…

You NEVER have to go through anything on your own. I believe THIS is why God created families…We get to do this crazy thing called life together! And, there is absolutely nothing too big, too scary, too anything where we can’t figure it out together… Period.

Also, if anyone you know is ever stuck in the feeler part of their brain and they can’t find their way out of it, you NEVER have to go through that alone either. Even if they tell you not to tell anyone, or that they won’t be friends with you anymore if you do tell someone… ALWAYS tell an adult if someone tells you that they might hurt themselves or someone else. No need to decide whether or not they're kidding, or telling the truth, let me (or another adult) know what’s going on and again, we’ll figure this out together as well.

And of course, always be kind to everyone as you never know what they're going through and if they're stuck in the feeler part of THEIR brains...

Always stand up for yourself, and stand up for others...

I love you, and I’m here to support you through the storms and to also enjoy the beauty of the rainbows!

Love always,

Mom