“1. push yourself to get up before the rest of the world - start with 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am. go to the nearest hill with a big coat and a scarf and watch the sun rise. 2. push yourself to fall asleep earlier - start with 11pm, then 10pm, then 9pm. wake up in the morning feeling re-energized and comfortable. 3. get into the habit of cooking yourself a beautiful breakfast. fry tomatoes and mushrooms in real butter and garlic, fry an egg, slice up a fresh avocado and squirt way too much lemon on it. sit and eat it and do nothing else. 4. stretch. start by reaching for the sky as hard as you can, then trying to touch your toes. roll your head. stretch your fingers. stretch everything. 5. buy a 1L water bottle. start with pushing yourself to drink the whole thing in a day, then try drinking it twice. 6. buy a beautiful diary and a beautiful black pen. write down everything you do, including dinner dates, appointments, assignments, coffees, what you need to do that day. no detail is too small. 7. strip your bed of your sheets and empty your underwear draw into the washing machine. put a massive scoop of scented fabric softener in there and wash. make your bed in full. 8. organise your room. fold all your clothes (and bag what you don’t want), clean your mirror, your laptop, vacuum the floor. light a beautiful candle. 9. have a luxurious shower with your favourite music playing. wash your hair, scrub your body, brush your teeth. lather your whole body in moisturiser, get familiar with the part between your toes, your inner thighs, the back of your neck. 10. push yourself to go for a walk. take your headphones, go to the beach and walk. smile at strangers walking the other way and be surprised how many smile back. bring your dog and observe the dog’s behaviour. realise you can learn from your dog. 11. message old friends with personal jokes. reminisce. suggest a catch up soon, even if you don’t follow through. push yourself to follow through. 13. think long and hard about what interests you. crime? sex? boarding school? long-forgotten romance etiquette? find a book about it and read it. there is a book about literally everything. 14. become the person you would ideally fall in love with. let cars merge into your lane when driving. pay double for parking tickets and leave a second one in the machine. stick your tongue out at babies. compliment people on their cute clothes. challenge yourself to not ridicule anyone for a whole day. then two. then a week. walk with a straight posture. look people in the eye. ask people about their story. talk to acquaintances so they become friends. 15. lie in the sunshine. daydream about the life you would lead if failure wasn’t a thing. open your eyes. take small steps to make it happen for you.”

“My brother killed himself on the twenty-eighth Thursday of last year and I missed four days of work and my mom wanted to know ‘Why’. My brother he was always a fan of beauty but what he did was not beautiful at all. And last week I got the news that one of my good friends from high school had overdosed (again) except this time she’d gone too far and now she was gone. And I had a hard time falling asleep at night and her mother hugged me tight and thanked me for coming to the service but I did not want to be there at all. This is not beautiful. The girl down the street would’ve turned 21 last year and I can scarcely imagine the wild times she would’ve (should’ve) had. But she is buried six feet deep after falling nearly 300 and she did not leave a note. This is not beautiful. My freshman year of college and my roommate was beautiful and how I wanted to be just like her. But she wore herself down till she was almost invisible and if you blinked you had to go and find her all over again. So now her parents are no longer supporting her college tuition but are paying her hospital bills watching their daughter crumble. This is not beautiful. So y’all can take your narcissistic romanticizing and glamorizing of self harm and eating disorders and committing suicide and shove them as far up your ass as you possibly can. Starvation is not beautiful. Killing yourself is not beautiful. Sadness is not beautiful. This note I am writing is not beautiful. But you you are beautiful and it’s about damn time you start believing it.”

“The second time I overdosed, my body couldn’t handle it, and I threw it all up. I texted my dad saying, “I think I took a little too many pills”. And every time I’ve overdosed, I always downplay it. I’ve always tried to act like it wasn’t a big deal. That having the urge to swallow a whole bottle of pills was something daily that normal people do. My dad hurried home and saw the empty bottle and he shook me to make sure I was awake. I kept mumbling “I threw it up.. I threw it up..” while I was drifting off to sleep. He had to wake me up every 15 minutes to make sure I was okay. Let me tell you now, it is a big deal. The third time I overdosed, I slept through first and second period and passed out in the counselor’s office. I didn’t want to go to the ER. I just wanted to go home. All I wanted to do was sleep. Again, I just said, “I think I took too many pills this morning.” The fifth time I overdosed, my dad found the empty pill box. I hallucinated, I had a fever. I couldn’t move my legs. All I could do was scream, “Don’t take me to the hospital this time. I don’t want to go!” I became friends with a girl who had overdosed she’s one of my best friends now and when I heard she was hospitalized as well, it just makes me realize how real this problem is. A couple months ago, another friend of mine overdosed. Do you realize how fucked up it is, that I’ve done it so many times that I know the exact procedure that she’s going to go through? She messaged me saying, “I took a bunch of pills, but I just realized I didn’t want to die. I don’t know what to do. Help.” And I’m screaming at her over the screen that she should throw it up and call 911 because sometimes when someone you love decides that they hate the world, that’s all you can do. You can’t teleport through the phone. You can’t travel through the internet. You can’t be there to hold them and take them to the hospital. Your love is not charcoal that can absorb all their poison in their life. I know, love that you would have done all you could. Sometimes words aren’t enough. Sometimes love isn’t enough. Sometimes a person needs to try dying to know that that’s not really what they want. There’s nothing you could have done. You’ve done all you could. Just keep loving them. But you see the thing is, I got lucky. I’ve made it back from 5 overdoses without a scratch on me. But that’s not always the case. My favorite teacher’s stepdaughter locked herself in her room and overdosed. To this day, her stepmother still has a scar on her heart. To this day, on the anniversary of her death, her stepmother still stays home from school on the anniversary of her death. Her sister is in a bad mental state, and so is her biological mother. Her family has fallen apart. You overdose because you think you will get a peaceful release from death. It’s not peaceful. It is not like falling asleep. It is convulsions, vomiting, muscle spasms, fevers, and sharp stomach pains. An overdose is not instant. Hollywood has you believing, that an overdose is how a lady should exit the world. As quiet as she came in, Peaceful and unnoticed. You will go out kicking and screaming and wishing you hadn’t taken them.”