Have you ever thought about killing yourself? Most people have probably wondered if anyone would care, or if the world would even be a better place without them. Others see it as the only possible solution—to end their life, rather than disappoint the people around them or deal with the problems they face. Sadly, many nurture this kind of thinking to the point of taking their own lives.

No matter what it might seem at the moment, there are many who love you, even if you don’t know them yet.

As someone who lost a young family member to this kind of thinking, I want to say that suicide is an extraordinarily selfish choice. While it might be "your life" to do with what you want, your life isn’t the only one affected by you living or dying.

Here’s a little real talk for you: At times, I still get angry at my niece for taking herself out of my life. It might seem harsh to speak ill of the dead, but that’s part of the emotions that she left me. Of course, that’s not how I feel most of the time. Most of the time I remember her fondly, interspersed with bouts of tears and sadness. But occasionally, I feel angry. And that’s just part of the package left behind for those who love you.

So what do my feelings have to do with your life? With the range of emotions I’ve felt in the wake of her loss, I guess there’s a few conversations I wish I could have had with my niece before she died. I imagine them sometimes. She might say: “Uncle Dan, I’ve made such a mess of my life. I’ve ruined all the good things I had and I feel ashamed of being a screw-up. I think the world would be better off without me.” I would love to have told her about all the times I screwed up, and the messes I made that I thought I could never recover from. I’d love to tell her that the problems we face today are rarely as bad as they seemed a year from now. And that even when the problems are still there a year from now, you’ve learned better how to cope with them. And of course, I am here for her, 24/7, whenever it gets too hard to go it alone.

If you’re thinking about suicide, please get help. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

Another thing I imagine she would say is: “I’m so hurt by the things other people have done to me. I want to show them how much I cared about them and how much they hurt me!” This is hard. It’s often the result of allowing our happiness to be determined by other people. Another way of saying this is that you’ve given over your power of choice to someone else. Do you want to be happy? Choose to be happy (Deuteronomy 30:19). This doesn’t mean shirking responsibilities, but if there are people that are making you question whether you should go on living or not, get away from them, at least temporarily until you can develop a life gameplan. Proverbs 26 gives excellent advice on what to do when you find yourself in an argument with someone that never seems to end. Verse 20 reads, “Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down” (Proverbs 26:20, New International Version). Sometimes, you just have to walk away from a situation for awhile until things cool down.

Finally, I imagine her saying: "Yes, but I’ve already made big mistakes with big consequences. My life will never be as good as it could have been." This might be true, but things not being as good as they could have been is not the same as things being terrible and life not being worth living. That is to say, even if mistakes we make in the past yield consequences we deal with for the rest of our life, we can still live an abundant and happy life. Christ reminds us that one of His chief goals is for us to have a satisfying and abundant life (John 10:9-10). For me, that might have been another bowl of strawberry ice cream with my niece. For her, it might have been a long walk in the park with the sun in her face. But suicide takes those things away. Not just from you, but from those who love you.

Believe it or not, the hurt you feel is felt by those who love you. And no matter what it might seem at the moment, there are many who love you, even if you don’t know them yet. If you’re thinking about suicide, please get help. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.