One of my biggest fears is that someone will read an article about a person who killed themselves and all of the people interviewed who are praising them and think, "I want that."

But here's why that isn't worth killing yourself:

1. Sure, you may be talked about on the news for a week, tops. After that, they'll go on to the next topic and forget about you. And you'll still be gone...forever.
I don't know about you but I'd rather be in the news someday for writing a best-selling novel or helping others or being a world-renowned journalist — not for killing myself.

2. You won't be alive to see it. 
Yeah, I admittedly think way too much about my funeral and who will be there and what they'll say. But, the thing is, you won't be alive to see it. Your friends and family and people you hardly know will fill your Facebook wall with comments such as, "You were such a great person! I can't believe you're gone! I miss you so much!" But you won't know about it. Because you'll be dead.

3. You don't know what comes after this life.
You may think your life is bad right now. But you know this life. And if you wait it out, I PROMISE you, it will get better. But none of us knows, for sure, what comes after this. I personally wouldn't want to trade this life, which I know, for the unknown. What if the unknown is worse? That would suck, wouldn't it?


4. If you have pets, they won't know what to do.
Your pets — they won't be going to a news reporter, saying how great you are. But they show you every day that they unconditionally love you. If you kill yourself, they won't know what's going on. They'll be sent to a shelter. And, if it takes a while to find your body, they may even starve to death. The thought of my death killing my two cats or sending them to a shelter, well, that right there is enough to keep me living.

5. And, most importantly, I can guarantee you, your death will ruin at least one person's life.
It's nice to know that people are saying all these nice things about you. But is it really worth it, knowing that each and every one of those people are affected by your death? And not for the better. Your mom. Your dad. Your children. Your best friend. Your significant other. They won't just get over your death. That pain you feel right now, that's the pain they will feel. They will be depressed and cry themselves to sleep for months...even years. And even after that, they'll still think about you everyday and, every year, on the anniversary of your death, they will feel it all over again.

I know that those who lose their lives to suicide aren't in their right minds when they do it. But I hope that, when someone is about to do it, one of these reasons NOT to you kill yourself will sneak into their consciousness and pull them back to reality.

The morale of all this is obvious: Please, don't kill yourself.

It's also this: Why do we wait until someone is gone to say how much they mean to us? Don't give someone the option to think — "I want to die so people will think about how much they love me and how much I mean to them." Instead, tell them those things while they're alive.