Life is Bad When Your Friends Are Dead

Look after your friends. Check in on them. Make sure they’re not carrying a secret burden. This isn’t an act of righteous heroism. This is necessary selfishness. I’ve tweeted as much before. Making sure the mental health of your friends is good for your own sake if nothing else.

When you’re surrounded by your friends and they’re happy, you’ll feel happier as a result. This much is true. You can speak to that yourself anecdotally I’m sure. When your friends are here life is good. On the other hand, your life will be shit if your friends are dead.

Nobody wants their friends to die. Not only will you lose someone in your life that you loved and who brought joy in more ways than they can realise, someone dying by suicide will also impact your own mental health. It will be detrimental to you if one of your pals dies by suicide. Trust me on that.

So the most effective way to offset the chances of that happening is checking in on your friends. It doesn’t have to be every day. But the next time you realise you haven’t talked to someone in ages, don’t leave it go. Send the text. We all feel good when a friend hits us up out of the blue.

This is one of the rare occasions where I’ll argue that you need to be as selfish as possible. Make sure your friends are okay. And if they’re not, at least you’ll be on the road to helping them get better. Make sure you check in. When you do you reduce the chances of losing a friend and that friend may feel some degree of hope if they are struggling. It’s a no-brainer.