I read this by Abhisake Dutta and it really resonated with me because so few people get this:

And if you’ve ever thought,

“I don’t want to be here anymore,”
please hear this:

That thought is not a verdict.
It’s a signal.

Something in you is asking for care, not erasure.

And the fact that you said it out loud?

That means a part of you still wants help.

And that part matters.

“That doesn’t mean you want to disappear,” she said.
“It means you’re exhausted from enduring.”

And something inside me finally exhaled.

She explained that sometimes the body doesn’t want to die

it just wants the pressure to stop.

The noise.
The effort.
The constant holding-it-together.

“When life becomes survival instead of living,” she said,
“the mind starts fantasizing about escape.”

Not because you’re weak.

But because you’ve been strong for too long.

I wasn’t sad in the way people expect sadness to look.

I was functional.
Productive.
Present.

And completely empty underneath it all.

She said,

“Burnout of the soul doesn’t cry.
It goes quiet.”

No tears.
No breakdown.

Just the feeling of wanting everything to pause.

That’s why rest didn’t help.
Distraction didn’t help.
Motivation didn’t help.

Because what I needed wasn’t a break

it was relief from being in constant self-defense.

“You don’t want life to end,” she said.
“You want this version of life to stop.”

The version where you carry everything alone.

Where asking for help feels dangerous.
Where hope keeps getting punished.

She reminded me that numbness is not a moral failure.

It’s a nervous system that’s done protecting
without being protected back.

And suddenly, I felt less broken.

Healing, she said, doesn’t start with wanting more life.

It starts with wanting less pain.

Less pressure.
Less pretending.
Less carrying what was never yours.

And if you’ve ever thought,

“I don’t want to be here anymore,”
please hear this:

That thought is not a verdict.
It’s a signal.

Something in you is asking for care, not erasure.

And the fact that you said it out loud?

That means a part of you still wants help.

And that part matters.