You Are Loved. Maybe

I spend a lot of time on Instagram. 

It's like my therapy. 

Well, because I follow a lot of therapy accounts.

But I find some stuff is more infuriating than therapeutic. 

Or maybe infuriating is too strong of a word. I mean it's NOT too strong of a word in general. There are tons of things in life that are truly infuriating.  I just mean it's too strong of a word to describe my feelings about certain Instagram posts.

It's probably more accurate to say the posts annoy me.

Should I get to my point?

Okay. 

Yeah.

So what annoys me are the anti-suicide posts that say things like, You are special. You are loved. The world is better with you in it.

First of all, how do know who is reading this post?

What if it's a murderer?

What if it's a child molester?

What if it's someone who is very abusive?

What if the person reading it is the cruel bully who drove someone else to suicide last week?

What if it's a narcissist who really doesn't need any more encouragement?

Second of all. Just as we have financial poverty in this world, we also have love poverty.

 Some people are utterly alone.  They could die, and it would take weeks for anyone to notice. And that might be just because of the smell.

Other people might have people. They might even have relationships. But the relationships might be toxic, and therefore the person FEELS very alone. 

Some people might be merely tolerated rather than loved. Or they might be loved but they're unable to feel the love.

Either way, I'm just not sure how it helps to hear we are loved from someone who doesn't know us.

I'm guessing there are times that loved people are temporarily feeling unloved and the message might help remind them thats someone does love them.  That's good. I guess. But does it make up for all the people who read the message and WISH it applied to them?  Or for the people who feel a complete stranger is trying to deny their reality and/or invalidate their feelings.

What the world needs is less platitudes and more listening...and more honest recognition that sometimes life is very shitty and lonely,