“And I won’t give up if you don’t give up”
– Train, from the song, “Calling All Angels”
One of the struggles that is a part of living with mental illness is that when things get tough, I sometimes feel like giving up. Living with depression is tough. Depression is always telling me negatives. Sometimes it whispers. Other times, it screams at me. It does not matter if is whispering or screaming. Either way, it hurts. Often, I have wanted to give up. Actually, feeling like giving up probably happens more than I like to admit.
When I first heard the lyrics of the song “Calling All Angels” by Train, I was struck by the line “And I won’t give up if you don’t give up.” Music often speaks to me. I am a writer, and I am always thinking about words. When I hear certain lyrics or read something in a poem or book, I often find myself connecting to a piece of it. So, when I was first struck by this line, I tucked it away. However, every time I heard this song, (it is in one of my playlists) I was drawn to the line over and over again. It repeats in the song. So, it is easy to get hooked on the words. “And I won’t give up if you don’t give.”
Why am I talking about this lyric? What does it have to do with depression or mental illness? The guys in Train probably were not thinking about mental health when they wrote it. So, why am I finding a connection? Simple. Not giving up is a sign of strength that so many of us who struggle with depression or other mental illness, possess. We are still alive. We are fighting our illnesses. We are choosing to live when the voice of depression often wants us to give up on life.
Not giving up is a sign of strength. We may not always recognize it, but it requires strength to not give up. Even though, I did not recognize it in the moment, each time I walked away from suicidal thoughts, I was showing strength. Before I go on, I want to stress that dying by suicide is not a sign of weakness. It is symptom of an illness. Living with mental illness is not easy and sometimes it becomes too much. So, just because it takes strength to fight suicidal thoughts, it does not mean that a person who dies by suicide was weak. Believe me it takes strength to live each day with mental illness.
Back to the lyric. “And I won’t give up if you don’t give up.” This lyric has me thinking of two ideas. First, I think as a person with mental illness, I say this line in some way or another to myself. I tell my inner self, the part of me that holds all the pain, all the negativity, all the hopelessness that depression pushes on me, not to give up. Together, this inner part of me and the part of me that the outside world sees, fight to not give up. We choose to live even though depression can be difficult. We choose to live even when depression is turning our world dark and tells us to give up.
Even when I am in a downward spiral and feel the darkness all around me, deep down I know that I do not want to give up. In a recent post, Depression Told Me to Give Up - Why I Chose to Stay Alive, I shared lyrics from Melissa Etheridge about choosing to survive and loving being alive. I think sometimes depression causes us to struggle. It becomes difficult to see that we want to live, that we want to survive. In those moments it is important to have people who won’t give up on you. That is the second idea this lyric brings up for me. Whether they are friends, loved ones, or mental health providers, It is important that we have people who won’t give up on us. I feel that commitment to not give up on me from all three of those categories of people. I am lucky. That luck is not lost on me. I am grateful for many people. I know I would not be here if it were for some of these people.
I think as Mental Health Awareness Month draws to a close, it is important to stress that we need each other. We need people who won’t give up on us. Living with mental illness can be lonely and painful. That loneliness and pain can lead us to thinking that giving up is our only option. It is not, but it is hard to see that when depression has us cornered in a dark place. If we have people who won’t give up on us, we can walk back from suicidal thoughts. I promise you this is true. I am alive today because there have been people (they know who they are) who have not given up on me.
If you have a loved one or friend living with mental illness, know that you can make a difference in their lives by being by their side, by letting them know that you won’t give up on them. If you are a mental health provider, know that being there for your patients allows them to live with their illness and not give up. I think that is one of the key takeaways of Mental Health Awareness Month. We need to be there for each other. Living with mental illness is tough, but if we if we are there for each other, if we don’t give up on each other, we can make a difference.
I love that in the song “Calling All Angels”, this line “And I won’t give up if you don’t give up” repeats so many times. It is as if it is echoing to ensure that we hear that message. I also love the title of the song, “Calling All Angels”. The people who don’t give up on those of us with mental illness, are truly angels.
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