You Will Be Found

This blog entry may be a little longer than my usual blog post. We went to see the musical, Dear Evan Hansen, this last February. I will just say that it was an emotional roller coaster and one that I enjoyed watching. The cast did a very nice job at portraying what it would be like to be a high school student in the day and age of social media. For those who do not know, the musical tells the story of a high school student, Evan Hansen, and his struggle with the idea of suicide. He feels alone and even tries falling out of a tree to end his life. Unfortunately for him, those plans do not come to play. He ends up breaking his arm instead and lies to his mother about the reason he fell. He couldn’t come to face his mother and explain that he was having these feelings of being alone. There was another student at the high school with similar feelings, Conner Murphy, who did end going through with his suicide. Evan was the last one to see Conner before he decided to end his life. Evan’s therapist had him writing himself letters about why each day was going to be a good day. On the day he ran into Conner, his letter was more of a suicide note instead. Conner ended up stealing the letter and was later found on him. His parents took this to be Conner’s suicide note and assumed that Evan and Conner were close friends. I won’t spoil the rest, but it goes on to show that Evan lied about being close to Conner and it made others not feel so alone. He even makes a speech at a memorial for Conner saying that you are not alone and that you will be found. It blows up on social media and spreads across to many people. This was a very emotional musical for me. They truly hit it on the nose. I, personally, had a rough time in middle school and high school and, often times, had similar thoughts to those of Conner and Evan. If it wasn’t for my family and my small group of friends, I may have found myself in a similar situation to Conner. If I can offer one thing to anyone reading this, you are not alone. There are many people out there going through the same thing and know what you are going through. As one of the songs say, “Let that lonely feeling wash away, maybe there’s a reason to believe you’ll be okay.” There is someone out there who cares about you and would be devastated to lose you. Just remember that today is going to be a good day because “today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer that you!” (Dr. Suess)

For those feeling like you are alone, please do not be afraid to call the suicide hotline. There are people there ready to help and listen to what you have to say. https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/