Surviving What Was Never Built for You

Mental Health & JusticeSuicide PreventionCrisis & Community CareSurvival & Resilience
Written By Erica Smith

Suicide Prevention Month, Systems Fatigue & the Radical Act of Staying Alive

🌪 “Reach Out” Isn’t a Solution When the System is the Problem

You’ve probably heard the same message every September: “If you’re struggling, reach out.”
Well, what if you’ve already reached out?
What if you’re tired of leaving voicemails no one returns?
What if the call center puts you on hold or worse — sends help that harms?

The usual messages around suicide prevention aren’t made for everyone. They rarely talk about what happens when the systems that are supposed to care for us—therapy, education, hospitals, crisis teams—are the same ones that have hurt us, ignored us, or weren't designed with our identities in mind.

This post isn’t just about staying alive. It’s about how to live in a world that keeps making survival harder.

🚇 The Routes Are Broken — and Still, You Move

Imagine navigating a subway system where every train is delayed, rerouted, or straight-up shut down.
You're told to “get help” but the access points are broken:

  • The therapist waitlists are 3 months long.

  • The intake process is cold, clinical, and retraumatizing.

  • You’re expected to explain why you deserve care—again.

  • You’re not sure if the therapist in front of you voted for your demise, illegal deportation, loss of rights, or just voted against humanity in general

All while capitalism tells you to show up to work with a smile on your face.

And yet?
You’re still here.
Still waking up.
Still finding detours.
Still trying.

That’s not weakness. That’s resistance. And that deserves to be honored.

🫂 “Support” Has to Mean More Than a Hotline

Let’s be clear: there is nothing wrong with calling a hotline. But it cannot be the only option, especially for folks who have legitimate fears of police intervention, involuntary holds, or being misunderstood because of their race, sexual orientation, gender, disability, or neurodivergence.

Here’s what support might actually look like:

  • Peer support spaces that meet you with lived experience, not checklists

  • Community-based crisis teams that focus on de-escalation and consent

  • DM’ing a friend who gets it more than any algorithm ever could

  • Taking your meds and still having feelings that you need them

  • Choosing to rest even if your to-do list screams otherwise

  • Reclaiming your agency by advocating for a safety plan that is aligned with who you are, not someone else's idea of what safety looks like for you

💡 Alternatives + Resources That Don’t Require Explaining Your Humanity

Here are a few we recommend and respect:

***None of the above should replace an ongoing relationship with a mental health therapist, nor are the specifically endorsed by our practice, but they are available resources.

🧭 If You’re Navigating these realities

You are not broken.
The world we’re surviving was never built with everyone’s safety in mind. That doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re adapting, resisting, and doing the impossible—daily.

Staying alive is a radical act in a world that benefits from your burnout.
Choosing to care for yourself in nontraditional ways? That’s survival.
Choosing to do less when the world demands more? Also survival.
Crying in your car and then texting someone who gets it? Still survival.

You don’t need to be productive to be worthy.
You don’t need to be fixed to be cared for.
You don’t need to have perfect words to ask for help.

💌 Share This With Someone Doing Too Much

Especially if they’re:

  • An advocate who holds space for everyone else

  • A student carrying more than just textbooks

  • A person surviving school, work, family, and/or identity stress

  • Or anyone who’s ever heard “just reach out” and rolled their eyes

📬 Forward this blog. Follow us on Instagram. Tell someone you see them.

We see you.
We believe you.
We’re here.

—
Whole Mentality
You’re not a problem to fix. You’re a person to support.

Erica Smith
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