STAY JOURNAL
My Promise to STAY
By: CharityC1007
Trigger Warning: Suicide, Depression
At the end of 2019 I was hospitalized for attempted suicide, afterwards I was released and sent home to face the guilt about what I did to my family & to deal with the reality I was mentally ill during the beginning of Covid. I was fighting severe depression while being quarantined watching the world look like it was facing an apocalypse. I tried to fight so hard for months doing everything the doctors said to do but I was losing my battle and I couldn't find it in me to keep fighting anymore so I was planning to succeed the next time.
At the end of June 2020, I was planning things again and I was determined to succeed this time, wanting to wait till after the upcoming holiday weekend so I didn’t ruin my family’s holiday. It’s obvious now that a part of me was holding on begging the universe to give me a sign, to give me hope that one day the pain would end. On July 1st I was mindlessly scrolling through TikTok looking for recommendations for a new Kdrama to watch while I was waiting and I saw a clip of Felix’s killing part from God’s Menu and said to myself “that’s not his real voice!?”, I was intrigued. I went to YouTube to look it up and after a few hours of diving into SKZ content I learned about these 8 Kids that made me genuinely smile for the 1st time in months. For those few hours I wasn’t planning for the first time in months to hurt myself.
Before falling asleep I came across the clip of Chan saying on Vlive “don’t hurt yourself”, the world around me stopped and I started crying because something inside of me broke completely. My husband & son had said this to me countless times but it never affected me like Chan saying it. I fell asleep that night asking if this was the sign of hope I had been praying for and told myself if Stray Kids & their content helped me get through one more day without planning then I wouldn’t hurt myself that day and give it a little more time.
After a few days of making that promise each night I realized a week had gone by and I began to have hope. Whatever broke in me that day was the last piece of darkness I was holding onto and because it was shattered the light was finally able to get through after so long. Chan & the Kids did that for me.They became my light & hope, their lyrics gave a voice to everything in my heart that I didn’t realize I needed to acknowledge.
Then I learned about what fandoms were and I learned that Stray Kids Fandom was called STAY and why. I made a promise that day that I would STAY for them in the hopes that one day I could learn to STAY for other reasons. Over time I realized I was healing because they gave me so much inspiration to find my passion for life again. If these Kids could go through everything they did and not only still be so loving & happy but thrive in life with gratitude then maybe I could too. I started participating in my own life again, I lost 60 pounds, I finished remodeling my house, I was laughing & I was excited again, I started to be a wife & mother again, I started to find peace.
Now almost 2 years later, I still fall asleep every night with the promise in my heart to STAY for Stray Kids but now I also promise to STAY, in every sense of the word, for STAYs. I promise to STAY for my Husband & my son but most importantly over time I finally learned to STAY for myself.
People say Stray Kids come into your life when you need them the most and for me that’s exactly what happened. I never needed a sign from the universe to live & fight more than I did at that time. From the moment I saw that TikTok of Felix to now I firmly believe Stray Kids saved my life, they saved me from my darkest time, they saved me from pulling the trigger, they gave my husband back his wife & my son back his mother but most importantly they gave me hope & inspiration to live and fight for what I love and still do everyday.
The love and gratitude I have for these 8 Kids who have no idea I even exist are not strong enough words to describe how I feel towards them and what they have done for me. So I strive every day to give them just a small piece of what they have given me in the hopes that one day I make a difference in someone’s life the way they did for me.
STAY is more than my fandom name; it’s a promise that saved my life!