A Letter to Read at 1 AM When Your Mind is Telling You to Give Up

If you’re reading this, it means you’re awake in the quiet hours, battling a storm no one else can see. Maybe your mind is telling you that you’re too tired to keep going. Maybe it’s whispering that you don’t have it in you, that you should just stop trying.I know these thoughts. I know how convincing they can be in the dark. But I need you to hear me:

Your mind is not speaking the truth right now. It is speaking fear. It is speaking exhaustion. And exhaustion is not the same as failure.

There was a night, years ago, when I felt exactly this way. I was caregiving for Steve, and I was so tired—so stretched thin—that I snapped. I wasn’t the version of myself I wanted to be. I sat on the floor afterward, crying, wondering if I even had it in me to keep going. I thought, Maybe I’m not strong enough. Maybe I was never meant to handle this life.

But here’s what I wish someone had told me in that moment:

That moment was never proof of my weakness.

It was only proof that I was human.

And so are you.

Right now, your mind might be showing you every reason to give up. It might be painting a future that looks too hard, too lonely, too impossible.

But I need you to remember this: Your thoughts are not prophets. Just because your mind says something does not make it true.

If your thoughts are saying, I will never be okay—it’s a lie.

If your thoughts are saying, I don’t have the strength—it’s a lie.

If your thoughts are saying, Nothing will ever change—it’s a lie.

These are not truths. These are symptoms of exhaustion, of old wounds, of a body and mind crying out for rest. 

When the darkness feels like it’s swallowing you, here’s how you anchor back to hope:

Come back to this moment. Not the past, not the future—just right now.

Place your hand on your heart. Feel that steady rhythm. Proof that life is still moving through you, even when it feels impossible.

Speak to yourself like someone you love. If a friend told you they felt like giving up, would you let them believe that? Would you say, Yes, you’re right, you should just stop trying? No. You would hold them. You would remind them that they are more than their hardest moment.

So, right now, be that friend to yourself. Say it out loud, even if you don’t believe it yet:

"I am not this thought. I am not my exhaustion. I will not let fear tell my story. I will not believe what my mind tells me in the dark."

Breathe in something bigger than this moment. The night is temporary. So is this feeling. 

Take a breath in for four counts. Hold it for four. Breathe out for eight.

Again. And again. Until you remember that you are still here.

Right now, the darkness is lying to you. It’s telling you that you’ll never feel light again. That nothing will ever get better. That you don’t have what it takes.

But I promise you: The light is still here. You just can’t see it yet. Morning always comes. Even when you’re sure it won’t. You will wake up tomorrow, and the world will look different than it does right now. Maybe not perfect. Maybe not easy. But different. And in that difference, there will be space for something softer. 

For a new thought, a new possibility, a new breath. For hope. So stay. Not because you have to. 

But because you deserve to see what’s on the other side of this moment. You deserve to see yourself rise. And I promise you-you will.