Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it. 

 (Sherlock meta by ablack-reblogs)

Taking your own life. Interesting expression, taking it from who? Once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it. 

As a person with depression who is constantly grappling my worth in the world - whether suicide would make the lives of those around me easier - this was such an important bit of the episode. Hearing Sherlock Holmes, a character I truly admire in every single way, speak and address suicide (suicidal tendencies) was phenomenally powerful.

He makes it clear that taking one’s life is not a proper resolution. Sherlock, a man who is a threat to himself, is the embodiment of every suicidal person in the world. He would quickly let himself die in any of his crazy stunts, studies, or cases - knowing that it could happen, maybe even hoping for it occasionally. But he would never let another person commit suicide, which he proves by telling her to pay with the gun in her purse.

We know he’s genuine about stopping this woman from killing herself simply because he has no idea that it’s a hoax - that this is just a moment within a larger game. At the time he wants to help her solve a case but also save her from herself. She liked him, and that surprises him later, but he had to care first.

Sherlock had to care about her well-being before she could like him, before she could keep him company. That’s how it was in his mind. Sherlock cares so much more than he gets credit for most of the time. Mrs. Hudson tells us that this season - “it’s more emotional than that.”

I cried watching these small moments. As someone who wants to write and get into screenwriting eventually, this felt like a specific message to the audience. It felt personal. In that 90 minutes I was watching, those scenes captured me and felt directed at me.

I felt represented and noticed. And that is so important to have that, especially with mental illness. It wasn’t profound or overbearing but it was there and it matters.

It matters so much.