Is it better to speak or to die?

When saying nothing feels safer than living, how do we survive ourselves?

Obviously, at least obvious for every sane person, speaking is clearly the better choice.
Why choke on your own words when you can just so easily let them out? Why would someone choose to suffer in silence when there’s so many opportunities to speak up and be heard?

Because, let’s face it, being heard is such a beautiful thing that could happen to someone.
Another soul listening to you, offering you comfort and love, making you feel lighter, as if you cut the boulder on your shoulders in half and let someone help carry it.
The instant relief makes it worth it. The first deep breath in days, maybe even weeks.
That first breath after being under water for a long time.
The deep desperate breath after holding in tears or laughter.
So many, beautiful and soul freeing scenarios come up just by choosing to speak up.
It makes you feel less empty inside. That feeling when you know that the person that you chose to let you help you, won't leave. It’s ironically more breathtaking than anything else.
There's simply zero arguments or logic behind choosing anything other than speaking, especially since the only other option is death.

But what is death anyway?

From what we know, we just cease to exist, that's it.
There's no God to reach out their hand to you, there's no fluffy clouds that'll soften your fall as your soul plunges to the ground.
There's just.. nothing. Not even blackness to hold you tight, giving your soul that comfort that it never got in your body.
Just nothing.

But people don't like that. Especially people that have been lonely all their life, with no one there to listen to their sorrows.
That's why people talk about a God giving you comfort after tormenting you your entire life, or an afterlife that you can choose based on what you want it to be.
Maybe islands and dragons flying around, giving your soul that freedom it has yearned for all its life.

But we don't know that, and we probably never will.

Maybe our beliefs are true, and we will be happy once we walk through the light, or maybe it's all for nothing.
It's unknown. Scientists and believers fight about who's and what's right, they all claim they know, but do they really? No. They do not. It's an unknown territory a living thing has no right to enter.

And maybe that's why so many people choose to not open their mouths when they need to. Just to drown in themselves other than speaking up. Because leaping into the unknown seems kinder than other peoples embrace.
Maybe people aren't as ‘insane’ as I once thought
People choosing death over speaking are people who have tried to speak up over and over again, day after day and mostly their whole life.
But their desperate attempts of speaking up were always ignored or made fun of.
These people were never taken seriously. They have learned that vulnerability is going to make them hurt more. It will just add up to the overwhelming sack they are dragging behind themselves all day, so why even bother?

They build up walls to protect themselves from those experiences again. Higher than any skyscraper the human eye has ever seen.
For a wounded person these walls still seem too low and thin, and with each additional ache, they build higher. At one point, a person loses control and just stands still, watching it all unfold; thousands of kilometers up into space, even Saturn’s rings get jealous and feel small in comparison.
Each new pain proves them right, that those walls are still too small, that they get hurt too easily.
And with every wall, they grow more cut off from others, more emotionless. Each wall stands to prove they’re not vulnerable anymore, that they’re strong.
Since they’ve been hurt their entire life just for feeling, they think they should never feel again.
You never lose your feelings literally, you just learn to hold them back better. You learn not to get hurt by the little things.

And by removing parts of yourself, you lose yourself more.

So really, can you blame a person that chooses death over speaking?

Speaking would mean demolishing those walls, one by one. That would mean that people would see your emotions again, they'd see you hugging yourself in the middle of the night because you can't cry. They'd see you begging someone to talk to you like a street dog begging for scraps. They'd see you in your most vulnerable state and that makes you feel exposed after years of hiding behind thick walls.

Almost as if someone trapped you in a glass cage naked and left for everyone to see, to laugh at as they see you trying to cover yourself up and regain control like a wild zoo animal.
And by previous experiences, you're sure that WOULD happen.
Though that's where the irony creeps in.

You're also assuming that that will happen, that people would shred you to tiny little pieces again. Even though it's so unlikely the number is so close to zero it might as well be zero, you still choose to swallow your words.
Because of those experiences your brain cannot think of a positive scenario, and it has tried plenty of times. Your soul has tried so desperately to help you that at one point your brain was forced into taking over the steering wheel and pushing your soul down as deep as it possibly could.
Keeping you safe and alive is its first priority after all, so that's why your brain refuses to let you speak.

Because what is death to a person if speaking feels worse than dying? As if you were torn to pieces by a hungry herd of lions?
Maybe that's why some people would rather choose to drown in their own blood after biting their tongue their entire life rather than speak up.
Because diving into the unknown would be kinder than the people around them.