I don't see the big fuss, really. It makes me want to burst out in hysterical laughter every time someone criticises me about not doing my work, or even more, panic about work. How fortunate your life must be if homework is somehow the biggest thing in your life. Get my priorities straight? I'm sorry, but do you know what my priorities are? I would very much like a life where homework is the main thing that bothers me, not a torrent of suicidal thoughts and self-criticism. I would very much appreciate it if I can just do my homework with my mind in peace.
I don't understand it. Am I mentally ill? I'll never know. Is my life just that screwed up? Probably not, I definitely can find someone whose life is more screwed up than mine. So the first one it is then.
Do you think I don't want to do my homework? Even if it's pointless, I'd rather deal with that than trying to curb the kind of turbulence that comes out of nowhere in my own head. And what's more painful is that because it's all in my head, nobody sees it. I'm just lazy and don't give a shit about my future. Naive, childish, immature. Is that it?
There was that one lesson during class when our teacher asked about stress. I wanted to laugh, I wanted to cry. Am I just that screwed up? School work. SCHOOL WORK. School work stresses you out! My friend, you don't know what stress is then. You have never come close enough to the edge of your sanity to feel more stress than something so utterly superficial.
I know that everyone has different experiences in life and I can't blame another person for not feeling the kind of stress I do. In fact, I glad that not everyone goes through this kind of shit, because that would make this a really screwed up world. But how can I be so utterly merciful to these people, whose very talk of their own "stress" feels like mockery?
It's not just family problems, because I have known for a long time that there's probably something wrong with me as well. But I'll never find out. Why? Because there's enough shit going on in the family without me creating more. Let the façade of a cheerful, talented and painfully idealistic daughter continue! I have visited a psychiatrist 2 years ago, without my parents' knowledge of course, and indeed, there is something wrong with me. Am I going to find out exactly what? Nope.
Bipolarity II, characterised by episodes of elevated mood and periods of depression. I'm an optimistic person? Sure, I can be, during periods of "mania", clinically indicated by abnormally happy, energetic and irritable moods. Am I quiet and brooding? Yeah, because there's also the depression, which is the most painful to deal with.
It's a miracle, even to me, how I can wake up in the morning wishing I'd never done so and then laugh in school like everything in the world is fine. Every single morning, I wish I had somehow not woken up, that somehow I managed to die in my sleep. That's too easy, isn't it? And then I swallow whatever dark feelings inside me, which I can't identify as anything but just pain, and let it simmer and boil until it bursts into mania. Then I laugh in school, let my friends make jokes at me, make jokes with them. It's a screwed up life I'm living and it's never going to change.
There have been times, for a brief few months, when the switch between mania and depression becomes less radical, but now, it's stronger again. It's a blindfold I put on myself, I know, but now that it's off, I can't ever wear it again without knowing that I'm being blindfolded.
It's the loneliness, I know, because it was strongest 2 years ago, when I found myself utterly isolated from my old class. My situation back then is why I find Mrs Warren such an easy person to sympathise with. I've tried to not form a clique, I tried getting along with everyone. For once, I tried to do the "right thing". What I got was isolation from everyone, because my class was that kind of clique-ish class where everyone clearly belonged to some group. I didn't. It's just one of the many times I try to do something properly and it just doesn't turn out right.
Loneliness. It doesn't come from the lack of company, but the lack of good company. You can be surrounded by people, but still feel the distance between you and them as if there were rifts. I surround myself with close friends now, but I don't feel it...the connection...the sense that I belong. What defines good company? Someone you know that you can tell things to and they will understand, they will not judge. They may not agree, but they will understand. No such person exists in my life and in that, my loneliness.
Even when I share about my family problems, I know that everyone has their own take on the problem and how it should be treated. Once again, I am the one who is different. Ignore it? I can't, they are family. A family problem that could be resolved if both parties were willing to listen, to sit down and talk, and find it in themselves to forgive and leave the past behind them. I can't even get them to sit together and talk. I want to just leave the house, but I don't feel comfortable just running away. I want to help, but I have no capacity to do so. It would probably have been solved if it wasn't me trying to solve it. I've always been known to cause more trouble than there was already.
It's not like I have not put a blade to my own skin before, but in that moment of stupidity, I realised that the true stupidity is in that action. The pain is quite relieving, like it has been said to be, simply because the rest of your body is so numb from an unidentifiable pain that the blood that is drawn feels comfortingly familiar. Yet, it is so temporary and such a fatal mistake that it rarely solves anything. If it is found, which it has not been, it causes more trouble than is worth.
The title of this post "And I might not even regret it". You should be able to guess what "it" is. Suicide? Self-harm? Anything along those lines are appropriate answers. I keep clinging onto life with all these selfish assumptions on mine, but really, when I tear apart this debate in my head, I realise that suicide is actually the best idea.
And this makes me laugh. I have talked a total of 6 people out of suicide in my 19 years alive, 2 of which on the night before they could do it. Yet, when it comes down to me, I can't talk myself out of it. I'm not persuasive enough for myself.
I keep thinking that I cannot die, because people will be upset. Really? How important do I think I am? I'm sure everyone will be fine without me. I'm sure people will just carry on with their lives. This argument works on other people, but I know my own insignificance. I know that how important I feel to another person is just speculation, tainted by the human need to feel needed. I know that, in the end, if I choose to kill myself, people can and will get over it. It's not like I'm this great researcher whose amazing discovery will be terminated if I died. I'm rather insignificant.
I keep telling myself that I'm still needed. Not really. Sure, my sister is too young to take care of my mom right now, but there will come a day when she is old enough. What, do I die then? What's the difference? My mom has shown that she is clearly able to seek help by herself, what am I needed for?
Cost benefit analysis, done on a person's life. This is how coldly I treat my own existence when it comes to moments like this.
What is the purpose of life? I still hold on to my previous beliefs, but what has changed, is that I recognise that I may be the worst person for the job. Make the world a better place? Please, as if I could do that. I can't even make myself stop these depressive thoughts, what makes me think I can make the world a less depressive place? The job should be left to an optimist, not me.
Yet, I'll probably never do it...kill myself that is. I haven't found a good way to ensure I don't screw up. It is me, after all, I'll probably screw it up and become a bigger burden I already am. The numerous times I joke about being a burden...it's not a joke when it's about me. It's honestly how I view myself. I take up resources that are so scarce, yet I'm being utterly useless and will continue being so because a mentally screwed up person like me probably can't do anything anyway.
If I jump from a building, I'll probably come close to dying but end up becoming a vegetable or become crippled. When a miracle chooses to happen, it's going to happen on a jump which should by right take my life. If I drown myself, I need a heavy weight...how the hell am I supposed to get that without assistance. If the thing is heavy enough to drag me down, I sure ain't strong enough to lug it to a pool of water. If I cut myself, I'll probably miss an artery, end up in the ER, but then fail to die and cause more worry to the family. If I eat painkillers in large amounts, I may get indigestion, but I won't die because an inconvenient miracle happened again. See, I've thought about it all, it's just that I can't figure out how to do it properly.
And you ask me if I feel bad about not doing my homework? My dear friend, please treasure the kind of peace you possess in your mind that I'll never find in mine. Rejoice in the silence and concentration your mind can pull off while doing homework. I certainly can concentrate, but after that 1 hour, the depression hits even harder because I've tried to suppress it. The family is rowdy, the atmosphere is worse, but the worst of all is having to live with my own mind. I don't know what's wrong with it, I don't even know if there's actually something wrong with it.
Really now. I was never one to believe in fate, but considering that it took that much trouble to ensure I stayed alive in those first few days, don't think I've never considered the fact that I was never meant to live in the first place.
Don't think I've never tried to save myself. Look at all these phone numbers I got over the past month. I'm certainly not cruel enough to play around without the other party agreeing (not in any sense that compromises my dignity, just asking for company), but I'm "playing around" all the same. It's nice to have company that you are not obliged to watch your mouth around. But it doesn't soften the loneliness...it just distracts me from my own thoughts for a moment, before it engulfs me again.
My mind is an ugly one...but good company comes along once in a while...a mind so brilliant and bright that it almost shines out my own. Intelligent, hopeful, idealistic. Most importantly, accepting and open, filled with annoyingly opposing thoughts, but that's how it keeps my attention away from my own thoughts. But as all things in my life are, good ones never stay. And I find myself torn between two conflicting thoughts - yearning to feel that light once more and hoping I've never found it in the first place. Rather like the physical manifestation of how I'm treating the issue really.
I look at that pile of work on my table and I really want to go do it. But the moment I leave the computer and allow my mind to flow once more, I'd probably have to clear my surroundings of sharp objects. I've done something stupid once and I've a mark to proof it (two to be exact). I'll continue to try to talk myself out of this nonsense, the way I did for all those others, yet I know because this is my own mind, it is more difficult. I've always enjoyed other people's minds more than my own after all. If I'm going to end myself, it's going to be clean and swift. I'm not going to stain my wrists with marks, poison the family relations even more than it is venomous now, or worry these friends around me that want to help but I know they can't. I heard that personality disorders and mental problems die down eventually, I hope they do. Till then, I can only suppress and hope that by the time A Levels are over, I have not completely broken down.
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