Hi there!
I've been lurking on this site on and off whenever my mind becomes a particularly painful place to be in since I discovered it in August of 2023, but only a few days ago did my mind become so uninhabitable that I felt compelled to create an account.
I'm a 24yo from the US. I've dealt with depression, anxiety, and suicidality since I was thirteen. I have some family trauma and a whole lot of genetic predisposition toward mental illness that contribute to my issues. I've recently been diagnosed with ADHD, and I'm suspected to have OCD, as well. I started self harming at age seventeen. I was free from self harm for over three years until I relapsed in the Fall of 2023. I'm mostly managing to abstain from self harm again, but I had a few serious relapses this past winter, and some minor ones more recently
I've struggled greatly in school since age thirteen, and it's a big source of my depression and low self esteem. I still haven't graduated from college (undergrad) even though I'm 24 because I keep having to take semesters off and I recently transferred schools. I also struggle with day-to-day tasks like keeping my room clean, doing laundry, showering, brushing my teeth, and the list goes on and on... I'm addicted to my phone, and I spend most of my time lying in bed scrolling. I feel like I'm wasting my life.
Lately my suicidal thoughts have been arising because I'm doing poorly again after a relatively long (for me) period of doing fairly well and feeling hopeful. I have tried so many avenues of treatment in the form of eleven years of talk therapy, six different medications, DBT, residential treatment, EMDR, and ketamine infusions, and none of them have worked long term. I feel less and less hopeful that I will ever reach a point where life comes easily to me.
I'm still in a place where I want to avoid suicide if possible, but only if I can make more of my life than the way I'm squandering it right now. I haven't developed a personal moral stance on the right to personal choice when it comes to suicide for mental health reasons, so at the moment I don't feel comfortable giving others any sort of information or commentary that could aid or encourage them in dying by suicide, but I'm also not here to judge anyone. I just want a place where I can speak openly without worrying about placing an emotional burden on anyone, and where I can be in a community that understands what I'm going through.
I'm not going to go by my real name on here since it's somewhat unique, but you can call me Lou if you want, since my username is a Velvet Underground lyric :)