Tefnu
Optimistic believer in recovery
- Feb 20, 2023
- 12
When I was in fifth grade, I wrote 'I want to kill myself' on the board at school. Before the end of elementary school, I had been a normal child in a 'normal' family, but it seemed that once I had hit puberty something in my head went a different direction than my peers. I recognize now that this was sort of the 'start' of some sort of 'mental illness' and for almost a decade following I went through my own special kind of Hell. I still struggle to justify how I felt then, because for all intensive purposes I felt I should have been 'fine' y'know? Like my mom used to hit me, I was bullied by my teachers and other students, I was groomed, I SHed, etc. but that wasn't what GOT me. It was something else, like a deep sense of meaninglessness that was with me almost constantly. Made it hard to get up in the morning, made me not wanna be around anyone, everything was just exhausting and I thought constantly about CTBing. Simultaneously I also fucking hated myself. I had no self-preservation, i'd walk across the street without looking and if I got hit by a car then that was how it was. I think that's a feeling most people on this forum can relate to? I don't know. Truly, I can't speak to anyone else's experience but my own. I remember thinking 'I'm not going to make it to 20.' Because it was too much. But I'm speaking in past-tense here, so what am I getting at? Ill get there lollololol
I'm a 20 year old sophomore in college now, and sometimes I get a little 'sentimental' and think back to how painful everything was. Like sometimes the feeling was so oppressive that I couldn't move, I couldn't cry, and I was like 'shit, I don't like hearing about other people's problems. Why the fuck would they want to hear about mine? Nothings even wrong, it's just all terrible. Even if they DID know, they couldn't do anything about it.' It's an endless dark tunnel that only leads underground and doesn't have an other side. They sent me to therapy for like 5 years and I would repeatedly come to the realization that 'hey, so i'm going to therapy and doing what my therapist says, but this shit ain't working and I can't do it anymore.' And then I started going to some half-inpatient shit where I had to leave school an hour early to go to a group that met for three hours every day of the week. They put me on meds, swabbed my cheek to match my DNA with a 'most likely to work' drug combo and it took away my appetite, took my emotions, and as an artist I was like 'shit this is worse because I don't create art anymore and I can't feel shit.' and I didn't want to have to choose between nothing and too much emotion. (You know that song 'Pain' By Three Days Grace where it's like 'I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all'? lol) so I went off those meds and plummeted again. They upped the dose for me because I said they weren't working (I wasn't taking them so no wonder lmao) and then when I was in a real dark spot I was like 'ok fuck let's try this again' and I took them consistently for a month because I was desperate to believe that life didn't have to be shit, and I could be as happy as the people around me. THEY had some reason to live, and I had to believe that I wasn't the only one of them who'd come to the terms that life was without any great cosmic meaning. Same shit as before, but once that month was over and my body had gotten used to the meds and I took them consistently, I realized like one day that hey, I'm not constantly thinking about death. And when I was, I used the advice my therapist gave me (gaslight yourself into thinking life doesn't suck) and on those meds it worked after like, half a year.
I found the other side of the tunnel, and I had to dig it out myself. I was fucked up in the head, and I still am. I can't exist 'naturally' but that's fine, because I CAN exist. There are some days I wake up and go outside, and I can't stop smiling because GOD sometimes life can be good, and it can be beautiful, and I can appreciate that even more than most now, I feel. I'm such a cheesy little shit now. People are still assholes, there's a lot of reason to feel hopeless, but goddamn it feels amazing NOT to be hopeless.
I don't want to come off as like just another 'it'll get better, just let it pass' person because that was not what happened with me. It didn't magically all fall into place. I had to get drugged, and I had to go through shitty ass hospitalization and therapy and it was uncomfortable and felt ineffective and honestly it was some of the worst times of my life (but im also like 20 so there's still plenty of time to fuck me over, world.) I realize now that because I'm 'healthy' and on a normal functioning level, I've forgotten most of what it felt like to be unhealthy. But when I was in that tunnel, and I was thinking about cutting my life short to escape it, I was like 'give yourself five years of hard effort, and if that fails you can throw in the towel.' If I was going to end everything eventually, may as well GET hospitalized against my will. Worst case scenario, I just pretend to be better and they let me go. (It's not that simple, but if you want out of inpatient all you have to do is pretend to get better, make a 'mistake' or 'relapse', let them correct you, get better again, and they'll let you go.) May as well tell my therapist everything, even if she thought I was fucking crazy. May as well tell my family, and the people around me, because fuck it if I was gonna end it all who gave a fuck what they thought about me. And I'm better off for it.
That's just me. I don't get why people who haven't exhausted all of their options would jump to CTB right away. I mean, I can't speak to any of your situations, again, only to mine. But like, if you're still holding on, still maybe looking back over the fence like 'ah but like what if it didn't have to be this way' then try to dig out of that tunnel just a littttle more. That's just my retrospective, sentimental thought.
I'm a 20 year old sophomore in college now, and sometimes I get a little 'sentimental' and think back to how painful everything was. Like sometimes the feeling was so oppressive that I couldn't move, I couldn't cry, and I was like 'shit, I don't like hearing about other people's problems. Why the fuck would they want to hear about mine? Nothings even wrong, it's just all terrible. Even if they DID know, they couldn't do anything about it.' It's an endless dark tunnel that only leads underground and doesn't have an other side. They sent me to therapy for like 5 years and I would repeatedly come to the realization that 'hey, so i'm going to therapy and doing what my therapist says, but this shit ain't working and I can't do it anymore.' And then I started going to some half-inpatient shit where I had to leave school an hour early to go to a group that met for three hours every day of the week. They put me on meds, swabbed my cheek to match my DNA with a 'most likely to work' drug combo and it took away my appetite, took my emotions, and as an artist I was like 'shit this is worse because I don't create art anymore and I can't feel shit.' and I didn't want to have to choose between nothing and too much emotion. (You know that song 'Pain' By Three Days Grace where it's like 'I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all'? lol) so I went off those meds and plummeted again. They upped the dose for me because I said they weren't working (I wasn't taking them so no wonder lmao) and then when I was in a real dark spot I was like 'ok fuck let's try this again' and I took them consistently for a month because I was desperate to believe that life didn't have to be shit, and I could be as happy as the people around me. THEY had some reason to live, and I had to believe that I wasn't the only one of them who'd come to the terms that life was without any great cosmic meaning. Same shit as before, but once that month was over and my body had gotten used to the meds and I took them consistently, I realized like one day that hey, I'm not constantly thinking about death. And when I was, I used the advice my therapist gave me (gaslight yourself into thinking life doesn't suck) and on those meds it worked after like, half a year.
I found the other side of the tunnel, and I had to dig it out myself. I was fucked up in the head, and I still am. I can't exist 'naturally' but that's fine, because I CAN exist. There are some days I wake up and go outside, and I can't stop smiling because GOD sometimes life can be good, and it can be beautiful, and I can appreciate that even more than most now, I feel. I'm such a cheesy little shit now. People are still assholes, there's a lot of reason to feel hopeless, but goddamn it feels amazing NOT to be hopeless.
I don't want to come off as like just another 'it'll get better, just let it pass' person because that was not what happened with me. It didn't magically all fall into place. I had to get drugged, and I had to go through shitty ass hospitalization and therapy and it was uncomfortable and felt ineffective and honestly it was some of the worst times of my life (but im also like 20 so there's still plenty of time to fuck me over, world.) I realize now that because I'm 'healthy' and on a normal functioning level, I've forgotten most of what it felt like to be unhealthy. But when I was in that tunnel, and I was thinking about cutting my life short to escape it, I was like 'give yourself five years of hard effort, and if that fails you can throw in the towel.' If I was going to end everything eventually, may as well GET hospitalized against my will. Worst case scenario, I just pretend to be better and they let me go. (It's not that simple, but if you want out of inpatient all you have to do is pretend to get better, make a 'mistake' or 'relapse', let them correct you, get better again, and they'll let you go.) May as well tell my therapist everything, even if she thought I was fucking crazy. May as well tell my family, and the people around me, because fuck it if I was gonna end it all who gave a fuck what they thought about me. And I'm better off for it.
That's just me. I don't get why people who haven't exhausted all of their options would jump to CTB right away. I mean, I can't speak to any of your situations, again, only to mine. But like, if you're still holding on, still maybe looking back over the fence like 'ah but like what if it didn't have to be this way' then try to dig out of that tunnel just a littttle more. That's just my retrospective, sentimental thought.