SomewhatLoved
all bleeding stops eventually...
- Apr 12, 2023
- 374
For my whole life I've been suicidal. Until last fall, I didn't mention anything about it to anyone. I thought that if I ever actually did it and I had told people, it would just make them feel guilty or like they should have done more to stop me.
I spent my whole life trying to change it. I've talked about this before in other posts and it's not super important for this one so I won't go into depth, but... Essentially I've built an "ok" life for myself. I went to post secondary, I work in a job that pays decently where I get respect from the community, and I'm very young (20) but I have people with 15+ years experience tell me that they see potential in me to be a leader in what I do some day. However outside of work (and in the past, school) I've pretty much always been a loner. I spent my entire adolescence trying to find community and it's never worked. I've never really been able to maintain friendships for more than a few years, and even when I've had friends or have been in friend groups I've always felt "less close" than everyone else. I've always felt like I'm not the priority. I was always the person who walked behind the rest of the group, and I've noticed it's become such a normality for me that even with family I notice myself positioning myself behind my mom or dad walking like that just because it's become what's natural for me. Last fall I went out of my way to try and be social and make friends and I did, but whenever I tried to make plans it always felt like I wasn't a priority. I would ask multiple times, suggest dates, and they would just keep saying "I'm busy that time" or "I have something going on sorry". I suggested maybe they could let me know a date or time and I was just met with "I'll get back to you"... Obviously they never did. I straight-up asked if they still wanted to be friends, to which they said yes. Even asked if I ever did something or said something weird/strange/offputting and was met with "no you're a great guy I love hanging out with you".
Anyways. I've been trying to change things and make a life for myself. Forced myself through post-secondary. I have a good job. Even now out of school I keep up to date with my studies, check out new clinical trials and research papers, etc. I try to be smart in addition to practically skilled at what I do. I've tried multiple times over the years to find community, even when I constantly felt uncomfortable or out of place. Opened up about my feelings. Keep trying different hobbies to make myself an interesting person or give myself talking points. Went to the gym and got fit. Et cetera. I remember being an eight year old kid and first starting to deal with bullying or issues at home and thinking "I wish people were nicer to me" or "I wish mom and dad didn't fight" and I know I, at the core, do want to be different. Of course if I could live a different live I wouldn't have chosen this. I really did try. But still it seems like my life is flowing down a path that I hate. I feel helpless. When I was 17 I realized my childhood was almost over and that if I didn't do something about it my adulthood would be the same so I did. That's when I really really tried to go "above and beyond" and be a good person, and for a while my life was different, but it feels like it's fallen flat on it's face and I'm back where I was now.
So it pisses me off when I first opened up about my problems and people kept telling me "you at least have to try". Like I haven't been. It almost felt hilarious, like "oh! why didn't I think of that! thank you so much!" Of course I've been trying. As young as 9 years old I was suicidal and I didn't want to get up and go to school in the morning because I knew the whole day I would feel estranged or out of place. I knew even my teacher would make fun of me. I've been living these things for over a decade. Every day has been a fight. Even now I still have coworkers making rude comments about my appearance. Every fucking day I get out of bed and I put up with shit I don't want to deal with for no other reason than trying not to kill myself so my mom doesn't have to go through that. I remember my former boyfriend who I still feel for said "do it for me". Our whole relationship I was doing it for him. That was my motivation. Now, what do I do it for? To keep living when I can't be with him? lol...
I remember in school when I was learning to deal with mental health patients/emergencies our instructor put us through a scenario where we had to try and convince an alcoholic in his 40s to not kill himself. His wife left and took his kids, he had no friends, no hobbies, hated his job, had no aspirations (or had gone too far down the wrong path to achieve any), etc. Anyways we get about 20 minutes in and he stops me and says "not getting anywhere hey?" we then have a conversation about it and he straight up tells the class that some people genuinely have lives not worth living. He said to me "if I was that guy I would want to kill myself too" and "this guy genuinely has no reason to live, you're not going to convince him otherwise". It felt strange. I knew my instructor was right, but it felt weird to hear a "normal" and "adjusted" person say that. You would think someone like that would outwardly give a more "pro-life" perspective but he seemed to realize sometimes maybe people do have a reason to die. I keep thinking back to that scenario, and I think maybe I'm not so different. I'm dysfunctional, my life is not normal. I have tried to "become" normal. For a time I think on the outside I was but even when I had friends and a partner and a job that I enjoyed on the inside I was still unhappy to some degree and sometimes it felt like playing pretend. Some people aren't made for this world and I'm tired of pretending that I am.
I spent my whole life trying to change it. I've talked about this before in other posts and it's not super important for this one so I won't go into depth, but... Essentially I've built an "ok" life for myself. I went to post secondary, I work in a job that pays decently where I get respect from the community, and I'm very young (20) but I have people with 15+ years experience tell me that they see potential in me to be a leader in what I do some day. However outside of work (and in the past, school) I've pretty much always been a loner. I spent my entire adolescence trying to find community and it's never worked. I've never really been able to maintain friendships for more than a few years, and even when I've had friends or have been in friend groups I've always felt "less close" than everyone else. I've always felt like I'm not the priority. I was always the person who walked behind the rest of the group, and I've noticed it's become such a normality for me that even with family I notice myself positioning myself behind my mom or dad walking like that just because it's become what's natural for me. Last fall I went out of my way to try and be social and make friends and I did, but whenever I tried to make plans it always felt like I wasn't a priority. I would ask multiple times, suggest dates, and they would just keep saying "I'm busy that time" or "I have something going on sorry". I suggested maybe they could let me know a date or time and I was just met with "I'll get back to you"... Obviously they never did. I straight-up asked if they still wanted to be friends, to which they said yes. Even asked if I ever did something or said something weird/strange/offputting and was met with "no you're a great guy I love hanging out with you".
Anyways. I've been trying to change things and make a life for myself. Forced myself through post-secondary. I have a good job. Even now out of school I keep up to date with my studies, check out new clinical trials and research papers, etc. I try to be smart in addition to practically skilled at what I do. I've tried multiple times over the years to find community, even when I constantly felt uncomfortable or out of place. Opened up about my feelings. Keep trying different hobbies to make myself an interesting person or give myself talking points. Went to the gym and got fit. Et cetera. I remember being an eight year old kid and first starting to deal with bullying or issues at home and thinking "I wish people were nicer to me" or "I wish mom and dad didn't fight" and I know I, at the core, do want to be different. Of course if I could live a different live I wouldn't have chosen this. I really did try. But still it seems like my life is flowing down a path that I hate. I feel helpless. When I was 17 I realized my childhood was almost over and that if I didn't do something about it my adulthood would be the same so I did. That's when I really really tried to go "above and beyond" and be a good person, and for a while my life was different, but it feels like it's fallen flat on it's face and I'm back where I was now.
So it pisses me off when I first opened up about my problems and people kept telling me "you at least have to try". Like I haven't been. It almost felt hilarious, like "oh! why didn't I think of that! thank you so much!" Of course I've been trying. As young as 9 years old I was suicidal and I didn't want to get up and go to school in the morning because I knew the whole day I would feel estranged or out of place. I knew even my teacher would make fun of me. I've been living these things for over a decade. Every day has been a fight. Even now I still have coworkers making rude comments about my appearance. Every fucking day I get out of bed and I put up with shit I don't want to deal with for no other reason than trying not to kill myself so my mom doesn't have to go through that. I remember my former boyfriend who I still feel for said "do it for me". Our whole relationship I was doing it for him. That was my motivation. Now, what do I do it for? To keep living when I can't be with him? lol...
I remember in school when I was learning to deal with mental health patients/emergencies our instructor put us through a scenario where we had to try and convince an alcoholic in his 40s to not kill himself. His wife left and took his kids, he had no friends, no hobbies, hated his job, had no aspirations (or had gone too far down the wrong path to achieve any), etc. Anyways we get about 20 minutes in and he stops me and says "not getting anywhere hey?" we then have a conversation about it and he straight up tells the class that some people genuinely have lives not worth living. He said to me "if I was that guy I would want to kill myself too" and "this guy genuinely has no reason to live, you're not going to convince him otherwise". It felt strange. I knew my instructor was right, but it felt weird to hear a "normal" and "adjusted" person say that. You would think someone like that would outwardly give a more "pro-life" perspective but he seemed to realize sometimes maybe people do have a reason to die. I keep thinking back to that scenario, and I think maybe I'm not so different. I'm dysfunctional, my life is not normal. I have tried to "become" normal. For a time I think on the outside I was but even when I had friends and a partner and a job that I enjoyed on the inside I was still unhappy to some degree and sometimes it felt like playing pretend. Some people aren't made for this world and I'm tired of pretending that I am.
. Those who don't struggle with the kind of mental health issues we do often feel bad, but can't fully grasp how debilitating and complex it can be. It's never as straightforward as 'getting better', unfortunately.
