*Major Trigger Warning (please stop reading if you are not the most stable person on the planet right now, not like anyone actually reads what I write, I still figure just in case.)* Well this was supposed to be a site where I collected stories from others and tried to inspire others to survive but I can't. I want to make people better but honestly I am holding on by a thread right now. Nobody actually comes onto here anyway but this has given me a place to write what I am feeling. It has become my diary. Well I am tired, stressed and in a pit so dark I wrote a suicide note the other day. I reread it tonight and realized I couldn't finish it because if I did there would no longer be anything keeping me on this planet. That would be it and I could give up. So I am scared but I am also miserable, so instead of finishing the letter I put it here so that by some miracle someone would figure out who I am and come to my rescue because I need someone to care and right now I feel like no one does. I am scared to reach out for help because I hate that look that everyone gives you when they think you are diseased or broken and I don't want to scare them or inconvenience them and honestly, I don't even know who to talk to at this point. I want to go home and tell my mom to hug me and never let me go but I can't and I can't breathe and I can't stop the tears from streaming down my face and I can't stop that feeling like all of my insides are being twisted into a knot so tight it may never be undone. I am not going to kill myself. Not tonight at least and I don't have any plans to but teh pain and depression is real and I am just not sure how to cope anymore.... So that's it. I don't have any insightful advice or perspectives, but what I can tell you is to hold your loved ones tight and if anyone ever asks for help, mentions their depression or god forbid, says "I'm fine", encourage them to find help because its like the weight of the world sitting on your chest and belly threatening to smush you if you don't get the chance to end things yourself first. Good luck friends!
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*Trigger Warning*
“She is quite shy and inhibited in social situations and may avoid others for fear of being hurt. She is likely to have very few friends and to be thought of as distant and hard to get to know. She is quiet and submissive, and she lacks self-confidence in dealing with other people. She is timid and unlikely to be interested in dating.” The above was written about me by a woman who knew me for all of 3 hours, the majority of which was spent testing my IQ, memory and mental and emotional disabilities. Somehow in 3 sentences, this stranger laid out what I had known for years but had never been able to explain to people. What she didn’t understand is that it is not that I am uninterested in having friends or dating, it’s that it is emotionally and physiologically impossible for me to do so. You may think I am overreacting but I am not. When I try to go out and do things and make friends or God forbid, go on a date, I end up either having a panic attack or crying in my apartment about how no one could ever love me. So what the hell is wrong with me? Because if someone could name what’s wrong, then they could validate me and tell me that they are proud of me for working so hard to overcome all of that social anxiety because they know just how hard it can be. But no one will because frankly, who even gives a shit about me. Furthermore, the patient is currently experiencing brief but intense episodes of sadness and anxiousness that can easily interfere with her already underdeveloped social judgment and social problem solving skills which is consistent with diagnostic criteria for ANXIETY DISORDER, NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED [NOS] So not only do I have shitty social skills, I also have such bad anxiety and depression that I can’t even really try to overcome the social awkwardness because of all the panic attacks beforehand. In a world connected by internet and phones and public transit, I am an island on my own yelling for help but not speaking the same language as anyone else. I am lonely and sad and anxious and I hate myself for being so broken in so many different ways. Even while driven by poor coping skills and weak social judgment, her behavior and conversations are characterized by immaturity, avoidance of responsibility and seeming disregard for social rules. The patient carries a documented pattern of threatening and intimidating behavior or aggressive responding to others in situations in which she perceives psychological risk. Her profile is therefore further consistent with diagnostic criteria for DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR DISORDER, NOS; The patient also displays difficulty concentrating on what people say, even when they are speaking directly to her. Organizational skills are also problematic for the patient, as she simply cannot get things in order when she has to complete a task that requires organization. And ultimately the patient is hindered by tasks that require a lot of thought as she often avoids or delays getting started entirely. These symptomology are expressed in the diagnosis ATTENTION-DEFICIT-HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER, COMBINED TYPE. … The diagnosis of me took 30 pages. I am so fucked up it took 30 pages just to explain everything wrong with me and how I should be “appropriately handled and cared for.” I am broken and sad and everyone around me says labels don’t define who we are but this is me, my entire life boiled down to 30 pages written by a woman who knew me for 3 hours. I am an adult and I am in classes and working full time and I am supposed to be the one who has a grip on things and I’ve been doing really well at pretending, so well that no one knows how bad off I am. I need someone to talk to, to hug me and in all of those pages nowhere did she write “treatment plan: lots of hugs, snuggles, hot chocolate, movies, and time with family and friends.” But then again that would require I have any friends or family in the area and maybe I do but that social anxiety makes me feel like I have to be perfect and like I would be an inconvenience on anyone I tried to reach out to and so instead I stay quiet and die on the inside because I am still too afraid to die on the outside. I am not feeling so much like a -Survivor *TRIGGER WARNING!*
"So I am sitting in my bed one night when Jessica and Sam start arguing about what our plans for the night were. Jessica points out that we’ve done nothing fun recently and should go out Sam decides that what we really need is to curl under some blankets and hide for a while. Jessica screams about her desires for love and popularity and that if we just spent that last 20 in my wallet that we could be important for some reason. Sam reminds Jessica that the last time we did that, we actually spent the last 200 in my bank account. Jessica says it was a one time thing. Sam brings up the last 10 times we’ve gone out, spent way too much money and hated ourselves the day after for it. Jessica promises it wont happen again. Sam says a shower and some old pain killers and a bed with no one around would feel even better. Jessica says we are going to die alone if we don’t go make friends. Sam says dying tonight might be preferable. Jessica says we should go out with a bang! Sam says we should simply disappear like ghosts. Jessica says we absolutely need to do our makeup and hair before we make any further decisions. Sam retorts that it doesn’t matter what we look like considering no one will even care if we died and therefor how we looked wouldn’t be important. Jessica argues that we need to at least Sam says we can’t do anything before Jessica says she wants Sam cries to Jessica Sam Jessica Sam STOP! I yell and scream and fight and kick and squeeze my eyes so tight it hurts! HELPPPP! When I open my eyes, I find my roommate staring at me with her phone in her hand trying desperately to decide if she should call the cops or an ambulance. 4 years later, and I could never forget that face of terror. I could never forget the way I felt like an alien in her eyes, a freak of nature, an anomaly, a misfit, an orphan. How could I ever forget the moment in which I realized neither Sam nor Jessica existed outside of my own diseased head?" A rough draft of a poem I was thinking of reading aloud at a slam sometime soon. Let me know what you think. Sincerely, -A Survivor I saw a light at the end of my tunnel exactly one month ago. It lasted all of two days before the bipolar asshole in me dragged me back down into the hellish pits of my depression. What does that mean? It means that school has been kicking my ass! Sorry that's a lot of language in the first three lines of this post but it was really necessary to describe how hateful I am towards being bipolar. I mean not only does it make me cry for 4 days straights and sit in my shower contemplating death but it also then turns around and sends me on a manic episode where I turned in a shit paper, got drunk and insulted a bunch of my friends and then laughed so hard I cried, over and over again... in the public library. Because why not? Right? It's literally like having two other selves, one that never stops talking and humiliates me. And one that thinks none of this is worth it and physically cant talk to anyone. It's like I'm stuck inside this body with these two crazy different personalities that have control over my body 95% of the time leaving sane me with the controls for a measly 5% of the time. Just so you understand, that means almost no one actually knows me because when they see "me" it's actually one of the two other guys in here with me. I am going to name them. I've just decided. Jessica and .... Sam. (Please don't be insulted if your name is one of those! Completely Random!) So Jessica gets to storm around yelling and supposedly happy and crazy. Sam gets to sulk and hate life and have panic attacks over literally everything. And here I am stuck in between the two screaming to let me finally have control over our actions! GAH it is sooooooo frustrating! Maybe it's different for other people with bipolar and obviously this isn't a 100% accurate but it's how it feels. I have full consciousness at all times of what I am doing but have you ever done something and then been like why the hell did I just do that? That's how it is. A constant feeling of WTF why on earth did I just say that or do that or think that. It's like I have main control of the steering wheel but Jessica and Sam keep changing the radio and jerking on the steering wheel. I don't know if any of that made sense but the point is I don't have control. Even when I have both hands on that wheel and am going steady; Jessica and Sam come storming in and start playing tug of war with the wheel causing me to swerve all up and down that road. Okay that's enough synonyms for one article. Anyways, today with a cold and hella homework, papers and midterms coming up, Sam is captaining the ship. She makes sleep impossible, actually doing work impossible because the stress and anxiety are so high, and essentially wants nothing from me but to sit and hate myself. What am I doing instead? Telling her to F herself! I had a dancing thing with a bunch of people that I auditioned for and got a part in. I did an outline for one paper and finished another. It might not seem like much but I pushed through it as much as I could and even when Sam pulled my wheel towards depression, I kept on pulling it back to the road. It's the little things. I haven't hurt myself and I haven't thought about suicide so I think I am doing pretty alright considering! Sincerely, -A Survivor What's That?
Yeah That! Over There!!!! Holy Shit is that what I think it is? A light at the end of this depressive episode has finally approached! I feel less like I am drowning all the time, just some of the time. I only occasionally now stop being able to breath because of the anxiety. I only occasionally start seeing blackspots on the edges of my vision when I remember something that I had forgotten. It's not much but it's a start. I'm surviving college. Thank God! I like my roommates and I have been able to be somewhat social with them. I have a job, albeit a babysitting one that starts at 6 am and makes me walk 3 miles before 10 am, I have a few friends here and there and I have yet to miss an assignment. I've bought books and groceries and been cooking well for myself. Everything is super difficult but somehow I've kind of put my body on auto and it's doing most of it for me without much on my part. I feel.... ok. Sad, lonely, anxious, scared, nervous, tense, but somehow... ok. So that's my light at the end of the tunnel. An OK-ness is good enough for me, for now. It's my birthday on Saturday though. And recruitment for my sorority starts on Saturday and I am in charge of all of the organizing and matching people stuff. So no one is going to give a shit about My day. 16th birthday I didn't get anything from my parents and I wanted to kill myself (not necessarily because of that). 17th birthday I was in treatment and was terrified for my life as well as generally feeling like my parents hated me and that's why they left me. 18th I was at boarding school and everyone forgot. 19th I was in Greece on a semester abroad and sat in my bathtub fully clothed crying while my roommate proceeded to have sex in our room. so now its my 20th. I want to expect love and happiness and hugs and smiles but in reality I know it will be a lot of computer screen and anxiety. I don't want it to bring me back into the darkness I am slowly emerging from but already I feel my heart hurting wishing someone, literally anyone, gave a shit about me and a special day. Instead I'll get a bunch of shitty FB posts, a voicemail from my dad along with an amazon card, and some random shit my mom found on amazon and thought would be funny. SO that's where I am at. Thanks for letting me vent. If you have any advice hit me up at [email protected] Sincerely -A Survivor My family really tries to understand whats happening but I don't think anyone can really understand. Tonight I went and listened to wonderful music with my dad and sister and had a good time but still came back feeling empty. Its the consistent feeling of inadequacy, fear and loneliness that keep me awake at all hours of the night. I want to cry....
I went to a counselor and nothing. I told my mom and nothing. I cried and nothing felt any better. So then what do I do if I'm anxious and depressed and can't seem to relieve any of it? Well that's what I am still working on. I don't think there is any secret or rule of thumb for this stuff. I think it sucks for everyone of us and it is up to us to figure it out. I can't tell you how to get rid of your depression but I can work to find ways to help relieve some of mine. Thats why just going to a counselor isn't enough, you have to commit and really work for it yourself or nothing will change. Everyone says it and it makes me want to punch people in the face when they do. It's like "BLEH you don't know me!" but then when I say it to myself I'm more like "oh yeah that makes sense..." So don't let me tell you it, tell yourself later. Say it in the mirror loud and proud. But like I said, nothing I say really matters at all unless you have already made the decision to change and get better, be better. Good Luck, I know I need some. Sincerely -A Survivor Hey guys.
Coming home after camp was really hard. I no longer have people who need me or people who care about my well-being. I don't have a purpose or a community. I also am feeling overwhelmed by the idea of returning to a school where I feel severely inadequate and have difficulty handling the stresses of classes and social obligations. I want to cry and sink into a hole because of the amount of anxiety and fear of having to return and possibly considering transferring schools. I am seeing someone tomorrow. I hope it helps. I can't keep this up. Does anyone have any inspiring words or stories or anything else that might help me or anybody else reading this? We could all use a little support and unfortunately I am not able to provide that for anyone right now. So right a sentence, a paragraph or novel and send it to [email protected] and I will post it as the next article. Good luck to all of you and again, I am so sorry for failing you today. I really am trying to be -A Survivor What about the bad things Treatment centers do to us? Does anybody actually care? I mean I was in a bad place when my parents sent me but honestly I was no worse then than I am now, in fact I feel worse more often now than I ever did then. So why the hell did my parents send me off when I started to communicate with them how suicidal and depressed I was? I was sad and alone and somehow shipping me off to be more alone and vulnerable seemed like a good idea? First off my dad lied to me to get me to go so instantly destroyed my trust in him. Second I was strip searched 6 months after being raped so being naked in front of these people brought back a lot of that trauma. Third it reinforced every idea in my head that I wasn't worthy of love or attention and that I was broken because it seemed like my parents didn't love me enough any more to help me themselves.
So why the fuck did they send me? I remember sitting there crying as my "therapist" told me it was my fault that I was there, that I made my parents send me, that I should be grateful that they can afford to send me somewhere so nice, that really I should be in a psych ward, that if I didn't try harder she would tell my parents that I was threatening to hurt myself so that I'd have to stay longer. I remember being forced to eat and then later people threatening not to feed me. I remember being terrified at night because girls would scream and yell things and bash their heads against the tile as a 250 lbs man sat on them to restrain them. I remember the redhead who would pace the room at night and threaten to kill all of us. I remember not being able to reach any of my family because I had written a letter home (that was read and not sent of course) scared that someone was actually going to hurt me. I lied and hid and pretended that everything was okay so that people might forget I was there and let me go. Instead I lost a year of my life to that place. I spent a year in silence where no one listened to my fear or pains and where I was so afraid I would wake up at night screaming. Now I wake up screaming after dreaming about that place. It haunts me. I hate my parents for sending me there and for not ever listening to the shit that went down. I hate myself for letting it happen to me. I hate the world for making a place like that. Most of all I hate that I can't tell anyone about it because they'll just say how much better I came out and how I am exaggerating but what they don't understand or care about is the fact that I only came out hiding everything better. I wasn't better, I was in disguise because I was afraid if I said anything, they'd send me back. Sorry I'm okay just having a lot of flashbacks and needed to let someone know how I was feeling.... I'm okay because I know that no matter how bad I feel right now, I have a purpose and I could never leave my niece behind. So all I am trying to do is Survive. Sincerely- A Survivor So I know I haven't written in a little bit but you might be surprised why! I have been a 100% in my happy place. Not just happy in my head but a happy place in my heart. I have returned to work at a camp that I went to as a child for 8 years and I have absolutely loved it. It sounds silly but camp was my safe place away from the divorced parents and mean kids at school. Camp gave me that safe haven that I needed and I have really enjoyed watching it become that safe place for kids now. Usually at home I force smiles when I think they should be inserted but it never seems natural. Well at camp I sit back and watch this kids and smile without even thinking about it.
I think it is important that we all find that safe place because it reminds us that there are some good things in this life. Not everything is dark and upsetting. Not everything in this world is going to break our hearts and hurt our spirits. Some things make life worth living. I love my camp because I can sit there and remember all of those years that I convinced myself not to commit suicide because camp would always be there for me. Those counselors dedicated their lives to making our experiences spectacular and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to do that for others. Anyways I wanted everyone to know I was doing okay and not to worry about me. I am exhausted emotionally and physically but I am holding in and couldn't be happier. I am scared as hell to start school next year again but I'm hoping this sense of purpose will last me throughout the year. Love y'all and hope you find your own happy places! Sincerly- A Survivor *Trigger warning!*
This article came from one of our readers who wanted to tell the story of their struggle and survival. Enjoy! "At least once a day for a long time in my life I thought about killing myself. It was a disease. All consuming. I didn't have time to think about school or friends or family because I was too busy focusing on planning my own suicide. Would I make it quick and spontaneous or would I create lengthy plans and make sure to write notes to my loved ones. It was repulsive. I was repulsive and I just wanted to disappear into thin air because that was the only way I could avoid dispersing my pain onto the people around me. I didn't ever do it. I thought I was weak for not being able to do it but now I am so thankful that I couldn't. It wasn't because I was weak but rather that I could still love. I still loved seeing my family happy and playing with cute animals and helping other people. I loved watching the sun go up and down and seeing good people do good things. I wanted so badly to leave the pain behind but with that I left behind everything and everyone I loved and I wasn't capable of doing that. I suffered and hurt and kept on pushing even when things were so bad I couldn't face a mirror because I hated myself so much. Things kept moving forward and so I decided I had to too. Something had to change and I guess that eventually that change was going to have to be by me. I started doing whatever I could to be around the things I loved and avoided the things that triggered me. It's been a long fucking process filled with a lot of really terrible days but I've come a long way for myself and for my family. Life sucks but only if you freaking let it! Fight for your happiness, your livelihood and your right to live because you are freaking worth it! Sincerely -A Fellow Survivor" |
A SurvivorA couple of stories and experiences from one of the many survivors of self mutilation, suicide attempts, and mental disorders and illnesses. Archives
February 2017
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