TRIGGER WARNING: I try to avoid talking too much directly about things that are potentially upsetting while still keeping things real. This post speaks more specifically about self-harm and suicidal ideation.
Monday morning. A reminder that I am a loser who can’t hold a job. I know, I know, it wasn’t just me, there were some serious issues there, but it’s hard not to take it as a personal failure.
I feel paralyzed by depression. How could I not be. Look at me? I’m pathetic. I can’t hold a job, I can’t keep my house in order. Hell, I can’t even maintain some semblance of a normal human being and not have to take medication just to keep from hurting myself. What the hell is wrong with me?
I am feeling incredibly anxious today. I have no motivation. I don’t want to move. I would just collapse in a pile on the couch and exist until the day is over and do it all again tomorrow if it didn’t make me want to die even more.
I am simultaneously desperate to find a new job and terrified to fail yet again. And right now I am just so ready to admit defeat. I am tired of fighting my own thoughts every minute of the day. I am tired of not hurting anyone else being the only reason I am alive.
And then I make it worse because I tell myself what a horrible person I am and how I have absolutely no right to feel the way I do. I am beyond blessed in so many ways and I take it all for granted like a spoiled brat.
Why is it so hard for me to admit that I am an okay person doing the best I can. Why can I give everyone except myself that grace? Why do I hold myself to impossible standards just to beat myself up for not reaching them?
I am always second guessing myself. For instance, I would like to believe that I am a good person at heart. That I care about other people and I want to make the world a better place. But then I get stuck in this self-interrogation. Why do I do good things? Is it because I want other people to think I am good? That just makes my actions self-serving. But then, when we help someone else it does make us feel good, it’s natural.
And then I start analyzing myself. I start seeing all my shortcomings and flaws and the way I keep failing at just being a normal person. I am sick of being a problem for everyone else. I am sick of being a pain in the ass. I am sick of making things harder for those I care about.
Suicidal ideation is a strange beast. See, there are times when it is what you would think. I am just done with life. I am done with trying and failing. I just want it to be over. I just want to disappear. I used to think if I took my own life that I would go to hell and at least if I am alive there is a chance for me. Now, I don’t even care anymore. Hell cannot be any worse than living. And then at least I wouldn’t have the false hope that things can get better.
Anyway, my point is that mental illness has made me want to end my life, but it’s not always so cut and dry. First of all, I have intrusive thoughts. That means I can randomly think about something that I do not want to think about or I can get an image stuck in my mind that I cannot get rid of. It’s like I am watching my thoughts go past but I am not in control. Sometimes those thoughts are about giving up. But here is the weird part, I can get these thoughts and images in my head even when I don’t want to die. Even when I have every reason to be happy and full of life and praising God, I can get stuck in my own head.
I’m sitting here at my computer knowing that there are a million things I could be doing right now that would contribute to making things better for my family. There are dishes piled in the sink and laundry strewn across my floor, and junk everywhere you turn. The last home cooked meal served here was made my mom. I can’t tell you the last thing I cooked.
It’s like, I have always been a pathetic failure, but at least I was somehow contributing to the good of someone else. Right now, just staying alive until bedtime sounds like a challenge and anything more downright impossible.
And I sit here looking at my arm and it just reminds me how f*ck*d up I really am. Part of me is disgusted by myself. How hard is it to not do something to cause harm to your own body? Part of me is disappointed in myself and the pathetic excuse for harm that I have done. It should have been worse or more or something. I can’t even do that right. Part of my is terrified that something bad will happen, like one of the burns will get infected, and then I will be causing even more harm and financial burden to my family and it’s all my fault. Just me being selfish again.
How do you care about anything when you just want everything to be over?!?
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