You were my escape…my sweet, sexy escape from dealing with the broken pieces of me. Instead of learning how to put my pieces together on my own, I would focus all of my energy putting your pieces together in the hopes you’d return the favor.
Oh, how foolish. Oh, how naive. Oh, how hurt I was.
How silly of me to depend on someone else to put my pieces together, when I’m the one who knows where all the pieces need to go. You were stuck with the job of putting a puzzle together but not knowing what the final product should look like. I now know that I should be in charge of assembly. Then frustration arises when you don’t know how to fix me. Ha! Shame on me for putting that pressure on you. Shame unfairly on you for making you “the reason” for my moods, my emotions, my level of self-worth. I gave you a responsibility that did not belong to you. In fact, you had no power over it at all. But I convinced myself you did. And the truth of it all, I had the power over my self-worth, but I assigned you that power so I didn’t have to deal with the trauma and pain I’ve buried inside.
You were great support, but I wanted a dictator. You were the love I never had, but I wanted abuse. You were the security I didn’t know existed, but I wanted uncertainty. Silly me. Silly me. What I wanted, I didn’t need. What I thought I needed was merely born from ignorance.
And now I pause and wonder…how many times have I let my ignorance stop me from obtaining greatness, my full potential, and ultimate joy? My ignorance of thought, the limits I’ve created when boundaries weren’t set, the prolonged beats of overcompensation may have blocked me from an alternate life of joy.
With these revelations, I apologize to you. I apologize for unrealistically expecting you to be my hero who would rescue me from the torture chamber of my mind. For I must be my own hero in order to live my happily ever after. I apologize for imposing my insecurities on you. Maybe if I would have learned this back then, my happily-ever-after would feature you as my co-star.
No love ever lost in my heart for you. I continue to love you from a distance. Thank you for being my first love and helping me grow and learn.
I feel like I should pre-warn every encounter we have with an apology.
See here’s the thing: I do not like myself. To be honest, I have a deep hatred of myself.
This self-hate didn’t just occur recently. It’s a deep rooted seed that’s been growing in my thoughts since as young as I can remember. It started innocently with myself realizing at a young age that I don’t really have anything important to say, so maybe I should be quiet. I began to not trust that my ideas were of any value. They later morphed into me realizing that I, as a person, don’t have much value.
Once my brain held onto this core belief, the trust issues flourished. I question why people love me. I question why people bother to spend time with me. Since I can’t understand what I like about myself, I damn sure have raised eyebrows to you all who claim to like me when you don’t have to.
The times when my brain’s paranoia breaks down and asks you, “what do you even like about me,” your response is the polar opposite of the perception I have of myself. That’s when my mind tweaks out of control. I feel as though my brain has a malfunction when I hear your response because it’s been telling me for so long how horrible, unimportant, and worthless I am; hearing you, a friend, debunk my perception of myself causes a glitch in my brain trying to make sense of it.
And my preferred response to anyone debunking the perception of my worthlessness includes becoming defensive and proving you wrong. My method of proving you wrong ranges from becoming a selfish brat who has to get her way, to killing the vibe with my silence and not being in the present moment.
I guess it’s how turtles climb in their shell when they feel scared. And yes, hanging out with you scares me.
It scares me because I feel you’re going to finally “come to your senses” and see me how I see myself.
The fear of you seeing me the way I see me is the reason I cry. It’s the reason I begin to distance myself from you. It’s the reason I sometimes do and say asshole shit to you. It’s the reason I can’t sleep most nights.
So, that’s why I’m working on rewiring my brain to see the positive traits of myself and to accept the negative traits of myself but not enlarge them to immense proportions while I work to improve on them.
As I’m working on this, please be patient with me. Remind me to speak up for myself when I trail off when I talk. Let me know when I start becoming a selfish toddler and try to control every thing we watch or do. Call me out on when you feel I am hiding how I feel and think with euphemisms and double entendres. And definitely reassure me that you still love my crazy ass even after I get on your nerves with my weirdness.
I strongly believe I don’t deserve your friendship. But I know that I need your friendship.
Your friendship holds so much value to me. Our friendship is the most valuable thing I have, and I damn sure don’t want to lose it because of a conviction based on deep rooted issues that are based on insecurities in the alternate reality in my head.
DISCLAIMER.WARNING.CAUTION: In absolutely no way am I encouraging or promoting suicide. If you are suicidal, please talk to someone either about this to work through the catalysts of these thoughts or something else to distract yourself from your thoughts. Suicide is not a solution no matter how many times you have rationalized it in your brain. The point of this article is to give perspective on the thoughts of a suicidal person so that people can have a better understanding of where we are coming from so that people’s support and help can be beneficial, and hopefully life changing.
Sooo suicide huh? I mean if you’ve never thought about taking your life or believing that your life is so worthless that you should end it all, then you have no idea what we are going through. No, I’m not a representative of all depressed and suicidal people. All I can do is give you perspective so that you can properly have an idea of what some of us are feeling so that it can in turn lead you to properly help us in our times of need.
So I have been quoted to say that I am a “survivor of my suicidal thoughts”. But people don’t really know the thoughts that are swirling through your head when you are rationalizing taking that gun, those pills, the knife, that jump, some poison, or whatever other ‘googled’ way to end your life.
So here are the top 7 thoughts (from my personal experience) that go through my head when I’m suicidal:
Whether you are going through physical pain, mental turmoil, abuse, or a combination of these and other pains, you have a sincere desire to want the pain to end. Pain is not fun to endure…obviously. Logically, you are trying to find the solution of how your pain should end. Therefore, ending life altogether, in the suicidal person’s rationale, will inherently end the pain.
2. “Loved ones will be upset at first, but they’ll get over it.”
Contrary to popular belief, the consequences to the people you leave behind constantly resides in your rationale during the low depths of your suicidal thoughts. Many people’s “prevention method” for convincing someone to not be suicidal is to shame someone with the branding of being selfish. We know that there will be pain in loved ones’ lives. We know that it will be a tragically difficult reality to face if we decided to take our lives. We know that guilt will be grappling family members who for some reason feel they could’ve been my hero. However, we know it will also just be a reaction of mourning. After time passes, you will be okay and get on with life because time forces you to get over it. It’s nothing personal, it’s just how life works. (Again, this is the rationale of a suicidal person…)
Low self-worth is a major factor of suicidal thinking and depression. I genuinely do not see value in my life. I am not worth anything to anybody. I am no one’s priority. These are facts in my mind that constantly repeat themselves. It’s usually ingrained in my day-to-day actions and brain hard-wiring. Therefore, what do you usually do with things that you do not find value in? You classify it as trash and throw it away.
Oh my gosh. This is probably one of THE MOST common thoughts of people in general. However, as a suicidal person, this provides more of a reason to end it all. Psychologists are correct with that whole need of belonging. When you feel understood, you feel as though you belong. The more I personally feel that I’m not understood, the more I feel that I do not belong on this Earth. (Now that I think about it, no wonder people surround themselves with people who share similar views as them…it feels good to be understood & provides validation in your thoughts & inevitably your existence.)
Yeah, this is an extremely morbid thought, but true in the mind of some suicidal people. I know I find “evidence” in my life to support this thinking, like “Oh, I said something shitty to someone I supposedly love and have caused them pain. They would have never endured this pain if I was never born” Or “People in my life are blaming me for all of this shitty stuff so I might as well die.” This thought can be tied to the thought of wanting the pain to end.
What’s the point? If you are ever with someone who is truly considering suicide, they are constantly asking this question. If a psychologist, friend, family member, or caring human is asked this question from somebody, please keep in mind that “There is no point to live” is the driving force behind the inquiry of ‘What’s the point?’
This thought has strong ties with thoughts #3 (“I’m not worth anything.”) and #5 (“The world would be better off if I’m dead”). The whole concept of deserving something is based on self-worth. For some reason, a suicidal person may have convinced themselves along the way that they do not deserve any joy or happiness in the world, unfortunately.
Sooooo yeah. I honestly don’t know what to say after all that. It’s my truth. It’s my constant thoughts. However, I still hold on to life…waiting to see if evolution of the mind is possible. I guess my curiosity (and deep fear of pain) causes me to hold on to see the one day where I laugh at the absurdity of these thoughts ever being my thoughts, instead of still believing in them fully.(This conclusion was for those of you who need the silver lining in everything.)
Mild and Free 