Dear... Anyone Who May Care
I wake up and I’m already exhausted. I’m trying to convince myself that I’m about to have a really good day and I try to remind myself of all the reasons I have to be happy, but it never works. Positive affirmations have never worked. Antidepressants never worked. Reaching out for help never worked.
I’m in a very dark place. I just want to sleep the days away, I want to hide from everybody other than him. And I can’t be with him so I’d rather be alone. I’m constantly battling with myself, it’s as if I don’t have any control over my own mind. It controls me. It tells me that everyone would be happier without me and it tells me that my f**ked up mental state is a burden to everyone who tries to be in my life until I eventually push them out. I don’t have any friends and it’s my own fault. I’m a shit friend. I make plans with people with every intention of going through with it, then as it gets closer I panic and cancel. The closer it gets, the less I want to do it. I hate going out anywhere with anyone.
People try to help me sometimes. My family try to help me, and as selfish as it may sound it’s never enough. I still feel lonely and I still feel as if I’m drowning. That’s the only way I could try to describe it, it’s like I’m stuck in the middle of a river and the current is so strong that it just pulls me under. Every now and then I find a rock I can hold onto and I can rest for a bit. There’s people walking past me and looking at me but nobody is able to get to me to help me out. And then I realise it would just be easier to let go and let myself drown. Then people could just carry on with their lives without feeling some sort of guilt because they know I’m drowning and they know they can’t help me even if they tried. If I just let my lungs fill with the water it would all be over, and people could move on.
I feel numb all the time. The only reason I’m still here is him. I may sound extremely selfish or ungrateful for saying that but I don’t care. He’s the only one who has ever understood me and never made me feel like I was a burden to him. He will let me sit there and cry in his arms for as long as I need and he will help me get through it.
I love a lot of people, I have so much love somewhere in me but I don’t always know how to show it. I get too shy and embarrassed to ever properly tell anyone what they mean to me and then I regret not saying it. I love my parents and I love all of my siblings so much, but they struggle to understand me. It’s nobody’s fault but my own because I’m absolutely petrified to open up.
If I told my fiancé half of what goes on in my head it would just worry him which is the last thing he needs. Or even worse it could just scare him away because even though he knows I suffer he has no idea of the extent. Everyone has their own shit to deal with so I’m not going to pile all of mine on top of it and just create more weight for other people to carry.
I think I lost myself over the last 6 months and as of this moment I really don’t feel like I’m ever going to be that happy, confident girl that I was before everything just fell apart. Certain experiences can just break you. Things happen in life that don’t seem fair and just getting through the day can feel like you’re trying to walk up Everest with a 20 tonne rock on your back. But I paint on a smile and I conceal the black circles under my eyes because I don’t sleep for more than 4 hours a night anymore, and I just fake it. I pretend I’m okay and I laugh and I make jokes and I act as normal as I can.
And that’s why it’s my own fault that nobody can help me, because I don’t let anyone know. Being around depression isn’t pleasant for people who don’t understand it, but believe me, trying to live with it every single minute of every day is absolutely draining. It’s scary and it’s exhausting and that’s why a lot of the time it leads to suicides, drug addictions and so many more problems that just spiral. I’m scared of myself sometimes, I’m scared of my own thoughts because sometimes I think maybe they’re true. Maybe it’s not this ‘illness’ that puts them there, maybe I am too difficult for people and maybe I do get on everyone’s nerves and maybe I am just that annoying friend who people only talk to because they feel sorry for me. Maybe I don’t belong in this world, I wasn’t built to handle the pain I seem to constantly be in.
There’s a side to me that only I know, only I have met her and I’m scared of her. I wonder if I’ll ever feel normal again, I wonder if this is ever going to end before I get too weak and too tired and I end it myself.