Being Alone

We all want to feel safe, loved, and wanted.

My sister was away for a couple weeks visiting family and friends, so I was home alone with our pets. And even though I have been doing really well mentally for a long time, there is something about being alone that reminds me how painful life can be. I think I’m doing fine and then I’m alone and all I want is to hurt myself to get out of my head.

I am on an antidepressant that keeps me from thinking about suicide all the time. Prior to starting this medication, I thought about dying almost every day for as long as I can remember. It didn’t matter how good life was, the thoughts were always there. But it has been years since I have had those thoughts consistently. The thoughts can come back when I am alone though. Luckily, my medicine keeps me from being in danger when I am by myself, but it can still be hard.

No amount of medication can make up for interaction with other people. We need that human contact. We need hugs and attention and love. You just can’t close yourself off and still be okay.

I still sleep with a stuffed animal every night because it reminds me that I’m not alone. I’m not sure what I’d do without it because being alone is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But feeling that softness and thinking of the person who gave it to me reminds me that this is just a moment. No matter how painful the moment feels, I know I can be okay again because I am loved. I am not alone. And things will get better.

Finding Hope

Grief is one of the hardest things I have ever had to experience. There are so many dimensions to grief. Sometimes it will come out of nowhere and swallow you whole. Other times it is just on the surface and the smallest reminder will make it come out in suffocating waves.

I have contemplated suicide for as long as I can remember. I am not sure why I am this way, but I have found a medication that helps me. For some reason, my brain just doesn’t work the way it should on its own.

Anyway, I have been reading a book about finding hope after suicide. My sister bought it for a friend, and I decided to read it first to see if it would be appropriate to give someone else. It brings up so many emotions in me, both because of the grief I am still trying to navigate and because of my own thoughts and experiences with suicide.

Right now the book is talking about healing. The author said that when she was a child, she felt like she had to bury her feelings to be strong. Her therapist challenged her to start sharing her feelings in order to heal from the traumatic experiences of her childhood.

A few years ago, I talked about abuse I faced as a child that I had never told anyone. I wrote about it on this blog and told the person I trusted most at the time, someone who was quickly becoming my best friend. It was hard to share something so personal. My parents were shocked by my experiences. And it caused some ripples in the next few family gatherings with accusations about why it was allowed to happen. I did not blame my parents for what happened, especially because I was too ashamed to tell them. But it was healing to finally tell a secret that I had been hiding for years.

As this book talks about sharing the story of her mother’s death, I feel emotions that I have not felt in a long time. I wonder if I still have hidden demons that need to be uncovered to fully heal. I wonder if I need to talk more about my nephew’s death to cope with the grief that surrounds me. I wonder if I need to reveal more of my deepest secrets to fully recover from all the wounds I hold within me.

I have discovered over the last few years that healing is not easy, but allowing ourselves to be vulnerable can make us into much better humans than we thought possible. Healing allows hope, and hope can lead to love, and love can mean finding happiness even if the midst of painful experiences.

A few years ago, I felt like I was finally the person I always wanted to be. I was able to help people without feeling guilty or unworthy. I was patient and forgiving when others made mistakes. I could stand strong in difficult circumstances because I knew where I stood. That all disappeared when my nephew died and I moved to run away from the memories. I shut myself off from the world again because some things were just too painful to talk about.

I think that now is the time to heal again. Now is the time to talk about hard things and learn to hope again. I can find hope in my difficult experiences by sharing the things that have hurt me and allowing myself to trust in ways I have forgotten. 

Suicide Prevention Day

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I wanted to say something about this because it’s important, and people need to know that there is no shame in having these thoughts or in seeking help. But on the other hand, it almost seems like a foreign topic to me. It feels like a forgotten language or past life with which I can no longer connect.

For the longest time, suicide was my biggest fear. I was afraid that one day I would not be strong enough to hold back the urges, and I would lose my fight with suicide and chronic depression. Suicide was the single most constant in my life. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to die. It is the subject of many of my earliest memories. And I don’t know why.

But now that I am on an antidepressant that inhibits depression and suicidal thoughts, they come much more rarely and even then, as fleeting moments that last no more than a breeze of wind passing by. Suicide is no longer a constant in my life. Part of that is due to therapy. Another part is due to friends and loved ones. The last part is due to antidepressants and personal choices to take care of myself.

Each part has taken years to build to get me to this point. And I guess the point of all this is that it is possible. It is possible to go from years, even decades, of suicidal thoughts to it being little more than a memory. I don’t know how it happens. For me, it was a million little things that led up to this point. It was friends and family and therapists and counselors and medications that drove me past of the point of insanity to medicine that changed my thoughts in ways I never knew were possible.

As someone that once contemplated suicide on a daily to hourly basis, I just want you to know there is hope. There is hope that it won’t always be this way. It may not feel like it now, but things really can get better. You just have to make it through this. And please know you don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to do this alone. It is never too late to reach out and get the help you need to feel better.

Why I Keep Trying

If those of us who felt like we don’t belong stopped trying, the world would lose something beautiful that it desperately needs.

I have been suicidal for as long as I can remember. My earliest childhood memories are of wanting to open the car door on the freeway. I knew from an early age that I did not belong. I was different. I could not explain how or why at the time and there are still things that I cannot explain that make me different, but I have a deep, persistent, aching feeling that I can never belong in this world.

There are days when I wonder why I keep trying. I consider all my options and ask myself why I should stay where I am and continue trying to live this life. There have been a lot of suicides in the news over the last few years. More people of prominence, that are well-known and adored by family, friends, and fans, are taking their lives. And it makes me wonder, why not me? I have thought about suicide all my life. Why should I stay when others are leaving?

I have come to the conclusion that people who don’t belong are more needed than ever. It is in this turmoil and drowning world that those of us who are drowning internally are most needed. We know what it is like to lose everything. We know what it is like to hurt in ways we could never explain. We are experienced in ways that others are not. We see things in ways others do not.

I recently watched “Tomorrow Land” and thought that if there was a satellite making our thoughts dwell on our impending doom, it would make sense to want to “abandon ship” by leaving this world behind. But I wonder if instead, we can be like the girl in the movie who saved the world by believing that it could be changed. We can consign ourselves to our fate. We can leave. We can stop trying so hard. But… What if we didn’t?

What if the ones who didn’t belong just kept not belonging, but stopped pretending? What if we just let people know we don’t belong? I know it is not easy to tell someone to stay when everything in them is ready to leave, but… We’re needed. The ones who don’t belong are needed. And maybe that is a reason to stay.

You Can Only Handle So Much

I have been struggling lately. I have a hard time regulating my emotions and finding positive outlets for them. It is probably because I am working two jobs. The interesting thing is that working two jobs does not feel hard most of the time. The jobs themselves are fairly enjoyable, and I rarely feel overwhelmed at work. The only part of working that has been overwhelming is scheduling the jobs around each other. It is hard to make sure you get everything done when you don’t have enough hours in the day to do everything.

The real struggle though is everything else. Having autism means that everything is bombarding my senses all the time. I am extremely protective of the autistic side of me. I have developed a long fuse or way to hide my autism despite it wanting to come out in difficult situations. The same thing is true for my depression. I prevent these parts of me from coming out just anywhere because I know most people do not understand and that could potentially be very dangerous for me.

Working two jobs has forced me to take care of myself in ways I have not done before because I do not want the vulnerable parts of me to come out at times when I am working. However, self care can only go so far. I still work two jobs and have depression and autism, so I tend to get to the end of what I can handle when I get home. This means that I have been having more meltdowns and breakdowns and more thoughts of suicide and self harm.

This is especially true at times when my body needs something. I find myself to be overly aggressive when I feel hungry. I have broken things or yelled at people or thrown items when my stomach feels even slightly empty. I have also struggled with self harm and suicidal thoughts and feelings of desperation and loneliness when I am tired. It is interesting to me how completely hopeless I can feel at night, but it all seems to dissipate when I wake up in the morning. How can I go from the brink of suicide to feeling mostly at peace in just a few hours?

The best explanation is that I am not truly suicidal. I love my life. I do not want to die. But my body is unable to handle life and simply wants the pain to stop. I remember times when I was truly suicidal. I was convinced that I was a burden. I felt that the world would be a better place without me. I felt sure that my family and friends would be better off without me. That is no longer the case. I don’t feel like anything would be better off without me. I just want the pain inside me to get better. I want to stop hurting so much.

Of course, there are lots of ways to help your body handle more. Eating, sleeping, hugs and other physical touch that helps you feel loved, spending time doing something you enjoy or being with someone that relaxes you, and anything else that helps you feel better mentally, physically, or emotionally allows you to be able to handle more of life. I have learned from spending my life trying to hide my autism and depression, etc. that you can force yourself through almost any situation if you use the right resources to help your body cope.

So, I guess the point of this post is to remind myself and others to find ways to cope. Find things that relax you, that help you feel loved and wanted and needed, or that meet a physical need. By finding and doing things that help your body feel better, you allow your body and mind to be able to handle more difficult situations. You allow yourself to be able to get through things you could not handle before. And you might be surprised at the difference it makes it your mental and emotional state.

Medicine

I’m one of those people that hates medicine. I have a hard time even committing to taking chewable vitamins. But now that I have seen the difference medication can make for depression, I cannot deny the power of medicine. Sometimes, it simply works wonders.

I stopped taking my medicine towards the beginning of the year because I lost health insurance due to not making enough money. Go figure… After a few months, I realized how desperately I needed it and got back on for a while. When the prescription had to be refilled, I forgot how bad it had gotten so I tried to go without it again. I’ve made it over 6 months without my depression medication, but lately it has been really hard. Every night is like fighting for my life. I’m struggling to breathe again. I find myself sliding into the darkness, and there is nothing to grip to save me from falling.

I know I’ve survived worse than this, but now that I know what it’s like to feel normal. I don’t want to be depressed again. It’s time to get back on medication, and this time, for good.

Finding Light in the Dark- The Purpose of Depression

I started this post a couple months ago, but didn’t have time to finish it. I attended a devotional meeting today though that brought this back to my mind. Life is hardly ever exactly what we wanted or expected. Things change. Life happens and we find ourselves a million miles away from where we thought we wanted to be. The question is if we will make where we are, into the place where we want to be. When things do not work out and we find ourselves at a different point of life than we wanted, can we still see hope? When nothing is going right and your world seems to have crumbled around you, can you still find ways to be happy?

I first started this post the morning after a hard night. I had fallen into a state of depression. I wanted a way out of everything. I couldn’t concentrate on reasons for my existence. I just felt pain and hurt and loss. And I didn’t see a reason for me to feel that way. Things were going well for me so it was confusing as to why I would feel so hopeless when there was so much to hope for around me. The thing is though, people seem to perpetuate the myth that you need a reason to be depressed. In all reality, this is not true. I never need a reason to get depressed. Sometimes it happens on a beautiful day when the sun is shining, and I’ve just spent time with friends, and my room is clean, and my homework is done, and I’ve eaten well throughout the day. Everything can be perfect, but depression grips like a corset pulled so tight you cannot breathe.

That night was one of those times. There was no real reason for me to feel depressed, and yet my mind cascaded into feelings of being incomplete, feeling detached and withdrawn from the world, wondering what my purpose was for being alive. It didn’t make sense to feel that way when life was going so well for me. And being a logical person, I needed to find a reason for what I was going through. So, I looked up, “What is the purpose of depression?”

I didn’t find all the answers I wanted, but I did find one that felt true to me. Depression is an adaptation to help us contemplate life. It produces different thought patterns that force us to deal with things we might otherwise avoid. And it makes us find a reason for why things are the way they are. Today, another reason rang true with me. Depression has been my refining fire. Every good quality that I have has been influenced by my depression.

I remember vividly the worst period of depression I ever endured. It lasted approximately 9 months. During that time, I felt like I was being stripped of everything. My joy, my hope, my mind, my heart, my family and friends, everything was taken away from me. Although none of these things were really gone, depression made them unreachable. I could not think. I could not smile. I could not stand some of the time. The darkness around me was so thick that I felt it would extinguish everything I had left in me. But in that dark, desperate place, I found the one thing depression could not take from me. When everything else was gone and it was just me and the darkness, I found that I was not left completely desolate. I still had faith. Even if I could not hope in that moment or smile or even get up, I clung to faith. Faith was the last of my light, the one thing the darkness could not put out. And with that faith, I found hope, and with that hope, I found a way to endure.

It was promising to find out that at the core of my soul was faith, but at the time, it didn’t mean much more than just a way to get through my circumstances. In the last few months though, that knowledge has carried me through some difficult times. My sister (who is like my rock) decided to move to another state, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and my baby nephew died, all within about 2 months. I was devastated, heartbroken, and scared, but it was not the worse thing I had ever been through. And in that sense, depression was a beautiful blessing to me because I knew that no matter how bad things got, I still had that faith at the end of the day. I could keep going because at one point, I couldn’t keep going. At one point, I had lost everything in the most real sense because when you lose yourself to depression, you become lost to everything and everything becomes lost to you. So this time, I could stand with my family and have hope.

Depression is the hardest thing I have ever been through. I still have depression and can go through long periods of feeling depressed, but I see the light in my depression. I can see the purpose of my depression. I can see the blessings it has been in my life. Is my purpose for depression the same as yours? Probably not. But, I know that you can also find purpose in your depression or in your trials. You can find light in the darkest of places. I know because I have been there, and in the greatest darkness, I found the strongest light.

What Would You Do If You Could See?

I acted out my suicide a few nights ago. I know I couldn’t really die, I can’t really die. It would hurt too many people. It would break my friends and family. People would question their faith and their resolve and their very being. I can’t do that to people. I can’t hurt people like that.

But I just needed a way out of the pain. So I did what I was wanting to do to die, but I did it in a way that wouldn’t hurt me at all. And to be honest, it was nice to surrender to nothingness. It was nice to focus on my breathing until I fell asleep. I felt at peace.

My life is quite wonderful. I have amazing friends, a wonderful family, and good things in front of me and ahead of me. But death has always been my biggest temptation. I want to die. I have wanted it for as long as I’ve lived, and even on the best days, death calls me home.

I’m on spring break. It is a wonderful time to get away from stress and relax for a week, but it is also incredibly hard because it reminds me that I don’t really know how to spend time with people and don’t really have anyone to spend time with. I have wondered if I’ll make it through to the end of the week. I often lie in bed and think of death.

I can’t die. I won’t die. But death is a familiar friend. And I wonder what that would mean to people. I’ve told my best friend. I’ve trusted her in my darkest hours and shared with her my best hours, but she’s the only one who has known about any of this. No one else has even known that I’ve felt depressed.

I read this blog post today that discussed what it might be like if people could see depression and what it does to a person. I wonder what people would do if they could see my suicidal ideation and what it does to me. If they could see the way it toys with my mind, how it feels like coming home. What would you think if you saw me getting ready to die on an especially dark night? What would you think if you knew that gift was my mind’s final goodbye?

I can’t die. I won’t die. But… Oh how I want to…

Disclaimer: I am not in danger. I have safeguards and procedures in place to prevent me from doing anything to harm myself. I am getting help and am in a good place mentally. This is simply how my mind works. I recognize the potential danger if these thoughts are left unchecked, and have multiple security measures that I use on a daily basis to keep myself safe. It is extremely scary to post this because I know it will make some people panic or become overprotective or not trust me to be okay, but I feel like I need to share this part of me because people need to know what this is like in case they ever feel it or know someone else who does.

The Day I Stopped Hating Myself

I started realizing a little over two years ago just how much I hated myself. Prior to that I thought that I liked myself for the most part but just had some self esteem issues. After suggestions from some friends to make my new year’s goal to love and take care of myself, I realized just how hard this was for me. It was not long before I realized that I had a deep and persistent hatred of myself. I considered myself to be the worst, most worthless person on the earth.

I wasn’t sure what to do with this new knowledge. How do you learn how to love yourself? Where do you start? I decided to start with the people who loved me. If they saw something of worth in me, there had to be something I could love about myself. I wrote on my mirror every single kind thing I could find that someone had said about me. I started out with about 30 adjectives, but got to about 50 after showing friends what I was doing. It was hard to believe all these things about myself, but there was the proof in front of me, written proof that I knew someone thought about me at one point. That was the beginning of a turning point in my life, but there was still a lot of work to do.

A year later, I had grown so much. I was kinder to myself. I was more forgiving of myself. I was not so afraid of myself. But I still hated myself. I messaged a friend one night to ask her what she thought about me selling everything I owned and starting over. This friend is spontaneous and honest and I knew that she would be willing to entertain the thought of me getting rid of everything, but would also tell me if I was being ridiculous or overreacting. We got talking about why I wanted to do this and realized that at the heart of my struggles was an ingrained belief that I was a bad person. But the most interesting thing was that I believed I was a bad person because I could not stop myself from being a good person. I felt unworthy to do good things, but I could not destroy my innate desire to help others.

After realizing all that I believed about myself and working to discover what made me believe these thoughts, I made a breakthrough. I still remember the first time I did something kind for another person and didn’t hate myself for it. I came home happy. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t cry myself to sleep that night. I dropped off the little box full of stuff for a friend and felt proud of myself. It was the most amazing feeling ever to not feel like a failure for doing something good. That was the first night I didn’t feel like I still hated myself.

I still have days where I question my worth. I have days where I wonder why my friends stay friends with me. I still have times where I don’t like myself for something I have done. But I no longer have those nights where I just curl up on the floor and want to die because I tried to be myself. And every day of waking up not hating myself is a beautiful day.

The Gap

It’s 6 a.m. I’ve almost been awake for two hours. I have two finals today. I should probably study for them but I don’t really feel like it. Instead I’ve been reading stories online and singing songs in my head. But mostly when I wake up this early, I just think.

I am not like anyone I have ever met. Honestly, I don’t know anyone that thinks like me. I’m not sure what that means. Maybe it just means that I need to get to know more people. But I wake up at 4 a.m. singing Disney songs. I think about people all the time. I’m a people pleaser and people watcher and people analyzer. My best friend was frustrated with another friend of hers, and I told her what was probably going on. She told me later that I had been right. I’ve just spent my entire life learning about people, but I feel like I hardly know anything.

There seems to be a gap between me and the rest of the world. I have a lot of friends. Most are distant or just slightly closer than being an acquaintance, but they are friendly and we talk sometimes. I just feel separated. There seems to be a gap keeping me from becoming better friends with people.

I contemplate suicide a lot. It’s mostly in the quiet moments like this that I think it would be easier to just go, to silently slip out of everyone’s life. In truth, I never really want to die. I just want my situation on the outside to fit my feelings on the inside. I feel so far away from people emotionally that I just want to be that far away from them physically, like on another planet type of distance. Or I feel so torn up on the inside that I just want to be torn up on the outside to match all the things I’m feeling.

I know I’m going to do fairly well on my finals today, mostly because I don’t have to do very well. I have already calculated my grades and my final won’t make much of a difference. There’s something about life that I have never understood- how can it be so hard and so easy at the same time? I don’t think life is really that hard or complicated. You find something you want to do, learn how to do it, do your best at it, and try to make friends and have fun along the way. Yet, there is a dichotomy and a distance between physical life and emotional life. I want to be loved. I want to feel needed and wanted and important. That’s what we all want, right? And I know that I am. I am loved and needed and wanted. But there still seems to be a gap. Does everyone have that gap or is it just a product of my own creation?