The only thing in my head is, “You should have went back and jumped off that bridge. You should have went back. You should have tried again. You should have tried again.” And it’s repeating itself over and over again. The last time I was on that bridge was two years ago and I still think about it often.  Truth be told- I have not been okay lately. Not even in the slightest.

I go through periods where I’m doing awesome and I have hope and ambitions but the periods that I’m bad- I’m really bad. I’m not eating for days bad, forcing myself to sleep so I don’t have to deal with the fact of my existence bad, I’m crying for hours in bed bad. I’m still making little steps everyday like attending groups, taking my meds, even doing a half hour workout but as soon as I’m done I’m back in bed thinking about death. I feel so stuck and so painfully alone. It’s hard to be vulnerable when you’re in this kind of state. It’s not a state you ever want anyone to see you in or know that you are in. You worry that if people know how bad you are doing that they will worry about you and you really don’t want that. You don’t want the guilt of knowing people are worrying. You also don’t want the fact that they know you aren’t okay so they might keep an extra eye on you. You don’t want that because you want that escape route if need be. It’s a horrible way to think and it’s a horrible way to be but that is just my reality right now.

Things are really really tough right now and I don’t have any answers. I’m on disability and that is hard to live on. I struggle to eat and pay my bills with the little income I have. Now I’m stressed out with having to find a new home. Where the hell do I go when I don’t have money or support? My car was stolen and crashed two years ago and I still don’t have that resolved. My car was the only thing keeping me alive and keeping me going. Without it I haven’t been the same.

My options are limited and my resources are few to none. I’m panicking all the time because I don’t want to exist anymore but I’m here and I have to figure out what to do next and where to go from here. The easiest thing for me to do would be to give up, but I can’t. Not yet. As much as I believe I want to die, I believe I just want to feel something else. I don’t want these extra struggles on top of my internal ones. So where do you go from here? How do you crawl out from the deepest hole you’ve ever been in? 

Found this note on my computer from two years ago. It is still very relevant and accurate to how I feel today. Mental Health is an ongoing battle and a very slow moving recovery process. There will always be triumphs, setbacks and downfalls. Recovery isn’t linear.

I have so much to share and to say, yet I have been too numb to function lately. Confined by my own body and brain, restrained to my bed, I have difficulty focusing on a single task. I cannot even get out of bed to eat or shower. I force myself to sleep all day, everyday, so I do not have to deal with being alive. I wish I didn’t feel this way, but I can’t help how I feel at this moment in time.

Depression and anxiety have taken a hold of me. I have never wanted to die this badly. I can’t handle being alive. I do not see a purpose in a single thing I do. Even as I type this I feel lifeless. I feel as though I am already dead. Just because I am breathing does not in any way mean that I am alive. I am lifeless – I really am. I just want the rest of me to match. A few months ago, I contemplated if it was my time to end it all. I calmly walked down to the bridge down the road and I watched the river flowing underneath and I felt at peace for the first time in a long time. I wanted to be a part of it. I could picture it all; the rush of the cold water, my struggle to remain afloat as my body drags along with the current, my lungs filling up with water. It all seems so desirable to me. I never thought I could ever romanticize suicide but there is something about it lately that keeps calling my name, that keeps me wanting, longing for it.

I often wish I could wake up and for a single day not know what it feels like to want to kill myself. I think about death all the time. Constantly. Even if I am not actively thinking about it, its always there in the background. Like a movie I keep on in the background while I’m focusing on other tasks – it isn’t my main focus but I can still hear it. I know there are a lot of others out there who feel the same exact way that I do. I just don’t know any in person who I can talk or relate to and that has been deteriorating me slowly everyday. It’s exhausting trying to mask how I feel because not everyone around me understands or will ever know how I feel. I am truthfully so thankful that the people close to me cannot relate and cannot comprehend how I feel or what I am experiencing, but at the same time it really, really sucks. I simply can’t put into words what I am going through. Half the time I do not know what I am going through. It is impossible to try to describe something that you don’t fully understand. The depression has gotten so unbearable that I do not know how much longer I can endure it for.

There are a lot of days that I really want to feel that desire to get better, but I mainly just want it all to come to an end. I know I am supposed to want to be better and cured and I wish that I did want that but I don’t. I am trapped in my mind, a prisoner in my awful reality that no one but me can see. I am not sure if I truly want to be dead or if I just want to find peace but for now it all ties into one. That scares me and brings me serenity all at once.