This one, my friends, is going to be dark, heavy, and sad. Warning you now. Also you are not allowed to get mad at me for telling you this: that wont help anyone. Don’t be a dink. Yes, I’ve felt suicidal. So that all being said, if you want to continue reading, take a deep breath, hug your cat, and read on.
A good friend of mine, the other day, compared people to books; I have been thinking about it since. On the outside we can show whatever cover we want, we can change the picture, we can change the size, the dimensions, even edit the little blurb on the back: you can show on the outside whatever you want. No matter what you do, dwhich parts of you you hide away from the world, as you open that cover who you really are is written in all those words on all those pages. Pages that keep getting written every day, and don’t get me wrong, you have kind of a magic spell over the pen writing the words down as you go along, but ultimately a lot of it is out of your control. All we can do is chose how deal with it, how we grow, to embrace our dark pages, those ‘flawed’ pages, and keep trying to write a great ending. Don’t take that to mean you should only be happy for all those pages, because that would be a horrible book. You’d get bored right away, you couldn’t appreciate the good without the bad. You wouldn’t learn that important lesson, or meet that certain someone or whatever cheesy ending is in all those books you read. My own book has its fair share of dark pages, honestly though my book would be more heavily weighed on the dark pages like a Dickens book. (Fun fact, my fave author) A dark book that I have read through and tried to heal and deal with in every way I know how. There are a lot of points in my story where I didn’t think I would make it through to the next chapter, the next page, or even the next sentence. Most of the time I was growing up I didn’t think I’d ever even get this far. When people would ask ‘what do you want to do when you grow up’ a lot of the time I’d say “I wont, Peter Pan is going to come find me and take me to Neverneverland”. On some level, I knew if this was how bad it is to be a kid, I did not want to grow old, I didn’t think I could possibly make it through the pain to get there. I have felt suicidal many many times throughout my life. Even more I’ve thought about how I wish I didn’t exist, I didn’t think I made any difference to anyone by existing, I felt that everyone would be better off without me. Feeling suicidal, you may judge, is selfish. But in those moments, it feels like its for everyone else’s good. I used to walk home from school/choir and walk over the bridge and picture myself jumping off of it in the middle of winter when it would be far too cold to swim. These feelings still happen now and then. I promise you I don’t have a plan, and its not something I would do. Just those feelings of wishing I didn’t exist. I can’t really help them, they’re usually when I’m in a low spot. They’re getting better now that I am doing something I love, and now that I’ve cut out most of those shitty, toxic friends. I am not usually good at asking for help, I’m not good at being direct when I’m in this place, and to be honest with you, even when I was direct a lot of the people I reached out to didn’t help. The last time this happened I lost a friend. I walked around by the water trying my hardest to breathe, to try and ease the intense pain that no words could describe. I texted about 10 people, most brushed me off, some didn’t answer. No one asked if I was okay, no one texted back the next day to check in. It made me feel like I was right, no one cared if I existed or not. That I really am a burden, a broken shell of a person. When I’m in a better place, I know that this monster of an illness can be so convincing with its horrible ‘truths’. I know it can convince you that you don’t belong, that you aren’t loved, that you arent’ enough, that no one cares. I promise you that its wrong. Its so, so wrong. That night I took a picture of where I was standing when I finally took a sip of air (still felt horrible) and posted it on a support group on fb with #madeit. You will too, I promise. Maybe we have met, maybe we haven’t, maybe you’re in some country so far away but no matter where it is, I care. I care you exist. I know how it feels. I promise you the people in your life do too, they just are standing on the wrong side of a two way glass. They want so badly to see you but all they can see is the reflection of the piece of yourself you show so well. They don’t know how to help, help them to know. All I ever really want when I’m in this place is to not be alone. I want someone to say ‘I’m coming to meet you.’ Even if its just to hug me. I want someone to listen, to call me, to just remind me they love me. To ask if I’m okay, and then just validate it. Not to fix me and tell me what I “should” and “shouldn’t” do.
Take a deep breath, this was a heavy one.
Love,
Borderline Babe