Hi guys. This is my first thread and post on this site. I hope you guys can help me. I don't want to run away from my problems anymore or let my mind go to that scary place where some sick voice starts convincing me that suicide is an answer. I want to reach out.
When I was 11 years old, I came home from school one day and my mother was dead. Since then, I've been struggling with PTSD and chronic depression. I've had a few "highs" (moments where I think I've finally kicked my demons to the curb and won) but I always end up plummeting back into the dark. I find it difficult to connect with people because they don't struggle like I do, and I know everyone hurts, but I can't help but hate them for taking their relatively better lives for granted. I can't open up to them, so I isolated myself for years.
I thought that everything would turn around if I lived a healthier lifestyle. When I was 18, I got my TASC (the new, harder version of the GED) and I got the highest score in New York City. Despite the fact that I was a high school dropout with a disgusting GPA and an average of 60 absences per year, I was accepted to a really good business college in the city that has a program for kids who have the potential but come from socioeconomic backgrounds that hindered their high school success. (Tuh. I WISH my socioeconomic background was all that what was holding me back...) My old childhood friends who disappeared when my mom passed away reunited with me when they saw I was doing good (they mean well).
I thought that this was it. I finally trumped my demons. I can finally be a normal person and be happy. I'm going to a great school and I have friends, how could I want to die?
Things went great at first. But everything came crashing down soon enough. Depression just dragged me down by my ankles like it always does. It didn't need a reason. It didn't care that I was living a healthier lifestyle. And that's when I realized that I really had no clue what I was dealing with.
The college I'm going to is very competitive, and being consumed with depressive thoughts and anxiety, hating the thought of waking up the next day and being around people, being hyper-sensitive to every little thing and imagining the worst in everyone and everything is kind of counterproductive to get good grades. I was floundering with my assignments and my grades and my attendance. I had been forcing myself to be a happier person in order to connect to my new friends, but it only made me start to hate them. There were relationships that went sour, and all my demons from before started catching up to me... It all felt like a noose being tied around me. I ended up doing what I've always done and that is isolate myself completely, like a coward. I cut off all of my friends and never showed up to college again. I failed all my classes in my first semester.
In the program that I enrolled in at college, I was assigned a guidance counselor to guide me. She's a really nice lady. Somehow, she was able to crack me open enough and get me to tell her a little bit about my depression as I was floundering during the semester. I managed to send her an email telling her I wasn't going back to college and I never logged into my email again for the next several months.
I should be in my second semester at college, but I've been a NEET at home. Too terrified to live my life. No social media. I don't even look in the mirror cus I don't want to be reminded that I'm a human being. I just want to sleep, sleep, sleep or immerse myself in the lives of people in TV shows or books. I did go through a very dark period where I contemplated just committing suicide. It's when I was googling how I would do it that I found this website and made an account... Things got better after that, I suppose. I still struggled, but I started writing diary entries and it changed everything. Writing about your feelings is like wrangling with your innermost demons, and I impressed myself, because I wasn't running away anymore. It changed everything.
I've been too much of a coward to log into my email for the past few months because I'm scared that reading the email that's going to tell me I've been dropped out of college is going to plummet me back into depression. I don't know how, but I managed to get the balls to check my email. My guidance counselor, bless her heart, has been sending me emails this whole time checking up on me, and told me that she put me as "holding off" for the semester instead of dropping out. She asked me if I will be returning to college in the Fall. This whole time I thought college was over for me, at least at that college.
I'm a little scared to go back to college. My depression isn't something that isn't going to just magically disappear ever, but I understand it better now. I want to succeed and make my mom proud. Make myself proud. But I'm afraid things are just going to repeat itself. I don't trust myself enough to not close up and run away when things get tough, but I know that going to college is an opportunity to have a better life someday (maybe. There are definitely people who haven't gone to college who are happier). Somehow, I still have a dream of working at a publishing house and maybe even writing a book someday...
I know the "right" answer is to be brave and face myself, go back to school, and fight to succeed.
But, from people who understand how scary it is to be depressed and suicidal, is it worth the risk? If I just live a life isolated, get a minimum wage job or something, and avoid myself, I won't be "happy" but I'll be safe - You guys understand that right? What would you do? What should I do? And if you have any other advice you can give me, I would love to hear your thoughts.
I also want to say that if you're reading this and you're struggling, I sincerely hope that someway, somehow, you make it out of the dark and defeat whatever you're fighting with.
It's okay if you don't know how to respond to me. Thank you for reading and message me if you want! I love you.
When I was 11 years old, I came home from school one day and my mother was dead. Since then, I've been struggling with PTSD and chronic depression. I've had a few "highs" (moments where I think I've finally kicked my demons to the curb and won) but I always end up plummeting back into the dark. I find it difficult to connect with people because they don't struggle like I do, and I know everyone hurts, but I can't help but hate them for taking their relatively better lives for granted. I can't open up to them, so I isolated myself for years.
I thought that everything would turn around if I lived a healthier lifestyle. When I was 18, I got my TASC (the new, harder version of the GED) and I got the highest score in New York City. Despite the fact that I was a high school dropout with a disgusting GPA and an average of 60 absences per year, I was accepted to a really good business college in the city that has a program for kids who have the potential but come from socioeconomic backgrounds that hindered their high school success. (Tuh. I WISH my socioeconomic background was all that what was holding me back...) My old childhood friends who disappeared when my mom passed away reunited with me when they saw I was doing good (they mean well).
I thought that this was it. I finally trumped my demons. I can finally be a normal person and be happy. I'm going to a great school and I have friends, how could I want to die?
Things went great at first. But everything came crashing down soon enough. Depression just dragged me down by my ankles like it always does. It didn't need a reason. It didn't care that I was living a healthier lifestyle. And that's when I realized that I really had no clue what I was dealing with.
The college I'm going to is very competitive, and being consumed with depressive thoughts and anxiety, hating the thought of waking up the next day and being around people, being hyper-sensitive to every little thing and imagining the worst in everyone and everything is kind of counterproductive to get good grades. I was floundering with my assignments and my grades and my attendance. I had been forcing myself to be a happier person in order to connect to my new friends, but it only made me start to hate them. There were relationships that went sour, and all my demons from before started catching up to me... It all felt like a noose being tied around me. I ended up doing what I've always done and that is isolate myself completely, like a coward. I cut off all of my friends and never showed up to college again. I failed all my classes in my first semester.
In the program that I enrolled in at college, I was assigned a guidance counselor to guide me. She's a really nice lady. Somehow, she was able to crack me open enough and get me to tell her a little bit about my depression as I was floundering during the semester. I managed to send her an email telling her I wasn't going back to college and I never logged into my email again for the next several months.
I should be in my second semester at college, but I've been a NEET at home. Too terrified to live my life. No social media. I don't even look in the mirror cus I don't want to be reminded that I'm a human being. I just want to sleep, sleep, sleep or immerse myself in the lives of people in TV shows or books. I did go through a very dark period where I contemplated just committing suicide. It's when I was googling how I would do it that I found this website and made an account... Things got better after that, I suppose. I still struggled, but I started writing diary entries and it changed everything. Writing about your feelings is like wrangling with your innermost demons, and I impressed myself, because I wasn't running away anymore. It changed everything.
I've been too much of a coward to log into my email for the past few months because I'm scared that reading the email that's going to tell me I've been dropped out of college is going to plummet me back into depression. I don't know how, but I managed to get the balls to check my email. My guidance counselor, bless her heart, has been sending me emails this whole time checking up on me, and told me that she put me as "holding off" for the semester instead of dropping out. She asked me if I will be returning to college in the Fall. This whole time I thought college was over for me, at least at that college.
I'm a little scared to go back to college. My depression isn't something that isn't going to just magically disappear ever, but I understand it better now. I want to succeed and make my mom proud. Make myself proud. But I'm afraid things are just going to repeat itself. I don't trust myself enough to not close up and run away when things get tough, but I know that going to college is an opportunity to have a better life someday (maybe. There are definitely people who haven't gone to college who are happier). Somehow, I still have a dream of working at a publishing house and maybe even writing a book someday...
I know the "right" answer is to be brave and face myself, go back to school, and fight to succeed.
But, from people who understand how scary it is to be depressed and suicidal, is it worth the risk? If I just live a life isolated, get a minimum wage job or something, and avoid myself, I won't be "happy" but I'll be safe - You guys understand that right? What would you do? What should I do? And if you have any other advice you can give me, I would love to hear your thoughts.
I also want to say that if you're reading this and you're struggling, I sincerely hope that someway, somehow, you make it out of the dark and defeat whatever you're fighting with.
It's okay if you don't know how to respond to me. Thank you for reading and message me if you want! I love you.
