I have no reason to be unhappy. I am good at making friends, when I bother to do it. I am reasonably attractive, or at least I think I am. I make decent grades at a decent university, where I am taking classes to be a teacher.
I have tried to kill myself once before, however. My mother stopped me, and I suppose because I was only *about* to try (she caught me with a bunch of pills because she'd been watching me after an offhand comment I made) or maybe because she just wanted to pretend that wasn't what I was actually trying to do, all she did was put me on a stronger antidepressant.
I have been on antidepressants and ADD medication since I was 14 years old (I'm 20 now). It took a very long time for me to be diagnosed with ADD and clinical depression, both of which run in my family, because my behavior around friends and family differed (and continues to differ) vastly with my behavior when I am alone. The ADD medication makes my hands shake, and the antidepressants make it hard to sleep and ruin my appetite, not to mention that they make everything seem distant, kind of like a dream, when I'm off them and I try to recall what it was like to be on them. Whenever I go off of them, I'm very manic for a few days, and then I return to the sort of general malaise that has always been my default mental state. Even when i am medicated, it's not that I'm not depressed, so much as that there is a barrier between me and my depression, as though it is some horrible beast that I know is always waiting to claw out of its cage and devour me. I can always *feel* it there.
At any rate, I have never been happy. There are brief moments, be they a few minutes, hours, or days, where I forget myself and laugh and smile, and I almost always *behave* this way with others, so much so that people who don't know me very well think of me as a constant funny-man. I always return to my depression, however. It never stops, and I know I can never defeat it. Exercising, playing video games, studying hard, having sex, trying to forge meaningful relationships: they only hold it at bay for as long as I can manage to pay attention to them. If I do not have someone wake me up, I sleep 11 to 12 hours a day. If I don't have anywhere I feel I *have* to be (it often feels like the only way I can do anything is if someone tells me to), I don't bathe, or shave, or clean, or brush my teeth. I don't do anything but find some way to distract myself until it's time to sleep again, and I hope every time that I won't wake up.
The thing is, I know the problem: I am biologically predisposed to depression. I don't have any imminent social persecution looming over my head. I'm a middle class white male American and, though I'm bisexual, that really causes me no problems. I have a job that is tolerable, I work with people who are tolerable, and I take classes at my university that are tolerable. Sometimes I have fun at work or school, but it isn't the norm. I do not have a terminal disease. I do not suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or any other serious psychological disorder. I am single, and have been for a while, but I can think of at least a few people I could call up and ask out right now who would not think twice about it.
I have no reason to, yet I want to die. Rather, I want to not be alive anymore. At the grocery store where I work, I take a new boxcutter everyday, and every day I imagine that I will use it to slit my wrists once I get home. Every time i see a gun, I imagine what it would be like to put it in my mouth, how good it would feel to know that this, certainly, would kill me very quickly. Every day when I take my medication, I imagine taking all of it. I drive down twisting mountain roads at night in the rain with the engine off and no power steering or brakes for the excitement, and when I did it the first time, and expected to shake or weep when faced with my own mortality, I just rolled into a gas station, filled up, and drove home as though nothing had happened. I didn't care that I had almost died, I was just a little disappointed.
I think about killing myself all the time. I can't tell my family or parents because they would blame themselves and, frankly, I don't want them to try and stop me when I finally decide to try again. I won't tell my friends because they've got their own problems, and if I don't make enough money to buy a gun, then I certainly don't make enough to afford a therapist. I honestly don't believe anything will make me change the way I feel, or don't feel, but I guess I wanted to talk about it, to explain to people who might understand that I don't have a reason TO kill myself. I just can't think of a reason not to.
What's your reason?
(Thanks for your time if you read all this.)
I have tried to kill myself once before, however. My mother stopped me, and I suppose because I was only *about* to try (she caught me with a bunch of pills because she'd been watching me after an offhand comment I made) or maybe because she just wanted to pretend that wasn't what I was actually trying to do, all she did was put me on a stronger antidepressant.
I have been on antidepressants and ADD medication since I was 14 years old (I'm 20 now). It took a very long time for me to be diagnosed with ADD and clinical depression, both of which run in my family, because my behavior around friends and family differed (and continues to differ) vastly with my behavior when I am alone. The ADD medication makes my hands shake, and the antidepressants make it hard to sleep and ruin my appetite, not to mention that they make everything seem distant, kind of like a dream, when I'm off them and I try to recall what it was like to be on them. Whenever I go off of them, I'm very manic for a few days, and then I return to the sort of general malaise that has always been my default mental state. Even when i am medicated, it's not that I'm not depressed, so much as that there is a barrier between me and my depression, as though it is some horrible beast that I know is always waiting to claw out of its cage and devour me. I can always *feel* it there.
At any rate, I have never been happy. There are brief moments, be they a few minutes, hours, or days, where I forget myself and laugh and smile, and I almost always *behave* this way with others, so much so that people who don't know me very well think of me as a constant funny-man. I always return to my depression, however. It never stops, and I know I can never defeat it. Exercising, playing video games, studying hard, having sex, trying to forge meaningful relationships: they only hold it at bay for as long as I can manage to pay attention to them. If I do not have someone wake me up, I sleep 11 to 12 hours a day. If I don't have anywhere I feel I *have* to be (it often feels like the only way I can do anything is if someone tells me to), I don't bathe, or shave, or clean, or brush my teeth. I don't do anything but find some way to distract myself until it's time to sleep again, and I hope every time that I won't wake up.
The thing is, I know the problem: I am biologically predisposed to depression. I don't have any imminent social persecution looming over my head. I'm a middle class white male American and, though I'm bisexual, that really causes me no problems. I have a job that is tolerable, I work with people who are tolerable, and I take classes at my university that are tolerable. Sometimes I have fun at work or school, but it isn't the norm. I do not have a terminal disease. I do not suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or any other serious psychological disorder. I am single, and have been for a while, but I can think of at least a few people I could call up and ask out right now who would not think twice about it.
I have no reason to, yet I want to die. Rather, I want to not be alive anymore. At the grocery store where I work, I take a new boxcutter everyday, and every day I imagine that I will use it to slit my wrists once I get home. Every time i see a gun, I imagine what it would be like to put it in my mouth, how good it would feel to know that this, certainly, would kill me very quickly. Every day when I take my medication, I imagine taking all of it. I drive down twisting mountain roads at night in the rain with the engine off and no power steering or brakes for the excitement, and when I did it the first time, and expected to shake or weep when faced with my own mortality, I just rolled into a gas station, filled up, and drove home as though nothing had happened. I didn't care that I had almost died, I was just a little disappointed.
I think about killing myself all the time. I can't tell my family or parents because they would blame themselves and, frankly, I don't want them to try and stop me when I finally decide to try again. I won't tell my friends because they've got their own problems, and if I don't make enough money to buy a gun, then I certainly don't make enough to afford a therapist. I honestly don't believe anything will make me change the way I feel, or don't feel, but I guess I wanted to talk about it, to explain to people who might understand that I don't have a reason TO kill myself. I just can't think of a reason not to.
What's your reason?
(Thanks for your time if you read all this.)