Life or death?

Life. Choose life. I know this because for a long time I thought I wanted to die, then I had some panic attacks and thought I was having a heart attack, and realized: I don’t want to die! I just want to stop being lonely and alone and frightened. I want people to care about me, people to talk to, people to give me hugs and help me with things I need help with.

So, I’m learning to ask for all those things. It’s tiring work, and I still sleep a lot too and get woken up at all hours by nightmares and often can’t get back to sleep either.

I think it’s like something’s knocking on your brain (you know, “knock knock”, like knocking on a door?), trying to get your attention. That’s what the nightmares are for.

And the sleeping is to get away from the pain of life, whatever particular pain you may be experiencing – loneliness, a death in the family, job loss, breaking up with someone you love, being abused or bullied, or any combination of these things.

Stresses like this get healed by having a time to rest and recuperate and by having people who care about you to help you through it.

When we don’t get enough help and emotional support, our resources get taxed way beyond what they should be. We live in an unnaturally high-stress, fast-paced culture that expects us to always be happy no matter what, and to get over whatever’s bothering us as fast as possible so that we aren’t a ‘buzzkill’ by burdening other people with our problems.

Instead we’re only allowed to tell our problems to paid ‘carers’ (in other words, shrinks) who don’t really care at all (except about taking our money). With everybody else we have to pretend we’re fine, or they won’t love us any more.

So things pile up and accumulate, and eventually you just get so tired you can’t move any more.

The best recommendation I can make is to go ahead and let yourself rest and not be judgmental of it – your body is doing what it needs to do to help you feel better. I know it’s frustrating to not be able to do as much as you want, but your body is smart – it’s basically telling you you’re trying to do too much, you’re overtaxing your body and mind.

Try not to compare yourself to other people – I know it’s hard, but the people who look like they’re so amazing? are often being helped by others, often by *lots* of other people, to do whatever they’re doing. People who manage to accomplish huge amounts generally have entire armies of people who are helping them get things done.

Also, can you tell your parents how much their arguments are bothering you? Tell them it’s really stressing you out, and let them know the other ways that they’re affecting you. They may not realize it, they may not be thinking about how it affects you. Sometimes people assume that because you don’t complain, nothing is wrong. Have you heard of the saying, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”? Well, if you haven’t been squeaking loud enough for your parents to hear, maybe it’s time to start making some noise.

And see if you can get some help from outside your immediate family. Anybody at all will do, but it would be good if it was an adult such as an aunt or uncle or grandparent or family friend who knows your parents and could talk to them some.

Everybody’s so big on ‘mind your own business’, but sometimes what we really need is a little meddling so that people don’t forget that they’re not alone – we share this big world with a whole bunch of other people. We have to all pay attention to each other and care about what’s happening in each others’ lives.

There’s a blog about cutting you might find interesting:
Healing Self-Injury

Dear Kayceekitten:

Remember, the pain is caused by the depression.

When the depression lifts, you will find joy in life again.

Keep fighting.

Cordially,
Struggling to Survive (been there)