zombie-halfexistence

I’ve never been happy.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  I have had happy moments, days, perhaps even weeks.  On the whole, though, I have never been a happy person.  A couple of decades ago I might have had “depressive personality disorder.”  If I actually told a doctor any of this, I might get a nice, shiny “dysthymia” diagnosis.  But I have never told a doctor this. No, I have never told a single person.

Every day in recent memory, I have thought about killing myself.  Usually it’s an idle “what-if” sort of thing.  “If I killed myself, I wouldn’t have to write this paper.”  “If I was dead, someone else would have to do the dishes.”  I weigh the pros and cons of death daily, and usually I decide that, although life isn’t worth living, death is too final and uncertain to proceed.

I have tried to kill myself twice seriously.  Both times, I was too pathetic to get it anywhere close to right, and no one ever knew.  So I added that secret to the burden that I was already carrying, and I continue to carry it, alone, to this day.

I am a cutter.  These days, who isn’t?  I started in the 6th grade, when I was 11 years old.  That was 13 years ago.  The last time I wore a t-shirt was in 2005.

It’s not that I have a particularly bad life.  My parents didn’t abuse me, though I seriously doubt if they were aware of my presence in the household.  I’ve always done well in school, I’m really good at just about everything…nothing’s ever been hard for me.  I’m a “high achiever.”  Even when I have been in a deep depression, I have continued to succeed.  When I was 15, I cut myself badly and had to get stitches.  I was out of school for one day.  I returned the next day and proceeded on as if nothing had happened.  I got straight A’s that semester.

I have stuff to live for, but not much.  Because of my severe trust issues, I have no close friends.  I am nearly 25 years old and I have never been in a relationship with a man.  Or woman.  I have never had sex, been on a date, or even been kissed. This doesn’t bother me too much–I am asexual.  It does limit my attachment to the world.  Most days I am not sure why I am alive.  There have been a fair number of days where I wasn’t sure I was alive at all.

So many people say that “It gets better.”  I seriously doubt this.  The depression ebbs and flows, but I have never found happiness, and I don’t really expect to.  Sometimes I begin to feel desperate to escape this…grayness, but mostly I am resigned to this zombie-halfexistence.  Tomorrow morning, I will wake up, consider shuffling off this mortal coil, and then get out of bed to face the day.