god i’m tired

This is my first time on the website, so I hope I don’t break any rules or something.

My story is pretty standard: a strict family, crippingly high expectations, and an inability to ever deliver what they wanted culminated in chronic depression and very bad self esteem. I once brought home a B+ for a 7th grade science class. My parents screamed at me and insulted me until I was literally on my knees, sobbing, begging them to stop.

In high school I was absolutely miserable. Because I was shy and socially awkward, I was unpopular, completely ignored. I did well in my classes, but of course not nearly well enough to please my parents. Nobody talked to me, nobody wanted to know me, nobody gave a shit about how much I was suffering inside, not even my few close friends.

Senior year was rough. I was insanely depressed, I got shitty grades; my parents, of course, screamed at me to do better and grounded me when I couldn’t live up to their expectations. They were really putting on the pressure. They wouldn’t settle for anything less than an Ivy League school. I knew my chances were awful, that there were better alternatives, but they ignored my pleas. I asked my friends, my teachers, my high school counselor for advice, but they didn’t have any to give. It got so bad, I finally decided to kill myself.  

I wanted suicide to be painless and 100% effective, above all, but I couldn’t find anything that could guarantee both. I finally settled on a method and chose the date. I lay in bed until my parents had fallen asleep. The plan was simple: I was supposed to tiptoe down to the garage and just do it. Finally end it all and show them how much pain I’d been enduring. But I couldn’t bring myself to get up. I was so scared; I was 17. I didn’t want to die, but I did. It was confusing, to say the least. I ended up crying myself to sleep, hoping that I wouldn’t wake up in the morning. I did, and somehow, with the aid of alcohol and marijuana, dragged myself through the rest of senior year and got into a good school.

But it never left me, that desire. I thought I was going to be happy at college, and I am, in many respects. I forgave my parents, I figured out who I am–I moved on. Yet in my darkest moments I can’t help but contemplate it again. I’m an adult now. It would be so much easier to get my hands on the pills, the drugs, the gun. And sometimes I am so desperate that I consider just throwing myself off the nearest overpass. The only thing keeping me from offing myself is the hope that I’ll one day find real meaning in life. I don’t know–maybe one day I’ll give into the urge and fuck it all and just do it. And today, god, I am so tired of living.