I’m not suicidal ( I think). I don’t have a shitty life (from a privileged family). I’m not a teen (no hormone imbalance).
Though, I do feel like a piece trash most of the time. (I know….you can call me a whinny ***** later)
I’m one of those people that no one will ever think to be depressed. I’m in university. I have a lot of “friends”. I have a loving and successful family. Yet I hate myself most of the time because as a single child to a very privileged family, I’m bloody mediocre and boring as a piece of white paper.
Most people around me often say I’m tough, cheerful and independent yet I would gladly burst into tears the moment I walk into solidarity. I’m a female virgin at the age of 21 because I rejected every advance from men and women.(frankly, I don’t care about gender) Other times I feel like they are just toying with me because I’m tragically fat looking even though my BMI seems to be fine.
Academically I’m a disaster. I had scholarship when I was in highschool and beginning of university but I’ve failed two years of my university. (I’m not in arts, before anyone tries to guess) Every time I step onto campus I feel like I don’t belong there. It’s a great university, high ranking in the world, very nice environment with a lot of supportive people. I’m from a family of elites who went on to be CEOs, doctors and professors. I HATE that I lack the self control to study as hard as them. I HATE that I’m the person that during gatherings, people look to with sympathy in their eyes. Yet I’m too cowardly and pathetic to change it thus far. How many times I’ve bruised my fist, my head and cried my eyes swollen and swear to change yet never did.
I KNOW, I KNOW that logically I’m just being a whinny spoiled kid. Part of me think what I experience is NOTHING compared to some of the other stories here (the real ones at least) yet I’m slowly being driven insane by inaction and staleness of my life. I’ve thought of suicide long and hard but the fear of disgracing my entire family is even higher than my own life. So, I think I’m not suicidal, at least not now.
There…there’s my rant. Now people can proceed to ask me to die (with detailed ways on how to no less)…
If anyone actually bothered to finish reading this I thank you.
Otherwise….as you and I were…
5 comments
I think a rant is perfectly reasonable, sometimes we need to release the valve and let it all out.
You said something that stood out
Part of me think what I experience is NOTHING compared to some of the other stories here.
We like to measure our stories against others and then label ours as being nothing. And we do this without defining are unites of measurement so most of the time these units are imagined something’s so it’s no wonder we come up short.
What you experience is what you experience so never NOTHING!
Measuring one experience against another’s experience does not change the experience or make it nothing.
A patient in bed with a broken leg besides another bed with a patient dealing with cancer does not make the pain of the broken leg go away! It isn’t nothing and it matters.
How much of your stuckness is based on the feeling that your experience is nothing?
What if you’re stuck because you’re depressed about being stuck?
Life is muddy eventually we all get stuck at times but it seems a shame if it was labelling that stuckness as being bad which kept us stuck.
What if the first step to getting unstuck only required that we acknowledge our stuckness without judgment?
What would life be like if we were able to live it without labelling and measuring every moment?
What if we could just grant ourselves a little space to breathe between moments
What if it could be enough that when we learn better we work to do better and forgive ourselves even when we fall?
That’s how I would like to love and be loved
I actually logged in here to ask a question, I forget what it was now. Having read your story I feel like trying to make you feel a little better now rather than ask whatever my question was, it’ll come back to me.
I’m no counsellor, life coach, role model or person of consequence so I’m assuming that reading this will be a waste of your time.
With that disclaimer out of the way, some impartial considerations:
“I have a lot of “friends—
Someone told me years ago that everyone is their own best friend and their own worst enemy. I didn’t think much of it at the time but if you are your own best friend then you don’t *need* friends. Which makes it much easier to appreciate and assume the best of those you have.
“as a single child to a very privileged family, I’m bloody mediocre and boring as a piece of white paper”
I can only understand how the first part of that statement has relevance if you feel stifled by a perceived need to conduct yourself in a certain manner as a consequence of it. I may be miles off here but if not then, maybe committing to a pastime that *you enjoy* would lift your spirits some? Something utterly pointless. I enjoy rock climbing myself, it seems to make everything else so much more worthwhile.
“Most people around me often say I’m tough, cheerful and independent yet I would gladly burst into tears the moment I walk into solidarity.”
Maybe you’re tougher, cheerier and more independent than you give yourself credit for? They’re in the majority, after all.
“I’m a female virgin at the age of 21 because I rejected every advance from men and women.(frankly, I don’t care about gender) Other times I feel like they are just toying with me because I’m tragically fat looking even though my BMI seems to be fine.”
I’ve slept with more people of the same gender as myself than my oppositely gendered flatmate who is a year older than myself. I don’t even know how many people of the opposite gender I have slept with. Anyway, after all that time spent in relationships / in the bedroom, when I look back there are only two that really meant anything to me and I don’t speak to either of them anymore. I guess what I’m saying is that you’ve still got a chance to share it with the right person first time. As for “Other times I feel like they are just toying with me because I’m tragically fat looking even though my BMI seems to be fine.” I note that you said “feel like” and not “think”. If your head is being a better friend to you than your heart, then go with your head.
“Academically I’m a disaster.” …. “Every time I step onto campus I feel like I don’t belong there. It’s a great university, high ranking in the world”
It seems possible that you judge yourself more harshly than others do. Anyway, if you’re capable but underperforming then perhaps you’re lacking motivation, perhaps you’re an introvert who is more problem conscious than outcome seeking. Anyway, if either of those possibilities has even a grain of truth to it then perhaps you would do well to consider how academic success will help you attain something that you would value, if you don’t care so much for academia for it’s own sake. Remind yourself of “the prize” and keep your eyes on it?
It also seems possible that you fear something that emotionally feels more pressing than the need to do well at uni. With practice one can subordinate the emotions to the mind, I’m told. I’m no expert on that myself. I believe it’s what the zen story of the ten bulls is about.
“I’m slowly being driven insane by inaction and staleness of my life. I’ve thought of suicide long and hard but the fear of disgracing my entire family is even higher than my own life.”
It sounds like you’re life is short on things that you enjoy. Try new things, hobbies e.t.c.? Also, it sounds like you’re living for your family or the way you think your family want you to. It’s possible that they just want you to be happy, whatever does it for you. You could speak to them about it maybe?
Anyway, Most of what I’ve said is probably S&P AAA rated bullsh**. I hope that you can take some consolation in some of it, at least.
I hope that you can find your joie de vivre.
Sincerely,
AWAHTL.
Thank you. I genuinely lack any better words but I suspect you understand the sentiment already.
Now that I’ve calmed down from that pitfall-like state I feel almost embarrassed for throwing such childish tantrum at myself. Then I remembered how I stopped myself from acting like a child since I could remember. It feels good to…feel…again, and let myself go and act like an immature high schooler.
Between all my tough acts and cheery demeanor, I really need to stop looking back so furiously to find correlation between my past flaws and existing conditions and look ahead. Even though my immature heart will shamelessly shrug from this easy to say but hard to do process…I do hope, and really hope that my feelings will only grow lighter and not darker as I mature.
Lastly, thanks again. May whatever reason be putting you on this site be a positive one as well. I’m working on it.
Your meticulous read through my little rant has been extremely heart warming. I think many of what you pointed out really did strike a chord (or chords).
Judgmental is such a burden, even when it’s not unfairly put on others. I’ve always thought by being tough with myself and controlling every aspect of my actions I can redeem myself from my past but it seemed to have only put me back into the past every time “triggers” occur. Sadly, these triggers could be as small as taking a wrong turn when walking but too ashamed to just turn around and look like I’m lost.
Haha….this mentality is laughable at best but it’s so alarmingly true for me. You are right. I need to stop being such a scary OCD and find something I enjoy that does not involve acting and behaving a certain way.
Perhaps…I can return the favor and ask why you are here so long? We all have our knicks and cuts, while the depth of wounds vary, at least we all have different perspectives?
You said in your reply to left22 that it feels good to feel again and act like an immature high schooler. You’re absolutely God damned right it does. hehe. It feels better still to find an emotional “place” from which one can refrain from judging ones-self at all, at least no more than one does ones friends. This I must remind myself of as I’m better at being my own worst enemy than I am at being my own best friend. As if being harshly self critical improves the outcomes in my life (it doesn’t). Sometimes it might seem to, but more often than not it becomes an obstacle, a burden, an exhausting weight to drag around.
I read a book recently that suggested, rightly, I suspect, that in order to ( know / be ) happiness, all we must do is recognise that we want it more than we want our next breath. On a message board called suicideproject.org I suspect that most of us here can count ourselves in that number. Like in the movie “Fight Club”, when the protagonist shoots himself in the face to kill his schizophrenic alter ego who would put the world to rights. We can do the same, not literally, obviously, but we can put our inner Tyler Durdens on the naughty step and, with effort and practice, do nothing but love the world, ourselves and our places in it as they are. Generally we are not in the habit of doing so but there is nothing to prevent us. As Aldous Huxley wrote in Island, “Here and now, boys, here and now” Not in past “failures” or “injustices” (why be so judgemental), or in intangible, unsatisfying dreams but in the here and now. It is in the here and now that happiness is found. There is a TED Talk “Matt Killingsworth: Want to be happier? Stay in the moment” that backs that assertion with research.
Anyway, on to your reply to myself. (I’m flattered that you chose to reply.) I worried in replying that I’d totally misunderstood you and would just annoy you by replying so, I’m glad those fears were unfounded.
When I find myself being judgemental and I pause to consider why I am being so, I usually find that my judgements are motivated by fear of something that I percieve to be beyond my control. I’m not very good at this myself, but I suspect that if I could invest my time in contingency planning instead of railing against percieved injustice or my own ineptitude then I would secure better outcomes for myself. For me it’s a question of discipline and practicing it rather than hypothesising as to how I came to be without it.
Triggers, yes I have those to. My biggest problem with them is finding people that can accept my need to plan around them. I swear if I was the kind of crazy that meant that I couldn’t stand on the cracks between paving slabs people would be more understanding. But there I am, woe is me, judgemental again. Hehe.
I only mean to suggest that you can probably find things to make life fun if you allow yourself to stop worrying about what’s expected of you. I spent my childhood terrified that the world was going to eat me alive if I didn’t do what was expected of me. I think that if I missed out on anything it was self-confidence. I’ve found it here and there and often in the most unexpected of places. I’ve no idea where you’ll find it but if you follow the passions of your heart but allow for the warnings of your head you’ll find something sooner or later. And much sooner than if you rely on others to tell you what to do. (He says, telling you what to do). Maybe you’d lose yourself in the moment and therefore happiness if you find some outlet for your creativity. (Another TED Talk: Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity) I only wish to suggest that you may be happier if you just tweak your priorities to include some present happiness in with your long term goals, which I’m inclined to assume are sound.
Ah, about me? I’m the kind of person who blows away like ash in the wind when asked that question. The kind who tries to justify himself to himself by being of value to others despite the vague awareness that others are like black holes, waiting to engulf him, even when they’d rather not be. I call it disciple syndrome. My psychiatrist is considering the possibility that I may qualify for a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.
The “here too long” part of the name I chose was a tacit admission that I’m in that unfortunate group of people who have already tried to take their own lives and found that they are incapable even of that. Someone with a BPD diagnosis is 50 times as likely to commit suicide as someone without and someone who has already attempted suicide is 37 times as likely to succeed the second time. So, my emotional baggage can get pretty heavy. It’s not easy to find people who can relate (understandably, I’m not criticising anyone) hence, I have found myself here.
Thanks for reading.
A.