All of my life I had been abused by my parents and my parents were abusive to each other until my mom walked out on us for a year and then our parents just ignored us. In elementary school I had a lot of problems in class and I would sometime sit there and cry all day and have to kept in the office. Sometimes I would talk to the school counselor. One day in the 4th grade the counselor called me in and told me she would have me take an anonymous survey that a bunch of other kids were taking and told me not to even put my name on it. The survey had examples and then you could put strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree. The examples were things like “I feel pretty.”, “I feel like I have friends.”, “I feel loved.”. I wanted to make the counselor happy so I did the survey. After school when my mom came to pick me up, my mom told that the survey was really to gauge if someone had depression and that they thought I needed to be put on medications. For some at that age I felt so strongly betrayed and lied to by that counselor, when I think of it I still feel betrayed. My parents don’t believe in mental illness, my mom ignored it and told me the pills would make me a zombie and that if I continued talking to the counselor that they would eventually try to blame my parents, so it went ignored.
Today I still wonder if things would have been better for me if I had gotten some kind of help then. Now that I’m older I think that I’ve never felt good in my life. I’ve been alive for 20 years and back then I always told myself if I waited and tried hard enough it would get better, but it’s only gotten so much worse. Trying to get help only makes me feel so much worse. And all anyone ever tells me is “It gets better.”, “You’re to pretty to be depressed.”, “You’re too young to be depressed.”, “You’ve always been the reasonable one, why are you acting like this now.” I don’t think anyone realizes how bad I am, I think I’m doing but then I realize that it’s just because I’m ignoring it. I can’t really be present in my own head without breaking down. I am always distracting myself with something. Honestly, I can’t even remember what it feels like to feel good and I wonder if I am even capable of feeling good. I am not living, I’m dying and I’m pretending that I’m not.
Because when it all get downs to it. When I ask for help or talk to counselors and they try to make things better for me this is what I want to scream and what I want people to know. I’m not a normal person with hopes and dreams and passions and potential. All I am is a 4th grader tearing her hair out because she can’t cope any other way. I’m that same kid trying to strangle herself with a belt because she needs more love, more help than she’s getting. I’m a 6th grader cutting herself and realizing she’ll die young. I’m a 16 year old realizing her mom has walked out and realizing that after all the abuse the abandonment hurts worse. I’m an 18 year old thinking I’ve found a guy I love, a guy I could live for only to have him him say he was using me for sex and that I should kill myself. I’m a college student skipping class everyday because she can’t even find the strength to feed herself more than every three days let alone get up for class. I’m vomiting up 64 NyQuil into the toilet so it comes out our nose. I’m cutting so bad that there’s blood soaked towels on the floor and I can’t get out of bed for two days. I’m a 20 year old who wakes up feeling like she will lose everything, a 20 year old who wakes up with the weight of thousands of dollars in debt. I’m dark thoughts that beat against my skull every time I try to think. I’m the horrible pain that weighs down my lungs and suffocates me. I’m screaming for help, screaming for anything better to happen, but it never does. But I guess none of that matters because on day all I’ll be is a life that wanted happiness but never found it before it ended.
3 comments
It seems like things have been building up for at least the past eleven years. There are a variety of different therapy strategies. If you’re not on the same page as one therapist, it’s acceptable to seek one who is more compatible. Give them a chance though before deciding.
Are you seeing s doctor about the medical piece (pain) that you mentioned?
Please don’t take pills.
If the situation arises, do you know the crisis line number? I have a list of the numbers in various countries if need be.
I’ve gone to a few therapists in my life but they don’t seem to help. Really talking about stuff just brings things that upset me to the forefront of my mind and it makes me feel way worse because afterward all I can focus on is the bad stuff and the stuff that stresses me out.
I don’t really try to take pills for anything anymore since I tried overdosing several times so taking any kind of pills makes me sick. I’m honestly doing better than I was before just sometimes I get really down and I need to let it all out, which is why I post on here.
I have a therapist that strives to set goals, gives me homework, and tries to take the sessions beyond being similar to a daytime talk show.
I’m glad you’re not taking pills anymore… and this is really a great place to post. I sometimes need a release valve and typing here works.