it’s getting hard to see a reason anymore

I don’t know what is holding me back at this point. Maybe it’s some vestige of a delusion that because I’m young, I have time to make things better, change my mind, improve my life, go to a therapist. But the truth is, even at my happiest I had always been miserable, in one way or another. I have no idea what’s caused my depression and anxiety – I didn’t have any childhood trauma to speak of, I was never abused, or anything of the sort. It’s just that somewhere along the way, for whatever reason, I became bitter and detached, and this sense of alienation makes me feel like an outsider in the act of being alive itself.

It’s in everything I encounter, that alienation. I am aromantic and asexual, so I don’t see a point in relationships. I am not religious, and I do not believe faith could truly save me. I don’t crave money or fame, and while even recently, I had been quite ambitious and even saw a grand future for myself, that evaporated over the course of the past couple years, and I have no clue how to get that back or restore it. Now, all it seems I am capable of doing, the only activities that don’t leave me mentally, emotionally or physically exhausted are lying in bed, tweeting and occasionally crying. It’s not really who I am, I had run marathons, I studied, I met with my friends, I wrote, I made art, I enjoyed a lot of things. And suddenly it all seems like it’s been a facade, some sort of farce I had been engaged in to conceal from myself how truly miserable I am.

I’ll state clearly now: I do not want to die. I am afraid of pain. I do not want to bring others pain. But the thoughts are there, the urge is getting louder and more difficult to ignore with each day I stay living and breathing. How much longer will I be able to prioritize the feelings of others over my own mental suffering? How much longer can I stand being locked in my cage of mortal flesh, in the prison of my own mind that is not of my own making? I think that soon, the fear of death will be overwhelmed and overcome by my desire to leave, to pass on quietly and not be sad anymore. It’s getting so hard. I am so tired.

Life is immoral. Life is making decisions for yourself that end up impacting or hurting others, be it those in your immediate close circle or those millions of miles away. Life is thrust upon you, you did not consent to it, yet here you are, and the cycle keeps proliferating itself. Death, on the other hand, is merciful, it is kind, it is nothingness that lets you forgive and forget. You can’t really call death “peace” – how can you be peaceful when you are dead and feel nothing at all? – but at least it is not part of the self-perpetuating circle of suffering and bringing suffering onto others. I think people who are suicidal, as I am, as I assume all or most on this site are, tend to romanticize the void where you are nothing at all, yet are not suffering, either. Perhaps it is a defense mechanism of the brain that thoughts of death appear less painful than thoughts of life. I don’t know. At this point, I’m just rambling.

Were there a way accessible for me to die without much pain, much blood, or without requiring much bravery on my part, I would have done it in a heartbeat, at least at the low point I am in right now. That, too, comes and goes, in waves, at times in tsunamis. But I have a hunch that happier me would not regret the decision depressed me would make – as neither would exist anymore at that point. But I am a coward and I am weak – weak for both craving death when I know my life isn’t as hard as it is for some, and not having the strength to put my hands where my mouth is. So I keep living, keep waiting for the happier me to come back, like waiting for seasons to change and not having a clock or a calendar. I try not to die. I don’t want to.

But the day may finally come when that, too, changes.