I don’t understand.

I don’t understand.

I just want to die already.

I don’t understand the duality of humankind. At one moment, I can be listened to, appreciated, understood, and cared for. At the next, I can be brushed to the side as a mere nuisance in everyone’s lives. Utter garbage at their feet, begging to belong. I don’t understand people – yet I call myself an extrovert.

I go from the celebration of being elected Homecoming King to debating suicide in the same night. I get accepted into multiple colleges and offered multiple scholarships, but my only goal in life now is to stop myself from dying.

My nuisance of a brain can do mathematics, but cannot understand itself.

I often wonder if I am autistic. I seem to reflect oddly on my own thoughts. But no, if I were autistic, I think to myself, I would have been told by now. I would have been diagnosed by now. Autism shouldn’t define one’s life, but the lack of clarity in my foul and misfitted brain causes a chain reaction of conclusion-jumping. I don’t want to be autistic, but I don’t want to live anyway.

I have friends – some say too many. I have trusted adults – ones I can rely on for anything. I have a bright future, warmth, shelter, food, water, luxuries, hobbies, and interests. Why would I want to kill myself?

I don’t understand. I just want to die already so I can stop thinking about it.

Odds are, I don’t like you. I know the grief people like you can cause. I know the hatred that the world somehow does and does not have for me. I understand that. So if the time comes when I am no longer here to read this, just know that I didn’t ask for it. I don’t want depression. I still don’t think it’s my fault that I have it. I try and try and try to please whoever I see, to become who they might want me to be. I don’t even have somebody to be. When your life is so worthless you consider whether or not you should kill yourself before or after dinner, you lose who you are. There are no restraints in my life anymore – it has no value to me. I could do anything to anyone whenever I want. But I haven’t. I don’t understand why I haven’t. Something inside me keeps myself from doing anything. I must emphasize that none of you have helped me restrain myself. None of you have helped me heal or think differently. And I don’t expect you to. I haven’t told most of you. And the people I have told didn’t care.

I tend to joke around a lot. I like making others feel happy. Maybe it’s the longing for a feeling I’ll never experience. I smile – though there is nothing supporting it but a shell of a thing. I just don’t understand how nobody notices my empty emotions. I can’t reach out for help. That makes me weak, so I’m told. I don’t want empathy, I want my life back. I want sleep, I want closure, I want goodness in my life, I want smiles, I want laughing, I want the feeling of belonging – at least to something – anything at all would do. I guess you can’t always get what you want. If I reach for help, I lose what I have become. The promise of being whole does not outweigh the benefits of staying where I am. Again, I am comfortable in my public life compared to others.

My mind is a warzone. Conflicting thoughts are endless. I can’t decide if I should act happy or act sad. It’s an act either way, so why should I bother, I so often think. Apathy may be why I still remain standing. I am stuck in a hollow abyss of thought, bouncing back and forth off the walls trying to decide to act how people perceive me or commit suicide.

As I write this, I realize it sounds extreme. Could this be more self-doubt, or the truth? I cannot ever tell. I don’t understand that much. The constant analysis of my own thoughts and decisions leads to my ultimate demise. I can’t think without thinking of the thoughts that I will think from that thought I had.

Example: Upcoming public event where I play some role or display some of my many sad characters. I realize that I will be putting on an act. I realize that my act will be seen by others, knowing that the others are people who equally hate me and like me. I now realize in my apathy that it doesn’t matter if I act or not, I will be forgotten anyways. So rather than choosing, I do both. I can publicly display a lifestyle that I believe others will want to see at the same time I rot away inside, knowing that I chose to not choose to realize that I could actually be appreciated. I often wonder if I am autistic. I am not, but I wonder.

I find refuge in things people hate. It’s easy for me to like weird forms of media like music or books. I like the peace of knowing that nobody will even understand what I like. I don’t care what it is, but if people stay away from it, then I am interested.

Reflection is difficult. It took me heaps of bravery to write down something. I have never done this before. I know that nobody will ever read this, probably not even myself. Nobody else cares about reading my personal reflection. Perhaps that is why I write. I find refuge in things people dislike. Maybe that’s why I wallow in my own pain. Maybe that’s why I choose to be a dislikeable person when I could act however I want.

I’m often found to be annoying. I choose to be that way. I understand how I can be perceived that way. My character changes when approached with different people, but that trait is the only common one between them. Most people cannot stay with me longer than five minutes, unless I am forced to stop interacting with them. I have many friends, however. I don’t really have any companions, just people that I have known long enough to call them by a different title than stranger. I don’t have any real friends, ones that would be invested in me or my life. I wouldn’t be writing this if I did.

My life is a constant battle to try anything – absolutely anything – to make me feel again.

I do not believe in love. It did not work for me. If there is a higher power in any celestial realm, they damned me last year. I don’t understand how I deserved it. My act was good – I played the game and earned the trust of the system. My humanity was shattered because of her. It was abuse and no less. Though she can lie to her posse and receive their trust and condolences, I wallow alone with myself and this reflection. I don’t understand how she gets the things I so very desire, when she abused me. She blames me, however. I blame myself as well. Though I was a victim of her vile ways, I should have expected it, or at least reacted to it. I don’t understand how someone could choose to act the way she did, toward someone who is also acting. I didn’t like her. I just hated myself too much to say anything different. My apathy kept me from changing my state of misery, and the mistreatment lasted for over a year. I mustered up the courage to leave when she had no way back to me. She found several ways back to me, and broke me even more than I had myself. To this day, as I write this account, she has found one more way back to me. She is taking away the last bits of joy in my life and grinding them into a pulp that dissolves day after day. If God hasn’t killed me yet like he so desperately tries, I will do it for him.

However, it was my decision to put myself in that position with her. I did choose – maybe to find companionship when there was none. Now, I regret that decision. Having no friends back then was better than whatever masticated lump of flesh I am now. I would rather die than go forth having experienced what I have since her. Yet she gets praise and respect by individuals and friends. And I get what is like a participation trophy from everyone in treatment. I don’t understand. I can’t confront her – I don’t think I could handle it. If I avoid her, I am called weak. She knows this, and finds her way back to me by leveraging this quandary. My aim of regaining emotion is halted. If I can’t confront her, but I can’t not confront her, I am not left with many options other than suicide.

I really do hope somebody reads this. I could be speaking from the voice of my character (who turns on or off depending on the influences around me), but I’d like to believe that my true self is expressing this. I don’t know if others have been through something like this. I don’t want to know. I wouldn’t understand theirs more than mine. I have no reason to want somebody else to read this; perhaps this is why I write to reflect, rather than to share.

To anyone who might read this, they will suggest therapy. It’s a lovely answer to suggest to those who seem to need help. I can’t pay someone to listen to my complaints about a situation I have fabricated myself. It doesn’t exist to anyone but me. Giving somebody else my experiences doesn’t solve anything. Reflection makes me upset. Why do I write this at all? I don’t understand.

I guess the zenith of my collective here shows that I don’t understand anything. I can’t wrap my head around what tries to kill me and what tries to make me kill myself. I can’t differ between the past and the future. I don’t understand why people want me dead if they don’t want me dead. I don’t understand how one godforsaken person could destroy my life to pieces and take out whatever warm blood was left inside of me. I don’t understand why I don’t speak up or get help. I don’t understand the point of it. I don’t understand why people call me a friend and proceed to ignore me to the point where my absence will not make any difference. I don’t understand why others value my life, yet at the same time treat me like dirt when they don’t see me or need me.
I don’t understand the point of reflection. I was told by the phantom voices that reflection would help me. If anything, this has only revealed how good of a case suicide presents. If I wanted death, I would have chosen it by now. I do not understand why I haven’t.

I think I practice self-harm, but not in a physical way.. I don’t actively support inflicting myself with pain, but I do nothing to avoid it. Apathy, maybe, but I try nothing to suppress it. I write this at four in the morning, knowing well that I have obligations in 4 short hours, but I do nothing to stop myself. I know what is good for my health yet I choose to avoid it. I haven’t used substances though. I guess I figure that something that will kill me is no fun, but constant torture and mindgames are worth it. Drugs would kill me – I guess that act is reserved for myself.

I don’t want to kill myself. I’m like most others. I find it sad when I hear about another person taking their life. I have no innate reason to commit suicide. I guess I just have no other options. I realize that all victims of suicide give the same reason. I do not dispute that this reason is cliche, but it’s how I feel. People will often try to reason with victims of depression, offering things that are not worth losing. I can’t find those things. Only one facet of my life has value or meaning – other people. I appreciate other people’s lives, mostly because they profit in the absence of mine. If I take my life, everybody else’s will improve dramatically. I don’t think this is the expected response to the plea, but it’s how I feel. Valuing the lives of others over mine is not heroism, it’s depression. Maybe this is why I consider myself as practicing self-harm. Having no meaning makes degradation of life easy. The value of my life is negative to all, and the best I can do is take away that negative.

It’s important to realize that I did not want to write this entry. I want freedom, not a report of my lack of emotions. I write what comes to mind. The purpose of writing is not therapy. I believe it’s another form of self-harm, which I have come to believe I actively choose. No good has come from these words; just an additional memory of where I have been and where I will go. Just another memory of how I can be brushed to the margins while they say they appreciate me. Just another memory of how people can single-handedly take away any remaining ooze of life left inside. Just another memory of why I have absolutely no reason to live other than to continue this reflection. A reflection that will only encourage more masochism and self-harm. Depression is a maelstrom of dark hatred and self-hate, and I am drowning in the bloody waters.

I leave this account here, where I debate continuing on or reflecting more. My life is a battle between apathy and self-harm. Though my intentions are clear, I am too apathetic about the future to do anything. I drown in the headwaters of doubt and depression instead. I don’t understand this battle. I will either be miserable or dead, with no way out. I don’t understand.