The phrase “nobody understands me” is a silly thing. There will always be people in this world that understand what you are going through. However, I do worry that those who are close to me will have a hard time grasping the situation at hand. And it’s something that I have to bring up to them before it’s too late.

I do apologize if this is a bit long-winded. In no way would I feel offended if somebody doesn’t read it. I just need a place to say what’s on my mind.

For as far back as I can remember, I’ve been the type who bottles up their feelings. Call me emotionally constipated if you so wish to. Discussing emotions is a terribly uncomfortable thing. Even as a kid, my parents would ask me why I’m crying. I would respond to them with a simple “I don’t know,” even though I knew why and I know that they knew that I know the reasons. That’s a mouthful.

One may even ask why I would bother to spill my guts and then some out onto strangers on the internet if I’m so uncomfortable with talking about emotions. Perhaps it’s because I wish to not burden those that I love. I’d rather that they worry about their own lives before they worry about my own. I don’t wish to bring them down with me. So, naturally, it’s very difficult to approach somebody so that I can tell them what’s on my mind. In fact, it’s just as hard to ask simple questions because I go through the same train of thought of “oh, I don’t want to bother them.” That’s a part of why I’m in this mess that I’m in.

When it comes to my life story, there’s not much to it that would be worthy of shock value. I’m currently nineteen. My parents are still together, I was never exposed to drugs or alcohol while growing up, and we’ve always lived in fairly nice neighborhoods. I was always quiet, keeping to myself. There really isn’t anything that could be considered traumatic. Well, save for my first experience with depression. I’m not sure of the exact time that it started. The whole thing is a blur. In fact, I’d be amazed if I could remember considering that I was only six at the time.

The summer after kindergarten, I had to be admitted to a hospital for ten days because I had become out of touch with reality and my parents couldn’t handle it on their own. I don’t blame them, though. They’ve told me that I wouldn’t talk, eat, or even go to the bathroom. I would have trouble sleeping, sometimes waking with night terrors. Being a young kid and all, I had no idea what was going on. How did I even get depression? None of us know. Genetics is probably the biggest factor. But why it started at such an age is beyond me.

After that incident, I had to take medication. I was taken to a few psychologists as a kid. I didn’t talk to them often. I can barely even recall what happened during those sessions. One thing always stuck with me, though. I’m not sure how old I was at the time, maybe seven or eight, but once they asked me, “Do you wish you were never born?” I lied to them by saying no. I didn’t want them to tell my parents. I didn’t want my parents to be angry with me because I thought such a thing.

So I kept on lying, I kept pretending that there was nothing seriously wrong with me. As a teenager, I was taken to see more psychologists and I had to go on medication again for a bit. It was more for social anxiety and whatnot, which is another story completely. But depression did play a part. Even still, I continued to act as if I was perfectly content with my life while, in reality, I fantasize about dying. For a majority of my late teenage years, I often questioned if I would even live past the age of twenty.

Right now, I worry that I won’t even make it to that big two-o next month. All these years of lies, stress, and fatigue are wearing down on me. These past few weeks have left me feeling drained of any energy.

It probably doesn’t help that I quit the job that I had been at for two years which I had to leave due to emotional distress. A few months ago, I experienced a panic attack while working. That’s when I knew that I had to get out of there. I’m amazed that I was even able to last such a long time there, honestly. When you work with ice cream in the summer, it gets awfully busy.

It for sure doesn’t help that I’m under academic suspension at the community college that I had been attending. My GPA is embarrassingly low because of how often I skipped classes. Some days I just couldn’t handle being around people, I couldn’t deal with seeing others socialize. Other times, I just wanted to cry out of nowhere. Not to mention that I struggle with concentrating and procrastination. I still haven’t told my parents about this and this is another thing I have to discuss with them. I have to do it fast because time is running out, I really only have until Thursday.

I know that hope is there, but I just can’t find it. I have no passion or desire to achieve anything particularly special. All I want to do right now is simply make it through a day without breaking down. What I find to be an ideal life is living in an apartment, I don’t care how shoddy it may be, and working a mediocre job. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to achieve that now in this state.

And I know for a fact that I won’t be able to achieve it if I’m six feet under. People say that life is a ***** but I feel that I’m life’s *****.