It has been a while

I haven’t spoken publicly/anonymously about wanting to kill myself in a long time. Probably not since I was a preteen. That’s what I want to do today. Get something off my chest about that. For me, suicide and sex are inexplicably connected. I don’t have any clear reason for this. As far as I know, there isn’t any one moment in my childhood that I can point to and say “right there – that’s when I became so fucked up.”

What I do remember is being in elementary school and staying up all night having very graphic sexual fantasies about being raped and murdered. I remember needing to make my room as pitch black as possible to remove myself from reality so these fantasies could become as real as possible. I remember hanging a comforter over my windows to block out all residual light from the moon or street lights or street pollution. I wanted to convince myself that I didn’t really exist. Only the fantasy.

In those fantasies, my celebrity crushes (NSync, Devon sawa, Leonardo DiCaprio, etc.) would isolate me, hold me down and rip my body apart. The more painful the better. The more humiliating and brutal the better. And it would continue until there was nothing left of me to fuck.

Not long after, my parents got AOL. I started going into chat rooms and talking about how depressed I was, how there was no future for me. How pathetic and worthless I was. I started to accumulate a list of “internet boyfriends”. And this is where the guilt comes in. I knew they were all probably pedophiles preying on a 10/11/12 year old. I wanted them to find me and take me away and rape and murder me. I wanted a reason for my misery. An understanding, a moment in time to point to to say “there, that’s why I’m so fucked up.” I wanted to belong to a group of victims. I wanted to have hope – people to point to to say “it happened to them and they are doing okay so I can be okay too.”

I will always feel guilty for treating the trauma of others as a remedy for myself. I feel even more guilty because I still feel that way. I get drunk and walk through dangerous streets by myself late at night hoping to be attacked. I sleep with strangers hoping they are secretly abusive psychopaths. And I am endlessly sorry to people who have experienced these forms of trauma. But feelings aren’t rational and I need to put this out somewhere in the world.

I’m in my thirties now and I cannot seem to get my shit together. I am in therapy, I am medicated, but I know as long as I can’t share these things with someone, I am never going to be okay. I have wants that are incompatible with these other wants. Things like being in a healthy relationship and having children, but I know that is never going to happen if something inside me doesn’t click or change. I am ruined and I don’t understand why.