Trigger warning; suicide, eating disorders, depression etc.
My
life is over at 22...
I
remember that moment with such vividness, the moment I wrote those
words down in a notebook that was smeared in my own blood. That
moment I was in some of the deepest depths of depression I'd ever
faced. I had sunk into a well that was so deep, so dark, an
unescapable pit of misery I could see nothing but its cold walls from
where I stood. I had no hope left for my future or recovery. I'd
somehow given up, I had exhausted all the reserves I had. The nights
were filled with the vividest nightmares and when I opened my eyes in
the morning it was no different. The nightmares were more real than
my waking life. There was no escape, no respite from what was
happening within me. Every moment was a hell. Suicidal thoughts ran
rampant in what used to be my mind. Every second awake, in my mind’s
eye, I was jumping from a bridge, under a bus, a train, hanging from
a noose in the woods, drowning, burning, freezing, starving. It just
wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t make it stop. Isolation became a
standard. I started falling away from the world I used to love so
deeply. I couldn’t see the wonder and beauty anymore and my soul
grew mute, my spirit dampened.
Things
got so much worse before they started getting better. This took a
long while, the worsening. Gradual fall from grace. The bottom was
never too near, there seemed to always be a new low to be reached,
another layer of shame to be peeled. I remember it so clearly, the
moment when I made the decision to drown in the bottle. Because in
one way or another that's how it was - a decision made on one layer
of my being. A choice. I downed a bottle of red wine and something
went off in my brain. Neural fireworks. It went off in a fashion I
knew right then there is no going back. Something was hugging me from
inside and telling me, if you stick with me I'll help you make it
okay - sinister lies, of course. Nearly identical feeling I
experienced at 14 when I threw up on purpose for the first time. It
was a New Year's night, something wasn’t right at home and my cup
spilled, the infamous camel’s back broke. The immediate release
from something I didn't know how to fight, or to word even at the
time, but was choking me alive, was way too tempting. I had found an
escape trap door and that's all that mattered. From that moment on it
took another seven, eight years of bulimic hell which I hid from
everyone. That hell stayed with me, just changing shade, turning into
the hell that is an addict's life. At the root, it's all the same, no
matter what your choice of a fix is.
I
am so, so sorry for everyone I hurt during these times. I am sorry
for every hurtful word I have spat, every lie I have told. I am sorry
for every message I left unanswered, every phone call I didn't
return, for every time when I'd finally turn up I'd turn up drunk. I
am sorry for the horror on your faces that I know was caused by my
actions. I am sorry for every trauma triggered and every new one
created. I regret the many ties untied, friendships lost, sisterhood
broken. I can't stop missing you and some days it breaks me. I wish I
could still fix things but I don't know how. Letting go is extremely
hard. When I ask for forgiveness, these days, it seems it is mostly
from myself, apart from anyone else. I know people mostly, propably,
don’t hate me for going thru hard times and reflecting that outside
but it is extremely hard to convince myself of that.
I
know now it couldn't have been any different. I was coping, at the
time, with the ability I had, which seemed, at times, like there was
none. As if it was all just destruction not survival. Blame and
regret are so pointless but I struggle to release them. These
memories swirl around in my mind and my dreams, triggering the shame.
Countless times I’ve grown so fucking frustrated of this cycle that it
caused me to re-enact on old patterns and just deepened the anguish indefinetly. But then I began to reckon
these things are trying to teach me, to show me the path I don’t
want to be on anymore. That it is the time to do things differently. All
of them.
I
have felt on my lowest points to be the most despicable creature on
Earth - complete scum who'd do everyone a favour by abandoning these
earthly boots. But still, there would be knock on the door of my
shattered heart, someone would walk in and say - I love you. Now,
when you are uncabable of feeling worthy of a human life or form,
there is someone, many even, who cherish you, think highly of you,
want to be around, want to help. They want to know what’s going on
for you, they want to hear about it, they really care. They will keep
knocking on that door that you are so stubbornly trying to keep
sealed. It's up to you to eventually get up and open it to them. At
bottom of the well it is possible to forget that and keep making
yourself deaf to those knocks on the doors of your heart. I have been
shown a kind of grace I couldn’t fathom to exist once I dared to
open that door. I
see things could have been infitely worse for me from the start, and
lord am I grateful they weren't. It
definitely
wasn’t rosy and stuff kept getting weirder, madder, more twisted
the older I got, up to a point I felt I was going to be swallowed up
in a furnace if I make no change to this annihiliation of everything
I thought I’d ever be.
We can overcome so much more than we imagine. We are so much more resilient, so much more capable of goodness that once realised it feels almost overwhelming. In the depths of our hells, there is still, always, this sense of our basic goodness, even if we are completely blinded to it. It doesn’t go away, it doesn’t abandon you. We just need to get back in touch. And it really isn’t an easy task, at times.'
Right
now, right here, I am so fucking grateful to have come out, so far,
relatively sane out of the other end. I am 27 years old, turning
which I truly celebrated last year (don’t usually mind birthdays or
what not) just for the plain reason I lived this long – I had the
knowing
within, not just feeling, that I will never make it to this age. That
was the power depression had over my mind. Inside I’d stopped
living before I was due to leave here and about that I can only say
it is one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced. To be a
living dead, dead living. I am so fucking grateful for the
people in my life who stubbornly kept knocking on that sealed up hard-wood door of my heart, who banged on it until I’d surface
again and come live with you. I’m
so fucking grateful for each and every day I get to breathe and
experience here on this planet, to feel what I feel, see what I see,
learn what I am learning. I will, like we all, eventually leave here
but it won’t be by my own doing.
’’I
know you are always with me
I
trust in you completely
I
feel your love everywhere
Om’’
