In 2018, I was finishing my apprenticeship. I worked three days a week in an office (sort of) and went two days a week to school, where I saw my friends. I had a few colleagues I liked and, overall, the work was fine. It was far from being the worst place to be at the time. I still think fondly of the three years I spent there. But in 2018, something also started to feel really, really wrong with me. It wasn't the first time. Ever since I first started school, when I was five, I was used to waking up with a tummy ache and going to school, and then work, without any motivation. I've never been diagnosed with anxiety until I was twenty-two, though. Dunno how the four therapist I saw between the ages of seven and fourteen ever missed that. Anyway, when I was at school things were still fine. I barely worked but I couldn't care less because I had plenty of fun with my friends. But at work, I started to feel like a weight in the pit of my stomach. Worse than ever before. Soon, I was crying every night at home. Then it happened at work. I spent a good fifteen minutes of my day, each day, crying in the office bathroom. I was dreading the end of my studies since I didn't what I would do after. I was terrified of my future and it became a constant fear.
In 2019, things were alright. I got a temporary job at the place where I did my apprenticeship and the fear and dread decreased a bit for a while. Don't get me wrong, they were still there! But I stopped crying at work and I felt less hopeless about things to come. The loneliness started to take more and more place inside of my body. Since school was finished, I wasn't seeing my friends as much anymore. My best friend even did a six-months trip on the other side of the earth. I stopped working and didn't find anything else. Then 2020 came around.
I believe my depression started in 2018 but since it was a year full of many feelings, I didn't really realized it at the time. I was used to being sad since I'd always been prone to it. It wasn't anything new from what I was feeling since I was a child. But after spending six months straight alone in my room, after having the worst thoughts I've ever had, I started to see what was happening to me.
I don't remember the first time I thought about death. It probably wasn't in 2020 or even in 2018. It might've happen when I was still young. When I felt submerged by the sadness but didn't understood what it was. I don't remember that first time or even the second nor the third. But I remember wanting to die in 2020, wishing for everything to just stop. Just so I could rest for a bit. It wasn't even really death I wished for but more of a break from life. To be able to close my eyes and disappear from everyone's lives for a bit. Or longer than that.
I want to say before anything else that I'll never kill myself. Because my sister has kids and I don't want to be the dead aunt they barely remember from their childhood. I don't want to be a taboo in my own family. Because I'm afraid of any kind of physical pain. Because I don't want the people I love suffering from my decision. You could say I'm a people pleaser and it may be the reason why I will probably never kill myself. I'd rather suffer than cause suffering to my loved ones.
It doesn't mean I never think about it. Doesn't mean I don't have horrible intrusive thoughts about killing myself and other things. And I'm not talking about the tiktok-ified intrusive thoughts were some people think getting a new haircut or eating pizza three nights in a row is an intrusive thought. I have terrible ideas, I see horrible things in my mind. Some of them disgust me so much I will never speak about it. Not even to a therapist. Because they make me feel like the worst person on earth and because I'm just so ashamed. It's even hard for me to say that I have these kind of thoughts.
And, on top of that, I think about death. All the time. Every night, I think about what would happen if I died in my sleep. The way my mom would find me in my bed, cold and without a heartbeat. How dreadful it would be, how crushed she would feel. I’m sad that she has to witness her child’s death even though I’m still alive. Some days, I think about it in the other way. What if I go to check on her and I find her dead? What am I supposed to do? How could I ever live without her? Everyday I get these thoughts in passing. What if a fire starts in the middle of the night and I don't realize and it's too late to save her? What if she can't save me? How would we live with this?
When my sister goes somewhere with her children, I think about accidents they could have on the road. About all the terrible people who could hurt my nephews. When my cat doesn't wait for me behind my door in the morning, I wonder if she stopped breathing during the night. What if she threw up and choke on it? When I go to the cinema, I think that maybe the person I'm sitting next to carries a knife or a weapon of some sort on them. What if they decide to kill me? What if the bus crashes? What if I fall in the river while walking on the bridge? What if this man assaults me? What if that person pushes me on the train rails? What if I eat something spoiled without knowing and I die from it? What if I kill my niece while playing with her? What if I push my friend's hands from the steering wheel while we're on the road? What if I jump from my window? What if I bite my finger hard enough that it comes off? What if I bash my head in the wall? What if I start a fire and never put it out? What if, what if, what if?
Those are a few of the death ideations I suffer from every day. Every single day. Most of them don’t even concern me in the first place. Most of them are about other people. The ones I know or even strangers I pass on the street. I’m fucking terrified of death. Not of dying but death itself. Maybe it’s only because I don’t know it, because all the people that died in my family died before I was even born. Or I wasn’t close to them so it just feel like I will never see them only once a year, at Christmas or something. It's okay if they just disappear from my life because they were barely in it to begin with.
We’ve always had cats since I was young but most of them we re-homed or they simply disappeared one day. And it was alright because I was little and I didn't have a special bond with them. The most important cats were still there. When I was ten, one of them died in my sister’s arms after being hit by a car. My mom wasn’t here and I freaked out so she had to deal with it. I only remember skipping school that day because I couldn’t stop crying but I don’t really remember how it felt to see her die. She was mine, too. I gave her a name and cuddled with her any chance I got. But she was a bit wild and liked going outside more than staying in my arms.
Two years ago, we put down my dog. It was a very though decision, of course. He had bit me three times and only let my mom approach him. He wasn't a kind dog. He was sad and angry and we took this decision because we knew he was as miserable as us. I went to the vet with my mom. He had his favourite toy by his side and us. My mom held her all the time and I couldn’t stop crying, even before it happened. He might have felt it because he seemed way calmer than usual. Kinder. He saw me cry and lay down in my mom’s arms. We stayed an hour with him, crying on the floor of the vet’s office. It’s my most recent and lasting encounter with death. I used to dislike that dog because I found him annoying and he bit me, because he changed over time and I had the feeling I had lost a friend. But now, I regret not spending more time with him. Not cherishing what we had. I often miss him. It’s been two years and I still miss him. I go back in that vet’s office and I see the way he looks up at me, the way he lays against my mom, the way he gently goes to sleep. I hear my mom’s sobs and I’m there.
Whenever I want to die, I wonder how the people around me would react. I think about the way my mom cried for our dog and I wonder how she would cry for me. And I can’t bear it. It hurts too much but living hurts as much.
Since I was young, I never saw myself living past 34. It always seemed such a great age to die at. Not too close to fourty but past thirty enough. Now, I’m nine years from it and it looks way too far. I don’t know how I lived the past ten years and I don’t know how I’m supposed to last nine more years. I get up every day because I'm supposed to. I get out of bed, I eat and I shower because it's not socially acceptable to rot in my bed all the time. I talk to my friends and my family because I love them. I do my monthly job searches because that's what's expected of me.
I don't live for myself. And I haven't been for the longest time.
Even when I was a kid, I never felt a sense of purpose. I didn't have any motivation. I always did what people wanted me to do. My parents, my teachers, my friends. Sure, I made mistakes and did my share of mischief but it was never anything major. I was a normal kid, doing normal stuff. I followed what other people did and said and I acted like them. A few times, they weren't good people and I hurt others. I still feel guilty about it. I'd even say that guilt is a big part of who I am today. I regret a lot of stuff and I'm never really sure how to make amends about it. So I carry it around. I'm full of guilt and anger and I have no purpose. I don't know why I was born on this earth. I don't know what I'm supposed to be achieving. I'm almost twenty five and I'm still lost. I don't feel like I ever lived.
I never held hands with anyone, never got my first kiss or been loved back.
I don't know if I love my work and even if I do, there's no job opportunity so I'll have to find something else and I'm not sure I'd like to do anything else.
I love my friends but we all live different lives and I'm far away from them all.
I don't really feel like I'm part of my family. They don't know me and I don't know them. All I know is that I love them, too. And I'd feel guilty about hurting them more than I already hurt them.
Life is utterly complicated. How am I supposed to get it right at the first shot? How is anyone supposed to manage it? I know I'm not the one feeling so lost and alone. It is an universal thing about being twenty five?
Tonight, I'll get in my bed and think about death. I'll put some music on to drown my thoughts and I'll try to get a good night of rest. Tomorrow, I'll get up and eat a breakfast. I'll roam my room and try to find something to do in order to not be bored. To not feel like I'm ruining my life. It's the only one I have and I already lost so much time. All this time I'll never get back. Is it too late? Or am I just too early at my late-thirties realization that I ruined my life?
I wish it was easier for me to talk to others. To share this weight. But every time I try, I feel like a burden. It's not fair of me to put the people I love in my shoes. Because I'm glad it's mine. Because they all deserve so much more than what I have. Than what I'd ever be able to give them. I don't want to be a part of their weight. Even more because I know they'd take it. They'd take it without a second doubt. Because my friends are the loveliest people I know. I'm not sure I deserve their kindness but I'm sure glad I have it. As it's a bit easier to get up everyday thanks to them.
I always feel like I live on borrowed time. At this point, I'm just wondering how much longer it'll take until someone reclaim this time. Until I have no more left. I just hope that, in the end, there's no suffering. Not for me and not for the others. May my mother not cry too much. May my family still talk about me with happiness in their hearts. May my friends move on quickly. May the people who hurt me think about what they did to me. May I find some solace in this terrifying death awaiting me. It'll happen one day. For everyone. I know that. I just hope it won't take me too much by surprise. I don't want to leave without having the chance to tell the people I love how I feel about them.
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be nice!