I need to get myself together. I'm a fraud. I don't deserve to be here. if I could choose, I would choose never to have been born.
I believe these things. I don't think I should believe them? but there's that question mark, and that uncertainty, that belief that everyone else is going through this too, that I am nothing special, nothing different.
do I actually have a mental illness, or am I just making it up? and how am I supposed to tell?
the part of me that was raised by my parents tells me to suck it up, to be strong, tells me that I can control this. but my experience has proven them wrong. has it? when has it? how has it?
the nights when I can't sleep and I stay up way too late knowing that I have responsibilities in the morning, a form of self-sabotage where I take away my strength and the possibility of being able to achieve at my highest level.
the days when I cry at nothing, I cry because someone challenges what I say in class, I cry because I left my homework at home, I cry at nothing because I am also crying at everything I can't say and I won't say because it no longer helps me to say it aloud.
the times when I can't force myself to take a compliment because my brain tells me that it must be wrong, and I get into a dialogue where I'm trying to justify my low and steadily dropping self-esteem, and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and cry and cry and fall asleep and never wake up.
the only reason I am alive right now is because I am too much of a coward to kill myself.
when I say this, I say it as a joke, because it would be too real, too imminent, too much to deal with if I meant it. of course I can't mean it! I'm one of the highest-achieving students in my year (apparently, although let's wait until my grades come out for this quarter). I'm involved in two student organizations, am a student mentor/TA, and am taking a full course load. I must be happy, right? or at least, I'm not the kind of person you'd expect to be depressed, right?
I would be crying as I type this, but I think I have no tears left. I'm 20 years old, and I have no idea what's wrong with me. do I have a mental illness? or am I just being a self-obsessed millennial with a tendency to overdiagnose everything? and how do I go about trying to answer this question?
I hate myself.
that's a strong statement. I meant it when I typed it. I did hate myself in that moment. do I in this moment? not sure. I definitely don't love myself. that doesn't look good for the whatever-it-is with the guy I'm seeing right now. I don't know how to love myself. I did last year, and I don't know what happened. somewhere, somehow, I tried to do everything, and I don't know if that's why or not, but I stopped loving myself. I think it started before that, though. I think it started with the biggest secret I've ever kept from my father and the fact that I simultaneously love and dislike him and how do I come to terms with that and how do I prepare for his presence not being in my life anymore while also still being okay with his presence in my life for the time being and how do I forgive myself for this and how do I fill the void that used to be filled with his negativity?
how do I live without being told/telling myself that I'm shit? how the fuck did I get to a place where that's normal for me?
I think I might have some tears now, excuse me while I cry.
