Recently i have come to accept that i have suicidal thoughts more than tendencies.
But when all these thoughts come from?
The question above i have recently been asking myself a lot. It’s known i have been suffering from depression since i was 8, at least that is how far i can remember having the same feeling of nothingness. Keep in mind that depression occurs differently to every person.
But when did i first thought of death?
I firstly thought of death around the age of nine i was laying in my bed on my birthday and i had recently learnt that i was born dead and my sister’s godmother who was in the OR refused to let the surgeons to announce my death and she performed CPR which failed three times and still refused to give up. She grabbed me by the legs and turned me upside down and started hitting (softly) my chest and that’s how she brought me back.
I was told i was dead for twenty minutes after they took me out of my mum’s womb, i was choked to death by the umbilical cord and i was born pre-maturely.
So as my nine-year old self sat in her bed at night and tried to digest this new information the thought occurred;
What if i hadn’t come back?
And from then on i started fantasising how my family, friends, classmates and acquaintances would react to my death and with those thoughts and scenarios i went to sleep that time and many nights after that.
These thoughts started coming into my head throughout my daily routine; while crossing the road i would think how it would feel if a car or bus run me over.
If my books fall onto the road i would think what if now i was run over would anyone care?
These thoughts stopped after i turned thirteen and i seeked psychological counciling in secret.
But they returned at fifteen when i had moved cities yet again and i was trying to adjust and i was so jealous of the people in my life had managed to turn a new leaf and find their place while i was still feeling so out of place and alone. And because my then best friend seemed to distancing herself from me because of the actual distance and because i had attempted to talk to her about my abusive and depressed past and she didn’t believe me and even asked if i did something to deserved it. So, i had started witholding my actual feelings, opinions and i was always answering her with what i knew she expected of me to say.
And especially that day was Christmas night and i had gone out to the balcony and looked the festive balconies of my neighborhood and thought;
“Would anyone care if i shot myself? Of course not, no one cares.”
Then a week later on New Year’s Eve my depression was suffocating me and i couldn’t be around other people so i locked myself in my room. Mum didn’t like that so she forcefully dragged me to the living room where all our family was gathered yet i stood up and left again.
And then my mum walked angrily in my room and started scolding me about how disrespectiful i was to all of them and she threatened me that she will go back to beating us like she did when were kids because we started to disobey her and dad. Then she proceed to tell me how disappointed she was in me and how i’m a nothing, i do nothing around the house, i’m a burden and that because of my attitude i deserved every bullying, beating, abuse, isolation and loneliness i suffered all these years and will in the future.
Then she proceeded to leave me in my room and i sat in the room all alone while i heard them count down to the new year and laugh happily. I cried that moment and as i cried i walked out in the balcony and raised my left leg and crossed it over the railings and attempted to raise my right one but my sister walked outside and told me that mum was calling me and that i should joined them. She unknowingly stopped me from jumping from the 3rd floor, from killing myself.
These few moments i was ready to give up i was convinced that i deserved the worst the world had to offer and that indeed i’m a nothing and my existence only makes matter worse and i’m just obstacle that stands in the way of my family’s and then best friend’s happiness. That i hold them all back from thriving.
The feeling of not fitting in fifteen years now was too much to keep in. I convinced i didn’t belong amongst the living and i justified all these thoughts with the fact that i was already born dead and my sister’s godmother just got in the way of God’s plan for me which was not live.
So i remembered that New Year i did my best acting! I laughed and talked to my grandma and aunt like a few hours prior to that i didn’t try to kill myself.
I even allowed my dad and mum hug me and say in front of everyone how blessed they were to have us as their children and how proud they were of me and my sister, i swallowed all this anger, disgust and clawing need to run away from my parents’ hugs because i didn’t like them touching me. I hated them!
After that night i realized something…i didn’t love my parents…like actually love them…i only loved them because they were part of my DNA and blood. If it came to a situation where i would have to leave them and run for my own life i would or if i had to kill them to ensure my freedom i would…those realization made me feel scared and like i was a bad person.
I tried to find what causes this feelings and thoughts and even tried to mend myself and my bond between my family. I opened up to them about my depression and mum seemed to soften a bit and dad seemed to become more affectionate.
I started doing my at most best to be their perfect daughter.
To the point i yet again i stopped listening to my own self….
I would act like a soldier…mum said go grocery shopping i would do it no matter if i was sick with a fever or my knees were hurting.
Dad said he needed help with something i would be there no matter if i didn’t even cared about what he did.
I started hurting mysef…you see i had acne since forever and i would turn it into scars with my own hands as a way to cause pain to myself so i can still feel something…i had reached the point of numbness and that is why i did it in the first place.
But during my soldier/perfect daughter days i would turn my acne into scars whenever i would find myself say in her head “no” to my parents’ demands and needs in order to punish me.
I thought that is what they wanted me to be and they seemed satisfied and happy so i continued it.
Then i graduated High School and i joined a Youth Exchange program in order to challenge myself gain new experiences. That is where i felt the same feeling of not belonging anywhere. These people were outgoing, happy or they pretended to be, knew each other from previous exchanges and their English were poor in comparison with mine. I found myself engaging into conversation and correcting them many times. After awhile (understandable) people started to be offended by my grammar nazi behavior and they stopped talking to me. Also i run out of things to talk to them about…i wanted to talk to them about my life yet at the same time i was afraid that they will run away from me. So when i saw them making groups with all the others and i was always on the outside i understood that they didn’t want me or cared.
I would stay alone in my dorm room while they were out having fun, i would laugh watching Girl Meets World in order to chase my depressive thoughts away. I would write stories. And pretend i was having a concert while having my headphones on. I even attempt to dance in the small room.
One day i decided to see what will happen if i go out with them…well i did order a drink even though i don’t like alcohol because it makes me feel even more sad. I drank it while i listened the conversations around me and i tried to speak as little as possible to the point one of the girls in the French group looked at me and asked me why i was here since i didn’t engage.
I smiled and lied that my belly hurt from the alcohol and that i was not used to drinking which is a lie (at fourteen i would for a year i would drink more than 4 beers, two glasses of Vodka with Lemon and two shots of whatever they would give us then i would find myself sitting alone in bar and think depressive thoughts and death but i would not get drunk) at that moment though i needed to find an excuse and the stomach ache seemed legit. She laughed at how innocent i was and gave me the advice to order something to eat…so i got up and went to a fast food joint and got a pizza slice and started eating all by myself.
After i was done i realized that many people in the fast food joint looked at me in pity because i was eating alone and reading my book but didn’t care i returned to the bar where we were before i left and i sat in my seat just then one of the guys tried to start a conversation with me which didn’t last long. I then order a second glass of Vodka with lemon and this French girl looked at me suspiciously as i was being crazy for doing that. And to be honest their Vodka wasn’t even that strong as the one my uncle serves in his bar where mostly i hanged out at fourteen and i was so used to drinking.
After awhile i had started feeling a little sleepy and A LOT board since i didn’t speak at all and i was always on my phone chatting with my two friends Olivia, who was in Taiwan and was packing boxes since her family was moving to Texas, and Tina, whose mum had just gone through some major surgery and her dad had slipped up and started drinking again because he believed that his wife would die and he became abusive towards Tina and her siblings, so i was checking in with them and trying to make them feel better.
But after three hours of texting my phone died so i was left with my book but i didn’t want it to stained it with alcohol so i didn’t pull it out.
Soon enough after that we decided to head back to the dorms but on the way there i attempted to start a conversation with my group leader and this French girl but soon enough both of them said;
“Stop! We get you know English better than us! It’s annoying to correct us all the time!”
So i did what i do best…obeyed.
I stopped talking.
At night i was laying in my bed holding on to my bleeding arm since before we left i had done some tests for my knee and thyroid and they had taken blood from me but i hadn’t let the wound to heal for days and that night i had scratched more than before and i couldn’t stop the blood flow since it was on top of a vein and so i found myself looking at the ceiling while feeling the pain of my wound and holding a tissue over it.
That moment i closed my eyes and imagined what would possible happen if i bled out and died right there. How will my death would be received by the rest people in the Youth Exchange program and how will my body be transported back to Greece. How my parents would react. What is after death? Will i get to be reborn and if yes into what?
That was the first time i actually caught myself thinking of death and had no will to stop me….
I woke up the next morning and my bed sheets were full of blood from my arm, my roommate just thought i had my period, i spent the next day alone. Eating alone, spending the breaks from the activities alone in my room. I felt tired. So tired!
I had taken this trip to challenge myself to be happier and social yet my depression got the best of me…
When i returned back home i started college and along with my anxiety to be always on time, learn a new city, learn to live alone, manage my allowance, household chores and medication for my knees made me feel even more tired and not in the mood to make friends in the college campus since i knew for a fact none of my fellow classmates had the same interests as me.
Tell me who likes to debate about historical events, probable life in other planets, probable existence of parallel universes, how our future will look like technology wise and how the earth’s tectonic plates will change in the future and what species would die or be created? Debate ways we could replace fossil fuels or what country might be created in the future? Or we could discuss/debate about how mental health could be treated and about how we could stop being racists towards other religions and nations?
No one that is who! Especially in English since i can’t translate as efficiently the facts and theories i have learnt and come up with from Enlgish to Greek. Even my own family has told me that sometimes i ask questions normal people don’t think about! And that i should stop thinking those questions since normal people don’t talk about such matters as parallel universes or the existence of alien life or future technologies.
I had a whole debate with my dad once about hydrogen power could have potentially help launch rockets into space without burning everything around it like it does right now and that would benefit the enviroment more or how we could be possible to get water across the galaxy with the use of rockets that would be control from down earth through GPS system in order to supple colonies or even as a form of merchandise in a Galactic Market. Needless to say my dad later told me that my theories and questions were very good and that studying filmmaking is a waste of time which i’m starting to see it too…yet he expressed his disappointment about how i flanked math, physics and chemistry at school.
That made me feel even more alone and the fact i end up eating by myself during breaks…
Recently, like a few months ago, i realized that every day my last thought before i fall asleep is;
“I wish i wake up dead.”
or on better days;
“I wish i wake up in a parallel world where my life is better.”
Then i witnessed how two of my professors are dismissing many of my questions as questions a child does because i’m the youngest in there…in a class were ages rank from 18 to 34 years old…
That and my lonely life makes me think more and more of death…how i feel trapped in my own life and that i will never find people who like to discuss the same things as me.
That i will never find my place in this world and i’ll be doomed to live alone.
And every dream i have of finding a boyfriend, a husband, having kids and raising them feels so so so far away that i’m always tempted that i will never reach and that i should stop hoping they will be my future.
Because if you ask me where i see myself in the future or in ten years the first answer that comes to mind is;
Dead
I can’t imagine my future…i can imagine the future of entire human kind yet i don’t see mine…
Daydreamer's Mind 