sight_unseen
The clouds come
Bleak as always.
The leaves drop,
The nights chill.
The coolness contagious,
Always calling to some part of me;
Begging me to join.
To exist in the cool, the grey, the bleak.
To forget the warmth of the sun
And the joy of living.
To drown in the changing seasons and to let them drag me under with them.
Will I let them?
Should I let them?
.
.
.
-L
I want to die again
Thanks, December.
The year weighing heavily on me;
The new one even heavier.
The sins of the past,
The mistakes of the future.
Digging myself out or digging myself under?
Time passing me by,
Life drifting on its way.
Here I stay,
No longer moving forward.
Always looking behind,
Stuck dreading ahead.
Trying to breathe through the fog I feel in my soul.
Maybe next December.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
If you are thinking of suicide there is help available. In Canada call 9-8-8.
Is it killing me quickly or killing me slowly?
Killing me,
Regardless.
Squeezing the air from my lungs,
Dulling all colours to grey;
Killing me.
How long can I go without breathing full breaths?
How much longer without a good night’s rest?
My soul slowly being dragged down to the dirt as the last of my breath leaves me.
Leaving only this ache in my chest,
Killing me.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
There are resources available if you are thinking of suicide or self harm : https://findahelpline.com
I made my therapist cry today; explaining how this makes me feel, even all these years later.
Like grieving a best friend’s passing and missing them like missing a part of you. Until one day the wound heals and you don’t miss them quite as much.
Then suddenly you get the opportunity to talk to them, to hear they’re okay.
I’ve never been able to turn down the opportunity.
Neither have you.
I don’t miss you ever as much as I miss you every September.
You always come back to me in the fall.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Darkness recognizes darkness.
That’s my theory on why I can’t seem to sleep until it’s light out.
While lying awake at night, I relish the thoughts of just going for a drive, going for late night/early morning McDonald’s, going out and about in the stillest of hours. At night it feels like I can do anything or be anyone.
Yet, as much as my bed often feels like a refuge, it feels like it has walls closing in as soon as the light begins to fade. Walls close in as the darkness quickens.
Sleep never comes easy at night but as the dawn breaks, I’m able to drift away securely.
The darkness in my mind and in my heart recognizes darkness and waits to conquer me once I close my eyes.
Half of this battle is working my entire life around this. In that, I have succeeded. I have worked one entire year of night shifts and have slept soundly during the daylight.
The darkness has all but put out my light.
How can darkness be at once still and freeing, yet heavy and suffocating?
I’m tired of the dark but it still feels safer, though only while awake.
I wish and wish for that eternal darkness where there is no need to worry about waking or sleeping; about dawn or dusk. For that I would go to sleep gladly, even in the night.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
1. Adults are not to be trusted
2. Pain is not temporary
3. Selfishness and selflessness can overlap
4. Nobody truly sees children
5. Sleep is not restful
6. Reading can be like running away.
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.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts
From where I stand, the future looks nothing but daunting. It’s hard to remember the good at the end of such a terrible year. Each disappointment and struggle seems like a heavy stone in the backpack of life that I insist on carrying around.
The weight has pulled me off the podium I stood on at the start of the year and dragged me to where I teeter on the edge. Will I be just one more casualty of this year? It seems more appropriate to close my eyes for good when it’s still a terrible year, instead of souring a new one.
People are looking toward 2021 with hope, so much hope. All I feel is dread. Once the new year starts, my life has nothing left for me to do but to be tugged along with the passing of time. I have a degree, a license, a job, a life, and a home. I’ve lived so much life in these years, I don’t feel accomplished, I just feel old.
My friends are all moving on. They have their own lives. They have relationships, pets, children, homes, and triumphs. They look forward to adventures, to new beginnings, and to a future. Joy and love fill their lives with so much colour. I’m glad for them and envious at the same time.
I can’t feel the colour in my life anymore. I’ve learned how to avoid disappointment by avoiding expectations and hope. Each day is a consistent defeat in itself, why add to it? Food is bland, tea is lukewarm, sleep is fitful, and warm is never warm enough.
A bleak winter’s day with thin sun and glaring brightness is my reality. Nothing has colour and everything is too bright to be enjoyed. The trees are bare and the wind whistles enough to chill my bones. It is silent except for my trudging foot steps. I pass houses with warm light shining from festively decked windows and see smoke from what I imagine to be a warm fire inside. These houses are not for me. I have never been inside one, nor will I ever know the love and joy bottled within them.
My chest aches with the cold, the emptiness, and the loneliness. It is as familiar to me as my breath and the beat of my heart.
Despair.
Sorrow.
Hopelessness.
I used to long and now I find myself longing no more. I don’t want to find the energy to enjoy life. I’d rather fade away into this bleak winter’s day and never trouble the sunniness of a new year.
Maybe in another lifetime I’ll see colour again and find the warmth. That, too, seems daunting but it’s the only hope I cling to, the hope that lies in death. Hope that death will be kind to me as this life hasn’t been.
I’d like to fade away in sleep, though rest is something I never find at night. Perhaps that is the secret to the kindness of death. Dying instead of sleeping doesn’t feel so daunting after all.
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.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.
Holidays and family are supposed to bring joy, love, and hope. They are known for gatherings and good company. This year, people are going to extraordinary lengths to connect with loved ones from a distance to maintain any sense of normalcy.
Here I sit, surrounded by my little family, and I’m feeling more alone than maybe ever before.
Oh, the scorn I would feel if people knew how I was taking being able to gather for granted.
There’s so much pressure when you come back to family; pressure to assume the same roles and to put on the same shoes, to live behind the same façade, to do the same pretending.
“I’m happy.”
“Everything is fine.”
“I’m glad to be here.”
“I love the holidays.”
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
When you celebrate with the same family in your broken childhood home, it feels different as you get older. Everyone pretends they’re the same and that we can’t see all the cracks.
I’ve never felt so lonely- pretending I’m the me they know, when I’m the me that I know. I don’t feel comfortable around them. I don’t feel comfortable with myself. I am not happy. I’d rather be with people who love me for being me, who would love me if they really knew me.
I want to die but here I am celebrating trivial things and faking a smile.
My heart aches and my chest hurts from pure loneliness.
The forced joy of the season makes this feeling so much worse. Don’t get me wrong, this is nothing new to me. The global circumstances just make the guilt bigger too. How dare I feel this way when I’m so fortunate?
I’ve come full circle to where it’s truly a pain to live again. I’ve been here before. It’s almost as if all the work I’ve done to leave this place never happened. I’m stuck going in circles; the struggle is perpetual.
Am I lonely or am I alone?
Lonely. Always lonely.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.
*trigger warnings: self-harm, blood, graphic-ish description, depression, anxiety
I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if I can never comfortably wear bikini bottoms or short shorts ever again. My right thigh is crisscrossed in thin white lines, yes, the cliché term applies to me. Some are pink and are quite prominent but most are fine and white; some have even almost disappeared but the more you look, the more you see.
I started self-harming when I started university and began my journey towards my nursing degree. It felt like my anxiety and depression were overwhelming me; like someone was sitting on my chest all the time. I was thinking of 60 thoughts per second but couldn’t hold onto one long enough to finish thinking it or to process it; much like I imagine a swarm of bees trapped in my head would feel like- just as busy and chaotic, and as loud.
I have been on Tumblr for a long time and have seen post after post of self-harm and cutting and all of which that entails. So I used my tweezers to take apart a disposable razor. Since I was in nursing school, I took alcohol swabs and cleaned the blade, washed my hands, and cleaned my leg as well. I put on some music that fit my mood, psyched myself up, and made the first cut.
The first slice was like taking a deep breath of fresh air. Finally. All my swirling thoughts went quiet and my focus narrowed down to just the task at hand. The cut was timid and shallow and ironically, I knew I could do better. I continued to make thin, precise, red lines in columns down my thigh.
The preparation and organization, the neat and clean end result, and the endorphins are what drew me to this to settle my mind. It felt like I had been searching for something to bring me calm and I finally found it, here, in my bedroom with bloody kleenexes and sad music. It provided me with a feeling of clarity like I had never felt before.
The subsequent days, when the marks were fresh, I did not have to make more because just pressing on them was enough to keep the buzz and the noise of my own thoughts at bay.
The feeling of being in complete control was intoxicating. I have had many instances of not being in control in my life and this felt like I could reclaim pieces of myself and like I could be an overcomer instead. Nothing else in the world mattered outside of these lines, my steady hand, clarity, and control.
I never self-harmed to try and end my life, those were different actions entirely. This was all about control for me. It was all about chasing the feeling of finally being able to breathe again. I was never angry, it was never an action of self-hatred, and I never went deeper than what would cause a small scar: one thin, inch-long mark at a time.
Some people drink, others use substances, some use sex, others use therapy, some can use avoidance. I used self-harm to cope. When I was restless or overwhelmed or stressed or any similar feeling, I knew I could find a moment all to myself and it would lead me to peace… as peaceful as deliberately cutting into your own skin for endorphins can be.
I suffered from insomnia and nightmares almost every night and rarely slept for more than 3-4 hours, usually from 3 or 4am to 7am; once I knew that dawn was coming soon and there was a chance for me to be safe when I woke up. The nights after self-harming I was also able to sleep, to truly rest. It was an escape in more ways than one.
The morning after self-harming, I always did it at night, I did feel guilty and shameful. Obviously, as a healthcare provider and as an adult, I knew better. I knew all about alternate coping methods. I knew behaviours that could replace self-harm. I could tell you all about self-care and harm reduction. The guilt and shame and the knowledge were never strong enough to outweigh the freedom and peace I was finding.
Gradually, it went from days between each column, then to weeks, soon to months. Now it has been close to a year since I last made any cuts. I went to therapy every week for months, and then every other week. It has been one year and five months since I started going to free counselling offered at my university. I found a family doctor I trusted and a medication that works for me. I have a best friend who will do anything for me and I for her. For the first time that I can remember I feel in control of my own life, my own choices, and my own thoughts. My mental health has actually done a complete 180 degree turn and has stayed that way. There are consistently more good days than bad days. It has been more than a year since I last attempted suicide. It gets better. I never thought I’d be able to say those words and I find myself planning for a future that I never planned on having.
It gets better.
If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Sight Unseen 