Tag: suicide

If Not Love

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Spending time with family used to bring me a little slice of contentment and peace, just knowing they were safe and happy was all it took.

Now it slowly slices off pieces of my heart. They are happy and safe, and they feel contentment and peace. I feel years removed from them. Their joy is no longer my joy. Time spent together is like rubbing salt in a wound, like hand sanitizer on paper cuts.

I spent so much of my life protecting them and shielding them and all I get for it is pain and faked smiles.

I was invited over for supper and by the time I got there, everyone had already eaten and the supper was cold. Their uncaring sliced deep. They were a family without me. I had worked thanklessly over Thanksgiving while they all spent time with loved ones but I did not get the same courtesy.

I spend so much time picking out presents for them that they will need or will find useful and I get not a one in return. My only gift this year was a jar of lotion in a scent that makes me nauseous, from my mother who doesn’t even like me.

It’s just one thing after another. There’s been times where I haven’t felt loved, but I’ve never felt so unloved.

I’ve always hoped to feel love from my family; true unconditional love. Now I don’t think I ever will.

I’ve loved them with my whole heart for my entire life.

I suppose I stuck with life partly because I always hoped I’d eventually feel love and that my family would feel like warmth and security. Family has been my safety plan for 20 years.

That’s what the books say, isn’t it? Have a safety plan. Create a safety plan. Have your friends help you make a safety plan.

Mine has been crossed out, scribbled over, crumpled up, and now it’s finished.

What is there left to live for, if not love?

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Hope this finds you well,

-L

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If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Daunting

Featured leannaemgeeLeave a comment

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.

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Where We Find Ourselves Now

leannaemgee1 Comment

I grew up reading dystopian fiction. It did nothing to prepare me to be living in one. I loved it because it was escapism but relatable enough to my reality.

Like many Harry Potter fans, the epilogue broke my heart. I knew that this was not how wars turned out. This is not how life wears on people. There isn’t just a clear cut ending with everybody living in peace.

Trauma, war, and dystopia connect to the same feelings and circumstances: grief, depression, addiction, PTSD, anger, disassociation, loneliness, abandonment, irregular attachment, mental illness, loss, despair, and resilience.

I’ve read of kingdoms falling, of citizens dissolved into sides and divided into factions, of heartbreak and loss, of revolution, and of despair.

I’ve spent most of my life dreaming of dying and a few years trying. Battling to survive while trying to die is nothing new to me. The despair, loneliness, and isolation have been my constant companions.

This year has slowly evolved from the best I’ve ever felt, to accepting a new normal, to leaving me more than two steps backward. I worked hard to prepare for my future and to plan one after so many years of not wanting one.

The end of this year truly feels like the lowest and the most barren.

How did we find ourselves here?

How do we make sure we can leave again?

Hope this finds you well,

-L

Lately

leannaemgee2 Comments

Lately I’ve been feeling discontented, disengaged, and discouraged. I’m impatient but lazy, tired but never sleepy, and calm but overwhelmed. My mind is a mind of conundrums and paradoxes. I feel so detached from everything, like I’m watching myself live my own life.

I feel cold all the time, disinterested, and detached. I feel as though there is nothing connecting me to anything or to anyone.

I know they said freedom would come after finishing a degree but I’m not sure that this is what they meant.

Every night I go to bed because I’ve spent all day trying to feel more awake. I struggle to fall asleep, I lay awake for hours, I sleep fitfully and dream vividly, and wake up just as tired as I was when I went to sleep. The saga continues night after night.

During the days, I search for comfort and connection; I pet kittens and drink warm tea, I listen to good music and spend time creating.

It’s like I’m feeling everything at once but nothing at all. I’ve spent so much of my life wishing I was dead, but now I’m wishing I was alive.

Lately, I’ve been feeling lifeless while living.

Hope this find you well,

-L