Warning: this is super long and everyone is probably just going to ignore/skip it. If for some reason you do read it, be warned it is depressing, and very long because I’ve never really written down how i feel about life, even in private, and I got out of hand. Anyone who does take the time to read this thank you, for caring about me enough to take the time out of your day....
I’m 17, depressed, have anxiety and am helplessly lost in life. I’ve had issues with depression since I was very young. My first memory of depression is sitting on the floor in my room in the dark crying at 8 or 9 years old and asking god to please kill me, or else I would do it myself, and the next day at school telling my cousin I was going to run away or kill my self, and making him promise not to tell anyone.
I started drinking alcohol in 6th grade, at 12 years old, and have been consistently binge drinking at least once a week, usually more, since I was 14. When I was 14 I also tried weed for the first time, and it has now become a multiple times a week habit. Whenever have an excuse to leave the house for 15 minutes, or am the only one home, I smoke cigarettes because they help me de-stress. When none of the stores in town will sell to me underage I steal them from my mom or my older cousin.
My dad has never been in my life, I know nothing about him, and this is one of the things I often dwell on when I feel sad or depressed, but I’ve never had the courage to ask. My birth certificate, the record of my baptism, school documents. The spot for father is blank on all of them, and I don’t have the balls to ask my mom, who is likely the only one who knows.
From 6th-10th grade, I was constantly made fun of and bullied, for what I wore, my weight, my lack of athletic abilities, and told that I smell, and whatever random insult kids could think of in the moment. I went to an all boys catholic school where I only knew a few kids joined the football team my first 2 years to try and make some friends, but most kids already knew each-other so I felt like the odd one out. This was piled onto by the fact that I wasn’t really very good, so coaches and other kids on the team didn’t really care about me. I quit the team in the middle of my sophomore season because most of the team hated me and I couldn’t take it any more, and then got even more hate for being a quitter and not following through on my “commitment” to the team. I only had one friend on the team, and he was the starting quarterback and team captain, he lives down the block from me. He tried to stand up for me when he was around, but whenever he wasn’t the insults kept coming.
I was Coming into high school I had very good grades and scored so well on standardized tests and my entrance exam I received a partial academic scholarship. However my depression, lack of ability to focus and pay attention and my disorganization caused my grades to fall to the point where I lost my scholarship, making it even more difficult for my mom to afford school. When she lost her job due to company downsizing, we had an especially difficult stretch. Fortunately, she now has another job paying similarly, but still has some minor debt from when she was unemployed.
The only thing that gave me enjoyment the first two years of high school was the game of Rugby. I was a bench player my freshman year, but improved and sophomore year, being invited to play with the varsity team on a tour in a foreign country, and was named co-captain of the sophomore team when I returned. However my season was ruined due to 2 concussions, (bringing my lifetime total to 4 that a doctor has diagnosed),a dislocated shoulder and a painful knee injury that was never diagnosed because I never told anyone about it.
My team and coaches were disappointed with me, and at the end of the school year I made the decision to leave my catholic school for local public school to save my family money, sacrificing my love for Rugby and alienating myself from most of my friends at that school, everybody but the quarterback who used to stand up for me, in the process. Now I only have a few friends I really trust: 1 who I never see because he is busy with football, his girlfriend, and his job, 1 whom I have known since kindergarten and have always been close with, and 2 others from my new school that I now hang out with more than anyone.
I don’t have the confidence to ask anyone directly for help, but Whenever I post anything related to feeling depressed or sad in a cry for help, hoping someone will reach, most people just tell me to “man up” or “stop being a bitch” and assume whatever I’m dealing with isn’t a big deal. this led to me getting made fun of even more at my old school, and I resorted to self harm, refusing to eat, repeatedly punching myself in the head and face, beating on doorframes and walls, and occasionally cutting.
I often have violent thoughts, and sometimes dreams. They began picturing myself hurting the people who torment me, but became hard to control and spread to the ones I love, random strangers, and sometimes animals, which upsets me because I do not wish to be a violent person. I have never acted on any of these thoughts, but I am scared of what I may do in the future.
This past summer, I began taking Xanax and muscle relaxers that I steal from my family members, and a few times I tried hydrocodone that my friend steals from his father. I don’t really have any family that I trust because I don’t get along with my mother, and besides a few elderly aunts and uncles, and my cousin who lives with us, everyone lives in other states.
I am one of the few kids I know my age who has never kissed a girl and is still a virgin, because I am in general unattractive and get extremely nervous talking to girls my age, which leads me to avoid them. I feel like someone who loves me would help, but I don’t have the confidence to be in a relationship or ask anyone out. I’ve only had one girlfriend, we stopped talking about a year ago, and she was great, but she has moved onto bigger and better things and we don’t even talk anymore.
I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life, and have for the last two years been telling myself “I don’t need to worry about the future because I’m going to kill myself by the end of next month anyways”. I’m actually fairly intelligent however since I can’t focus and get angry with school, my grades are low and now in junior year I have almost no chance of going to a well respected college or studying in a program I would really like to get into.
Regardless all my faults I am somehow a closet narcissist, and often catching myself thinking I am better or smarter than everyone else, and I hate these thoughts but sometimes I can’t control them.
Since transferring schools this year I have reconnected with a few people I knew from elementary and middle school, and met a few new people, but I still don’t really hang out with anyone outside of school besides my same 4 friends, and I do ,all we bond over is drinking and smoking. The few times anyone has asked me if I am ok or brings up depression, I play it off and just tell them I had a bad day. Even my best friend doesn’t know that I have been suicidal for almost half of my young life. My teachers all just think I’m a shy quiet kid, and I don’t talk to many people in school because when I try, they think I am weird or don’t like my personality, so I try to act normal but don’t know how.
At least I don’t get bullied at my new school, but everything else is just as bad as it has always been and I know my life is spiraling downwards. It feels like I’m walking a tightrope, and it’s shaking and I’m wobbling, and I’ve fought so hard not to fall, but soon I’m going to fall and if someone doesn’t catch me I am going to die.