So its been a minute since I posted up here. I am awaiting acceptance or rejection letters for grad school. Volunteering at the hospital and shadowing doctors. I would say I am still uncertain about which way to go, which I guess won’t be remedied until I get those letters. I could stress about it but instead I just try to make it through everyday. Try not to pressure myself so much. Currently don’t feel as if I am being pressured by others. They know what I have done and what I am doing. It’s a waiting game for me and them too. I kind of like it that way. I don’t have to explain myself or my actions to anyone because they know what I am doing somewhat. I battle silently with depression, and I am trying to get help for that without others knowing too much. I’m like that. Keep people at arms distance because if they don’t know your dreams they can’t shoot them down. See I learned that the hard way. As a kid I always said what my dream was, and all through life I have been told that dream can’t be achieved. So I gave up. I allowed people, family especially, to put me in a box as far as my dreams were concerned. I stopped dreaming. Was just going through the motions trying to make sure everyone was satisfied. Didn’t work. I found myself depressed and self harming. Pop pills so I would not have to wake up anymore. Wishing and hoping that I die in my sleep. Fantasizing of jumping from a parking deck or eating peanut butter, which I am allergic to. Drafting my last will and testament. I wanted to be cremated, no funeral because funerals are just social experiments where folks pretend to care but really don’t. I wanted to die so badly. All these feelings that I had and felt I couldn’t express. Went to a therapist once at the end of last year and one session can’t fix all my issues. Don’t know why I didn’t jump from the parking deck or eat peanut butter. Just kept taking pills hoping those would work. I kept waking up every morning. I hated God. Felt he was just keeping me alive for nothing. Didn’t help that I was often being told I would go to hell and there was no way God would ever do anything for me. So I stopped believing in God. stopped believing that some higher power gave a damn about me. Shows how you could be raised a certain religion and still struggle with mental health issues. Maybe that is where the issues come from. Being force-fed mess about how you are only good if you have a solid relationship with some God. Go to church or go to hell. Don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t have sex, don’t be gay, don’t say you are feeling anything but happy. Pretend. Don’t dare say you are dissatisfied with church and those in it. Pretend. Smile. Learn to pretend or go to hell. If that is all you ever hear how are you able to seek outside help? How are you going to sit with a stranger and tell them everything that is in your mind when all you have ever heard is that speaking is dangerous and if you seek any help you don’t believe hard enough and you are going to hell? Why not just cut or pull out your hair or pop pills. No one will listen to you. No one cares about you. Just pray harder, you’ll be fine. Well no I was not fine. I was drowning and felt I could not go on. I felt like a burden everyday I woke up. I felt like a disgrace, a fraud, like somehow I was supposed to be something other than what I am now and because I am not, everyone views me as worthless, hopeless, and washed up. Like I am just a dumb fuck who is wasting everyone’s time. I felt I deserved to die. Like if all I have to look forward to is this current situation, then I am better off dead. No one would miss me and if they did it would only be for a bit and then they would get over it. Somehow I am still breathing. I don’t know why. I struggle everyday. Suicide crosses my mind often. But there seems to be some small part of me that wants to live. A small part that envisions a future brighter than my present. I guess that small part is what is keeping me from killing myself. That small part is my only hope. Or am I just imagining it? Am I just hoping for nothing. Maybe this is all I have to look forward to in life. Maybe I have already exhausted all chances of becoming someone “great”. Maybe my life is over. I don’t know, but for some reason I keep waking up every morning. I fill my days with volunteering, shadowing, and working. But my mind still races. My thoughts still turn to suicide and worthlessness. Is there a God? If so, does he really care about me? These questions are in my mind often. The only ways I can express how I feel is through the internet. Twitter, WordPress. I don’t post to Facebook often, unless it is political in nature. But as I stated, who do I go to when all I have been told is to keep feelings hidden. Just smile and pretend. Well I am tired of smiling and pretending. So I write. I post on Twitter, write in WordPress, write in my journal. Writing puts the thoughts down but they don’t escape my mind. Am I a prisoner in my own mind? Mentally imprisoned, but physically free? I asked that question once. Is it worse to be physically imprisoned or mentally imprisoned? Not sure. Is that a philosophical question, a psychological question? I don’t know. All I know is that the façade is harder to keep up the longer you use it. The mask begins to crumble and your true feelings emerge. I feel the silent pressure to keep the façade going, but then I realize that saying how I really feel is better than pretending. Yet I don’t let anyone see how I feel. I know it’s a see saw. Up and down. I express my feelings, get less than desirable responses, then close back up again. The internet becomes my therapist because real live people judge too harshly. Make me feel like I am crazy for having any other feeling besides happy. They say I complain too much, that I am ungrateful. I have feelings other than happy and I should be able to express those feelings. That is why I turn to the internet. That is why I and so many other people engage in societal taboos, because there is no one to talk to. No one who will just sit and listen to how I feel. Maybe posting my true feelings will help someone else. Maybe someone will see this and give a damn about me. I thought about not posting this. I thought about keeping this quiet. But I can’t. I just can’t. It is too much to hold it in. I feel like I’m losing my mind. Everyday that I keep up the façade, I just feel like part of me is slipping away. Suicide is on my mind constantly. That scares me. That I am so tired, so frusturated, that I consider ending my life as better than living. Maybe expressing these feelings in a sort of public way will help me. Somehow. At least that is what I hope.