Have Hope: Don’t Think That Harming Yourself Is A Solution

I am writing this piece today, and it is an issue that has been quite close to me for the past month or so, and I have not really been extremely open about it to people.

If you’re reading this, and you feel down about yourself, you feel like your situation is hopeless. You have thought of all the options, and there is not a solution in sight, and then you start to blame yourself, and think that the only way out of a situation is to take your own life or to hurt/hit yourself because your life is falling around you, and then you feel confused, lost and distressed and you just want to scream also because nobody else seems to be able to relate to what you’re going through: please, I implore you to read on, atleast consider what I have to say.

Have hope.
Don’t think that harming yourself is a solution.

I have had history of self-harm as an early to mid teenager and I almost commited suicide when I was 12. I know.

But lately, my life has been a completely obliterated train on a heat melted track, colliding into the brick wall that life can usually feel like. So, to start explaining things; I am late on my rent and my internet bill, my lease is renewing soon and my intentions aren’t clear so I face the threat of being thrown out on the streets, and it’s a mess. If you’re in my financial situation where you barely survive alone on the money that you’re given, something like this happening compounds quite a lot of stress to begin with.

I’m not the kind of nineteen year old university student who has the option of going home to their parents. I got kicked out of home from my mum (who soon moved to a different state) when I was 16 and in the last year of high school (Early 2012), and for the next 18 months after that, moved around a few locations (boarding school, grandparents place, sisters, finally the place I am living on my own in now), living out of a suitcase and a couple of bags, with most of my possessions in a storage unit halfway across the state. It wasn’t until late last year that I now have around 80% of my possessions back.

The start of this financial situation was when I got fined for returning a library book a couple of days late, and then needing to add more money to my university account to be able to print out my readings and assignments. THEN, I needed to add more money onto my public transport so for the next month, I could get to university at all.  So, there’s already around $120 out of my bank account.

I would just like to add, I had already started to feel like crap a couple of weeks before then. I had met this guy, he seemed so amazing. He seemed to care about what I had to say. The way he looked into my eyes, I could feel that he did care about me. I went out in public a couple of times with him (café, out to dinner), then he spent the night in my apartment, and I spent the night and next day at his place. But then, he suddenly said he couldn’t like someone who presented himself the way I do. Then after I called him a few times in the next week of the mid-semester break where I could barely get out of bed I felt that broken, he said I was fucked up in the head, and since then has blocked me from everything. Then after two week, when I felt confident enough to interact with guys again, three guys in that week emphasised that something was wrong with me because I wear foundation+concealer, and necklaces and bracelets. So to begin with, when this financial shit started, I was already in a bad frame of mind.

In early May now, I started to accept in my brain that my rent will most likely be unable to be paid. Going over my internet bill by $100 because I watched some of my lectures online, it was a certainty. Then it came to my rent being drawn from my account, and it said that the transaction had failed. I was a few hundred dollars short.

From there, in my head, I had already told myself that . I had known for a few months that I would inevitably come to this kind of situation. I already only eat one meal a day or starve myself for a couple of days every so often just to be able to save money on food to be able to pay my rent. I can’t have a social life because I can’t afford to go out anywhere. Feeling this deprived part in my brain, saying “I’m sick of being like this. I just cannot anymore.”, and having the feeling inside of me that my life was already going to end soon anyway, because I started to have the thoughts in my head to kill myself

I felt overwhelmed. I just felt in this constant state of stress. I couldn’t even think straight. All actions that happened around me were a blur. Passion turned into disinterest. Getting out of bed was a chore, because all I could think was how each day was suffering, it was a curse, I was just putting myself in more pain, more worry, more self-hatred.

As horrible as it sounds, the part that also killed me inside was seeing people going on with their lives, being happy and blissfully and ignorantly unaware of what I felt on the inside. As if I had been born or had been foisted this curse where I was suffering, asking “Why me? Why do they get to be happy. Why do they have what they want, and not me. What have I done wrong with my life? Why me?”

This was where I’d go home, I’d feel frustrated. Being outside in the world with my negativity seeping through all aspects of perception, and then rebounding into my thoughts, and feeling overwhelmed about the state of my life and thinking that there was no way out; out on streets, watching everything I had fought for since being kicked out of home crumble before my eyes; namely my university degree and what felt like the first semi-stable roof over my head in atleast two years. In this frustration, where I’d start to breathe irrationally, I’d punch myself in the head and claw at my arms, and at one point it had got to the point where I’d dig one of the knives into my kitchen into the skin of my arm. Then, on other occasions, I’d just sit in a dark room for a couple of hours at a time, devoured by the silence on the outside, the chaos on the inside.

In the last two weeks of the university semester, this is where it got the worst; this is where I considered taking my life an actual thing to do in a way where I’d think of plans to integrate it into my everyday life. Only two weeks ago was I looking online at articles on how much bleach you would have to drink to kill you, or how much salt you would eat, what height off a building to jump, and what painless options of killing yourself are. I would message my friends on facebook, I would spend nights calling them. I would text them. Whether it was just a ‘hi’, or a ‘I feel like crap’. Even though I felt like I wanted to die, deep deep down I really just wanted to be saved. Tears are dropping onto my keyboard at the moment as I write this paragraph. It cut into me like a dagger that a lot of the time, they wouldn’t reply. Yes, there is the reason they were busy with university. But even a hello back. Deep down all I wanted was interaction. Just someone to talk to. Ultimately, someone to just know from the look on my face that something was wrong with me. I was upset. I was lost. I was in a chaotic spiral of debris, being blown back of forth in my mind between the last breaths of my sanity and the overwhelming monster that was eating away at me. And my stability. No responses. Why should I have expected any less? I would eat fast food every day, just sit down and space out for extended periods of time, buy little things that made me smile for a second, thinking in my mind when I woke up each morning “This is your last day on the planet. Tonight you are killing yourself. Enjoy yourself, then die. After the suffering, you will be in an eternal sleep of bliss.”

This had a domino effect. Academically, I’d been suffering too. I’d not attended lectures for any of my classes (except for the compulsory ones in Japanese) for the past month. I also had become sick with some kind of flu two weeks ago, too. So I had to postpone one of my spoken assignments. I had only mustered a few hours of practice, so when I walked into the room finally to have my oral assignment. I hyperventilated, felt overwhelmed, defeatist thoughts came in, and I had to leave the room.

Friday of last week, in the evening, I went to the supermarket. My mind had got to the point where it was adamant that I would buy bleach, drink it, and just be dead. Cold, stone, fucking, dead. I had read about the feeling of being burnt on the inside. But at this point. I did not care. I cried each time I got an email about my late rent, and my intentions for renewing my lease. Thinking that I would be tossed out on the street with a legal mess to clean up. Being too poor with my financial support to get me out of this. The people in my life who I care about, those who I call my friends; keeping me out from their life when I need them most. Going out to dinners without me and posting photos on facebook. Smiling. Happy with my horrible fucking presence out of their life. I had got the money out to be able to afford it. I was standing in the supermarket, looking at it for a few minutes. One of my friends messaged me. I felt a mess, I couldn’t keep the lie of “I’m fucking marvellous, thank you very much.” – I told her what I was in the supermarket for. We then proceeded to have a conversation. I felt happier.

Now. Since this weekend, I am not feeling like this anymore. I still have fear and worry in me. But ultimately. I have HOPE. Even last week, the hope inside of me, remembering what I am fighting for in this life, my goals and aspirations, the desire to take care of those I care about. That’s what was kicking inside of me. Saying “NO.” I’ve sat down and rationalised about it. Which when you’re in an emotional state, is the last thing you want to do. Finding a couple of friends now to vent to, it’s a good outlet. And this blog I have started, too. I’m in the process of sorting out my life again. Sending emails back and forth and just keeping hope and fingers crossing that what I’m doing at the moment is working.

Never underestimate the power of hope. It is never an option to take your life. Please don’t think it is. If you do, you will use it as an excuse for so many things and your life will start to topple down. Think of what gets you out of bed in the morning, what you want to fight for in your life, what you want to achieve.

And sometimes, plucking up the courage to ask a favour from someone may seem hard and demeaning. But don’t be afraid. Also, never be afraid to stand up. If you have to build up the courage, then do so. Nobody expects you to go from trainwreck to superstar overnight, but taking small steps helps.

And please, take from this, also, that if you feel alone, like I did; then please just know that even though I may not know you. I am thinking about you. Those times you ask yourself “Why.” and those times you feel lost. Every day I think of those who think that taking their life is an option. It is not. Please just don’t think so. I love you all, even if I have not met you. Just remember that you are not alone and there are those who have felt the way that you do. If it is really that bad and you need someone anonymous, who doesn’t have influence over your life, to message or vent to. Please just do so to me.

And those who are not upset, please also just remember if someone talks to you and they seem upset. Don’t get tired and frustrated. They are probably going to you because they trust you. Please don’t break that trust for them, and please just listen. Never underestimate the power of listening. Empathy and compassion breaks down a lot of barriers.

And to those who say suicide or self-harm is a selfish act; you probably haven’t been in the situation before to have the empathy to know that in that situation, you don’t think it is. You can think it is, by all means. Everyone is free to their opinions, but please don’t force it onto others.