Hope is an illusion

I clicked on this, didn’t expect this song to break me like it did. On three separate occasions, I was almost the light that went out. I related to the ending so much, especially because I can see this from the other point of view. My brother, uncle, and mother left behind if I had committed on either of those three occasions. The one I haven’t yet forgotten about is the first one on July 4th, while fireworks were going off. I had taken a select few medicines to my bed to down and hopefully end it all. Everyone else in the house, was none the wiser to what I was doing either. They would have just found me that way. What is so special about that first one, personally, is that I researched the side effects of each medicine if used in lethal quantities. I selected only the ones that were opposites of each other, or sounded seriously harmful. For example, one would accelerate heart rate, the other would reduce it.
Used to be a time, I believed there was never a reason to commit suicide. I had a job, plans for college, and an entire future ahead of me. One night I wake up, and my skin is my personal prison and torture device, that belief disappeared rapidly. It’s debilitating, and I can’t find assistance, the SSA not only refuses to acknowledge the issue, but tells me I can work. Dermatology is going no where, and my mental health is taking a nose dive, like a 2,000lb bomb. Five years later, I find somewhat of a solution through gabapentin. The damage has been done though, I isolate in my room, I stay in the cold wherever possible. I see no future, I have no future, my plans for what I wanted to do, seem like nothing more than pipe dreams now. I feel like an anchor on my family, like some kind of unforgivable burden. I burn fuel whenever I drive the car, I can’t replace it. I eat food whenever I’m hungry, I can’t replace it. Electricity, water, name it, and I feel terrible for not being able to contribute in some way. Forget about hygiene, what scarcity that had is now gone in every aspect. I’m frankly shocked my teeth are all 3-4mm in depth, 'cause it’s not like they get taken care of.
I didn’t think I’d ever write to HeartSupport, let alone write an entire essay about a slice of what transpired. The previous truly is only a peek at the entire story, what’s worse is I can only tap into those thoughts after I’ve been ‘broken’ so to speak. When I return to whatever the hell the ‘status quo’ is for my mood, or state of being, I cannot remember the important details, and discussing the emotions I’m dealing with is nigh impossible, as I cannot speak on any of them. I can’t recall most if any, all I’ve to offer are guesses of what might have transpired. I also believe I’m apathetic, but I’m not sure. Probably a sign, when the only things that evoke emotion strike a certain chord, and the ones that break me, are the home run of hitting that same, or even similar chord. Like the scene in Wolverine and Deadpool, where Deadpool realizes he matters to those he’s close to, that struck a chord and got two whole teardrops at the absolute best. This song on the other hand, the outro and explanations, had me a half inch from breaking down entirely by the end of it.
I entirely intended for that last paragraph to be the end of the essay, but I can’t seem to stop rambling. That’s another side effect of tapping into that specific chord so well, it’s like a drainage gate opens on a Dam. Okay, I’m done now, have been for a while actually. I stopped having faith in medicine, and mental health “help.” It seemed like very avenue, despite the few I took, was just wasted effort. I couldn’t seem to find help anywhere, and that too wore down on me on top of everything else. Good lord…I think I should just stop here. If you read this far, I appreciate your time in reading. If you’re looking to reach out or something, just know I already see myself as a lost cause. As if any step I might take, is one of futility Someone told me yesterday that all people are beautiful in their own way, and I told her that I couldn’t be convinced of that. It’s not because others aren’t, it’s just because I look in a mirror and I see a lot of things…beautiful is a far cry from any of 'em. Again, appreciate you reading the whole thing…if you did. If not, I don’t blame you, I’ve typed up the great wall of china at this point and still haven’t managed to stop.

P.S. Really related to the darkness thing, staring down and seeing tranquility. I’ve said it, once, might as well say it again…this song just struck a certain chord a little too well.

P.P.S. I wrote this as a comment on the video that I hyperlinked, two days ago. It is lengthy, and I apologize, this is what tends to happen in the moment. Won’t get the information otherwise, so I figured there is no better time to write than under that thread. I also read that it can seem like a tunnel, dark ofc, with no direction. My immediate thought was that the tunnel definitely had direction…just no end. Might be worth mentioning that someone I was talking to, granted at their job, had asked that I stop showing up to hangout. Seemed ‘people had said thing’ and they prefer to keep their job, understandably. They didn’t, personally, seem to take issue with my being there, but I’m not so sure if I would be able to read someone to save my life so :man_shrugging:
The only reason I mention it, is because of what happened afterwards. The intense sadness, depressive feeling, much like where I had been months ago, with a surface level desire to hop off the golden gate. The moment passed, but I didn’t know her like that, and she has a BF, so I wasn’t trying to get with her either. I’m not sure why it had such an impact, but if that’s how I felt over someone I really hardly knew, what’s going to happen if I get my heart broken. “I’m cooked” is something I actually thought to myself.

P.P.P.S. Rather interesting title, I sat for a half second, thought on it, that’s what came to mind. I’m a pretty far cry from where I was, but it’s clear I’m far from the end too.

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“There’s someone out there where YOU are the ENTIRE world to them.” - Nphagan88

I’ve heard this one, more than a few times. I’m not sure what it is, I personally find it hard to believe anyone outside of my family could see any kind of worth in me, let alone be their entire world. I’d love to meet 'em, the person who thinks I’m their ENTIRE world, 'cause I just can’t see the possibility. Then on the other side of that coin, knowing that I am cared for by my mom, brother, and possibly even uncle, wasn’t enough to discourage the three incidents where I nearly made an attempt on my own life in some way.

Looks like Youtube spurred another essay outta me.

10:02 Oh, that’s a good one. Wish you could have heard the laugh from me on that. I’ve been trying for the last five years to find help. That shit has drained me, between physical and mental struggles, I’m done, it’s over. I don’t see a recovery, and despite the sessions, my memory has gotten so bad I don’t remember any of 'em. I don’t know when I started, I don’t know how long it’s been, I’ve locked my emotions away as a defense mechanism against the physical, and damned the mental. I walked into a tunnel, out of the glistening light…it was lit, but the longer I walked down the tunnel, the darker it got. I know where it started, but I cannot see the beginning, I cannot see the end. There’s no sense of direction, at this point I’m just feeling the wall, following the tracks, hoping that either I find the end or a train takes me out. I used to think medicine was rather advanced, turns out they don’t really know shit. I’m going to make sure my therapist sees this wall I’ve managed to type once more in a comment section. I’m sure we’ll have meaningful conversation about it, that I won’t even remember the next day, let alone the next week. I’m sure that after they’ve finished reading it, I won’t even know what I had written down. They do their best, but what are they expect to do? Whip a fucking magic trick outta their ass? I started this intending to just make commend on how “aware” we’ve become, but it seems I’ve run on into a tangent…my father was real good at that, I really have just walked in his footsteps.

I had a thought, I intended to share it, but I cannot remember it. I preserved it for a moment, in-fact I believe it has just returned.

Was going to ask my therapist on the next visit…‘is everything I say confidential. Obliviously if I say “I’m going to murder someone” then it’ll get reported, but-- Damn, know what, just the fact that I had to ask that probably says exactly how I feel about that security guard.’

It’s the weirdest thing too, 'cause when I found out they have a BF, it wasn’t like I was looking to pursue. I have no idea why I keep speaking to them, but they turned out to be a pretty cool person to talk to.

I don’t know why I keep trying, it’s like I’m screaming into a void. No one and nothing around to hear my every plea. I was going to write this on a song, but what exactly is the point, I was going to start it by saying I am no veteran, yet I still want to ventilate my skull, but I didn’t want to turn it into another tirade about myself under a video about veterans and their suffering. There is no escape, am I walking down a tunnel, or falling into a pit?

I can’t tell, I can’t tell at all. I feel like I’m going to turn up bitter by 30, if I even make it that long.

It’s something when my medicine starts looking like an antidote again, the fuck am I even doing here? Was I put here to suffer? Seems like a fucked way to live.

The moment will likely pass, but it’s amazing how easily I can be walked right up to the line that is suicide. I’m over being overlooked, not being heard, or ignored. I try to look for help and find resistance. The internet is no help either, the amount of people who walk around with the ‘just get a therapist’ mentality, as if that’s done anything. What’s worse, is after this moment passes, I’ll have no idea what any of this means. I have no idea what I was feeling in the moment, I could write it down, but even in the moment I can’t name what’s happening. Other than the tears, and the inability to just really let it go, open the floodgate so to speak. I know I feel like a failure, a burden, doesn’t matter what I do, how much help I am, I cannot see beyond the failures of the past to see the possibility of the future. I’m just listening to music right now, to try and remain in a state of a near crisis as long as possible, only way I’m getting anything meaningful ‘on to paper.’ I know as soon as I ‘recover’ from it, it’d be like drilling to the core of the planet to get anything else out of me, and anyone who knows how the planet is made up, knows that’s an impossibility right now. It’s not for a lack of trying either, I just seem entirely unable to access information like this when I’m in a ‘better’ place.

I don’t know how I’ve made it this far, my own life’s failures weigh on me like the weight of the world. Failure to my mom, my brother, uncle, just walking in the steps of my father. That’s something my mom had to deal with for 20 or so years, and here I am…making her live it again, through her son no less. I don’t know if that’s the heaviest weight I carry, I couldn’t tell you. It’s just one of many that weigh a ton. They say god has a plan, everything happens for a reason, that he works in mysterious ways…but I can walk blindly in faith for only so long. What’s the deal, what gives, if it’s so great, why does he remain silent? A being can be so powerful, but we as mortals are able to block its voice? None of it makes sense, about the only blessing I can see right now are the people closest to me, 'cause the people outside of them have no clue what I deal with. It’s not like any of them care either, I could get on a bullhorn and scream across the neighborhood how I plan on jumping off of the golden gate, and I doubt anyone would take notice.

My patience is getting shorter by the week, or maybe even day I don’t know. I sat down, and the internet was not connected. I was already slightly upset about something else, and that just pissed me off. I troubleshot it, but not before I was livid, and I just seethed in somewhat silence. A few things were tossed around my room, but otherwise the true depth of my rage is unknown to anyone I’m living with right now. That’s how this entire essay started, believe it or not. I just started listening to music, and before long that rage turned into what I’m feeling now. That’s the year long cycle of been living for the last five or so years. Moments of nothing, followed by intense rage, followed by either a crisis, or whatever the fuck comes before that.

I cant keep the door open forever, at some point the cycle comes to a close. Then all of the information just stops flowing. I’m cut off, from my own emotions, I don’t know what I’m going through, yet I watch it play out in real time. Either way, I have jelly roll in my ear right now, and the song’s lyrics are so loud, not in their volume no, but the way they speak to me in this moment.

"…I’m a lost cause
Baby, don’t waste your time on me
I’m so damaged beyond repair
Life has shattered my hopes and my dreams

I’m a lost cause
Baby, don’t waste your time on me
I’m so damaged beyond repair
Life has shattered my hopes and my dreams…"

No reason to keep on typing now, the door is all but shut, and there is nothing else that just rolls to mind anymore. The tears have stopped, and thus so too have the rushing thoughts. If only I could return to what was so easily.

Here’s one from Linkin park

"…The reminders, pull the floor from your feet
In the kitchen, one more chair than you need, oh
And you’re angry, and you should be, it’s not fair
Just 'cause you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it, isn’t there

If they say
Who cares if one more light goes out?
In the sky of a million stars
It flickers, flickers
Who cares when someone’s time runs out?
If a moment is all we are…"

Ofc I don’t put the entirety of the song, it’s just the small snippets that speak the loudest.

It was said to me once, what it took for me to be. Two parents, four grandparents, so on and so forth. Bottom line is, it’s a lot of people, and not what came to mind when the thought occurred to me later on after it had been said to me. Admittedly, it was the security guard who said it to me.

When the thought occurred again, the first thing that came to mind was ‘sounds like a waste effort.’ Either that or ‘looks like a wasted effort.’ One of the two, or a variation, I have no idea what it was exactly.

Haven’t taken my day meds for four days. Somehow remembered to take most of if not all of my night meds. I’ve noticed some pretty adverse effects, massive spike in fatigue, a large increase in hostility, and a rather large drop in overall mood. As I’m typing this, I seem to be fighting fatigue for some reason. It’s strange, seeing as I didn’t over-sleep, and I don’t believe I under-slept either.

I also seem to have lost a large amount of interest in most, if not all, games I have downloaded at the moment. I look at them, and can’t seem to find a desire to play any of them. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the last essay I wrote during duress (Oh, that was the word I was looking for at the time) happened largely because I wasn’t on my SSRIs at all for the last 4 days if my medicine sorter is anything to go by. I thought it was less than that, but I didn’t realize I was even forgetting my day meds until pretty recently. Either yesterday, or today, I can’t recall when I noticed that I hadn’t been taking my daytime medicine.

Perhaps your hope is in the wrong things, and you should be looking to a new hope? Just a though. Remember that great financial success is a corporate brainwashing scheme. There are so many other lesser things in life you can enjoy with less income.

While this is true…I have no income.

Briefly touched on how I’m not okay mentally, in a voice chat. The response in turn was “None of use are okay.” While that may be true, it certainly did nothing for me. I mentally felt the depression sinking in after that statement. It was as if everything I had been through was summed to a ‘sounds like a you problem’ frame of thinking. As if the suffering was something I just needed to get over, as if ‘we suffer and do just fine, so should you’ was silently said. Will I ask if that’s what they’re thinking? No, I don’t care to. I already know that everyone who isn’t family has basically turned their back on me. Systems especially have left me to suffer, though my therapist has seen people recover and do well, I’ve seen abandonment. Where she’s seen miracle, I’ve been overlooked, where she sees accomplishment, I see an impossibility. The world couldn’t care less if my life was taken by the golden gate tomorrow, if my suffering went on for a few more decades, seems as though I’m the only one who’s supposed to fight for me. Seeing how things have been, what the fuck am I fighting for? Who am I advocating to? It’s not like anyone gives a shit enough to listen.

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Hey strider, I see you’ve been taking the time to share your heart and to allow us a glimpse of what life has been like for you. I imagine this is only just a very small fraction of what it’s been like for you concerning the pain and concerning how it’s been affecting your physical and mental health.
I imagine how isolating it must feel and the fact that you’ve mentioned you feel like you’re just using up energy with no way to replace it, my heart really does ache for you.

I’m very sorry that people have been meeting you with comments that are dismissive. While people do go through hurt and pain, it doesn’t lessen or dismiss another person’s hurt or pain.

I know that when people say things like you matter or that there is beauty in everyone, it can feel so frustrating and it can also feel like they’re dismissing what’s really going on. I know I have sat in a place where I have hated every inch of myself, where I can conceived of every thought to stop existing. Where I have felt like and have been made to feel like my life is a burden to my family.

We take one day at a time. One moment at a time. I know you’ve spent time here that may have felt like shouting into a void. Sometimes it can feel therapeutic and some times it feels like there is only our own thoughts that continue to surround and engulf us.

I don’t say that you are important and matter because it’s a necessity or because it’s a cliche fix. Because I know that doesn’t fix the situation. I say it because from one hurting person to another, I hear you.

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I had a reply, but for some reason I couldn’t send it. Now that I can reply to this thread again, here is that reply.

I was going to get on this post again, talk about being dismissed yet again. “At least you’re not dying of cancer,” horary for me at least I’m not dying from the inside out…only I am, a mental cancer that I cannot seem to be rid of. Before I typed anything though, I read your post…and when I got to the bit about how dismissive ‘there is beauty in everyone’ can be…it reminded me of the person who said it to me. Now I can’t stop smiling, as I remember them quite fondly.

This thread has, more or less, become my place to write down what I’m thinking. Though not everything I’d like to makes it here. It isn’t just here though, that I’ve managed to find that I’m mostly talking to myself. I’ve been dismissed by medical physicians too, it seemed every turn for help lead to another wall of denial. Somewhere along the line, the fires of hope and drive were blown out. Every now and again, they’ll come back…but only long enough to remind me that I’m still trudging in the dark.

The glimpse that I’ve written out here, is a much greater one than most if any will ever get to see. In some way, whether someone means to or not, I get shut down. Once that happens, they don’t get to see any more than I’ve already shared, which is typically very little. Somehow, despite being around many people online, I haven’t found any that share in what I’ve been through. Instead, it’s some form or another of how it’s not as bad as it “could” be. I don’t know what this has done to my physical health, and these days I don’t much care. I can see what it’s done to my mental health, but despite seeking help, I don’t see much improvement. My last near attempt at suicide was a while ago, and thoughts like that haven’t been as motivating as before. They still surface, the latest thought is curiosity…about what it would be like to plunge off of the golden gate.

Not sure when it happened, but at some point I did just start self isolating. Out of sight, out of mind is the idea. Not sure how effective that is, but that doesn’t really matter. I won’t remember this post, and I don’t remember those that came before it. I can’t recall where I mentioned using energy without being able to replace it. Certainly remember a few notions about how I drive, burn fuel, and can’t replace that. That’s another thing that seems to have come about all of it, I don’t have a quarter the memory I used to. The things I do remember, left a rather long lasting impression.

It isn’t just others, I manage to dismiss myself too. I can look around, mostly on the internet, and find people are coping well, or suffering ‘worse,’ or something else I can find that I later criticize myself over. People with cancer finding a way to smile through it, name it, and I’ll just wonder why I can’t see the good in any of what I’ve been through. What’s wrong with me, or why I’m wired wrong, this, that, whatever destructive thought I manage to come up with for how I’m just irreparable.

I believe there’s merit in the statement that people are beautiful, they certainly can be, but my more recent encounters just further the response I had, which was ‘you couldn’t convince me of that.’ Originally, it was because I cannot see beauty when I look in the mirror, but as I interact with people, I’m finding that many either don’t understand, don’t empathize, or the larger belief I have, don’t care. There seem to be so few who understand where I’m at. How can so many be struggling, yet I feel as though I’m the only one who knows where I’ve been? That makes no sense. I suppose “at least x” tends to be a cold comfort.

The only time I seem to find a therapeutic outlet, is when that floodgates on the “dam” open up. It’s usually short lived, it seems to never happen until it does, and I’m always tired afterwards, I do feel better, but it seems to be the only real thing that helps. I haven’t or can’t find something that’s a little, or even a lot, less infrequent.

I like to think that early on, this would have had a bigger impact. I’m a lot less sure about anything anymore. It’s hard to believe I matter, much less important. It’s like looking at a bombed out bridge, I can see the problem, but I don’t know the first thing about construction. I wouldn’t know where to begin, much less how it would be put back together. I find myself sitting on that bridge, wishing someone would come along and fix it, In the beginning of it all, I tried my best to repair what I knew was broken. It seemed though, that I was trying to maintain the golden gate alone, and before long I watched as it collapsed right underneath my feet. Probably the most vivid descriptor I’ve had yet for the last half decade, give or take. Wouldn’t be a shock to me, if I discovered that it was more a representation of my entire life as a whole.

That is what this thread as become though, it’s the place where I go to document what I can, or vent otherwise. Not sure what I’d call this, isn’t exactly documentation and I wouldn’t call it a vent. I’m just giving long winded replies to each paragraph, for no particular reason. I’ve heard how many time I’m not supposed to give up, or how we wouldn’t be where we are if my mom had given up. By the time that was being said though, it was too late. Towel’s on the floor, and as it stands I’m not picking it back up.

There was only one thing that drove me to go out and try something, but even that flame died off eventually, doesn’t seem like I can find anything that keeps me going other than my heartbeat. I’m just here, no particular reason anymore. I wonder just how old I’ll be before I’m so much as functional again. Defeatist mindset, seems to be all I have to offer anymore.

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Oh my gosh, I totally relate. The silver lining statement. Yeah we cannot compare our trauma we all experience the world in completely different ways. A good example this is my childhood. being a neurodivergent kid in a non-nuerodivergent household vs my brother’s childhood where it was always my way or the highway or at least you didn’t have it as bad as I did mentality ruled.

This did only one thing, It minimized my trauma and me as a person. your feelings are valid and you matter

if the floodgates open I would love to hear you turn those feelings into slam poetry. Poetry is powerful. Some of the examples I have watched on youtube and tiktok have so much emotion packed into them.

It’s pretty rare to see them open, honestly. By the time it happens again, this will be the furthest thing from my mind…I can’t remember what I did yesterday, let alone what was said last week. Contextually, I see a therapist every week.

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Just had an insane ‘dream’ again. Started in what looked to be the mobile home we used to live in, my mom, brother, and I, my uncle was there for some reason. It’s a similar one I’ve had before, I’m maintaining some odd system that relies on a few key components that I cannot remember. They’re pretty similar to a nuclear reactor I imagine, plutonium, radiation, that kind of stuff. Somehow it’s all stored in what’s essentially a single or double wide, very compact system. For some reason I’m infuriated, I can’t seem to recall how I got to that point in the ‘dream.’ When I expressed my intense frustration my mom had said I was infuriated because of them, and I grabbed a rather big knife, walked outside, and started walking down the street at an increased pace. My whole family followed, frantically attempting to stop me from cutting myself. As I walked the blade was put at the inside of the elbow, my uncle eventually caught up and attempted to take the knife from me. In the struggle I applied pressure to the place where the blade was seated, and ran it across that vein as the knife was taken. When I opened my arms in a T-shape, my left arm at the elbow was bleeding. At that point I woke up and began typing what I had experienced, it wasn’t a dream, nor a nightmare. I don’t know what to call it but, I’ve had enough blood taken to know that a cut there would be, if not fatal, nigh-fatal.

"How am I supposed to win
This war that I’m in

I seem to be fighting it alone
No matter how many times I pick up the phone

I watch the stories of others who’ve won their battles
I’m somehow unmoved, as though my fight
is an impossible task, a curse that is my plight

Despite my efforts, I cannot escape the prison that I’ve been sent to
They say everything happens for a reason, that life has many seasons
I’m surrounded by systems with the resources to help, yet I’ve been abandoned

There’s no real reason to keep going on
My life ended just like a bomb
Everything cut short, with no last resort

Made it to twenty four already knocking at death’s door
Achieved nothing I wanted, how am I even still here anymore
It’s done it’s over, that’s how I feel at the core"

Yeah, that’s probably the closest thing to a poem I can write, especially in a moment of distress.

I wrote a poem while sort of crying, stifled really. It’s the struggle I don’t let anyone see, I don’t want to be a burden on anyone. I’ve sought help to no avail, and it seems I can’t get one real good win for the life of me. People keep saying that to be redeemed, I just need to “want Jesus.” It’s proven, in time, that wanting Jesus clearly isn’t enough. I’ve mentioned it before, I’m not even sure there is a God looking over us. I believe I’ve just been abandoned, ignored, and overlooked by people, systems, the whole nine. There’s a negative in everything, if someone says something positive…well it isn’t. “You have something to offer this world,” not based on what I’ve seen before. “You matter” to who, exactly? I don’t find that I matter all that much, I have no job, little in the way of prospects, aspirations, drive, will, desire, name it and it’s not there.

I’m tired of the same old song and dance, I crave someone, I crave change, yet I find I’m unable to move towards it. I’ve been immobilized so long that I’m not entirely sure I’ll really move the same again. Everything is delayed, things go undone, the burden of my own existence weighs heavy on me. Three times I’ve tried to remove that burden permanently, and I’m not sure whether or not there’ll be a fourth. The times in total mental distress when I screamed how much I wanted to die in front of my mom, she’d tell me that I didn’t want that. What she didn’t know was just how ready I was to die in those moments. I’m honestly shocked that I’ve only had three close calls, I’m not even sure I can call them attempts I didn’t take the meds, cut the skin, or tell that 911 operator that there was in-fact a gunman outside of my house. On those three occasions though, I had the means, and the desire to end it. Somehow, I’m still here despite that desire to end the suffering, my suffering.

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