C/W Depression, Intent of Self-Harm
When I was a kid, I loved to draw. Wasn’t good at it, but I loved to share everything with my mother. One day, I experienced depression for the first time. I felt like life was meaningless, and thought what would happen if I jumped out of the window in my room, so I decided to draw what I felt: dark colours, skeletons, death. I would probably think of it as goofy if I looked at it today, but that’s beside the point. I decided to show that picture to my mother, and her reaction was “Don’t draw this again. Draw something happy for me.” That was the beginning of me not trusting people with my feelings. I’m still afraid of doing that to this day.
***
There was a time when I wanted to be friends with classmates in school. When I was being myself, people dismissed me. Fear of being ignored drove me to accommodate to everyone’s wishes so they liked me. I became a jokester, a goofer of the class — a title that I was trying my hardest to achieve.
It wasn’t me. I can’t even remember anything outside of trying to make people like me. I needed validation for my existence. Otherwise, why was I even in school? My grades were above average, I was good at math, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care to the point when school life became everything, and I started mocking others so I could get my validation from other people’s approval. I was a bully. A verbal one. A complete piece of shit.
After I realized that in my last year of school, I isolated myself from the class completely. It was a toxic environment. I made people feel miserable, and for what? To be recognized by assholes? I hurt many good people to become a part of something. It drove me to become a thing that I hate. The logical conclusion was to never become close to people ever again. At least offline.
***
I thought a lot about death and the consequence of dying, especially what would happen to people around me and would my death matter. In my mind, it did. Some times. The only thing that stopped me from doing harm to myself was thought of it traumatizing someone and all the resources it would take to clean up the mess that would be left. Honestly, that might be the only reason why I’m still here. And also why I’m obsessed with cleanliness. Brains are weird.
***
I didn’t share most of my thoughts when I was growing up. There were moments here and there when I asked what happens to people when they die, or what is the purpose of human life. Most appealing answers to those eventually became 1) people just die and they stop existing and 2) there is no purpose. Humans constantly seek meaning, which gives us purpose, but purpose is a human creation, a concept that derives from the history of colonialism and capitalism where people are tools for power. It’s okay to not exist for anything. That is the ultimate freedom.
***
One of the earliest questions that I had is why do I see the way I see? And why does it remind me of camera work in movies and tv shows? Do other people see the same way? Or is it just me? Maybe my brain is a recording device and my memories that I imagine once in a while are replays that someone is watching right now. Would explain the deja-vu effect. But FPS games exist, which means that I am not alone in my experience.
…I came to this answer too late, and, the funny thing is, this thought process shows how I learned to empathize with other people.
***
There are many other experiences that I had that made my loneliness a state of being, and I wish some of them didn’t happen. I’ve seen too much pain, was abused and inflicted hurt without realizing. I still deal with all the trauma that I’ve acquired throughout my childhood that influences me to this very day but I was able to survive somehow.
I think I was lucky.
