Depressive thoughts have no business being in your head

Depressive thoughts have no business being in your head.You know that gun that exists in the back of your mind, taunting you? Making you feel like everything's gonna be better if you use it? Use it to shoot the thoughts instead. Imagine the phrase "I hate myself" being blown to bits by that gun. Take out every thought that brings you pain with that gun, and then get rid of the gun too, because it's still a bad reminder. And if your head feels empty now because your thoughts of worry have been there so long, you need to realize that now is your chance to fill that private space with whatever makes you happy - whatever will keep the sad thoughts away. Your brain is powerful, but it needs you to tell it what to focus on.

"When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time."

"When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time."

Teens commit suicide.

When you're a teen, you are supposed to be growing, trying to find yourself and who you are meant to be.

But when teens kill themselves before they even get a chance to see what they could have been... it just... ruins so much. Because they keep getting called out for trying to express themselves and find themselves, they push themselves so far away from everyone and everything else that... there's nothing left but their corpse... their body cold and empty.


I've been suicidal, and luckily it has not been because I've been bullied or because I'm gay... in fact being gay is one of the smaller reasons I don't like who I am. I'm mostly just afraid that the people I care about will be disappointed in me and drift away from me. People have distanced themselves from me because I needed to grow up or because I grew up to be someone they didn't like, and I really don't care much about the reasons why they stopped liking me - it just hurts that they did stop liking me. Best friends that I imagined having fun with for years to come stopped talking to me years ago, and it was never my decision to let that happen. It hurts when you can't control things.


I'm a little afraid that coming out to my family will be the final straw where they actually express their disappoint in my to my face. I know some of them don't agree with the things I've done or who I'm growing up to be, and in a way, I accept that because I don't plan on remaining very close to my family in the future. But still, the fact that someone you have grown so close to can just drop you from their heart like you were never meant to be there in the first place hurts so badly.


Right now, I really like this boy. And I know that as a teenager, I've had crushes come and go more often than I text, but he's different. I think he sort of ... initiated any flirting, and it's such a serious head game trying to figure out how he really feels about me. He's extremely weird, so I don't feel like the odd man out, he's a musician, he's an artist, and he's fun. Sometimes, I feel moments where a connection would be made if it were written that way in a story, but like I said, he's hard to figure out, so I can't figure out what he feels. And I like that - he keeps me guessing. As a girl who writes love stories, not knowing how my own is going to end up is a thrill. I can usually see how things might end up, and there's only been one instance where I was so naive and blinded by love that I couldn't see us heading for disaster. With this guy, I don't know what's going to happen, but even if it ends in heartbreak, I'd still be buzzing from the excitement of the few times we've spent together already.


But in liking him, I've realized something.


I haven't acted very much like myself around him, not because I felt like he would judge me, but because I've been too busy analyzing him, really. But if I am to be myself, how much of myself should I be? Not many people are accepting of gays, bisexuals, etc. Not many people are understanding of depressed people. I've been lucky to find some who are, but can I find any who would be willing to date a mess like me?


I didn't mean to make this personal, but if I kept writing about suicide, I was going to cry.


I'm still here. I like it here, being alive. I haven't known anyone who's committed suicide, and I hope I never do. It wouldn't make me stronger or weaker - it would make me scared that it could have been me giving up like that. I don't want to envision myself hanging from up high, or bleeding to death because I cut myself, or having my body mangled or torn apart by whatever gruesome end I thought would help. Because I know suicide doesn't solve anything. It doesn't solve any problems at all. It's like when I had a list of math problems to do, and no matter how hard I tried to work it out, no matter how many people I asked for help, I was still lost and confused, and I would leave the page blank. The problems were still there, and they still hurt me in the end, but the world would move on and those problems would be forgotten for me. My problems would just float around somewhere until they bothered someone else - they never go away for everyone.


Lately, I've been thinking about my brothers, and I've wanted to make some art piece with a message to them and anyone else who's misunderstood. My brothers express themselves, and even if they get into more dangerous and life-threatening situations than most people, I still think that they might outlive me soon. And I don't want that - I want to grow old with them. 


When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.


I'm tired of slowly dying. I want to express myself, one art piece at a time.

"When life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means that it's going to launch you into something great."

The ups and downs of depression are entirely frustrating. It seems like every time I post on my blog, I go from a happy and hopeful post to a "woe is me" post, as if my blog itself is bipolar.

I'm not exactly sure how to phrase it, but yesterday, one of my "friends" kind of... molested me. I can't find a better word for it. All the seniors had a field trip to a movie theatre to watch a documentary b/c most of the school was taking practice tests, and I don't know, it's just, the whole time after the lights dimmed, he was... I just... okay if I don't write what happened now then I'm not helping myself at all. He was touching my breasts, and I'll explain right now that that wasn't a red flag for me b/c my friends and I have been known to do that for a while now. I know it's stupid, but I've had an apathetic attitude since 6th grade, and that includes not caring if people invade my personal space, unless they touch my stomach b/c it reminds me that I am not comfortable with my weight - I have a lot of issues. He was laying on my shoulder and kept touching me, but what raised a red flag was that he kissed my hand - numerous times. Even when I pulled my hand away, shrugged away from him, turned to face my other friend, or tried to keep him from taking my hand again by folding my arms and not letting in easily, he did not get the hint. When the movie was over and we were leaving, he kept hugging me from behind and I told him stop and moved his arms off of me, he still didn't get it. Back at school, I was still uncomfortable with him and he was still with me and my three friends, and I told two of my friends what happened, and Brandon was like "why didn't you say something?" In fact, most of my friends asked that same question when I told them - I still can't find an answer. One of my other "friends", Loretta, kept messing w/ me, sending me texts saying "He's next to you" and "Is he bothering u?" when she was right behind me. I didn't find it funny and she was getting on my nerves. Then she kept calling my name when I tried ignoring her. When we left the auditorium, I blew up and shouted.

"YOU'RE A BITCH (Loretta) AND YOU'RE A PERVERT (Andre) AND I WISH YOU WOULD JUST LEAVE ME THE F*** ALONE!!" and I stormed off. A minute later, Brandon came after me and tried to cheer me up. And then I noticed that Andre was still following.

I had just yelled at him, loud enough for others to hear, clearly voicing my disgust and anger, and yet he was still hanging around! Brandon sensed how awkward the situation was, so he continued to make things more awkward by saying random observations like "The sky is really blue today." I understand he didn't know how to fix things, and that's fine. Andre was still with us when we stopped to get food, and eventually he left on his own. Brandon was upset w/ me for not saying anything during the movie, but I really couldn't find any words. I couldn't verbally tell Andre to stop, I couldn't ask Brandon for help, I really couldn't say anything except "please sit next to me on the bus, Brandon."

I've told a few more of my friends what happened, and they were all in Anime Club, so they offered to talk to him. I just... didn't want to get involved.

The next day in Anime Club, we were watching anime... in the dark. I felt panicky and made sure I wasn't sitting near Andre, but all I could do was focus on him, and after an episode of anime, I got up and went for a walk. I couldn't handle being in the dark with him again. When I came back to the room later, he was gone, and my friend Sheridane said that she talked to him and told him it wasn't right, and he said okay. I really want this to all go away.

It just doesn't make any sense. Why do I keep having bad things happen to me? Why is it, even after all the triumphs I've made, I still find it hard to talk to people? I hate interviewing people even for a short question, and I'm a reporter, so that's a huge problem. I couldn't tell Andre to stop, or tell Brandon I needed help, and I even felt awkward telling my friends what happened. I really only told Brandon, Loretta, and Sheridane, but the group overheard me telling Sherry what happened, and so I explained it like five or six times.

What made matters worse was that I was really looking forward to getting the courage to talk to the girl I fawned over in two blog posts ago, but she wasn't even there today and I never see her around school. I felt like crying again today, but nothing actually fell. Some of my friends like Sherry and Ignacio could tell I was upset and kept bothering me to tell them why, but I just don't feel like explaining myself anymore. My best friends tried to make a joke of it, saying they would get me a mail order bride, and "kidding aside, you'll find someone some day. and they're probably battling the same demons so then you can battle demons together and be happy! right! because demons cancel out demons." I couldn't laugh, I just told them I wasn't going to talk right now. I don't think they were hurt - they just left the chat to do homework.

All I've been doing right now is listening to Coldplay and blogging my heart out. I just don't see why I keep dealing with shit like this. I'm highly unstable, and all I want to do right now is cry again, and do my homework and finish high school and finish my college applications and get accepted and go and get my career and just leave my stupid problems behind, but even if I could do that, the most random-ass new problems would pop up and next thing you know I'm gonna be found dead in my apartment.

I really don't want that to happen. I really, really, really want to live. I just don't want to live this life anymore.

Going back to the quote - the picture and the title of this post - I have to say that when I read the quote, it really filled me with hope for a minute. And I'd still like to believe that it is true - I mean I highly expect it to be true. I just wonder how long I'm going to have to keep pulling before I can finally break free.

A (Really) Good Cry

Even though I've been trying MAJORLY hard to get past my issues, there is one person in my life who can always smack me right back down.

My mother.

You know how there are those people in your life that you just can't ignore, no matter what you do? That's her. Even though I know she's not always right, she just finds a way to always make me feel wrong. I just can't be what she wants me to be. And I stopped trying to be what she wanted a long time ago - I just wanted to be myself, but I feel like I can't even do that right.

I almost gave up on life last Thursday night.

The stress of being me has been really weighing down on me, and my mom is not helping at all. She says I never talk to her, but that's because there is no talking to her: logic is no match for my mom. You will never be right, you will never be listened to. While I'm struggling to pass my three AP classes plus my other classes, my afterschool activities, my job, my self-esteem, my friends, my family, college applications, college scholarships, and the things that make me happy so I can keep the strength to handle all of this, she can just tear me down and make me feel worthless. I tried to explain to her that my grades weren't A's and B's right now because that's not how the grades work at the beginning of the year - if you miss one assignment or score low on a test/quiz at the beginning of the year, it really takes a toll on your grade because you don't have a lot of other assignments to balance out your grade, and I told her that's how it's always been with my grades every year and my friends agree. But that doesn't matter to her

"You can't get into U of I with grades like this, you can't get into Northwestern or even Chicago State or even community college with those grades!"

But mom...

I just...

And then she doesn't believe me when I say I'm stressed.

"What do you have to be stressed about?!"

EVERYTHING. I've been struggling since 6th grade with the problems in my life, and it's never "How can I help?" or "what's wrong?", it's always "you need to fix this". She doesn't tell me how, or what should change, she just looks at what I've done and tells me I'm wrong. Always wrong.

After my fight with her, I ran to my room and cried in the dark. She didn't even check on me, just went to cook food as if nothing happened. I called my friend Brandon and he got so worried about how I was speaking to him and how suicidal I sounded that I had him crying. But he really really helped me. I talked to him for a long time about everything that was bothering me, and he kept trying to make me happy. What resonated with me most was "You are good, you are really good." He just kept reminding me that I am strong and that I've gotten this far, and even though my mom is making things so much harder, I really only have to wait four months until I can move out and then I just have to wait until college.

That day, I realized how much my friends really cared about me. Sheridane gave me a shoulder to cry on when I had a panic attack during school, Rowan was forcing me into the counselor's office to talk and relax when school was almost over, and Brandon was there to talk me off the ledge when I just couldn't stand being at home. And of course I can't forget people like JoLynn who keep reminding me that the more I speak, the more help I will get.

In the end, after all the talking I did, after I listed every problem I had, got rid of the extra things that added to my stress like the school newspaper, and finally broke down to my raw emotions, the thing that I was most relieved about...

was that I was finally able to cry.

I have been searching for an outlet strong enough to handle my pain. Writing and talking help but it's not enough, I can't do self-harm, and I can't even get myself to cry more than like twice a year. But on Thursday, I got to cry three times that day. And it was the happiest experience of my life. Everything just felt so much better after that last cry.

I know I still have to deal with some stress. I still want my job because I have no reason to quit it, I need my friends to get me through it, I do need to open up to more people like the counselor, and college isn't as scary as some other things in my life. But if I keep pushing myself to the limit without tagging out every once in a while, I'm not going anywhere. I don't want to make anymore rash decisions like cutting off half my hair or considering going through with suicide, a thought I haven't had since 7th and 8th grade. I just want to let the worries roll off my back and keep trying because as far as I can tell, I haven't failed yet.