New Year, Same Dylan

I am more unhappy with myself than I have ever been, which is probably why this new year doesn't feel so great for me. To me, it just means more of the same. I realize that in order to make any kind of drastic improvement in my life, I'm going to need to be okay and functional for more than a few days at a time. And that doesn't seem very likely to happen. I mean, I don't know how to make it happen. I wanted to write about the details, but I don't have much energy to do that. Maybe part of it is that another year has gone by, and I am once again in far worse shape than in years previous. The pain has honestly become too much. Both my physical and emotional pain seem to have no end in sight, and I'm not sure how many more days of 16-hour long psychological events I can handle. I know I have pushed everyone away these past few years. It's honestly easier than subjecting people to being around someone who just isn't very pleasant, ever. Although, I'd have no one around here to subject to anything, so I guess that's irrelevant too.

I know it's becoming too much for him too. I feel like I'm waiting for the inevitable, like each time I'm not okay will be the last time he can handle it. He's told me before that he can't stand lying there at night wondering if it's the last night he'll get to spend with me. I told him to imagine it from the other side. That didn't exactly help.

How have I made it this far? If I'm this far gone mentally, shouldn't I have found a way out by now? Well, it's really not as impulsive as people think. The most dangerous kind of suicidal feeling is the one that you have when you are at your most rational. For me, these feelings are all-consuming when they come, and they've been coming far more often than they have in months. I'm finally reaching the breaking point again, and now I don't feel like I have any options. Before, medication was always that last resort. I'm hesitant to try anything like that again after what happened this summer. Partial hospitalization, IOP, individual therapy, DBT/CBT--none of that really seemed to matter either.

I've been doing a lot of reading, and it seems to confirm that, sometimes, it really doesn't get better. Some depression cannot be treated or cured. And if I have to look forward to a lifetime of struggling with this, only to have a couple of days per month where I can feel any positive emotion at all, then I really do want out. I used to think certain things would be enough. And I feel guilty that they are not.

I don't think I am the kind of person who can ever be happy. I'm just not able to let go of the person I wanted to become. It hasn't been easy letting go of the person I used to be, but even that is nothing compared to the constant battles I have with the reality of my own existence.

I just feel like there's no happiness left. I often have no idea even how to feel happy. I'm also so caught up in my own chaos all of the time that I have nothing left to give anyone around me. I'm blank and expressionless most of the time because the fight inside never ends. I want to be there for the important people in my life, but not only do I not have the energy, I don't understand even how to do that when I am this overwhelmed. I miss everything that's going on around me. I feel entirely isolated from the world. I'm fighting this minute to care enough to keep going.

I think the least disturbing thoughts I have had involve my running away and living on the street or finding a shelter that would take me in. Someplace where no one had any idea about me and I could pretend that I never had as much potential as I did. Someplace where I could forget that I ever had any other kind of life. I'm tired of everyone pretending that there is hope for me to have the future I dreamed about. I don't even have dreams anymore. Sometimes I get flashes of them and get excited about finally being able to move forward, but they're gone before I can make the first move. And then I am just stuck with the pain.

I hate watching what this does to the people around me. I hate being the cause of someone else's stress and unhappiness. He tells me that I am not, but I can see it in his face and hear it in his voice. I keep wondering when love won't be enough for him.

About a week ago, I really thought I had figured things out, at least in part. But that was another mirage. I already feel like too much time has passed. I realized that, at 27 years old, I'm just lying around waiting to die most of the time. And this is only going to get worse as time goes on. I said it months ago when I started having bad days more often. Then the bad days got worse and I kept saying it. And now here we are, again.

One thing I did learn is that suicide via overdose seems to be pretty unreliable. About a 1 in 40 chance. I'm not willing to risk waking up and having severe brain damage because knowing my luck, that's exactly what would happen, and then I'd have to live with that mess for the rest of whatever existence I had left. I was hoping writing this would make me feel better, but I am just beginning to feel guilty about sharing anything. I know that nothing anyone can say will really make a difference. It never does. I'm lost in my own head. Truly lost. And no one can save me except for me, and I know that I'm just not capable of doing that anymore. I'm not sure I ever will be capable of that again. I feel less capable than ever. More trapped by my inability to function than ever.

I remember when I had my issues but could still be there for those around me. I remember when I could do positive things for an entire community of people. Now I struggle finding enough motivation to shower or eat and can't bend over to tie my own shoes most of the time. I've got nothing left. My ability to use my mind has been taken away, my ability to use my body has been taken away, and my ability to care for others has been taken away simply because those first two have been taken away. I have nowhere from which to draw my energy. I'm just gone. I feel like I don't know myself anymore. And I wish I understood entirely how it got this bad this quickly again, but maybe it was never meant to go away. Maybe this is the new me. This is the only me a lot of people have ever known, and that alone is depressing.

I'm afraid to stop writing because the silence is always terrifying. I never know what kind of thoughts will surface, and I don't have the resources to fight them when they do. My gut feeling tells me that this whole ordeal, however long it takes, will not end well for me. My head's beginning to hurt from all of this. My stomach is in so much pain. The same thought keeps coming back to me.

I'm already gone.