A few years ago I used to think crying myself to sleep every week was bad.
Now I can't remember the last night I wasn't crying.
Make it stop. I'm caught in the floodgates and I'm drowning in my own emotions.
I don't want to suffer, I don't want to be caught in this forever.
I'm dead already. My mind is empty, blank, stifling.
I'm playing Russian Roulette.
I think the last bullet in the chamber won't be too far away now.

Drowning. The noise and sound surrounds me.
I am enveloped.
This scares me more than anything. I don't know what I'll do.
It's going to be a struggle.
The box is only temporary.

I don't know what I've realised or what's forced my mood down. I think it's something to do with regret.
I don't know my future at all. I'm completely uncertain of it. I used to be very certain. Though there were certain... ideas in my mind, I didn't ever seriously think I'd act on them, even when I did attempt. I just assumed that my life would continue, I didn't really... think. Now, I may have made plans for my future, which is something I hadn't done before, and I may appear more certain, but I'm less and less sure of anything now. My moods are going from extreme to extreme within the space of a few hours. At about 4:30 today I was good; happy, jubilant and full of fulfillment. I was feeling great, and that's not even exaggerating. By 5, my mood had started decreasing. Now I'm nearly at the stage I was on the weekend. I can't focus on anything and I think a lack of sleep will be something that will feature heavily tonight. I hate this. I hate not knowing what my mood will be or whether there's chances I'll go to extremes, because I can just... never tell. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I want to actually have a reason to be feeling the way I do, I want to know why I'm feeling how I do, whether it be fantastic or rock bottom. Can I not justify my own feelings?
I want to know whether there's a chance I'll be gone by next month, or the month after, or by the end of the year. I want to be in control of myself. That's what I hate. Not even being able to control myself, whether it be my thoughts, actions, or feelings. I don't want to be dead and not even know the reason why I've done it, let alone having anyone else know it.
I hate this. I hate not being in control. I used to have it, I swear I did. Can someone find it and give it back? Otherwise I'm scared. Not for myself, but that I'll hurt people. That's the last thing on earth I want to do, and if I do, I want to avoid hurting them as much as I possibly can.
I need to change my mindset. I don't know where to begin. I don't want to hurt others, but neither do I want to hurt myself.

There's no single sentence that can be said that can change things. But a build up of positive words and encouragement might be able to. Over a long, long time. Individual people at your level really don't have that much emotional power, unless you give that power to them.
Everyone is different. You can't offer the same advice to every single person. But a general piece of advice can help a lot.
I'm glad I've written so much this weekend. It's got me to think and consider quite a lot. I've been arguing with myself, and agreeing and disagreeing with others and hating myself for the step by step analytical processes I'm going through, that I go through in every conversation or interaction with others, especially once it's passed.

I thrive on social interaction, but I'm a pretty lonely person, if that makes sense. I take people in as friends and I kind of develop this network about myself, with me in the centre, and I'll try and help and smile and nod and be friendly. It's an odd thing. When I want to be friends with a person, if they're a reachable person, I'll sooner or later end up friends with them. People are drawn to me, and I'm drawn to them, but I try and give more than I get because the people I'm friends with aren't generally too comfortable or at ease with the concept that they matter, and they need to know they do.

I'm no wordsmith, my words have become clumsy.
But I see exactly what people are trying to say, and it's exactly what I would say, or a variation, in their position. But because I've offered the same advice I can't accept it, a self-esteem complex. I need to look at myself more objectively. I need to see what it is that others see in me, that makes me worthwhile. Looking at myself I see nothing that is respectable, not one quality that I love or even respect about myself. In everyone else, even those I intensely dislike, there is at least one redeeming quality, yet I can't find it anywhere on my person.
And yet I've had friends that have stuck by me for years when I've begun to drift away from them, when I've begun to attempt to push myself away a couple of times over the past year because I've been so hell bent on suicide, yet I couldn't let myself hurt anyone. That's the only reason I'm not dead already; I've tried, but haven't managed to make people hate me, and I feel guilty. I've written about last August, collapsing and sobbing one Monday afternoon on the platform because I couldn't manage to bring myself to hurt all the people I would hurt. At the moment I'm regretting it a lot, because of the introduction of people into my life since then that would be even more deeply affected if I did.
Somehow two people have fallen for me, neither of which I can believe, one I didn't even know until our breakup, and one that's making me feel like perhaps there is some form of light, no matter how dim, in between the diving tunnels of depression.
 Last year, as a sort of joke, I said to people "The only thing I like about myself is that I'm an individual, but I don't even admire the factors that contribute to me being one."
It isn't a joke anymore.

I want to return the the blissful ignorance of a child. The last time I was happy for more than a week was when I was about seven. Now happiness is something I might experience once a week, for maybe three hours, and it's something I rely on one person to give, which probably isn't a good thing.
I don't know why I'm so negative towards myself. Over the years I've just come to disregard myself as a friend and more as an enemy who is trying to sabotage everything good in my life.

I've spoken to people. There's nothing about me that they can pinpoint that they like. So I find it hard to believe they like anything, and are only friends with me out of sympathy or some sort of sadistic desire. For a few months a couple of years back I believed myself to be living in a Truman Show-esque world; not as elaborate, but as in my existence was purely for the entertainment of others, and all friends I had would be malicious and spread what I told. Luckily, I'm not under that sort of irrational influence anymore, but the paranoia that enabled me to imagine it is still a strong force in my mind.

I don't blame anyone else for my circumstances, I don't blame anyone else for my depression, I don't even blame my circumstances for depression. I blame myself, because really, what's to be blamed other than my interpretation, analysis, and viewpoint on the ideas and events and people I'm subjected to. My life is fine, my life is good even. I'm perfectly happy with my life, aside from the fact that I'm in it.

I'm perfectly willing to put in the hard yards, but if putting in the hard yards is something I'm going to have to do all my life to keep myself even at mediocre levels of emotion, then it's something I don't want to do. I want to get better, but I want to be able to stay at the level of okayness that is required for an honest response to "How are you" that won't make them worry, without taking into account struggling through all the other circumstances in my life that will give me trouble on top of depression. I'm not even asking to be happy at all, I don't care if all my happiness is taken away as long as I'm not sinking into bouts of severe, crippling depression every couple of years. But that's something medication or counselling won't give me, it'll help me hover at the nearest reaches to depression most experience, but I want to at least be more than that. And I'm not relying on something that's going to be either a hindrance to either my financial supplies or take away my responsibility to myself. I have a responsibility to myself to keep me at levels of stable emotion, if I can't even do that then what sort of person am I?
Learned helplessness is something that I've looked into; it seems to be something caused by circumstances rather than anything else, and my circumstances have not made me, I have. Of course, they've contributed, but it's my reaction to the circumstances that have made me as a person. The only thing I could perhaps think to relate it to is that maybe I've experienced depression enough times that I've learned to be defeatist over my circumstances, I've learned to accept that this is what it will be all my life. And that's not quite relatable, because that's true, I'm not leading myself to misconceptions.

This blog is one of the only things nowadays  that isn't a cry for attention, is a simple expression of my feelings escaping the craving I have to be surrounded and filled with noise, colour, laughter and light. Now my thoughts have turned towards this again, it's invaded. And the worst thing is, I don't seem to mind.

Brittany.

Don't tell me to talk to people.
Talking to people makes me feel worse.
It's also entirely redundant. There's nothing wrong with my life. I've got friends who genuinely care for me, I've got a close family, and someone I love more than anything.

The only real problem in that equation is me. My outlook, and the fact that everyone I interact with is immediately worse off for knowing me. And it can't be solved.

I don't WANT to feel better, not if it means that I'm just going to put off feeling this low for a year. And that's what will fucking happen.
There's a history of depression in my family, my dad's side at least. I've inherited something very similar to his personality. I've seen how much he makes everyone else suffer as a result of his depression. I don't want that to become a feature of my life, nor anyone elses. And he doesn't know he's doing it. Meaning I won't either.

If I go on living, I'm going to keep wanting to kill myself. And that's going to keep fucking happening through my life, there's nothing I can do to change it other than constant psychiatric appointments or constant medication, and I am never ever letting myself become dependant on anything like that, I find it abhorrent. I already hate myself enough as it is, if I live off that it'll make me hate myself even more.

I know it'll affect other people negatively, but just me going on fucking living and going through this every fucking year or two or three is going to mean me fucking suffering. There's nothing anyone can do about it, and I just wish they could fucking see that. Every single fucking person who's known about it has tried their best to help me, and they're all beautiful, amazing people and I love them to bits, but it won't work. It won't, because I can't be helped. I HAVE accepted it before, and it worked... temporarily. There is no fucking permanent cure and I don't want to live it it means this will keep on happening, and that's a fucking certainty.

The thing is, I've taken all the advice. I've seen professionals, I've talked to friends, I've briefly taken medication, and I've cried so much it's a wonder there's any water in my body.
I lie though, and I'm a good liar. I don't want to make people worry, so I don't say anything that will make them worry. Well, I say enough to make them think a little, but I don't reveal almost anything.
I can't stop myself lying either. I've seen the consequences of not lying to people and what it can do, and it hurts to see people hurting for me when I'm not worth it. And it's not a barrier; it could be easily overstepped if I wanted to overstep it. I've talked so much to counsellors and psychologists that I know it's not going to help. I sound like a teenager with stupid problems going through hormones. I'm pretty sure thinking about suicide every night isn't a hormonal thing.

I don't WANT to hurt people, not at all. I don't want to be remembered for suicide, but I don't want to live my life being so down that I hurt people around me. And that's what will happen. If I keep on living, then I'm just going to make everyone around me feel worse. I don't want to go through this spiral of downward emotion every few years, I don't want to be put in that pain all the fucking time. It's hard enough to deal with now, and at the moment it's only happened three times.
If I go, it's like ripping off a bandaid. Sure, it'll hurt like hell, but it's better than a slow, dull ache that continues for the duration of the time that people keep on knowing me. I'm doing it for selfish reasons, sure, but I'm also doing it for reasons that will benefit people. I'd hate to go my life depending on medication, or depending on professional help to get me through the act of simply managing to get up in the morning. That's just going to drain resources, and everyone who knows me, who knows of this, who cares, who is close will feel obligated to stay by my side for fear of setting it off.  I don't want people to constantly tiptoe around me.  I'm not special.
Talking to people doesn't help. To sort myself out I'd have too spend 23 hours a day talking. And I talk a damn lot on here, too much already.

I know people care, but I doubt they want me being a constant reminder of guilt or worry or sadness or fear through their knowing me.

... What's the point of trying to pull myself out of it? What's the point of seeing a psychologist, what's the point of taking medication? It's happened 3 times in the past three years, feeling as low as this, playing with the idea of suicide.
Suicide. There, I've said it. It's a word I shy away from. It seems too blunt, too forthright, too hurtful. But what's the point of disguising if there's a pretty strong chance it'll happen anyway? I'm sure the act would hurt people far more than the word itself, though it's better for them. They won't realise that though, not now, and not ever.
I've considered it from every angle. I don't see how it couldn't possibly benefit everyone in the long run.
If I've succumbed to feeling like this three times in the past three years, then I'm pretty sure it's an issue that's going to come up often in my life. I don't want to burden people with responsibility every fucking year- they take it up on their shoulders when I let myself speak. They shouldn't, but they do. And to make it worse, I'm a fucking attention seeker. I crave attention like it's my lifeblood, a lifeblood constantly draining away from me and I gather in more and more and more and I let it sweep out as it all bunches in from the top. So people can't help knowing, and I can't stop myself from trying to get attention. I'm a fucking monster, I spring guilt on people.
I don't want to go through that every year, or every two years, or every three for the rest of my life. And neither do I want to rely on friends, or neighbours. And  don't want to spare the expense of a psychiatrist or psychologist or medication to treat depression or bipolarity, whatever I have, for however long my existence is. It's painful enough as it is, going to bed wanting to run to the train station every night and fall asleep on the tracks. I can't remember the last night I wasn't crying. Last night I stopped in the middle of the hallway and collapsed on the floor and sobbed, and shook, and cried inhumanly. I don't even know how those sounds came out of my mouth. I fainted because I couldn't breathe. I was literally choking on my own sobs and I couldn't get any air in.
I know it's not a brave way out, I know it's a cowards choice, but I've never professed to being anything but a coward. I don't have anything to live for. What I would have to live for would be better off if I was gone.
I don't want to continue being a burden to the world for the rest of my life. If I end that 'rest of my life' soon, then I won't have affected it too negatively, yet.

Pretty sound argument, I think.