An Open Letter

Later today I'm going to go back and collect some posts when I've came out of depression, to prove to myself this is not the world. When you're in a burning house it's hard to remember the whole worlds not on fire.

So what if I can't squat. I can still squat, I just might not be able to one rep max. Oh well. 1000-255 or whatever. I'll just make up for it with my other lifts. Nothing changed, life's not even close to over.

On top of it, I'm sick of my unconscious mind considering suicide as an option. Ive decided to set a restriction on it. Until I hit 1k, I am not going to do it or even consider it.

I tried convincing myself against it while turning left. My dad’s calling again.

I thought about the things I’d miss. I wouldn’t get to see sunsets or hug Hash again. I wouldn’t get to smell the leaves of a jacaranda tree on the way back from the gym. I wouldn’t get to meet new people. I wouldn’t get to see my friends again.

I used to always have great, wonderful moments happen – and then somehow ruin them and I would end up feeling depressed. I would believe that after great things, horrible things would happen. At some point, I wanted to convince myself that after horrible things, great things would also happen. I hope that’s the case. I think I’m due for a rainbow.

I miss being happy and content with life like I was over the summer. What changed?

I’m sitting here after finishing the game, and my face is covered in tears. Hash is asleep on my lap, and there’s a candlelit between me and my monitor. The wounds on my face sting from the salt from my tears.

Earlier today the voice kept coming back. I kept hearing it tell me how nice it would be. I wanted to drive my car off the cliff, or into a wall as fast as it could possibly go.

I’ve been tired. I’ve been tired for a while now. Life hasn’t been the best if I’m going to be honest. I’m afraid of going back on medication, especially because it didn’t really work for me. I don’t want to die, but it keeps tempting me.

I’ve felt like my life is falling apart in a soft way. I’ve lost my friend groups and my sense of community. I had a doctor’s appointment earlier today, and the doctor told me there’s a very good chance I can’t squat heavy weights due to something wrong in my abdomen, most likely a hernia. This most likely means I won’t be able to hit my goal of the 1000 lbs club, which was something I had been pushing myself towards for the better part of half a year now. I also have an x-ray of my ankles and shins, as I might have a stress fracture on them. I don’t think I’ll be able to run, no matter how hard I’ve been pushing myself. I feel like every time I’ve tried to get back up, life has hit me back down. I’m tired.

I called my dad. I wanted to tell him I didn’t want to live, but instead I told him I was tired. I am tired. I’m also starting to have to fight back these intrusive thoughts again. I don’t want anyone to be worried about me, so part of me wanted to write this in atbash cipher like I used to do. I think I’ll try to drown this out with other posts so no one feels worried. I worry I’m too depressing of a person, but I don’t know what to do. I do my best to hide it or at least control it away from other people, but it gets hard when it becomes a constant thing. I’m tired. I don’t want to be this person. I’ve fought hard, I really have – you have to believe me. I don’t think I can do this.

I’m nowhere near suicidal ideation (I think), but I’m definitely not at a good place either. I find depression whispering its soft melody into my ears, a gentle promise of all of my pain going away with one final action. My mom used to tell me that it was a long-term solution to a short-term problem. It doesn’t feel that way, Mom. It feels like a problem that’s been as far back as I can remember. I don’t think an 8-year-old should have looked at a bottle of toxic chemicals and heard that voice. I’m so, so tired. If I lay down it’s over, but I don’t know how to keep walking.

I found myself thinking about it while driving back home from the doctor. I was thinking about how it would affect the people around me. None of these people were at fault or would deserve to have to hear that news. But I was thinking about it. I’m really tired.

Hey me. I sat here for a couple of minutes not even knowing what to write, even though I turned my computer on for this reason. I guess I’ll just somewhat vent. Last night I was hanging out with a group of friends I hadn’t hung out with before and was having a great time. While we were out, we saw two mutual friends we all know in a car at a stoplight, and we yelled out and waved. Then from the backseat, another friend rolled their window down.

Those three people in the car were my “close” friends who I would hang out with nearly every day last year. They normally aren’t good at responding to texts, but they basically just fully stopped recently, with no explanation to me why. I did CBT and stuff and believed that it was because they were busy, or not really in the mindset to hang out, but I think I might be wrong. I think they do hang out without me, and they never told me why. The last time we interacted was going to a rave together, which we had planned months in advance, and it was a great time. But since then it’s more or less been radio silence.

I’m worried about both underreacting and overreacting. I don’t ever want to be the person who is doing something wrong, or making huge mistakes that upset people without ever knowing it because they stay in the delusion of thinking it’s never their fault. But at the same time, I feel like all the advice I get is to understand that reasons don’t always have to revolve around me. I think I really should do CBT on this.

Situation: Last night I saw three other friends I used to hang out with all the time in a car together, going to build one of their PCs. They also haven’t really talked to me or responded in our group chat for a while.

Thoughts: I would think they are cutting me off. I’d also think that I did something wrong, and that’s why they must be hanging out without me.

Feelings: I’d feel horrible and anxious, and ultimately I’d feel like an unloveable friend.

Behavior: I would start to avoid them, and also not try to fix or figure out anything. I would just accept this, as it lines up with my worldview of being unloveable.

I don’t have the energy to write anything here.

Thoughts: There are two big trains of thought here: they could still like me and nothing changed, it’s just circumstance or some other reason why we haven’t hung out together yet. But also they could very reasonably not want to hang out with me anymore, and it could be for something I wouldn’t want to change. We are fairly different people, with different interests – I wouldn’t exactly want to compromise who I am to fit in with them more. I think I’ve thought about it enough that I would recognize if I made any big mistakes. And if I haven’t by now, I won’t be able to tell for sure anyway. Unless they explicitly let me know, I don’t think the mental self-harm of attacking every part of my personality would be a good plan. That’s just how it goes sometimes.

Feelings: I feel a bit sad, but I don’t feel as devastated. I feel like this sucks, but life sucks sometimes and I think this is one of those things.

Behavior: I stop trying to force things I shouldn’t, and I start to move on. I think not having this group to fall back on will push me to find a new one where I feel more comfortable.

I got a bit sidetracked and googled some stuff. One thing I saw was a piece of advice on how to make meaningful friends, and the advice was fairly simple: stop hanging out with people you don’t want to hang out with. I think if I kept trying to shoehorn myself into this group of friends, I wouldn’t feel this horrible feeling. And without this horrible feeling, I wouldn’t push myself to try to meet new friends, who could be people I feel more comfortable with.

I think feeling this sadness and loneliness is going to be something important. I don’t think I’d be happy with the connections I had, so I will proceed without certainty and find new ones. I already made a good start with a new friend anyway!

I’m sorry that you’re going to feel pretty bad for a bit now, but sometime in the future, I think I’ll be thankful for this. I’m glad I’m facing the pain upfront at least here, as I can now tank this for future me. I love you, man. I hope you can look back and tell me it was worth it at some point. Love you. ♥

and so I’ll do what it takes to change it. I’ve spent so many years of my life unhappy, and I’ve wasted time I will not get back. I thought about it today, and I reminded myself that things won’t change unless I do. It’s so naive to think you have no influence or control over life. It’s also naive to think you can control everything in your life. The most you can do is steer yourself towards the life you want to live.

I talked with a friend yesterday about some stuff, and they mentioned how when faced with any kind of failure they blame themselves. I realized that when I face failure, I feel driven. The several times I’ve tried 225 lbs on bench, I’ve failed. Every time after I’ve found myself smiling, as I want it more, and I can almost taste how sweet the fruit will be.

Hey, I’m gonna have to be a bit careful to not turn this into a pity party for myself. In about a month it’s going to be my 22nd birthday. Since it’s two days after Thanksgiving this year, it’s over the break – no one will be here for it. My parents want me to come home, but I told them I don’t want to again, as I think I’d rather be alone here, than alone there. They said if I had plans with friends they understood, but I don’t have any of those either. Everyone’s gone for my birthday, and regardless I don’t really expect anyone to do anything.

Last year a few other people and I threw a surprise party for two friends, and it was amazing. Their friends came up and all hid in their apartment, and when they came home they all jumped out and surprised them both. We all gave them presents, and it was a nice night. I will say a part of me died inside there, as I felt such longing for something like that. When I sat down to journal this, I wanted to say how I hope I can have a surprise party before I die. Maybe when I’m older, and if I have a partner or someone like that to organize it and do that for me. But I don’t see that happening for a while now, if ever.

I feel pretty bad because I know several friends who have mentioned their love language is giving gifts, but I know they won’t do anything like that. When I was young my parents wouldn’t let me have any birthday parties or have friends hang out, so I ended up just ‘celebrating’ by myself. At least once my parents even forgot it was my birthday. My dad (who I love) even put the wrong birthday down at the bank, and I had to get that fixed recently.

For my 16th birthday, my parents let me have a birthday party. I invited my friends, and I got some candy and a $20 set of poker chips from Target. At some point, my best friend at the time started crying about something trivial, and the rest of the night was everyone else comforting her, and I ended up getting excluded. I don’t play poker, but I bring those chips with me every time I move, and I am incredibly protective over them.

For my 17th birthday, I asked my dad to drive me to the beach and let me sit in the car alone for an hour. He went and walked on the beach, and I listened to music out loud for the first time, and also just cried.

For my 18th birthday, I was the only person in the freshman dorms, as everyone had gone home for Thanksgiving. My mom told me it wasn’t worth it for me to come down, so I stayed there the entire week. I think I left the dorm a total of twice. I would get out of bed around 6 pm, and go to bed at midnight, finally falling asleep at 2 am. I don’t think I even took a single shower or had a single meal the whole week. I just ate trail mix when the pain got bad enough, and maybe a bag of chips.

For my 19th birthday, I had a close friend and I was able to have my first-ever (and only) sleepover. We watched a movie, ate candy and then I slept on her couch and she went to bed. She got me a pink sash that says “birthday bitch”, and I have it in my box of sentimental objects still. She gave me a little bottle of pills, and inside of each was a small written note. Some were jokes, some were kind words. I have it in my hand right now. I read two of them and tears are starting to come.

For my 20th, I was alone again back at home. I don’t remember if anyone told me Happy Birthday or anything like that. My present to myself was I took a glass bottle and threw it as hard as I could behind the hill by my house. That was my first time littering, and I wanted to do something wrong because I was sick of always being good and feeling so alone.

For my 21st everyone was gone again, but I had a belated birthday party. I spent about $50 of my own money getting stuff like cake, food, snacks and invited friends over. No one brought any presents, and a friend was supposed to wingman me with a girl I had a crush on. He ended up flirting with her and they’re still dating to this day.

My 22nd is coming up soon, and I don’t want it to. I wish I was one of those people who didn’t care about their birthdays, but I can’t help it. I wish I had a party, I wish I had people sing for me or think about me. I wish I had people give me presents so I could keep them for as long as I could, so I had something to remind myself of happy moments. I think for next year I’m going to try to order packages or small presents throughout the year and have them delivered on the 25th so it’s like I’m getting presents. I also want to go on something like Reddit and offer people money to send me something like a postcard, or something like that so I can at least have something this year. I don’t wanna spend it alone and empty like normal.

Hey.

One thing I learned a while ago was the 5:1 rule. For every one bad interaction, you should have 5 good interactions – and magnitude or intensity doesn’t matter here. This is used as a litmus test to recognize whether a relationship is healthy. I thought about this because of how I felt hurt again today. I had to ask you to check, as you said you removed me from your close friends on Instagram, where you post updates about your life. I was right; you didn’t re-add me, and you seemed coerced into doing it. I have given you a lot of benefit of the doubt, this time included – I want to think that you being quiet was you feeling bad for forgetting, or maybe you were focusing on doing it. But I don’t know how many times I can give you the benefit of the doubt, as at some point I think I’m deluding myself.

It would have been so much easier to believe these thoughts and not feel like you still want to push me away if you had shown you felt any sort of sympathy or remorse for this mistake. It would have been perfect if you had said something along the lines of “I’m sorry, I genuinely forgot. I know this is a hurtful thing, but this genuinely was a mistake I made, I’m sorry.” but I also don’t know if I can ever expect that out of you. It would have been great to even hear an acknowledgment that it was a mistake, but there was none. I don’t know what else to believe at this point.

You also said “and after I have processed this conversation more I will extend a better apology”, but that never came. The conversation ended up being me again preparing the right way to bring it up to you to make it as easy as possible for you, and you again didn’t follow through with your word. I don’t know what to feel anymore.

You’ve been an incredible friend, I used to think about how you’re one of the best friends I’ve met – but I don’t know what to feel anymore. I feel like you hurt me again and again, and you never seem to regret it or care about it enough to change. I know you’re putting in some effort, but I wish you understood how much effort I’ve put in. I don’t want to have to plan out what to say, or to have to constantly try to open communication. Today when we were going to call, part of me wanted to not because of how anxious I felt.

I feel trapped in the cycle of doing too much, and pushing myself to be a good friend, and it all gets taken for granted. I feel hurt that I always try to be thoughtful and mindful of you, and it feels like anything I ask of you is instantly forgotten.

I hate to write this, but I loved being friends with you. But recently things have just gotten worse, and I don’t know if this is ultimately something I would feel comfortable with. I’m not saying I wouldn’t want to interact with you ever, but I find myself no longer trusting you to give me that respect in several different ways, and arguably more concerning – I don’t feel comfortable talking to you on anything past a surface level. I miss my old friend, that person valued me and cared. I kinda don’t know who you are anymore.

I think if nothing changes when you finally respond, I’m going to start pulling away. I’m tired of reaching out to you and feeling more hurt by your indifference. I’ve tried, I really have.

Every night I have a list of things I do for my mental health, and one of them is going over a list of affirmations. One of the things I have written down is “people have feelings for me”, and for some reason for the first time ever I kinda believe it. I love my sense of humor, and I love the person I’ve shaped myself to be. I can’t think of any huge glaring flaws I have that would make me incapable of being loved, or desired.

I can somewhat accept the idea that someone could love me, and want to be with me.

That’s an incredibly weird feeling.

Today was a good day. I was going to say nothing great happened – but who is the judge of that if not me? I hit a new PR, I decorated my room, I did some nice things, I got a new candle, I finished my assignment, and I talked to a lot of friends. I was driving back home just now and for some reason decided to listen to C418.

I had an overwhelming feeling of being loved on that drive back. How many people worked hard to give me all those great memories of playing Minecraft as a kid? When I think back to my childhood I don’t remember much, but I always fixate on the bad parts. I don’t often think about how colors looked so vibrant the day I ran out of school after dropping off a coded love letter in my crush’s backpack (we dated for a year with romance that would put Hollywood to shame). What about the times I would talk to friends about League, and how we planned out new strategies to do when we got home? What about the time we went on a tour of my online crush’s town for hours, as she explained the stories from all 1000 people living there?

When I look back at my life, I always seem to find myself sad about things I’ve lost, or things I’ve never had. I want to change that, slowly but surely. I find myself falling in love with life again. I finally visited the top of my parking structure, and just felt an overwhelming thought of “I’m glad I’m alive.”

I think it’s dangerously easy to romanticize suffering or struggle, but life wasn’t meant to be a punishment for you. There’s so much beauty and magic in so many mundane things. Every song I listen to is a kiss from someone across the world, who made that for me to enjoy. Every taken parking spot is a person who has a turn at a slightly more convenient life today, and maybe they need it.

The world can be cruel, but oh-so beautiful at the same time. Is it not a gift to wake up in it every day? I think if I truly was faced with the reality of dying, I would beg god for another chance to experience heartbreak, wonder, confusion, joy, grief, and everything else again. Sorry to the people I’ve hurt or wronged before, but I also don’t think I would change a thing even if I had a choice. The seeds I’ve planed have borne fruit and oh god are they sweet. I love you man ♥

Hi again. I remembered an older post I wrote, and I went back to try to read it again. I ended up going a bit down memory lane reading my older posts, which is something I haven’t really done before. God this shit is so cringe. Everything always seems so much better in the moment, but looking back I can’t help but notice all the points where I try to write like a real writer. Maybe it’s better if I just speak with authenticity and really just write down whatever I think, without trying to say it as a person I’m not.

I swear my brain has gotten worse at making sentences, I end up second-guessing if what I even say is coherent nowadays.