TW Discussion of S!icide Attempts, S!icidal Thoughts and Self Harm. Please, proceed with caution.
So, this isn’t my first time creating an account on this website. I’ve never been able to keep up with making entries, but I hope that this can be the first time I will. I’ve been told many times before that keeping a journal is a good way to improve your mental health, and I’ve always been meaning to try, but never found the time to set aside to actually do so.
This first chapter will be about my past struggles with mental health up to the current day, and, if you haven’t heeded the warnings listed at the top and in the description of this book, I implore you to do so now. Please, take care of your own health above reading this.
I remember my first thought of suicide at around 14 years old. As an autistic child that wasn’t aware they were autistic until they were 20, not only did I get horrendously bullied by my peers for my odd behavior, but I was struggling in school because the school system is not built for neurodivergency. It was also a rough period in my life for reasons outside of my schooling. My parents had recently decided to divorce, and my father and almost instantly gotten into a new relationship with a woman only 9 years older than me.
I’m sure I will vent about her in one of these eventually, but this is supposed to be a brief history.
I had learned about others that struggled with these thoughts too, and fell into an online echo chamber of people who tried to convince me that there was no hope, and that things were only ever going to be worse. This lead up to what would be my first, and, to this date, only real suicide attempt.
I was going to hang myself with a belt in my closet, but I chickened out at the last possible moment.
I had told the people I talked to online about my plan and said my goodbyes to them, but when I returned, not having followed through, I got called a coward.
I removed myself from all of those spaces due to this, deleted my account, and stayed off of what I could of the internet for months after.
I never told anyone else in my real life about this, and, really, still haven’t openly talked about everything. I wasn’t raised in an environment that made me believe I could talk to my parents about it. I was from two parents that worked very hard to support me and my siblings financially, but we were very emotionally neglected. I understand that they were doing their best with the tools they had, but it wasn’t enough, and I don’t think people should be afraid to say that their parents best wasn’t enough, because it’s not an excuse for the hurt that can come from what had to be left behind.
After my attempt, to cope, I started to self harm. I was afraid of cutting. I didn’t want to leave any real evidence behind, not wanting to have to discuss it with my parents if they ever saw scars. Instead I stole a lighter from my parents, and used it to burn my hand. I still remember the feeling very clearly. I remember that I liked to actually feel something for once.
I made sure it never left permanent burns, but it still hurt. During a particularly abusive friendship I had in high school, I got told that my self harm was not actually self harm because I didn’t leave any marks, and, for a very long time, I believed that, but I see it now for what it is.
Over the next many years I had made many plans to end my life, but never made it too an actual attempt. I don’t remember a time in my teens or my adult life that I didn’t at least have suicidal ideation.
I was in an emotionally abusive relationship in my first two years of adulthood. My partner struggled with suicidal thoughts as well, but, because of my own nature, I saw their struggles as more valid than my own.
They were living with an abusive parent. Then, when they moved out, they were living with another abusive person, this time a roommate.
After a few months of dating them, they moved back to their home state, and convinced me to come with them. There was a year in between when they moved and when I did, and I will talk about what all they did to me in that time in another entry.
When I eventually moved in with them, 17 hours away from my own home, they left me financially responsible for most of the bills, and let our shared roommate verbally abuse me, even when she wasn’t technically on the lease. They could have stopped it at any time by kicking her out, but they didn’t.
Three months after I moved in with them, they broke up with me. I didn’t have the funds to move back home, so I ended up staying. I planned to stay until the lease was up on our apartment, before moving back home, but after one very bad blow up from our roommate I was done. I packed what I could, and caught a plane back home.
A lot of my personal belongings are still with them, and I have no real plans on getting them back, since I have cut off all contact with them.
After that is when I actually started cutting. I wasn’t scared of being seen when I was living on my own now, though I did cut only on my stomach to keep my coworkers from seeing. I am only two weeks clean now as of writing this.
So, that’s my history. I don’t want pity. I just want to be actually understood for once in my life. I have been looking into getting therapy, but it hasn’t been in my budget yet. I’m hoping it will be if I can find a higher paying job than the one I have now.
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