I guess one of the things I’m going through right now is a grieving/regretting process. This time and freedom to think has been really hard. I’m realizing that I truly destroyed myself for nothing. I pushed myself for nothing. I tried so hard for nothing, and I just wanted to be loved and respected and told that I was enough. But instead I become self-absorbed in my own pain that I viewed as evidence that I was becoming “good,” that I was trying and that meant I would be good enough someday. I’m still not in the mind space to think that there was never a point where I wasn’t not enough or that I wasn’t deficient in some way, but I realize that way I tried to cope and deal with those emotions and beliefs was really unhealthy and debilitating. And honestly I didn’t even consider how that debilitation would affect my relationships, not just with you but with everyone. I realize too how selfish and blind that was of me. Part of it was because I thought I wasn’t worthy enough or good enough for anyone to care, and another part of it was being scared of asking for help for fear of being seen as weak or pathetic. Honestly, asking for help felt like evidence that I was (am?) truly deficient, and after everything that I’ve experienced since I was sixteen/fifteen, receiving hard evidence that I was deficient would have broken me. I think I would’ve given up in a way that would be extremely hard to recover from. The irony is that those beliefs are really hard to reconcile with my present reality of being a college dropout. But honestly I don’t believe what I’ve done is evidence of deficiency. It feels like the closest I’ve come to completing suicide. In a way I am dead, but it’s going to take a lot longer than three days for me to rise again.
And there’s a lot of guilt here for not being able to handle all that I put on myself. I think one of the reasons I was so in denial about how much I was pushing myself was because I didn’t believe I was allowed to take a break or do less when so many people do so much more than me and they’re okay. Now I’m forced to take a break, to do way less. It’s not a choice anymore. I need this, and that’s a realization mixed with regret, grief, yet also relief. All of this has been emotionally taxing, and it’s been a hard week for me.