I don't want to....

“That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.”

― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

I feel like I need to state this…I don’t want pity. I don’t want you to “make me feel better”. I just want you to listen. I have tried on and off for years to write about the things I have been through. The things I have survived through. Partly to get my side of the story out there but also to help others. All I’ve ever wanted was to help people. I still do. I went into caregiving careers from the age of 19. Customer service all my life. I enjoy helping others because helping other helps me feel better. It gives me a sense of peace and purpose knowing that I may have made even one person’s life a little brighter, easier, longer… I want to use the pain I have survived to help others know they will make it out. Even through this horrible mountain I’m currently climbing, I know that I will come out the other side. Reason why: I don’t have a choice. I have people I have to be here for. I have siblings, parents, friends, my partner… I have to prove to everyone that it IS possible to make it out. I’m just waiting for the day I finally make it out myself.

A few years ago, I felt something like now. Not this bad, but it made me stronger. A few years ago I tried to kill myself. I felt like I had no one, and that everyone’s lives were better off. The typical thoughts, ya know? “I don’t want to hurt anyone else” was a constant saying in my mind. Every minute of everyday. I knew others were happy without me. I had lost the last connection I felt that I had to the person I was. Problem was, that last connection was another person. You see, I have sever co-dependency issues and attachment and abandonment issues. This person, T, was my lifeline for a while now and I clung to my relationship with them. Which made it harder when I lost them. I broke. I had recently lost my grandfather, I lost my friends, I lost my family…..and then I lost T. I remember going to my grandfather’s grave and crying to him. I fell to my knees, bawling about how I had no one and nothing. I pushed everyone away, I hurt everyone. I prayed for the first time in a long time then. I prayed that my family would forgive me one day. I prayed that my siblings would continue to be okay without me. To be happy. I prayed that T would find happiness. I prayed for forgiveness for what I was prepared to do. I truly thought dying would make the world a better place. Then T showed up. I’m not sure how he knew where I was or if he knew what I was doing, but he saved me that day. I’ll forever be thankful.

I want to help people. I want to make the world better. But slowly, over time, I began to understand that just because these seem or are so terrible at times, the world isn’t a better place without me in it. Because, if I had died that day, no matter the absence of relationships, I would have hurt so many. I wouldn’t be able to be there to see my baby brother grown up, to see the rest of my siblings grow and blossom into the people they are becoming. I wouldn’t be able to help whoever it is that one day will read these and maybe, just maybe, feel not so alone in this world.

Who ever you are….I hope you’re okay. I promise, you will get through this. Thanks to you….

I don’t want to die.

~Rose