theShadowGrove

This took several days to write, hence the title

The first time I wanted to kill myself was Feb 19, 2009. I remember standing on the 3rd floor outdoor patio of a hospital, wondering where the best place to jump would be. I realized that the only place I could land was the outdoor patio on the second floor, and that aside from it not being a huge distance, the trees and umbrellas would likely break my fall, and being that I was already at a hospital, well my chances of dying were pretty slim; so I didn't do it. It would be over a year before I started seriously considering it again. In that time, I enjoyed being one of the most popular kids in my 8th grade class for the remainder of the school year, then it all started going downhill.

I went to Mexico that summer, where I snuck drinks of as much tequila and mezcal as I could because it was the only distraction I could find to keep me together. When I came back I started high school and didn't know anyone. Not knowing people was never a problem for me, I usually made friends quick, but this school was different, the nerds were nerdier than any I had ever known and the popular kids, they already all knew each other from their previous schools. I didn't fit in, at all. Even when I was with people who were trying to be friends with me, I just felt alone. I lived for the weekends when I got to see my friends from Jr High, but shortly into the first summer btwn freshman and sophomore year, all those bridges burned; there were lots of different reasons for different ppl, but I guess you could generally say that we had all just grown apart. I was in summer school that summer to get ahead and be able to take more electives during the year (almost the whole freshman class goes to summer school the first summer for the same reason). Having been cut off from my old friends and still feeling like i didn't belong with my new ones, I spent every afternoon at home alone with all the curtains shut and lights off, keeping it as dark as possible while listening to emo music, mostly Tokio Hotel. One youtube video led to another and eventually I discovered DeviantArt. At this point I could definitely say I was depressed, but I didn't really feel it until sophomore year.

Academically, the classes were obviously harder, and they seemed to drag on forever. Even the breaks and lunches felt never-ending and boring, I found myself either in the library, or endlessly walking back and forth through the second floor hallway which was always super dark for some reason. I made more "friends,: and had a regular group I'd eat with or stand around with at breaks, but even then I didn't feel like I fit in. I'd wonder around looking for where I did and never found it. I spent most of my free time during Junior year in the library listening to music, and by senior year I had just started feel like where I belonged was wherever I was, and that I didn't need ppl which made me not care about whether i fit in with any group at school or not. It helped that at this point, I found a lot of friends here on dA high school ended just as soon as it started to become bearable. College started and going to a commuter school where almost everyone is a loner was strangely a lot better; especially because I could just log in to dA on my phone and talk to my best friend, Iva.

Iva was one of the first really friends I made here. I made a lot of others, and we were all depressed and kinda suicidal. A lot of those accounts went inactive, sometimes suddenly. It isn't a stretch to say they might be dead, I mean if you read those poems and journal entries you'd think so too. By the time I started college, Iva was basically the only one left to talk to, and we'd talk constantly. She lived in Croatia, but we made the 9 hr time difference work by simply staying awake as much as possible. I had even somehow trained myself to wake up around 4 am just to send her an extra message or two. Even though it sounds like only having one person in the world, on the other side of it, being the only person you can truly call a friend sounds like a lonely life, somehow that was all I needed. She was everything to me. The relationship that our friendship evolved into and the break up are all pretty well documented on here, so no need for that.

For the year following the break up, I was so depressed that I look back and don't know how I survived that. It was after that first year that I got my first job at Target. Maybe it was because I no longer cared about anything that I was suddenly more fun and able to attract more friends, or the fact that all my coworkers were just as depressed as I was, but the friends I made there really helped me go on a bit longer. I was still depressed and suicidal but it was the fun side of being suicidal, like what all the people who want to raid area 51 are probably thinking "either I'm seeing aliens or I'm dying, sounds like a win-win," or "who cares if I max out my credit cards, I'll be dead before I get the bill."

Eventually, we got new management, who did some shady stuff and fired everyone (also in another journal).two and half years later I still haven't been able to get a job, despite being true, saying that your reason for leaving your last job is that they made up a reason to fire you sounds pretty sketch. I happened to reconnect with some ppl from high school, but as you may have read in a not so distant journal, those "friends," still aren't really that great, and after spending two nights hanging out with them this past weekend, and feeling totally alone, I realized that trying to have some semblance of an emotionally and socially healthy life just wasn't plausible for me. I've spent all my time since leaving Target either failing classes at a totally rigged school, and taking care of my mom's 92 year old godmother who has dementia. because keeping her alive is more work than a full time job, I've had to miss a lot of class which means that with my totally unreasonable teachers, I failed the same class twice, meaning that despite being just a few classes away from graduating and a good GPA, I can't retake the class to graduate.

I've been suicidal for 10 years, there were plenty of times when I wished more than anything that that day was the day I finally died; but the past couple months, I've felt strangely certain that I was in my final days. Everything I've done, I've done it thinking "this could be the last time I do this...and I'm ok with that." Obviously this journal is an abstract of all the highs and lows that you can read about in other journals and poems. and I didn't mean for it to become a story of how I've pretty much always been alone. I meant to tie it in to how ppl who say they're there for me, like my family, are all hypocrites, how my mom, who i live with, likes to blame me for everything I do, including existing, and twists it into it sounding like I hate her. how nothing I do is ever enough for anyone and that I'm yelled at everyday. And most importantly how I went from fighting my depression, trying to stay alive, to wishing it would be worse, wishing it was bad enough to push me to finally kill myself...

But I won't. I won't add it all in here, I won't re-edit this so it can all fit into a nice story. That's what being suicidal is. It's not caring about what ppl think about your note, or if anyone even reads it, it's moving on from everything in this life. I already doubt anyone's actually going to read this, and i'm considering deactiviating my account, meaning no one will find it later. and if anyone does read this, well I don't care if i didn't tell them my whole story, if I did, I'd be sticking around to see ppl's reactions and not killing myself.

so...bye, and F you all

Remember kids, sleep with rockstars, support the arts