Hey man, been reading your journals and I want to say, Keep going!
Reading your posts about suicide hit home for me. I also struggle with those thoughts once in awhile, although when I was in high school, I thought about it all the time. I was always very close to doing it. Even now, I had thoughts about how I might do it because of all the stress from college. The education system likes to make us feel stupid I have realized. Make us feel like we can never rise above.
I too live in a single parent home. My mom had me and my sister when she was really young. Then she got back on meth and it all went downhill from there. When I got older, things got better outwardly, my mom got into rehab and eventually got all the way clean. But I feel like all the damage was done. I was socially awkward all through my middle school and high school years. And I was severely depressed. It didn’t help that to get a decent grade, one had to miss so much sleep and study endlessly.
I didn’t want to be like my mother. In fact, I felt those same feelings of hatred towards her. She loved and took care of me with all her heart, but at the same time I wish she would stop caring so I could finally kill myself and no one would care. I was mad that she got on meth and left me and my sister without a mother or a father for all those years. I was angry all the time. I often dreamt of just taking everything and running away. I never thought I would escape my situation. I wanted to drop out of high school so badly but at the same time I couldn’t let myself become like my parents.
The schools aren’t catered towards kids like us. The public school system is a mess and they have no care for kids who are really struggling. I know those feelings.
But I wanted to come on here and tell you that it really does get better. I still struggle with suicidal thoughts sometimes, but I could never do it. I have seen the brighter side of life. One without PMO and one where we reach out of current limitations and live a life with sufficient wealth.
If you get the chance, try to pick up the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. He survived the Holocaust and shares with us how even in the worst circumstances, in the darkest parts of life, there is one thing that can never be taken from us. And that is our ability to choose. Choose how we will respond. They may take our ability to go one way or the other, but they can’t take our resolve. We have to come out of the mindset of victimhood and realize our ability as human beings to choose who we are. Yes we have experienced a ton of shit, but we can choose how to respond to that.
My mother did a lot of things that hurt our family, but it’s my choice as to whether I let that decide my fate or merely teach me a lesson about life that not many receive at our age. I can choose to forgive her or to hold onto it and let it destroy me.
When I realized that, and it took a long time, but when I really realized that into my life, things changed. I was able to appreciate my experiences for what they were. I might not have as many skills as my peers, not having the privilege of being guided by my parents. I might feel useless, but I am only as useless as I decide I am. And I also gained an appreciation for my mother. She had endured a lot too, she wasn’t dealt an easy hand either, but she came back from the depths for her children. I love her with all my heart now and I could never do something like kill myself, if only for her sake and my family.
There is hope man. But it’s found not in our circumstances, but rather within us. We must become our hope in this life. We may always be behind academically, skills-wise than others around us, but if we seek to be better than we were yesterday, then we will look back one day and realize we have achieved more than they ever will.
Keep studying, keep learning, and keep fighting.
Stay strong brother, you got this.
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