Not the Best Week of My Life

I may or may not have ever covered this, but I suffer from major depression. It's undiagnosed because I've never been to see a doctor for a handful of reasons:

1. I hate talking about my issues.
2. I tend to figure I'm good enough at uncovering my psychoses that I don't need someone else to tell me what they are.
3. I am terrified of being medicated, which I am strangely convinced that I will be should I decide to go see a psychiatrist.
4. I have this strange (not terribly uncommon) concept that if I go see a psychiatrist people will come to conclusions about me, most of which would probably be true, and it would break my "I've totally got all my shit together" image that I've worked so hard for so long to maintain.
5. I dislike admitting that I have issues I can't work out on my own, even though it's been obnoxiously apparent for a very, very long time.

So, regardless of how many times I have announced that I'm going to go make myself see a psychiatrist/counselor, regardless of how many times I've decided that I'm going to go get help, I haven't because I know that I simply won't ever actually  make myself do it. Because I can't. I can't make myself do it when it comes down to it. I probably need somebody to go with me to force me to actually commit. Because if I start I'll go through it. But starting is the problem.
But I don't want to ask anybody to go with me, either.  I did anyway--just now. One of the girls that lives on my floor (in the other wing) also has clinical depression and actually is medicated for it. We talked about it yesterday so I just asked her if she would go over with me tomorrow after film class. Just... because I know I won't actually do it on my own.
This is so much harder than you can imagine. Like, seriously, it's so hard. I just... I hate it. All of it. I want to cry. I very well might cry. I did repeatedly yesterday. Just a little bit every time, but nonetheless.

It sucks being broken. It sucks being depressed. It sucks sitting in the middle of class or work thinking to yourself that there's just no freaking point to any of it anymore. My mom broke the last string on Monday when I called her. She didn't do it on purpose and I don't know that I really blame her. But she snapped the string that dropped me back into this sea of shit. And I can't do it anymore. I just can't.  I don't have it in me.

I'm not "suicidal" in the manner that I would never actually legitimately consider doing it--especially not after losing my brother two years ago.  I couldn't possibly do that to my family and friends. Not again. Not to mention the fact that I have absolutely no interest in dying; I have too much shit to do, thank you. But I won't deny that the thought ran through my mind. And that's not okay. That's one of the indicators that I finally have no choice but to get help.
If you're suddenly worried about me, you really don't need to be. I am stronger than the demons in my head. I always have been. I went through this at least once in high school, too, and guess who's still here. Just because there's a voice in my head that tells me something doesn't mean that I actually listen to it. I am just plagued by it. And the time has come to cope with some of my shit.

I would like to know who decided I should have to cope with this shit. I would like to know who got to make the executive decision that my head should be a complete fucking wreck. Because I would love to punch them in the fucking neck. Seriously. Maybe share some of this shit.

Do you guys have any idea what it's like to hate having grown numb to things that you can't handle feeling for extended periods of time? The pain I know I feel from the loss of my brother has become a massive scar, protecting me from the great pit of suffering that I had been suspended in two years ago because no body can maintain that kind of sorrow that long. It's just not possible. I think we would grow quite mad with it. At least I feel I probably would have. So I have grown numb to it. But you have no idea how frustrating that is when I finally want to just sit down and let that pain wash over me and I can't. I can't feel it. I know it's there, and I know that I feel that pain, but I can't... Access it. And that's when I want my body to hurt so that I can find somewhere to focus that pain, somewhere to focus that sorrow. Somewhere to feel hurt. I have never hurt myself, but I want to so much. Like you just don't even know.

I HATE this life sometimes, more than most of you could ever understand. There are those among you who have definitely suffered as much as, if not worse than, I have, and I get that. It's not like I think I've got the worst life ever. But my life has heretofore been immensely unfortunate and it's so hard to accept or work around sometimes. How do you look on your childhood favorably when all you remember is being oppressed by your peers? When all you remember is secluding yourself as much as possible just to avoid your classmates? When all that you remember is being made fun of for wanting to learn, for wanting to read, for wanting to progress? It wasn't all bad, obviously; they didn't all suck, and not all the time. But... Nonetheless.

So there it is. I'm psychologically damaged and can no longer do it alone. My boyfriend is supportive, which helps. My best friends are all behind me getting help, which is also helpful. I didn't really realize just how important that kind of visible support could be. My heart may hurt, but I do have the support necessary to get through it.  My parents... I dunno. My parents are supportive, but they just aren't here. You know? They're too far away to really... be as much help as I really want/need them to be, and that's not their fault, it's mine. Because I'm the one that chose to move here. And I'm not moving back. But I definitely welcome winter break with open arms. I am going to play with a baby and read as much as possible. I need it.

I need a vacation--from myself as much as from everything else.

My tattoos tell a story. They tell my story, but almost more than that. My existing tattoo is for my brother, but it's symbolic of more than just my loss; it also represents the love that I have for family, etc. and tells a handful of other stories that are difficult to articulate. It says that I won't let go, that I won't forget, that I'll hold on. It says that I'll love him through memory because he's no longer here to love. Not to mention all of the stories that I'll never tell, refuse to share, can't share, for whatever reason. I can't share my entire life with you, nor would I ever want to.

But Matthew and I were practically twins, and being without him for the past two years has been nothing short of excruciating.  I play cavalier, big tough girl who just copes because there is no other choice; but I hurt. I hurt indelibly and I doubt there will ever be a time when that part of my heart doesn't hurt.

Sometimes I want to go in and have the tattoo gone back over to make physical that pain, to give it somewhere to manifest so that I can actually feel it.
Because I hate growing numb. I hate knowing that I feel things that I can no longer truly FEEL. I know I'm sad, and that it hurts, but I can't feel it anymore, and you can't understand how much that bothers me. It's a blessing, of course, but it's also a curse.

How would it make you feel, to know that you've grown incapable of feeling things? To know that you've grown numb in self-defense? Would that bother you? I don't LIKE being hard; I don't LIKE being callous. I don't like being broken. I want all of this to end, but it won't. It can't. It can never end because Matthew can never, ever come back into my life. And that makes me so sad that I can barely live with myself.

But yet, if I still did feel all of that pain, if I did still have to live with all of that every single day of my life, I would go insane, or I would wither away and die. Because my body simply couldn't take it. There comes a point in sorrow where it turns to physical pain, where emotional trauma begins to have side effects. It is good that my body has boxed it away and forgotten, but I still long for that pain because I need it to validate my continuation through life. I need it. I... I can't... be okay with not... feeling it.

I am so broken.

But I refuse to let this be the end of me. I will carry on and I will be all that I was meant to be, regardless of what I’ve lost, regardless of what I will inevitably lose. I am who I am because of tragedy and because of untouchable fate. It may shape me, but it will not define me, and it will not stop me.

Life may owe us nothing, and we may owe life everything we’ve got and more, but there is truth in this: It cannot screw me forever; at some point or another, there has to be a break in the storm, a clearing in the woods, a day without homework. I pray for monotony on the basis that it may allow me a moment long enough to recollect my courage, recollect my faith and my patience to continue the fight through turmoil.

My tattoos will tell that story, but inarticulately. Passersby will not look at the ink on my body and know that my life is pain. Passersby will see something else, because I allow them to. Because I force them to. Because I allow art to be arbitrary until you're in the know.

I am currently planning 2 more for the near future. One is small and simple, cute: an outline of a baby elephant holding its mother's tail; and might go on the inside of my wrist or heel--haven't decided. The other is an anchor with a rope that forms a loosely-adapted infinity sign with "Hebrews 6:19" etched into the length of the anchor. "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure."

Life is full of hurdles, hoops and obstacles, but our path is forever calling us, forever begging us to carry forward. My stumbles and my detours will not forever deter me from the ultimate goal ahead. I will have my life, and I will live it well.