No Progress

(warning: suicide discussion below so don’t read if that bothers you)

I didn’t realise I had left it so long to update, time seems to pass very quickly when you don’t have a lot happening in your life. Throughout 2013 I don’t think there was a single time when I met up or spoke to anyone who could remotely be considered a friend. The last year I have slid backwards so much, it’s so disappointing compared to how relatively well I was doing in say, my last year of uni. I am practically back to 2007 levels of isolation but in a way it is a lot worse because at least back then, I know with hindsight that I had somewhere to go. I was younger and I had that opportunity of going to university as a second chance at life. I was yet to meet some of the people who, despite only making the very faintest of a connection with, at least didn’t mind spending time with me and didn’t go out of their way to make me feel worthless. Unfortunately the circumstances that led to that, being at university or talking to them online, have now evaporated and I’m back here on my own again. It is impossible, for example, that any of the people who I lived with at while I was away at uni would ever have got to know me under any other circumstances than us being randomly assigned to share a flat. The people I knew online have either moved on entirely and no longer need to talk to a disastrous loser as me or I have neglected to talk to them for so long they have forgotten about me. I don’t have anything to say anyway. My life is empty. I don’t have anywhere to go or anything of note to contribute to anything.

It is strange to look back and think about how strongly I felt my life was over and wanted to die so much during the time when I tried to kill myself. Strange because everything was immeasurably better back then. It took another 3 years, until I was in my final year of university to realise how much I actually benefitted from being there and appreciate all that I had built up over those few years from when I felt at my lowest point (before I started blogging) and now it’s all gone. There’s no way I was worse off in 2009 than I am now. I wasn’t hurting for money or unemployed, I had people who would spend time with me. I had friends online.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about how I tried to die and I have very conflicted feelings about it all. I feel bad for all the trouble I caused other people but I don’t think I was unjustified in what I did. Some people might expect me to be thankful that I was unsuccessful and that I ought to be glad to be alive but I am not. Do I wish that I had died? I would have missed out on some good things but none of them really make up for the pain and disappointment that I feel having to be me. If I could choose to change things, I wish I hadn’t been found and everyone could just put me to rest and get on with their lives.

I don’t feel fully justified in using the word ‘pain’ to describe how I feel but I don’t know how else to word it. I feel more of a sense of crushing inevitability and a dull ache than serious pain. I hate being the awful, worthless person that I have become. There are few bigger examples of wasted opportunity than me.

It was my birthday in January and it was one I have not been looking forward too. I don’t think I will be able to stand reaching a milestone age next year and still being the same unaccomplished loser. I have a suspicion this year may be my last. Back in 2009 I could have been convinced that it wasn’t too late, that I could have turned things around because I had time on my side. Looking back, I can admit that I was wrong about some things because it wasn’t too late at 24 to do anything. I’m rapidly approaching passing the point where if I was to die it would be considered a tragedy and reaching the stage where people would wonder what took me so long.