The Darkness in my Mind

45.

Sometimes I just want to run away. It seems like such a childish thing to say, something an 8 year old would say when they get grounded, not something an 18 year old university student would say. On the outside, based on appearances I'm perfectly fine, happy even, I have nice friends, I'm doing well in classes, I go out on weekends, I smile at people, I laugh at the same jokes everyone else would. I seem fine, on the outside, but internally, in my mind I am dead inside, I have no emotions, no drive, no desires. I am an empty shell of a human being. If you asked me how I ended up here I would not be able to tell you, it feels like I've been here forever. I can't remember being anywhere but here, my memories are all tainted and darkened by this void. I know that logically once upon a time I may have been a happy doe-eyed hopeful child, everyone is that way when they were younger, I just can't for the life of me remember being that way. Likening this situation to a void is the more accurate comparison I can think of, it is an eternal emptiness, a sort of darkness that will just drown you. I think that's why I love looking at the night sky, the darkness of space is like a void but there are stars, there are small lights of hope in the darkness of the void and that just makes me feel so very hopeful. It sad to think that I can count on one hand the amounts of lights that I have felt in my recent life. When I got the call about being placed in Greece for an internship, getting the email that said I got into Queens University, the 2 days I spent at the music festival, and let's not forget the fleeting moments of the illusion of happiness when I am drunk. That's not how it's supposed to be right, because if it is I want out. But my "way out" is different to other people's "way out", I don't want to die, not yet at least, I want to try to make it before I kill myself. My "way out" is running away, its leaving everything that plagues me behind, it's going to Italy and Greece and France and Thailand and the Philippines and the UK and Germany and Bali and the Maldives and Australia. My "way out" is to travel my "way out" is running away. But when I sit down and think of it I have spent so much of my life running away and that has led me to realize that the void isn't outside, it isn't my surroundings, it won't go away if I run away because the void is inside me. It will follow me wherever I go until I die. I think that's what made it so much worse for me, realizing that I can't run away, that I can't just leave, that it will follow, that it is not something I can just shake off, it is me. So, what do I have to do to actually feel something other than emptiness and despair and dread. I've got to face the music and I don't know how well that is going to go, I don't know if I can do it, if I can face this darkness inside of me and overcome it, I don't know if I can acknowledge it and deal with all the judgement, all the quite whispers and all the shame that comes along with coming out and saying it. You see, I am depressed, I am anxious about everything, I have absolutely shit self-esteem, and I have long lost the will to live, I am just existing at this point, I am still here because if I leave I might miss that good that everyone talks about, I'm here so my parents don't have to deal with the shame that comes with having a child that committed suicide, I'm here for my brother because he is like my child and want to see him grow, I want to see him happy, I don't want him to have to be the kid whose sister committed suicide, I'm here for my cousins and the little kids that look up to me, that think I'm cool, I don't want to let them down, I don't want to traumatize them, I want to continue to give them hope. As you can see I'm not here for myself, I haven't been here for myself for a very long time. I want to be here for myself, I want to actually live and not just exist, I want to be able to count my sad days on one hand not my happy days. Is that a lot to ask?