How I realised life is worth living

Where did he go by Edward Honaker

      What I'm going to tell you is something I don't think I've actually ever told anyone (or at least not the most part). Right after my parent's divorce, I went through a rough time. Let's say two or three years (which is nothing compared to other people who have it so much worse for so much longer). I'm not gonna get into details about why this happened, because it's not easy to point out just one reason.

     My grades dropped dramatically - I went from top grade in every class to fighting desperately to even pass some classes. I didn't see any purpose in life. I spent every time I could alone in my room and most of that time I just stayed in my bed, doing nothing, with the lights off. I thought I was worthless, stupid, ugly and fat and that I wasn't deserving of love - maybe because I was lacking some. 

     I hurt myself. I pulled my own hair, I often bang my head against walls repeatedly, I bit my own lip until it started bleeding just to see how much it took, I even cut myself a few times - I was mad at myself because I was ruining my own life and I thought I deserved it; I couldn't understand what was wrong inside my mind, so I turned the pain into something physical, something I could understand; I was desperate because I felt numb both mentally and physically and i just wanted to feel something. 

     I was so ashamed of being who I was that I started to hate everyone else's presence and I panicked just thinking that I had to ask for food at a cafe - I couldn't breathe and I started to cry and one time I had to sit for around half an hour after because my legs had just went numb and I fell when I tried to walk. 

     It was also around that time that I stopped eating on purpose, and throwing up what I ate every time I felt bad about the folds in my stomach. It never got too serious (which is something I'm very thankful for). Still, it was enough to make me have headaches all the time and a constant pain in my stomach - I thought that pain was at the same time my punishment and my reward. I would spend my lunch time alone in the park practically everyday, reading books I wasn't really paying attention to. Still today I feel guilty when I eat too much and in my head I feel my belly bloating with every bite, but I fight that feeling. 

     Teaching kids about how dangerous it is to deprive our body of the necessary nutrients can only do half the work. I knew all that - I remember when my friend confronted me about it one time and I said "At least I'll die skinny". 

     That was also the day I realised why I wasn't scared of getting sick. I went home and I asked myself if I would be satisfied if I actually ever got skinny "enough". I wouldn't. I didn't just want to be thin. I was too scared to do anything too extreme, so I had found a way of slowly killing myself with all the pain I deserved for being such a despicable human being. 

     Now I was fully conscious of what I was doing. So I started seeing a quicker way out everywhere. I looked outside my bedroom window on the fifth floor and I pictured my body smashed against the sidewalk and tried to imagine how long the fall would be. I often researched what pills would kill me if I took too many, because it made me feel better to just know. I saw cars speeding through the street and I couldn't help but think how easy it would be to throw myself in front of one. 

     And now I look back and I can't believe how ridiculous those thoughts seem to me today. Sure, it would have been easy to put an end to things. But here I am today: I have kept the friends who tried to help me at the time and I've made new ones; I got rid of the toxic people in my life and I'm closer to my family; I've found things I'm passionate about and I fight for them; I want to travel and write and meet new people and do different things when all I wanted to do at that time was vanish into the air. 

     If my stupid plan had worked or if I had jumped in front of a car, I wouldn't be here today and I wouldn't have been able to experience all the wonderful things that have happened to me since then. If I could say this to the person I was at that time, she probably wouldn't have given a shit. I used to think we all die anyway and life was a terrible thing, so I could just be done with it earlier - but I was wrong. 

     None of us choose to be born and it's not my place to tell anyone when to die, but it's up to us how much of a good time we have. Here's something I've learned: life is a coincidence. Look at the odds. What were the odds of your parents meeting? Of them making a baby? Of that baby being you? The odds of exactly you being born were very little - but it happened. I'm not saying you must be thankful that you were given a life and all those things I've been told too. I'm just saying don't throw this amazing coincidence away.
    Life is full of possibilities, and you get to explore them to the maximum. But if you give up because things are rough right now, you don't get to do anything. When we get the help we need and learn how to manage our "demons", it becomes clear that we can still do so much and be so much in life, that those problems we fight with don't control us if we don't let them. These ghosts in my past still haunt me when I provoke them, but they're ghosts, they're dead: they can't harm me if I don't let them.
     There's only one thing I want you to take from this very long post: our problems aren't permanent but death is. Make a smart decision.