Thank You
I’ve logged onto this account after years since I was beginning to think about suicide and harming myself again.
I started using Tumblr as an emotional outlet alongside my music back in 2016. I was 14 and had been battling depression and PTSD for 2 years already. I often used this website to vent and to rant and just express feelings that I felt I couldn’t express to anybody I knew in my personal life. I was often alone in real life so I left all of my personal baggage on Tumblr.
I’ve spent the past hour scrolling through my archive of old content and reading all of it completely breaks my heart. Reading everything I posted brought back so many memories of how lost I was and how much I struggled to keep my head afloat after everything I went through.
But then I checked my messages from over the years, and read the support and the regular check-ins and random messages from complete strangers that saw my posts and decided to use a few seconds in their time of day to send me a quick message on how I was doing and it warmed my heart.
I was struggling for a long time on how to come to terms with rape, sexual assault and extreme bullying and harassment from 14 years old and it still affects me sometimes, even now, 5 years later at 19 (20 in a few months😊). I still sometimes relapse, I depersonalise and disassociate, I still sometimes get emotionally exhausted and struggle to stay afloat but I can say with complete confidence that I am in a much better place than I was 5 years ago. The old posts from my blog most definitely do not reflect who I am now. Instead, my old posts are experiences that I wear like armour and they have made me stronger than I could have ever been and as corny and cliché as it sounds, it’s true. I am proud of everything I have overcome and especially when I could’ve taken it all away and ended everything so easily I didn’t. For a long time, I never thought I would ever reach my 18th birthday... and when I did, I cried... obviously but it was also a huge milestone for me and gave me the motivation to want to fight my illness harder. Even the last time I attempted suicide (which I wrote about on my blog at the time in April 2018) I tried so hard to fight the overdose and delusions taking over my body and worked so hard afterwards to get better and healthier not for myself, but for the people I loved and that loved me and for the tiniest little bit of hope that I had left in me that at one point my life would eventually get better, because it had to, the universe owed me at least that much.
I’m crying now. Haha.
I could write a whole lot more on these experiences but that isn’t the purpose of this post. I titled this post “Thank You” because just a quick scroll through my messages reminded me that I am not alone. Even though a lot of these messages were from when I was most active on this platform, they still reminded me that strangers on the internet, even though they had no idea who I was (since this account was anonymous) still took effort and time out of their day to check on someone that they saw wasn’t feeling too great. I admire you all so much.
A simple “how are you doing?” could be all it takes to save someone’s life. If you see anyone struggling, ask them how they are, ask them if they are okay, if they don’t want to talk about it, just remind them in other ways that whatever they are facing and whatever they are going through does not have to be experienced alone.
And if you, yourself are struggling to stay afloat please remember:
- You are NOT weak for struggling;
- You are NOT weak for having a mental illness;
- There is no shame in admitting that you need help;
And finally,
- You are not alone in this fight and you will win.
As I once read in a book.. “if you were born with the weakness to fall, you were born with the strength to rise.”
Suicide Hotline Numbers
You are worthy, you are loved and you will always be able to find assistance.
Argentina: +5402234930430
Australia: 131114
Austria: 017133374
Belgium: 106
Bosnia & Herzegovina: 080 05 03 05
Botswana: 3911270
Brazil: 212339191
Bulgaria: 0035 9249 17 223
Canada: 5147234000 (Montreal); 18662773553 (outside Montreal)
Croatia: 014833888
Denmark: +4570201201
Egypt: 7621602
Finland: 010 195 202
France: 0145394000
Germany: 08001810771
Holland: 09000767
Hong Kong: +852 2382 0000
Hungary: 116123
Iceland: 1717
India: 8888817666
Ireland: +4408457909090
Italy: 800860022
Japan: +810352869090
Mexico: 5255102550
New Zealand: 045861048
Netherlands: 09000113
Norway: +4781533300
Philippines: 028969191
Poland: 5270000
Russia: 0078202577577
Spain: 914590050
South Africa: 0514445691
Sweden: 46317112400
Switzerland: 143
United Kingdom: Various resources
USA: 18002738255
My inbox is always open and will always be a safe space to unload. I will listen.
