Hope

Saturday,February 1st, 2025

Back in October or November, my roommate asked me, how are you able to go through life without the need of medication or substances?”

I told her I didn’t know. Because I truly didn’t at the time. For over a year now I have been trying to better my mental health. I thought I was making progress, and for the most part… I have. But that question really made me think. Ii would mostly ignore the troubles going on in the world by focusing on my writing. It wasn’t until now that I thought about every moment, when the world’s fire were becoming too much for me to handle. When I would see how my life could end because someone’s actions. I accepted it and moved on. That’s how I coped with everything.

I realized that I began to accept the hopelessness and continued moving forward. That’s how I have been moving on with life. By no longer having hope for life to get better. The one thing I fear about death the most, other than death itself, is if I died, without accomplishing, or finishing anything. The fear of dying, and leaving something behind.

When I was fifteen, that is when I first lost nearly all hope. It was for the generic teenage-love-drama. But then the self-hatred started building. I couldn’t understand why every one cared, and it always pissed me off. I saw myself as the enemy. The manipulator that no one could get away from. The only thing that kept me going was wanting to become an artist. Specifically character and graphic design. I didn’t care about anything else.

I really did hate myself back then. My mind split between, leaving everyone and staying by their side at every chance I got. During the first semester of college, hope was growing. Not by much, but it grew. My dreams of wanting to become an artist felt like I was right around the corner. But I failed and dropped out. Once Covid happened. My hope went back down to a sliver. The only thing keeping me going was making TikTok videos. One again, my hope grew, all the way until I finally got a job. My hope was small, but consistent. It didn’t go up or down by too much for the next several years. Up until I finally decided to make better my mental health.

Almost an entire decade of depression, anxiety, self-hatred, and suicidal thoughts and urges, and self-harm gets bothersome and annoying. I wanted to finally free myself from all of it. But I wanted to do it without making it known that I was doing it. Make it seem like nothing is wrong, only that everything is right. Like that’s how it’s always been.

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