Content Warning: This piece involves depression, self-harm, suicide and eating disorder. Please don’t read it if this will upset or trigger you.
I don’t know when I am.
Days have no meaning, time is simply the stream down which I drift. I count time by the scars on my arm, losing track as they fade and are overlaid by fresh marks.
I think that I don’t want to die, but I’m not trying to live either. I’ve all but given up. I want to go home to my mum where I’ll be taken care of, where I can feel safe, but she’s in another place and time and I can’t get there from here and now.
I know I have friends but they don’t need someone like me. They don’t need me, with all my problems and needs, dragging them down as I sink.
I’m a sad little drama queen, an attention whore, fishing for sympathy.
I’m broken and useless. My shoddy, wonky brain is steeped in self-pity. I don’t have real, serious problems: I’m just a lazy cow who wants everybody to do things for her so she can spend more time sat on her fat, selfish ass.
I should do everybody a favour, stop whining and put some actual effort in next time I take a knife to my wrist. Not just superficial scratches calculated to be shown off. “Look at me, I’m a nutter!” Isn’t that why I do it? For the reaction?
And if that doesn’t work I can stuff myself full of food and then go stick my finger down my throat to empty myself into the toilet bowl. Am I crazy enough for you yet? Will you help me now?
I sit here. I lie here, curled up in a ball, crying. Nobody hears, I don’t reach out because who would want to attend my pity party? No, I should be alone rather than spread the contagion of my misery.
I think I don’t want to die, but I wish I could. I’ve had enough of feeling this way and I don’t have any way out. If I can’t find the will to kill myself then I have no hope that my despair will end.
My Autistic Dance 
I’d like your opinion on something. Some few years ago I remember your occasional remarks about programming. I’m currently testing a diagramming tool for Flow Based Programming (FBP) which is under development by FBP’s inventor/discoverer, Paul Morrison.
For more details, please see https://jpaulm.github.io/fbp/index.html – if you feel it’s of interest, I’m using bobcorrick at outlook dot com – FBP in the subject line would alert me.
Wishing you well, kind regards, Bob.
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Please DO reach out to your friends! It’s the Depression Monster whispering in your ear that you would be a burden to your friends. YOU, the ‘well’ Alex knows that your friends love every part of you! The shiny and the ugly. Don’t listen to the Depression Monster!! Reach out to your friends. Or you can email me through my contact page and I’ll listen(read)… You’re NOT alone and YOU have worth!!
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I agree, this is totally the Depression Monster talking to you. I know you know this, but it doesn’t hurt to have people remind you of this. Because I know that I theoretically know this too, but when I feel this way I don’t believe it either.
As John Green said “most importantly there is hope, and when I feel like there isn’t hope, my brain is lying to me.”
On a practical note: try to find a way to structure your day. You started by saying you don’t know when you are. That sounds like you could do with some time-specific rituals that tell you. Like, I try to have my meals indicate time by their difference: my breakfast is the same everyday, but it screams being breakfast (b/c why would anyone in their right mind eat this weird porridge for lunch…) My lunch is very lunch-y and my dinner could not possibly be any other type of meal.
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“I know I have friends but they don’t need someone like me”.
Alex, we *do* need you – very, very much. You’re loved by so many.
Your brain is lying to you: I know that you know this – but I also know how very convincing both the Anxiety Monster and Depression Brain can be: they gang up against us like the nastiest kids in school that ever existed, and they don’t let go.
You are valid. You are wanted and needed in peoples’ lives, and I miss laughing with you over a cup of tea.
I’m only ever a message away, if you need me. Please don’t think that I only want to hear from you on your good days, because that wouldn’t be true at all xxx
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