sistercrow:

{previous comments snipped}

TW: Description of depression and suicide

So, one day you are walking along, minding your own business, when suddenly you trip and fall into this enormously deep pit sitting right in the middle of the path.  No clue how it got there or how you failed to notice it until you had fallen in.  You struggle and try to get out of the pit but the wall are too steep and crumbly and the ground under you is wet and muddy and you make no progress at all to get out.

So there you are.  Sitting at the bottom of a dark pit, miserable, with no foreseeable way out.  And then you hear a voice from above.

“Hey there stranger, you seem to have fallen into a pit, eh?”

“Help!  Help I’m stuck and can’t get out!  Please help!”

“Listen, what you need to do now is buck up and see the good things in life.  The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, everything is just grand.  Smile!”

And off they go, leaving you in the pit to contemplate how muddy the mud is and how little sunlight actually reaches you, and when you can faintly hear birds signing it is only a reminder of how far down and stuck you are.  Then another voice.

“My good friend, how nice to see you down there!”

“Help!  For the love of god I am stuck!  Help!”

“Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to go hang at the mall today.  We could catch a movie or something.”

“I’m stuck down here!  I need help!  Get a rope or something, please!”

“Dude, come on.  Don’t be so down all the time.  If you don’t want to come you could just tell me instead of making excuses.  Way to not care about my feelings.”

And off they go.  Shit.  Now you are in a hole and you hurt your friend’s feelings and you kinda did want to go to the mall.  And the mud is really cold.  Your feet are starting to sink in and you start spending a lot of energy just to keep from sinking in so far they you can’t move anymore.  It is exhausting.  But then a voice that you know so well.

“Hey love!  How are you today?  I bought your favorite food for supper tonight <3”

“Oh thank god!  Help please!  I fell down here and can’t get out and I am sinking into the mud and I’m so scared that I might sink too far in and never be able to get out!”

“You know, you don’t have to get upset with me.”

“I’m not!  I just need help.  I love you.”

“Well you certainly have a funny way of showing, moping about down there in that hole.  If you really loved me maybe you would climb out so we can go home.”

“I’ve tried!  Really I have.  The walls are too steep.  I can’t do it.  I need a ladder or something.  Call the fire department!”

“Ugh.  You aren’t the only one with problems, you know.  Just earlier today I stumble in a small dip in the sidewalk and stepped in a shallow puddle but you don’t see me using it as an excuse to be all self centered.  You know what, fine.  I’ll just go home and eat by myself.  I hope you enjoy your little pity party down there.”

And off they go.

You are desperate and alone even though you can hear and even occasionally see people walking past the opening of the hole.  You call out over and over but nobody seems to care or notice.  And those that do give you trite little nothings.

“You should have waited till you were older to fall into a hole.  Why didn’t you think before you fell in?”

“Kids these days, leaping into holes without any consideration for the rest of us.  Grow up already.”

“You know, if I was in a hole, I would have a grand time of it.  No rules or concerns to hold me back.  I would make mud pies all day long.  You are in such a great position.”

“Cheer up!  If you smiled more and had some fun you would be out of that hole in no time!”

“Stop crying so much.  You’re making the rest of us feel bad.”

At some point somebody hears you and actually listens as you cry for help.  They run off and return later with a large crowd of strangers who stand around the rim of your hole shouting down more pointless little nothings and encouraging you.  More than a few say things like “think about your family! Being stuck in a hole is so selfish when there are so many people who love you!”

And eventually they all clear out and you are still in the hole and the sun is setting and it genuinely feel likes there is no hope at all.

The end.  No, this story doesn’t have a happy ending.  It doesn’t have a cheerful humorous joke to sum up the moral.  You sit in the hole until you get tired of trying.  You stop calling for help.  You let yourself sink into the mud up to your knees and waist and chest.  Your friends stop coming by.  Your partner leaves you because it is too much trouble putting up with you.  Your family stops by to admonish you for being down there and embarrassing them so much.  And someday you do the only thing that would end your existence in the hole and pile the mud up over your face and suffocate, because as scary and awful as death is, it seems to be a better option than living the rest of your life miserable and cold and in pain stuck at the bottom of a hole unable to enjoy anything or feel anything.  And that is the end of my little story.

There are a few people, very few and far between, who will get a ladder and come sit with me in my mud hole, so I don’t have to be alone.  They don’t stay, but they come back, and they check on me, and they say without having to speak, “I will leave the ladder here, and you can use it, but you will have to use it.  I am not strong enough to carry you, though I do love you.” And if I am lying in the mud and have begun to cover my face, I will not move for a while, even after they have left.  And I will be so tired, and think, “Maybe I don’t want to use the ladder to be amongst all of the people that left me here, that didn’t stay or care enough or in the right way.”  And I will stay there for a while, until I have felt that everyone has forgotten me, even though the person or people that came to sit with me haven’t, they are just waiting.  And I will try to muster strength and courage, and I will fail.  And then it will start raining.  And I think “I am going to drown.  I am going to drown in this mud pit, forgotten by everyone, and alone.” And I lean on the side of the pit and I cry and I fall asleep crying feeling that it is over.  But I wake up.  I wake up and the rain has cleaned the mud off of the ladder and off of my hands, and the mud pit is still a mud pit, and it is a mess, but the ladder is cleaned, and I can take hold of it, and I start toward the surface.  I am very tired, but halfway there, I see the person who came to sit with me, and they say, “Come on, I have been waiting for you to get better.”  And we both know that because I have fallen into the pit once, that I will fall into it again, next time a deeper pit, and it will take longer to find a ladder and it will be harder for me to get out.  But then I try to remember that if I am at bottom, the only way to move is up.  And I try to remember that I will not be on the bottom forever, even if it takes a very very long time.  And that the people that will walk by my pit and shout at me do not understand, and they are trying to help but not, and that they don’t realize that their ‘help’ hurts.  One day, perhaps, they will fall into a mud puddle, and understand a little bit.  

And, being in the mud, once I leave for a time, I can visit other mud holes with the ladder the first person used to reach me, and I can go sit with others, and just exist with them and not expect anything from them, because I know some of how they might feel, and so I am a little better with helping, because I do not try to ‘fix’ them or motivate them to change, I just care for them in my own, muddy way, and hope that they and I can learn in little bits to care for ourselves despite the mud.

It doesn’t have a happy ending or a sad ending.  It doesn’t have an ending.  The mud pits don’t go away, they are always there for someone to fall into.  The lesson that I try to learn is not to pick myself up after I fall, but rather, how to fall with my hands outstretched to catch me— how to fall so I do not hurt myself as much.  To not fight it, to move with it, and cushion the impact.  I take a moment, as long as it takes, to catch my breath again and then I get up slowly, inspecting the damage, which is less or the same, because as I learn to fall, the holes get deeper and the stakes get higher, and it doesn’t seem as though I am learning, but I know I must be.  

This is what it is like to me.

(Source: the-unpopular-opinions, via lord-kitschener)

Anonymous asked: My cousin went back to her abusive boyfriend who gave her the black eye, it clearly is going to be a secret..I spotted them in the mall this past weekend holding hands and she didnt tell me. I have lost all hope for her, this is just sad . I am so disapointed in her. =/

It would be unfortunate if you lost hope or gave up on her.  Getting out of an abusive relationship is not easy.  There’s a lot involved, psychologically and chemically, that has to change in order for someone to leave it.  It’s very gradual.  Unless something drastic happens, someone who is abused needs the support of others in order to have the confidence to be able to face the situation and change it.  And people just need support and love in general.  It isn’t a situation that you can change, but you can affect it.  Either by abandoning her, neglecting her, or sticking with her and supporting her.  The first two options, of course, will only push her further into the relationship—as those around her become frustrated with her and give up on her.  That reinforces the idea of being worthless and/or deserving the abuse.  Caring for those who are abused is not easy, but it is very important.  

Caring about someone who is or has been abused is frustrating.  They can be extremely demanding, have violent mood swings, self-destructive behavior, and a lack of self-worth or confidence that others fail to understand.  The stagnant nature and difficult mindset of such is something that needs to be changed gradually with time. You might think, “I love this person, I value this person, I care for this person, and I try to help this person, so why do they fail to value themselves? Why do they persist in behaviors that are self-defeating or destructive? If I know that x y and z behaviors hurt them and that they don’t want to engage in them, why do they continue to do so?”  I don’t know what your cousin’s case history is, or the nature of the abuse she has experienced beyond the physical abuse from the boyfriend, but these problems, if not rooted in the relationship itself, might be linked to personal insecurities that your cousin had before the relationship.  

Personally, I had been working through a lot of my issues with image, self-worth, self-confidence, and such when I entered a romantic relationship that ended up being abusive.  The relationship dredged up and reinforced insecurities I hadn’t yet uncovered and ones I had defeated, because my fears and doubts were reinforced by the relationship.
I blamed myself for things, and felt guilty about allowing myself to be cut off from my friends and family and then feeling isolated from my friends, who were frustrated about the situation if I told them what was going on, so I stopped telling them things and retreated further into myself, further isolating myself and causing me to depend on the abusive boyfriend more, etc.  Because of the situation, I was in denial about how bad it was, and instead blamed myself for our fights and for the verbal and emotional abuse, telling myself I deserved it and needed to be punished/taught to be better.

I know more about psychological abuse than domestic physical abuse, but, if I learn more about it, I’ll be sure to post things that might help.

(Source: pyrrhiccomedy, via suncalf)

archaeosaur:

Hey kids! Time for a super fun lesson in How Not To Apologize

Let’s say you say something offensive! Maybe something racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or just plain ol’ mean and/or inconsiderate. Now the person with you says, “Hey! That’s offensive.”

Here’s what you DON’T do:

“Well, I’m sorry you were offended.” Now whatever you say afterwards, whether ridiculous or not, is irrelevant cuz you’ve already started this apology off on the wrong foot. In saying, “I’m sorry you were offended”, you are shifting the blame from yourself to the offended person. It has now become their responsibility for being offended at whatever you just did or said. This is an indirect and passive-aggressive method of not only controlling how people react to what you do, but demeaning and downgrading their emotions! In essence, you are not sorry that you did something that hurt someone, you are sorry that you got caught.

If you want to genuinely apologize to someone, then do so. Own up to what you do and say.

(Source: daikaijuz, via floorclaudiuscaroline)

ossa-non-mentono-mai:

He talks to me and all I can hear and see in my head is that day. I remember sitting in the hallway because I had extended day classes and was there until 4:15 and I sat there on my phone asking him to just come to the school so we could talk and over and over again all he said was “No, I’m done doing things your way. You come to me.” 

I did.

I don’t even know what happened anymore to be honest, I blocked it out of my mind but I can still feel all those emotions I felt sitting on my couch. I can still feel my throat tearing because I was standing two inches from you and screaming and I can still feel the sting after you hit me and the look in your eyes, the hate in all of it and I can’t see how we stayed together. I remember you calling me selfish and stupid and ignorant. A self-obsessed little girl. And then I remember hitting you back and you back tracking and crying on my couch out of manipulation or sincerity I can’t discern. 

I remember going to the park afterwards and acting like nothing had happened and you kissing me because “that always makes you feel better.” I remember coming home, crawling in my bed and listening to this song. 

All of these things that I remember scare me half to death because I can see some of them repeating in my relationship now. I can see the same thought process when we fight, and the same reasons. And then you tell me that you love me, that you’re glad I’m your “girlfriend.” You don’t love me, you never loved me. You wanted me because you knew I’d always be there. And you were right. I was always there, even when I shouldn’t have been. And I’m not your girlfriend, that was over months ago. 

Get out of my head.

(Source: iced-tea-and-bruised-knees)