TO BE HONEST

I need to be honest about where I am. I don't feel like I can get myself anywhere right now. I have no self-esteem. I have no self-worth. I do not feel loved, wanted, or needed. I am so lonely.

Pocatello is a huge part of this. I cannot and do not want connection here. It has always made me feel small, worthless, and out of place. I don't have committed friendships here—I never have—because they always make me feel less than. I don't share interests with people here. I don't have anything to talk about with them. I never really have.

On top of that, my mental health is overwhelming me all at once: major depressive disorder, OCD, CPTSD, reactive abuse syndrome, anxious attachment style, generalized anxiety disorder, acute anxiety disorder, and DTD. There are no specialists in Pocatello who deal with complex mental health issues like this. I am stuck in a cycle I cannot get out of.

I desperately need someone to pick me up and take me away. I need someone in this world to put me first for a while so I can start taking care of myself and healing. I need someone to see the value in saving me. Because I'm going to lose myself more than I already have, and I am scared. I don't want to die, but I don't see a reason to be alive.

I am trapped in the darkest and scariest time of my life, and it won't let up. The harder I try, the harder it gets. The more I push, the more I lose myself in this battle of life and death. I don't have any power left. I don't have any strength left. I don't have any energy left. I have no belief in myself or in people anymore. I can find no reason, no purpose. I have tried so hard.

I've written over 500 manuscripts in two years. Some of them are amazing. I've had interest, but I can't follow through on any of it because I don't have the energy for what comes with it—or after it—or even the rejection. I just finished a book on marriage, a book couples do before marriage. It's 372 pages. I have an additional workbook that helps you build a marriage contract and find the important things before you're married. I think it's pretty freaking awesome. But I'll never get it published, because I don't believe I'm worth anything.

I know I've learned I'm not worth being saved or loved or showing up for. I've learned that it's easier to forget me and discard me than fight for me. I've learned that I have no value to people unless I have money. I've learned that people see no value in me because I don't work.

Nobody understands what it's like to fight with yourself to not take your life. Nobody understands what it's like to fight with yourself to brush your teeth. Nobody seems to understand what it's like to fight with yourself just to take a shower and be so exhausted after that you just cry in bed.

I don't want to die, but I don't want to be alive. I don't want to be so scared all the time. I don't want to wake up alone anymore or go to bed alone. It is the worst feeling in the world. It is the loneliest feeling, and it makes everything else so unbearable when that's all you have to look forward to.

When I think about my life ending it brings me a sense of peace and hope that I otherwise do not feel. The stillness the centering this calmness comes over me. It's the only time that I can remember what Hope feels like or peace. I want to feel it and it last. I'm finding it hard Not to follow it. If I'm truly honest the only reason I'm holding back right now is because of Lily but I'm not being a very good dad for her. I would give up the world for one person to hold me and tell me they love me and that they will never let me go. I would give anything.

I lost a dear friend a couple of years ago. She was a firecracker of a woman—a hunter, a rebel, a powerhouse. She was a confidant who understood me for a long time. She had many of the same mental health diagnoses I do, especially major depressive disorder and cyclic depression. What was so dangerous is that episodes can become more intense and dive deeper and deeper. The suicide rate, I think, is at 72%. She and I talked about that once, and how we wouldn't let that happen, though we both had tried many times before. She ended up taking her life because there was no one there who understood that you're not able to pull yourself out of this.

It's like we're riding a steamship, and it goes down because everybody's so obsessed with saving themselves they forget their people may not have the ability to climb into that lifeboat. They just leave them behind and let them go down.

I'm out of resources in Pocatello. Like I said, we don't have any CPTSD-trained specialists, and it takes a specialist. Therapy for it is intense and can last one to five years, then maintenance. We have nobody that deals with DTD in Pocatello. For my particular situation, I require very intensive treatment. I require a very stable support system outside of healthcare professionals—very close people who take the time to understand what all this means, what all this does to a person, and how to actually help and not cause more damage. Those are rare people. She was my person when Jeff couldn't be or wasn't around. Now I have nobody.

I haven't, and my depression has gone on for two years now—which makes it chronic or pervasive or whatever—and the longer it goes, the more unlikely it is that it will ever go away, they say. My emotional center is misfiring because of fight or flight. Because I'm all alone in emotional and other support, my body has stayed in hypervigilance for over two years now. It's taking a massive toll on me medically, on my body. It won't shut down and recalibrate without a bond. That seems very unlikely in this situation.

I require co-regulation, like everyone does—they're just not aware of it. But my co-regulation isn't just about feeling good about myself; it's about my sense of safety and security in the world. Not being bonded is dangerous for people like me because we take the aloneness subconsciously and in our body as a threat, as danger, because we don't feel protected from the world. I've always heavily relied on my partner or very close friend to be with me, to live with, even sleep with, because we didn't know until this last year that my body, my central nervous system, doesn't know how to not just soothe itself but feel safe in the world. I've been that way since I was a child, most especially in adolescence.

I don't have the strength. Believe it or not, I don't. Those who don't understand that, be thankful—but understand this: you've never known true medical depression or these other medical issues.

Something I have learned and seen: people will help people so long as it costs them no investment. People will give money to charity, do volunteer work, work at food banks and soup kitchens. But when it comes to actually giving a person a real hand, person to person, our society—this American way—is "pick yourself up and make it happen." It doesn't have much tolerance for people who can't. I've learned that people only care so far as technology takes them—texting or likes. But showing up for someone when they can't show up for themselves is too much.

Part of what keeps feeding my depression—not all of it—is that nobody will show up for me. Nobody has shown up for me, picked me up, and said, "I've got you, let's get through this together." And that's what I need. I think I need that because my faith in people through the past two years is gone. I was shown that I meant nothing and I was disposable, and that just kept getting reconfirmed, and now I believe it.

My friend was lost because she had no one to pick her up when she needed it. That's why people commit suicide. Because sometimes you just can't carry yourself, and we live in a world where nobody stops when someone falls and truly picks them up. Everybody's more important than everybody else.

She was very strong—one of the strongest people I've ever known—and she lost. I think I'm going to too, and I'm scared.