Self-sabotage is my full time job

TRIGGER WARNINGS*: depression, anxiety, self-harm, substance use, suicidal thoughts.*

NOTE*: This is a long post. I know most people won’t read to the end, but I needed to put it out there. It’s unfiltered, and I will probably delete it in a few hours.*

I'm coming out of my last BAD depressive episode, and taking a good overview of my life story up until now, it does not look good. I have been feeling really bad about my day-to-day life, my lifestyle, myself in general, and the way that I live.

I am not happy with my job. I don’t enjoy what I do, and even less being in the office. I get overstimulated easily. I hate talking to people all day. It can get very hard to focus and to manage my emotions. I often take little breaks throughout the day to sit in the dark in the bathroom, stim, stretch, do a breathing exercise, or cry. I have to, to be able to keep going until 5:30 PM. I have very high standards for myself, so I stress out about my performance. I don’t make enough money for everything I do, but I've never asked for a raise in more than three years in this company. I can’t face my boss.

I get home drained at the end of the day, practically every day. Sometimes I cry right after I wake up because I know I have to get out of bed and go to work.

I have things to do, but I don’t do them unless it’s last second or an absolute emergency. Some things I forget to do; some things I simply put off. The things I put off seem to be all floating around in the back of my mind. But I still won’t just get it over with. I overthink and torment myself.

Every day I think about exercising because I know I should do it. I feel bad about it but still don’t do it. I am isolated from everyone. I have terrible social anxiety, and I have many creative ideas that I just don’t put into practice.

I can’t stick to a diet or a plan. I can’t even do sleep hygiene. I have nightmares all the time; I always have. I either sleep too much, more than 12 hours, or too little. I lose and gain weight over and over again. I have a terrible relationship with food and self-image.

I feel like I'm stuck in a cycle of facing life, then running to the arms of a coping mechanism. Every step I take is painful, good or bad. When doing better, I run to journaling, meditating, making art, yoga. When not doing so well, I run to substance use/abuse, self-harm, reckless and self-destructive behavior.

At my worst phases, I can’t function like a human being. I have no motivation to do anything and want to disappear all the time. I have panic attacks, crying bursts, meltdowns, shutdowns. I alternate between not sleeping at all or binging pills to sleep for days. I alternate between binge eating and not eating at all. I self-harm - not only cutting myself with blades in the shower -I kick and punch things until I get bruised up, burn myself with hot metal, pinch myself with sharp objects, take burning hot showers, go out in the cold snowy weather with little clothes until I feel the freeze get to my bones. I don’t talk to anyone. I cope with substances. It’s a shit show.

This type of behavior is not baseline for me, but it feels like I’m always in survival mode just trying to keep things from going back to that pattern. It’s exhausting. I’m 24 now. I’ve been going to therapy for 11 or 12 years, and I’ve been on medication for about 10 years - both on and off. Have tried different drugs, therapists, approaches. But it still always feels like I’m dragging, carrying all of this weight around, struggling to keep things minimally together. I feel burnt out all the time. I’m always emotionally preparing myself for something coming up, chaotically going through it, or trying to recover from everyday life experiences. I feel like life is a bigger horse than I can tame.

Plus, I'm an undocumented immigrant responsible for the biggest part of the household income. My also undocumented little sister lives with me and has been with me for a few months. At first, I didn't even charge her rent until she found a job. I had been living alone in another country for three years before she came, geographically isolated from friends and family, falling back into my bad habits and “comfortable” unsupervised lifestyle. And now I have my sister, which is a responsibility.

What if I feel like I can't get better or just won’t do it despite wanting it? I ignore alarms, shut everyone out so they don’t check on me and I don’t have to stay reliable to them. I fail to accomplish things even when I have external accountability. I put myself in bad situations. It's like I see myself ruining everything but I can't stop. I’m my biggest enemy, and I can’t run from myself. 

I go back to my home country in one year and start over. I want to finish school, get closer to my family, try to be a normal person. Isn’t that the ideal opportunity to start over? Or what if it pushes me over the edge? I get it that no one will come to save me, and I have to take the reins, but how? Where would I even start getting my life together? What works for me and what doesn’t? What would a healthy, happy life look like for me?