I tried to kill myself when I was 12 and I don't think I've ever been the same since

I'm 17, and when I was 12, I tried to kill myself with pills I had gotten from the dermatologist (in hindsight, I thought they would kill me, but as I look back, I don't even remember what the pills were). This would’ve been around 2020, when the pandemic began. It’s a blurry memory: The pills, maybe around 20, bundled in my hand, a feeling of stagnating loneliness despite being in a house with others, and a locked door. I took them, waited it out, and when I felt nothing, I resorted to talking to my mom. I remember her getting mad, and I felt so stupid for talking to her, but looking back, I feel so sorry for having been so cruel to myself. I wasn’t stupid. I was scared, and I wasn’t okay, and she was my mom. I think I buried this memory deep inside me, and now, with its resurgence, I feel thrown off. I don’t remember my parents talking to me about it. I feel like I always go back to the loneliness I've felt since I was little, and I don't know why, but it's like I bring myself back to it. Even after the most amazing day, I'll sink back into myself and drown in my feelings of loneliness. It's like I can make myself sad on command, albeit not a conscious one. I feel like my sadness prevents me from actually living my life, and as a result, I feel lost all the time, stuck at an unbearable crossroad of uncertainty and impotence. I don't want to spend my life postponing living it, but I don't want to live it at all sometimes. It's a heavy feeling that comes and goes, and I always revert to my 12-year-old self, and how I must've felt before taking the pills I was so sure would kill me. I also feel ridiculous thinking about the particular pills I used. At the time, I really did think they'd kill me, but they didn't work, so was my attempt any less of an attempt if the pills didn't do anything more than give me a headache?

I sometimes wonder what if they had worked, if they somehow damaged my brain, and what my family would've thought if it'd come to them finding me dead. I used to find some sort of respite in thinking like that: What would people at my school think if I just killed myself? What would my family feel? Would they feel guilt over not having noticed earlier how I'd isolate myself? Agony over the loss of a child? Denial when thinking of how it was self-inflicted? Maybe all of the above. And it felt good to know that my absence would change their lives, in the way my life didn't, morbidly enough. I felt as if I had to die to not feel so alone anymore, and it doesn't make sense thinking about it, but nothing about depression makes sense. It's a comforting sort of ache, like a weighted blanket over you, gradually crushing you but still keeping you warm when everything else feels cold. But it also alienates you from others, keeps you thinking that there's something in you that's missing that everyone else has, marking you as fundamentally different from others. This is my experience with depression. Most of the time it's not just being sad, but instead being stuck in your head, disassociating, feeling everything deeply, yet oddly enough feeling numb; feeling solid, but empty. Some other times, it's a stagnating realization that no matter how many people are near you, you still feel as lonely as if you were alone.

I've been passively suicidal since the pandemic, and I always go back to finding refuge in the idea of dying, and I'm sure there's many people who might feel this way. I struggle to believe it sometimes, but you're not alone when it comes to facing depression or trying to feel better on the daily. There's always someone you can reach out to in order to move on from these stagnating feelings and harmful ideas, and I hope we can find the strength within ourselves to trust someone with something as deeply personal and heavy as dealing with depression and suicidal ideation. You deserve to live peacefully, outside your head and the mechanisms you may use to cope with loneliness. You're more than your pain, even if it feels like you may have become one with it with time.