I just really wanted to write this somewhere, sorry.

this is just going to be a big ugly stream of consciousness thing and i really just want to write it down somewhere. I know it's attention whore-y so feel free to ignore it, it's just me rambling. apologies if this comes off a little sloppy or dumb sounding, but it's in my head and i really want to get it down somewhere before my mood changes and it loses its effect
I haven't been in a good place for such a long time, I think it's been always. I'm not that old, so if there was a time where I was ok with myself, it was far enough back in adolescence that i can't remember it, and nothing from that age really means anything anyways. Everything has been cyclical - whatever phrasing you prefer to describe the 'ups and downs' of feeling like shit, im sure it's familiar to plenty of people. I personally like using rollercoasters as a metaphor, since it often takes a pulley system or whatever to actively pull you upwards, and going up is so slow, but going down takes nothing at all, and happens in an instant. What I'm trying to say is that i'm familiar with the rhythm of going through a period of wanting to just die already, then having a smaller period where you feel ok, or maybe are even feeling optimistic about yourself. I know all the feelings; feeling guilty that i could even be upset about anything, feeling guilty about lying to people when they ask what some scar on my arm is from, feeling jealous of people who are doing better than i am, or who are in the same boat but are recovering better and are getting an outpour of support from everyone around them, wanting so desperately to literally just vanish, and blaming myself for everything that I'm feeling
I'm at my worst when I'm comparing myself to the people around me. From an impartial standpoint I feel like I've been really, really lucky to have such talented, intelligent, interesting people around me since I was in grade school, but all too often i look at them and all i can see is how much less i am than them. it's such a selfish, conceited way to look at the world, and i can't imagine putting up with someone like that for as long as they have. I really and truly do not know why more of them aren't absolutely sick of me - since we all left for university communication has become sparse with more than a few of them, and i really can't hold anything against them for that. Every time i'm with people in a group i feel like a leech. i'm just a fucking drain on any social interaction; every time i speak it's just me being obnoxious. I've tried so hard to train myself to shut the fuck up even just a little bit, but i can never get myself to do so when i know i need to. I don't have anything legitimate to add to a conversation, i'm definitely not interesting enough for anyone i want to talk to, and i feel like if i could just be more productive personally then i'd actually be worth speaking to, but i know i'm not there yet. where i am, which is where i've been since i was old enough to speak, is just being annoying. i am annoying, annoying to interact with in any way. a lot of it comes from me trying to be funny, but then a lot of that comes from the fact that i am afraid to be serious verbally. honestly i'm not sure where it comes from. i don't really know why a lot of things are the way they are with me.
everything probably came to a head when i went away to college for the first time, in a different state. every personal flaw, every defect i had in any capacity all converged on each other and i spent over a year in paralysis from being productive or going to class or doing schoolwork or talking to my family or taking even basic care of myself. i remember being at the door of classes, barely a minute late, and turning right back around because i was convinced that i wasn't even welcome in the classroom. i remember finishing my final project that i had created from scratch for my major's introductory course, finishing it completely, knowing full well it was more than enough for the course, knowing full well that a significant portion of students used pre-designed kits for their projects. Not that there is anything lesser or wrong about using a kit, and not that what i made was so fantastically impressive, i just mean that i knew for a fact that i didn't need to worry about having something that wasn't good enough, and i didn't need to worry about having the least impressive thing there (not that that would have really mattered). It was done. I knew everything i needed to say for my presentation. I was ready.
I couldn't even go to the class.
I literally could not bring myself to show up. I was convinced that something was wrong with what i did; i had misunderstood some requirement, or i had definitely made something unacceptably below average. Everyone in the class would know what a fucking idiot i was. every teacher in the school would be reviled by my presence in any of their classes ever again. I wasn't worthy to even email them to try to make up any credit. i just knew it. i wasn't long at that school, obviously. i came back home in the middle of winter, pathetic and completely disillusioned that i could ever amount to anything of value in my entire life. the few friends i had made at college, the first time in my life that i think i every really made friends, i lost contact with. that was the beginning of last year. i don't remember much about how i was specifically feeling, but i do believe it was around that time that i gave up trying to find a way to get rid of myself without causing people around me any pain. it was at that point that i really was nothing. at all. i eventually kept going, for whatever reason, i also don't remember. this was when things began to start changing. i found a job that i was passionate about, and that paid fairly well. later that year i went to a community college, where i began to do better academically (not great, but vastly better). i've been able to maintain the facade that nothing ever went wrong with enough people that i began to feel somewhat normal around them. i started treatments (meds, counseling) that have made all of the things happening inside my head hurt so much less, i stopped comparing myself and my progress to everyone around me, and i began feeling like i was gonna be ok with the person i was. it was a nice couple of months of feeling good about myself. I'm not sure what happened. i think it was around a week ago that i started having feelings that i haven't had in a long time. i didn't think i'd remember them all so clearly, but i do. i hate myself again. i don't know what brought it on. I just started a new medicine, so i feel like it might be that. im looking at my own hands typing this on the keyboard, and i just am disgusted by them. I remember these feelings, hating even the look of myself. looking at everything i do, everything i make, and seeing how pathetic and horrible it all is. i remember how comfortable it feels to imagine yourself dead. I really hope the hand thing doesn't come back. I don't know if anyone else ever experienced anything like this, but sometimes, when i was at my lowest, deepest point of hating myself and believing with every part of me that my absence would bring everyone around me joy, my hands would start to hurt. like, they'd kindof go numb, then they'd just start to ache really bad. it didn't really happen very often, but i have serious doubts that i could live through those places again. there's a point to all of this though, as hard to believe as it may be this isn't entirely just to satisfy the attention whore in me. I was feeling good. I liked myself. I think i was happy. i remember a time when i thought i'd never feel any of those things, but somehow, i got to a point where i did. And it felt good to feel good. I know it feels so very comfortable to feel bad about yourself, i know how cozy self pity can be, but i had escaped both of those and i felt good and i felt alive and it was so nice. and now i'm back, and i can feel the warmth of the voice telling me that i am awful, and i should be embarrassed that i spent even a second of my life not despising the person that i am. it feels really comfortable to be back, i'll admit that. but now i'm torn. i got a taste of the other side. i remember it. i've started thinking about how i never deserved any of it, but i still remember it. And I want it back. I'm actually fucking upset at myself for losing it, and i want to go back. i'm not letting it drift away. i don't know how, but i am going to feel good again if it fucking kills me. now i know it's worth it. it's not even that i felt happy all the time, i just felt like i wasn't nothing.
I'm not good at giving advice. i'd like to be able to impart something so that this big ugly attention whore manifesto has something of substance in it, but i don't know.. All i can really say is that i know how it feels to know that you're pathetic and weak and small and worthless, and i know what it's like to not have a reason to keep going, and to know for certain that there is no point to any of this. I know. but i also know that going through all of it anyway was worth it, even just for two months of feeling okay. I saw things about myself that i liked, and that i was proud of, and that i was thankful for. it was like i'd escaped from a fog, and there was the entire rest of the world i could see.
I'm not gonna push the 'it gets better' crap, because we all know that's a lie more often than not. But i can tell you that better is out there. and i am so glad that i stuck around long enough to see it, even for a little bit. i'm sorry to everyone that has had enough of this hopefulness bullshit shoved in their face already. I'm sorry that hope doesn't work. I wish it did. But i guess the one thing i can say is that there's something better. I couldn't tell you how to find it, but i know it's there now and, at least for a little while, i think that can keep me going.
I'm sorry if this isn't more helpful. it probably isn't, but then again it's mostly just me venting. I've never written everything out like this before, so it's a little weird for me. if you are reading this and can relate, i hope you can also find an excuse to keep going, even just for a little.
Whoever read all this, i'm really sorry it took up so much of your time with no payoff. hope everyone is doing alright// (oh god this is so long fuck me)