Life looks good from the outside — but man am I struggling in here

I’m a mid-thirties single female who, if you’re on the outside looking in, has my life pretty much together. I am college-educated, I have a good enough paying job that I own my own house, I own a car, I have two happy & healthy dogs, and I don’t have any debt. Both my parents are still alive and healthy, living about an hour away, and I speak them normally and see them occasionally. I’m in good physical health. I am directly in charge of 20+ people in varying degrees within my job, and those people are all generally good and hard working people. While introverted by nature, my job demands extroversion...and I’m good at it. And while in the confines of my job, I excel at it.

I go to bed as early as I can so that my day will end. Once work stops, I want to be asleep. Or dead.

Thinking about dying helps me sleep. I can’t stop thinking about it. I wish someone had a gun to someone else’s head and I could heroically step in to take their place. I wish I could jump in front of a bus to save a kid on his bike. I wish an unfortunate accident would send my car into a ravine. I don’t want to kill myself for attention. I don’t fall asleep thinking about what people would think of me when I was gone...if I would be missed. That ruins the fantasy.

I don’t have anyone to talk to about this. Most people would be shocked if I told them. That in and of itself isn’t the reason I don’t. I don’t because I don’t have any relationships with the depth to have that conversation. Well. I do. I do have a couple friends who I know love me. And who know I am struggling with some depression. But I have worn them thin; it is not easy to be friends with someone who is depressed or anxious, who behaves strangely because of that. These friends are good people, truly good people, but they lack the empathy and/or patience to “deal” with this. And so I have taken it off their plate. And I have watched them each be lighter around me, and just in a better place with their other friends because I’m not such an anchor. I can’t “move on” from them because they work with or for me. And we as a group are better off with them here. So instead I have tried my best to feign that I am heeding their advice... “just be happy,” “just be positive.”

I’m not kidding myself when I smile and act ok. And probably I’m not kidding them either — but it’s likely a welcome relief for them not to have to “deal” with it.

So. I am on an island. I am in a lot of pain. I started self-harming. By slamming a rock into my head/cheek over and over. And now I am on sick leave because everyone thinks I have the flu, but really I have a black & blue eye/face. I want to do it again. But I have to go home for Christmas next week.

I just don’t know what to do. And I had no one to tell. Throwing it out on Reddit for someone(s) to read gives me a little peace. And tonight, I’m fighting for any amount of peace I can get. I don’t want to think about dying. I don’t want to feel the ways I feel. And I don’t want the ways I feel to affect how I behave and the ways I behave to affect people I care about. Life looks good, but it feels so hopeless. And so lonely.