But sleep's one of them. I've been doing a lot of it recently. And then, I panicked. Because my subconscious asked the armor-piercing question to me:
"Why am I afraid to live?"
If I wasn't so darn autistic, I swear I would have broke down in tears the moment that question hit and sunk in. Even as I type this blog post, my eyes are watery, but I can't cry, yet I really, really want to, because when I was struck by that question, instantly, I knew the truthfulness of it. No self-fulfilling prophecy here. Just...a plain simple recognition of the hard-truth around me.
All the various distractions I willingly am entering. For instance, all the mafia games I've let myself join are distractions from hobbies that I would ideally be spending time on. And yet, in every mafia game I'm playing, the increasingly low effort I'm putting into all of them across the board is proof that even there, I am beginning to withdraw from others, deeper and deeper into myself.
I didn't want to wake up.
I wanted to stay asleep.
I have had increasing desires to spend time gaming. To waste my life on other things, like reading manga or worse, TVTropes browsing to 16-year-old levels, losing all my built-up restraint.
I'm, increasingly and increasingly, intentionally, pulling back from other people.
And I'm TERRIFIED because of it.
Now, an important distinction to make. The question I asked wasn't, "Why do I want to die?" If that was the question I had asked myself, I would be rushing to literally EVERY resource I have available, out of the blue contacting them all, venting every feeling I'm undergoing, and trying desperately to fight back, because if I wanted to die, that would mean I would be actively suicidal, and I'd need to do literally everything, reach out to EVERYONE, for help, pronto.
It's not merely semantics. I don't want to die. But I'm still in an emotional wreck of a state all the same, because while the question "Why don't I want to live" isn't QUITE as bad as "why do I want to die", it's...literally just one step above, as in just one level above the bottom of the barrel.
Let me explain what this means as clearly as I can. What this means is that I'm actively seeking depression. All the signs and symptoms I want, all the things that I am actively desiring, are the things I naturally do in a state of severe depression. It's frustrating. While there are some pitfalls in my life, most things are going EXACTLY the way I've wanted them to. I've gotten so close, OH SO close, to being the girl I want to be...
...But for some reason, I'm actively feeling the desire to sabotage all my work. Throw it all away. And not in the 'start over from scratch' kind of way. Not even in the 'start doing something else' kind of way. Throw it all away, and do NOTHING in its place.
I cannot put into words how scary that is, especially with the implications it carries. Why would I actively WANT to be in a state of misery? And yet, all the same, that's what I am feeling from the very core of my being that I want. The scary thoughts come in especially when trying to rationalize it. Was my life going SO well that I thought I needed to put a pause on it? Were things just simply moving too fast so I felt the need to apply the brakes? The scariest of them all would be that there is no reason for me to want it, that I simply want to not live, because I simply don't want to live.
Or maybe the scariest is that I don't think I deserve to live. I'm not sure. No matter how you slice it. Whatever the justification. It makes no difference! It's not a thought I should have had! It's not a state of being I should want to be in. It's not a good place to be.
I absolutely hate myself right now, now that I've seen where I'm intentionally heading. Especially since, and this is the worst part of all, even now that my subconscious has brought it to my attention...I'm not sure I want to fight.
Do you have any idea how scary that thought is?
Lacking the willpower to do anything, but trudge on? Effectively having shriveled up and died?
I'm really, really scared.
I don't know what to do. I need to do SOMETHING. Life cannot continue like this. I don't know why I'm feeling like this. I have guesses, but no solid answers. All I know is that I am feeling a feeling that I absolutely KNOW, 100% know, to be unhealthy, to be destructive, to be nothing but a bad influence on my life, and yet desiring it anyway.
Those moments of severe depression are what have robbed me of some cherished aspects of my life, multiple times. It robbed me of Darkthrone way back in the day. It was one of the things that ended up robbing me of my connection to Artix Entertainment. It was the reason I gave up on being in the video game industry. It's the reason I gave up on being a professional artist. It's the reason that I have, THREE TIMES NOW (at minimum), lost my connection to ComicFury, painful as that may be. And now, I'm terrified that I'm intentionally, willingly, taking it a step further.
That if I withdraw much further...I'm going to suddenly finding myself giving up on far more than that. On being a writer. On being a webcomic artist at all. On my mafia life, which has happened once or twice before. And if I gave up on all of that...
...What's there, that's left of me? What remains, when you remove all that I hold dear, that is really Bree?
And that's the scariest thing of all. I'm afraid I'm losing it, intentionally letting go, of everything that makes me, me.
So when I say this is literally just one step above being suicidal...I mean it. Because in this state of mind, where I'm actively destroying, maybe even SEEKING the death of, all the things that make me be who I am...
...I'd say that's arguably more suicidal than thoughts of physically taking my life, because the destruction caused is equally irreversible.
I feel...trapped, powerless. Empty.
Something's very wrong with me right now. And I don't even know what. The tears of my mind, that I can't physically produce. That sorrow, that self-pity, that urge to pull back, to cry, to curl up in a ball. I don't even know what's causing it. Maybe dysphoria growing stronger and stronger. It's definitely possible that even seeing dreams of what I want, are causing this pain when I'm forced into reality to see what I'm not. In essence, my own scriptwriting abilities being weaponized against me, by seeing all the perfect worlds, all the things I could be, and having them shattered by showing what I actually am.
It's possible that's the cause. That the happiness I see in my dreams, is why I'm getting so much worse when awake. Why I'm actively seeking to unravel my life, even though I know on a conscious level that's counter-productive to any endgoal of reaching my dreams in the first place, that the only way I can GET my dreams is if I stay true to my course.
I just...don't know.
Scared, confused, frustrated.
I feel like a young child right now.
In the absolutely powerless sense.
And I...just feel like I need help.
And I don't know how I'll get it.