Using a throwaway because I feel like a POS for even having these feelings. It’s so defeatist to be like, “welp, guess I’ll die!” Over every fucking thing ever. But the thing is, I truly would rather kill myself than even think about whatever my future holds.

I’ve always felt behind in life. I got held back in high school because I was in physiatrist hospitals for bipolar disorder and self harm for a majority of my grade school years. My home life wasn’t bad enough for people to have sympathy for high school me, they just thought I was a case. My mom is super kind and my dad is charming but they neglected me, spent more time with other people’s children (both of them were foster parents) and thought my depression was just “middle school girl stuff.” Then in 8th grade, after bouts of self harm and suicidal ideation for years, my dad got hooked on drugs and made my personal situation far worse.

I was smart, once a long time ago. Liked books, liked getting good grades. I never understood “mastery objectives” and “performance objectives” though and I was only considered smart because I was only concerned with appearing that way and getting the grades. This I never really grasped anything I was learning. Then I spent so much time outside of school in hospitals getting numbed up on pills and depression and anxiety made my concentration and tolerance for books or learning disappear. Now I’m 24, in my first year of a local state college and feel so fucking stupid. My brain feels numb, rotten. I went to take my drivers test last week and failed for the fourth time and then rationalized it in my head by telling myself the guy testing me was an asshole. I feel so fucking stupid and whenever I tell myself there’s always time to learn, there’s always time to find what I’m passionate about I can’t stop comparing myself to others who are already there, or I can’t care enough about actually living to even entertain the idea.

I also feel like my brain is on fire constantly. I’m so tense and anxious and paranoid about everything. I learned all my social skills from psychiatric hospitals, I blame my lack of independence and mental health on past trauma, past sexual assault and daddy issues. Anxiety holds me back and people just tell me “don’t let anything hold you back, only you can hold yourself back.” But apparently I can’t stop. I’ve tried pills, talk therapy, inpatient, outpatient, yoga, supplements, exercise, writing, etc. I do everything I know that’s right to help myself and I can’t stop. My anxiety ruins everything, I’m 24 and can’t even drive, just started school and don’t even want to be there.

I want to stop blaming the way I am on my past but it affects me so much. Even when I failed my drivers test, the hurt little kid inside of me just wished I had better circumstances to have practiced under. I wish I had a family car that I was used to and a dad to tell me what I was doing wrong. Instead I used my boyfriends beater car to practice, which got totaled by getting t-boned (other guys doing) two days before my test. So I had to borrow a girl’s car that I barely talk to, we could be great friends if I didn’t isolate myself and feel so fucking uncomfortable around socializing all the time. Instead of just telling myself I’m having a hard time passing because of anxiety, it spirals into all these other things that it shouldn’t even turn into.

But no matter what I do to get rid of this mindset, I can’t stop being miserable and I’d rather die than keep hurting myself in the process of trying to fix it. I’m going to hurt regardless. I don’t even want to be with my boyfriend I’m so miserable. I push him away, do things to make him hate me so it might hurt less if I killed myself. Even when I tried talking to him about this he just said “well I love you, that counts for something.” But everything hurts so bad that nothing is worth it. I just want to die.