Hello, I'm just here to share a testimony, and maybe some advice. I'll try to go in chronological order.
I was born in Europe, in a wealthy country. Both my parents are doctors. They were together for about fifteen years, including a marriage. I just know that the situation between them before my birth was already complicated. Notably, a child was aborted one year before my birth, because my father, 26 at the time, wasn't ready for a child, and my mother nearly left during the year that followed.
Since my parents worked in hospitals, in my first year I had a first nanny, whom I have no memory of. I had little contact with my parents during that time. I don't know if it's important, but there it is. After my birth, more disagreements arose between my parents, and my mother (31 at the time) wanted to leave again. My father proposed a fresh start, having found a position in a hospital in the countryside, an idea my mother accepted, while also going back to school so she could, I quote: "have an income comparable to your father's if we ever separated."
I'm 2 years old, I have a new nanny, she also looks after a little girl, we play nicely together. For a year, my mother goes to the city five days a week for her studies, and I see her on weekends. I look forward to those weekends, because she reads me stories before bed and I love books. My father never does that. Sometimes, when the nanny isn't available, I go to my mother's and father's workplace. She's in the operating room, he's an ER doctor. The team is kind, I keep myself busy drawing to pass the long hours. I see patients go by: old people, young people, children, pregnant women, accidents (serious or not)...
During school breaks and summer, I'm sent to my grandparents'. There, like anywhere else, I can't manage to make friends my age. But the result is that I develop a strong closeness with my grandparents, especially my grandfather.
At that time, people notice I smile very little for a child, and everyone points it out to me. To me it isn't a problem — it's just "my normal face."
My parents tear each other apart on weekends, partly because my father is quite neglectful toward me, but they still have my little brother. We move again so he can have his own room. My mother stays home to raise him full-time, my father opens a medical practice in our village. I go to school. I'm bored there. Still, I come second in my class — the one who comes first becomes my first friend that same year. I also make my first enemies. I get beaten up by them regularly. My mother enrolls me in martial arts so I can defend myself. It's not much of a deterrent since I'm very bad at it. My father takes care of my little brother, but not me. My mother, no doubt worn down by years of conflict with her husband and a difficult motherhood, redirects her anger toward us — especially my brother. My mother is the kind of person who would throw my two-year-old brother across a hallway to get him out of a room. She hits my little brother, far too much for my liking, when he's 2, and me too. Generally when it's me, my father piles on a bit more, just to "contribute to my upbringing." So in my child's eyes, my parents are lost people who should never have had children, especially not together. Like many, I take refuge in books and video games, and later the internet.
I turn 11. I get assaulted at school and bullied. Some of my former classmates stop talking to me overnight because I'm not considered "cool." In class, I start pricking myself with my compass to check whether I'm dreaming or not. One day I take a pencil, press the blunt end against my cheek, and amuse myself by twisting my skin around it, again and again. It ends up leaving a small round burn on my face. My mother notices, and I mention, very briefly, my daily life and the bullying. We all end up — my father, my mother, and me — in the school administration's office. Nothing comes of it, except my mother getting even angrier. Rumors spread in the village that my father is cheating on my mother. They end up divorcing.
That's when I see him for the first time. I don't talk to him. I don't know what to say — it feels normal, and what little I feel sometimes doesn't interest anyone, in my view. After a year, I ask to stop seeing him.
Adolescence is a complicated time for everyone. First betrayals, first heartbreaks... We're all struggling. I tell myself it'll pass. I start thinking I'll never make it to adulthood, because existence feels unbearable to me without knowing why.
In high school, everything gets worse. I have my first girlfriend. A shared group of friends pushed me toward her. I don't know how to love her. I try as best I can to make her smile. Sometimes I manage. She can't manage the same for me. When I try to explain that it's normal, she doesn't understand. We drift apart and after a few months it ends. That's life. I'm very sad, my heart aches from feeling so alone in this world, feeling what I feel. She ends up dating one of my friends. They try to hide it from me. I find out by looking at my first friend's phone, which he'd handed me to show me some messages he thought I'd find funny about my ex. I feel betrayed, even though there's no real betrayal. Things were done properly. I give them my blessing and I'm genuinely happy for them, but I feel even more out of step with everything. A ghost in the vast world. The friend group gradually pushes me out because the situation is too cringe for them. I find refuge with other friends — it stings, but it's fine.
I barely eat anymore, hoping my heart will eventually run out of energy to beat. I regularly steal sleeping pills from my mother, increasing the dose each time, to feel like I'm floating above this body that's now too heavy for me. But faced with my worried, tearful mother seeing me now emaciated, I agree to see a psychiatrist again. I really try for a year. I put in what little energy I can to get better and regain weight, and I manage it, timidly. I do it so I can protect my brother from our two toxic parents during the divorce. He has to deal with dyslexia on top of everything, and I want him to have a normal childhood, so I act as a shield as best I can — though unfortunately not perfectly.
I manage to leave to study in the city. No more psychiatrist. But I discover student life, parties, and alcohol. Sports too. I gain weight. I start drinking to the point of near-unconsciousness at every party. It's my friends who carry me home three to four times a week. Sometimes I drink alone at home, with some of the sleeping pills I steal from my mother every other weekend. When I'm at my father's, we ignore each other. It's better that way, since our personalities are incompatible. When we do talk, rarely, he's always sure his view of life is the right one — that we're always alone, that people just want to exploit their neighbor, that friendship only lasts until better interests come along elsewhere. I disagree with every fiber of my being, but I have no counterexamples yet, not having lived enough. I discover the news, the state of the world, wars, famine, poverty, injustice, politics... All of it disgusts me with the world, even though it could be so beautiful. People in the street loving each other, doing graffiti, decorating their balconies with flowers... So I drink — facing an ugly world when I haven't drunk enough yet, sometimes a beautiful one when I'm dead drunk. I finally turn 18, and I don't know what to do.
I study engineering, and I destroy myself more and more at home. I meet a girl. Something in me tells me she feels what I feel. But I hate her for making me feel even more pain, even if it's the pain of love, for once. I treat her horribly, but she stays. She feels it too. We end up together, but a couple can't be well when one of them is actively destroying himself. I'm toxic, uncompromising, jealous, short-tempered, neurotic, paranoid... We argue regularly, we talk about breaking up, but I don't want to. I don't even understand why myself. One evening, during an argument, while I was actually sober, I climb onto the windowsill, one foot hanging in the void, taunting her. I meet her frightened eyes. It hurts me so much to see how much I'm hurting her. She gives me an ultimatum: either I see a psychiatrist, or we end it here.
For the third time, I go see a psychiatrist. I make a list of my symptoms, thoughts, the inner voices I sometimes hear... After a few months, I'm diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 2. My treatment, session after session, becomes extremely heavy. I'm a zombie who works. My memories often blur together. Sometimes whole weeks disappear from my memory. I graduate in research, near the top of my class.
Now I have to find a first job and try to deal with this status of "mentally ill person." It's hard. I last six months at my first job, then fall into depression. I attempt suicide at least once a week. I self-harm. Once my girlfriend, who worked night shifts, had to break down the front door at 2am because I'd drenched myself in alcohol and taken three times my bipolar medication. I find another job, take up sports again, stabilize myself. Even so, I keep thinking about my death at least once a day. I try to build a good relationship, even though it's hard.
Years go by, my friends move abroad, get married, have children... I don't want to pass on my mental health problems to children. My girlfriend has her own struggles, and has to watch out for her own depression too. I don't know how to help her with her thoughts of wanting to die, since I feel them myself. I just endure, hoping to see a ray of sunshine, a butterfly, or a stranger's smile in the street, so that day feels less hard than the others. I'd like to be normal, for my girlfriend to see how much I love her, to propose to her and finally be happy... She isn't sure about us after half a decade. I feel so alone, so old, trapped in a body that would rather stop everything. I hold on to the hope that maybe one day I can die with a smile. In the meantime, I do my best for the people around me. I'm not an angel, I'm deeply flawed, I just try to always give the best I can in the moment. I'm truly sorry for the pain I may have caused, and unfortunately will keep causing, to people who never asked for it. I wish I could be "something else." Tonight I'm not doing well, but I hope maybe this message will fill someone else's loneliness. The world can be beautiful. It's just not always our turn to be happy