I know the year I am mentioning is one that none of us wants to remember. But it’s important for this blog post as the events happened then. So we, humans, started the year 2020 with hopes, new goals, and new plans. But life doesn’t go as planned, and in the very beginning of 2020, the life as we used to know changed before our eyes. I don’t need to say what happened, but to the generations that will come after us and have no clue about history (now hey, don’t go all snowflakes on me), early months of 2020 our planet faced a pandemic caused by CoronaVirus. Basically for many long months, we were prisoners of our homes due to quarantine.
At first I didn’t mind the change. I quite enjoyed the sudden break I got from work. Who wouldn’t want that? It was a few fun days, sleeping without a schedule, eating whenever, watching endless movies and TV shows, and making bread! But since it seemed that the lockdown would last until unknown, many establishments switched to online working, and I as a teacher started online teaching. Basically, I was quite busy with everything, and that’s why I didn’t have the time to think or feel things. But during the summer break of 2020 I felt what I hadn’t felt before. And it slowly got worse. At some point I thought that it was a quarter-life crisis. But looking back at my writings and recalling how I was feeling seems as if there was more to it.
It’s not easy to write/talk about what I was going through, but I will. Because I’m hoping my words will become the brightness that will guide those in the dark and become soft hugs. I honestly don’t remember exactly how and when I started to feel like life was meaningless and when the darkness started to close in on me. I don’t even know what triggered it.
At that time, I was thinking that suicide was normal. I wasn’t thinking about actually doing it, but the idea became acceptable. I started to understand where these thoughts came from. As you can see from the screenshot I have provided how I talk about it. I can’t believe that this is how it was with me. From the same screenshot, you can see another post where I talked about what I was thinking about life. And these questions would pop up in my head every now and then. (Some parts of the following screenshots are hidden due to personal reasons.)
But there is that one post that hurts me the most. Looking at it brings back all the negativity I was feeling. But I’m not hiding it. We need to face the things that cause us distress until we make peace with them. Another thing this post reminds me of is how empty and lonely the world was (because of quarantine), and this post still breaks my heart a little.
I’d always believed that when we are going through hard times and our minds generate scary thoughts, it’s important to talk about them with people close to us. But when I found myself in this situation, I didn’t talk to anyone. I couldn’t talk about what I was going through or what I was feeling to anybody. I was just posting my thoughts here and there seeing if someone would sense that something is wrong, but no one did. Which made me feel even lonelier, like there wasn’t someone who cared enough to ask me why I was posting about suicide. And that made it harder to open up. Many long months later, when I was better and I finally was able to talk about it, someone told me that since you’re a writer, it might be difficult for people to know what you put out there is something you’re personally dealing with or just another thing you wrote. Another thing that I can think about is that during this time, everyone was experiencing new negative emotions like me, and it was already hard enough, that’s why maybe my posts seemed normal at the time, and everyone was busy dealing with their own hardships. The following screenshot is an example of how I communicated through my posts.
I remember, during those few months, one day I felt physically sick and thought that it was Covid. I was suddenly not feeling hungry and locked myself up in my room. I didn’t want anyone to get the virus because of me. But my parents didn’t listen to that. My mom would come and feel my forehead to see if I still had a little fever. My family was really concerned about me. I remember when my uncle was standing outside of my room and encouraging me to eat, and that made me happy, but I still couldn’t eat. During those days, I slowly saw how much my family cared and wouldn’t leave me alone. One of the things I wasn’t able to see because my dark thoughts had blinded me.
But that didn’t make the sickness go away. I was in my bed the whole time. I had a very messy sleeping schedule. My phone was by my side and I ignored every notification and wouldn’t check until hours later or when I felt like it. Then I had to get covid test and be sure. But my result was negative. Recently, I thought that maybe because I was so drained emotionally and mentally that it started to show physical symptoms. In the following screenshot are the things I was thinking about when I was feeling sick.
The whole thing (negative thoughts, feeling extremely sad, feeling down, and with no motivation to do anything) lasted for 3-4 months. Some days were good, some days were bad. It wasn’t like a 24/7 of negativity, but it was more like a 30:70 ratio. 30% being good, and the rest ranging from being sad to showing physical symptoms. Just like how I don’t know how these thoughts and emotions started, at the same time I don’t know when they started to fade away. But what I know is that I’m grateful for the whole experience. It helped me to understand, to see things differently, and to be in someone else’s shoes.
I’d like to think that, because of it, I’m somehow a different person. I can be kinder with people and relate with what they say when they talk to me. That in the future, I won’t just say this is hard, instead I’ll say that I know what you mean. And of course, as a writer, I can share my journey, even though it was only a few months, and say that, at the end you’ll be fine. I can show that you are not alone. You never are. We all have some monster that we are fighting.
I know it can be really lonely, and you want to isolate yourself. You don’t want to have any human interaction. To that, I say, take some time off. Even if you have a job, or are busy with your family, take at least an hour to be with yourself only. Maybe you just need to lie in bed, or listen to your favorite artist. Maybe you want to write what you feel to let go, even if you are not a writer. Sometimes, we don’t need others to help us get back on our feet, we only need us. We are stronger than we think. You just have to figure out how to take care of yourself. But if you want to be with someone to help you get back on your feet or listen to you, that is also okay. We all have a different journey. Maybe you don’t want to be alone with your thoughts, you can reach out to someone you trust and just talk to them about anything. It doesn’t necessarily need to be about you and how you feel.
Another thing one of my friends suggested is that when you are in a good mood, you can make a list of the things that make you happy, the things that you are grateful for, the things you love about yourself, the good things that you forget about when you are in a cloud of self-doubt and negative thoughts, and read them to help you go through those hard times.
And most importantly, if you have suicidal thoughts, please talk about it. I know people who have attempted suicide and luckily have failed, say that they’re happy that they’re here now. So yeah, maybe things look horrible now, but it’s just a storm and it will pass too. Make a positive change in your life instead of ending it. Do what brings you joy, cut ties with toxic people, take some time just to be with yourself, do new things, go out of your comfort zone, talk to people who have been through similar things and learn from each other, share what you are going through if you want, and live.
You can join communities online to feel less alone and more understood. Listen to the stories of those who have survived and are living. Please stay. There is more to life than those gloomy days. Maybe they’ve been around for so long, but it will be okay ❤️.
Below, I’ll share links to some of the blog posts and the poems that I wrote back then or around the time when I wasn’t in a good place, so that you can see how my writings and thoughts were. And linked a couple of poems to give you strength.
The Blog Posts:
https://dlvanzirak.com/2020/09/12/what-happens-after-i-take-my-own-life/
https://dlvanzirak.com/2020/06/16/the-world-as-we-know-it/
The Poems:
https://dlvanzirak.com/2022/07/16/i-got-myself-a-poem/
https://dlvanzirak.com/2022/04/14/psychological-pain-a-poem/
https://dlvanzirak.com/2022/06/25/love-yourself/
https://dlvanzirak.com/2021/03/10/the-life-of-an-overthinker/
Dlvan's Thoughts 