This past week my therapist gave me a journaling assignment, and I thought I would share my response.
This is a question 'I find myself asking frequently. I even remember being a small girl wondering why I am alive. I even remembering being little and telling my mother "I was I was never born."
For as long as I can think back, I don't think I've ever felt like I was living. Just merely existing. Just because I am breathing doesn't mean I am alive. just because I am not dead doesn't mean I'm alive. I feel like I am drowning and suffocating but I can see everyone around me swimming, breathing, floating. I've been drowning but no body saw mw struggle.
I try my best everyday but I just can't breathe. And every second I'm alive I feel like I am drowning. This is perhaps one of the most painful ways to live. So why cant I fix it? Why cant I suddenly be full of life and enthusiasm? Why can't I go to bed and actually want to wake up the next day?
I've become a master at hiding my pain. I have even fooled some psychiatrists. No body truly cares about my pain anyways, and What's the point of being a burden?
Even since being a kid I've gone through the anxieties of finding what I am truly destined to be. Trying to achieve what God's plan is for me. First I thought I was destined to be a pediatrician, than a prima ballerina. Than I thought maybe I'm supposed to be both at once. Than it was a pediatric surgeon. Non I debate if I'm supposed to be a pediatric nurse or NICU nurse or a Christian singer and help people through music like It has helped me. I wish I could call God on my iPhone and have him tell me my plan for my life.
Maybe my purpose is to just be anorexic, suicidal, and an anxious wreck. I know that sounds tucked up, but one has to wonder after 13 years of struggle, starvation, cutting, and suicide attempts-why aren't I better? Or is It not too long before I am a memory?
All I know is that I want to be happy. I want to change peoples lives. I want to help the hurting, But how? When? Why? Well I know the why portion- because I know what it feels like to have no one, to feel like the only way out Is death.
So all in all, I'm not sure I can fully answer the question of what I am living for. Because I ask myself this question every minute of every day
