We’ve always been curious about death. It’s supposed to be the biggest avoidance for any living thing, what we strive to escape at any cost. The very fight to escape it is the subject of many historical, scientific, and fictional logs. Why is it, then, that we’ve created a society where thousands seek it out and bring it upon themselves?
The human race is an odd one. In the fight to better society, that same society has created a system that punishes the majority for living. Hundreds of thousands spend every day simply going through the motions, following the same routine every day and craving escape. For some, the desperation to escape becomes too much. The urge, the painful need to feel something, anything else, overwhelms all else, resulting in self-destructive spirals. Alcoholism, smoking, illegal drugs, self-harm, sex, these all become escapes from the knowledge that we are trapped in an endless cycle.
We personally have partaken in physical self-harm rarely. Our extracurriculars and jobs made it difficult, as visible marks would lead to questions, concern, and attention from others, something we’ve often actively worked to avoid. So we found other ways to distract ourselves from the cycle.
For a while, it was anorexia. The aftereffects of falling into that eating disorder still plague us to this day, as we now struggle with ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) and find it difficult to even eat a single meal’s worth of food on any given day. After that, it was alcoholism. After all, if everyone else is drinking their troubles away, why shouldn’t we? But it got to the point that we could consume obscene amounts of alcohol and still come across as completely functional, even when blackout drunk and having no recall of events the next day.
So we’ve turned to healthier outlets to attempt to find peace and solace in a dying world. We write our feelings out, because sometimes speaking is still too much. We try to take up space, acknowledging our needs and wants rather than clinging to the mindset that others are more important, that their convenience should always be put first. It hasn’t been an easy process. There are still days we don’t want to eat at all, nights where we consider buying a bottle and finishing it over the weekend. But we hold to our beliefs.
Because we deserve better. We deserve actual serenity and happiness, events that lead to self-growth and positivity. We deserve a life we actually want to live. We’ve come farther than some thought possible, and we’ll go even farther as we find ourselves and the life we crave.
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