I didn't die yet

I've been hospitalized more times than years than I've been alive and many of those times were because I tried to die. Popped pills and frantic forearm artery spurts, and atrocities against myself I can't speak of in detail. But I have yet to have forgiven my survival, the sense of failure upon waking upnin Intensive care units, or the taste of choked- down charcoal on my cracked lips. The crushing disappointment of failing at the one thing I thought I was good at: dying.

I am a suicide survivor in both my own attempt at taking my life and of my little sister's hanging in the basement. I understand the ramifications of suicide. But I also understand the desire. And I am not one of those who die to escape the pain while wishing they could love, not completely. I genuinely most of the time seek death itself. imagine getting high snorting suicide off the slit veins of your wrists. I keep running closer to the edge.

Sometimes it feels as though I live for dying, live for the day this will all be over and I can rest. Part of my anorexia is agonizing over a slow death. I feel like that is deserved, that am not even worth a basic "need" like food. The rules of my eating disorder work to silence some of the suffering my early childhood trauma brings, the flashbacks and fear that never goes away whether I'm asleep or awake.

I search myself for reasons to keep going. I have people I love who love me. But nothing seems to fill the gaping hole that eats away at me. I focus on the small things as much as I can. I schedule my days as much as possible to keep myself from having too much time to think but this feels like no way to live, just a mere existence.

I am trying to fill myself with more meaning

 I try to be the best person I can be for others. I want to leave with a whisper of wanting more from the life I've lived, less of a footprint in the sadness. This is not a suicide note. This is a piece of my existence, as halfway here as it may be. This is what I walk with on my back. And if you too are dealing with this, know that you are not alone and maybe together we can find a way to keep carrying this load, less lonely, know that we all are pieces of the puzzle on earth, completing one another. It is your choice how you bear your pain and I hope we do it together.