I’m in nursing school because I want to become a psychiatric nurse, and I got my badge for my new DSA position at a psychiatric hospital today and it made me quite emotional. In December of last year, I started developing a plan to end my life and started writing a "note". In January of this year, I left someone who I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with. In February, I tried to voluntarily admit myself to a psychiatric hospital, but got turned away, leaving me feeling defeated. A little over 7 months ago, in March, I chose to try again, and I got the help I needed so that I could help others like me. It's always been a mission of mine to promote mental health awareness and help those like myself who suffer from mental disorders or illnesses, because I've dealt with these issues for majority of my life. In July, I started nursing school. To expand on that if anyone is interested, just because I'm a very open person when it comes to stuff like this, February of this year marked 3 years since my last attempt, and shortly before that, I almost broke that streak. With my birthday coming up this Sunday, remembering that made me sad at first, because for most of my life, I saw my birthday as nothing but a reminder of all the times I tried and failed. Especially because I've been trying since I was 10. All of those nights on the floor crying and begging for someone to to take the pain away, all the pills I've swallowed, the cuts on my arm, being found on the floor, and the thought of potentially having to take meds for the rest of my life. But this year, it doesn't feel that way. I spent most of my life not wanting to be alive and alternating between directly trying to end my life and putting myself in situations that would indirectly end my life. But at the beginning of this year, I chose to actually get and accept the help so I could change my outlook on life, and my life itself. Instead of focusing on how much I've suffered or how unhappy I was and slightly still am, I could use that pain and suffering as motivation to do what I can to help people who experience things like myself. I sometimes make a joke to my friends that I live out of spite, but my reasoning for saying that is that I’ve spent so much of my life suffering and hating everything as a result of it, that it's basically all I remember. As a result of that, I refuse to die knowing that all I can remember are hard times and the bad things that have happened in my life. But I say this to say, I've accomplished a lot this year, and I really am proud of myself, and that's not something I feel quite often being honest. Most times I never feel like I'm doing enough. I always feel like there's more could be doing with my life, completely leaving out the circumstances of my life and the shitty deck of cards I was dealt (and ones that I created) from the beginning of my life up until now. But I choose to use my pain, my nights on the floor, my failed attempts, and poor upbringing as my motivation to help someone else. Taking care of and helping people heals the parts of me that wanted someone to take care of me and cried out for someone to help me. While it won't erase anything that happened or that I've done, I choose to turn something ugly into something beautiful, and be there for others who struggle, because I've spent majority of my life struggling. I'm still struggling now in more ways than one, but I tell myself that "Every bad day has its end" and "Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness, and still become something beautiful” (the meaning behind those two tattoos). All in all, I can say it actually did get better. As much as I hated hearing that shit. But people don't tell you how much it hurts to heal. How triggering it can be to face your past or the ugly parts of yourself, the panic attacks resulting from that, the additional nights spent crying on the floor, and the extremely difficult task of forcing yourself to cope in better ways. But life goes on. The sun won't stop shining and the earth won't stop spinning because I had a hard life, but I started doing what I can to change the trajectory of my life. And I'll forever be grateful to the kind girl in 5th grade who told the guidance counselor when I tried stabbing myself in class. I don’t know who that was, but if you see this, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. 11;59.   submitted by   /u/thechaoscrown [link]   [comments]