• fartographer@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I’m not sure if I’d be proud or disappointed.

    trigger warning

    By age 10, I’d already decided I was going to kill myself at 24, and I was looking forward to it, assuming I hadn’t already died by then. By my 14th birthday, I was doing my annual countdown from 10.

    I don’t know if I’d be excited that I found things that made life worth living, or consider myself a failure for getting it wrong when I tried. Reflecting on that age, I don’t think myself an idiot or anything, I just see a kid who tried their best with what they had, and had already given up on what seemed like an inescapable situation. I feel bad for 14 year-old me, and I’m not sure I’d be able to face that kid without feeling completely destroyed.

    • Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org
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      18 hours ago

      Why 24? If you don’t mind asking. That’s kinda odd number.

      Like i chose 18, as im an adult by then and all the drug lectures at school painted a picture that I’d be offered drugs everywhere. So the plan was to OD at 18th birthday, seemed kinda nice way to go and a better alternative than become communal Fleshlight in the prison. Not that there was even any realistic threat of that happening, but thats in hindsight.

    • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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      17 hours ago

      So, I don’t know if there’s some kind of psychological phenomenon at play here — but it sounds like something very similar to a circumstance my mom went through (albeit, the stakes were much different).

      She used to smoke, and when she decided she wanted to have a kid (eventually me) she gave it up. What she told herself was that if she quit and wanted to start back up at 65, ok? Who cares, she’s already old at that point so it’s not like it’s worse than having smoked for the previous 45 years.

      Eventually never went back to them. She is actually repulsed by cigarettes now.

      I think what I take from that is my mom didn’t really give up cigarettes, at least not psychologically. In her mind she could go back at any time and there was no issue, she’d just go back to not smoking (and she didn’t even do that, she just quit). I wonder if maybe a similar thing happened to you here? You gave yourself a goal so far ahead in the future that you also gave yourself ample time to grow — even if that goal was inevitably death. It’s almost like sewerslide was your way of equalizing the playing field.

      Idk, I could be wrong — I’m glad you didn’t go through with it, though.

      • fartographer@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        I accredit proper medication, scaring the shit out of my friends and family who I thought would have been happy if I were gone, and LARGELY that change in mindset that you’re talking about.

        Thank you for sharing that story