Giving up always seems like the easy way out of a bad situation. All my life, when things got hard, I wanted to quit. When I hurt and was lonely, and it seemed that nobody cared whether I lived or died, then it was easy to say I didn’t care, either.
But my perception of the situation was always wrong. When I was lonely, it was because of my own actions. Because I pushed people away. When I was hurting, it was because I’d let people into my life that I knew would hurt me, or because I’d hurt them first. It was almost always my own doing. I’d complain about failing again and again, when I wasn’t doing anything to fix my problems. I would complain, and turn right around and bury myself in a pity party.
I was my own worst enemy.
Not surprisingly after years of this, I ended up in a very dark place. I filled my mind with negativity, hatred, anger, and bitterness. I had no hope of ever living a happy life. I tried to convince myself it was justified, that I was the victim, but in reality I was killing myself slowly. Inexorably pushing myself towards a cliff that I couldn’t see, and any day, I would have fallen clean off of it. I’m ashamed to say I contemplated suicide more than once. Continue reading “Hope Is The Antidote”