Find Love Together – Logan Briana

I have really bad anxiety. Most of the time I have no idea why. I look at my life and sometimes I am like, “Yeah makes sense I am anxious.” Other times and more than not, I think, “Logan, why are you so anxious? There are no significant reasons for you to feel this way.”

For the longest time, and still, I think it has a lot to do with my hormones, but for right now that is just my WebMDing-self saying that and there being no real diagnosis. Right now is one of those periods where I am having suicidal thoughts almost 24/7. I also know I don’t want to die. I know what it feels like to be suicidal and want to die, and this isn’t it. It’s my anxiety.

My anxiety suffocates me. I have panic attacks where I lock myself in dark rooms and can’t do anything. I constantly think about driving myself into something and poof I’m gone, which means my anxiety is gone. But, one thing that keeps me from doing that is I’d end up surviving and paralyze myself putting even more work and issues on me and those around me.

There are some days where I have to focus on just living because I am so close to slitting my wrists because then I am “free.” When I say, “I want to die” or “I want to leave,” (meaning I want to leave this earth) I know my anxiety is BAD. What makes it so bad is that even I think that there is no possible reason to be anxious, so it’s not like I can work on eliminating what is making me anxious. Right now, I am not struggling with several things that were big contributors to my anxiety just six months ago, such as school and not being able to pay my bills or buy food or fill my gas tank to drive to work. Yet this month, but this week being significantly worse anxiety wise, all I think about is dying. What keeps me going is knowing deep down that I want to live.

Yesterday, I almost puked because of my anxiety. Most people blamed it on it being my first late-night being on phones at work. Which honestly, I wasn’t really at all nervous about that. I had taken calls before. I was fine, yet my anxiety was making me ill.

The thing about having suicidal thoughts is that it is mentally draining. I don’t think anyone who has suicidal thoughts 100% wants to die. Many other factors go into those kind of thoughts, though, one is actually wanting to die because I did genuinely want to die when I was in the heart of losing all of my family. This is why I attempted suicide several times. Now, I have no interest in dying, but my anxiety tells me that I do. I have lost the number of times that I have had to focus on one point in a room and solely that to stop myself from physically killing myself because the anxiety was becoming too strong to control.

There are times that I haven’t let the anxiety win because I wasn’t alone, and I didn’t want my cousin or one of my roommates or someone to find me. I didn’t want to do that to them. One quote I see a lot associated with suicide is, “You don’t stop the pain, you only pass it on.” That has helped me win over my anxiety and the thoughts it can create 24/7.

The thing about suicidal thoughts is that they take pieces and pieces of you until you barely are anything. Those who didn’t win and committed suicide were strong enough until they weren’t. People will say that those people were selfish. No, and saying those kinds of things don’t help anyone. The number of times people said words like that around me without knowing I was having similar thoughts made me feel worse about myself.

With me being a Christian, I, of course, have had the thought, “If I kill myself then I’m going to hell.” The thing is, if I ever did lose to my thoughts (though I don’t think I ever will) it will be because I had absolutely no more in me to control myself mentally or physically. God has been with me. There have been a couple of times where I would have been successful but one or two factors stopped me.

One moment that comes to me instantly is when my aunt and I were fighting (which we did daily) but with this fight, words were said on both our parts. She didn’t say I was worthless, but along those lines, and then said she was going to leave me on my own and never come back. At this time, this was the beginning of my periods of severe anxiety and suicidal thoughts. I didn’t fully realize yet that it was my anxiety telling me these thoughts, not me as a person. Also, Aunt Debbie being the sole person I had in my life then tell me she was done with me and was planning to abandon me did not help. I was already being told lies from the anxiety and then adding her words pushed me to one of the closest times that I had to taking a knife to my wrists. She was between me and the kitchen so I was waiting until she left. With her rarely following through with her words, she never did leave, so my extreme emotions died down because I wasn’t going to do that to her because ultimately I knew she couldn’t handle that.

When the anxiety and suicidal thoughts are at their worst and I’m borderline about to cave into them, I become hallow. I know if I can get past them then I will eventually get back to my smiling and genuinely happy-self. This is why I believe my hormones contribute greatly to these thoughts.

September is Suicide Awareness Month, and it means a lot to me to help share that awareness. One reason why I started this blog was to reach those who were struggling. There are so many effects (most being invisible) that come with having anxiety and suicidal thoughts. It is hard enough dealing with them while having support from others, let alone being alone. I have had to deal with most of these thoughts ultimately without anyone. Honestly, without God, I wouldn’t have beat the thoughts this far in life and I am beyond thankful for Him.

If you or someone you know might be at risk of suicide, Call 1-800-273-8255 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Also, you can text “Home” to 741741 when you are feeling depressed, sad, or going through any kind of emotional crisis, a crisis worker will get you back and continue to text with you.