i am mentally ill.

i have been since i was born,
or at least, that’s what i’ve been told.
although perhaps
i never knew it, perhaps
the symptoms
were triggered by trauma, perhaps
it was something that never really seemed
like an illness to me until i knew
what was considered normal. but
i am mentally ill, or mentally disordered, or mentally whatever.

and i ******* hate it.

i hate it
because i cannot think logically most of the time.
i hate it
because whatever chemical imbalances
are inside of me
make me want to scream
and bleed
and punch the walls of my home
until there are more holes than stable ground. i hate it
because me having to speak in front of
my ******* friends is cause enough to
cry for three days, because
my friends don’t understand why
i am ecstatic
around them one day when sadness
crushes my skull the next, because
my friends don’t see logic in a matter of feeling
that doesn’t make sense to them let alone me.

i hate it because
i cannot give a logical reason for this.
i hate it because
i don’t understand why i am the way i am
or what i did to deserve this.
i hate it because
i don’t understand my illness,
i don’t understand how people can
just go out into the world and be happy,
i don’t understand what it’s like to
have something go wrong in life
and react in a way considered to be “healthy”.

i hate it
because my younger brother sits
in class and suffers from his own depression
but refuses to speak up
because he believes his depression
is absolutely nothing
compared to mine,
when to me
it is everything.
i hate it because
he might be cutting himself open
every night
or at least wanting to

and

i hate it because
when i texted all of my friends
as i sat sobbing on my front porch
at ten pm
on a school night
with a bottle of pills
nestled safely in my jacket pocket,
several of them thought it was a suicide note
but none of them cared enough to push further
in my answer of “i’m fine don’t worry about me goodnight”.
i hate it because
the only person who noticed it thoroughly enough
was my ex-boyfriend,
who i scared half to death
when i told him “i’m sorry”
and “i loved you a lot before we broke up”
and “you’ll understand”
and he replied with “oh my god
please don’t
please don’t
please don’t”.

i hate it because
i ignored him.
i hate it because
i wanted out.

i hate it because
the sky fell through the earth’s floor
like shattered glass and the blood-orange
sunset bled towards the grass; i hate it because
i lay softly on the earth of my front yard
and allowed the blades of grass to soothe me
towards the afterlife; i hate it because
the world spun and spun and spun and
my vision blurred and
my heart threatened to beat so far out of my chest
and i could not stop my breathing
but i kept on taking more pills like a child eating candy.

i hate it because
when i realised i wasn’t dead,
i cried.
i hate it because
i had thirty two new notifications
from my ex and the people he had contacted
to see if i was dead
but most of them were from him,
all missed calls and texts and
heavy breathing on the other side of the phone
once he saw me calling. i hate it because
his hands were shaking
and i was talking
and sobbing
with an ex love
on my front porch as the sun and moon switched places
with half a bottle of pills in my system
and the taste of blood in my mouth
instead of talking to my friends
and family
and people
who were supposed to care about me.

i hate it because
the next day i had a pulsing headache
and a suicidal mindset
and all of my friends were cracking jokes
about how they believed i was going to **** myself
when they had no idea
how hard i’d been attempting to do so.
i hate it because
i smiled and lied through gritted teeth
and cried in the bathrooms
when a teacher pulled me aside to say -
he thought something was
“off” with me. i hate it because
i still wanted to die.

i hate it because
i can’t think straight most days.
i hate it because
sometimes everything is okay
and fine
and i can breathe without the alien invasion of
“panic attacks from the planet post-traumatic stress disorder”
and cinnamon doesn’t trigger memories
i would like to forget.
i hate it because
people don’t take mental health seriously
enough to understand why
i leave classrooms in the middle of the day
or why some kids miss school for
two weeks without explanation or why sometimes teachers
with dead eyes are more dead inside
than the human skeletons dancing in the science classrooms.
i hate it because
teenagers make suicide jokes
near people who are dying.
i hate it because
i don’t know if i got out of bed
last tuesday or how long it’s been since i last showered
or if i still love writing as much as
i used to
or if it’s just habit now.

i hate it
because my illness makes me hate myself.

i hate it because
my illness
does not define me
but it sure feels like it does.
i hate it because i cannot explain my illness myself.
i hate it because i hate my illness
and every part of it that creates me, shapes me, moves me
like a ******* puppet.

but ******* it all
if i am going to let it ****** who
i am supposed to be any longer.