sometimes i feel like i am suffocating. it's as if all the progress i have made since i was thirteen is forgotten and i find myself wishing i was dead. i know i've come far, all the years spent in rehab and treatment, in and out of inpatient mental health institutions and six years of therapy... they weren't a waste, right? i didn't waste hundreds of thousands of dollars throughout my adolescence just trying to find a reason to stay alive. i know i didn't. i found my reason, i am my reason. but i still find myself thinking that i am not a good enough reason. that i don't want to be good enough, for if i'm good enough that means i have no reason to leave. that means i have to stay alive.
i was talking with you the other day, while driving to your mothers house, about what you would tell your younger self and you replied "to do better in high school so college isn't as stressful" and then asked me what i would tell myself. i pretended to think for a moment, like i was contemplating everything i would say. you look hopeful, i feel guilty. "i would tell her not to throw up the pills." the rest of the car ride is spent in silence.