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Thoughts About Giving Up

We all have them. You are not alone.

By Brandi PaynePublished 5 years ago 4 min read
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Sometimes things have beaten me down so bad that I almost want to give up. Life becomes so hard and it seems like everything is just falling down around me. It becomes frustrating to the point of having me sobbing in tears and then the thoughts hit my mind.

I want everything to stop or my life to end so that I can escape from it all, but that never seems to go my way either. Since I was a teenager, suicide attempts were almost an every week thing. I had been in the hospital so many times that I lost count.

My mental health status was failing and I didn’t know what to do. Everyone around me didn’t seem to care that I was in trouble and no one would help me. I was not hospitalized until I was about 32 when suicide attempts became a severe problem.

I had done everything from slicing my wrists to drinking bleach to slamming my head into brick walls to try and crush or fracture my skull, hoping to cause brain damage, but nothing ended my life. Everyday it became harder to get out of the bed because I flat out refused to face the day and the drama that would come with it.

As I was in and out of hospitals and went through periods of psychotherapy, I finally learned to deal with certain issues and how to face them. It would only work for so long before I was having those bad thoughts of giving up again, so I went back into the hospital for more therapy and medication. Even that was getting monotonous.

No matter what I did, giving up seemed so easy to do and think about. The suicide attempts started up again and then I became a heavy user of recreational drugs to try and cope or overdose—whichever happened first. I had a drug addiction because of mental health issues. It numbed me from feeling anything.

I knew other people had issues too, but I felt so alone in mine, so I turned to crack cocaine for a solution. Even though the high didn’t last long, I figured if I just kept smoking it and getting high that it would make my issues go away, but you can only get so high before it starts to become a waste of drugs and money.

I could get high enough to become scared of everything or paranoid, but an overdose would never come. Then I just learned to live with the fact that I was here for a reason. I began taking my medication correctly and doing my counseling, which gave me someone to vent to when I am having issues. I have been clean from drugs for 10 years now and doing my therapy.

I have my mental health issues, but now I know that there are people out there who can relate to my situation and I hope that I can help them. Life is not always going to be a walk in the park and problems will arise, but you must stay strong and endure it. It will pass, or you will come up with a solution to fix it. Sometimes reaching out to someone else will help as well because two heads are a lot better than one that is corrupted with illness.

Never allow someone to tell you that you are messed up because of drugs or alcohol because mental illness is real and afflicts many people in many different ways. I am not going to sit here and tell you that I have never again thought of giving up because it would be a lie. I think about it regularly, but I am learning to cope and deal with it correctly.

Having a good support system is priceless when it comes to mental illness and you should reach out to those around you for support. Let them know that you are having issues and that you need some help. You will find that it becomes easier to deal with when you know that other people have your back. So, when those bad thoughts of giving up seem to come and you don’t know what to do, just remember that there ARE other people out there who are dealing with it, too, and that you are NOT alone. Reach out for help and don’t be ashamed of something you have no control over.

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About the Creator

Brandi Payne

I'm a forty-eight-year-old woman who became a published author back in 2016. I write fiction and nonfiction in many different genre. I love to write and tell stories to the world and hope that everyone enjoys them.

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