Drowning

If's it's not one thing, it's another

This one and that one falling down

Spending all my time trying to keep people afloat

Abandoning the ones treading water

In favor of those slipping down

But the ones treading water

Seem to sink down as soon as I turn away

And the ones half-drowning

Can't seem to be taught how to swim

And honestly, I feel myself losing strength

But how can I quit?

So, the other night, I ended up discovering why people want to turn to alcohol to drown their sorrows. I know I’ve recently actually admitted to being suicidal, but the sad thing is I’m not the only one- I’ve had to talk 2 people out of suicide, one of whom is my own sister, the other a dear friend who just can’t get a break from life and I had to talk away from a knife multiple times, and there are four more people that I know are depressed and worry about. And let me tell you, worry is EXHAUSTING. Keeping track of all these people’s emotional states, trying to comfort them when things go wrong, trying to cheer them up to counter their depression, worrying that they won’t be able to get ahold of you when shit flies, worrying that what you can do won’t be enough and knowing they really don’t have anyone else in their life willing to help… It’s a lot of responsibility to put on yourself. Of course I know nobody can control another’s emotional state and people are responsible for themselves, etc, but it’s hard not to get yourself emotionally invested in people, you know? I care about these people, and I want to help, but it does get very draining to care so much and then I end up feeling guilty for wanting to care less so I can get some emotional energy back, and it’s just a huge, vicious cycle. People tell me that I let people take advantage of me, and I don’t really see it that way but I think they’re all right… but how can I do anything different?

I ended up trying to dive into a bottle and drown my sorrows because mother ended up panicing and screaming… and I had dropped all my shields specifically keyed to her since I thought I was safe from all her random chaos halfway across the world. Yeah, apparently not so much. Had to raise all my shields up in a hurry to defend myself, then go cry on a healer friend’s shoulders to heal from the pain of that scream. The horrible thing about being a little bit psychic was that I could tell why she was screaming, but I still had to ask her for a definite answer… but of course I was right. Dad had threatened to suicide, which freaked me right the fuck out because I didn’t think he would actually start thinking about suicide until after mother dies… But I guess the stress is really getting to him. I’m pretty sure he’s STILL on the antidepressants he got prescribed when his dad died, which was 4 years ago, and he still suffers headaches that are progressively getting worse, and even though mother allegedly got easier to deal with when I left the house he still has to deal with her and her sickness, so I think it actually is starting to pile up more than he can handle.

Alcohol can work as liquid courage, but you can’t really drown your sorrows. You can get so drunk out of your mind you have no clue what’s going on, and you can get drunk enough you can barely remember what happened whilst you were drunk, but unfortunately you can’t use alcohol to forget things that upset you whilst sober. And it honestly scares me that my first thought was to turn to the alcohol, because both parents are alcoholics (and smokers, and dad’s a gambler, so I’m genetically predisposed to have an addictive personality). Of course it didn’t work and I’d rather not go through that recovery period again, but… What the hell’s left? What the hell am I supposed to do?