AkImA No NiKkI

  Nearing 30 isn't much change from when I was 20, unfortunately. Not as much as I had hoped. Mental illnesses don't go away with age, and my depression remains looming over my head. You live with your monsters, roommates in your brain for life, till death do you part. My autonomy is what changes, and thankfully for the better.  I used to love reading books, it gave me an escape from my own reality, a way for me to not become me. But in my late 20s, I grew afraid of reading, because of how much self-analysing I would inevitably do whenever I read something. I grew afraid of my own perception, that it would evoke too strong emotions that would make me feel as if I'm suffocating in them. I grew afraid of what my brain would conjure, and what it could bring out from inside me. I grew afraid of my own emotions, fearing that I don't have the capacity to sit with them. In a way, this is all a part of my own self-hatred. Hating what I am not, hating my own responses, hating my...

 It's 2025, and I'm 29 years old. Next year, I will be 30. A long time ago, I thought I would never reach 25. A long time ago, I sat through each night thinking it would be my last. A long time ago, I thought one of my attempts would be successful. I don't know how to live because this future wasn't in my plans. I didn't think I'd still be alive by now, so most of the things I'm doing are automatic.  But I'm happy, surprisingly. There are bad days and good days, obviously, and being a full time government worker, it's a monotonous routine each year. But the vacations I spend with my family and friends make up for it. And the times I spend alone are peaceful.