Kei's rambles

I'm not gonna sit here and say you won't struggle with your mental health in the future, or insinuate that your current issues are less real just because it gets better, but I will ask that you hang on in there and push through. There's been points in my life, a grand majority of it in fact, where I thought it couldn't get any worse and then it did, where hearing "it gets better" felt anger inducing, as if the other person just didn't get it, that that just wouldn't, couldn't, be the case for me.

I was wrong. Life isn't perfect still, but there's light at the end of the tunnel, I can see it. You can't see yours, but you will if you keep pushing forward. There's countless people I wouldn't have met if my attempts against myself were successful, I'm in a lovely relationship, I'm finally reaching my transition goals, I'm about to enter university to be a nurse, I'm about to move in with my best friend and take a huge leap into independence. There's the very real chance that after these next few years I won't struggle in poverty again.

I suppose everyone panics about it at that age, the sudden realisation that you're here, you're real, and one day you won't be here. You won't have been any less real, I suppose, but it's not like you'll be here to tell.

I was terrified, over the years I tried to grapple with those thoughts, thoughts so big they're avoided by even most adults. The uncomfortable reality of our own mortality, a ticking clock always there in the background, most so used to the sound they can tune it out. I guess, to a point, I did for a while, too.

Then, three years ago, the fear came back with a vengeance. It wasn't just a thought anymore, not a childhood fear of something I didn't understand, it was a full blown phobia. Thanatophobia, the overwhelming anxiety of death, made my mind its home. I started having panic attacks every day, multiple times a day, and there was nothing anyone could do or say that made it better. What is there to say? It will happen, one day I won't exist. At first most of me won't exist, and one day someone will utter my name for the last time without ever realising it'll be the last. That's the truth, a truth I cannot make peace with. I've learned to cope, to live with my bothersome roommate who, for so long, hogged most of my thoughts and time, but it's a bumpy journey and one which I wonder if I'll ever fully come to terms with.

At the start of this fight with myself, one thought plagued my mind; "If I'm here just to die, nothing matters. Why even try?" I don't doubt that's a thought many others have had. But, three years on I'm almost a different person. I've started reframing how I view things, how I view myself and my time on this planet, and I'm here to offer you this twist on that thought: If nothing matters, why not try?

Whether you try or not, we're all heading to the same place, all will eventually return back to nature and all will eventually be lost to time, so do the things you're scared of doing, do the things that are hard, do the things you enjoy, try. If you try you either succeed or you don't, if you don't try you won't succeed, full stop. Maybe we can't change the world, but we can make an impact on our lives and the people around us and we can make the best of this life.

Try the hard skill, try the hobbies you think are cool, write your thoughts, make art, tell the people you love you love them, sing loudly along to songs, wear the outfits you love, try for that career you love, put your all into the person you want to be because nothing matters. It's a miracle we're all even here, tiny specs on a floating rock going round in circles around a ball of fire, please don't waste your time not doing things because nothing matters.