AxeL Blaze @axel_241
What does it mean to be happy? Does it mean having a nice, supportive family? Does it mean being healthy, like, living a healthy lifestyle? Honestly I don’t even know myself because I can’t help it but I’m on a verge of killing myself just because of my shitty life. Idk what wrongs have I done to be in this position. I never did anything wrong to anyone; never held stupid grudges to anyone; I tried to be in good terms with everyone; helped everyone in whatever situations and however I could. I have held myself in every situation, kept myself under limits, limited my desires and also never let my wishes get the best of me. All these sacrifices and still everyone hates me: my friends, my family, even random people I meet hate me. Idk why. What have I done so wrong that my life is literally going against me!?
Well, enough about myself. Let me tell you a story about a boy. Just to be clear I cannot tell you whether this story is real or just an imagination of my mind (for obvious reasons). He was living a nice life: he scored well in his exams, his teachers liked him, he was in good terms with his family and friends, and life was going smooth. Then suddenly he got into a law college. Not the college he desired to be, but he still accepted it because he knew he didn’t study enough to get into the top colleges. It was not a bad college though: the building was decent and the teachers were nice. First day of the college, he interacted with a few people, made some friends, got settled in the class. Things were going just fine: he was still in good terms with his family and also used to talk to them every day, he was getting acquainted with people, he even was getting rid of his overdeveloped social anxiety. Then in a flash everything went haywire. He started pulling himself away from the crowd, he stopped hanging out with people, he started fighting over stupid things, he began scoring less in his tests, and he even started avoiding his close friends and started pushing them away from him for no reason. He never wanted any of this to happen, still he was making all of it happen himself. His social anxiety, which he was trying to get rid of, grew tenfold. He tried to talk to his parents about this but they were so deep into their own problems that he couldn’t muster up the courage to talk to them. He mindlessly listened to all their problems, consoling them while fighting a battle of his own. This went for quite some time. Soon he started getting the hang of it. He started getting out more, he even began exercising and eating healthy. He was getting back on track. Then lockdown happened. He never knew what all trauma and disaster was about to be dropped on him. At first, it was all nice and cozy- family members bonding with each other, catching up with the lost time being in different cities and stuff like that. For the first few months of the lockdown it was all going smooth: waking up according to one likes, eating whatever you like, watching shows all night without worrying about the next day, you know, the good stuff. But as the months passed, things started to get weird. Everyone in the guy’s house started fighting over silliest of things. It was all like he was being treated in a very confusing way: on one side he was expected to “grow up”, look for a job and start taking care of the family and on the other hand he was expected to set his schedule like a 12 year old who is still going to school: waking up in the morning, having ridiculous breakfast, talking about how your day was and then sleeping before 10 p.m. like a child. Of course he tried to go against this stupidity but knowing his parents he had to keep quiet and follow this routine like a helot, a person with no opinion of his own. Soon enough he started getting scolded over almost everything: no matter if he did it or not. He was insulted and told to either leave the house or go kill himself many a times. It almost became his everyday routine: wake up, get scolded, study, get scolded again, go some work, get insulted again, sleep and then this cycle of his character assault would repeat the next day. There came a moment when he burst out because he just couldn’t hold it anymore, but the reactions he received afterwards was enough for him to realize that there’s no point in letting out his feelings to anyone in his family. I believe he still regrets coming out that day. Well, the clock ticked, days passed by and his anger and frustration started to build up inside him. He was forced to keep up a happy face and get along with people because he was on a threshold of having a mental breakdown. He did experience a multiple of those over the course of few weeks, but he was too scared to let his family know, considering how sickening they were. He started hating his family: he started avoiding tough talks with his mother or eve giving any sorts of suggestions to her, just doing whatever she told him to do, without questions, without complaints. He hated his brother because no matter what he did, he always got away with it; no scolding, no teaching a lesson, nothing. This made the guy even more resentful towards his brother which in turn made him hate over everything is brother said or did. If the guy’s life was a pie chart, then 87% of his mental breakdowns were because of his family and the remaining 13% were because of the external factors like friends, studies, college stuff etc. He never asked any of this, still he was getting smashed from every corner; no matter what he did, he was always criticized; no matter how many good things he did or how much he helped his family in any of the tasks, one minor slip up and he becomes the most disappointing kid in the world; no matter how much he tried to save money, the moment bills came up he was the one blamed for all the expenses. It was like he was being forced to do something that a normal person would never do in normal circumstances. He never asked any of this. Soon a year passed and still nothing improved between him and his mental health. He started being more quite, only speaking up when he was supposed to or when he had some work regarding any of the stuff. He started getting angrier over things one shouldn’t be angry about. He never wanted any of this to happen. He was not able to figure out why was he even living at that point? Why couldn’t he just gather up the courage, pick the razor blade he hid in is bathroom drawer and just end it once and for all? What was stopping him from freeing himself from this cycle of immeasurable misery? While having all these thoughts running into his mind, he kept living his life, doing the stuff he was asked to, faked a smile or two here and there so that people don’t communicate with him about what was going on in his life. He started spending more of his time on social media and online games, sharing about his miserable life with strangers he never met and probably will never meet. He lost all his focus from studying, his grades began dropping and these are online exams we’re talking about. He just wanted to move out of the hellhole he lived in. He wanted to have a new start, a fresh start where he can do whatever he wants, the way he wants to. He wanted to live a life where he was heard for the things which actually mattered, where he was respected for listening to other person’s problems and not just thrown aside like a lifeless doll. He did have some good moments amongst all this craziness which kept him going. The reason was that he held onto those rare moments, no matter how small they were, he held onto those moments like heaven. Even though they weren’t enough to heal him, they did work as a Band-Aid for his gruesome wounds.
Did I mention how he coped up while being in the state of total despair? I guess I didn’t. Well, he resorted to what a person with no friends or family support does: self-harm. He started hurting himself physically to numb his mental anguish. He first started it as a one-time thing, but soon enough it was like he started enjoying it. There were multiple slit marks on his wrists, some visible, some covered under his shirts. Winter season was like a blessing in disguise for him because he could go around slitting his wrists, making multiple cuts under that hoodie without even letting anyone know what was happening to him. There was this one time he just decided to end it all. Yeah, he took his razor blade and violently made cuts across his wrists in the hope of hitting a vein and let the fate decide the rest. But he stopped in between this painful venture. He still doesn’t know what made him stop. He might be regretting even today as to why he didn’t take the step that day, why he didn’t just end it all at once. Maybe something got into his mind, maybe he realized something. He might still continue cutting his wrists to this day to overcome that mental trauma he has been facing for God knows how long. He never asked any of this, He never wanted any of this. He wanted to be a normal boy, living a normal life, surrounded by his family and friends. But there he was, alone, with his family cursing him every day to kill himself, no friends to share what he’s being going through. He starves himself to a point where he gets sick so he can have a painless moment with himself, where no one can force him to not be himself. He never refuses the fact that his family hasn’t been there for him, they have, but only materially and financially. His family, specially his mother wants him to stand with their happy and sorrowful moments, he listens to all that painful stuff they are going through but he can never expect this back from them because he knows that they will never listen to his side of the story without killing him or themselves before he finishes with it.
Now back to the top: What does it mean to be happy? Let me tell you. It means to be able to open up when you feel down. It means to be able to express your feelings to the fullest: whether it be happiness, or sorrows, or painful moments, or whatever you feel. It means to know that there is someone who’s always there for you, and not just materially, but emotionally and spiritually. It means to not even know what it means to “hide things”. It means to have trust your life over the people you live with. It means to have someone you can hold on when you’re feeling low. That’s what it means to be happy: to be able to be whom you are, inside and outside.
