The roller coaster

It’s like being on a never ending roller coaster, it starts off slow, then there is a slight bend in the path and you start to accelerate upwards. You finally reach the top and can see everything happening around you. You begin to take in your surroundings, until you realise that what goes up must go down and then bang, down you go. Twisting and turning, your life flashes before your eyes, you have no idea where you are going or what is going to happen next. You mind is buzzing, the adrenaline rush has taken complete control over your body. You think this is the end and then you begin to slow down, coming back to reality. Your heartbeat returns to normal and you’re back on ground level with everybody else. You get up to leave wanting to join everyone until something reminds you why you are there in the first place, and then bang the ride starts all over again. 

One day you are going to have to get off the roller coaster, one day it will break down and there will be no one there to fix it and you must decide if the roller coaster is worth saving. If you rebuild the roller coaster yourself maybe you can change it so that there aren’t so many twists and turns and just the odd ups and downs now and again, making it better for you. Or do you just choose to walk away, what is the point in repairing something that will never be fully fixed. This is how I feel every day, every day I am on a different piece of track of the roller coaster and when given the opportunity to get off I say no because I always hope that next time it will be better. But it never is.

This is my story, and it’s time for me to decide whether to fix the roller coaster or walk away. I’ve always struggled with the way I am, with the choices I make and the person I turned out to be. I’m unhappy and everything I try to do to fix it always leads me down the wrong road, making the situation worse. You may thing I’m being a silly and over reacting, but to me my life is a disappointment. Sometimes good things do happen, but as a majority the bad outweighs the good. For the past 10 years I have kept telling myself it will get better, I will become happy, but it never does and I never am, the roller coaster goes on and on and I’m starting to feel sick and I desperately need to get off.

A typical movie consists of girl meets boy, they fall in love and it’s a happy ending. But what happens after the credits, do they continue to be in love, do they get married have a couple of kids, live in luxury until their dying day. Or do they realise that maybe they don’t actually love each other and break up, or does one of them unfortunately die. Movies are an unrealistic representation of what actually happens in the world, some people are fortunate enough to have their own fairy tale ending whereas others are stuck waiting for it to happen. I hide away in my movies to hide behind the truth, to forget what my life actually consists of, I spend most of my time with my earphones in imagining that I’m somewhere else doing something I love with someone I love, but then it’s time to come back to earth and go back to everyday life. Not everyone can be a hero, not everyone can fall in love with their sole mate and not everyone can be happy.

I have never officially been diagnosed with a mental illness, but the way I am isn’t how a normal person behaves. Ten years ago I was a bubbly, confident child and now I’m a sad and empty twenty year old woman who has got to the stage in her life where she no longer cares. I have slowly started to shut down, which has resulting in me losing friends and family. It’s not done intentionally; sometimes I don’t even know I’m doing it, some people tell me that I have a split personality. I go through stages of being incredibly sociable to stages of isolation where I lock myself in my room for days avoiding all human contact. It scares me, and the worst thing about this whole situation is that I have no one to talk to.

Most people think I’m crazy, and in some cases I have come across that way, but when people start to look at you differently, it can make the situation worse as you feel alien. People like me struggle to deal with who we are as it is without people making it more difficult by sticking a label on us and treating us differently.  I don’t know who I am; I want to fit in and to do this I conform to what people expect of me, my tastes, hobbies and even my behaviour. It’s only recently that I’ve started to defend myself when it comes to conflict, before I would have taken the abuse that was given. I’m terrified of being different; I don’t like the thought of not fitting in and being alone, which is basically what I am. I’m not the person people think I am.

Hiding how I feel is the main focus of my day, it starts from the moment I get up to the moment I fall asleep, it’s never a good thing for people to constantly see you sad; otherwise they form an instant dislike of you and being disliked means no friends, which leads to feeling lonely. When I was younger I wanted to be an actress, I attended classes up until the age of ten and through it became a very good liar. I’m not saying lying is a good thing, but I do believe that in some situations it is necessary. To me acting basically is lying, you are pretending to be someone that you aren’t; just like I pretend to be someone I’m not. You take over that person’s identity, you become them, leaving the real you behind. For those few minutes you can forget who you are and you become a part of something. I’m a very good actress because every day for me is a show and everyone falls for my act. To my friends and family I am happy, bubbly, ditsy Mandy but I’m not this person this Mandy is a character that I make up every day so that people don’t notice how I really feel. Only when I’m alone can I be the real me.

Some people refer to suicide as cowardly, selfish and a cry for help, but I don’t believe this at all. How can ending your own life be cowardly, do people not realise how much courage it takes to kill yourself. Knowing that this is the end and that you will never see your family and friends again, it’s terrifying and can only be done by someone who is so unhappy that they can’t stand the thought of living. You may be leaving your family and friends behind, and they probably will cry and hurt, but then you have been hurting for years and maybe it is time to think about how you feel and what you want to do with your life. Trying to commit suicide is not a cry for help unless you are one of those childish human beings doing it for the attention. For me committing suicide isn’t about gaining help, it’s about ending my life, where I want to go I won’t need help. Sometimes there are people who will do it for attention though these people won’t aim to kill themselves, instead they will only do enough to harm themselves or they will tell everyone what they plan on doing, but for people like me we just want to die.

So there you have it, my views, my plans and maybe my end. But first you deserve to know why I think this way and how I came to be the person I am. You can judge me and my story yourself. I won’t say it’s a happy story but then it’s not a sad story either, it’s a story about life, it’s full of love and hurt, happiness and sadness. Unlike most novels there isn’t a happy ending, but then there isn’t really an ending at all.

Author's Note

I should point out that this is a fiction book and the story is not real but based off real situations