Everything that would make me happy is beyond my control. I don't know who here is a person of colour, and can therefore relate, but the feeling that your existence is always going to be inferior to others because of the colour of your skin, the fact that, however hard you work, whatever you achieve, you will ALWAYS be 'less than' is unbearable. And on top of that are people denying those very experiences you have. Racism is deadly. It eats away at your sense of self, it diminishes you from a living, breathing human being, to less than an animal (people seem more willing to defend the rights of the environment and animals than they are of fellow human beings). Your existence is more unstable than an animal - it's reliant on others 'tolerating' you. Why do people always talk of being 'tolerant' of black people? Why is my existence only 'tolerated' in some fickle way, dependent on others wanting (even 'wanting' is an exaggeration - that suggests they care either way, when usually it's just indifference) me to live or breathe? I'm so tired of having to fight for everything. Everything is about survival rather than living and thriving.
This can apply to lots of things, but when ever a famous person dies it's considered a 'tragedy'. Why? They apparently had everything to live for. They were beautiful, and rich, and everyone loved them, wanted to be them. What about the people nobody wants to be? Would their death be considered a tragedy, or an act of mercy?
I see myself as existing to 'make up the numbers', so, in that case, whether I live or die doesn't make the world better or worse, but simply the same.
There's so much pressure to prove your worth, to show you're worthy of life. Inevitably, under the weight of all that pressure, you trip up. You never fulfil your true, great potential. And then what?
You can't even voice these worries or stresses because they're dismissed as 'in your head'. No. Racism is real, and it is deeply engrained in every part of society.
Beyond racism, for anyone in society deemed 'undesirable', or 'damaged', all the hype around 'suicide awareness', the campaigns urging people to 'talk', none of it is for you. You're the exception, Your death is no 'beautiful tragedy', but an inevitable outcome - not a loss, but not a gain either. It's simply irrelevant.
The vomit-inducing platitudes that are assuring you these feelings are temporary, that 'this will pass'. They don't apply to you. This is your reality, the consequence of who you were born as. You're meant to loathe yourself, you're the 'wrong' type of person.
I hate it when people get so caught up in explaining mental health in purely genetic or scientific terms. It excuses society, absolves it of any blame in causing people to crave death. You can take all anti depressants you like, but no amount of serotonin is going to make you happy, or even just not suicidal, if the world around you treats you like nothing. And it's not just being called the 'n' word. It's the micro aggressions that drive you to insanity. They're subtle, but powerful. They're enough to eat away at you, but sly enough to be dismissed by those who don't, or are incapable of seeing it, so then you're left alone with your thoughts and feelings, with nowhere to put them, and no-one to shoulder the burden with you, and soon you sink.
To anyone, black or not (there are many ways of 'othering' people in this world, but being black, female, and Muslim (although not practising) means I've already got 3 strikes) that feels like the world only 'tolerates' them, that they only exist because they happened to be born, not because people care for their life, I understand.
So, in answer to what can make me happy, I say, nothing, really. And that's the way it was meant to be.
