(WARNING: DISTRESSING STUFF IS DISCUSSED)

It has been hard to recount most of the month, aside from certain moments which define how hard this month has been and some positive. I’ve been going through everything from chats online to my phone gallery to see what I have done last month (or this month on the last day, depending on when this gets sent).

By now, I’ve told you all about my roommate. My horrid, horrid roommate. Well, despite all the constant notices I had given the apartment complex, he actually got in trouble and got given a warning. Yes, one warning. What was the issue? Believe it or not, he decided that the best time to use a blender was two in the morning. I recorded audio of him doing so, sending the audio to the apartment complex and they mentioned that I wasn’t the only one to complain. They also heard from the neighbouring apartment that complained about him using a blender at two in the morning. What did they do to fix the issue? I still have not a single clue. A warning on the phone, which does nothing at all, possibly. Did the roommate change at all due to the warnings? Absolutely not. I still heard him and his girlfriend argue over the phone, swearing up a storm, and have sex on different days, so he hasn’t changed at all. He was just as unpleasant as he always has been. But I don’t have to deal with him anymore.

During the early stages of the month, my mental health was declining. Badly. The overwhelming feelings of paranoia, anxiety, OCD, depression and Impostor Syndrome was building from last month, and it didn’t help that some of that stemmed from an assignment that I was doing. It wasn’t because of the stress, the deadline, it was due to the content itself. The content was that I had to create some form of media in their style. I decided to draw as I wanted to break out of my comfort zone, and I hadn’t drawn anything in months. But in choosing a friend who’s style looks insanely professional, and someone close to me, the constant comparisons that my mind did overwhelmed me incredibly. Her talent and the fact that she is in her third year, while I was redoing years depressed me greatly. It was hard to see these friends of mine without those thoughts. It was difficult to be in those situations, and made worse as their workplace was near my bus stop, so they would occasionally see me. They are kind people, I just become paranoid in seeing them due to the constant comparisons. It became too overwhelming.

Too overwhelming to deal with.

And on June 7th, around 12-1am, I tried to end that overwhelming feeling.

On a particularly awful night, I just couldn’t take it. This journal was called “An Attempt Was Made” for a reason. I went to the balcony of my apartment that was on the twelfth floor. I placed a chair on the corner of the glass guarded balcony, and forced myself to try and step on the chair. I eventually get both my feet on the chair, and I try to jump.

I tried to commit suicide.

I failed, of course, but I don’t know what stopped me. It wasn’t my family missing me. It wasn’t my friends not having me around. It wasn’t even this site wondering what was happening, or friends on Discord asking where I was. It was something. I just don’t know what. And it wasn’t the possibility of a future. With a wife (or husband). With a child. With a home. With projects. It was something that I’ll never know. And I want to know. Maybe that knowledge would give me purpose. The last message that I had sent anyone was an apology to my Uni friend for failing Uni during the start of the year. That would have been the last message I had ever sent if I went through with it. Truth be told, the strange thing that came after that was that whenever I had any anxiety or panic attacks, the thing that calmed them down was the fact that I had tried to end it.

I told the GP later on last time she called about it. She recommended some places in Adelaide which will call soon later on this week.

I told my family about it later on. And then friends. It has been hard to accept that I had tried to do that at times, but honestly, with the amount of stresses I’ve had and with the lack of any professional help being accessed, it was really a matter of time before an attempt was made.

I have stayed up countless nights trying to get Uni assignments done, spending several days staying in doing work, with rarely any healthy food to keep me going. Even then, the assignments were barely on time. Most of them were days late, even with extensions, and the last assignment passed the due date for it and the time where I could still send it and it wouldn’t be a fail. The assignment which caused the second most stress this semester was two days and seventeen hours late. The assignment after that was four days late. The last assignment was eight days late. One of the assignments was the make-or-break assignment. The assignment that could cost me my time in Uni. Thankfully, I got a credit for that assignment, meaning that subject is a pass. The other two I haven’t received the marks for, and I am not hopeful for them to be pleasant grades.

It didn’t help that the assignment that took the most time, and it was a group assignment, without the group aspect. A group of two, leaving one (me) to edit an entire short movie on my own, without any sort of help from the other member whatsoever. He was constantly asking if it was done, without asking if I needed any help. It came to the point where he would constantly contact me on Messenger, leaving posts on my Facebook wall for everyone to see, and somehow getting my mobile number, something that I never gave him at all. Stress wasn’t great for all of the people working on the film, as the script that I wrote didn’t go over well with the cast, which is fine, since I wrote it during a bad time, and it was just something that I wanted to hear being written down by me. We ad-libbed most of the dialogue as what I wrote didn’t feel natural. During the end of production, people were annoyed by it, and I am not surprised. It wasn’t an organized day, but then that is because I had to find the location and still work on assignments during that point. I got more help on other assignments from people who had finished their own work.

On a more positive note, I’ve moved. I’m away from the city and only a walk away from the University. I am away from that roommate, and I have a double bed that I can rest on rather than a single bed, pushed against the wall, like in the other place. I’ve only been in there for over a week, and I haven’t got to know most of the people living in the place. Some of people I’ve seen are rather nice, always saying hi. Really, I’m only in there to get my own space with better walls that block out sounds. There are minor issues, but compared to the place that I was staying in, this is head and shoulders better than where I was.

But it isn’t all fun. On the 24th of June, I attended a VFX night at my University, that was supposed to be on during 2020, but of course that didn’t happen. Already, I was nervous, and it didn’t help that the first thing that I see was my friend, the one who I based my assignment on. It was already not a good start, and the other friends who have gone on to do VFX work were there also. As we entered, I already felt like the black sheep amongst the group of friends. I was silent. As I went into the auditorium for the VFX night and as it continued, I realized that I had no future in that industry. All the talk of what they expected was something I couldn’t provide. I couldn’t do it. But the comment that hit the most was when the organization that my friends were in for their final year said that their organization was like “a family”. That made me feel like I was certainly the black sheep amongst my friends. When the night ended, I went out to get a beer, chugged it and broke down outside, crying and sniffling. I immediately called my family to try and calm me down, and then called my friend to do the same. He did a good job getting me to settle. He said that I needed help, professional help. And thankfully, I am getting that soon. I am hearing from them tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I’ll meet my friends for one night. I’m not ready, but I need people.

It has been tough. But I’ll be seeing my family next week. I need them.

I need help.

Take care.