Maybe I Should Try Giving Up

 "Have you considered doing everyone a favor and killing yourself?"

People say all kinds of weird shit online. Sometimes, the anonymity of a nickname is really tempting, and you feel like you can say basically anything to anybody. Usually, there tend to be two reasons for that: the first one is the feeling of being liberated from the consequences of your own actions, and the other one is the idea that the things you say online can't cause actual harm.

You can always close the computer and log off. The things people say to you online will stay there: they don't have a lasting impact on your life, and they aren't following you around on the streets. The internet is relatively often considered an entity disconnected from reality. When I was a kid, we were always talking about our online lives and IRL lives. IRL as an abbreviation has probably been lost in MySpace times, but it served as the distinguisher of the life that wasn't real and the life that was. Those were not the same thing, and they should be kept separated. Do not take someone's online personality as the person they were also IRL. Do not let the things that happen online affect you IRL. Because the internet is not real. 

Millennials tend to view the internet in that kind of light, but Gen Z have a different viewpoint solely because they were raised by the internet. It was everywhere, all kids were using it, so it became a very real part of their everyday lives, their identities. And that is precisely the reason I am so baffled by the notion that was happens online stays online and can never hurt you in the same way real-life hardships can. 

a favor.

The fact that you can close the computer and log off of your accounts doesn't mean anything when you don't have any control over how much the shit people say online affects your brain. You cannot choose not to get traumatized – it just happens, and you can't do anything about it. But verbal violence is different for some reason in everyone's mind. 

There have been several instances when someone online has told me to kill myself. The phenomenon is not unique by any means, but it has happened so many times, by so many people, in so many different settings, that I can't really *not* be affected by it. Granted, I haven't done anything like that to myself yet, but the thought has entered my mind multiple times – in the form of an actual plan as well.

At times, everything just becomes too much to handle. Too hard, too painful, too difficult. And at times, I blame myself for everything, for letting it get to me, for letting it affect my brain so much, for being the way that I was. 

did you crack the code?

"Maybe you should try killing yourself."

Maybe you're right.

Still fighting,

ichigonya

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CHAPTER 1: BLAME – END