Introduction: Revelations 5:10

Camp Don't Kill Yourself #1

This is for anyone that is feeling like shit or knows someone that is. For anyone feeling anxious, alone, sad, lost, overwhelmed, frustrated, depressed, suicidal, or all of the above. Pause, inhale, exhale, repeat, and read on.

I don’t know the source of your worries, or what you are going through. A bad break up, family drama, death of a loved one, health issues, you might be pessimistic by nature, or maybe you stubbed your toe this morning and want the world to burn.

Whatever it may be, there’s a way out of the current situation. And though I do not know you or your situation, I do know that I want to help.

Who am I, and what makes me so convinced that I can lend a helping hand? Let me introduce myself.

Just a few weeks ago I myself concluded that I detested my life. For years I hid all the hatred for all that consumed me with white lies and cheap hedonism. Wasting time with temporary solutions, resulting in the most expensive invoice one can possibly pay.

So I bought a backpack, a plane ticket to a country far away and left it all behind.

I used to be a healthy man. Life was good. And then it wasn’t. Early October 2015 I tripped, fell, smashed my head into a metal fence and lost it all. University, job, sports, house, friends. But above all: my health.

From that moment on I have been (and still am) accompanied by an ever present physical pain. Every verb imaginable worsens it, from blinking my eyes to breathing, from talking to sitting. Every. Fucking. Verb. Imaginable. Twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year: pain.

So there I sat, for years. The hospitals’ and therapists’ most loyal visitor. Incapacitated, alone. Insert nausea, loss of consciousness, mental demons, financial problems and flames having intercourse with my skull to the mix, and you might understand how I obtained my PhD in depression.

(How can I travel with all of the above, you ask? Medication, a lack of interest in the opinions of others, and loathing the prognosis of shriveling away, leading a vacuous life.)

But, Camp Don’t Kill Yourself is not about me. It is for and about you. It is for every person that wants to do better, feel understood, acknowledged, feel less alone, feel more secure and/or could use a way out that doesn’t involve permanently stopping their heartbeat.

I empathize with how it feels to lose “friends”, to feel rejected, not taken seriously nor cared for, to be looked at as an outcast, to be misunderstood, to endure financial misery, lack of love, loneliness and receive advice on life from self-proclaimed experts. But, most importantly, I wholeheartedly support you in your decision to refuse to quit.

So, put down the razor blades, stop deep throating that shotgun and leave the rope and stool on the shelf in the hardware store. Let’s climb out of this abyss together and strive for a life you enjoy and appreciate, shall we? Let’s kill our former selves figuratively.

Welcome to your first day at Camp Don’t Kill Yourself.

Be sure to follow me on instagram: campdky

I wrote a novel! It’s available at: Amazon (Headfirst - Vic Koopmans)