eht I don't know what exactly is going on with you and I won't pretend that I do. But please allow me to talk about myself because it sounds like that symptoms of the struggle you are going to are quite similar to mine. My emotional turbulence got particularly worse today and I was reminded of the existence of your post above.
I don't necessarily suffer from depression (or hell, I might be mildly suffering from it but I never got a chance to diagnose myself except looking up some online shit couple times). It all started from when I was 10 year old in elementary school. During lunch recess, I was one of the nonchalant, happy boy who enjoyed running around the field on a regular basis. I thought the happiness will last forever until I bumped into this guy who proceeded to bully me for next 5 years. He had a huge circlejerk behind himself that the school faculties were too untalented to get rid of, and after getting beaten up during lunch recess, the rest of the days in the elementary school was a torture. I was very talkative, or rather, a loud boy until that beatup happened. While I physically recovered quickly, the beating had too much damage left in my memory. Once in every few days, I woke up from my sleep from nightmare sweating. It always led to me bursting into tears for at least half an hour in the middle of the night. When I told my parents about this, they wouldn't believe me and they would rather reprimand me for doing something else in the middle of the night and trying to come up with excuses. I couldn't even tell on teachers because one, I was a coward, and two, there were some death threats from the bully that I won't even mention because of how unspeakable they were. Fortunately, he was arrested after going to middle school and he will hopefully spend the rest of his life under surveillance of whatever the institution that decided to take a punitive action.
The whole chain of events I had to go through in elementary school made me suffer from being unable to sleep for the 6 months in middle school, which got worse after I have moved to a different side of the Earth. I had to continue sticking with my unempathetic family with barely anyone who would ever understand my shitty English to ever give me a break from the general sadness and sleep deprivation. At some point, my older sibling pretty much replaced the bully I had to deal with in elementary school and started using me as a toy. Everyday I spent during middle school started with a prayer that I won't be beaten or be insulted when my parents were not in the house or during the night. I was too weak to bear with another ordeal and that led me to the point where I got less than 3 hours of sleep per day and I forgot how to smile.
This is where my questions about committing suicide came in. Within less than the first year I moved to US, I made about 4 attempts to end myself. This included drowning, intentionally avoiding to drink water for a day or two, and more. Every time my attempt failed, I fell into a deeper despair with a thought that I am too weak to be courageous enough to end myself quick by using something sharp instead of doing something that takes more than a few minutes, and moreso, I was too much of a weakling to deal with events that eventually pushed me to that point. Me around that time was a guy who struggled to get up from a chair on his own and needed about 5 hours of lying on bed to ever grow drowsy enough to fall asleep. In fact, I continuously waited for the next moment I could end myself because I was honestly curious about whether my attempt will be successful this time or not.
It was 1584th day of me being unable to sleep right when I heard that my grandmother, who is the only one in my family tree who actually treats me as a human being, almost died and ended up with Alzheimer, losing most of her memory. When I overheard the phone call in 2:47 AM in the middle of the night, I was terrified to the point where tears started rolling down from my eyes immediately and blood came out at the same time due to the wound next to my eye that was not yet healed from the beating that happened a few hours ago. I quickly ran to the restroom with a thought I should quietly cry so that I won't wake everyone up in my house. I thought it was perhaps the best chance that I can end myself if I could open the wound and let it bleed until I die of hemorrhage. I turned the light on to identify the exact spot of my wound. The light came out, and I suddenly saw myself in the mirror. It was just a 16 year old kid with a mixture of tear and blood rolling down from his face. It was nothing other than a teen who wanted to end himself because no one around him will ever understand what is going inside in his head and will rather mock him if he ever dares to talk about his suffering. I was rather mad at myself at that point because I never attempted to ever get out of the loop and was sitting in the toilet in the middle of the night, thinking I was in a struggle that I cannot overcome.
While that night didn't necessarily improve my overall situation, it at least forced me to move on and try being a more rational human being. The hatred I once had towards myself turned into a catalyst that got me out of the loop of sleep deprivation. Though it lessened problems with sleep deprivation, it ended up shaping me as a person who is very skeptical and overall quite pessimistic.
I still fear about the next 'strike' of a sudden surge of sadness that always gets me during the middle of the night, and I don't know if that will throw me back in the loop again. But I know that if I managed to survive this long cycle of stress, lack of sleep, and a few suicide attempts when I was even less mature than I am right now, I have a good chance to make it through.
It always seemed to me that life is you vs. the world. Whatever you are facing against, it will be stronger against you. Perhaps the short depression I had might have been stronger than myself. But I don't think you make through your life by necessarily be stronger than something. It is a matter of how many times you get up when you get wrecked. If you are inherently stronger than an obstacle that gets in your way, you are not struggling with it at all. I believe struggle comes from dueling anything that is stronger than myself, and the ultimate goal is to survive the duel instead of necessarily winning it. Perhaps me when I was 13 tried to force myself to win the duel, making me go ahead of myself and worsening the situation as a whole.
I don't know who you are. I have probably seen you the first time when you earned yourself a ladybug. I'm truly sorry if my wall of text didn't do any good, but I was rather feeling oddly familiar to see someone who is bright on the outside but has a deep dark things going on inside. If there are people who need / like / know you, and whether you get to see them in real life or here, that probably means you still have so many worthwhile things left to do. I tried to make myself actually able to go to sleep and when I tried to fill the void in the middle of the night when I know I can't really sleep, I found this website. Perhaps the community you currently dwell in can be a catalyst for your escape from the loop of depression.
It's 1 AM for me and I'm tired so I'll stop here before my writing becomes worse. I meant to vent here about my life after arguing with my parents for 3 hours and writing some profanities on the paper but I remembered that someone here is going through something similar. Anyways, know that at least one person you see in this website will be down to talk with you for an hour (longer if my schedule allows me to) with you about anything. I do this a lot with my high school friends who have as shitty life as I did years ago. I can share more experiences about how so many people threw me off. Lastly, I wish you luck.