Eight surgeries deep, and my heart is most likely giving out, they tell me with that practiced neutrality that makes you feel like a case study instead of a person. I'm 28 years old, and my body is a battlefield I'm losing. POTS makes the world do its shitty grayscale Instagram filter trick every time I stand up. Some days, I can't tell if it's anxiety or my potentially failing heart that's making my chest feel like it's caving in. The physical pain is almost a relief compared to the mental—at least when my body screams, I know it's real. I know I'm not making it up.

I've fought the suicide demon every single day for as long as I can remember. Some mornings, I wake up disappointed that I did. That's not poetic or dramatic—that's just Tuesday. Wednesday. Every day ending in Y. I genuinely believe I am a problem. A blight on this planet. A ruiner of everything I touch. I mean, come on, just read the lyrics to any one of my songs. 

I hear it so often that it must be true.

Someone recently screenshotted Facebook posts and sent them to me. They wondered if that's why I'd gone dark on social media earlier this year—Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, nearly all of it. A family member had been making posts about narcissists. One was posted on the day I tried to kill myself and ended up in the hospital.

There were no calls from them. No visits. Just a post about narcissists.

The post read: "Nothing triggers a narcissist like accountability. The second you call them out, their rage erupts not from innocence, but from exposure... Once i said i couldnt keep giving her money she wrote me out of her life, forgetting everything i have ever done for her. I have been absolutely heart broken but the more i read about a narcissist the more i understand this is her mo. Use, abuse and then disregard a life long relationship."

I need to examine this with brutal honesty. I'm not trying to play the victim. I'm trying to understand what I've done, how I've hurt people, and why I seem to leave destruction in my wake.

The facts: Last winter, during a severe mental health crisis, I asked for some money. I believe it was for fuel for a job interview, though the mental fog was thick then, and I don't know the specifics anymore. I received a text in response listing all the ways that I take advantage and only care about money. After reading it, I made a decision to step back from that relationship because I recognized that these interactions were pushing me deeper into suicidal ideation. I set a boundary for my survival.

More facts: I owe that person $5,000ish. Other family members owe them tens of thousands. Why does everyone else get leniency? But, yeah, I guess I'm the one who stepped away. I'm the one who created distance. I'm the one who had to make that choice for my own safety. For the record, once I'm able to, I know I'll pay them back in full with interest. Just not soon enough for them, apparently. 

I've been called a failure by my family. I've been told I hurt everyone and take advantage. These are their truths about me. And when I look at my life—at 28, severely mentally and physically unwell, unable to maintain any real stability—maybe they're right. I make messes. I struggle. I need help more than I can give it.

I was emancipated at 16. My family situation was complicated. People tried to help in the ways they knew how. They gave me money. They had Herculean-level expectations I couldn't meet. I disappointed them. I continue to disappoint them.

I think there have been attempts to reconnect, but I interpret these as manipulation; maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm so broken that I can't recognize genuine attempts at connection anymore. Maybe my narcissism makes me see ulterior motives where there are none.

I think about the document I wrote analyzing my authorial brand about "Radical Resilience." This philosophy I've built around the Wounded Healer who transforms scars into strength. I write about protagonists who build better systems when the world's fail them. The irony is suffocating—here I am, preaching resilience while drowning in shame, writing about found families while believing I've destroyed my blood family.

But I keep wondering: if I really am a narcissist, would I be asking this question? Would I be examining my every failure, cataloging the ways I've hurt people, desperately trying to understand how to be better? Would I have removed myself from situations to protect others from my toxicity?

I know narcissists are characterized by a lack of empathy, an inability to accept responsibility, and grandiosity. I feel everything too deeply. I accept so much responsibility that I'm drowning in it. I see myself as less than nothing. But maybe that's just another form of narcissism—making everything about my pain, my struggles, my failures.

The facts remain: I have severe health issues. I've needed financial help. I've set boundaries when relationships became harmful to my mental health. I've struggled to maintain stability. These are true. Whether they make me a narcissist or just a deeply flawed human trying to survive—I don't know anymore.

I think about radical resilience differently now. Not as some triumphant overcoming, but as this hourly choice to keep breathing when everything in me wants to stop. Maybe I'm not the wounded healer of my stories. Maybe I'm just wounded. But I'm still here.

There's a small handful of people who still check on me. My found family. They see something in me I can't see in myself. I don't understand why they stay, why they care, why they haven't written me off as the narcissist I probably am. But they're here.

I'm devastated by all of this. The weight of potentially being the very thing I've been accused of being is crushing. But I'm still fighting those suicidal demons every day. Not because I believe I deserve to live, but because there are a couple of people who, for reasons I can't fathom, still love me.

Maybe I am a narcissist. Maybe I'm just broken. Maybe there's no difference. But today, I choose to keep breathing. To keep examining myself. To keep trying to be better, even if I'm failing. To acknowledge the hurt I've caused while still protecting my fragile hold on life.

That's all I have. The admission that I might be everything they say I am, coupled with the stubborn refusal to stop trying to be something else. It's not inspiring. It's not triumphant. It's just the messy truth of someone who doesn't know if they're the villain or the victim or both, but who keeps choosing to wake up anyway.

Somewhere in this mess of mental illness and physical deterioration and family dysfunction and financial struggle, there's still love. I don't deserve it. I don't understand it. But it's there. And that's enough reason for me to keep fighting, even if I'm fighting against my own nature.

I take responsibility for the pain I've caused. For the relationships I've damaged. For the help I've needed and the inability to give back in equal measure. For stepping away when staying might have been the braver choice. For being too much and not enough all at once.

But I also take responsibility for staying alive. And today, that has to be enough.