I am going to tell you a story.
A few years ago, I met someone. We - from my perspective - really hit it off. But the relationship was strictly professional, and while I flirted in my own way (i.e. not obvious at all), no action was taken on either side.
I was infatuated with him. I thought about him every day. Meeting him had changed me to what felt like a radical degree. Whereas before I met him, I played it cautious, I wasn't spontaneous, I didn't care about being in a relationship with anyone. But after I met him, I would go drive for the sake of driving. I went skydiving. I went hiking and adventuring alone. Mostly done for bragging rights to have something to tell him when we saw each other, but also because he made me feel wild and reckless.
He was also the first person in my life where I could picture myself settling down. Being committed. Starting a family.
It took me years to admit this, but yes: I was in love with him.
As I said though...nothing ever came from what I felt.
Instead, I secretly pined for him. Hoped against hope I would run into him around town, outside of the workplace. That he would see me on social media and suddenly want to get to know me more.
It never happened.
He didn't know how I felt until, a few weeks before I moved hundreds of miles away, I told him something along the lines of how I wouldn't have minded if something had happened between us. But at this point, he had a girlfriend for several months and was pretty committed to her. I wasn't trying to break them up, but rather create some closure for myself.
I left with a broken heart.
Even though I was hundreds of miles away, I still thought of him. I was unhealthily obsessive in checking social media to see if he posted something, or to see if he "liked" anything I had posted to my account. I kept hoping against hope that maybe something would happen, and he would realise that we were "meant" to be (even though I readily admit, there is no such thing).
One day, he posted to his social media account (which wasn't very often at all). He had proposed to his girlfriend. They were engaged. I saw this on my lunch break at work, and my heart sank. That was it. Game over.
I drove to my other job after I got off work, and met up with a man I had been spending time with. He left me for a few minutes to go get coffee, and when he came back, he saw the tears I had meant to conceal, and insisted in his caring way that I tell him what was wrong. What had happened. So I shared a brief recap of everything.
Fast forward a few weeks.
This man I has been spending more and more time with became my boyfriend. I was still nursing the wound of a broken heart, but this man knew that. He cared for me. He wanted to be alongside me in my road to getting better, both emotionally and in regards to my mental health.
Over time, we grew to love each other. We quickly became best friends, not just boyfriend and girlfriend. We went on adventures. We admired the beauty of nature together. We fought. We reconciled. We learned to adapt with each other. We fought to keep our relationship strong.
And now?
Here we are.
Living thousands of miles away from where we first met. Married. Happy. Working on strengthening our marriage, on growing closer, on changing (for the better). Fighting for our marriage.
This morning I thought about the other man I was in love with. I imagined what it would be like to be married to him. And you know what? I couldn't see it. That is to say, I could see it, but it was a dead end. It would have amounted to nothing.
Because nothing can compare to the man I married. The man I am committed to for life. The man who is my best friend, who is the love of my life, the man I cannot wait to start a family with.
This man has the biggest and kindest heart of anyone I know. He loves me unconditionally. He is humble, willing to admit when he's wrong, and willing to change for the better. He knows the struggles I face and instead of telling me to look him up when I've figured it out, he has embraced walking by my side, supporting me, holding me up through the storms, and helping me walk a path towards getting better. He is walking alongside me as we both figure out what a relationship with God looks like, and how we should be living. He takes care of me, he cares for me, and he loves me. Period.
There is absolutely no match for that. There is no match for the man that he is. For all that we've been through and fought through. I cannot see myself with anyone else. I do not want to be with anyone else. If soulmates were really a thing, he would be mine. I have chosen him, and will continue to choose him every day of my life. I have loved him with all my heart, and will continue to love him as fiercely and as strongly as I am capable of.
There is beauty that comes after heartbreak.
It may take a while.
It may take years.
It's not worth it to go around and try to fill the cracks of your shattered heart with other relationships. Or other ephemeral things. Rather, in the meantime, be content with being alone. Try to find out who you are. In this way, you can help the person who will eventually come along, get to know you as well as you know yourself.
There is a difference between being alone and being lonely.
Don't be afraid to be alone.
A broken heart is a struggle.
It is pain and sorrow and sickness and unrest.
But give it time.
Give yourself a little grace.
Be patient.
Wait.
It's worth it.
Friday 27 December 2019
Friday 6 December 2019
Trauma
I have been thinking about trauma a lot recently.
I have never thought of myself as a person who has experience trauma. In fact, up until the past year or so, if you asked me if I ever thought I experienced trauma in my life, I would have answered quickly with a "no." But that has changed.
This fact didn't even register with me as it was occurring, but back when I lived in southern California, I was going to therapy. And it was helping. A few short months before I moved, my therapist started doing EMDR therapy with me. And it wasn't until I moved and had stopped going to therapy and had time to think (finally), that I then realised...EMDR therapy is usually performed on people who have experienced trauma in their lives.
I won't get into specifics, but my therapist and I focused on my junior high years. Years that were, obviously, imperative to my growth both mentally and physically. Things that happened that I had no control over left me with a lot of issues that I am only now uncovering.
The thing is, is that I can't talk to my family about this. Because it involves them. To a certain degree, at least. My parents did the best they could; they did what they thought was good for me. My siblings all have their own ideas and perspectives on how we were all raised, so what may have been a horrible experience for me, was a happy memory for them. After all, perspective determines reality.
I don't even dare mention the possibility that I may have gone through trauma as I was transitioning from an adolescent to an adult. The mindset(s) I walk away from with my family is that if I talk about something too much, I use it as a crutch. Or it's just the influence of "the world" that is making me think I experienced trauma; not that I actually experienced trauma.
But that's the thing...who I am...who are they...to tell my brain any differently?
You see, I struggle with this.
Because the signs are there. The things I feel now. The way I handle life. All the repercussions of how I was raised/treated as a child. The fact that my therapist felt the necessity to walk me through that kind of therapy in order to help me walk through trauma I lived through but had no idea I lived through it.
If I mention it to anyone in my [immediate] family, they will most likely think I'm exaggerating or making it out worse than it actually was (again, from their perspective, maybe it wasn't), but...it's there, right? I am now dealing with things that I had no control over when I was a child, and it has majorly fucked me over, despite my parents doing what they thought was best.
And I cannot bring this up to my parents. I don't want to say "hey, you did this because you thought it was the right approach, but it fucked my brain up and you actually traumatized me." That would wound them beyond repair.
How ironic.
That for the entirety of our lives, we are still the children of our parents, and even in our adult years they do their best to shield and protect us. And yet, as we continue to age and live as adults, we - in turn - try to protect and shield them.
(Yet another topic for another time.)
And then...
An incident happens.
One you can't really tell people about.
But you felt so utterly alone, so completely abandoned, yet you know what you saw, and the results come back normal, but you know what you saw. And you keep thinking about it and thinking about it and wished you weren't alone so someone else could have seen what you saw with your own eyes, and from that point forward you try to convince yourself you aren't crazy and you know what you saw.
But you can't talk about it.
You can't process it, other than thinking about it over and over and over.
And you question if that incident caused you to feel trauma to a certain extent.
And then feel crazy, because how dare you think you experienced trauma, you're probably just playing the victim and wanting attention and it was all in your mind anyway.
...right?
I...
I don't know.
I feel like there was trauma, but who am I to say?
I know it definitely affected my mental health. And my attitude. I know this, because it affected my relationship.
Feeling so completely alone and knowing that soon I will have absolutely no one to turn to if that happens again; that this time, at least - even if it was delayed - I had someone come to help me. But next time?
There will be no one.
Who knew that even if you have someone in your life, that you could still feel so completely and helplessly alone.
I have never thought of myself as a person who has experience trauma. In fact, up until the past year or so, if you asked me if I ever thought I experienced trauma in my life, I would have answered quickly with a "no." But that has changed.
This fact didn't even register with me as it was occurring, but back when I lived in southern California, I was going to therapy. And it was helping. A few short months before I moved, my therapist started doing EMDR therapy with me. And it wasn't until I moved and had stopped going to therapy and had time to think (finally), that I then realised...EMDR therapy is usually performed on people who have experienced trauma in their lives.
I won't get into specifics, but my therapist and I focused on my junior high years. Years that were, obviously, imperative to my growth both mentally and physically. Things that happened that I had no control over left me with a lot of issues that I am only now uncovering.
The thing is, is that I can't talk to my family about this. Because it involves them. To a certain degree, at least. My parents did the best they could; they did what they thought was good for me. My siblings all have their own ideas and perspectives on how we were all raised, so what may have been a horrible experience for me, was a happy memory for them. After all, perspective determines reality.
I don't even dare mention the possibility that I may have gone through trauma as I was transitioning from an adolescent to an adult. The mindset(s) I walk away from with my family is that if I talk about something too much, I use it as a crutch. Or it's just the influence of "the world" that is making me think I experienced trauma; not that I actually experienced trauma.
But that's the thing...who I am...who are they...to tell my brain any differently?
You see, I struggle with this.
Because the signs are there. The things I feel now. The way I handle life. All the repercussions of how I was raised/treated as a child. The fact that my therapist felt the necessity to walk me through that kind of therapy in order to help me walk through trauma I lived through but had no idea I lived through it.
If I mention it to anyone in my [immediate] family, they will most likely think I'm exaggerating or making it out worse than it actually was (again, from their perspective, maybe it wasn't), but...it's there, right? I am now dealing with things that I had no control over when I was a child, and it has majorly fucked me over, despite my parents doing what they thought was best.
And I cannot bring this up to my parents. I don't want to say "hey, you did this because you thought it was the right approach, but it fucked my brain up and you actually traumatized me." That would wound them beyond repair.
How ironic.
That for the entirety of our lives, we are still the children of our parents, and even in our adult years they do their best to shield and protect us. And yet, as we continue to age and live as adults, we - in turn - try to protect and shield them.
(Yet another topic for another time.)
And then...
An incident happens.
One you can't really tell people about.
But you felt so utterly alone, so completely abandoned, yet you know what you saw, and the results come back normal, but you know what you saw. And you keep thinking about it and thinking about it and wished you weren't alone so someone else could have seen what you saw with your own eyes, and from that point forward you try to convince yourself you aren't crazy and you know what you saw.
But you can't talk about it.
You can't process it, other than thinking about it over and over and over.
And you question if that incident caused you to feel trauma to a certain extent.
And then feel crazy, because how dare you think you experienced trauma, you're probably just playing the victim and wanting attention and it was all in your mind anyway.
...right?
I...
I don't know.
I feel like there was trauma, but who am I to say?
I know it definitely affected my mental health. And my attitude. I know this, because it affected my relationship.
Feeling so completely alone and knowing that soon I will have absolutely no one to turn to if that happens again; that this time, at least - even if it was delayed - I had someone come to help me. But next time?
There will be no one.
Who knew that even if you have someone in your life, that you could still feel so completely and helplessly alone.
Wednesday 13 November 2019
I remember the day my brain broke.
I often try to forget bad memories, because really, who wants to relive that shit and harbor it and feel tormented (more than usual) all the time?
Definitely not me.
But that day is one of the worst memories filed away in my brain, and it's not one I can forget.
But it happened.
And my brain broke. Literally.
Because, you see, before, I used to have panic attacks. But they happened sparingly. And usually only in the middle of the night, where I would wake up in a cold sweat, and semi-hyperventilate to the thought that instantly came into my mind.
And now...
Now panic happens a lot more.
Something happens, something triggers it, and I not only start to panic, but I start to hyperventilate. Which feels like something I can control. Because when it's happening, I'm thinking in my head 'this is dumb. You don't need to do this. You can stop right this moment. So, stop.' And yet...I can't stop.
It gets even better.
Not only do I panic during the waking hours of life (whereas before I did not), but I still panic at night.
Now I wake up and start hyperventilating for one reason or another.
Sometimes there's no reason (just like before). I'll wake up suddenly and it'll start. Other times, I'll have bad dreams, which cause me to wake up hyperventilating. (This never happened before.)
I wish I could go back in time.
I wish I could change my actions, change what happened that day, change the mindsets of the people involved; if only to tweak things enough to where what happened wouldn't have happened, and maybe my brain would be whole.
Not that it was whole before...but it was a little better off, I think.
I don't like being broken.
I don't like the fact that I wake up, unable to breathe properly, and how long it takes me to calm down.
I don't like that I can't talk when it happens...my brain is already stressed out to maximum capacity when panic occurs. It overloads when someone tries to talk to me and tries to get me to respond to them when I'm hyperventilating...which makes it so incredibly worse.
My brain broke that day.
And I don't think it will ever heal.
And now I - and the people closest to me - have to live with my brokenness.
(I hate who I am.)
I often try to forget bad memories, because really, who wants to relive that shit and harbor it and feel tormented (more than usual) all the time?
Definitely not me.
But that day is one of the worst memories filed away in my brain, and it's not one I can forget.
But it happened.
And my brain broke. Literally.
Because, you see, before, I used to have panic attacks. But they happened sparingly. And usually only in the middle of the night, where I would wake up in a cold sweat, and semi-hyperventilate to the thought that instantly came into my mind.
And now...
Now panic happens a lot more.
Something happens, something triggers it, and I not only start to panic, but I start to hyperventilate. Which feels like something I can control. Because when it's happening, I'm thinking in my head 'this is dumb. You don't need to do this. You can stop right this moment. So, stop.' And yet...I can't stop.
It gets even better.
Not only do I panic during the waking hours of life (whereas before I did not), but I still panic at night.
Now I wake up and start hyperventilating for one reason or another.
Sometimes there's no reason (just like before). I'll wake up suddenly and it'll start. Other times, I'll have bad dreams, which cause me to wake up hyperventilating. (This never happened before.)
I wish I could go back in time.
I wish I could change my actions, change what happened that day, change the mindsets of the people involved; if only to tweak things enough to where what happened wouldn't have happened, and maybe my brain would be whole.
Not that it was whole before...but it was a little better off, I think.
I don't like being broken.
I don't like the fact that I wake up, unable to breathe properly, and how long it takes me to calm down.
I don't like that I can't talk when it happens...my brain is already stressed out to maximum capacity when panic occurs. It overloads when someone tries to talk to me and tries to get me to respond to them when I'm hyperventilating...which makes it so incredibly worse.
My brain broke that day.
And I don't think it will ever heal.
And now I - and the people closest to me - have to live with my brokenness.
(I hate who I am.)
Sunday 10 November 2019
Saturday 9 November 2019
No one will ever understand.
No one will ever fully know me.
I am alone in this.
In this darkness.
In this madness.
In this world.
Day after day,
the darkness slowly erodes the life.
I can feel it.
I can feel myself fading away.
The strongest fears I have that wake me up in the middle of the night,
the ones that cause panic attacks out of nowhere,
even these have no power over the darkness.
Soon, my love.
Someday soon I will gain the courage.
The courage to put an end to this growing madness.
The courage to finally silence the chaos within my head.
And maybe then,
I will finally be able to rest.
No one will ever fully know me.
I am alone in this.
In this darkness.
In this madness.
In this world.
Day after day,
the darkness slowly erodes the life.
I can feel it.
I can feel myself fading away.
The strongest fears I have that wake me up in the middle of the night,
the ones that cause panic attacks out of nowhere,
even these have no power over the darkness.
Soon, my love.
Someday soon I will gain the courage.
The courage to put an end to this growing madness.
The courage to finally silence the chaos within my head.
And maybe then,
I will finally be able to rest.
Saturday 2 November 2019
I chose this life.
In a way, at least.
That is to say, I didn't choose to be who I am. Be the way that I am. To struggle so intimately with a fear of death. Or to wake up every day wishing I wouldn't wake up. I did not decide to have the brain that I have, as intelligent and dysfunctional as it is.
(Honestly, sometimes I think I'm highly intelligent, and that the cost for being such is to not know what being normal - i.e. having a chemically balanced brain - is like.)
But the life I did choose, was the one I'm currently living.
The one where the man who holds my heart is gone for long periods of time.
Where we are separated from each other, sometimes only for a couple of weeks, other times for months on end.
Where communication is cut off, and he's in potentially dangerous situations, and I am constantly worried about his safety.
About whether or not my phone will ring with an unknown number with news that will change my life forever.
This life is not for those who are faint of heart.
And yet...here I am.
Not because I don't have any other choice.
It's life. Everything that happens is dictated by a choice (more or less).
I could choose to leave. I could have chosen, from the very beginning, not to be a part of this. To not even encourage it. But that would have been betraying what I felt, and what I felt was right.
So I am here by choice.
A choice borne of love and commitment and wanting to support the dreams of My Heart.
Honestly, I didn't even think about myself when this all started.
I didn't think (didn't realise, truthfully) how difficult this could be. The potential for things that could happen.
Would I have changed my mind if I had taken those things into consideration?
...I'd like to think I wouldn't have.
But who's to say for sure?
But it isn't easy.
It's heart-wrenching, it's throwing internal temper tantrums, it's wishing there was any magic way to speed time up to make the months of separation pass.
But there is no way to bypass these moments. No way to make them not happen. No way to skip ahead to the happy reunion of being together again.
I don't like it.
Who in their right mind would?
I spent a lot of years of my life hardening my heart, building up walls miles high, turning off my emotions so I wouldn't have to feel and suffer and break.
And then I met the man who won my heart.
And I started to allow those walls to come down. I allowed myself to become soft, for his sake. I realised that I could, indeed, feel things, and while in general that's good, it's not always so good.
Like in the times when we're separated.
Never in my life did I think I would be so connected to someone on all fronts, that I would almost physically hurt while being apart from them.
I knew I had the potential for that. Because I knew of my tendency to get extremely attached to people; which I also fought against by keeping distance between myself and any other person around me.
But he came along, and he won my heart.
He is My Heart.
He is a part of me.
When he's gone, it feels like a piece of me is missing, and I don't feel whole until we're together again.
Part of me hates this.
Being so dependant upon someone, being so attached to them, that some days I feel like I can't go on, like I want life to end, because they're not around.
It makes me feel like something is wrong with me.
Like I'm too dependant upon him.
Like he's a crutch, he's my weakness, he's my downfall.
...I don't like having weaknesses.
So of course I don't like this.
I could change.
I could allow myself to reverse progress.
I could stop being soft, stop feeling, start building up those walls again.
It makes sense, right?
It's self preservation.
After all, how else am I going to go through an almost-whole year of being separated from him?
I could barely hold my shit together when we were apart for seven months, and he was in a safe environment, and I occasionally heard from him.
...how the fuck am I going to keep my shit together this time, being apart longer, and knowing he's in danger all the time?
I am terrified.
I honestly don't have any idea how I'm going to make it through this. Again.
On the inside, I feel like a child, kicking and screaming and throwing myself on the floor, pounding my fists into the ground, crying, screaming "MAKE IT STOP!"
But it can't stop.
There is no way to prevent this.
It's going to happen whether I want it to or not.
My heart hurts so much even thinking about it.
And I know I shouldn't be thinking about it.
I know I should be more present, enjoy the time I'll have with him before he's gone.
But I can't ignore what's going to happen.
I have to keep it in mind, because it isn't going away.
Oh god, I want it to go away.
I don't want this.
I don't want to be apart.
I don't want to be separated from My Heart.
...
(I just want to die...)
In a way, at least.
That is to say, I didn't choose to be who I am. Be the way that I am. To struggle so intimately with a fear of death. Or to wake up every day wishing I wouldn't wake up. I did not decide to have the brain that I have, as intelligent and dysfunctional as it is.
(Honestly, sometimes I think I'm highly intelligent, and that the cost for being such is to not know what being normal - i.e. having a chemically balanced brain - is like.)
But the life I did choose, was the one I'm currently living.
The one where the man who holds my heart is gone for long periods of time.
Where we are separated from each other, sometimes only for a couple of weeks, other times for months on end.
Where communication is cut off, and he's in potentially dangerous situations, and I am constantly worried about his safety.
About whether or not my phone will ring with an unknown number with news that will change my life forever.
This life is not for those who are faint of heart.
And yet...here I am.
Not because I don't have any other choice.
It's life. Everything that happens is dictated by a choice (more or less).
I could choose to leave. I could have chosen, from the very beginning, not to be a part of this. To not even encourage it. But that would have been betraying what I felt, and what I felt was right.
So I am here by choice.
A choice borne of love and commitment and wanting to support the dreams of My Heart.
Honestly, I didn't even think about myself when this all started.
I didn't think (didn't realise, truthfully) how difficult this could be. The potential for things that could happen.
Would I have changed my mind if I had taken those things into consideration?
...I'd like to think I wouldn't have.
But who's to say for sure?
But it isn't easy.
It's heart-wrenching, it's throwing internal temper tantrums, it's wishing there was any magic way to speed time up to make the months of separation pass.
But there is no way to bypass these moments. No way to make them not happen. No way to skip ahead to the happy reunion of being together again.
I don't like it.
Who in their right mind would?
I spent a lot of years of my life hardening my heart, building up walls miles high, turning off my emotions so I wouldn't have to feel and suffer and break.
And then I met the man who won my heart.
And I started to allow those walls to come down. I allowed myself to become soft, for his sake. I realised that I could, indeed, feel things, and while in general that's good, it's not always so good.
Like in the times when we're separated.
Never in my life did I think I would be so connected to someone on all fronts, that I would almost physically hurt while being apart from them.
I knew I had the potential for that. Because I knew of my tendency to get extremely attached to people; which I also fought against by keeping distance between myself and any other person around me.
But he came along, and he won my heart.
He is My Heart.
He is a part of me.
When he's gone, it feels like a piece of me is missing, and I don't feel whole until we're together again.
Part of me hates this.
Being so dependant upon someone, being so attached to them, that some days I feel like I can't go on, like I want life to end, because they're not around.
It makes me feel like something is wrong with me.
Like I'm too dependant upon him.
Like he's a crutch, he's my weakness, he's my downfall.
...I don't like having weaknesses.
So of course I don't like this.
I could change.
I could allow myself to reverse progress.
I could stop being soft, stop feeling, start building up those walls again.
It makes sense, right?
It's self preservation.
After all, how else am I going to go through an almost-whole year of being separated from him?
I could barely hold my shit together when we were apart for seven months, and he was in a safe environment, and I occasionally heard from him.
...how the fuck am I going to keep my shit together this time, being apart longer, and knowing he's in danger all the time?
I am terrified.
I honestly don't have any idea how I'm going to make it through this. Again.
On the inside, I feel like a child, kicking and screaming and throwing myself on the floor, pounding my fists into the ground, crying, screaming "MAKE IT STOP!"
But it can't stop.
There is no way to prevent this.
It's going to happen whether I want it to or not.
My heart hurts so much even thinking about it.
And I know I shouldn't be thinking about it.
I know I should be more present, enjoy the time I'll have with him before he's gone.
But I can't ignore what's going to happen.
I have to keep it in mind, because it isn't going away.
Oh god, I want it to go away.
I don't want this.
I don't want to be apart.
I don't want to be separated from My Heart.
...
(I just want to die...)
Sunday 27 October 2019
I think I'm beginning to remember.
What I was like when I was in high school.
Through recent reading and watching ventures, it's starting to come back to me.
I would call myself pretty emotionally stable, but even so, I used to feel things all over the place when I was younger. Emotions felt so big and overwhelming and so, so heavy.
But this is the thing: they weren't emotions caused by me. That is to say, they were not directly linked from me and how I felt.
I get caught up so easily with other people. Not drama or gossip, nothing like that. Just...how do I put this?
If people are feeling things...actually...if people are going through things, I feel like I'm right there with them. The burdens they carry, the heaviness they feel...I subconsciously take it upon myself to be there, right alongside with them, to carry those burdens with them, to feel the heaviness of their emotions, just the same as them.
And it's not healthy.
Maybe that's one (of the many) of the reasons why I have become more isolated over the years. Not because I dislike people (although we know all too well that as a whole, I greatly dislike humans), but as a mode of self preservation. I didn't know how to NOT take on these burdens, how to NOT feel what others feel. So...I stopped being around people so much. I already had issues with my own mental health, and that took a huge toll on me as well.
And now, here I am, back to reading books or watching shows on netflix, and these characters - these people who are NOT REAL - are affecting me.
I can feel it.
I see the change happening in my mood and my mentality.
I start to relate to them, and it changes me.
I may be having a good day, but then I watch a show with a character who struggles with crippling depression, and I start to feel that way, too.
I read a book, and can relate to the main character in some way, and while I'm reading the book and for a short duration after, I take on some of their personality traits (in a subtle manner) and it changes who I am.
Is this how it is for everyone?
Or is this just yet another example of how fucked up I am? How broken I am?
I used to think that I couldn't feel. That I was an emotionless being, and I was okay with that. But I think it's the opposite. I think I feel deeply, and I think I feel largely. To the point that the struggles and emotions of those around me are things I take upon myself. And I guess I just finally shut down, because it became too much for me, and I couldn't handle it anymore.
But I have met the love of my life. And in meeting him, I began to feel again. Which is good. Mostly. Because he deserves to have someone who isn't a heartless bastard.
But at the same time, it's bringing up old ways I thought I had gotten away from.
Am I too emotional?
Am I too sensitive?
Is that what it is? What's causing me to relate and take on burdens and emotions and traits of people, both fictional and real?
Or is it something else?
Just one more psychological problem I have, knowing I have it, but having no idea how to live with it or overcome it or heal from it.
I'm tired of feeling.
The weight I carry suffocates me more every day. I don't need weight from others on top of that. I don't need to feel even more, and feel like I'm going mad, because I don't know how to handle any of what I'm feeling.
I'm just...I don't know.
I don't know.
What I was like when I was in high school.
Through recent reading and watching ventures, it's starting to come back to me.
I would call myself pretty emotionally stable, but even so, I used to feel things all over the place when I was younger. Emotions felt so big and overwhelming and so, so heavy.
But this is the thing: they weren't emotions caused by me. That is to say, they were not directly linked from me and how I felt.
I get caught up so easily with other people. Not drama or gossip, nothing like that. Just...how do I put this?
If people are feeling things...actually...if people are going through things, I feel like I'm right there with them. The burdens they carry, the heaviness they feel...I subconsciously take it upon myself to be there, right alongside with them, to carry those burdens with them, to feel the heaviness of their emotions, just the same as them.
And it's not healthy.
Maybe that's one (of the many) of the reasons why I have become more isolated over the years. Not because I dislike people (although we know all too well that as a whole, I greatly dislike humans), but as a mode of self preservation. I didn't know how to NOT take on these burdens, how to NOT feel what others feel. So...I stopped being around people so much. I already had issues with my own mental health, and that took a huge toll on me as well.
And now, here I am, back to reading books or watching shows on netflix, and these characters - these people who are NOT REAL - are affecting me.
I can feel it.
I see the change happening in my mood and my mentality.
I start to relate to them, and it changes me.
I may be having a good day, but then I watch a show with a character who struggles with crippling depression, and I start to feel that way, too.
I read a book, and can relate to the main character in some way, and while I'm reading the book and for a short duration after, I take on some of their personality traits (in a subtle manner) and it changes who I am.
Is this how it is for everyone?
Or is this just yet another example of how fucked up I am? How broken I am?
I used to think that I couldn't feel. That I was an emotionless being, and I was okay with that. But I think it's the opposite. I think I feel deeply, and I think I feel largely. To the point that the struggles and emotions of those around me are things I take upon myself. And I guess I just finally shut down, because it became too much for me, and I couldn't handle it anymore.
But I have met the love of my life. And in meeting him, I began to feel again. Which is good. Mostly. Because he deserves to have someone who isn't a heartless bastard.
But at the same time, it's bringing up old ways I thought I had gotten away from.
Am I too emotional?
Am I too sensitive?
Is that what it is? What's causing me to relate and take on burdens and emotions and traits of people, both fictional and real?
Or is it something else?
Just one more psychological problem I have, knowing I have it, but having no idea how to live with it or overcome it or heal from it.
I'm tired of feeling.
The weight I carry suffocates me more every day. I don't need weight from others on top of that. I don't need to feel even more, and feel like I'm going mad, because I don't know how to handle any of what I'm feeling.
I'm just...I don't know.
I don't know.
Saturday 26 October 2019
"I owe it to myself."
Those are words I don't think I've ever uttered sincerely - or seriously - in relation to myself.
Ignoring the bulging bag of issues I have with phrases like that aside, it's not anything that I would ever say in application to me. To people in my life whom I love? Yes, absolutely. But to myself? As if.
In the past several months, I have realised a lot of things about myself, about my childhood, about who I am and why I am the way that I am today because of my past. And one thing I have realised (and being in a committed relationship kind of brought this to light), is that I completely ignore myself in pretty much all aspects. My wants and my needs and my opinions hold no value. To me, so most certainly to those around me, too...right?
I tried to figure out why my mentality is like this. Why I have become an expert in the field of ignoring myself. And I realised it was because of my childhood.
I had a really strong sense of justice growing up (I still do). But I also lied a lot because I did things I wasn't supposed to do. So the result of my lying all the time, was people not believing me when I was telling the truth. (The boy who cried wolf, anyone?) But I was also the youngest. This meant in a big family in a too-small home, that I was easily overlooked and forgotten about. So I guess my child brain made the connection "hey, do things - bad things - to get noticed!" Which meant that when I was noticed, it was for negative things, which resulted in me getting in trouble all the time.
(This is most likely the reason why I hate absolutely any kind of attention on me. Attention = bad things in my childhood, which makes it feel bad now, even as an adult.)
Off point, though. I ended up being ignored a lot, because "fair" wasn't applicable when you had older brothers who had bigger stomachs and could therefore eat more than you, so they got more food and you didn't. It wasn't applicable when you made dessert for the whole family, but wanted everyone to have equal portions. It wasn't applicable when you actually were telling the truth, but your older brother was treated specially because of his mental retardation issues, so he was believed due to parental guilt and favoritism.
In time, I learned that, hey, if everyone else is ignoring me, I may as well ignore myself, too.
And so I did.
Which brings me here.
Where when it comes to getting things done, I can't.
Well, let me rephrase that.
If I have to do things, or get things done, or have responsibilities that should be taken care of, but I am the only one affected by if these things are done or no, I have absolutely no motivation or drive to accomplish them.
Because I do not matter.
But if you throw other people into the mix: colleagues at a job, friends, fellow classmates, whatever...then I am so there. I get that shit done, and I get it done in a timely manner. Because if anyone or anything else is affected by my lack of completing tasks, then that drives me to get it done. Because they matter. But I do not.
And now I'm back in school.
You think the fucking cost alone would motivate me to do well, but money has never been a motivator for me.
And no one else is really benefiting from my return to school.
Just me.
Which means there's nothing to drive me to complete weighty assignments in a timely manner.
Everything is turned in almost last minute (that bad habit depression drilled into me all those years ago in high school and junior college stuck around...then again...so did depression...).
But I can't bring myself to think 'I owe this to myself. I deserve to excel in my courses and to work hard and to learn the ins and outs of these topics.'
But that's another thing, too.
I don't deserve anything.
No one does.
And to have the audacity to think 'I deserve this!' is just...egotistical and presumptuous.
I need to earn everything.
My grades. My wages (when I have a job).
...My salvation.
Nothing in this life is freely given, and I have to be perfect, I can't mess up or make mistakes, and I have to earn what's handed to me.
I can't just accept things without having to pay them back in some way.
(Huh, maybe that's why I don't like getting presents...)
Welcome to the complicated world that is known as my life.
Well-meaning parents who unintentionally royally fucked me over real good because of how my brain is wired.
Fuck me, right?
Well, this has been a completely depressing post for me, and now the day is more of a struggle than it already was.
If only I could die and just get it over with.
Those are words I don't think I've ever uttered sincerely - or seriously - in relation to myself.
Ignoring the bulging bag of issues I have with phrases like that aside, it's not anything that I would ever say in application to me. To people in my life whom I love? Yes, absolutely. But to myself? As if.
In the past several months, I have realised a lot of things about myself, about my childhood, about who I am and why I am the way that I am today because of my past. And one thing I have realised (and being in a committed relationship kind of brought this to light), is that I completely ignore myself in pretty much all aspects. My wants and my needs and my opinions hold no value. To me, so most certainly to those around me, too...right?
I tried to figure out why my mentality is like this. Why I have become an expert in the field of ignoring myself. And I realised it was because of my childhood.
I had a really strong sense of justice growing up (I still do). But I also lied a lot because I did things I wasn't supposed to do. So the result of my lying all the time, was people not believing me when I was telling the truth. (The boy who cried wolf, anyone?) But I was also the youngest. This meant in a big family in a too-small home, that I was easily overlooked and forgotten about. So I guess my child brain made the connection "hey, do things - bad things - to get noticed!" Which meant that when I was noticed, it was for negative things, which resulted in me getting in trouble all the time.
(This is most likely the reason why I hate absolutely any kind of attention on me. Attention = bad things in my childhood, which makes it feel bad now, even as an adult.)
Off point, though. I ended up being ignored a lot, because "fair" wasn't applicable when you had older brothers who had bigger stomachs and could therefore eat more than you, so they got more food and you didn't. It wasn't applicable when you made dessert for the whole family, but wanted everyone to have equal portions. It wasn't applicable when you actually were telling the truth, but your older brother was treated specially because of his mental retardation issues, so he was believed due to parental guilt and favoritism.
In time, I learned that, hey, if everyone else is ignoring me, I may as well ignore myself, too.
And so I did.
Which brings me here.
Where when it comes to getting things done, I can't.
Well, let me rephrase that.
If I have to do things, or get things done, or have responsibilities that should be taken care of, but I am the only one affected by if these things are done or no, I have absolutely no motivation or drive to accomplish them.
Because I do not matter.
But if you throw other people into the mix: colleagues at a job, friends, fellow classmates, whatever...then I am so there. I get that shit done, and I get it done in a timely manner. Because if anyone or anything else is affected by my lack of completing tasks, then that drives me to get it done. Because they matter. But I do not.
And now I'm back in school.
You think the fucking cost alone would motivate me to do well, but money has never been a motivator for me.
And no one else is really benefiting from my return to school.
Just me.
Which means there's nothing to drive me to complete weighty assignments in a timely manner.
Everything is turned in almost last minute (that bad habit depression drilled into me all those years ago in high school and junior college stuck around...then again...so did depression...).
But I can't bring myself to think 'I owe this to myself. I deserve to excel in my courses and to work hard and to learn the ins and outs of these topics.'
But that's another thing, too.
I don't deserve anything.
No one does.
And to have the audacity to think 'I deserve this!' is just...egotistical and presumptuous.
I need to earn everything.
My grades. My wages (when I have a job).
...My salvation.
Nothing in this life is freely given, and I have to be perfect, I can't mess up or make mistakes, and I have to earn what's handed to me.
I can't just accept things without having to pay them back in some way.
(Huh, maybe that's why I don't like getting presents...)
Welcome to the complicated world that is known as my life.
Well-meaning parents who unintentionally royally fucked me over real good because of how my brain is wired.
Fuck me, right?
Well, this has been a completely depressing post for me, and now the day is more of a struggle than it already was.
If only I could die and just get it over with.
Saturday 19 October 2019
I have come to realise that sometime dreams we have are not realistic. Wants, desires, hopes...they are all well and good, but that doesn't mean they'll happen. And when your life involves more than just you, well...who knows what the chances are for your secret dreams to actually happen.
And...I guess that's okay.
But as with any secret hope we grasp tightly within our metaphorical fists, sometimes thing are hard to let go of.
There's a grieving process.
And, like most cases with grief, only time can truly [mostly] heal the wounds created from said grief.
I realised some things today.
In thinking, and processing, about life.
Realising that some things are not likely to happen. For one reason or another.
Maybe even shouldn't happen.
And I cried.
Because in that moment of clarity, my heart broke.
And dreams I was secretly harbouring, were finally found, and imprisoned in the land of "unrealistic."
I don't like days like today.
And...I guess that's okay.
But as with any secret hope we grasp tightly within our metaphorical fists, sometimes thing are hard to let go of.
There's a grieving process.
And, like most cases with grief, only time can truly [mostly] heal the wounds created from said grief.
I realised some things today.
In thinking, and processing, about life.
Realising that some things are not likely to happen. For one reason or another.
Maybe even shouldn't happen.
And I cried.
Because in that moment of clarity, my heart broke.
And dreams I was secretly harbouring, were finally found, and imprisoned in the land of "unrealistic."
I don't like days like today.
Monday 23 September 2019
I guess it's kind of noticeable from my recent blog posts, but...I have been hardcore struggling the past couple of weeks.
I think the moment it started was after reading about a prominent pastor who was an advocate for mental health (as he himself struggled with depression), ended up committing suicide.
And then reading comments made by people on one particular post that linked to the article talking about aforementioned pastor, people have now decided that committing suicide is not a sin.
I have heard most of my life that it is a sin. Likened unto murder, which the bible clearly states is a sin (apparently suicide is murdering yourself...or something).
But here's the thing:
If suicide ISN'T a sin, then why aren't Christians offing themselves left and right? I mean, who wants to fucking suffer in this world if you have a way of early escape from all the pain and hardship to be with Jesus?
If only someone who was a Christian who committed suicide could come back to life and confirm for me that it is, indeed, not a sin, then I would jump right in that boat.
I also read a post somewhere online written by someone else who struggles with depression. They called their brain "broken." Truthfully, I've never thought of my brain that way...until a few days after I read the post. To me, it was more "it is what it is." As in, my brain is like this. This is the state of my being. It has always been this way, and it will always be this way. There is no way to change it or fix it and I just have to live with it. The end.
But then, it hit me.
My brain is broken.
And I can't fix it.
And the complete and utter...despair...that I felt when that realisation hit me...
Never have I desired so strongly to end my life than in that moment.
And every moment since that realisation.
Which brings me to now.
And just like every day before then, I have that urge of wanting to die. To end it all.
But now, instead of that urge being something I could more or less ignore, it now plagues my every thought.
I think about it day in and day out.
What if it isn't a sin?
Could I get away with it?
Truthfully, if I was sure of my salvation (which I have never been, so that's cool), and knew for sure that suicide wasn't a sin (or at least, a sin I would be condemned to hell for), than I would probably end it all. Just like that.
Because who really wants to live with a broken brain?
Who wants to wake up every morning, wanting to die, wanting to lay in bed because life is too hard, feeling like you're living in a brain fog 24/7, never feeling clarity, never fully being happy, and others in your life blame themselves for your lack of happiness, when in reality, it's absolutely nothing they have control over or can fix.
Anyway.
Life sucks.
Depression is a bitch.
And I want to die.
I think the moment it started was after reading about a prominent pastor who was an advocate for mental health (as he himself struggled with depression), ended up committing suicide.
And then reading comments made by people on one particular post that linked to the article talking about aforementioned pastor, people have now decided that committing suicide is not a sin.
I have heard most of my life that it is a sin. Likened unto murder, which the bible clearly states is a sin (apparently suicide is murdering yourself...or something).
But here's the thing:
If suicide ISN'T a sin, then why aren't Christians offing themselves left and right? I mean, who wants to fucking suffer in this world if you have a way of early escape from all the pain and hardship to be with Jesus?
If only someone who was a Christian who committed suicide could come back to life and confirm for me that it is, indeed, not a sin, then I would jump right in that boat.
I also read a post somewhere online written by someone else who struggles with depression. They called their brain "broken." Truthfully, I've never thought of my brain that way...until a few days after I read the post. To me, it was more "it is what it is." As in, my brain is like this. This is the state of my being. It has always been this way, and it will always be this way. There is no way to change it or fix it and I just have to live with it. The end.
But then, it hit me.
My brain is broken.
And I can't fix it.
And the complete and utter...despair...that I felt when that realisation hit me...
Never have I desired so strongly to end my life than in that moment.
And every moment since that realisation.
Which brings me to now.
And just like every day before then, I have that urge of wanting to die. To end it all.
But now, instead of that urge being something I could more or less ignore, it now plagues my every thought.
I think about it day in and day out.
What if it isn't a sin?
Could I get away with it?
Truthfully, if I was sure of my salvation (which I have never been, so that's cool), and knew for sure that suicide wasn't a sin (or at least, a sin I would be condemned to hell for), than I would probably end it all. Just like that.
Because who really wants to live with a broken brain?
Who wants to wake up every morning, wanting to die, wanting to lay in bed because life is too hard, feeling like you're living in a brain fog 24/7, never feeling clarity, never fully being happy, and others in your life blame themselves for your lack of happiness, when in reality, it's absolutely nothing they have control over or can fix.
Anyway.
Life sucks.
Depression is a bitch.
And I want to die.
Thursday 12 September 2019
Depression is a bitch.
I say this repeatedly.
I will continue to say it until the day I die.
It robs you of joy, of happiness, of showing the people in your life whom you love that they are enough, despite the fact that you remain depressed.
I don't understand it.
And honestly...I don't know if I ever will.
Huh.
Maybe that's part of what is driving me crazy.
My mind is analytical, I think critically, my brain is set to solve and improve and grow. Generally speaking, I don't accept things for what they are. I am forever looking for ways to make things more efficient, to save time, to work smarter not harder; whether that's in the workplace, for those around me who I love and know are capable of so much, or even my own personal areas of growth. I don't give up, once I improve at one level, I don't see it as enough, I know it can get better, be better, do better, and I look and look and look for ways to make it so.
So maybe I wrack my brain trying to understand depression. Where it came from. What makes it tick. Why some days it's worse than others...
Right now I feel in a slump. I can't sleep. I'm tired, but even being tired doesn't allow me to fall asleep easily, much less stay asleep. I feel like I'm okay one moment (usually when I'm distracted by something) and then when I'm shoved back into reality, that suffocating dread falls over me and there's nothing more I want than to die in that moment.
Like right now.
Here I am, sitting, one of my favourite shows playing in the background as I do research for scholarships to help fund my tuition as I go back to school, back in the same area as the love of my life, and yet...I want to die.
It's this overwhelming urge to just end it all. End this constant mental torture, this never-ending battle that I fight day after day after day, never winning, rarely gaining ground, though mostly losing ground.
And you want to know how fucked up I am?
When I see news of the next well known person who committed suicide and I'm jealous of them. Jealous that they followed through with it. Jealous that they don't have to suffer anymore.
I just happen to be one of the special cases of a living catch 22. I want to die, but I am absolutely terrified of death, so guess what wins at the end of the day? Yeah. Me, still alive.
And I can't explain this to people. I can't tell them I have a death wish. Because then it's slapping the people I love in the face. Telling them I want to die is translated in their minds to think 'I'm not enough.' Even though that is not at all the case.
These are my demons to fight. My battles. They existed before you entered my life, and should you ever leave it, they will continue to exist. Your presence may help drown out their voices, but it does not silence them completely.
I feel sick to my stomach. There is so much I cannot control. This suffocating sadness. My body and all its glorious malfunctions. Why I feel dizzy day in and day out, and some days feel extremely nauseous for absolutely no reason.
I'm tired of it all.
I'm tired of fighting. I know, I know, I've said that so many times before. And yet I continue to fight, but never prevail.
Honestly?
If someone could prove to me that suicide wasn't a sin, and if I was ever actually sure of my salvation, I don't know if I would fight for one more day.
I say this repeatedly.
I will continue to say it until the day I die.
It robs you of joy, of happiness, of showing the people in your life whom you love that they are enough, despite the fact that you remain depressed.
I don't understand it.
And honestly...I don't know if I ever will.
Huh.
Maybe that's part of what is driving me crazy.
My mind is analytical, I think critically, my brain is set to solve and improve and grow. Generally speaking, I don't accept things for what they are. I am forever looking for ways to make things more efficient, to save time, to work smarter not harder; whether that's in the workplace, for those around me who I love and know are capable of so much, or even my own personal areas of growth. I don't give up, once I improve at one level, I don't see it as enough, I know it can get better, be better, do better, and I look and look and look for ways to make it so.
So maybe I wrack my brain trying to understand depression. Where it came from. What makes it tick. Why some days it's worse than others...
Right now I feel in a slump. I can't sleep. I'm tired, but even being tired doesn't allow me to fall asleep easily, much less stay asleep. I feel like I'm okay one moment (usually when I'm distracted by something) and then when I'm shoved back into reality, that suffocating dread falls over me and there's nothing more I want than to die in that moment.
Like right now.
Here I am, sitting, one of my favourite shows playing in the background as I do research for scholarships to help fund my tuition as I go back to school, back in the same area as the love of my life, and yet...I want to die.
It's this overwhelming urge to just end it all. End this constant mental torture, this never-ending battle that I fight day after day after day, never winning, rarely gaining ground, though mostly losing ground.
And you want to know how fucked up I am?
When I see news of the next well known person who committed suicide and I'm jealous of them. Jealous that they followed through with it. Jealous that they don't have to suffer anymore.
I just happen to be one of the special cases of a living catch 22. I want to die, but I am absolutely terrified of death, so guess what wins at the end of the day? Yeah. Me, still alive.
And I can't explain this to people. I can't tell them I have a death wish. Because then it's slapping the people I love in the face. Telling them I want to die is translated in their minds to think 'I'm not enough.' Even though that is not at all the case.
These are my demons to fight. My battles. They existed before you entered my life, and should you ever leave it, they will continue to exist. Your presence may help drown out their voices, but it does not silence them completely.
I feel sick to my stomach. There is so much I cannot control. This suffocating sadness. My body and all its glorious malfunctions. Why I feel dizzy day in and day out, and some days feel extremely nauseous for absolutely no reason.
I'm tired of it all.
I'm tired of fighting. I know, I know, I've said that so many times before. And yet I continue to fight, but never prevail.
Honestly?
If someone could prove to me that suicide wasn't a sin, and if I was ever actually sure of my salvation, I don't know if I would fight for one more day.
Sunday 8 September 2019
Small Things
"It's the little things."
This is a phrase that gets tossed around so much (that's what she said), that, like most phrases often repeated, it looses its meaning.
But I'm not writing about that.
Here's what I am writing about:
How I struggle with depression every single day. How my more realistic and "down to earth" mindset and approach to life, is seen by others as pessimistic. How I've been told that I need to look on the bright side, find the silver lining, have hope, be more optimistic, etc. etc. etc.
But the thing is, is that I do look on the bright side. I may not utter every thought I have out loud (otherwise I would constantly be talking, nonstop, all day long), but I do look on the bright side of things. For example: almost out of cream? Well, there's enough left for one more cup of coffee! Not enough ingredients because I forgot to buy something at the store? Time to make cooking fun and improvise! The love of my life is gone for the next two weeks? Well, at least it's only two weeks and not seven months!
Contrary to popular belief, I try to find the good in things. Admittedly, sometimes it's a struggle, but I try.
Again, getting off topic. Sheesh.
The reason I'm writing this post, is to speak about how small things bring me joy.
Partially by nature, partially by nurture (turns out being the youngest and getting ignored your whole life will potentially make you easily pleased), it doesn't take a lot to please me. I've told people this before, but if I'm feeling down, take me out for a walk. I am literally like a dog. You take me out for a walk (when sometimes I can't force myself out of the house) and it will cheer me up.
The smallest things make me so happy and bring me so much joy. Much more joy, than expensive things or big, grand gestures could ever hope to bring.
The crisp air of an autumn morning.
A perfectly made cup of tea.
A really good cup of coffee.
Going for a walk.
Sunrises.
Clouds.
A good smelling candle.
Feeding people food I've made.
Cooking for people.
A new recipe I tried turning out to perfection.
Friends sending me a picture they took because they know I'll love it.
A book that I can't put down.
The list goes on.
My point is, it really is the small things. I don't find joy or happiness in the grandiose. I find it in the small, everyday habits and moments in my life. My morning cup of coffee. Praying with the love of my life. Making the love of my life laugh with the silly things I do. (Confession: sometimes they're done on purpose, simply to get him to laugh. Oh how I love his laugh!) Stopping to smell a rose I happen to pass by on my way somewhere. Smelling citrus-y fruit in the grocery store. Going "!!!!!" on the inside when the clouds are fluffy and beautiful.
I forget this so easily. But I remember it, too, in the moments when these things happen. It's all about finding what brings you joy, and appreciating those moments when they happen.
This is a phrase that gets tossed around so much (that's what she said), that, like most phrases often repeated, it looses its meaning.
But I'm not writing about that.
Here's what I am writing about:
How I struggle with depression every single day. How my more realistic and "down to earth" mindset and approach to life, is seen by others as pessimistic. How I've been told that I need to look on the bright side, find the silver lining, have hope, be more optimistic, etc. etc. etc.
But the thing is, is that I do look on the bright side. I may not utter every thought I have out loud (otherwise I would constantly be talking, nonstop, all day long), but I do look on the bright side of things. For example: almost out of cream? Well, there's enough left for one more cup of coffee! Not enough ingredients because I forgot to buy something at the store? Time to make cooking fun and improvise! The love of my life is gone for the next two weeks? Well, at least it's only two weeks and not seven months!
Contrary to popular belief, I try to find the good in things. Admittedly, sometimes it's a struggle, but I try.
Again, getting off topic. Sheesh.
The reason I'm writing this post, is to speak about how small things bring me joy.
Partially by nature, partially by nurture (turns out being the youngest and getting ignored your whole life will potentially make you easily pleased), it doesn't take a lot to please me. I've told people this before, but if I'm feeling down, take me out for a walk. I am literally like a dog. You take me out for a walk (when sometimes I can't force myself out of the house) and it will cheer me up.
The smallest things make me so happy and bring me so much joy. Much more joy, than expensive things or big, grand gestures could ever hope to bring.
The crisp air of an autumn morning.
A perfectly made cup of tea.
A really good cup of coffee.
Going for a walk.
Sunrises.
Clouds.
A good smelling candle.
Feeding people food I've made.
Cooking for people.
A new recipe I tried turning out to perfection.
Friends sending me a picture they took because they know I'll love it.
A book that I can't put down.
The list goes on.
My point is, it really is the small things. I don't find joy or happiness in the grandiose. I find it in the small, everyday habits and moments in my life. My morning cup of coffee. Praying with the love of my life. Making the love of my life laugh with the silly things I do. (Confession: sometimes they're done on purpose, simply to get him to laugh. Oh how I love his laugh!) Stopping to smell a rose I happen to pass by on my way somewhere. Smelling citrus-y fruit in the grocery store. Going "!!!!!" on the inside when the clouds are fluffy and beautiful.
I forget this so easily. But I remember it, too, in the moments when these things happen. It's all about finding what brings you joy, and appreciating those moments when they happen.
Tuesday 3 September 2019
Being in this in-between season of life isn't the easiest thing in the world for me.
Because instead of being distracted with work or the gym or even school (which is hopefully in the works), I have nothing to do, all day every day, and so my mind feels like it's eating itself, from how active my brain is.
That being said, having all this great spare time on my hands, I am now thinking a LOT about my life - my childhood, the way I was raised, how I see the world now because of those things - and there is so much to think about and process and realise, that I literally feel like I'm going insane sometimes. (Not fun. 0/10, would not recommend.)
My parents raised my siblings and myself all the same. Same techniques for all children, not realising that some manners of discipline, while working on some of us, wouldn't work on others (read: me). Now that they're older and have hindsight in their favour, they can see that they could have done better in some ways.
And that's good.
But that doesn't unfuck me, that doesn't undo all the things I dealt with as a child that I have to heal from now because of the way I was raised.
So here's one of the things I'm struggling with:
Do I tell my parents how the way they raised me really fucked me over (though not in such vulgar terms for their ears), or do I just never speak up?
It would be easy to say that I should just let it go. That since they're no longer in the child-rearing phase of their lives, that telling them "hey, this wasn't so good, and here's why" wouldn't produce any good results. If anything, it could make them feel like failures. And while I don't have the best relationship with my parents, the last thing I want to do is hurt them by telling them they messed me up royally.
But then in the shower this morning, because of a dream I had (which woke me up because the sobbing I was doing in my dream translated to real life), I was thinking about my parents dying (as they are getting older in age), and how I stayed distant from them because I didn't have a solid relationship with them, and how when/if they die, I would live with that regret the rest of my life. The regret of not putting things out in the open, in a diplomatic, kind way, and letting them know that the things they did, I now suffer from in my adult life.
Ways that make me feel like a broken being. Like I'm less than whole. Like I will never be enough, will never deserve things, like my voice doesn't matter, and a myriad of other problems that now affect the relationship I have with the love of my life.
I don't want to live a life of regrets.
And I know that if I don't speak up, and something happens to make it too late to speak up, that I will live with that regret for the rest of my life.
And knowing myself, and knowing how that kind of regret can feel, I'm positive I wouldn't be able to overcome that.
Does the relationship between parents and children ever change? Is it always "you were the small being I raised, and I'm here to protect you, even if that means not telling you everything, and that I know better, and I don't need to listen to things you say?" Or can that dynamic change into something where all parties look at each other as adults, equal, whose opinions matter and ideas can be discussed without deeming someone to be wrong or "sinful" or even evil?
I feel like I read something online in the past year or so where parents will forever see their children as their children, and for that initial instinct in wanting to care for them and protect them, that even as their children become adults and start their own families, the parents will still treat them as their children, whatever that may look like, depending on the family.
...or maybe I made that up in my head. Who knows.
I almost feel like it's wrong for parents and their children to be equals, for them to treat each other as friends. I'm aware that part of my mindset for thinking this is because of my own home environment in my childhood. I remember in my early adult years, hearing from people how they were friends with their mom or dad or both and it was such a foreign concept for me to wrap my head around. (It still is, to be honest.)
So what's the right way that kind of relationship should look like? Obviously very strict parameters when the children are young; the parents are in charge, and the children need to listen and obey and respect their parents. But as they begin to grow older, learn more, have ideas of their own, the relationship should begin to shift and change, right? So what does that look like? And even if your child is an adult (meaning 18, by legal terms) and still living at home, how does the parental relationship look then? (Definitely not the way mine looked when I was living at home and over 18, I'll tell you that.)
My brain is tired and most of the time these days I want to repeatedly stab it with an ice pick to shut it up, but I currently don't own any ice picks.
Anyway.
More to think about, I guess.
Because instead of being distracted with work or the gym or even school (which is hopefully in the works), I have nothing to do, all day every day, and so my mind feels like it's eating itself, from how active my brain is.
That being said, having all this great spare time on my hands, I am now thinking a LOT about my life - my childhood, the way I was raised, how I see the world now because of those things - and there is so much to think about and process and realise, that I literally feel like I'm going insane sometimes. (Not fun. 0/10, would not recommend.)
My parents raised my siblings and myself all the same. Same techniques for all children, not realising that some manners of discipline, while working on some of us, wouldn't work on others (read: me). Now that they're older and have hindsight in their favour, they can see that they could have done better in some ways.
And that's good.
But that doesn't unfuck me, that doesn't undo all the things I dealt with as a child that I have to heal from now because of the way I was raised.
So here's one of the things I'm struggling with:
Do I tell my parents how the way they raised me really fucked me over (though not in such vulgar terms for their ears), or do I just never speak up?
It would be easy to say that I should just let it go. That since they're no longer in the child-rearing phase of their lives, that telling them "hey, this wasn't so good, and here's why" wouldn't produce any good results. If anything, it could make them feel like failures. And while I don't have the best relationship with my parents, the last thing I want to do is hurt them by telling them they messed me up royally.
But then in the shower this morning, because of a dream I had (which woke me up because the sobbing I was doing in my dream translated to real life), I was thinking about my parents dying (as they are getting older in age), and how I stayed distant from them because I didn't have a solid relationship with them, and how when/if they die, I would live with that regret the rest of my life. The regret of not putting things out in the open, in a diplomatic, kind way, and letting them know that the things they did, I now suffer from in my adult life.
Ways that make me feel like a broken being. Like I'm less than whole. Like I will never be enough, will never deserve things, like my voice doesn't matter, and a myriad of other problems that now affect the relationship I have with the love of my life.
I don't want to live a life of regrets.
And I know that if I don't speak up, and something happens to make it too late to speak up, that I will live with that regret for the rest of my life.
And knowing myself, and knowing how that kind of regret can feel, I'm positive I wouldn't be able to overcome that.
Does the relationship between parents and children ever change? Is it always "you were the small being I raised, and I'm here to protect you, even if that means not telling you everything, and that I know better, and I don't need to listen to things you say?" Or can that dynamic change into something where all parties look at each other as adults, equal, whose opinions matter and ideas can be discussed without deeming someone to be wrong or "sinful" or even evil?
I feel like I read something online in the past year or so where parents will forever see their children as their children, and for that initial instinct in wanting to care for them and protect them, that even as their children become adults and start their own families, the parents will still treat them as their children, whatever that may look like, depending on the family.
...or maybe I made that up in my head. Who knows.
I almost feel like it's wrong for parents and their children to be equals, for them to treat each other as friends. I'm aware that part of my mindset for thinking this is because of my own home environment in my childhood. I remember in my early adult years, hearing from people how they were friends with their mom or dad or both and it was such a foreign concept for me to wrap my head around. (It still is, to be honest.)
So what's the right way that kind of relationship should look like? Obviously very strict parameters when the children are young; the parents are in charge, and the children need to listen and obey and respect their parents. But as they begin to grow older, learn more, have ideas of their own, the relationship should begin to shift and change, right? So what does that look like? And even if your child is an adult (meaning 18, by legal terms) and still living at home, how does the parental relationship look then? (Definitely not the way mine looked when I was living at home and over 18, I'll tell you that.)
My brain is tired and most of the time these days I want to repeatedly stab it with an ice pick to shut it up, but I currently don't own any ice picks.
Anyway.
More to think about, I guess.
Friday 9 August 2019
There's a blog that I keep up with because the content of said blog is pertinent to me and my interests. This same blog usually sends out an email once a week with the "highlights of the week:" aka, blog posts that were most read. One of the posts from this week was something relating to "why teens leave the Christian faith."
Intrigued, I decided to click on the link to read what it had to say.
Two main points were made as to why teens might decide to "leave." The first being seeing a lack of compassion in the church, or within their home life. The second, is because of hypocrisy.
This made me think about my life growing up; especially my teen years. They were a turbulent time, to say the least. And to be perfectly honest, there's still a lot I personally have to process and heal from, regarding my home life, the way I was raised, and the environment in which I grew up.
I wasn't an easy child for my parents to deal with. In fact, they have occasionally said that if I were their first child, they probably wouldn't have had any others. (Though, joke's on them, they didn't do very well in the birth control department, which is why there are so many of us, so I doubt they would have stopped after me, despite what they say.)
I remember the years between junior high and a couple years past high school being super rough. I don't have good memories of home. In fact, the more the years pass, the more difficult I find it to really recall any memories from my childhood (and I have a fucking good memory).
My parents were desperate to "fix" me. Or control me. To make me behave. They read books on the subject matter. [In my opinion] stupid, idiotic books written by ignorant "Christian" authors who were lumping all "trouble" children into the same category. Forgetting that we're people too, not just objects to be fixed and controlled.
To be perfectly honest, to the very depth of my being, I hated those books my parents bought. I would occasionally find them laying around the house, and try to hide them, so my parents wouldn't get any stupid-ass ideas that were clearly inapplicable to me. (They usually found them, so my hiding wasn't very good...) Those books were a way of saying that my parents thought I was a project, that something was (or multiple things were) wrong with me.
I don't know why my parents reading those books bothered me so much. Thinking about it now, I can conjecture that it could have been because they were reaching to outside sources, things that had no concept of who I was, instead of talking directly to me. Trying to understand me and what was going on.
(Though to be practical, if they had tried to reach out to me and talk with me, I wouldn't have told them what was going on. Even if I myself knew...which I didn't. But any trust I had in my parents was long gone, which is why to this day I don't talk to them about anything too personal.)
Back to this blog post that I read, though. It mentioned that in the home life, hardness of heart, lack of grace, and being bigger on doctrine and "doing what's right," rather that being a living example of Jesus, were reasons given as to why a teen might leave the faith. And having done a lot of processing in the past couple years of my life - thanks to therapy, and even thinking on things on my own - those were definitely things I dealt with growing up. Which is why, even now, I still feel like I'm never good enough. For anything. Like I have to be good all the time, I have to be perfect, I can't make mistakes, because if I do, I've blown it forever. This is most likely why I have never (and who knows if I ever will be) been sure of my salvation. I feel like I have to earn it.
What? Grace is given freely? You can fuck up and people will still love you?
Sounds fake, but okay.
Anyway, there is a point to all this.
Reading that blog post, and reading about the reasons why teens might "leave the faith," made me start thinking about how I was raised and the way my parents went about trying to "fix" me. And I realised something: all those books were talking about what was supposedly wrong with me. And how to fix me. I doubt ANY of them ever addressed the fact that, just perhaps, my parents may have been fucking up, and for them to look at their own selves and how they were behaving as parents, and to see if there were things they could change and address about how they were raising/treating me.
I still have a lot I have to process from my childhood.
I have a lot of healing that needs to take place.
And if anything, I want to take all the mistakes that were made in how I was raised, and be sure to not act that way should I ever have children. I mean, God knows I'll probably fuck up a lot, as all parents do, but I certainly don't want a hostile environment in my home. I want it to be known as a safe space. For my kids to be able to come and talk to us about anything and everything; knowing without a doubt that even if they mess up big time, that we still love them and still support them. That wasn't something I had, and I don't want my children to grow up and have to recover from a lack of love and grace.
...still a lot to think about.
Intrigued, I decided to click on the link to read what it had to say.
Two main points were made as to why teens might decide to "leave." The first being seeing a lack of compassion in the church, or within their home life. The second, is because of hypocrisy.
This made me think about my life growing up; especially my teen years. They were a turbulent time, to say the least. And to be perfectly honest, there's still a lot I personally have to process and heal from, regarding my home life, the way I was raised, and the environment in which I grew up.
I wasn't an easy child for my parents to deal with. In fact, they have occasionally said that if I were their first child, they probably wouldn't have had any others. (Though, joke's on them, they didn't do very well in the birth control department, which is why there are so many of us, so I doubt they would have stopped after me, despite what they say.)
I remember the years between junior high and a couple years past high school being super rough. I don't have good memories of home. In fact, the more the years pass, the more difficult I find it to really recall any memories from my childhood (and I have a fucking good memory).
My parents were desperate to "fix" me. Or control me. To make me behave. They read books on the subject matter. [In my opinion] stupid, idiotic books written by ignorant "Christian" authors who were lumping all "trouble" children into the same category. Forgetting that we're people too, not just objects to be fixed and controlled.
To be perfectly honest, to the very depth of my being, I hated those books my parents bought. I would occasionally find them laying around the house, and try to hide them, so my parents wouldn't get any stupid-ass ideas that were clearly inapplicable to me. (They usually found them, so my hiding wasn't very good...) Those books were a way of saying that my parents thought I was a project, that something was (or multiple things were) wrong with me.
I don't know why my parents reading those books bothered me so much. Thinking about it now, I can conjecture that it could have been because they were reaching to outside sources, things that had no concept of who I was, instead of talking directly to me. Trying to understand me and what was going on.
(Though to be practical, if they had tried to reach out to me and talk with me, I wouldn't have told them what was going on. Even if I myself knew...which I didn't. But any trust I had in my parents was long gone, which is why to this day I don't talk to them about anything too personal.)
Back to this blog post that I read, though. It mentioned that in the home life, hardness of heart, lack of grace, and being bigger on doctrine and "doing what's right," rather that being a living example of Jesus, were reasons given as to why a teen might leave the faith. And having done a lot of processing in the past couple years of my life - thanks to therapy, and even thinking on things on my own - those were definitely things I dealt with growing up. Which is why, even now, I still feel like I'm never good enough. For anything. Like I have to be good all the time, I have to be perfect, I can't make mistakes, because if I do, I've blown it forever. This is most likely why I have never (and who knows if I ever will be) been sure of my salvation. I feel like I have to earn it.
What? Grace is given freely? You can fuck up and people will still love you?
Sounds fake, but okay.
Anyway, there is a point to all this.
Reading that blog post, and reading about the reasons why teens might "leave the faith," made me start thinking about how I was raised and the way my parents went about trying to "fix" me. And I realised something: all those books were talking about what was supposedly wrong with me. And how to fix me. I doubt ANY of them ever addressed the fact that, just perhaps, my parents may have been fucking up, and for them to look at their own selves and how they were behaving as parents, and to see if there were things they could change and address about how they were raising/treating me.
I still have a lot I have to process from my childhood.
I have a lot of healing that needs to take place.
And if anything, I want to take all the mistakes that were made in how I was raised, and be sure to not act that way should I ever have children. I mean, God knows I'll probably fuck up a lot, as all parents do, but I certainly don't want a hostile environment in my home. I want it to be known as a safe space. For my kids to be able to come and talk to us about anything and everything; knowing without a doubt that even if they mess up big time, that we still love them and still support them. That wasn't something I had, and I don't want my children to grow up and have to recover from a lack of love and grace.
...still a lot to think about.
Friday 2 August 2019
Ignorance Is Bliss
Ignorance is bliss.
A cliché saying you hear growing up, only to realise its full truth when you're an adult.
I fully and willingly admit that I am more likely to actively choose ignorance over the potential of knowing information that could hurt me.
Why? you may ask.
It's not from wishing to remain nïeve or to be childish. Rather, it's an approach of ensuring my mental health is taken care of. The goal is not to be ignorant; the goal, instead, is to try to focus on things that are good.
Let me explain.
My head is my worst enemy.
My mind is constantly going, and I can never shut it off. This, on top of depression - among other things - tires me out.
My mind is also more likely to fixate and obsess over bad or negative things. (I haven't thought too much about this, but I'd conjecture it's due to trying to find a solution to fix the bad and make it good.)
So if my mind tends to focus on the negative, never shuts off, and is already tired out from merely existing, imagine how much more my brain gets overwhelmed with information that isn't so good.
Information I would have otherwise not known thanks to a state of ignorance.
I am not trying to be stupid.
I love learning, I love knowledge, I love continually growing and shifting my perspective of the world due to an increase in information.
But I also struggle with constant sadness and not drowning in darkness.
So to me, it makes sense to actively choose ignorance in certain areas, rather than find out the truth, and suffer [more than I already am] because of it.
We're commanded to take our thoughts captive (2 Corinthians 10:4-6). For it is from our thoughts that our lives will ultimately act upon and reflect that which was first planted in our minds. And if I choose to be ignorant, to not think or focus on the negative, in order to try to give my mind a little more space to reflect on that which is good, then yes.
I will choose ignorance.
Because I'd rather have a little more light and happiness in my life, in order to help fight off the already overwhelming darkness and gloom that clouds my mind.
A cliché saying you hear growing up, only to realise its full truth when you're an adult.
I fully and willingly admit that I am more likely to actively choose ignorance over the potential of knowing information that could hurt me.
Why? you may ask.
It's not from wishing to remain nïeve or to be childish. Rather, it's an approach of ensuring my mental health is taken care of. The goal is not to be ignorant; the goal, instead, is to try to focus on things that are good.
Let me explain.
My head is my worst enemy.
My mind is constantly going, and I can never shut it off. This, on top of depression - among other things - tires me out.
My mind is also more likely to fixate and obsess over bad or negative things. (I haven't thought too much about this, but I'd conjecture it's due to trying to find a solution to fix the bad and make it good.)
So if my mind tends to focus on the negative, never shuts off, and is already tired out from merely existing, imagine how much more my brain gets overwhelmed with information that isn't so good.
Information I would have otherwise not known thanks to a state of ignorance.
I am not trying to be stupid.
I love learning, I love knowledge, I love continually growing and shifting my perspective of the world due to an increase in information.
But I also struggle with constant sadness and not drowning in darkness.
So to me, it makes sense to actively choose ignorance in certain areas, rather than find out the truth, and suffer [more than I already am] because of it.
We're commanded to take our thoughts captive (2 Corinthians 10:4-6). For it is from our thoughts that our lives will ultimately act upon and reflect that which was first planted in our minds. And if I choose to be ignorant, to not think or focus on the negative, in order to try to give my mind a little more space to reflect on that which is good, then yes.
I will choose ignorance.
Because I'd rather have a little more light and happiness in my life, in order to help fight off the already overwhelming darkness and gloom that clouds my mind.
Wednesday 17 July 2019
Tuesday 16 July 2019
I'm here, but I'm not.
For those of you who are aware of the Myers-Briggs personality types, mine is an IxTJ. Meaning I can switch back and forth between the S and N. One main aspect of my INTJ personality, is the "out of body" mentality INTJ's have. Don't misunderstand, it's not some spiritual mumbo-jumbo "out of body" experience thing. It's more so like my mind and my body are so disconnected, that often I ignore how my body feels, because my mind is elsewhere. It's distracted, I'm constantly lost in my head and among my own thoughts, I can't tell you specifically why or how my body feels off, all I know is that it just is.
That being said, the past week or so, my mind has been so extremely disconnected from my body, that I know I'm here and I'm living and breathing and alive, but it doesn't feel like it.
I find myself driving somewhere, and try to remind myself that I'm here, that I'm in this place, that I'm alive, but the disconnect is so great, nothing really feels real.
I don't feel real.
And more and more the disconnect grows.
My mind is in a fog, I'm disoriented, dizzy, distracted.
It doesn't help that it's July...
I keep trying to make myself realise I'm here.
That I exist.
That I need to take care of myself, need to eat and drink water and exercise.
But it doesn't help.
I'm in such a stupor that, essentially, I'm a walking zombie.
Life is a dream from which I cannot wake.
...and how desperately I want this dream to end.
For those of you who are aware of the Myers-Briggs personality types, mine is an IxTJ. Meaning I can switch back and forth between the S and N. One main aspect of my INTJ personality, is the "out of body" mentality INTJ's have. Don't misunderstand, it's not some spiritual mumbo-jumbo "out of body" experience thing. It's more so like my mind and my body are so disconnected, that often I ignore how my body feels, because my mind is elsewhere. It's distracted, I'm constantly lost in my head and among my own thoughts, I can't tell you specifically why or how my body feels off, all I know is that it just is.
That being said, the past week or so, my mind has been so extremely disconnected from my body, that I know I'm here and I'm living and breathing and alive, but it doesn't feel like it.
I find myself driving somewhere, and try to remind myself that I'm here, that I'm in this place, that I'm alive, but the disconnect is so great, nothing really feels real.
I don't feel real.
And more and more the disconnect grows.
My mind is in a fog, I'm disoriented, dizzy, distracted.
It doesn't help that it's July...
I keep trying to make myself realise I'm here.
That I exist.
That I need to take care of myself, need to eat and drink water and exercise.
But it doesn't help.
I'm in such a stupor that, essentially, I'm a walking zombie.
Life is a dream from which I cannot wake.
...and how desperately I want this dream to end.
Monday 8 July 2019
I've never been a fan of change.
I've learned to stop fighting against it; change is going to happen, regardless if I want it to, or not. Change is a part of life. And so long as you're alive, you're going to partake in life. Which means, partaking in change.
I know life has different seasons. Seasons of peace, seasons of hardship, seasons of the unknown, seasons of adventure...anything and everything. But I think I'm realising that seasons of waiting - like right now - are not seasons that I'm good at.
I'm not comfortable being in limbo in my life. I like to have at least a general idea of where things are headed. Of knowing what my next step will be. What my days will look like during the week. Patterns and repetition and habits are good things. They help ease my mind, keep me from stressing out, I know what is going to happen, I have less to worry about that way.
But right now I am in between things.
I moved from one side of the US, to the other.
I have no job lined up.
I was planning on going to school, but honestly I have no idea if that is even realistic anymore.
I feel like I'm not doing my fair share in my relationship...and I hate that feeling. I hate feeling like I'm just taking and not giving, like I'm a burden because I don't have a job and my mere existence contributes nothing.
Before moving here I felt like there was so much potential.
I thought I would go back to school.
Get my degrees in two years; no work, just plow right through and get my degrees as quickly as possible so I can finally enter the job field in the areas that I want to work in.
Possibly finally settle down into a routine.
School, gym, time with the love of my life.
But it doesn't seem so easy now.
It seems less easy when you realise you're not on the same page as someone else.
When things will never fully be lined up, when differences of opinion and beliefs are unbalanced, when statements made are very biased and one-sided...
And your heart grows so heavy.
And it feels like you can barely carry yourself.
And the first thought that comes to your mind when you wake up is, once again, 'I want to die.'
There is so much going on.
And I feel so much stress and pressure.
And my brain just shuts down on me, and I can't function properly, and it's all a mess.
Life is messy.
Sometimes it can be a beautiful mess.
But right now it feels like a hurricane that will never die down, and I am cowering under cover, waiting for a storm to pass, but knowing it never actually will.
The more time passes, the more my heart sinks deeper within me.
The heavier it feels.
And the less likely it feels like this will all be okay.
Everything will be okay.
Eventually.
I know it will.
But maybe my version of "okay," is very different than what the reality of "okay" will look like.
Regardless...everything will be okay. Eventually.
...right?
I've learned to stop fighting against it; change is going to happen, regardless if I want it to, or not. Change is a part of life. And so long as you're alive, you're going to partake in life. Which means, partaking in change.
I know life has different seasons. Seasons of peace, seasons of hardship, seasons of the unknown, seasons of adventure...anything and everything. But I think I'm realising that seasons of waiting - like right now - are not seasons that I'm good at.
I'm not comfortable being in limbo in my life. I like to have at least a general idea of where things are headed. Of knowing what my next step will be. What my days will look like during the week. Patterns and repetition and habits are good things. They help ease my mind, keep me from stressing out, I know what is going to happen, I have less to worry about that way.
But right now I am in between things.
I moved from one side of the US, to the other.
I have no job lined up.
I was planning on going to school, but honestly I have no idea if that is even realistic anymore.
I feel like I'm not doing my fair share in my relationship...and I hate that feeling. I hate feeling like I'm just taking and not giving, like I'm a burden because I don't have a job and my mere existence contributes nothing.
Before moving here I felt like there was so much potential.
I thought I would go back to school.
Get my degrees in two years; no work, just plow right through and get my degrees as quickly as possible so I can finally enter the job field in the areas that I want to work in.
Possibly finally settle down into a routine.
School, gym, time with the love of my life.
But it doesn't seem so easy now.
It seems less easy when you realise you're not on the same page as someone else.
When things will never fully be lined up, when differences of opinion and beliefs are unbalanced, when statements made are very biased and one-sided...
And your heart grows so heavy.
And it feels like you can barely carry yourself.
And the first thought that comes to your mind when you wake up is, once again, 'I want to die.'
There is so much going on.
And I feel so much stress and pressure.
And my brain just shuts down on me, and I can't function properly, and it's all a mess.
Life is messy.
Sometimes it can be a beautiful mess.
But right now it feels like a hurricane that will never die down, and I am cowering under cover, waiting for a storm to pass, but knowing it never actually will.
The more time passes, the more my heart sinks deeper within me.
The heavier it feels.
And the less likely it feels like this will all be okay.
Everything will be okay.
Eventually.
I know it will.
But maybe my version of "okay," is very different than what the reality of "okay" will look like.
Regardless...everything will be okay. Eventually.
...right?
Friday 21 June 2019
What are you supposed to do when you want to die?
When you'd rather sleep for forever, instead of waking up in the mornings, feeling drained the second you open your eyes, and your first waking thought is 'I wish I was dead?'
Existing is getting to be more and more of a struggle these days.
Forcing myself to stick to a routine, even though my heart isn't in it.
Being more aware than ever how fucked up my body is and how it will never get better and that I have to live with this the rest of my life.
My mind feeling overwhelmed with thoughts and responsibilities and things that need to get done, not getting any peace from it, and shutting down more and more with each thought that I have.
...I don't want to do this anymore.
Be alive.
Try.
...exist.
It's like all of me is shut down and my mind, my body, is operating on auto pilot.
Except I can't even guilt-trip myself into going to the gym, or getting things done that absolutely NEED to get done in the next few days.
I feel so dead inside.
And to distract myself from my misery and how awful I feel, I plant myself in my chair, turn on the t.v., and waste the day away with its noise.
All the better than drowning in my own thoughts and succumbing to the darkness even more than I already have.
Please just let this all be over with, already.
Let life just end.
I am so tired and weary of feeling this way.
Of the constant torment of my thoughts.
The constant torture of existing.
Of all my failures and mistakes and the inevitability that I will always fuck things up, I will never be good enough, I will never *be* enough.
I just want to die.
When you'd rather sleep for forever, instead of waking up in the mornings, feeling drained the second you open your eyes, and your first waking thought is 'I wish I was dead?'
Existing is getting to be more and more of a struggle these days.
Forcing myself to stick to a routine, even though my heart isn't in it.
Being more aware than ever how fucked up my body is and how it will never get better and that I have to live with this the rest of my life.
My mind feeling overwhelmed with thoughts and responsibilities and things that need to get done, not getting any peace from it, and shutting down more and more with each thought that I have.
...I don't want to do this anymore.
Be alive.
Try.
...exist.
It's like all of me is shut down and my mind, my body, is operating on auto pilot.
Except I can't even guilt-trip myself into going to the gym, or getting things done that absolutely NEED to get done in the next few days.
I feel so dead inside.
And to distract myself from my misery and how awful I feel, I plant myself in my chair, turn on the t.v., and waste the day away with its noise.
All the better than drowning in my own thoughts and succumbing to the darkness even more than I already have.
Please just let this all be over with, already.
Let life just end.
I am so tired and weary of feeling this way.
Of the constant torment of my thoughts.
The constant torture of existing.
Of all my failures and mistakes and the inevitability that I will always fuck things up, I will never be good enough, I will never *be* enough.
I just want to die.
Thursday 20 June 2019
Do Unto Others
All my life I have heard this phrase.
"Do unto others what you would have them do unto you."
Most people have heard this phrase. It's commonly known as "the golden rule." However, taken out of context, it seems to mean simply what it says.
What you want done to you, do to others.
Loosely translated, the approach - or interpretation - of this phrase, can merely been seen as "be kind." Simple enough, right?
Wrong.
Because if you're like me, you may do exactly what this phrase suggests. You know what courtesies you would like others to extend to you, so you extend those exact same courtesies towards others. Aaaaaand, that's where the problem lies.
Because every single person on this earth is different. Your experiences, your past, has made you who you are as an individual right at this very moment. How you interpret the world is different than how I interpret it; meaning, what courtesies I want extended to me, most likely do not match the courtesies you would like extended towards you.
So this phrase - in it's mere stated, out-of-context form - really tends to make things more complicated than simple.
What I want done to me, others may not want done to them. And what others want done to them, I may not want done to me.
And if you think about it, approaching the world from this point of very can actually be pretty fucking selfish. Because, essentially, you're taking into account what you like and how you want others to treat you...not thinking about others and what they might like and how they may want to be treated...which could be so extremely different from what you want.
So, yes, be kind to others. Extend common courtesies to them. But don't go around with the asinine, presumptuous mindset that everyone around you is like you, and therefore, must clearly like and dislike the things you like and dislike. Or that they must want to be treated the same way you want to be treated. Because there's a good chance, that they may not feel the same way you feel about certain things.
And take this phrase into context.
Its origin is from the Bible - Matthew 7:12, to be exact.
"Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."
Or better yet, The Message translation:
"Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get."
That makes a little more sense, don't you think?
"Do unto others what you would have them do unto you."
Most people have heard this phrase. It's commonly known as "the golden rule." However, taken out of context, it seems to mean simply what it says.
What you want done to you, do to others.
Loosely translated, the approach - or interpretation - of this phrase, can merely been seen as "be kind." Simple enough, right?
Wrong.
Because if you're like me, you may do exactly what this phrase suggests. You know what courtesies you would like others to extend to you, so you extend those exact same courtesies towards others. Aaaaaand, that's where the problem lies.
Because every single person on this earth is different. Your experiences, your past, has made you who you are as an individual right at this very moment. How you interpret the world is different than how I interpret it; meaning, what courtesies I want extended to me, most likely do not match the courtesies you would like extended towards you.
So this phrase - in it's mere stated, out-of-context form - really tends to make things more complicated than simple.
What I want done to me, others may not want done to them. And what others want done to them, I may not want done to me.
And if you think about it, approaching the world from this point of very can actually be pretty fucking selfish. Because, essentially, you're taking into account what you like and how you want others to treat you...not thinking about others and what they might like and how they may want to be treated...which could be so extremely different from what you want.
So, yes, be kind to others. Extend common courtesies to them. But don't go around with the asinine, presumptuous mindset that everyone around you is like you, and therefore, must clearly like and dislike the things you like and dislike. Or that they must want to be treated the same way you want to be treated. Because there's a good chance, that they may not feel the same way you feel about certain things.
And take this phrase into context.
Its origin is from the Bible - Matthew 7:12, to be exact.
"Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."
Or better yet, The Message translation:
"Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get."
That makes a little more sense, don't you think?
Friday 14 June 2019
I forgot how beautiful of a colour crimson is.
How comforting of a sight those small beads are.
First, starting off as separate, then, more and more, gathering together into one long stream.
A red trickle.
Running down my leg.
Drip, drip, dripping on the floor.
That solace of that sharp blade.
How it increases my focus on the here, on the now.
Drawing me in with its sweet siren song.
Helping me forget - for just a split second - all the chaos in my head.
And then that moment is gone.
And I just want more.
More.
More.
More.
An appetite that is never fulfilled.
A pain that is never too much.
Just one more time.
(And another. And another. And another.)
How comforting of a sight those small beads are.
First, starting off as separate, then, more and more, gathering together into one long stream.
A red trickle.
Running down my leg.
Drip, drip, dripping on the floor.
That solace of that sharp blade.
How it increases my focus on the here, on the now.
Drawing me in with its sweet siren song.
Helping me forget - for just a split second - all the chaos in my head.
And then that moment is gone.
And I just want more.
More.
More.
More.
An appetite that is never fulfilled.
A pain that is never too much.
Just one more time.
(And another. And another. And another.)
Friday 3 May 2019
Sunday 14 April 2019
Life is hard work.
I know that.
I've known that.
I have struggled and fought and clawed my way through darkness, through hopelessness, through disappointments and heartbreak, through grief and sleepless nights...and I am still here.
I am not immune to struggles.
And while I still come out on the other side of hardships, sometimes (most times) it is in scattered pieces.
Pieces that I have to gather, pick up, and try to put myself back together again.
I will never be whole.
And I will break again.
And again and again and again.
But thus far, my track record has proven that I fight my way through, I don't give up (I consider my vocabulary to exclude the phrase "give up"), and I stay alive.
If only just barely.
And this is no different than any other time.
Though, certainly, it is an entirely new kind of struggle for me.
One I never thought I would face, to be honest.
To love someone so deeply and so fiercely and be affected by every tiny, seemingly insignificant thing that they do.
To have them become so much a part of me, that when they are absent, it feels like I am missing a piece of myself.
And to be sure, I am.
I am missing My Heart.
He has been gone for four months.
Four long months, that have dragged by.
Where our only means of communication have been by written letters.
Four months of people telling me "it will fly by!"
Four months of me wanting to strangle every. single. fucking. piece of shit that has thoughtlessly uttered that fucking phrase to my face.
Because OF COURSE, they have been apart from their spouse for that long of an amount of time.
OF COURSE they have only ever been able to communicate with their spouse by written letter. No phone calls, no texts, no emails...n-o-t-h-i-n-g.
These "well-meaning," but completely heartless shit humans trying to comfort me in telling me "it will be over before you know it!" have NEVER been though anything like this.
How dare they speak on something they know nothing about.
And now?
Now those four months are going to turn into seven months...if not more.
Because of course the man I fell in love with, the man who holds my heart, excelled in his training. He stepped up, became the excellent leader I know he's capable of being, he worked hard, he took charge, took responsibility, first one up in the morning, last one to go to bed at night. This man is now reaping the reward of his hard work and efforts, and has been placed in additional training that will help him accomplish his goals and dreams.
And I couldn't be more proud of him.
He joined having a goal in mind; and while this isn't the exact same end-game as his initial goal, it runs parallel to what he wants. And so instead of trying out for something, instead of potentially being rejected, his determination and noble character opened the door of opportunity for him to go straight through this pipeline of training, without having to try out, giving him that opportunity for one further step in reaching his goal.
It's an incredible opportunity. And it's what he wants. So, of course, I want this for him as well. I want to support him in all that he sets out to accomplish. I want to be there by his side. To help him, to encourage him, to support him, to cheer him on. He deserves it, and I want to be that for him. I want to be what he needs.
I love him.
And because I love him, this means setting aside my "needs" for a little while longer. I am willing (as much as I'm kicking and screaming on the inside about it) to be here longer than anticipated, if it means he gets to do this. He is my dreamer, and I want to do all that I can to encourage his dreams, to help see them become a reality.
Even if it kills me.
Because I can't say that being here is necessarily the best for me.
(I would argue the exact opposite, in fact.)
While I used to be more ignorant of my own self before, I have slowly learned to be a little more in tune with my needs. With my mental health. And I can see my mental health declining. Rapidly.
And I can't change that. I can't fix it. I have little to no control over most things in my life, and that helps about negative 73.6%.
But there is joy in suffering.
Or so I am learning.
Not that I take joy in being in a place that I absolutely despise. In fact, I don't think I've ever hated anything more in my life. I'm miserable here, and my best friends know that. (Though I try to not talk about that too much, because I know it gets repetitive, and then it just seems like I'm complaining.)
So while I don't find joy in my physical location, nor my job, I *do* take joy in the fact that the man I love with my whole being, is able to pursue his goal. He is able to take an opportunity, and move forward with it. And that makes me happy.
Relationships are hard work.
This is something stated all the time, and rightly so, for how very true it is.
What you put into it, is what you will get out of it.
And if you determine in your head that something is worth the effort, worth the pain and the sorrow and the suffering, you will do everything within your power to continue to invest in it, to pour your heart and soul into it, all the sleepless nights, all the tears spilled, all the days where you aren't sure you'll be able to make it one more day because of how broken your heart feels.
People these days seem to lose sight of this.
And I could go into a rant about how people don't mean what they say anymore, how "commitment" is just an archaic term, that love is only something you feel in the moment, and once you stop feeling it, you move onto the next thing and/or person...but I won't.
I will say, however, that love is not only a commitment; it is a choice.
I wake up every day, and every day, no matter how miserable I am, or how much I want to die, I remember my choice.
To love him.
To honour him.
To respect him.
To support him as much as I am able.
And that I chose him.
That I choose him.
Every day.
Day after day after day.
I chose him the moment we decided to be "official," and I have continued to choose him every day since then.
He is the love of my life, he is the man who holds my heart, he is a dream come true, he is my best friend.
So OF COURSE I am going to stick by him.
Of course I am going to weather this storm of long distance and physical absence.
Do I love it?
Of fucking course not!
But do I love him?
Undoubtedly.
Completely.
Wholly.
And that makes all of this, worth it.
For him.
I know that.
I've known that.
I have struggled and fought and clawed my way through darkness, through hopelessness, through disappointments and heartbreak, through grief and sleepless nights...and I am still here.
I am not immune to struggles.
And while I still come out on the other side of hardships, sometimes (most times) it is in scattered pieces.
Pieces that I have to gather, pick up, and try to put myself back together again.
I will never be whole.
And I will break again.
And again and again and again.
But thus far, my track record has proven that I fight my way through, I don't give up (I consider my vocabulary to exclude the phrase "give up"), and I stay alive.
If only just barely.
And this is no different than any other time.
Though, certainly, it is an entirely new kind of struggle for me.
One I never thought I would face, to be honest.
To love someone so deeply and so fiercely and be affected by every tiny, seemingly insignificant thing that they do.
To have them become so much a part of me, that when they are absent, it feels like I am missing a piece of myself.
And to be sure, I am.
I am missing My Heart.
He has been gone for four months.
Four long months, that have dragged by.
Where our only means of communication have been by written letters.
Four months of people telling me "it will fly by!"
Four months of me wanting to strangle every. single. fucking. piece of shit that has thoughtlessly uttered that fucking phrase to my face.
Because OF COURSE, they have been apart from their spouse for that long of an amount of time.
OF COURSE they have only ever been able to communicate with their spouse by written letter. No phone calls, no texts, no emails...n-o-t-h-i-n-g.
These "well-meaning," but completely heartless shit humans trying to comfort me in telling me "it will be over before you know it!" have NEVER been though anything like this.
How dare they speak on something they know nothing about.
And now?
Now those four months are going to turn into seven months...if not more.
Because of course the man I fell in love with, the man who holds my heart, excelled in his training. He stepped up, became the excellent leader I know he's capable of being, he worked hard, he took charge, took responsibility, first one up in the morning, last one to go to bed at night. This man is now reaping the reward of his hard work and efforts, and has been placed in additional training that will help him accomplish his goals and dreams.
And I couldn't be more proud of him.
He joined having a goal in mind; and while this isn't the exact same end-game as his initial goal, it runs parallel to what he wants. And so instead of trying out for something, instead of potentially being rejected, his determination and noble character opened the door of opportunity for him to go straight through this pipeline of training, without having to try out, giving him that opportunity for one further step in reaching his goal.
It's an incredible opportunity. And it's what he wants. So, of course, I want this for him as well. I want to support him in all that he sets out to accomplish. I want to be there by his side. To help him, to encourage him, to support him, to cheer him on. He deserves it, and I want to be that for him. I want to be what he needs.
I love him.
And because I love him, this means setting aside my "needs" for a little while longer. I am willing (as much as I'm kicking and screaming on the inside about it) to be here longer than anticipated, if it means he gets to do this. He is my dreamer, and I want to do all that I can to encourage his dreams, to help see them become a reality.
Even if it kills me.
Because I can't say that being here is necessarily the best for me.
(I would argue the exact opposite, in fact.)
While I used to be more ignorant of my own self before, I have slowly learned to be a little more in tune with my needs. With my mental health. And I can see my mental health declining. Rapidly.
And I can't change that. I can't fix it. I have little to no control over most things in my life, and that helps about negative 73.6%.
But there is joy in suffering.
Or so I am learning.
Not that I take joy in being in a place that I absolutely despise. In fact, I don't think I've ever hated anything more in my life. I'm miserable here, and my best friends know that. (Though I try to not talk about that too much, because I know it gets repetitive, and then it just seems like I'm complaining.)
So while I don't find joy in my physical location, nor my job, I *do* take joy in the fact that the man I love with my whole being, is able to pursue his goal. He is able to take an opportunity, and move forward with it. And that makes me happy.
Relationships are hard work.
This is something stated all the time, and rightly so, for how very true it is.
What you put into it, is what you will get out of it.
And if you determine in your head that something is worth the effort, worth the pain and the sorrow and the suffering, you will do everything within your power to continue to invest in it, to pour your heart and soul into it, all the sleepless nights, all the tears spilled, all the days where you aren't sure you'll be able to make it one more day because of how broken your heart feels.
People these days seem to lose sight of this.
And I could go into a rant about how people don't mean what they say anymore, how "commitment" is just an archaic term, that love is only something you feel in the moment, and once you stop feeling it, you move onto the next thing and/or person...but I won't.
I will say, however, that love is not only a commitment; it is a choice.
I wake up every day, and every day, no matter how miserable I am, or how much I want to die, I remember my choice.
To love him.
To honour him.
To respect him.
To support him as much as I am able.
And that I chose him.
That I choose him.
Every day.
Day after day after day.
I chose him the moment we decided to be "official," and I have continued to choose him every day since then.
He is the love of my life, he is the man who holds my heart, he is a dream come true, he is my best friend.
So OF COURSE I am going to stick by him.
Of course I am going to weather this storm of long distance and physical absence.
Do I love it?
Of fucking course not!
But do I love him?
Undoubtedly.
Completely.
Wholly.
And that makes all of this, worth it.
For him.
Thursday 11 April 2019
Saturday 26 January 2019
Silence, please.
I am finally (re)learning how to enjoy silence.
It has been a long time since I've been at this point.
I would say about 4+ years ago, I was fine with sitting in silence. Immersing myself in it. I enjoyed being at home without noise. Driving for hours without music. Just sitting and letting things...be.
I have observed (learned) that a lot of people fear silence. For one reason or another, perhaps even multiple reasons. I think the majority of people are terrified to be alone with their thoughts. They let who they interact with, what they listen to or read, their jobs, all of those things determine who they are as individuals. They let the outside world define them (and their social status), instead of allowing themselves to be introspective and figuring out who they are from themselves.
Being alone with your thoughts means facing who you are at the end of the day. Who you are alone, with no one else around to decide who you are. Which, if you are like most people in this desensitized and materialistic society, is a terrifying thing. You surround yourself with people all day long, at the gym, at work, socializing after work, only to get home and fall into bed, exhausted, after a day of going, going, going. But you rinse and repeat. Because a measure of worth is your bragging rights of how many hours your worked this week, how small the amount of hours you slept are, and what your take home pay is.
It's not the qualities and quirks that make you, you. Why on earth would immeasurable things like your integrity, your honesty, your ability to do what is right when no one is looking, be ways to measure your worth as a person? No. In a world where things that you can hold and touch and see and count have a clear measurement of worth, it is the things that you can measure (lack of sleep, hours spent at work) that make you "valuable."
But I digress.
I found myself becoming that kind of person a few years ago. That I needed to go, go, go and be busy and active and, well, forget time to rest! Then I remembered how important it was to actually take a step back, breathe, and rest. For at least one day. To help balance myself, to get away from the noise of the world and the busy-ness. To reset. I made it a priority - and sometimes I had to force myself to remember to do so - to take it easy and not rush around. To go out and do things I enjoyed. Hiking. Being out in nature. Writing.
But over the past four years or so, my head has become much less...friendly. While I hate noise in general (and here I'm not just referring to sound, but traffic, too many people...things that overload my senses), I found myself unable to sit in silence like I used to. In fact, I couldn't really let myself sit in silence at all, regardless of how much I needed it - especially to help my brain reset.
Here I am now, though.
Able to withstand silence again. Not dreading it, not putting on music or netflix for noise to distract me from my head and the torment of my thoughts. In fact, I would say I've gone the exact opposite way. Now I love silence, and most of the time, the thought of turning on the tv (as much as I may want to binge-watch The Office over and over again) makes me cringe.
My head is still my enemy from time to time (more often than not, actually), but it has become tolerable. I am able to think, to ponder, to reflect...just as I used to. Not in the same way, or on the same subjects, but generally speaking, silence has once again become golden.
It's strange, I have to admit. Realising that I am okay with silence and embracing it. Partially because it has been so long since I've been at this point. But also partially because the noise and distraction of music or the tv also help keep me awake - especially when it's mid-day and I need to continue to stay up until a reasonable bedtime hour approaches. Ha.
With My Heart being gone, I think this has also emphasized the need for silence. I am often thinking of him, recalling memories of happy times together, thinking of new things to write him about. I'm not sure this will continue whenever we're reunited again. (Partially because he likes to have background noise on.) But perhaps a balance can be found.
Silence is good.
It's peaceful.
It gives time to reflect and think and even learn from past mishaps, however small they may be.
It's good to be reunited with an old friend.
It has been a long time since I've been at this point.
I would say about 4+ years ago, I was fine with sitting in silence. Immersing myself in it. I enjoyed being at home without noise. Driving for hours without music. Just sitting and letting things...be.
I have observed (learned) that a lot of people fear silence. For one reason or another, perhaps even multiple reasons. I think the majority of people are terrified to be alone with their thoughts. They let who they interact with, what they listen to or read, their jobs, all of those things determine who they are as individuals. They let the outside world define them (and their social status), instead of allowing themselves to be introspective and figuring out who they are from themselves.
Being alone with your thoughts means facing who you are at the end of the day. Who you are alone, with no one else around to decide who you are. Which, if you are like most people in this desensitized and materialistic society, is a terrifying thing. You surround yourself with people all day long, at the gym, at work, socializing after work, only to get home and fall into bed, exhausted, after a day of going, going, going. But you rinse and repeat. Because a measure of worth is your bragging rights of how many hours your worked this week, how small the amount of hours you slept are, and what your take home pay is.
It's not the qualities and quirks that make you, you. Why on earth would immeasurable things like your integrity, your honesty, your ability to do what is right when no one is looking, be ways to measure your worth as a person? No. In a world where things that you can hold and touch and see and count have a clear measurement of worth, it is the things that you can measure (lack of sleep, hours spent at work) that make you "valuable."
But I digress.
I found myself becoming that kind of person a few years ago. That I needed to go, go, go and be busy and active and, well, forget time to rest! Then I remembered how important it was to actually take a step back, breathe, and rest. For at least one day. To help balance myself, to get away from the noise of the world and the busy-ness. To reset. I made it a priority - and sometimes I had to force myself to remember to do so - to take it easy and not rush around. To go out and do things I enjoyed. Hiking. Being out in nature. Writing.
But over the past four years or so, my head has become much less...friendly. While I hate noise in general (and here I'm not just referring to sound, but traffic, too many people...things that overload my senses), I found myself unable to sit in silence like I used to. In fact, I couldn't really let myself sit in silence at all, regardless of how much I needed it - especially to help my brain reset.
Here I am now, though.
Able to withstand silence again. Not dreading it, not putting on music or netflix for noise to distract me from my head and the torment of my thoughts. In fact, I would say I've gone the exact opposite way. Now I love silence, and most of the time, the thought of turning on the tv (as much as I may want to binge-watch The Office over and over again) makes me cringe.
My head is still my enemy from time to time (more often than not, actually), but it has become tolerable. I am able to think, to ponder, to reflect...just as I used to. Not in the same way, or on the same subjects, but generally speaking, silence has once again become golden.
It's strange, I have to admit. Realising that I am okay with silence and embracing it. Partially because it has been so long since I've been at this point. But also partially because the noise and distraction of music or the tv also help keep me awake - especially when it's mid-day and I need to continue to stay up until a reasonable bedtime hour approaches. Ha.
With My Heart being gone, I think this has also emphasized the need for silence. I am often thinking of him, recalling memories of happy times together, thinking of new things to write him about. I'm not sure this will continue whenever we're reunited again. (Partially because he likes to have background noise on.) But perhaps a balance can be found.
Silence is good.
It's peaceful.
It gives time to reflect and think and even learn from past mishaps, however small they may be.
It's good to be reunited with an old friend.
Saturday 12 January 2019
Non-Depressed People Are Not Depressed
You know what's wrong with people who aren't depressed?
They aren't depressed.
What a mind-blowing statement, right?
Give me a minute, I have my reasons for posing that question.
In the past week or so, I've been thinking a lot about depression. As one does, when they struggle with it. Because it's there, all the time. It's your constant companion. It lies to you, telling you that you just lack motivation, or that you're lazy, that you lack value as an individual. That how you feel, that sluggishness, that constant fog in your head, isn't depression...it's just you.
To quote something I read on the internet:
"[Depression] is like fighting a war where the enemy's strategy is to convince you that the war isn't actually happening."
For. Fucking. Real.
And I suppose the sentiment behind my opening question isn't just something that can be applied to depression alone, but to anything out there that one person has dealt with or experienced, and someone else has not.
Because I can talk to my family until I'm blue in the face about being depressed. About how it sucks motivation out of everything. How waking up is a struggle in and of itself. On how it makes me suck at my job, or feel like I'm less than a whole person because my brain chemicals are so fucked up. But as much as I talk, they will never understand.
Do you know why?
Because none of them have ever been depressed.
And sure, while some try to practise empathy (and usually fail at it), others are just of the mindset of "get over it!" Or "motivate yourself anyway!" Or "stop using it as a crutch!" Or my late favourite "don't have kids until you're clear of depression!"
What the actual fuck.
I have come to an epiphany in the past few days of why I share so little of my personal life with most of my family members...but that's for another time. Though their closed-mindedness, lack of empathy, and lack of trying to understand as much as they possibly can without having experienced depression themselves, definitely adds to why I don't share much.
In the past year or so, I have come to understand that I know nothing about the vast expanse of how incredible grace really is, and how much it covers.
And while grace was discussed and even taught about at church growing up, in thinking about my childhood, the way in which I was raised, even certain beliefs, ideals, and attitudes some of my family members have, I have come to see that grace isn't always freely given (by people, that is). It is a prettily packaged concept that sounds good when being talked about, but is poorly practised. And I myself have been extremely guilty of that...though I am trying to get better at giving grace to others.
And the fact that we live in a fallen world where death and disease and evil exist. If someone can have the flu, and that is a clear sign of an effect the fall of Adam had, why can't mental illness - depression - be a sign as well? Because that is just as real as cancer.
And life itself is very complex and hard to understand at times. So yes, while Christ is our healer, that does not mean that healing is guaranteed every time you pray for it. Do I believe that God can heal anything? Most definitely! Do I believe that God can heal every time? Of course! But will God heal everything, every time is a different question...and one I don't have an answer to. I don't think anyone has an answer to that, to be honest.
It is incredibly...frustrating. Degrading. Hurtful...to have people in my life who love me, but who cannot understand that depression is something that I have to learn to live with. Because that is my reality, and there is absolutely no cure. No way to change it.
I did not choose to live with this demon.
I did not choose for my brain to be so hyperactive and to be in constant torture and torment at every waking hour because my brain does not stop, but it is also doused in a heavy fog, where simple words are easily forgotten, where I am mentally and physically exhausted all the time, and my energy supply drains simply by existing.
And yet, people think that if I motivate myself enough, it'll be enough of a distraction to forget I'm sad all the time. Or that, magically, if I pray hard enough or some shit like that, depression will disappear forever! Rather than acknowledging that mental illness is as much of a result of the fall as any physical ailment is, and just like death, you cannot defeat depression.
I hate my life.
I hate that every day I'm not only tired when I wake up, but I'm wiped. out. at the end of the day, because I'm constantly fighting. Fighting my thoughts from racing all the time, fighting brain fog to try to think clearly enough to do normal things, fighting sadness and struggling to not give in.
I don't want my life to be this way.
If I could, I would sell my soul to not be sad all the time.
But I can't.
And that's my reality.
That is my life.
A constant struggle, a never-ending battle of a war that feels like it's not happening.
And some days, it just feels like it would be best, easiest, it would save me so much grief and heartache, if I just gave in and put a stop to the battle.
Surrender.
End it for good.
But, (as I think) unfortunately, it is my nature to fight.
And so I continue to do so.
Day after day.
Wearing myself down.
But somehow still finding fight left within me.
It is so very much a struggle.
A struggle in which I am alone.
It has always been that way; and it always will.
And so it goes.
They aren't depressed.
What a mind-blowing statement, right?
Give me a minute, I have my reasons for posing that question.
In the past week or so, I've been thinking a lot about depression. As one does, when they struggle with it. Because it's there, all the time. It's your constant companion. It lies to you, telling you that you just lack motivation, or that you're lazy, that you lack value as an individual. That how you feel, that sluggishness, that constant fog in your head, isn't depression...it's just you.
To quote something I read on the internet:
"[Depression] is like fighting a war where the enemy's strategy is to convince you that the war isn't actually happening."
For. Fucking. Real.
And I suppose the sentiment behind my opening question isn't just something that can be applied to depression alone, but to anything out there that one person has dealt with or experienced, and someone else has not.
Because I can talk to my family until I'm blue in the face about being depressed. About how it sucks motivation out of everything. How waking up is a struggle in and of itself. On how it makes me suck at my job, or feel like I'm less than a whole person because my brain chemicals are so fucked up. But as much as I talk, they will never understand.
Do you know why?
Because none of them have ever been depressed.
And sure, while some try to practise empathy (and usually fail at it), others are just of the mindset of "get over it!" Or "motivate yourself anyway!" Or "stop using it as a crutch!" Or my late favourite "don't have kids until you're clear of depression!"
What the actual fuck.
I have come to an epiphany in the past few days of why I share so little of my personal life with most of my family members...but that's for another time. Though their closed-mindedness, lack of empathy, and lack of trying to understand as much as they possibly can without having experienced depression themselves, definitely adds to why I don't share much.
In the past year or so, I have come to understand that I know nothing about the vast expanse of how incredible grace really is, and how much it covers.
And while grace was discussed and even taught about at church growing up, in thinking about my childhood, the way in which I was raised, even certain beliefs, ideals, and attitudes some of my family members have, I have come to see that grace isn't always freely given (by people, that is). It is a prettily packaged concept that sounds good when being talked about, but is poorly practised. And I myself have been extremely guilty of that...though I am trying to get better at giving grace to others.
And the fact that we live in a fallen world where death and disease and evil exist. If someone can have the flu, and that is a clear sign of an effect the fall of Adam had, why can't mental illness - depression - be a sign as well? Because that is just as real as cancer.
And life itself is very complex and hard to understand at times. So yes, while Christ is our healer, that does not mean that healing is guaranteed every time you pray for it. Do I believe that God can heal anything? Most definitely! Do I believe that God can heal every time? Of course! But will God heal everything, every time is a different question...and one I don't have an answer to. I don't think anyone has an answer to that, to be honest.
It is incredibly...frustrating. Degrading. Hurtful...to have people in my life who love me, but who cannot understand that depression is something that I have to learn to live with. Because that is my reality, and there is absolutely no cure. No way to change it.
I did not choose to live with this demon.
I did not choose for my brain to be so hyperactive and to be in constant torture and torment at every waking hour because my brain does not stop, but it is also doused in a heavy fog, where simple words are easily forgotten, where I am mentally and physically exhausted all the time, and my energy supply drains simply by existing.
And yet, people think that if I motivate myself enough, it'll be enough of a distraction to forget I'm sad all the time. Or that, magically, if I pray hard enough or some shit like that, depression will disappear forever! Rather than acknowledging that mental illness is as much of a result of the fall as any physical ailment is, and just like death, you cannot defeat depression.
I hate my life.
I hate that every day I'm not only tired when I wake up, but I'm wiped. out. at the end of the day, because I'm constantly fighting. Fighting my thoughts from racing all the time, fighting brain fog to try to think clearly enough to do normal things, fighting sadness and struggling to not give in.
I don't want my life to be this way.
If I could, I would sell my soul to not be sad all the time.
But I can't.
And that's my reality.
That is my life.
A constant struggle, a never-ending battle of a war that feels like it's not happening.
And some days, it just feels like it would be best, easiest, it would save me so much grief and heartache, if I just gave in and put a stop to the battle.
Surrender.
End it for good.
But, (as I think) unfortunately, it is my nature to fight.
And so I continue to do so.
Day after day.
Wearing myself down.
But somehow still finding fight left within me.
It is so very much a struggle.
A struggle in which I am alone.
It has always been that way; and it always will.
And so it goes.
Saturday 5 January 2019
It's terrifying.
Being alone with your thoughts.
I don't scare easily, but it's at times like these when the sadness engulfs me and I am too weak to fight, that being alone with my thoughts and emotions (whatever those are) terrifies me.
In this new season of life, there is a lot to process. To learn. To change. To reflect. To feel.
It is a new year; that alone is usually cause for reflection.
But I am also about alone as I have ever been in my life up to this given point in time.
The one who holds my heart is gone for the next [at least] 14 weeks.
I am apart from him after spending every day and every spare moment for the past year and a half with him.
Talk about shock.
I used to be confident in who I was.
I knew who I was and I knew the One to whom I belonged.
And then life shifted, and everything became a question.
No answers, no light, just me stumbling around like an idiot, feeling like I was drowning, and like I would live the rest of my life like that.
"In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we're made of."
- Howard Schultz
I went crazy (so to speak).
I started going on adventures of my own, taking risks (ME, of all people, taking risks), essentially just living my life as one big "fuck you" to God and anyone else around me.
Partially because I felt out of control. I was tired of not having answers - much less help - and I needed to do things that made me feel alive.
But also partially because I had met someone that I found myself in love with, and wanted to be a better version of me because of them. To do things that scared me that would cause me to grow, to step outside of my comfort zone, and yeah, for bragging rights. Because why not, right?
But in going crazy and taking risks and making some pretty dumb decisions, I also lost complete sight of who I was.
I became a stranger to myself, and even now, I'm struggling to figure out - once again - who I am.
Which has not been easy.
Try completely not recognising yourself, moving away from your hometown for the first time ever, struggling with near-crippling depression, going on to working two jobs, meeting someone, having to find a place to live in only two weeks, going from living with family nearby to having essentially no one, needing to prove to yourself you can make it on your own, and then getting into a relationship and trying to learn how to co-function with another being all while trying to remember who you once were.
No one enjoys being left alone with a stranger.
And so here I am.
Two years later.
And I still have no fucking clue as to who I am.
Perhaps the biggest hindrance (while being the biggest help in other ways) was spending time with My Heart. Always being with him meant no alone time (unless you count driving in your car alone to and from work or to and from home as alone time...and that definitely does not count), which meant no mental processing, no decompressing from the general busy-ness of life, no remembering - much less maintaining - who I am as an individual.
I never wanted to be that person who was so wrapped up in a relationship that I lost sight of and forgot who I was as an individual.
Because while, yes, you two are a unit and you need to learn to function together, at the end of the day, you are still you. You are left with only you when you are alone. And if you don't know who you are, if you aren't confident in your identity, if you lose sight of being you as an individual...it just adds up to a really complex equation that feels impossible to solve.
And that is where I am right now.
But oh, it's so much more complicated than just trying to rediscover who I am.
Because while I became a stranger to myself, in that chunk of time of adventures and risks, I was also in survival mode.
I had to be.
I mentally steeled myself to survive. I shut down (even more) what emotions I may have felt. I fought to be hard and not have a soft heart. I had goals to accomplish, days to get through, and that's what drove me. Focusing from one task to the next, always staying busy, never allowing myself to be alone, to process, to just...be.
I had to do that to fight the sadness, to fight the darkness that was a constant, looming threat of swallowing me whole, in order to barely make it from one day to the next.
So even now, when I'm alone, my default mode is survival mode.
Which never ends up going well when I'm back with My Heart.
Because survival mode Aimee, is single Aimee, which means it's her against the whole world.
This is going to be a lot of work.
Trying to remember who I am.
Trying to be in survival mode, but not as single Aimee, rather as committed-for-life Aimee...which I don't know what that combination looks like.
Trying to learn and grow and change (all for the better) while he's gone, so I can be the best version of myself for him. To support him, to love him, to communicate clearly, to tag-team life together.
Trying to understand my past and where all my hangups are and how to heal from past wounds; and also how to currently live with who I am now because of what happened in my childhood.
Also just generally fighting the sadness of being so far away from My Heart, of trying to stay busy enough to be distracted, but also have enough time to think and process and do whatever else I need to do.
It feels daunting.
All that I need to do in the next few months.
("Need" meaning tasks I have taken upon myself to accomplish, not as in necessary for survival...although I suppose it could be taken like that as well.)
Couple all of that with generally feeling tired all the time and extra sad and it just gets really messy and feels extremely overwhelming and the general mood is to just want to shut down, shut the world out, not go to work or deal with responsibilities, and maybe just eventually die so as to not have to feel this way anymore.
I know when I see him again, it will feel as if the weeks and months just flew by.
But right now it's dragging about as much as my spirit is.
Which is all the time, all day.
Regardless.
I will probably do what I always do.
Pick myself up by my bootstraps, ignore how I feel, and figure it the fuck out.
Because I know that as much as I want to give up or give in, deep down - who I am at my core - I won't allow myself to give up.
I fight - blindly at times - because I have to.
Because it's who I am.
I fight even when I want to give up, even when it feels like I have no fight left in me, because to me, there is always hope.
Even when I can't see it.
Even when I can't feel it.
And the hope that things will get better, that the light will shine again, that maybe one day I'll stop feeling tired all the time, that I'll remember who I am, that I'll be reunited with My Heart...that is the hope that is worth fighting for.
(And so the battle begins.)
Being alone with your thoughts.
I don't scare easily, but it's at times like these when the sadness engulfs me and I am too weak to fight, that being alone with my thoughts and emotions (whatever those are) terrifies me.
In this new season of life, there is a lot to process. To learn. To change. To reflect. To feel.
It is a new year; that alone is usually cause for reflection.
But I am also about alone as I have ever been in my life up to this given point in time.
The one who holds my heart is gone for the next [at least] 14 weeks.
I am apart from him after spending every day and every spare moment for the past year and a half with him.
Talk about shock.
I used to be confident in who I was.
I knew who I was and I knew the One to whom I belonged.
And then life shifted, and everything became a question.
No answers, no light, just me stumbling around like an idiot, feeling like I was drowning, and like I would live the rest of my life like that.
"In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we're made of."
- Howard Schultz
I went crazy (so to speak).
I started going on adventures of my own, taking risks (ME, of all people, taking risks), essentially just living my life as one big "fuck you" to God and anyone else around me.
Partially because I felt out of control. I was tired of not having answers - much less help - and I needed to do things that made me feel alive.
But also partially because I had met someone that I found myself in love with, and wanted to be a better version of me because of them. To do things that scared me that would cause me to grow, to step outside of my comfort zone, and yeah, for bragging rights. Because why not, right?
But in going crazy and taking risks and making some pretty dumb decisions, I also lost complete sight of who I was.
I became a stranger to myself, and even now, I'm struggling to figure out - once again - who I am.
Which has not been easy.
Try completely not recognising yourself, moving away from your hometown for the first time ever, struggling with near-crippling depression, going on to working two jobs, meeting someone, having to find a place to live in only two weeks, going from living with family nearby to having essentially no one, needing to prove to yourself you can make it on your own, and then getting into a relationship and trying to learn how to co-function with another being all while trying to remember who you once were.
No one enjoys being left alone with a stranger.
And so here I am.
Two years later.
And I still have no fucking clue as to who I am.
Perhaps the biggest hindrance (while being the biggest help in other ways) was spending time with My Heart. Always being with him meant no alone time (unless you count driving in your car alone to and from work or to and from home as alone time...and that definitely does not count), which meant no mental processing, no decompressing from the general busy-ness of life, no remembering - much less maintaining - who I am as an individual.
I never wanted to be that person who was so wrapped up in a relationship that I lost sight of and forgot who I was as an individual.
Because while, yes, you two are a unit and you need to learn to function together, at the end of the day, you are still you. You are left with only you when you are alone. And if you don't know who you are, if you aren't confident in your identity, if you lose sight of being you as an individual...it just adds up to a really complex equation that feels impossible to solve.
And that is where I am right now.
But oh, it's so much more complicated than just trying to rediscover who I am.
Because while I became a stranger to myself, in that chunk of time of adventures and risks, I was also in survival mode.
I had to be.
I mentally steeled myself to survive. I shut down (even more) what emotions I may have felt. I fought to be hard and not have a soft heart. I had goals to accomplish, days to get through, and that's what drove me. Focusing from one task to the next, always staying busy, never allowing myself to be alone, to process, to just...be.
I had to do that to fight the sadness, to fight the darkness that was a constant, looming threat of swallowing me whole, in order to barely make it from one day to the next.
So even now, when I'm alone, my default mode is survival mode.
Which never ends up going well when I'm back with My Heart.
Because survival mode Aimee, is single Aimee, which means it's her against the whole world.
This is going to be a lot of work.
Trying to remember who I am.
Trying to be in survival mode, but not as single Aimee, rather as committed-for-life Aimee...which I don't know what that combination looks like.
Trying to learn and grow and change (all for the better) while he's gone, so I can be the best version of myself for him. To support him, to love him, to communicate clearly, to tag-team life together.
Trying to understand my past and where all my hangups are and how to heal from past wounds; and also how to currently live with who I am now because of what happened in my childhood.
Also just generally fighting the sadness of being so far away from My Heart, of trying to stay busy enough to be distracted, but also have enough time to think and process and do whatever else I need to do.
It feels daunting.
All that I need to do in the next few months.
("Need" meaning tasks I have taken upon myself to accomplish, not as in necessary for survival...although I suppose it could be taken like that as well.)
Couple all of that with generally feeling tired all the time and extra sad and it just gets really messy and feels extremely overwhelming and the general mood is to just want to shut down, shut the world out, not go to work or deal with responsibilities, and maybe just eventually die so as to not have to feel this way anymore.
I know when I see him again, it will feel as if the weeks and months just flew by.
But right now it's dragging about as much as my spirit is.
Which is all the time, all day.
Regardless.
I will probably do what I always do.
Pick myself up by my bootstraps, ignore how I feel, and figure it the fuck out.
Because I know that as much as I want to give up or give in, deep down - who I am at my core - I won't allow myself to give up.
I fight - blindly at times - because I have to.
Because it's who I am.
I fight even when I want to give up, even when it feels like I have no fight left in me, because to me, there is always hope.
Even when I can't see it.
Even when I can't feel it.
And the hope that things will get better, that the light will shine again, that maybe one day I'll stop feeling tired all the time, that I'll remember who I am, that I'll be reunited with My Heart...that is the hope that is worth fighting for.
(And so the battle begins.)
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