10/12/24
It’s already been some time since my last journal entry, and I’ve already had ups and downs since then. I can go from up to down very quickly, and when I’m down, I can’t quite ever figure out why I’m so down, why I’m feeling that way, and I feel like I must just suffer through the fact that I’m feeling down until I sleep and can reset mentally with a night of sleeping. When I have my ups, the good days, I can acknowledge them as good days, but I also don’t think about why I was able to receive a good day, I just utilize the day and then go to sleep.
I believe that I’m getting closer to understanding why I have some of these ups and downs, and being okay with having ups and downs, and then working towards having more ups than downs, and hopefully, maybe even one day, I will almost always have ups, and I’ll being okay with how things are.
I sat outside for just a little under an hour feeling the sun against my face, eventually I closed my eyes, got comfortable, and spent the time thinking. I’m still thinking now, it’s been about 20 minutes since I came back inside, but I believe that a lot of the thoughts I had and the feelings I went through should be written down here so I can come back to them and understand why I was thinking or feeling certain ways… which I suppose is the point of a journal, but my utilization of a journal has been neglected either by forgetfulness or a lack of willingness to write down my feelings.
When I was outside, I let my mind wander. I’ve been trying to make myself realize that I’m really here now, and this is my life now, and many aspects of myself that exist for the old world I used to be in are no longer reasonable or make sense. Even systems or ideas I’ve had since high school have been held onto. It took someone I worked with for a short period of time to make me aware that I saw myself as above others because in high school that was what I experienced and felt like that was reflective of reality. Even after this acknowledgement from him, and my new awareness of this system no longer making sense, it took even more time for me to really work and feel through that, and it’s still present in some ways. Before getting into the fact that I have a median that’s more negative than positive, and I lean into that automatically currently, I also play into that by saying things that would make another individual believe that I think I’m above them in some way. While I may not actually believe that, and I could say that I don’t think in that particular way, if I speak in a way that promotes that, the other person won’t want to speak with me.
I went for a walk with [X] to a coffeeshop a few days ago, and this was the day after the party, and he was hungover, and was not feeling well already, and I knew this, but was not acting appropriately for it. I was acting negative, and admittedly, automatically. So, I was negative and my words would make him believe that I genuinely felt like I was above him, so even though I don’t think this to be a reflection of reality, it wouldn’t matter to him, because he isn’t in my head, and even if he were, that wouldn’t be enough.
While at the shop, he tried to understand me and my moods, because my moods tend to swing, and he was trying to understand that, because although I wasn’t aware of it, he was aware that I was being very negative and it was probably insufferable to be around me then, but he cares about me, so he wanted to try and understand me instead of pushing me away. On the way back, and during the chat, it hurt me a lot, because it made it sound like he didn’t like me, the individual, the person. That’s what I felt like, it felt like he was trying to hurt me, but that wasn’t the case, he wasn’t trying to hurt me, and I wasn’t trying to hurt him, but I did hurt him, without even thinking about it. If I were in his position, I probably would’ve tried saying similar, because I would want the friendship to work, but I also don’t want to be hurt by the other person, nor do I want to be drained by the other person.
I didn’t really understand what he was trying to tell me then, so when we got home, I was unable to do very much. I felt this inability to act, I felt terrible, and I didn’t want to feel this way, but I didn’t know how to get out of it. For the entire day, I still did not understand what he was trying to tell me. Eventually, I forced myself to sleep with drugs and woke up feeling similarly to the day before, showing that my system of “let me sleep to reset my brain” doesn’t work every single time. Anyway, I was making coffee, and he also was going to make coffee, and he apologized, and I did not, I was genuinely fearful of more confrontation, so I kept my head down, made my coffee, and then got out of there, saying I was fine and it’s okay, but I was not ready. It was weird feeling fearful of someone I’d say I love, but I just had to get out of there, and so I did. The entire day I felt pretty awful, and I don’t think I did much again.
The following day I woke up still not feeling great, but I was able to apologize to him, and I was aware of what was wrong and what I had done to hurt him. I was just saying negative things in response to the things he was saying, and that gets tiring. He had been able to handle it well enough because of his patience, but this time he was already feeling awful, so because the patience wasn’t present, he couldn’t handle my negative comments in response to whatever he would say.
Like said, I wasn’t even aware of this when it was happening, because I was just saying things, I wasn’t even thinking about what I was saying, I was just saying words and the words would fall out of my mouth, unaware that the words could hurt myself or the person I’m speaking to, then and there. Now, I do understand, and I’m trying to take a step back to avoid hurting him or anyone else, because my negative words do have an impact on the people I care about, because they care about me, and I have to admit this in order to be more careful in what I say.
Maybe at first, this way of seeing the world in a negative light worked, because at the time it was brought in, the nihilistic part of my brain was in total control, so seeing everything as awful, meaningless, and believing all my actions and words to be meaningless would totally make sense. Once again, things are not that way anymore.
Following the day of my apology, I felt better, and was already able to function better than before. I was playing a lot of guitar, and I was enjoying it. While we weren’t really hanging out, it was fine, I was pretty occupied and felt occupied with what I was doing. There was one day, I was on stimulants admittedly, but I was so totally and utterly into guitar that nothing else mattered, what I was doing was the only thing that mattered in the entire world, and I wanted to do it. It wasn’t anything all that complex, I was in D# minor, or maybe it was C minor, but the point is, I was trying to arpeggio each mode and connect them, and do it at a certain pace I wanted. Sure, to me right now, and to me in the future, that won’t seem like a big deal, but that’s the point, that’s what I wanted. I was doing that for hours, trying to hours, and I noticed that some thoughts were trying to come into my mind and occupy me.
I would automatically get thoughts like; “this is meaningless” and “in the grand scheme of things, this is nothing” and other thoughts that would try to stop me from what I’m doing, trying to stop me from doing anything, and the thoughts wanted me to feed into them, and focus on just them, instead of what I was doing.
I felt anger in response to these thoughts, I would respond to them by saying things like; “who cares?” or “yes, I know it’s meaningless, but all things are meaningless, and I’m going to occupy myself however I like!” Yes, all things are meaningless, but who cares? Should I really allow that to eat me up? No, of course not. I’m alive now, I don’t have to hide away anymore, and I can spend my time however I like. By being so obsessive over time, I lose my connection to time, I don’t know what to do with my time that I would somehow consider “meaningful” and then by doing so, I don’t do anything, which perpetuates the feeling of wastefulness. Thoughts of suicide used to consume my mind on a daily basis, but there’s no reason to allow those thoughts to consume me anymore.
I think the party helped reinforce some good things and some bad things. For the good things, it helped me understand that people will listen to me if I speak. If I start talking, and I try to say things I believe to be interesting, and I try to pay attention to others, there will be some level of connection. Of course, that connection will be minimal, I can only be so deep with people that I’m speaking to the first time, but they can give me attention, and I can give them attention. In the first half of the night or so, I spent all of my time outside, because I thought that would get me closer to people I could talk to, and would be more likely to be “my type of person.” I might have been right, although there were some floaters going from inside to out, from one group to another, but there were some conversations that I didn’t feel like were total wastes of time.
My fear of rejection probably comes from high school. I was rejected, or I knew I would be rejected based on previous experiences. I wasn’t always rejected, but many times I was. I couldn’t connect with the people there. They weren’t there for me, maturity wise, or even with the complexity of their ideas. This has to do somewhat with who I was around and also that I was unlucky. I think by being around people I didn’t like and I knew wouldn’t work for me mentally on any level only hurt me and made me feel even more isolated. If I had done things differently, suppose instead of choosing a shop that wasn’t a trade one, I would have been more likely to have a better connection with the people there. Or, maybe not even a better connection, but less likely to be rejected for the most basic of things, things that wouldn’t ordinarily have mattered at all, like sexuality.
However, it has already passed, I’ve already been out of high school for over a year, and I may have not made the best choices, but it’s already over, there’s no point in being upset over the poor choices I made, the only thing I can do is work with who I am now and what choices are to be made now and in the future. I can hold onto the systems that might’ve made sense in high school, or I can move on to the new world that I am now a part of.
Back to the party, the first half, like I mentioned, was okay, but the later half really worked for me. [X] brought me over to someone playing guitar and singing, and I listened to him for what felt like hours, and people eventually started leaving because it was late, but a few people stayed until about 5 AM with us. He played for a while, then eventually tired out, and we all chatted, and I had the opportunity to speak and pay attention to others. While I don’t think all my words were heard, I think that some slipped through, and some of the things I said were not some complex or deep ideas that I’ve been holding back from telling other people, but just telling someone the words “it’s going to be okay” and “you can do it” or similar phrases, which would normally have been so difficult for me. However, I was able to say them to this person, because I genuinely felt like he was opening up to me. Sure, he wasn’t really opening up to just me, he was just singing his heart out with songs he had already written, but I cared, and I was allowed to be that part of me, and he saw that happening.
I could have just walked away, I could have not cared, I could have gone to bed early and never talked with him, but I talked with him. I wanted to care, I wanted to know more about him, and I wanted to learn about him. I wanted to know what made him this way, and I wanted to give him that attention. There’s something in me that wants to give people that acknowledgement, I want people to know, even if I don’t know them personally, that I care about what they have to say, and I can make it known I care. I give them eye contact, I sit there and listen patiently, I ask questions specifically targeted towards things they’ve already mentioned, I bring up things they had said previously from 30 minutes ago, or an hour ago, or even longer, making sure they know I have a mental list of the things they’ve said, and I can, or I think I can, appropriately rank them on a level of importance, so the most important things can be brought up again.
I’d also like to believe I can say things and understand things. Simply that, I can understand or attempt to understand just about anything. There’s obviously a limitation to that, but I can try to understand, and that can be enough sometimes. Having something you’re interested in and someone even just trying to understand the thing you’re so totally into can feel great, so me doing that with someone else, because we’re all human, probably will feel good to them, just as it feels good for me to do that. However, doing all of these things can be very draining. It’s not like I can do this for hours upon hours every single day, I have limits too, but doing it once and a while can allow me to make connections.
Being able to talk to and listen to these people I met for the first time, and it being received as a mostly “good” experience has given me some boost in confidence. It was a reminder of the new reality I’m in. These people, or at least the ones I talked with, do not care about things like my sexuality, something like that is probably on the mental backlog for most people. They’re thinking about the words I’m saying, and they are trying, even if only just a little, to hear and understand what I’m saying to them, and I’m doing the same for them. I never felt hated then. No one hated me for the things I said, and yes, I said nothing extreme, I’m wise enough not to say anything extreme, but if someone were to get upset at me for something I had said then, that would have only fed into the idea that I really can’t connect with anyone on any level.
I tried to be careful when I wanted to ask a personal question, but it also would be dependent on how willing the other person would want to open up to me or anyone else sitting there. If they were being open with me, I’d still want to be careful, but I could get ask a person question and get a little deeper, I could showcase my own level of personal experience and understanding so that they know they’re not alone in respect to that specific thing. I could always get better at conversation, and I would like to be believe I will, but if I let myself slip into a negative way of thinking, then no one wins, and I hurt myself and the others around me, which has happened before with people I cared about, and they wanted to get away from me because it was too taxing on them to go through that, all the time.
While outside, I realized there are at least two main factors that I’m aware of that have impacted my ability to talk with others. One already being mentioned in this entry, that being the bad experience in high school. The other was the things I learned from my parents that made me believe that everyone was “bad” and I couldn’t trust other people. I have already written about this, but I want to reiterate it again, because it’s still impacting me, even with my awareness of it. They made it seem like other people are out there to harm you, or specifically me, and that’s why I can’t have those connections, or any connections for that matter. Even when I was going out with [Z] for the interview, I wasn’t even acknowledged as an adult, it was like I was child and he had this whole big plan to murder me, and they needed all this information on him “in case something went wrong.” It really made me feel like this child that had no control over their own life and that made me feel so totally awful. How could I, at 19 years old, still be seen as this child? What hurts most of all is that, even if I wanted to bring up the reality of the situation, I would not be heard, I would be ignored, and be told that I really don’t know anything, and if I don’t like it, I should leave.
The only person they haven’t been so interrogative of has been [Y], but with her, they also had this belief that I was going to date her, or that she wanted to date me, and that’s why we were hanging out. It’s so weird, because they never asked for her phone number, or asked for more personal information. Maybe there was something going on behind the scenes, but they never got that deep, and I was able to drive to a place, no questions asked, if I told them I was going out with her “for a hike.” Whether it was a hike or not, they wouldn’t have any way of knowing, but I also wouldn’t be questioned, I wouldn’t be asked for “pictures” or further investigation, just things like “How was it?” “Was it a good hike?” and “Did she have fun?” I think because of this, it also reinforced that I could not have a friendship of someone that was the same sex, because then it must be investigated. Surely the man is going to do something bad but not the woman?
Sure, I could break down why they had these beliefs. For one, the constant media consumption on my mother’s side definitely made her believe the world was terrible, violence was always increasing, and the world was going absolutely insane and no one was to be trusted. My dad probably didn’t consume media to the same level of my mom, but it still was probably having the same level of impact. He would want to know where I was going, even with [Y], while my mom didn’t care, which was surprising to me. They always needed to know where I was going with whom.
I remember trying to have a conversation with my father, before he eventually went off to play his fucking race game, but essentially, my sister had left the house because he had been bothering her about the internet, so she decided to go somewhere else, and neither parent knew where she had fucked off to. They obviously were upset over this, very upset, because they wanted to know where both of us where, at all times, and with whom. I was in the kitchen making something to eat, and my dad thought that I might know, and was trying to investigate me and find out if I knew where she was, and I didn’t, and for one thing, he was upset that I didn’t know, that my sister and I have very little connection, and also the fact that she was an adult and could go where she wanted. He just wanted to also reiterate the fact that this was “his household” and that you would have to follow “his rules” because he allowed you to live there, without paying rent. I tried talking to him about something with a little more complexity, but that died out once he didn’t hear anything I said and eventually tried bringing God into the conversation, but even though I would play around and entertain his Godly speeches, he went off to play his game. It’s funny, I could keep talking to him, and I had a willingness to speak with him, even if I knew it was of a cost to me, of no benefit to me, but I’d still do it, and he wouldn’t. He found more value in playing the video game than of speaking with me. How could I have a connection with someone like that?
It’s not like it was something new either. He never really wanted to have a conversation. I can’t think of any recent conversation I had with him that didn’t eventually have him bring up God or somehow relate what was said to god or jesus or the bible or whatever. It never happened; everything that was said was always in reference to those things. Imagine every conversation being that, when you don’t believe in that same bullshit, and having different ideas would be a fruitless endeavor, because any point you would make would be lost on him, because he doesn’t actually want to hear anything you have to say, he just wants to say his beliefs, and he wants me to believe his beliefs. Of course, I never do, and if I make it obvious I’m directly believing an opposing idea, then it’s going to be even more mentally tiring and draining for me to have the interaction than if I were honest.
I can’t think of any conversation with him that wasn’t him telling me that I couldn’t do something, or he was telling me something about god, or that I can’t feel or think a certain way, or something about the internet. Really, all he cared about was his video game and god. If something was impairing his ability to play the video game, then I was brought back into his world, then I existed again. No matter how hard I tried, he always wanted the ability to play the video game; there was nothing else for him at home. Sure, when it snowed, he would have to clear the driveway, and when the grass grew, he had to cut it, and sometimes he had to do car maintenance, but at home, that was it, he didn’t have to do anything further than those things. He spent and still spends a huge amount of time working, and he probably could work less, but I don’t think my parents can handle change, so their finances won’t ever decrease from what they are, and so he will continue to spend huge amounts of time and energy working. So, understandably, he would want to relax when he gets home, but I guess nothing would relax him like Forza on the Xbox, so that’s what he’s been doing for years, and will likely do the foreseeable future, not that I know nor care anymore.
However, when I couldn’t use the internet because I didn’t want him to ask me if I’m using it or not, or if I can do anything, or if I could stop doing something, or if I could fix it for him, or I could set up something for him, all in reference to the internet, and I’m not even asked how I’m feeling, it’s obviously going to hurt. No, I couldn’t be honest with how I really was feeling then, so I would just give a fake answer. Honestly, I wasn’t even given the opportunity to give the fake answer, I just had to make sure he could play his video game. It’s funny, he would tell me that no one cared that he couldn’t play his fucking race game, when I had actively spent a lot of time trying to make it work for him, at the cost of myself, when he couldn’t even accept that I’m gay, even though he has told me to suppress my feelings, even though he had forgotten those things, I still was trying to help him, and he wouldn’t even acknowledge that I was doing that for him.
Something as ridiculous as the internet was impairing our relationship, and he didn’t care, all he really wanted to do was play the game. I got to the point where I was thinking of ways where I no longer had to use the internet because I couldn’t handle it anymore. I couldn’t handle those interactions. I literally bought some sim card router, bought a sim, and used that for my own internet. It had problems, it was annoying, but at least I wasn’t on the same network as him, and I made him very aware of this, so he could no longer bother me about the internet, and he eventually did stop bothering me about it. He didn’t interrogate me about it anymore, but occasionally, and eventually it became often again, he wanted me to “fix” the internet, or do something, he wanted me to fix something that was unfixable, and I was then responsible for it because he “allowed” me to live there, it was a privilege to be in the position I was, not paying rent and all. No matter what I did though, it never fixed the internet, and who could have expected this? My words would fall on deaf ears time and time again, and eventually you just do something to appease someone because you fear they might harm you or it could lead to harm at one point or another. There were two peaks that really hurt me before I eventually was able to move out and get away from that.
The first one was when both my mom and dad thought it would be a wise decision to get a new modem, because surely the old modem was the reason they were having problems, and despite me saying it wouldn’t change anything, my words fell on deaf ears again, which I had come to expect, and at one point or another, I stopped trying to get them to understand the impossible. However, they set it up on their own, or my dad did anyway, and it was a done deal, and he thought it had fixed the issues that were present, but it had not. He still complained and told people to stop using their devices, turn off their phones, and whatever. He had requested me to set up things to before, where I had set up a router, that I had to be the dedicated router, and the modem would only act as a modem, instead of as a modem and a router. I did this because the combo devices usually sucked, and it would be better connectivity for everything with that type of setup, but he had no idea that’s why I did that, however, he utilized it to unplug the router so no one would have internet connectivity and he could play his race game. After getting the new modem, he had no idea how to create that type of setup, and so he asked me to set it up back to how it was, and so I did, and eventually my mom threw a fit this time, and I had to revert things to back how they were a couple hours ago. It was stressful on me, because my mom was yelling, my dad was yelling, and now I was in the mix because I was trying to appeal to my dad, and yes, things went back, and then I hid back in my room, because what would be the point of not being in a state of hiding?
Before the second peak, there was something that showed how far my dad would go to make sure he could play his race game. He had unlocked and snuck into my sister’s room, while she was sleeping, to make sure all her devices were shut off, because he thought that would be the solution to his problem, but eventually she woke up. He told me about this when I got home from work, saying “he got in trouble” or whatever, and had actively laughed about it, thinking it was okay, and all I could do was laugh along, or take a neutral stance, because if I were to go against him, what might happen to me? I didn’t want him unlocking my door while I was sleeping, or doing something that wasn’t sleeping. Nor did I want him yelling at me, or making it known I relied on him for my existence. Really, this showed what was he was willing to do to play a video game, and he expected sympathy for the actions he would commit.
Then there was a second peak, although I was at work for it. I received texts from my dad on how to change the password of the modem, how to do this, and how to do that, because he wanted to lock everyone else out of using the internet. I didn’t really know what was going on then, but eventually I told him some basic instructions, but I wouldn’t be able to walk him through all of them because I wasn’t there, but instead at work. He then responded back with “it doesn’t matter anymore” or something along those lines, and I didn’t think anything of it. Later, my mom told me and texted me that my dad had choked out my sister, or tried to, or there was just some level of violence, just because he couldn’t play his game and I guess my sister was, dear god, using the internet. After that, she left, and stayed at a friend’s house for a few days, because she wasn’t safe, or didn’t feel safe, at home. I still don’t think anything has come of this. I don’t understand why my mom hasn’t done anything either. However, this just shows what my father really cares about, and what he has cared about for many years, and what I suspect he will continue to care about.
I say all these things, or I write them to myself, to make myself aware that he was not someone I could appease. We all want to appease our parents, we want to be heard by them, we want to be understood by them, and it hurts to not have that. I have been aware that this has been the case for years, but to accept it, and then move on from it, hurts on a new level. It’s been holding me down, even some small percentage, and I know I have to allow myself to be okay with this reality, because I can’t change their reality, I can’t change my parents, but I can change my perception of how things are, and how I act as a result of how things are. I realized this outside.
I have rejected myself for many years. Maybe it made sense for those years, but I can’t do this self-rejection anymore. Yes, I couldn’t connect with people, they didn’t hear anything I said, whether it was my parents, or people online, or kids at school, no one could hear me, and I was always being judged for being different in some way. This was teaching me that no one wanted “me,” which wasn’t even something that was clearly defined, and still is not clearly defined, because I am still changing. The point is, in this rejection, I have been unable to love myself. I have hated myself. I have hated myself because I felt like the people around me hated me. They didn’t like me. They didn’t like the things I had to say. They didn’t like how I carried myself, and I couldn’t appeal to them other than being something I didn’t want to be. I can’t reject myself anymore. I realize this; I realize it’s okay to be me, and I realize that not everyone hates me.
I think being in such a little town, with very little people to connect with, only further hurt me. I had such limited ways of finding others to connect with me. Especially during high school, I couldn’t do anything but try to connect with those people, and so I tried connecting with people online, and that was the closest I could get. Even with those connections online, I was still rejecting myself, I was still hating myself, I was still hating the parts of me that have no reason to be hated, and it’s hard to talk or have a connection with someone who doesn’t want to show you who they really are. It’s tiring to be someone you aren’t, and that was all of my energy, being this mask that wasn’t really me. I felt like there was no other choice, and I had to hate the part of me that really just wanted to love me, it just wanted to be okay with being here, with being me, with being a part of me, and so I would try to shove it in a mental corner, and that would hurt me more and more with time.
Maybe it made sense to do this self-loathing when I was around others that genuinely disliked or hated me, or even if I thought they might hate me, but I have to open my eyes to the new reality. I’m not in high school anymore, I’m not at home anymore, I live somewhere else now. These people don’t hate me, they don’t have any reason to hate me, they are far more mature than both the kids in high school and my parents, and aren’t caught up on silly things like “sexuality.” Yes, there will be people who do care, and there will be people who are immature, because those people will exist wherever you go, but I can also choose where I go, and I can choose who I’m going to speak with. I’m not forced into a certain building with certain people for four years, I can go to places where I expect to find certain people, and if I learn that I can really open up to them, then I will. If I can’t, there are so many other people that I can search for. I don’t have to find a perfect person either, no one will give me everything that I want, and that’s okay, because that why people have many friends, all of which might give you different things, because to expect one person to give you everything is an absurd and unreasonable expectation to have.
I’d like to think, starting today, I won’t hate myself anymore. I don’t have to hate myself anymore, it only hurts me. If I don’t want to be hurt, then I have to stop hurting myself with thoughts of not being enough, or feeling filthy, or of being evil. I have people in my life that can keep me in check, I have people I can trust, and all I have to do is extend my hand, allow myself to be vulnerable, and they can help me, instead of hurt me.
Not everyone is a person I had to deal with in high school, nor is everyone like my parents, and I already know this to be true, so I can’t act like I’m still there, still experiencing that pain. The pain is real, and what I felt was real, and I can still feel it now, but I can’t allow it to consume me, I can’t act in a way that would be congruent to that reality, because things have moved on.
For two days, I was trying to understand why I was feeling a certain way, and I especially wanted to understand what and how led to my mega-dose of acid, so I was searching through chat logs. I found some things that would insinuate I was in pain, and I thought I may have a way of escaping that pain, and that the acid might show me what I’ve locked myself out of. I did the acid, and it was terrible, and I remember many of the feelings associated with the trip, and it still hurts me now, but nearing my come-down, after about 17 hours, I’d guess, I wrote a lot. I wrote about what I was feeling, and it felt like there were two voices, and these voices were at war with each other. Besides feeling huge amounts of pain, I recognized and knew that things had to change, and that was causing my pain. My pain was a result of the environment I was living in, the job I hated, and my utter loneliness. I knew I had to do something about it, I knew I had to escape it, no matter how scary or painful that would be. I knew this already from the past, but I still was not strong enough to escape it. After the trip, I was too weak to do anything, but maybe, even just a little bit, that trip made me recognize what was really hurting me, and I could choose to allow it to hurt me or I could use it as a catalyst to make me believe I could escape that pain.
Now, I have made the choice, yes, you might say that fate has played a part in helping me get into this position, maybe I was just lucky, but I also had to try very hard, and I had to do many things that horrified me. I did them, and I have written them down here already, a few days after doing them, but now the choice has been made. I have chosen to leave, I have chosen to no longer hate myself, I have chosen to no longer be lonely, I have chosen to help myself, I have chosen to love myself. I could have continued things as they were, being in that pain, but I was reaching a limit. I bought drugs that would allow me to commit suicide, because I was ready, I was there, and I was going to do it, but something inside of me did not want to die, and that facing the fear and the pain of my life was going to be easier than committing suicide, and it seems that really was the case, and the proof is the reality I’m living in now. Otherwise, I would have died in my room, on an overdose of a downer, and that would’ve been my life.
Now that I’m here, I shouldn’t think about suicide, I don’t need to commit suicide anymore. I don’t have to be that person anymore; I don’t have to always put a mask on. Yes, there will be times I’ll put one on, yes, there will be times I won’t be acting as me, but that will now become the minority of the time, it won’t eat me alive. It was never going to be black or white, I never was going to get everything, but I’m getting most of it, and I have to accept that and live with that, because getting most of it is better than getting none of it.
With many of these realizations, I also now realize that I can’t obsess over time. I mentioned this already, but I want reiterate again, some things actually will have to take time, and I have to be okay with them taking time. I’m comparing myself to people who are not from where I’m from, have not been through what I’ve been through, and have not had to deal with the pain I have had to deal with. Similarly, there are people who are from where I’m from, and have been through what I’ve been through, and have had to deal with the same pain. If I talked to someone like that, would I be upset at them for where they were in life? No, I would be empathetic, understanding, and loving towards them, because I would understand how much they’re going through, and acknowledge that it’s hard to do things when you’re in that level of pain. I must do this same thing to myself. If I would do that to someone else, I have to treat myself the same.
I might have thought that being harsh on myself would help promote me to work harder, to push through the pain, and that if I tried to ignore the pain, it wouldn’t have power over me. If I just tried harder and harder, pushed harder, and was distracted enough, then everything would be okay. If I could do something good, anything, then it would be okay. However, nothing ever came fast enough. I could spend hours on things, and I wouldn’t be given the arguably immediate results that I wanted, and that’s just a reality of the things that I care about. I care about guitar, I care about drawing, I care about writing, and all of these things take immense amounts of time to even be mediocre at, and I have to be okay with this. I have to be okay with spending years on all of these things just be “okay” at them. I have to enjoy the journey of experiencing them, learning them, and allowing them to become a part of me. I can’t have all of them perfected within a year, or two years, or three years.
If there were someone else like me, I would say these things to them. I would tell them they have time, just like others have told me I have time. I think it’s okay to put pressure on myself, because the pressure will help me perform, it will help me get closer to what I want, it will allow me to be distracted by things I consider beautiful, and if someone told me something like this, I would tell them to keep going, I would tell them to try to their hardest, but not to go too hard, to be careful and to set limits to how far they can push, and be okay with times where they can’t do what they want, and utilize those times for things that aren’t exactly the main things that they want to focus on. That’s what I need to do for myself. I won’t always be able to do what I want, and so I have to be okay with other things happening during those periods of time, because those other things will impact the main things, and they will impact who I am, and what I want, and where I’m going.
It only goes to show these things will take even more time, because I can’t spend every single day, 18 hours a day, working towards something, which doesn’t even have an end goal. I have no end goals. I am just doing the things I do because it feels right to do them, or so I tell myself this, and if this is the case, then I have a whole life of doing them. I can’t imagine where I’ll be in a year from now, so what about 10 years from now? 20? I have absolutely no idea what will happen to me, I have no idea what will happen to the external world, I have no idea what kind of connections I will make, I have no way of being certain of any particular path. However, what I do know, is that I will be doing something. Something will be occupying my time. Why can’t I be okay with things occupying my time, and simply being?
I have been aware that I have always wanted some ultimate salvation, something to save me, or someone to save me, that would take away all my problems, but that thing does not exist. There is no ultimate solution, there is no ultimate answer to all my questions, there is no ultimate anything. All I have is the ability to try. I can try and try for a lifetime, and I know even with a million lifetimes, I wouldn’t be satiated, I would still want more, because I’m human, and that’s the reality of being a human, or at least, me. So, knowing this, I have to be okay with this, I have to be okay with the reality that all I want out of life is to be obsessed and so totally into something to forget the reality around me, to allow my mind to wander, to allow my mind to focus on the thing I’ve placed right in front of me, and try my hardest with that thing, and I can’t really do anything other than that. I can’t save the world, but I can save myself, and I can try to help a few people, I can try to make a few people around me feel okay.
Yes, I want to create beautiful things now, I want to write beautiful things now, I want to play instruments with ease, but I know similarly, I won’t ever have these things, because I would never allow myself to have them, because that would mean I stop at one point or another. I do fear death, and I fear the end of me, and I’m also aware that I really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, however, I don’t see things in the grand scheme of things. I don’t have the perception of the universe, I have the perception of me, the individual, and so I shouldn’t act in a way that would promote the former idea, because it only hurts me. I have to be me, I have chosen to live, and so I should live in a way that is in agreeance with this. I have to be okay with spending hours every day on something like guitar, getting to a certain point, maybe even five years down the road, and feeling okay to move onto something else. I don’t need ultimate answers from guitar, I don’t need ultimate answers from writing, from drawing, from what I read, I just need to feel okay.
I think that’s what life comes down to, just trying to make yourself feel okay. I wanted to feel like I was special, that my pain was special, that somehow, I could make my actions ultimate or beyond everyone else’s, and that’s what the art that I enjoyed took. (I don’t remember what this was.) However, that’s really not it. Those people making beautiful things have just been trying to make beautiful things, and with time and energy, they had done it. They didn’t do it to be noticed by others, they did it for themselves, they wanted to make the beautiful thing for them, because there was nothing else for them to do. What else are they to do? We are blips in comparison to all the time left in the universe, but we aren’t seeing things from that perspective, we see things from our ant-like perspective, we are limited in our perception, and we can obsess over how we can’t have things beyond our human capacity, or we can be okay with it, and work with it, and do our best with it, because otherwise we’re just going to make ourselves upset that we’re never going to be enough.
Like yes, of course you’re never going to be enough if “enough” to you is to be omnipresent, or to have some ultimate knowledge or understanding, or to be something beyond everyone else, or to spread some ultimate message, or to be beyond your humanity, and if you obsess over these things, you really won’t feel like enough, even when you are enough, but you have to set your expectations correctly. You have to be okay with your limitations. You aren’t a prodigy that can learn things overnight, but even if you were, would that be enough, if you continued thinking in this way? Of course not, you would just go on consuming everything you could on a daily basis, trying to get more, but you would never have enough, because even if you were that, you wouldn’t have enough time to consume all the things available to you. Even if you never forgot anything, even if you remembered all things you consumed, all interactions, all smells, all feelings, and they were always a part of you, and you could handle them at all times, for an indefinite amount of time, you would only be able to do that for about 100 years before dying. If I know this, then I should live in a way that actually makes sense, that’s logical, that even if I were the most a human being could be, it still wouldn’t be enough, because “enough” would require losing the things that make me human, but the only reason I would want those things is because I’m human.
All that I ask of myself is that I can be okay with things taking time, that it’s okay to spend days trying to heal, days trying to feel things through, trying to understand myself, because it won’t come overnight, and I will continue to have those days that I feel high, and those days I feel low, and I have to be okay with that, and I have to work with that reality, because if I don’t work with it, it will only hurt me, because it won’t stop, or I should think in a way assuming it doesn’t. If I want to spend the day just playing guitar, that’s fine, and if the following day I want to play bass, that’s fine too! If I don’t want to play any music or instruments for a week, but I’m writing, or I’m reading a series of books, or I’m going out and talking with people, or whatever, I have to be okay with that, because I think of all these things as having some level of importance. I can’t do all of them at once, and I have to be okay with that, because if I don’t, it doesn’t change anything. It’s a choice of how I’m going to feel about what’s going to happen.
I don’t say this to allow myself to slip into a person that does “nothing” all day, meaning something along the lines of playing video games all day, and I think that’s a factor in my mind pressuring me to be more, to do more, always, because I thought if I tried to keep that up, then I could get to where I wanted to go, and I could avoid the person who wants to not care about anything, and just let things be as they are, and I could stop chasing anything. However, I’m really not that person. I’m not like [V], I don’t want to smoke weed all day and play video games. That’s not me, and I have never wanted to be that person, I’ve only verbalized that because I’ve been in pain or in a low that would want to escape the pain, and what would normally help me escape that pain wasn’t working, and I wanted something that would work. When really, all I’ve had to do is be okay with spending some time feeling things through, and then getting back to where I want to be, even if it takes some time.
Of course, I need to mention that I have not spoken to a therapist or a psychiatrist or anyone professional about these things, despite being aware that they have the potential to help me work through these feelings very well. They have worked with clients and know how human beings work. I wanted to believe that my problems were some special problems, problems that were unfixable by someone that specializes in the fixing of people, or attempting to fix them, and so that I wouldn’t even bother with one because it would be a waste of time and energy. Of course, I would think these things without even trying. Now, I understand it can be beneficial, and I shouldn’t just allow it to fade away in my mind. If I have trusted [Y] before, and the things he has said before, and if the things he has said have been true, and I have seen and experienced those things, then there’s no reason for this to be an exception to the rule.
Yes, I used to think about seeing someone in the past and I was afraid to because I felt unable. I had no means of seeing someone without using my parent’s vehicles, which they would know would be gone, and I would have to tell them where I’m going, and whom I’m going to see, and all the information I could possibly give, and I could lie, but I have struggled to lie, and so I wouldn’t lie. Even if I did lie, I would want to use my father’s health insurance, otherwise I’d be paying insane amounts for appointments, and I could not hide that. I was also just afraid of them finding out, and I had extended my hand for help before, and that was enough to teach me, with other interactions too, that it wouldn’t work out the way I wanted, and I was truly on my own. That’s another reason I’m here now, I can go out and get the help, if I so choose. I don’t have to be afraid of these people, it’s their job to try and help me, and if one doesn’t work, there are many more to choose from, and all I have to do is try. Right now, I might be unwilling, but considering the drug use, it does scare me a little, and at the very least, seeing a psychiatrist might not be a terrible idea, so instead of using these drugs, I can have something that harms me less.