Remember those days in high school when sports teams were your enemy because you were never athletic enough or the dorky days in elementary school where you got picked on for wanting to read a book instead of play outside? Or even the uncomfortable teenage years where you did not know how to be the outgoing, charmer that everyone else seemed to know how to perfect.
The days you thought would last forever and that adult-hood would never come and you weren’t sure how much longer you could go on because everything felt so exhausting, overwhelming, and the pressure of everyday life pressed on you every minute of every day? And then…… time flies and all of a sudden you are an adult pursuing your dreams and those times are in the distant past and they almost make you laugh at how vulnerable and weak you felt back then compared to now?
I’m sure we all remember a time in our lives that felt as if it went for ages and the only light at the end of our tunnels were trains. Times we felt that life was a little sad and even meaningless. That is the thing, there are so many stages of our lives, we learn, grow, become wiser, and change as we age. Worries and fears that use to eat as us are no longer apparent. And sometimes we don’t even realize the drastic changes that have been made because they are gradually happening day by day in subtle ways that are hard to see.
Our mindsets change, our attitude and outlooks. We realize that everyone’s version of success and happiness is different and that we don’t have to hold up to the expectations of others. Of course a lot of us have a harder time than others with this.
Personally, I am still learning as I grow but I can say I have come a long way already. I was so stuck in a cycle of despair, I hated the world and seen no point in trying in a world that wasn’t fair: good people got the short end of the stick every time as the bad people got hand-outs. It seemed the more savage or selfish you were, the further you got. Also I got caught up in a relationship (or 2) that kind of made me see how evil people can really be, which I think affected me more. At the same time, I almost feel like the reason I allowed these relationships to go on for so long was because I thought of myself as the scum of the earth: a girl who couldn’t be strong enough to fight off these insipid feelings of despair and move the fuck on. You only allow the love you think you deserve, so I guess I thought I deserved to be smacked around like a rag doll and get accused of constantly doing something wrong, although I cut off all friends and did nothing but sit at home.
I hid out from the world for a long time. It was extremely hard for me to drag myself out of bed every day, what was the point? I was slowly self-destructing. My parents and sisters were constantly nagging at me to get help. My mom has called the cops on me on more than one occasion when I was having one of my rage fits, just hoping that the cops would see that I was “dangerous” and needed to be admitted. I was older than 16 the times she has called, so my parents could not get me admitted without my permission. Maybe not the best way to go about things but my parents had no clue what to do with me, I was a complete mess. They have told me that they were scared frequently about me hurting myself or even hurting them in a fit of rage. My own family was scared of me, I hated it. I never wanted to be that person but I was in a complete tornado, I had no clue how the hell to get out of it.
My parents did send me to a couple different therapist as well as different cognitive training programs, and had me on the waiting list to talk to a psychologist, but other than that, I did not do anything positive to try to promote change in my life. I wanted to change. I didn’t want to be angry over every little thing nor hate the world as much as I did but in my heart there was no way I would ever feel any different.
I thought I knew it all and I told my parents on multiple occasions that I will go to a therapist for their sake but that I knew my mindset wasn’t going to change simply because some therapist told me it should. Or that talking out my issues were not going to make me realize what I need to change. I knew what needed to be changed, I knew that I had to have better control of my emotions, but I also knew I was incapable of snapping my fingers and seeing things in a different light than I did. The world fucking sucked and people were evil, I wanted nothing to do with place and nothing was going to change as time went on, no matter what therapist told me it would.
I can admit that I wasn’t giving it my all when I went to therapy, I was simply going for my parents sake. Therefore I didn’t get the benefits that I should have from it. They told me the anger that I hold is due to PTSD from the horrible relationship I was in. Me, misses smarty pants deemed these therapists brain dead because of how far off the target they were. I knew more about myself and my thought process than they did and that was simply not why I was angry all the time. It was the world and the unfairness in it, plus a mixture of a thousand other things. If I knew then what I do now, I would have listened to the professionals instead of acting as if me, a 19 year old with no life experience, knew more than them.
I gave up fairly quickly claiming it wasn’t helping. Again, my parents were back in the same boat. A daughter who didn’t want to accept help and was probably always going to be stuck in her angry, self-destructive ways.
At this time I got myself involved in another toxic relationship because for some reason I just couldn’t seem to be alone. I needed that sort of “comfort” from someone else to feel less sorry for myself maybe? To feel like I was important and loved by someone? I don’t know but I know I jumped into a new relationship way too quick.
I jumped out of one relationship where I was abused emotionally but mostly physically, into another one that was mind torturing emotional turmoil on a daily basis. I was timid and afraid in the first relationship and when I jumped into the next one, it seemed I gained a set of balls all of a sudden. Everything he said made me angry and I let him know it did. Which made things worse in turn because I was being “defensive” apparently and had something to hide.
I was questioned daily about who I talked to, if it may have been flirtatious, where I was at all times of the day (God forbid I didnt answer my phone on the first ring.) My phone was checked on the daily, he had the passwords to all my social media accounts, yet I was still accused of doing things I wasn’t, every day. He set me off so many times. I just got out of a horrible relationship, I was the victim not him. How dare he question my loyalty and character on the daily when all I wanted was a normal, loving, and trusting relationship?
Ever since I was a little kid, I had so much love to give. I love with all of me and would literally die for anyone I love. When I started dating and my love and loyalty was questioned, I started hating how this whole miscommunication, not being able to read someones mind, sort of thing works. Maybe that’s why I became so angry? I was so ready to love fully, just to be shut down as if I was constantly not enough or doing something wrong.
This second toxic relationship lasted a good two and a half years, the anger and sadness persisting all the way through. Then eventually I realized I was torturing myself day after day trying to prove to someone else who I was, who was never going to see me as a loving, worthy, caring girlfriend. I was done trying, I was done feeling the way I felt every day. We broke it off and without even realizing it at first, as time went on, I became a less angry, less defensive person. I no longer had to prove to anyone that I am a good person, I could just be me.
I got a great job once I didnt feel held back and like my choices were limited due to my ex thinking I’m a slut if I chose a male dominated job. I got a raise, I got a position change, I was saving up money, making friends, I was doing great and slowly day by day my attitude towards things changed.
I figured that the reason things changed over time was not because I sat there and trained my brain to think more positive thoughts but for me it was simply involving myself with the right type of people. I was in denial everyday. I made every other excuse for why I was stuck in this dark circle but now, I truly believe a big part of it was the people I was involved with. There were a few other aspects that helped changed my mentality but I will go further into those in other posts.
I am forever grateful the change that has slowly happened and is still happening. Surrounding myself with the people who allow me to feel its okay to be me, has really made the difference.
I appreciate my past self for writing down all of my thoughts and feelings during these rough times in my life. It helps me see how far I’ve come and how badly I don’t want to go back. This one I wrote when I was 19:
February 20, 2016
Just read over that last entry which I rarely even remember writing, mostly just remember getting mad and storming up to my room to get high and I must have wrote down how I felt at the time. I was angry because I had just gotten into a fight with my mom which was something that happens often but despite how many times it happens, I don’t get used to it, the guilt is never spared; I feel like shit every time.
I believe the argument was about how irritated I have been lately and how it was time for me to talk to someone very soon. They had been asking me for months to talk to someone, to get help and I keep telling them I can help myself. Even I know that is bullshit. The fight ended with me storming off to my room as per usual.
My mom came up when I was more calm and we talked about how I need to accept help. We had the usual talk about how I am 19 and shouldn’t be feeling the way I do, that I am too young to hate the world this much. I told her it comes down to how much I simply just don’t like life, the whole idea of it and how I feel trapped and don’t know how I’d ever be able to let go of this feeling, that I could only imagine it getting worse the older I got. I told her I could learn to live with it but that to me it was a guaranteed thing that this sadness would always have a little spot in my heart, it would never be gone altogether. I apologized to her for having a daughter that thought like me. I wasn’t trying to look for sympathy from her I just wanted to be fully open although sometimes its not always the best thing when it hurts the people you love I guess. I genuinely did feel bad she got the misfortune of bringing someone into this world with hope that they will love it or at the very least find joy in it but instead found nothing but misery and negativity. I pity her.
If I had a daughter like me and I understood even a little of how she felt there is no way I could go on everyday living a happy, normal life.
But that’s all I want for my parents.. They deserve so badly to be happy, I wish I had the ability to make them enjoy life again.. I guess breaking out of this cycle of negative thinking would be a start.
My parents live for the sole reason to make us happy. They never had much in life growing up so they are living through their kids dreams, hoping one day we will do something great. Or at the very least create a well-rounded, healthy lifestyle for ourselves and find joy while doing it. It’s a lot of pressure sometimes knowing that they could never be fully happy if I don’t pick myself up out of this dark place I’m in and start leading a normal life. Because like I said I don’t know if I could ever rid of this feeling entirely so, I just wish they would live free of guilt due to the anger in my heart, I wish they could just see that this is who I am and that eventually I will find a way to deal with myself and the issues in my head but that it is nothing that anyone could ever help me with. I just want them to find peace with that and stop trying. Let me follow my own path. If I get lost again and again, so be it, everything happens for a reason right?
My dad has been an entrepreneur for the past 15 years or so, therefore he is home most of the time. The only so called “friends” he does have seem to use him for money. He doesn’t get out much, he will jump at the chance to give one of his kids a ride somewhere which I believe he does so he feels like he has a purpose, like he is needed. He tries so hard to make us laugh or even to see us smile. It doesn’t seem like he had much affection growing up, nor my mother because although our family is fairly closer than most probably, we are not huggers or even talkers for that matter when it comes to something serious at least. When something is affecting one of us, the rest of us have no clue how to really comfort each other.. We say what we think we should which is usually the wrong thing or nothing at all which is also the wrong thing. I don’t blame my parents for that.. If you’re not a consoler or a hugger, than I guess you can’t really change that. They probably never thought anything of it but as I get older I have realized how certain little things my parents did, or didn’t do for me growing up are things that have affected me more than I thought they could. Again I do not blame them because I know that my parents would never in this lifetime do anything to intentionally harm any of us.
When I look back at my childhood I remember not knowing how the world worked exactly, I didn’t know what made grown ups sad necessarily or what could make them happy other than their kid drawing them a cool picture or getting an A on their math quiz. I didn’t know much or think much about it but when I look back now and actually pay attention to my parents moods and their general happiness over the years, all I see is a gradually decline. They have become more and more miserable as the years went on. I feel like a big part of it is my fault and I hate it.
When I am angry I become someone I’m not, a monster is unleashed and no one could hold me back from anything. I swear at those moments I do become a bit delusional. It is such miniscule things that set me off but I will never be able to fully express why these little things bother me so much. It makes my head feel all weird to even think about it because I do not feel like it is something I am capable of expressing properly at all, it comes out sounding like the smallest of nothings, but in my head they’re not nothings, they fuck with me. Something as little as a tone being interpreted wrong or a statement misconstrued. When things that seem unimportant to the next step in the procedure get ignored, and the next step isn’t done as good as it could have been had the first step not been ignored. Someone teaching someone something that is wrong, seeing that person feel enlightened but not knowing how to speak up and teach them the right way. Seeing someone do something the wrong way but not knowing how to speak up. Or when I do it comes across as harsh, egotistical. Another misunderstanding and I look like the bitch. Seeing someone get praised for something they didn’t do. Nice guys finishing last. Doesn’t matter how good you are to people in this world or how much effort you put into something, you could still end up with the short end of the stick while bad people get hand outs and power positions.
Time in itself also takes it toll with fucking with my head. Like I always had it in my head that I was twelve not too long ago and that I could back there at any time, to those feelings I had back then, to seeing the way I seen the world back then. When I realize that is utterly impossible, when I know the world will never look the same as it did through my naïve lens.. All I want to do is run away and hide out from the world. Pop a pill make it all go away, become a kid again for a day.
I remember when I was about twelve, my sisters thirteen and eight: we were all up north, the whole family sitting around the bon-fire and my dad told us all to just be quiet and listen. We listened to the crackling of the fire, the distinct sound of burning wood, the old wood peeling and fresh wood popping and cackling, the whirring of the warm summer night air and the leaves off the high spruces, oaks and birch trees gently blowing in it, the chirping of the crickets and near by bugs and toads. We smelt the strong burning of wood, marshmallows and hotdogs and burgers from near by trailers, mixed with the earthy smell of the fresh summer soil as well as that fresh pine smell you always seem to smell while up north. The sky was full of stars as it usually was when it was a clear night. The stars up north were always so magnifying to me as a little girl, the world seemed so big, so full of endless opportunities.
We watched the fire and took in all the happiness that surrounded us. Our dad told us to just take in the moment, really embrace it and just realize how good life is, how lucky we are. I remember not thinking much of it, I was a happy little kid and nothing could really change that, that was just another really happy moment in my journey at the time. Now when I look back, that being one of the strong memories that come to me, I feel an almost sad feeling when I think of the shortness of life.
Words could never describe how much I miss those days and I get it, it’s life: time passes, you age, things change, life has many stages and you can not slow time to stay in one stage for longer and you can’t speed it up to get through the shit stages. I get it. I get I need to toughen up and suck it up. I don’t think the world owes me anything necessarily, I just don’t know how to survive in it with full contentness in my soul.
When I start to think about the way that I have hurt people in the past it kills me and all I want to do is run away from myself but wherever I would run I realize I would still be there because you can’t run away from yourself which is terrifying and I can honestly say I really believe I know how people go mad. I can understand how it is possible for a mind to unravel. I also understand why people resort to hard drugs. Anything to escape this world. To escape yourself.
I could never do that to my parents though. My goal is to make them happy. I hate myself for what I have already put them through.
So, my mom came up to my room and we talked for a bit. She was gentle and kind as she always is and explained to me she knows me better than anyone and knows I could get back to how I was, I just had to take the first step at least and try.
A little while later my dad comes up because my parents share everything. Although it is rare that my dad comes upstairs and has a one on one with me, I expected it this time because I told my mom a part of the reason I am sad is because he seems so sad and down all the time and I know my dad enough to know that would make him feel horrible so he would have to come up to try to make me feel better.
It was not right for me to even tell my mom that. Only thing it did was make him more sad most likely.
So, my dad just explained to me that he understands what it feels like to be misunderstood, that he got that his whole life because nobody understood his dry sense of humour. But now that he has us four he was happy and we were all he needed. “You know me, I don’t need people I have you guys and that’s all I’ll ever need. So don’t be sad okay, we love you so much.” He said it’s okay that I am going through something, he would always love and accept me and I had a safe place as long as I needed.
My parents are so understanding man, I love them so much. My heart hurts. I seriously don’t know what the hell I would do without them in spite of all the times we drive each other up the fucking walls and down and back up again.
I am not going to use their generosity as an excuse to be lazy and not do anything with my life simply because I don’t have to. Mommy and daddy won’t be paying my way for much longer. I think once I am out there making money, making a name for myself, working hard, and just having a purpose out there in the world as little as it may be; I will find some positivity and I will bring it home with me. I won’t allow my family to dwell on the negative in life, I will help them get up as well, get out, see that there is a whole world out there and that the space for searching for happiness is not limited to the walls we feel confined in; we can run free, we can do things we’ve never done, we could really know what it is like to live.
Once I find some sense of joy on my own I will no longer allow my family members to laze around as the world moves all around them and life passes by. We will get our asses up and we will live. Period. I need to think positive they say, it helps they say. Manifest what you want they say. So, positive thinking it is.. They say.
This oxy got me feeling woozy, I’m done with words for the night, I’m gonna go watch an episode of greys, take some tokes and go to sleep.
If you are interested in reading more journal entries that I wrote while going through one of the toughest times in my life, please check out the section on my site called Dark journal Entries.
If you are interested in reading about a variety of different subjects such as mental health, inside the minds of disturbed artists, the importance of being an introvert, importance of body language and non-verbal communication, the importance of mental rehearsal and imagery, the power of our minds, mindfulness, metaphysics and the cosmic world and how all the great genius’ of the past have tapped into this power to achieve seeming miracles, addiction, abuse, the effects loneliness and so much more, please check out some of my other posts:
