I remember feeling as if my head would explode as I wrote the journal entry below. I was so bad with the whole idea of accepting that everyone hears a different song, sees a different picture. No! People needed to know EXACTLY what I was talking about and exactly where my mindset and train of thought was coming from or else it was pointless. Speaking was pointless, trying to get someone to understand me, even more.
I retreated into myself and closed myself off from the world for a long time. Every conversation or social interaction exhausted me. I hated how much I allowed this miscommunication thing to bother me but I couldn’t break out of it. Not ONE person would ever fully know exactly the feelings I withheld or thought process behind the words that came out of my mouth. Words did not express the type of person I am or what I stand for but the meaning behind those words and emotions and feelings I had to get to me those words, is what meant something. But anytime I tried to express who I was, the words came out wrong and everything was misconstrued and there was no point. Hiding out from the world was easier.
Until I realized that is no way to live. There is nothing exciting about spending everyday alone and not having one person to lean on or even talk to. It was lonely, it was depressing and my mind went to some pretty dark thoughts more often than it should have at 19, 20 years old.
I have come a long way to say the least but I like to look back to props myself for how far I’ve really come. Never thought I’d be any different simply because I couldnt imagine suddenly being okay with never fully being known or seen. But I’ve realized that really is just a growing up thing.. accepting that there are a lot of things that kind of suck here on this earth, not going to deny that, but also so much greatness to find as well. And we dont need everyone to understand us fully but there will be people who do. I was surrounding myself with the wrong people but once I met people who seemed to see more like me, life became easier. Lets look back:
February 13, 2016
Its a lay in bed, cry, gouge my face kinda day. I’ve realized I haven’t really made my peace with knowing that were all misunderstood and that no one will fully understand what I mean once it leaves my mind. That no one will in all sense share my insights, my ideas, my mindset.
Everyday that I am out interacting with others its like a constant battle to keep the crazy in. I don’t necessarily believe I am crazy but I honestly don’t believe how majority of the population thinks the way they do. Its not that I don’t understand the mindsets of most people because I feel I like I do.. I feel like I can see right through them, most people seem to be transparent with the rare few who hold some mystery.
Maybe I am crazy though because it’s so hard for me not to believe that most people I encounter mindsets and ways of thinking are absurd to me. Life becomes easier for me when I tune out conversations between people in passing, or people in public or at school instead of listening to their misconstrued chatter. Hearing peoples lack of communication skills who go on about one thing or another or bicker back and fourth about something that could have been sorted in one sentence, takes its toll in fucking with my head. I don’t know why, but it just bothers me so much. I don’t know why I’m like this.
I know what someone is going to say after two words of their sentence or sometimes even before they say it, just because I know around what time it is and I assume the question that will be asked and most of the time I get it right. I have a big problem with finishing other people’s sentences when they talk slow or stutter. I don’t do it to be rude, sometimes I literally just don’t understand how they are not getting it out so I say it for them. Or sometimes I think of myself when I can’t properly express a thought in my head so, I speak up for them so they feel better knowing that I at least know what they were trying to get at. That someone gets it, gets how their thoughts work.
I feel like I have some sort of physic ability to a degree and it is not a gift it is a fucking living nightmare. I hate it because no body else I know is anything like me and its so hard to want to have a conversation with people I can not possibly open my mind up to.
I know its not right to think my way is the only way. I know I should respect other people’s ways of thinking and I do on the outside for the most part, I am civil to strangers. But I do realize I’m not too civil with my family or even friends or when in a relationship; when it comes to a topic of debate and I am on the opposite side I more often than not get heated and angry and act like my way is the only way and that everyone else would be stupid to think otherwise. Which is wrong I know. Plus it worries me because I’m afraid this anger is going to spread to all aspects of my life, enabling me to live a productive life. I’m afraid I won’t be able to let go of the boiled up pressure inside and as time goes on it will keep building up until one day I snap.
To prevent getting agitated I refrain from conversating about anything deep or important. Just the basic, on the surface stuff. So, it worries me because I realize this is why I don’t have many people, its strictly too exhausting. But a human can’t live without connection can they, a real connection? We can’t possible live our lives utterly alone and be completely okay can we? ‘Normal’?
Either I’m going to refrain myself from most human conversations or I will grow miserable pretending I agree with people, faking smiles, nodding, and agreeing. Forming inauthentic relationships.
I need to try my best to focus on external things like the state of the world or the people, and things I ultimately find joy in. Ignore the internal nag of my conscious brain. Just let go of conscious thought and live externally.
I mean that’s what I do now I guess when I do go out.. I fake agree with people even if I think its the weirdest thing, I tell people what they want to hear. I have no spine or guts when it comes to talking to aquintances or strangers, I’m as fake as they come.
Why is it though I’m always the one doing the listening, the nodding, the agreeing. The accommodating, the asking questions and boosting confidence along the way. No one ever cares about what I have to say, no ones ever there hyping up my insignificant stories just to make me feel like my life means something and that I’m cool.
I’m not sure how long I could live like this.. One day its not only going to be the people I’m close with now that I snap on.. Its going to be a coworker or a boss or my future husband..(if anyone would marry this) I can’t live so agitated about everything.. I won’t make it.
I guess I mostly stay quiet because what goes on in my head is not the same as what comes out on the outside, like I have said a thousand times before. Words diminish the thoughts in my head. My thoughts feel so powerful until spoken aloud and all the meaning feels lost, gone.
I’m always observing, listening, and thinking but when its time to actually let those ideas flow out they come out wrong. Because I’ve been thinking about the situation so long in my head, already internalized and analysed everything 100 times over and it all already made sense to me in my head so, when I try to say it aloud I feel like because I already came to whatever realization in my head that it should just be known by everyone else and as I start speaking it will slowly start to peice together in everyone else’s mind the way it did in mine.
I start to think my points getting across, that people get the gist of what I’m saying and their minds and their common sense will do the rest. But then, I see the look on their faces and they seem like they aren’t fully getting what I’m saying or someone will say something trying to finish what I meant but they will be going in the complete wrong direction and it shows me that they actually don’t know what I’m saying and it’s not piecing together the way it did for me. And it drives me crazy. That’s when I start to get agitated usually with people close to me. With strangers I will just let them think what they said was right, that yes, that is exactly what I meant and I’ll just drop it and I’ll never actually explain what I meant.
Drives me a little crazy. I literally don’t know how to live my whole life like this.. I swear I’ll go insane. I’m going to have to avoid talking to people altogether, like fuck I don’t want my mind to flee from me. I need it, I have lots of plans for it.
I always wonder if theres another me in the background, quietly observing, quietly actually knowing what I meant and knowing that I agreed to something that I didn’t even mean. Because I am that background person so there has got to be more like me right?
I hear somebody trying to express something but they’re not getting it out right and the other person is not understanding it at all but I do, I KNOW I do, but the other person tries to guess what the person is saying to the wrong avail, and the other person just agrees and goes along with it.
I see when somebody says something in a certain tone where another mistakes it for anger let’s say and responds in a certain manner, while the other person is just there shocked and confused as to why they were responded to in that manner. I realize that that guy heard that guy say it a certain way and that is why he replied that way but the other guy doesn’t know that that guy misheard his tone and is only confused as to why his answer came back in such a tone. Misunderstandings fuck with me. Like what is the point of them. Makes shit so much harder in life.
And this shit bothers me so much because to the world I’m just this cute little girl who doesn’t speak unless spoken to, who only says the necessary things and nods and agrees and sucks up to other people when they’re talking. This little dough eyed, lost puppy who needs guidance through life. I allow it. I do it to myself because I allow them to think they’re teaching me something I already know, or give me advice on something they haven’t even experienced but I have. I allow them to think what they’re saying is helping me, teaching me. I don’t know how to be my own person, I am who everyone else wants me to be and I hate myself for that. But when I do try to express myself it does not come out right.
Like Kurt Cobain says “you can’t rationalize spirituality. we don’t deserve this privilege. I can’t speak, only feel.” I feel like the person I am is on the inside and I am not capable of coming out. I guess I am the only one meant to know myself in this world, I dont know I just don’t see myself capable of being any different.
When I think of living year after year like this, hiding from the world, from any real conversations or relationships and then simply faking it to get along when I have to; I get down. Is this really it? Only time I’ll ever feel normal is when I’m alone?
I don’t know how long I can go on like this.. This isn’t how I expected life to be.. I hope things could be different someday.. Or else I’m really unsure how long I can keep playing this game.. Eventually I am going to break or maybe run away somewhere far and remote, change my name, become a different person altogether or maybe just run away somewhere out west and live the rest of my days hiding out in the mountains, reading my books, writing my stories, cooking up new meals every day and learning to be okay on my own.
“She did not know yet how sometimes people keep parts of themselves hidden and secret, sometimes wicked and unkind parts, but often brave or wild or colorful parts, cunning or powerful or even marvellous, beautiful parts, just locked up away at the bottom of their hearts. They do this because they are afraid of the world and of being stared at, or relied upon to do feats of bravery or boldness. And all of those brave and wild and cunning and marvellous and beautiful parts they hid away and left in the dark to grow strange mushrooms—and yes, sometimes those wicked and unkind parts, too—end up in their shadow.”
Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There
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If you are interested in reading more dark journal entries that I wrote while going through a tough time in my life, please check out the section of my site called Dark Journal Entries. If you are interested in reading about a variety of different topics, check out some of t
