Journal of a Struggling Mind #6

I saw a man in a flowing white robe, the kind Jesus wore. He floated across the street in front of me, using the crosswalk like any respecting citizen,
brown hair and trimmed beard blowing slightly in the breeze.
Come to think of it, the guy actually did look like Jesus, gliding along, arms outstretched,
nodding apathetically at the people punctuating his aimless journey.

But that couldn’t be him. Jesus hasn’t been here in a long time…

“The streets are extended gutters,” I heard a man say once.
That makes sense in this world. This ridiculous worship of inane people and inane things
The sidewalk Jesus couldn’t do much to stop the rising tide of shit heading down the boulevards. His struggle lets me know just how truly alone I am.

Life is a series of lines and all we do is constantly queue up for the next wait.
When we look around at the people waiting alongside us,
we see a parallelism that is as comforting as it is frustrating.
That is what makes us human; we want to change but are too afraid to do so.
It’s a sickness of my generation, that we constantly want innovation and change
while consistently falling in line with whatever our parents already believed,
further perpetuating that cycle of stability.
It is almost unavoidable that we will become our parents,
whether or not we say otherwise.

To counteract this feeling, we rebel…

We strike back at the heart of those who made us and change ourselves
until we are simply fleeting images of what we once were.
Sad thing is that once this is established, we crawl back to that original ideal
Leave behind our “new selves” to recapture what made us “great”
Or at least that is the way our parents look at it.
No matter what we say or do, we want more than anything to receive their praise…
it is inherent in our operating system to strive for their acceptance.

There is no salvation.

(Alice in Chains – Nutshell)

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Journal of a Struggling Mind #5

Why is it

Whenever

Everything is right with the world

My life

Seems like it’s

Running on empty?

In a field of growth

I am starving

And the sunlight

Doesn’t nurture

But burns all

And destroys any trace

Or semblance

Of happiness…

This is all

On the nature of Daylight

And the response

Of those who listen

Which is no one.

Max Richter – On The Nature of Daylight

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Journal of a Struggling Mind #4

I have been crying uncontrollably for a few hours now. Luckily, locked in this classroom with only the ghosts of my mistakes in my ear, no one can see me. Students are set to arrive any minute now and all I can think is about finding a way to muster a smile in the face of this utter disappointment that is my company. There has never been anyone in the world that I hate or despise as much as myself and because of this, I never truly know how I am supposed to interact with others. Every time I establish a connection with someone, I consistently wonder whether they are just allowing me to be there and only put up with my presence. Inside I know that I make no difference in what we are doing, that my being there is simply an inconvenience for them to mock later, but sadly I can never bring myself to ask.

This is what my mind tells me. This is how it decides that I am to proceed with my day—knowing that somehow, someway, I am supposed to force myself into this box of which I never have and never will belong and then hide until people have gone.

What kind of life is this?

What am I even really doing here?

The thing is, I’m not worth the sorrow 
And if you come and meet me tomorrow
I will hold you down, fold you in
Deep, deep, deep in the fiction we live

This whole thing, this façade that people seem to erect around themselves in order to feel more comfortable in an uncaring world, this is what I am missing. This armor that we create mentally to wall ourselves off from what is out there—mine disappeared such a long time ago.

I wish that I could have it back.

I wish I could sing like I think no one’s listening.

But instead of surviving like any normal person, I hide in dark rooms, avoid anything that could make me happy, and immerse myself in my own melodramatic mediocrity.

Look at me…

Just look at what I have become…

There is no coming back from this.

 

(Lyrics from From Autumn to Ashes – Autumn’s Monologue
Straylight Run – Existentialism on Prom Night)

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Journal of a Struggling Mind #3

While I feel elements of that Godly presence again, there are so many times when I feel as though I am completely alone. I don’t know how to really fight off those demons. I have tried for decades to get things under control but sadly nothing has really helped to alleviate whatever fucked up emotions seem to surface anytime I do, well, anything honestly.

I haven’t been sure of myself for probably two years. I hide it well. I know that people worry but luckily, they look at me like the trickster, the jokester, the one who nothing ruffles. Sadly, people like me feel this way until it is too late. Robin Williams really opened my eyes to the ways that I look at the world. I’m not relating myself to him or his struggle. I am simply referring to the fact that I understand the need to hide behind smiles while you feel like you are dying. No one else needs to deal with this bullshit I keep telling myself. No one needs to deal with my idiot ramblings and utter failure as a person.

To aid in my recovery, I surround myself with no one, and drown myself in a sea of never-ending self-doubt and misery because I don’t know another way to deal with this clusterfuck of feelings.

God dammit, I sound like a twelve-year old complaining on Tumblr but I can’t seem to bring myself out of it this time. I am becoming more and more scared that something will happen, either by accident or by my own hand because I can’t pull myself out of this headspace.

This one comes and this one goes
So here we are across the road
In whispers, in whispers
You say let it go, let it go home

(Lyrics taken from Dave Baxter – Whispers)

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Journal of a Struggling Mind #2

When I was younger, these feelings used to bring fear and pain but I would turn to the sky, look to God for help and I would feel so much better. I would pray, would talk to a benevolent force that would shirk me of my worry and bring about the focus I so desired to move past whatever was troubling me. As I got older, that faith has waned and for a while, was completely absent from my life.

That void is immeasurable—I had no way to recover from losing something as fundamental as my faith in a higher power. If I was always sick, always the weak one, always worthless, at least I knew that somehow, someway, I had a purpose. With that purpose removed, I felt like a was wandering the desert in search of knowledge or peace or, at the very least, clarity.

Do I divide and fall apart?
‘Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark
And the ship went down in sight of land
And at the gates, does Thomas ask to see my hands?
I know you’re coming in the night like a thief
But I’ve had some time to hone my lying technique
I know you think that I’m someone you can trust
But I’m scared I’ll get scared and I swear I’ll try to nail you back up
So do you think that we could work out a sign
So I’ll know it’s you and that it’s over so I won’t even try
I know you’re coming for the people like me
We all got wood and nails
And we turn out hate in factories.

Some of that faith has returned but sadly, I am not sure that I will ever be able to regain what was lost there. In fact, it scares me so much that it hurts. These feelings of loss never truly go away. I have been through a lot in my life but the most devastating event was probably when, in the midst of a particularly intense and deep bout with depression, I looked skyward to pray, only to realize that it wouldn’t do any good.

(Lyrics from Brand New – Jesus Christ)

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Journal of a Struggling Mind #1

It starts in the back of the throat, like a lump that can’t be subdued. You tell yourself that everything is fine but you feel it—slowly building toward something. You aren’t sure what has happened—what has made this day so much different than what came before but then, right in front of your eyes, your brain decides it wants to eat itself today and like the fucking Ouroboros you crumble.

You may maintain some semblance of control, at least on the outside, but inside you are screaming.

For relief.

For strength.

For anything.

Luckily your mind doesn’t recognize the sheer stupidity of your situation and instead tries to convince you that what you feel, that soul-crushing weight, is what belongs. You are not okay. You are not stable.

You are alone.

The top of the world
Sitting here wishing
The things I’ve become
That something is missing
Maybe I…
But what do I know?

Now to match this feeling, what do we do? We tell ourselves that our brains must be correct. It is there for the sole purpose of thinking. How could what it tells us be wrong? How could our own mind betray the absolute trust we place on it and instead Benedict Arnold us into a corner that seems impossible to escape?

This is where a majority of the past few years has led me. Over and over again, I have found myself backed into that metaphorical corner; afraid of what the very next step might bring; what the very next thought might cause; afraid of the complete and absolute fact that I am worthless.

(lyrics taken from The Used – “On My Own.”)

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