I refuse to be interrupted. This is my time, my space, my head, my thoughts, my problems, and my growth.
*Breath*
*Introspective identification*
Where does one start in explaining it all? I supposed at the beginning, "what was your first memory of depression?". I guess I'd have to explain to you what depression seems to be for me; a heaving moment of isolation, fear, desolate body and mind. "What was your first memory of depression?"
Depression is a funny thing, when you are contained in it's imprisonment it feels like you are serving a life sentence, an unrelenting, unending time of ruminative criticism and disassociation. So when I ask myself "What was your first memory of depression?" I want to say that perhaps there was no starting place, that it is and always was part of my essence. But that can't be true... for I believe in an environmental engulfment of guilt, fear and shame. But, in a sense, I also believe in the lack of environmental support contributing to the problem at hand. So "What was your first memory of depression?"
I guess it started in my bathroom, if I could recall. Although the space and room itself over time lost presence to me. I began to question myself, all that about me, my body, and in the time alone in the shower or bath, my mind. I began to think about the thoughts of others, the qualms I had with society. It always seemed as though the bathroom was my place for thinking time, and eventually it became my dungeon. I don't remember the onset, I remember the feeling of worthlessness, of insecurity and the desire for isolation. But over time the space that surrounded me in the bathroom began to spread, it followed me everywhere, everywhere I went I had a sense of... vulnerability.
After a while the thoughts became too prevalent and I couldn't seem to shake them, I began to think I was weak for being unable to control them, for being in a sense 'ungod-like". The thoughts became unexhaulted energy within me, that were like waves crashing into my sternum inside my chest, causing me to feel sick, to make me feel like I was drowning. And the only thing I could think of, and I still am unsure of where I got the idea, I began to let the energy flow out of me, through my wrists, my legs, ankles, stomach, where ever there was space. Over time my skin became a canvas that my insecurity had consumed, it's art work to this day remains enshrined on my flesh.
The deeper I went the less it seemed to hurt, although most people would try to convince me that it would have had to have been the opposite. As I cut myself it seemed to have given me that momentary high (which subsequently I found out were merely endorphins trying to protect me) that helped me some how feel alive. How strange is it that I had to remove parts of my external body to feel alive in my sentient caricature. It progressed I suppose, it became an addiction that I had seemingly no control over.
You might ask why a person would do this to themselves, why would someone feel so pathetic. And often times I have asked myself the same things. But in the ending all I can seem to conjure up is a sense of resentment and false entitlement. I resented my family for not providing me with a mental avenue to grow, for not teaching me everything that I had to teach myself, for not letting me know that sometimes it's okay to hurt, and to ask for help, that it was okay to cry. And in a sense I felt like I was entitled to that, but I guess I cannot resent someone for something that they are and were completely unable to provide for me. It was never about attaining the products of their labour, or always wanting "more" objects and things. It was about the spiritual side of it, I regret that I didn't know that I was an animal in a cage of societal expectations, and that these expectations, even though so unattainable, when not achieved were what hurt me the most.
All I wanted was to be perfect, but I was perfect at being me, not perfect at being someone else, although that seems like what they needed. It hurt to know that, even to this day, I feel like I can never live up to their expectations. I'm not even sure what they are anymore, at this point I think their expectation is for me to be happy, but how... If I had spent my whole life living for them, not moving out at 15, and I came to university without any discretion I don't think I would be in such an unstable situation. For I compare my expectations of myself with theirs. And I suppose it's not merely just family, it's everyones pressure I feel, a feeling that I am somehow capable of great things, and surely I am, I've seen that in myself, I've seen that glint of light within me, but I can't seem to grasp it as I fumble with so many particularities of how I should behave.
It's a pain being a human in a world so filled with an underlying sense of moral language and judgement. People being excluded due to their lack of normative phenotypes. And as I've gotten older it's also been about your ability to handle everything on your own, and I've tried, and failed.
I moved from a poor cognitive pattern to a worse one as I went from homelessness, to feelings of abandonment, to feelings of being alone even while constantly around people. I wish that I was able to tell you all the good moments but somehow I have seemed to disfigure them with all of the negative things that have occurred after. The scariest thing about depression to me is how it just "creeps" up without you noticing and all of a sudden you are hovering your finger over a self destruct button, and unfortunately some people succeed in pressing that button, others like myself only get halfway and have to live with the pain of what ifs and could have beens, shouldn't have beens.
I nearly died a few times because of my risk taking behaviours, and all that has amounted to is a sense of remorse, because I can no longer rationalize or justify my actions, it was all done (often with no ill-intent) but all I have left over is scars and perhaps a sense of my edge of life. It's scary to know how much more it would take.
I spent 3 years in a relationship that was nothing less than painful in every aspect, and again I've let the negative cloud any of the good moments, I lost all of my self-respect, courage, tenacity, positivity and sometimes I feel like I also lost my ability to succeed. I spent the last year locked in a begging and critical cage barred with ill-intentions and unwarranted control. All of my successes died that night as he threw my most prized possession at me, which then later fell from a window sill in which I thought had protection and it shattered all over the floor, I guess that's when I felt the depression hit me this times. Over a stupid piece of glass, how fucking pathetic. But I felt that if I had ever achieved anything it was winning that award and now it's gone, the praise and gratification has died within me and the proof of a once successful me is gone.
Shortly after that I got a call from my older sister saying that she didn't want to live anymore... I just want to say first of all that my older sister is my rock, and my absolute hero. And hearing her saying she wanted to give up really hurt, and I don't blame her, live fuckin' sucks sometimes. While I was on the phone with her, the air was rushing in her windows as she was smoking and as she grew more silent the sounds of the vacuum within her car, I remember at one point the sound was so loud that I thought my sister had slipped her car and I remember being so scared and having no idea what to do or say. I guess it was shortly after that, that I had decided that for her and I I would be the strong one for a while and that I would learn how to be there for her and anyone else feeling the way we did those nights, alone and pissed off at the world, no hope in sight.
I wish that in my head I could change how I think about feelings, sadness, and depression for when I hear one of those words I somehow conditioned myself into thinking *suicide risk*. It's hard because I have so many friends and family members that like me suffer from the disease known as depression, and I can't seem to find the cure, and every once in a while that disease is fatal. I seem to be trying to swim in a vast ocean with the world on my shoulders, trying to hold everyone else up above me, protecting them from drowning as my breaths become shorter and shorter as I begin to spend more time gulping up water than air.
One thing that I learned today is that I am still a human, I've never been a god, and that I always have been and always will be a human... just a simple human, like you, like everyone. But that's a scary thought isn't it, a simple girl trying to save the world from drowning, trying to say the world from feeling this way.
I made a big step today, I finally talked to someone about my problems and I think that over time somehow I will begin to get better...
I've had to develop a few rules until I get better:
- Stay offline on Facebook as it seems to bring me the most stressors, at least until I find a way to stay afloat, I have to built myself and the world a life raft first.
- Make a short list of people that I am willing to put before myself.
- Hold off on getting a job until I feel it is more manageable
- Wait until the end of exams before I pick back up on training.
- Realize the power that I have to help people
- Manage a balance between my emotions and my time
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For some reason I've begun to miss poetry. So I wanted to give it a shot
Thick black curtains disobey the light,
holding out the cascades of life
A room long lost and forgotten,
a mask of new relations
candles relish at their wick and beg for oxygen
the room is growing ever more suffocating
chained to the floor a paper doll seems so listless as to get up,
to risk being torn
the doll risks being burned by the flames as they begin to engulf
the curtains begin to burn, the dolls edges slowly beginning to curl
the curtains burn away and the joviality pouring into the room in radiated beams
The doll tarnished and blistered looks out past the rectangle once covering the courtyard
She begins to become restless, uncontented by her surroundings,
Folding herself she escapes her shackles,
Never as pristine as she once; she takes on the world
The world of steel man and golden women,
She sway so elegantly in the wind,
being lifted up into lifes generosity and exoneration
"Broken cold confused"
*Bed* Another day at last.
No comments:
Post a Comment