Mental Health Mondays: Personal Growth / Reflection

I'm feeling my age today. It might be because so many of my mates have children, are in a long term relationship or both. And what do I have? I think of what my parents had at my age. They were already married with me. But then I think to myself, 'God do I really want to be like my parents?' A deep resounding 'no' echoes through my skull. I don't want to fall into their disgusting traits and trails. My failures are all my own. While they and I share some DNA we are thankfully different.
I do want some of the things they had at my age. I'm left to think how my actions, my experiences have shaped me into what I see today. 


And what am I? All this time on this planet and I'm still struggling and fighting the tide. Drowning in the murky waters of that I want to understand and things that I shouldn't understand. I've been known to dabble in things that are dangerous, dumb and dickheadish. I can't think. I need something salty.

I've spent the entire summer growing and developing. Changing, morphing. I'm becoming. So many others have tried to define me, tell me who I am. They never even come close. And how could they? With all the secrets and suppressed memories, I harbour inside me I don't even know. These past months have brought changes to my life that I never saw coming. I've been coming into my own more lately, with the help of Chubbs. When my existence collided with his over a year ago I never thought anything would come of it, yet now my entire world has been revived. Salvaged, saved by this chubby, wavy haired, swearing panda bear of a man.
Sometimes I wonder if this all will be just temporary or will this be a forever change in my life? Will this be a positive thing that will shape me as all the darkness has? Is this a chance there the pure and warmth outweighs the corroded and dark? If he should shatter me or in the rare instance that I fall out of love with him, will the changes stay or will they become reminders of a hope that was once again ripped from my grasping hands? 

Through him, I've been able to explore new aspects of myself. I've become more open about myself, my preferences, my sexuality. I'm settling into an identity that I sort of like and I don't want to lose it. He's helped me to see the good parts of me, things I ignored or believed I didn't deserve to have because of the way that I hated myself. I'm not entirely defining myself on this one person, but he's been quite the catalyst. I fear that with him gone the sparks of passion for life, the desire to find me will burn out or that it will turn into something horrible like it was before. They say that time only moves forward, but for me, time feels as if it moves backwards as well. There are times when I wish I wouldn't see the world as I do. 

Just when I thought the depression was starting to dissipate for a while, I feel it beginning to creep back into me. I feel the cheap stitches holding me together coming apart. The past month I was almost free of suicidal thoughts and was free of any actions of self-harm. The past four days I've been obsessed with the thought of my demise. Being suicidal and feeling suicidal are two different things. It's a constant hopelessness, a blackness that feeds upon isolation and depression. It's the constant knowledge that everyone around you is better off, that all you do is burden others. It's knowing that you're a constant joke to everyone around you and not in the way that you want. It's a perverse sense of self that leaves you warped and hiding in between your secrets. It's building a life away from those who you feel any sort of care for because you feel you have to hide. You don't deserve to speak about what's inside. 

I should have had a good weekend. I went to the cinema and saw it. I managed to eat something in public, in the theatre. Alright, so I was hidden in almost pure darkness, but it's a small step I suppose. I felt almost comfortable that I did it. I faced something that makes me feel self-conscious and sick and nothing bad happened. No one laughed at me. No one threw things at me. For those 2 hours and 15 minutes, I was almost a human. I was a part of a crowd. I wasn't the author. The blogger. The failure. The fuck up. The mental patient. The sick one. The disease of humanity. I was Daniel. Daniel, the adult who went to a film and had popcorn. Then the film ended and I left with an overbearing sadness. I had to hide behind dark sunglasses as tears rimmed my eyes. It wasn't even a drama film! It was a fucking horror film.
Maybe it was the coming of age story told within the film or the premise of confronting one's personal demons or fears that got to me. What do I really fear? Failure. Fear itself. The fear of being fearful. Humiliation. Rejection. Things that have shaped me that I've repressed or forgotten have spent the summer coming to light I suppose. Is this it? What will become of this? Am I being led down the wrong path. 
I returned home and fell into a suicidal depression that I'd not felt for almost 2 months. I needed relief. I needed that sweet calmingness. 

I used to bleed to remind myself that I'm alive, yet these days it all seems staged. As if it's all a Hollywood film and I'm already dead. Nothing feels real anymore. I stick needles into my already mangled body to try and feel any sort of sensation beneath my skin. It's disgusting what I do to myself.
I just needed to cut. I felt that urge to bleed. I needed that euphoria that overtakes me when the blade collides with my skin. I needed to feel my life slipping away from me, then catch it in my hands. I can breathe out relief, exhale my demons as I burn scarlet. The blade knows my secrets and he loves me anywhere. I fear that I will never find that anywhere else. I don't deserve it, yet I crave it. That's always the way with me though, craving that of which I should never have. I prayed the blade would strip me of my thoughts and cleanse me like it always has before. 

The relief didn't flood me like I wanted it to, but the bleeding was slightly cathartic. The chemicals flowing through me and the loud, throbbing rock music shattering my brain cells into jelly-like fragments took the edge off. I wish I could remember a time when this wasn't the norm and I didn't need to resort to things like this to really feel alive. Back to a time when I didn't need to depend on chemicals to remember how to smile. 

Maybe after autumn has died and winter is forcing its frigid breath upon me, I'll have another new outlook on where I am in life. 

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