Tag: Self help

Help in Strange Places

For the past few months, I’ve found myself struggling; spiraling into a strange madness from which I could not escape. Everything seemed to be falling apart at the seams, my reality unraveling before me like a delicate fabric. I could handle the stress. In fact, I could handle most out what caused the out of control spinning. But I could not handle the thought that I had lost my imagination.

You see, my mind is something I have always valued, even when it seems broken or betrays me at the worst of times. But after so long of falling, I needed help to find my way back out again. The inner voice that guides my words was silenced, the pictures I paint with my words seemed foreign. I had the desire to create, but only the ability to destroy. The whirlwind was merciless. My mind, my imagination, have always been my coping mechanism for as long as I can remember.

As a child when things were difficult, I would escape to my alternate reality. The adult I was did the same. There, I ruled my lands. Nothing happened without my say so. I constructed ideal situations and gave them the perfect outcome in my perspective, or I took events that had already transpired and said what I wished I had said. I dreamed of a better world, a better life.

I took that gift for granted, and only when it seemed to be hiding did I truly understand the weight of what I had. An extraordinary mind filled with wonder that I needed to capture.

The spiralling took it away, bashed and battered it before hiding it beyond my grasp, replacing it with insignificant problems that only aided my downfall.

I sought help from a naturopath. It is most unfortunate that she cared more for my money than she did my mental health, for had she put forth the effort, she could have claimed such an epiphany for her own personal portfolio. What a success story she could have told. Instead, I’ve ripped such a glory from her, and I cannot tell you the immense joy I feel from that. Rather the glory is to be given to a dear friend of mine.

The advice he gave I shall pass on to you, my readers. It seems so very simple, yet it took hearing it at just the right time for it to finally make sense.

Be the best you that you can be. Do everything to the best of your ability, and fuck what everyone else thinks. You have to live with you more than anyone else does. He also told me to write. Write for me and for no one else. Stop living in the world of digital applause and Facebook likes, superficial shit. Write for yourself, and as you find your voice, that is when the applause will matter. It’s only real if you are real.

We live in a world where our lives are dictated by numbers. Your intelligence is measured by a score on a test, or a grade on a paper. Your worth is measured by your bank account. Your beauty is decided by what size your jeans are, or what the scale reads. And when you become so wrapped up in these numbers, you tend to forget why you’re here. Why you’re doing what you’re doing, and why you live doing it. For me, the number of viewers my blog received was important. I would write, and I would try to write well, only to see low numbers. It discouraged me, so I tried to change me. Instead of writing for myself, I tried to cripple myself in order to better myself. So let me pass on a bit of advice to you. You are more than a number.

You are more than the grade. You’re more than the money you make. You’re more than the number of hits on a blog. You are important. In the words of my friend, I’ll reiterate.

Be the best you that you can be.

I Cannot Cry Today

I cannot cry today.
I have no time today.
My soul may bleed, my heart may break,
But I cannot cry today.

The world keeps going, spinning, turning,
It cannot pause and wait.
I’ll have to try to cry tomorrow,
Deal with the sorrow tomorrow.

But what if I’m not sad tomorrow?
What if I’m okay tomorrow?
Tomorrow is just as busy,
I cannot cry tomorrow either.

Each day I wait for a moment alone,
A moment that’s quiet,
A moment that’s mine.
But I have to keep busy, I have to keep going,
No time this month to cry.

A year has passed, my heart is tattered,
My soul feels battered and bruised.
Each day I never cried built up,
And hangs like the sword of Damocles.

I need to heal,
I need to mend,
But I have no time.
Constantly moving, constantly going,
No time to heal, no time to cry,
I spiral, spin, a constant loop until I fall and fall and fall,
I just want to die today.
If only I’d cried that day…

Hello, everyone. I felt poetic, so I thought I might try my hand at it again. I was attempting to capture what it’s like to have a mental problem in today’s quick paced society, especially when the only advice offered by most is “Just keep going it’ll get better.” It is advice bred from ignorance rather than malicious intent, but still can be bad if we don’t take the time to allow ourselves a chance to heal.

I am a bully

Bullying has hit an all time high thanks to the technology we all crave. It follows us home; we are subjected to the cruelties of the online world where doing something as simple as stating one’s own opinion can launch a fire storm of epic proportions. We see movements every day against bullying, raising awareness and starting campaigns. None of us ever want to admit that we’re bullies, especially now. But I’m going to be brave and admit that I am a bully.

When I was little, there was a girl. She was the same age as me. We liked all the same things. We were best friends. When she fell, I’d laugh at her, sometimes further shove her down with insults and embarrassing comments. When she’d cry, I’d tell her she was stupid for crying. When she was angry I’d taunt her, then make her feel guilty for standing up for herself. No matter how badly I treated her, she wanted desperately for my love and affections, so we remained best friends.

As we grew older, the bullying grew with us, and became much worse. Soon I was cutting this sweet little girl, and forcing her to live in my own personal hell with me. Every time she tried to show me light, I broke it until it was dark as well. Each time she tried to make new friends, I embarrassed her and made her cry. The name calling from the other kids was only made worse by me as I echoed it and remained a constant reminder of it. I called her stupid and ugly, told her she’d never find love and she’d always be alone. I remember telling her one night “at least you have a vagina. Men will always want to fuck you, even if they don’t love you.” We were thirteen.

Speaking of thirteen, the girl started cutting herself and I made fun of her scars. Finally one day I convinced her that her life meant nothing. She tried to kill herself. She managed to live, however, but spent nine days locked in a hell that was supposed to be a rehabilitation ward. Did my bullying stop there? No. In fact, it got worse. I began to treat her as though she were diseased. I told her everyone was watching her. Judging her. Wishing she’d died. She believed me. When another student shoved her down and said she was “just too stupid to die”, she nearly broke again. None of the teachers wanted to help her because she didn’t fit the ideal girl type. I made her believe they were right.

Every failure, every harsh word, I’ve thrown at her and kept reminding her until finally the sweet and innocent girl began to break. I made her feel like she was worth absolutely nothing. Settling would be her best option, because otherwise she’d always be alone. Relationships failed. Friendships fell apart. Distance grew further and further between people who were always supposed to love one another. And it was all her fault, or so I made her believe.

You see, I am a bully. I am the worst kind of bully you can imagine. I am my own self critic. The girl I’ve tortured since childhood was myself…..

We see campaigns launching all the time to try and end bullying. But what of our own self abuse? What of the constant negativity? We’re told to just look in the mirror and lie to ourselves, try to convince ourselves that we are good, and beautiful, and if we keep telling ourselves this, we’ll eventually begin to believe it. The problem is every time I look in the mirror, I see my scars. I see the haunted eyes of a scared little girl who wants love, affection, and acceptance. I see the torn heart of a girl who is still tearing herself apart even though all she has left is scar tissue. I see the darkened mind of a woman who tries to keep herself inspired, who tries to hold onto, and see, the beauty and good the world has to offer…only to witness it crumble around her.

I see a girl who thinks ending it all would be the better option.

For some reason, she holds on to hope. She clings to the positive and eats up any of the good that comes her way, which often times only turns bad because she obsesses and loses her identity to try and make more of a good thing happen…which only further makes her miserable.

I see a girl who lashes out at those around her because she didn’t know how to deal with the crumbling world around her, and she feels as though she’s drowning. Suffocating.

The problem with bullying is so much of it is internal, the only way to truly fix the problem is to fix ourselves first.

This post has no conclusion. It doesn’t end on a happy note, or an inspirational story to prove that you, too, can grow past this because the simple fact is, it’s a fight I’m still fighting. I want to help, I want to inspire. But I cannot lie. I will not lie to you. However. There is one thing I can most assuredly say, with absolute honesty.

You are not alone.

Know your limits. Know your boundaries. Know when you’ve had enough.. And know when it is time to swallow your pride and admit you need help or cannot do this on your own.

You. Are. Not. Alone.

The Past is History

As a society, we are forever focused on moving forward. We crave the newest phones, the newest cars, the newest computers. The world around us is faster paced than ever before, Home cooked meals have been replaced with numerous fast food chains that seem to pop up over night, and dinner time conversation has become yelling at the television during a sporting event.

Instead of stopping to smell the roses, we are downloading digital ones. Social interaction is done by text messaging rather than actually speaking to one another. Education is becoming optional, with schools letting out more and more for pointless breaks. Higher education is too expensive for many, and our intelligence is measured by standardized tests.

We work hard to make money, and we dream of spending that money on grand and glorious things–like a vacation. But often times, it is the work itself that prevents us from doing much more than working. Never ending cycle.

With everything spinning so far and so fast, everything being propelled forward, it is very difficult for any of us to turn our heads and look into the past. Indeed, so often we are taught to keep our eyes forward and let the past remain in the past. It is important to not allow the past to rule us, no matter negative or positive. But it is equally important to remember that our history defines us as people.

I do not speak of such things like wars, and actions of our ancestors. I speak of our individual histories. The reason I have brought this up and made it a point to make a blog about it is I have been in a very bad place mentally for a few months now. As terrifying as it is for me to admit, this cycle almost broke me. I’ve cried more recently than I have in much of my life. I’ve felt more alone now more than ever before. It is difficult to hold on to hope, to hold on to dreams, when it feels as though the world around you is crumbling every time you look around. It was the closest I’ve come to being broken by my own mind in a very long time.

One night in particular I was in my bed, my mind racing with thoughts. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t do much more than cry. I had lost so much hope, and faith, in so many things….especially myself. You may be asking yourself now why I began the blog talking about society and the future, when now I talk about myself and the past. It’s simple. The past, for once, saved me. Instead of turning my thoughts to the future, I turned them to the past. Normally this is an equally terrible thing to do, as I have many demons and skeletons waiting to throw all of my mistakes in my face to rub salt into the wounds. I forced myself to focus on those who had passed before me. I focused on my grandfather, so hard until I could hear his voice. I focused on my friend after whom my daughter is named until I could hear her voice. I remembered them, remembered their smiles, their words. Death puts quite a bit into perspective. The living are caught in the fast paced, never ending cycle of the world around us…. but the dead are not. We are little more than the memories we leave behind. Those people, now gone, were proud of me. Those people, now given a fresh perspective and now no longer forced to follow in that cycle, have left memories fro me to recall and draw faith from. The memories from the dead are more comforting at times because of this.

This led to more happy memories. More happy snapshot moments in my head that helped me see that perhaps the world wasn’t a dark and cold place like it sometimes seems. It reminded me that…. sometimes we fail. Sometimes we fall. Sometimes we are beaten, and sometimes we are broken. Sometimes, however if we listen hard enough to our pasts, we’ll find whispers long forgotten that can help us pull through. They cannot necessarily heal us, no that is left up to us to do. The memories are a stepping stone. We cannot rely on the past to do everything for us, and we cannot fear the future. Needless to say the only thing that successfully committed suicide that night was the negativity rattling me to the core. It won’t stay away, obviously, as this is as much a never ending cycle as the new phones we crave each year. But for now, I can use my time to create a few more happy memories to use as ammunition in the future.

Another lesson I gathered from this, and this one made me truly rethink myself–We are a huge influence on other people. I began to wonder how many of my friends often found themselves in similar positions, searching their pasts for any hope, or any light in the darkest tunnel. It made me think…. Am I being the type of person that I want to be? Am I being the person whose memories would help pull them through? Am I being true to myself, and to those around me? It is quite a bit to think about.

It is now that I end with this. I urge each and every one of you to stop, for just a bit. Put down your phones, shut your computers, park your cars. Reach out to your friends, to your families. Love them entirely. You never know when it is your voice, memories of you, that may help pull them out of a bad place.

Letter to Myself

On February 4, 2013, one of my favorite authors began a project where he proceeded to ask his twitter followers a variety of different questions for each month of the year. I decided to participate, and posted a few of my own answers here and there when I could come up with something worthwhile to mention. At first I thought it was just a fun little game, but the more I started reading the responses other people were submitting, I began to realize just how serious this was. (For information on this particular project, visit: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2013/02/a-very-late-blog-about-trying-to-make.html)

Some of the questions were just for fun, but others were truly soul-searching. I wanted to reach through my computer screen on many separate occasions and hug some of the people who responded. For twelve hours, I felt a connection to complete strangers that I might never have experienced otherwise. I laughed with people, cried with people, from all over the world. I’m not sure Neil Gaiman ever intended to have such a reaction from his followers, but it is quite obvious that he received it nevertheless.

It was quite exciting watching all of the months pass by, reading all of the responses as they trickled in. The last question, however, was probably the most heart wrenching…

LettertoSelf2

Seems like a simple enough question considering we have all lost someone that we would give anything in this world to see again. There were the typical answers you would expect to see in response to such a question (Typical, but still important to the equation), some had me staring at the screen with a wide open jaw, thinking “Wow… Perhaps my life isn’t so bad after all…” But some of the answers had me pondering….to the point that I’ve had this thought worm chewing on my brain for four days now…

LettertoSelf

Lettertoself3

Not only did these two answers in particular make me rethink my own answer (I said I wanted to see my best friend again who passed away before I could tell her goodbye), but it made me start reevaluating my own past. If I had a time machine, there would be a lot I would go back to tell myself. Admittedly I probably wouldn’t listen anyway, but I would at least try. For three days I pondered this… if I could go back…. what would I say?

I came up with the idea somewhere in the course of the past few days that I was going to sit down and write a letter to myself naming off a variety of things I would tell my past self if given the opportunity, but then realized I could make it bigger than that. I could make this a yearly project all my very own. As life goes on, we are all guilty of being caught up in the swing of things, of taking the little things for granted, and of not appreciating what we should in the time before it is lost. As each year passes, I want to write a letter to myself as a way to realize perhaps things aren’t as bad as I thought they were. A way to pull out the positive, so to speak.

Dear Younger Self,

Your mother and father don’t always know how to tell you, but they do love you. They are trying their best for you, even if there were always better options. Don’t hold so much against them, because that will drive a huge wedge between you that you will never be able to pull out.

I know you feel alone, and scared, but believe me when I say you are anything but alone. There are so many people in the world who know exactly what you are going through. Cutting is not the answer… All you are going to do is leave scars all over your body that you will have to answer for later. And you will. Trust me, you will. After a while you’ll begin to run out of excuses and, upon the inquirer the truth, you will receive pity. You don’t want pity, do you? Not to mention, they are going to serve as constant reminders each time you pull your sleeve up, and you’ll never forget just how much pain you were in.

I know you think suicide is the only way out, but I’m here to tell you that if you die, you will miss out on so much. You’ll meet some of the best people in the world. Put that bottle of pills down, put the razorblade away. It does get better from here, you just have to keep your head up and believe in yourself.

Stop spending all of your money trying to impress your friends and pay for your boyfriend’s stuff. You’re only 16, and he’s a grown man, he can do it himself. And if he can’t, then he needs to grow up as well. If your friends cannot be your friends when you do not have money, then they aren’t worth keeping around.

Learn to stand up for yourself. You will get so much more accomplished if you stop letting people take advantage of you. I realize you are trying to see the good in everyone, and give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes there just is no good to find. Hold those that love you regardless of what you have to offer closer, because in the end, those are the only ones who will stick around.

Don’t worry about those miscarriages you had, my darling. Soon you will be graced with the most beautiful baby girl you’ve ever seen in your life, and she will become your entire world. Please don’t give up hope, and stop thinking that you won’t be able to have children. She’s truly wonderful, let me just say that.

Don’t allow yourself to be pressured into marriage. Do not settle. Period. But at the same time you need to learn how to compromise a bit better. The relationships you were in were doomed to fail, you could not have helped that, but good things did come from them.

Stop letting the fears from your fast get in the way of your future. Your friends, your lovers, and your family cannot undo what has been done, and though they want to help you it is not fair to force the burden of your past onto them. What I mean is: The past is the past, the future is the future. Learn from your mistakes, but do not let them dictate your every move. You’re going to lose a lot of friends and learn this the hard way, but it is a valuable life lesson that you’ll carry with you from that point on.

Don’t ever start smoking. Seriously. You’ll become addicted to the habit, you’ll be irritable without it, and you’re going to miss out on a LOT. Yes, that means you lose your excuse to leave a crowded room when you want, but the benefits outweigh the sacrifices.

Remember that book you were trying to right in your senior year of high school? Guess what? I finished it. It isn’t published yet, but the people who have read it thoroughly enjoyed it. You’re a great, and talented writer even if you do not yet see it. Trust me though, you will.

And finally, love yourself. Love yourself more and more every day. Do not rely on the words of others. Compliments are one thing, but if you know you have a talent, don’t wait for someone to tell you they enjoy it. You’ll get nowhere. You could have joined choirs, you could have joined writing groups, so much could have been done with your life if you’d just stop letting the opinions of others rule your life. You’re beautiful, wonderful, and talented, and it is perfectly okay to accept that and believe it.

Love always,

Your future self…

P.S. Seriously what kind of drugs were you on when you thought your handwriting was legible? Start writing clearly and NOT IN SHORT HAND if you want me to remember the notes you wrote me. Thank you.