Sunday, May 25, 2014

Addiction

I have been having a pretty good week. I haven't been getting sad, I have been talking with people, I made some new friends. I am waiting for it all to crash down, so I'm not building it any higher. I know that good things end, so I am afraid to make good things into great things.

I was talking to someone about addictions a few days ago, and I came to the realization that I have never been addicted to anything. I have smoked before, drank before, I have been on medication before, but I have never felt a constant pull to continue smoking or drinking or anything. And I think it is more than that. I go through phases of liking things, but I have never had a problem not having those things that I like. When I think of addiction, I don't just think about drugs or bad things, but good things too, like love, friendship, people. I have never felt an addiction toward any good things either. And I really want to.

I did try once, to become addicted to smoking, even though I knew it was bad for me, but I never could. As soon as I wasn't thinking about smoking, i would forget about it until someone else brought it up, and then I was like "Okay I guess I will have one" but it was never a constant need for one. And you might think it is a good thing to not be ale to get addicted to things, but I hate it. I will never have a strong purpose in life because I can't become addicted to anything, good, or bad. So yeah, I cut out that bad part from my life, but I can't get the good part without the bad, so I cut that out too. And I just sort of drift through the middle of life, without any pulls towards anything else. I want to be addicted to something, because I think that if I knew what that was like, I would have an easier time applying that to the good things, like love and friends and stuff.

All I want from life is to love and be loved, not necessarily romantically, just love. And I can't have that, because love is an addiction, and I can't become addicted. I hate it. Out of all the people who have problems with addiction to things, I had to be the one person who wants to be addicted, and can't be. That is my life I guess. If I could let myself be ruled by something else, a desire or whatever for something, let myself be addicted, I wouldn't have messed up all of my relationships in the past, and maybe I could have a good one in the future. But I doubt that will ever happen, and some part of me doesn't want it to.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Guys Make Me Uncomfortable 05/18/14

Hello. I have realized in the last few weeks that I am extremely uncomfortable around males. Of any age, except maybe young children. I mean, I am uncomfortable around all people, but guys just make me extra uncomfortable, and I'm not really sure why. I automatically assume that everything guys say is meant to be creepy. Like, all complaints, or just general comments I take as them being creepy. Even if they don't say anything, i am just nervous around guys. For example, if I have a choice between a guy and a girl check out person at a store, I'd go through the girls lane even if I had to wait longer.

I had a normal childhood, it was probably good, nothing traumatic happened or anything, but for some reason guys attention in any form makes me extremely uncomfortable, to the point that I avoid all guys. My friends think it is funny that I am easily startled, and I am I guess, but it wouldn't be nearly as startling if they weren't male. Like, I know none of them would ever do anything bad or whatever, but I just automatically think that bad things will happen or something. I don't know what I am trying to say here. Anyway ,I am going to try to stop automatically assuming that all guys are creeps, or weird, or whatever.

I got this idea from a video on youtube that I am going to start doing, basically, you have this bracelet, and every time you complain about something, you switch it to the other arm, the goal being to keep it on one arm for 21 days, because that is how long it takes to form a habit. Doing this is supposed to get you out of the habit of complaining, and make you start to think more positively. I am also counting things I write, if they are negative, since I don't really do a lot of talking. I have only had to change it once today, so I guess I'm not that bad, I used to complain about everything, not in a complaining way, just as a 'I'm just saying' way that other people took as complaining. So I am trying to break that habit. And once I get to 21 days, I am going to start doing it for every time I think something negative or complaining, because I think a lot of things I don't say.

Well, I don't really have anything else to say, so bye for now.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Music Part One 05/17/14

Writing everyday is not working for me, it feels like a chore now. I think I am going to change it to whenever I feel like writing, which will probably be every other day, or every three days.

So I realized today, as I was driving to the grocery store, that I haven't actually listened to music in almost two weeks. That is a super long time for me. I mean, I have had it on in the background, but I haven't been listening, not really. When I hear songs, I usually just automatically start dissecting them, I listen to all the separate instruments and then all the different notes that are sung as well, and I find whichever one I like best, and from then on when I hear that song, that is the part I hear, which is why I think that I can like almost any music, because I twist the song so I can hear what I want to hear from it. I found myself doing that on the way to the store, I think the song was by the Dave Matthews Band, I don't know what the song was called though. I've heard it a few times before, and I really like the first three or four lines, but the rest of the lyrics aren't good, so I don't usually listen to them when I hear the song, I actually listen to the drums, which I don't usually do, usually it's piano or guitar that I listen to when I don't like the words, but anyway, I found myself doing that, realized that it has been a very long time since I have done that, and instantly my day was better, like I was finding something about me that I had forgotten so now I feel more like the person I used to be two weeks ago, and I was happy with that.

Also, it is nice to get out of the house sometimes, I don't do that often here because I don't know anyone here, and I don't really know any places to go to. I only went to the grocery store a few blocks away, but it definitely boosted my mood some. I have decided that I am probably going to start going on walks or something, because it seems to help a bit.

Okay, I found the song on YouTube, it's called Crash Into Me, and I relistened to it, and I really like the first few lines, like a lot, but the rest of the song isn't good. Sometime, I am going to make a list of all the lyrics I find that I really like, and I am going to put them together into a really great song.

 I also have been watching a lot of Alex Day videos on YouTube, that has consumed my free time the last twoish days, and I love all of them, like every video is hilarious, so I think that contributes to my good mood.

I still haven't been sleeping much. I fall asleep hours after actually going to be, and I wake up a lot throughout the night, and then I have to get up early for 'work' but for some reason, this hasn't made my good moods leave the last few days.

So yeah, I only started writing this because I wanted to say that I am not going to write every day from now on. But I started rambling about music.

Music is the biggest part of my life, it has been since grade school. As a child, when I was bored I did this thing where I would try to hum the exact note of something that was around me, usually this was on the bus to of from school, but I would hum the exact note of something on the bus, like the engine running, or the tires on pavement, and I would just try to match the pitch. I did it around pretty much anything electrical that made a constant tone, or cars running, pretty much anything. And I would pick apart the things that made that pitch, and try to figure out exactly what it was that was doing it. In a noisy place, I didn't like noisy places as a child, they would scare me, so to avoid being scared in loud places, I would pick apart everything that was making noise, and I would find one thing to focus on. So now I do that with music, just subconsciously.

Well cool, that's something about me. And I could ramble on about music for a very long time, and maybe I will do that soon, but not today, because I really actually just want to go back to YouTube to watch more of Alex Day's videos, because they are very very addicting. So, bye.

Friday, May 16, 2014

Mostly Useless Rambling 05/16/14

So I have realized in the past that when I watch things, or read things, I get very caught up in what is happening. It's why I cry when I read sad things or laugh out loud when I read or watch movies, stuff like that. Yesterday, it occurred to me that most people don't do that. I wonder why? It also was pointed out to me yesterday that, someone said I should respond, and I already did that. Like, when I am watching things, mostly just videos from people I know well, but sometimes from people I don't know, I think of responses, I nod or shake my head, sometimes I follow along as if I were sitting with them actually talking to them. And usually they respond to my response. And I guess that is weird. A bit. I can sit down and watch an hour long video from my friend on youtube, and we will have a conversation that I feel a part of because when I am listening to it, you are just saying it. Timey wimey.

Anyway, I have always been really over emotional, it sort of runs in my family I guess. I cry at everything. There are times in the past where I have almost cried while watching the news, or commercials, and a while ago, like 5 or 6 years ago when I was on medication for depression and anxiety, she told me I have lot serotonin. I didn't pay attention to it at the time, because I didn't know what the hell serotonin was, and I didn't really care, I was only there because my parents made me go. I stopped taking the medication after three ish months, for multiple reasons, and didn't think about it again for a very long time. Recently though, I was looking through files I have kept for years because they were at one time important, and one of the files was my prescription for my medication and stuff, so I started looking up serotonin and stuff, and I basically just got this whole list of things to eat or do that increase serotonin which increases your mood. I guess I will find out if it works. I don't really know what this has to do with anything at all. Whatever.

I am listening to the hour long youtube video as I write this so I will probably be jumping around a little. I will probably relisten to it a lot, not really because I need to in order to remember what was said, but moreso because it is like hanging out with friends again.

Maybe I will just write from the journal again. A really short thing I wrote a while ago when I was unsure whether I was getting worse or getting better.
"I can't tell if I am looking up out of the dark or down as I'm falling deeper into the dark. Am I okay now? Am I making this worse for myself in the long run or can I let myself feel better? Happy. No. Just okay. Because when I feel happy, I have to ruin it. How will I know if I am dreaming or awake? I don't know."

I don't feel the need to elaborate or rant as I type this, which is odd, because I usually do. But, maybe from the lack of sleep I have been getting, or something to that extent, I have been in a, not a good mood, but more of an I don't really care mood. Like, I don't feel the need to explain this much, because I think I have in the past, and also, I write this for someone who doesn't read it, and most of the time I don't care, because I figure that someday when you get bored enough you might, and if you don't, in my head, I still told you, so you understand. But today I just don't feel like putting much effort into it. I feel like, if I took out all the boring stuff, the me thinking of what to say parts, like you do in your videos, I would have about two or three paragraphs of things i think you would find interesting enough to read. But I don't edit past the superficial, I just ramble on. So here is my unedited thought stream, to me, it is much more interesting than an edited one would be, because seeing the train of thought that led to a very interesting subject or sentence, is the most interesting part. Free thought or free talk or whatever, is my favorite thing to read or listen to. Because, while I might agree with something you think, I came to that conclusion from a different way, so I see it in a different light, so I might not actually agree with what you said, because you take a different meaning out of it than I do. but if I can see the thought train that led you there, then I can see it from the same angle you do, so I could actually agree or disagree. I don't really know if this has much of a point. I will stop rambling now.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

I Am Anxious To Write This 05/15/14

I have been waiting to start writing so I could watch a friends video on youtube in hopes that it would give me a subject to write about, but he is taking to long so I will maybe just write about it tomorrow.

I wrote this a while ago, during a panic attack; "I can feel it there, pushing me down. Every second, every breath, every move. It's still there. It's always there. I can hear it still. Whispering. Always whispering. Why? Why?
Discouraging. Always saying no. Don't try. Not good enough. Why? Not good enough.
It hurts, everything hurts. Ignore it, ignore me. Live. I can't. Why? Why? I can't. It hurts. Everything hurts. I don't want to. Why? I'm not good enough.
Not good enough.
It's there again. Pushing. Why? Who am I? Who would I be? No one. I would be no one. I would not exist. I can't be happy. It's always there, keeping it from me. Everything. nothing. It hurts. Why?"

I really don't think a lot of people understand anxiety and what it feels like to always have that on your shoulders. Everywhere I go, no matter what kind of mood I am, there is this little voice in the back of my head telling me that I am not good enough, all these people around me know that I am not good enough, and they don't want me around them. When I go to places where there are a lot of strangers, especially if I am alone, I get so nervous that my hands shake and I will start sweating at the prospect of talking to any of them. I walk with my head down so they don't notice me. I stutter when I have to talk. If I am in a crowded area too long, it becomes overwhelming to the point of panic. And through all of that, there is a pressure on my mind, it tells me that every person around me notices every single one of my flaws and they are all judging me the same way I judge myself.

If I am around friends, or people I have known for quite a while, it is substantially easier to talk to them, because if they have stuck around long enough to become my friend, they have earned some level of my trust, enough that I only rarely get nervous to the point of having to leave and be alone.

And, contrary to popular belief, being alone when you have social anxiety isn't really much better than being around people. Yes, when I am alone, I no longer feel the pressure of constant judgment, but I instead spend my time over analyzing every single word I said or movement I made that day, trying to see if anything I said or did was wrong. And if i find something that was wrong, I spend hours in my head imagining other possible ways that that specific situation could have played out.

If there is a situation that I know about in advance, it is significantly worse. I will spend hours and sometimes even days, trying to think of every possible circumstance, every possible conversation and I plan my responses to all of them. And then of course, when the time actually comes, I stutter and can't remember what I was going to say before. And then I hate myself for it later.

And always, there is a pressure around my heart. It's always there, squeezing, making me panic. Every time I breath in, it is a struggle, and with every breath out, it pushes harder and I sink lower. Once I get started, I can't stop, and it leads, most usually, to a panic attack.

I hate panic attacks. I always think that maybe if I let myself freak out for a while, I will feel better afterwords. But it never works that way. After a panic attack, not only do I still spend time thinking about what started the panic, which can be something so small and stupid to some people that it doesn't even seem like a legitimate reason. I spend time feeling stupid and selfish and just over all dramatic, because of the panic attack.

I don't think people realize how difficult it is for me to do simple tasks like go to the store, or go to the bank, or walk down a hallway where other people might pass me. Anxiety isn't just something in my head, it's not just something I can ignore, or get over, it's always there, it's always pushing me back, it's always telling me that I am not good enough, that I am doing things wrong.

So stop telling me that it is time to "grow up" or "move on" I am sick of hearing it. If it were that easy to do, I wouldn't feel like crap all the time.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Social Acceptance 05/14/14

Hello again world of internet. I am in a very good mood today, and I have absolutely no idea why. I haven't left the house today, I got woken up earlier than I would have liked, and I haven't been sleeping well, but for some reason I am in a cheery mood. I will just roll with it. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to write about today, and the next few things in my journal are not happy things and I don't want to bring myself down from this quite yet.

I found something near the current "end" of my journal that was written a few days before I moved, and I was sort of in a high mood, I guess.

"I try to be accepted, socially, so hard, but I always feel like I'm in a slightly separate space. Like I'm in the same place as them, but in a just slightly different dimension or something. I'm always watching what I say or what I do, and it's never enough, it seems.
And they talk about me. I know they do, I hear them, and even if it's just a passing comment or something that's not even mean, I still can't handle it. I can't. I stay up and think about it when I am trying to sleep. Why do I try so hard?
I just want them to like me, but no matter what I do, it's not enough. It's never enough. Why not?
Even when I do exactly what I think they want, they still don't like me. I'm not accepted. I still don't fit in. I still don't feel like I'm their friend.
But it doesn't matter anyway, because I'm leaving. And I won't see them again. Any of them. And I will miss them, but they will forget about me after a while. Which is fine. They always do. and when I think this, I know I'm just seeing what I think is true even if it's not. But it feels true. It feels real. And I hate it. Maybe I'm not feeling like their friend because I make myself not a friend. But I can't help it. Am I depressed? I don't think so. Because if I were, I wouldn't know that I am being stupid by thinking this. But I can't stop."

I know this doesn't sound like it was written in a high mood, and maybe I just remember it that way because I am in a high mood now.

My room mate for the last two months I lived in my apartment used to get drunk quite often, and sometimes if I was also drunk, we would sit down and have some of the most fascinating conversations I have ever had, maybe they just seemed that way because I was drunk, and I don't exactly remember a lot of what we talked about, but I do remember feeling completely at peace talking to him, which is weird because before he moved in, I'd know him for about two weeks maybe. But I could identify with him so easily, I think that was why I enjoyed the conversations so much. Eventually he didn't talk to me anymore, I'm not really sure why, but whatever. Anyway, during one of these conversations, he told me that everyone he considers to be a friend just ends up leaving him. And I remember telling him something along the lines of "Maybe your friends leave you because you make yourself unavailable as a friend." After I said that, I really thought about what I said, and I started applying it to my own situations, and I realized that that is exactly what I do. When I think about friends I had in the past that I no longer have, I automatically assume that they no longer wanted or needed to be my friend and that is why we don't talk anymore. And I still think that. But now there is that seed of doubt in my mind. What if they stopped being my friend because I stopped being theirs?

I know that when I get to close to people, I subconsciously start pushing them away, because I expect them to hurt me eventually. In the past, I only applied this theory to people I date, or my closest friends, but now that I think about it, I have done this to every person I have met, no matter how close I get to them. And somehow, I still let them hurt me.

I am going to start making a conscious effort to not do that anymore. I am not going to push away people that matter to me anymore. Because being hurt by them, in the long run, is so worth the happy times that I could have with them.

I say that, but it probably won't happen. Recently, the thing that has hurt me the most, came from someone I thought couldn't hurt me anymore, or wouldn't. I don't know why I thought that, maybe because I thought that I was so used to them hurting me that I wasn't letting it bother me any more. Anyway, he said to one of my other friends that he thinks I am just a whore who sleeps with anybody. There are two reason this bothers me. First, if I show any amount of affection toward anyone, it is because I trust you enough to like you, and that only happens when I have known you enough to trust you, which doesn't happen very often. Second, this was said by one of the only people who I knows that the word Whore bothers me so much more than anything else you could call me, and he knew why, I thought. Maybe not. I don't really know now. And I am done thinking about it.

I have so much more motivation to write when I am not in a high mood. I wonder why that is.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Fears 05/13/14

I have come into the habit of every morning when I wake up, I think almost immediately "What am I going to write about today?" But somehow, when I actually sit down to start writing I can't think of anything, so I will take out of my past written things again.

On this particular page, I drew, which I don't do often, but anyway, I drew a door. It is a fully closed door. On the front, there is a number to mark it as mine, and that is all. I captioned the door as "I don't know what's inside."

This theory of the door and what it represents actually comes from a show I watched a while ago, and I liked this particular idea so much that I began to for a concept around it. The door is there, and there is a room on the other side, and my complete life is on the outside of the door. The door is in my mind, and it stays closed, and locked, because the room behind it contains all of my fears. Everything that I am afraid of now, or have been afraid of, or will be afraid of. The number on the front to label it as mine is 43, which is my birthday 04/30 but only the significant numbers, 43. I wrote at the time, that I don't know what is inside, and the drawing stayed like that for almost three days, just empty, but I spent those three days thinking subconsciously about fears, and I went back later to write over the entire top of the drawing.

I wrote: "That's a lie. Of course I know. I don't fear death, I never have. So what am I afraid of? Being left behind. Being unneeded. Unwanted. Forgotten. I'm afraid of myself. What if I do everything wrong? What if I become someone I shouldn't be? What if I don't find my purpose in life? What if I find it, and don't like it? What if I find it, like it, and fail? What if I spend all of my time, my whole life, working at accomplishing something worth living for and I never accomplish it? What if I am dreaming? What if I don't exist? What if my whole life up to this point has just been a story in someone else's head? What if I wake up some day in my past and I don't remember all of the things and people that make this life worth sticking around for? That is what is inside my door."

I have many other things I could have added to this list of things that would be inside my door, but I ran out of paper. Which is probably good. Fears are hard to think about and they leave me in a low mood when I try to think about them.

There are so many things in life that I am afraid of, none of the usual things, spiders, heights, superficial things, I used to be afraid of as a child, they don't bother me any more, I hardly even think about them any more. My worst fears are not being wanted, and finding out that I am insane. There have only been maybe a handful of times in my life when I have felt wanted, my childhood wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly warm hugs and family bonding. And a thought that continually passes through my mind at the strangest of moments, when I least expect it, is "What if I don't actually exist?" Followed by "What if everything I know is just made up?" and usually followed by "I am insane."

Why do I think this way when society deems that as insanity? Anything abnormal just automatically makes you less of a person. I must not be fit to function with normal people, because I have depression and social anxiety. Obviously those are errors in my brain, something I have that is wrong with me, something that normal people don't have. I'm not that different from anyone else. In fact, I am unbearably ordinary. I have never done anything original in my life. But I feel like I am separated from everyone else. Like I don't think on the same wavelengths that they all do. And sometimes I am fine with that. Why would I want to be so dramatic, let such little things bother me and ruin my day, like all of those other people do? Why is their life so difficult? Because they let every stupid little thing into their mind and they focus on that, and they let it eat at them, and they let it change their moods, and they let it ruin their lives. I can't do that. If something starts to bother me, I immediately reason it out. I don't even notice the little things anymore. Like people making rude comments, things not going how I originally thought they would, the little things that people seem to take negatively. I don't even notice them anymore, I must have trained myself not to. Why would I want to spend my whole life getting upset over things that don't matter? I don't. So I don't let things upset me.

If I do all of this, why am I still unhappy? I have no idea. It isn't something I can even pin point. I am just generally unhappy. Like there is a layer of unhappiness blanketed over my entire life. There are moments when I forget it is there, when I feel happy, but they are fleeting and as soon as I start to think about anything else other than that one moment I was happy, it settles over me again.

I am really bad at ending posts, but I think I have put everything I can into this one.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Change 05/12/14

So, I switched over to blogger.com from blog.com today because their site is constantly down, and I promised myself that I would write every day. Today will be my first real post on this site. I still don't know what I am going to write about.

Yesterday was a hard day for me, I have had very little sleep the last three or four days because I keep waking up from nightmares. Most of the time I have normal dreams that I forget as soon as I wake up, but for the past three nights, I have had weird dreams in which people that I know and love usually end up dying, or becoming horrific people and I have to watch as they kill people or something to that extent. I don't know why I am having these weird dreams all of a sudden, I haven't been doing anything out of the ordinary, but they wake me up, usually between 2 and 4 am, and I can't go back to sleep. Yesterday, I spent about four hours writing my post, I won't be doing that again, but today I do feel a lot better, so maybe writing about depression helped.

I have a list of topics that I want to write about eventually, well, they are actually more just prompt words. The first one is Change, so I guess that can be todays topic. I generally like change. I like having new things to do, I like meeting new people, trying new things, and all that jazz, but somewhere deep down, I really really hate change. Ideally, I would like to find a time and place that I am happy in, and just stay there, not letting anything change ever, but obviously that isn't possible. And I have a tendency to destroy my own happiness as soon as I recognize it anyway.

It's like, as soon as I think, "I could stay like this forever and still be happy" I do something to destroy that. I alienate the people that made me feel  like that, I destroy the relationships with them, and I altogether forget why i thought I was happy in the first place. I have done this for as long as I can remember, but I have no idea how to stop doing it. And I don't know why I do it. Well, maybe I have a theory about it.

When I feel completely content and happy, which has happened on two separate occasions in my life, the first was when I was about 14, I was walking on a hiking trail near my dads house in the beginning of the summer before high school started, and I realized just suddenly, that I had no obligations, no requirements, no job, no reason to do anything, no responsibility, nothing binding me to anything here, and for some reason, that thought, that sudden realization, made me so happy, so completely content with my life, that I felt like I was just floating, I can now compare it to the feeling of being high, though I didn't know what that was like at the age of 14. The next week, I went out and got a job, and I have been working ever since. The second time I was completely content and happy with life was about two years ago. I completely ruined everything about that time that made me happy, I ruined the relationship with the person who made me feel that way, and we still don't talk at all.

My theory of why I do this is simple. If I feel too happy, I can't tell if I am awake. As a child, I used to have those dreams where I would get up, get ready for school and all that stuff, and then I would wake up to discover that I had to do all of that again, but in the dream, it would feel as though I was actually awake. I still occasionally have dreams like that, or I dream that I am back in the past when I was happy, only to wake and discover that I have already ruined that feeling. If I become too happy, I begin to have doubts about whether or not I am actually awake. I begin to wonder if I am sleeping and this is all a dream. So I do things to sabotage myself. Because when I am hurting, I know I am awake and that what I am feeling is real. If I am too happy, I can't exist. I have thought this for a while, and the more I think about it, the more it leaks into my life. It's starting to become that every time I feel myself becoming too happy, about anything, little things, I do something to ruin that, because I don't know if it is real. I am afraid of the day when I start dreaming about being hurt, because then I don't know how I will ever be able to tell the difference between when I am awake or asleep, and then I won't know if anything is real.

The reason I formed this theory is because when I was little, I used to have to spend every summer at my dads house. I would spend the entire summer hoping that time would speed up so that I could go back to my moms, where I had friends, and liked being. When I was about 13, I dreamed that I was nine again, and that I had been sleeping and only dreamed that I was 13 and now that I was "awake" I would have to relive the last four years that I had just "dreamed" about. When I woke up, I forgot the dream for nearly three weeks, and then something little reminded me of it, and it stayed in my mind. It's still in my mind. And I keep thinking, what if I am just dreaming this right now? Life is moving so quickly, it must be a dream, and I am going to wake up and be nine years old again and I am going to have to relive the last 14 years. Sometimes my dreams are so realistic that they scare me. In them, I can see everything in detail that I don't even know I noticed in my waking life, which is why dreams about my actual life are so confusing to me.

Someday I am going to wake up and realize that my entire life has been a dream.

I Don't Have A Title For This 05/11/14

I just wanted to take a few minutes to write about depression. It’s something that I don’t understand, and that I think most other people don’t understand either. I have been told by a psychologist that I have “Clinical Depression” but really, she made that decision after only an hour of me talking to her. She told me to come back every week, but I didn’t for multiple reasons. First, telling a stranger about my life, my fears, everything I don’t want to talk about, I hated that. It was awful. It’s much easier to do on the internet, maybe because I don’t have to actually see whoever I am telling this to. Second, how could I ever feel comfortable around someone who could judge me so quickly, an hour really isn’t that much time, so how could she possibly be able to tell me I am depressed? Third, talking about depression makes me very uncomfortable.
Even me typing this makes me uncomfortable. Depression is my least favorite thing to talk about, and this post, so far, has taken me almost two hours to write, but I am forcing myself to write it anyway, because I hope it will keep me from thinking about it.
I hate saying I am depressed. What does that even mean? Absolutely nothing, it’s just a word. It is unreasonably hard for me to write that I am depressed.
I feel like if I say that, I am just seeking attention. I am just trying to be something in someones eyes that they can give sympathy to. I’m not, that isn’t why I write. But every time I think about talking to someone about depression, I immediately dismiss the thought, because I don’t want them to think that I am just being an over dramatic stupid girl.
I feel like I have to watch everything I do or say, because if I say something wrong about myself, people will think I am just seeking attention. And that is one of my worst fears. I don’t want to be seen as a stupid, dramatic, attention seeking child.
I don’t understand why I feel this way.
Sometimes I go through mood swings, but not really mood swings, they don’t come suddenly. For at least three days now I have felt like I am sinking into a low mood. During these times, I continually have thoughts like “Why does this matter?” “Why bother?” “What is the point?” about everything. They start out being about little things that don’t even matter, but then I start thinking, “Why am I here?” “Why do I bother?”
This was awfully written, because it is hard to write about. I will reword it.

I feel like a lot of the time life doesn’t have a purpose. I have no reason to be existing. And I hate it, but I can’t do anything about it, so why bother trying? I don’t know why I bother writing posts online, because nobody reads them. I don’t know why I bother getting up in the morning because I literally sit around and do nothing all day. I don’t know anything. I am not happy. I am never happy. I can’t sleep at night because I can’t close my eyes because I am afraid to dream, because the worst feeling in the morning is waking up from a dream where I was happy.

And I hate saying any of that because it all comes off as being a stupid attention seeking bitch. And I hate feeling like that. So I don’t say anything. Everyone has their own problems, and I know mine are stupid and self inflicted, I have been told. But I don’t know what to do anymore, I never really did. How am I supposed to go through life on a day to day basis, knowing that I am never going to be happy, I am always going to feel this way, because that is who I am. I am depressed, and that will never change.

I know I have said this already, but this is literally harder to put into words than anything I have ever written before. Was it worth it? I have now spent four and a half hours on this post and I don’t feel any better. But I don’t feel any worse either. So maybe it was worth it. I guess I won’t ever know for sure.

Acting 05/10/14

To me, life is all one continuous act. You go through life smiling, and pretending that comments people make about you won’t keep you up thinking at night, and you try to always do what other people will see as a good thing, or at least, a clever thing. It’s all one big act. you can’t actually talk to people. You can’t actually let them know how you are feeling, because they don’t care. No one cares about you and your stupid silly little problems. No one cares what you think. No one cares what you do. Because they are all busy acting too. And the second you fall out of character, the second you drop the act, the second you mess up, everyone knows, everyone sees, and they will never ever let you forget about it, because it makes them feel better when someone else messes up. As long as someone else is doing something wrong for everyone else to focus on, there is less pressure on you to do it all right. But when that person is you, that is the end of the line. You can’t go back to being that normal smiling person everyone else saw before you let your mask slip a little, because now they all know that you are a screw up, a failure, a loser. Now they all know that you messed up. They all know you lied. So now, the rest of your time is spent trying to correct that mistake, trying to change the way other people think about you or see you. And it doesn’t even matter how hard you try to go back to being the smiling happy person who leads the perfect, socially acceptable life, you will always have failed.
So go on and keep acting, because the instant that you don’t, it’s all over, and you can never get it back.

Orange 05/09/14

So recently I have been thinking about the things that I do and the reasons I do them in a very broad general sense. Why did I name this post Orange? Because right then when I was trying to think of a name for this, I looked up and saw a list I have taped to my wall of things that people at my old job thought I had to try (Gin, Ice skating, BW3′s, etc..) and it is written on bright orange paper. That was the main reason. But I also second guess everything I decide too. Mainly by asking myself, who am I writing this for and will they think what I chose is funny/witty/thought provoking. The person I am writing this post for I can guarantee will never read it, because they are not meant to. And really, only a very small section of this is for them anyway.

I want to apologize for wasting nearly two years of your life, I used you to keep me out of a dark place, and you knew that’s what I was doing and went along with it, but I still feel like I need to apologize because it grew to be more than that for you, but it never was more than that for me. And I am fine with that and it wont bother me anymore. I am done thinking about it.

So now that that is out of the way, I was thinking of the reasons behind my actions, there is always a initial one, but afterword I can think of maybe five or so more that could have applied, those are the ones I tell people if they ask, but it’s the one that started it that really matters I think. Why did I start this blog? I was bored, I want to write, it calms me down to think through writing, but really, the one initial reason was that Jacob told me to start making vlogs and this is my alternative because I don’t like being on camera. Why did I move to Arizona? My grandparents need a caretaker, it’s warm, it’s a new beginning, but the initial reason was because my family told me to.

Most of my big decisions, and the little stupid ones too, are because someone else told me to, and I am just now realizing that. I don’t like it. I know that I am easily influenced by people around me, and I do always try to make them happy or comfortable, it’s why I like working as a waitress, or in fast food, or even as a caregiver, because I am good at it. I am good at helping other people. But does that mean I have to do everything they tell me? Especially when it influences my life as strongly as some of the things do? No. I am done with that.

But, as I think about it, there are so many things in my life that I do just because I know other people like it. I know my grandparents are Christians and go to church, so I make sure that nothing I leave around the house has any sign of anything that could upset them, swear words or i dunno… pictures that could be offensive. I wear my hair down when I can because years ago, one of my friends said something about how girls should always wear their hair down, because why bother having long hair if you just tie it up all the time? And when I can’t decide what color to paint my nails, I always pick orange because one time someone I was with made a comment about how orange is a good color for nails.
These are people that probably don’t even remember saying those things or that I am never going to see again, so why does it matter? It doesn’t but I still do those things. Everything I do is because I think that someone else will like it. I don’t know if that is good or bad.

Fate or The Hive Mind

So a while ago I decided that since writing and keeping a journal sometimes helps me talk/think myself out of depression, I should try writing during a panic attack. I’m not so sure that it helped me talk myself out of a panic, but it was interesting to reread a few days later. It makes me wonder how I could ever be that low, and when I am in a light mood, I still can’t understand how I could ever have been low enough in the past to have felt like this, just like how right now I am in a pretty light mood, and though I can remember how much it hurts when I am depressed, I can’t remember any specifics. I can’t remember why it hurt so much, just that it did, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why I was so depressed, but I guess I am not meant to know if I can’t figure it out.

Anyway, this was written during a panic attack I had in late march.
“It feels like someones invisible hands are squeezing my heart until it hurts, until I want to cry. Every breath hurts, every exhale makes it harder to inhale. I’m too warm. I can’t breathe. Why am I here? I can’t breathe. It hurts. I don’t know how to fix this, I can’t breathe. I need to breathe. It hurts. My head burns. I can’t get small enough. I’m in the way. It hurts. I can’t breathe. Smaller. I can’t breathe. I need something. Inhale slowly. It still hurts. I pull my hair because I don’t know if I am still there. It hurts. I breathe. It hurts. Calm down. I can’t. Breathe. I can’t. Why? I can’t. Live.”

At the time I remember thinking that someone was talking to me, telling me to calm down and to breathe, but I couldn’t. I guess I was talking to myself, but I don’t remember writing that, besides the beginning part. I started writing because I was very upset about something that someone had said to me, and I guess I sort of talked myself into a panic attack. There was a while in the middle of this when I couldn’t write because my mind was literally to jumbled to do anything, and I don’t remember writing after that. It’s all in my handwriting so I know it was me, but I also think it was someone else.

I believe in the theory of Hive Mind, or collective consciousness, basically it means that everyone alive has a Mind, and the Hive Mind is the sphere where all of those Minds reside. It is why when you discover something new, like a song or a word, you suddenly start seeing it everywhere. I tie this in with my theory that I am the center of the universe and that nothing exists outside of my consciousness.

I believe that the Hive Mind is just a branch of fate pretty much. Fate dictates what I am supposed to hear and see and think by influencing the Hive Mind so that every person and thing around me is thinking or doing exactly what it is meant for me to know or observe at that time. An example of this is from my first post here about church and whatever they were talking about then. In my mind it progresses like this:
1. For the past few weeks I had been feeling alone and sad and I continuously thought that I was supposed to be alone and I wasn’t meant to love anyone.
2. At church I heard the sentence “Love is a decision. You have to decide to fall in love.”
This, in my mind, was Fate telling me that love is not over for me, I just had to decide that it wasn’t over for it to keep going. This thought kept me from falling into what would undoubtedly become a portion of my life spent in depression.
In order for me to hear that exact sentence at the exact time I needed it, I first had to move across the country leaving everyone I know and love behind. Then, at this new location, I had to arrive at the right time, I had to agree to the right offers, and I had to pay attention at exactly the right moment. Not only that, but the people I went with had to have decided to go, decided to invite me, and the pastors had to have decided to do that particular service that day. There were a million other decisions playing into the one single moment that I needed to hear. Sometimes it blows my mind, how powerful Fate is.

Alone, Always, Empty 05/07/14

I have decided to rewrite everything in my current journal, since I have such a problem coming up with new ideas. This particular journal was started right after a break up, not a bad one, but I was definitely in a bad place for a while afterwords, and this was written when I was in a dark mood. I tend to just let thoughts progress when I write, but if I am upset my thoughts jump a lot and tend to not follow a visible progression, at least not one that makes sense. This was written in mid March and is the first entry in this book.

“I feel alone. Why am I alone?
Why? Why am I here?
That follows me everywhere no matter where I am or when or with who, no matter how happy or sad or anything. It’s always there. Sometimes its a passing remark, sometimes it’s a harsh question. Sometimes its not even directed at me. But its always there.
Always. Such a strange concept. I can’t even begin to grasp the idea of always. What does that mean? To me, right now, it’s an empty promise. Empty words. Empty words. Empty ideas, empty thoughts, empty minds. How can anything be consistent enough to be always? Everything is always so meaningless. So empty.
Empty. Nonexistent, not there, gone. Empty, my mind is empty of meaning. My life is empty of meaning. But then again, what is life if it isn’t empty of meaning? My life is empty, so therefore life is empty. There is no way to change that. I have tried and failed, tried again, and failed again. Over and over and why? My life is empty and it will stay empty because if it weren’t empty it wouldn’t be my life.”

The last section is really the only one I feel like I need to expand on, the rest is just random thoughts. Well all of it is really.

Anyway, there is a part where I say “my life is empty, so therefore life is empty.” is part of this big theory I have, someone else mentioned it, I don’t remember who now, and at first I thought it was a bit weird but makes sense. Now I find myself thinking it continuously, and believing it sometimes, and I can tell when I fully believe it, because I feel crazy. At those times, I feel like my mind has somehow transcended the place it is supposed to be at, and the thought that I could be crazy snaps me back to only thinking of it as a possible theory, rather than the truth.

But anyway, the idea is that I exist, and that is all that I know to be true, so I am the center of truth and the center of life, essentially, the center of the universe. Everything that exists is there simply because I want it to be, or I need it to be. Things outside of my knowledge don’t exist. If I am not currently thinking about something, it doesn’t exist. I see existence as a sphere, everything I am currently thinking about at any given moment is inside the sphere and therefore exists. Everything else, places I have never heard of, people I have never met, other things I do know about but am not thinking about at this moment, those things are all outside the sphere and they do not exist until I think about them.
The universe exists inside my mind. Everything in it, the people and places, are there because I think about them. I created them in my mind. Everything that happens, everything I see and hear and think, those happen because they are inside my mind, I thought of them, subconsciously, so they happen.

Sometimes I wonder if I am crazy, but at times like that I remember that if I am, everything around me exists inside my mind, so I couldn’t possibly be insane because if I was, those things around me would not exist, and neither would I.

Missing 05/06/14

I am really missing my friends right now. Not only the ones I left behind in Wisconsin, but I just randomly started thinking about all the people I know in Alaska too, and even though I haven’t spoken to some of them in years, I still miss them. I see everyone living out their lives over facebook and I really wish there was a way for me to be there with them.

I want to make friends here, I really do, but at the same time, I really don’t because I know that eventually I am going to leave them here too, because I do not want to live here for the rest of my life. Here, I have no job and no hobbies that I could possibly meet people at, and I can’t decide whether or not that is a good thing. I like having friends and being social to an extent, but I am tired of starting over with people. It is pretty lonely.

The extent of my human contact is when I go to the grocery store or to the bank, and it sort of drives me crazy sometimes, but at the same time, I like knowing that I don’t have any obligation to any of these people. There isn’t anyone who is going to get offended if I walk past them and don’t say hi or anything, But there are so many people here, I am used to a pretty small town, and out of all the people here, I am sure that I will eventually make friends with some of them, which I guess is a good thing. Maybe.

The phrase “of two minds” comes to mind here.

Stuck Again 05/05/14

So, today’s post is probably going to be another boring, rambling one, because I have spent the whole day doing work and not thinking much, so I don’t have a lot to write about now.

I finally got all of my stuff moved inside the house, now the problem of unpacking begins, and I am procrastinating by writing, but I need to get it done before the end of the day, otherwise I will have nowhere to sleep as it is all on my bed. So I am starting this post now in the hopes that I will get distracted by unpacking and think of something worth writing about.

I did read one thing today that really got me thinking, it was on another person’s blog, she wrote about the saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and what it means or could mean. She went on to point out that people tend to see themselves in a low self-worth category, which is true, I don’t know how many times I have heard people call themselves fat or ugly, and I do it too. She went on to say that we don’t see ourselves as beautiful because we search for beauty in others, such as hair or eye color preferences. There was more to her post, but that part got me really thinking about beauty and self worth and how I see myself. My reply to her post was
“I never thought about it” (beauty) “that way before. And now that I think about it, I totally do that.” (think myself unattractive because I do not have what I prefer other people to have) “I know I prefer red hair on others, so I dye my hair red. I like my eyes because I have found that I prefer light colored eyes on other people.
But it is even more that that, I go as far as personality traits too. I like other people to have a good sense of humor, so i try to also find things funny. And I prefer others to be understanding, so I try my best to also be understanding.
Maybe people who change themselves (dying hair etc) do so because that is what they are looking for in other people as way of attractiveness?”

So now, when I see other people with dyes hair or outrageous fashion styles, or even just normal people, I will think to myself that they are exhibiting the personality traits and possibly the looks that they are searching for in other people. This won’t always hold to be true, but maybe it will help me understand other people better, which I am always trying to do.

Alright, I spent the afternoon trying to think of what to write about but it seems that when I am trying to think about a subject, all of them elude me.

Again, With Meaning 05/04/14

Alright, since I couldn't come up with anything of quality to write about earlier, I searched my car and found my journal and I was rereading earlier entries and one from a few weeks ago caught my attention. A lot of things I write are written specifically for someone I know or met in passing with the knowledge that they will probably never read it, so when I write ‘you’ sometimes it is about someone, but sometimes it is also about the population in general, and I use the word you to make a connection or to clarify what I am saying by forcing the reader to look at it from a different point of view.

Anyway, what stuck with me about this particular entry was that it is currently the only one in this journal that I have used ‘you’ to force not the reader, but myself to see what I was writing from a different point of view, and as I was pretty upset when I wrote this, I must have done it subconsciously, or maybe I wrote it that way because I was supposed to come back and read it again. I don’t usually reread whole entries, I just glance at it later sometimes.

The entry was as follows.
“I don’t know who I am. I have absolutely no personality traits that are just… me. I change my likes and dislikes at the snap of a finger without even thinking about it. Who would I be if I was left alone too long? I don’t know. I can easily be the person at work that everyone gets along with. Because I am good at identifying with them? No. I don’t even know any of them. Not really. And they don’t know me. Not even my friends. Not even you. The person that you know me as, that’s you. That is the part of you that I see and can reflect back to you, because I don’t know who I am, so I will turn into you. A mirror, that’s who I am. And that’s why I feel so lost right now. I don’t have anyone to mirror.”

As I wrote this, I was writing to a specific group of people, probably, but when I reread it, almost a month after writing it, I can’t think of who I would be telling this to. Now I see ‘you’ to be a future me, perhaps, which changes my entire outlook of this writing. I was telling myself that I am not currently who I am supposed to be, but I can see who I want to be and by mirroring that image, I will eventually become the person I am supposed to be.

It still stands true that I have no idea of the person I currently am. But maybe time away from my friends and the time I will be spending with my family now that I have moved, maybe that time is meant for me to figuratively ‘grow a backbone’ or ‘discover myself’ or whatever.

I can see what I wrote in a different light now, because I am currently in an ‘up arch’ of my mood line, something I will probably write more about later. Basically it means that I can see things in a mostly positive light right now. In a few days/weeks/months/however long, I may be in a down arch, and I will not see things so positively. I’m sure that as a reader, you will be able to tell the difference if I write every day. If I look at the context of the previous entry in my journal, I was definitely in a down arch when I wrote that, so maybe I was not talking to my future self as in years from now, maybe I was talking to my future self as in my self when I am in an up arch of mood.

Epiphany. The ‘you’ I write to when it isn’t to a specific person, is my other mood self. I’d like to give them names to keep them straight in my head. Dark when I am in a down arch and Light when I am in an up arch. and if I am unsure, I will call it Gray. This will probably happen most of the time, because I am generally unable to tell where I am on my mood arch line unless I am comparing my current thoughts to previous ones.

I love when I figure something out while writing because later, when I can’t remember how I got to the conclusion, I can go back and reread the thought process. Perfect.

Well, this turned out to be more productive than I had hoped for when I began writing. Thank you blog for giving me a reason to go back and reread old writing.

May the Fourth Be With You 05/04/14

I don’t have much to write about today. I spent the morning making a day to day list of things I need to get done each week, very boring stuff. Maybe it will be nice to have a set schedule or routine, it’s been a while since I have had one.

Anyway, what should I talk about today? I was sort of hoping that if I started writing, something would come to mind, but so far it’s just rambling free write, which is fine.

I have lived in Arizona for about two days, and I am already sunburned on my arms. I foresee a very bad summer. On the other hand, it feels like I haven’t been warm in months, so it’s nice to not freeze every second of the day.

Somewhere in my car, I have a journal and in that, there is a long list of topics that I eventually would like to get around to writing about, but I haven’t unpacked anything yet, so I don’t really have any ideas to write about as of now.

I just bought an iPhone, because I had the urge to spend a large a large amount of money on something useless. It will be here in the mail eventually, maybe by then I will be more excited about it.

Yeah, I’m not really getting any ideas here.

I just took a break for lunch and washed the dishes, but I still can’t think of anything interesting, I guess today is just an off day for me. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I wouldn’t even post what I have written so far if I didn’t tell myself that I am going to write every day. I guess that means that I have to share even the most mundane things. This will probably happen a lot.

First Post - That's Exciting 05/03/14

A few days ago I moved to Tucson AZ, from Grafton WI. It’s a drastic change, not only did I leave behind friends and some family, but I left the place where I did most of my growing up. Grafton shaped me into who I am today, so leaving it, in my mind, is a whole new start, because I don’t know who I am going to be here in Tucson yet. So while I figure that out, I decided to start writing again. But starting a whole new life deserves a whole new blog, a whole new story, and maybe even a whole new way of thinking, and to keep that all straight in my head, I need to write it all out as I go.

I hope to make a new post every day, but I don’t know if I can keep that up, not because I am not motivated to write, but because I get the feeling that I will lead a very non exciting life while here in Tucson.

What is on my mind right now that I feel the need to talk about is the church service I went to a few hours ago. I am not big on church for a few reasons.
One, I don’t believe that there is a distinct being that can be called God, I believe more in a force of fate, sort of, I call it the Hive Mind usually. The Hive Mind, to me, is, to put it simply, a sphere centered around me and my life, and everything that is supposed to happen to me, will come to be through the push and pull of the hive mind. I will write more on this later.
Two, in my experience, and this is not 100%, maybe more like 98%, of all of the people I have met, religious people have been the most judgmental. I know that everybody judges, even if they try not to, and I know that this is pretty much a judgment, but it is hard to feel accepted by people who tell me that the things I think are wrong because my thoughts aren’t the same as theirs. I might write more on this later.
Three, I was raised in a church, so I feel that a lot of the time I go to church because I have to, or am expected to, not because I choose to go. I know this is just my outlook on a situation, and I am trying to change that opinion. I will not write more on this later.

I also have a few reasons that I do like going to church, the music, because I like almost all music, religious or not, I do enjoy the atmosphere of relief that almost always occurs at churches I go to, most of the people are friendly, but the main reason I do like church services is that I can always find something in the sermon, even if it is just one sentence, that I can identify to my life or something I have been thinking about recently.

Today, the sermon, I hesitate to call it a sermon because there was very little tie in to the bible, was about marriage and love. The part that surprised me the most about this sermon, was that the first thing the pastor said on the subject of marriage was that love isn’t enough. He went on to say, in a nutshell, that even if you love your spouse, your marriage will not work out unless you are constantly working at it. I disagreed with a lot that he said because I have my own opinions about love and all that stuff.

For the past month or so, I have been thinking on and off about marriage and love and things like that, because it seems like things in my life are always pushing me toward those thoughts, I went through a break up, not a bad one, and I am at the age where most of the people I went to high school with are engaged or starting families. Every time I think about life in the long term, it includes marriage and kids and a house, because that is loosely what I want out of life, at the moment anyway. But I always get stuck at the thought that I had the opportunity to have all of that in the past, but I threw it away because I was scared of the idea of settling down, though now that is all that I seem to want. Since I threw away that chance, I have not been in love, I have not thought about my future in the long run, and I have basically tried to forget about how happy I could have been, if I wasn’t so stupid at the time.
Anyway, I got sidetracked there, sorry. The service I went to earlier was long and boring, much like this post has become, but near the end of it, the pastor said “Love isn’t something you just fall into and fall out of on a whim, love is a decision, you have to consciously decide that you want to let yourself love someone, or decide not to.” I wasn’t listening to whatever came before that, so I am not sure of the context, but that sentence just stuck with me. And after the service was over, the family members I went with commented that it was an unusual service.

So to me, the Hive Mind put me in the exact circumstance to be there today and hear that one sentence. I’m not sure why yet, maybe it’s time for me to put my past regrets behind me and start looking for that love again, or maybe I just have to think about making the conscious decision to stop worrying about the hurt that was caused by throwing away my potential life and start focusing on the future. I don’t know yet, but it felt important.