Why Me?

Today on twitter wheniwaslittle was a trending topic and it just made me want to cry a little. You see I have really vivid memories of my early childhood. From 4 to 6 years old I can tell you specific details about those years right down to what food I ate where and what I wore on specific occasions. Then in 2001 some thing none of use will ever forget happened. 9/11. Sure most kids remember it some what. They can tell you they knew it was not a good thing, but generally they all went on unfazed. But that day changed my life forever.

Up until that day I have those clear vivid memories I told you about but from there on it is almost totally darkness. Two very different kinds of darkness. The first kind is where the memory gap is. I have very few very hazy memories from then until around 12 when I start to have the vivid memories again, but none as strong as the early ones. The second kind of darkness was the emotional darkness. Most people, if ever, will only have to deal with one emotional disorder in their lives. By 10 I had depression and paralyzing anxiety and paranoia. I would have panic attacks to the point of nearly passing out at LEAST once a month. When normal kids where out playing hide and seek and going to the play ground I couldn't hardly leave the house without having a break down much less those sorts of activities which guaranteed complete melt down mode. So when I recall what most people would consider the best parts of there childhood there is nothing there for me and what is there is painful.

I am getting better but still struggle with these things a lot. More recently the depression more so than the anxiety. I think I do well with managing these things on my own, but I fear that I might have bipolar depression which would explain why I have days where I am giddy and reckless and then have other days when I just want to take every pill in our cabinets and run into the street with on coming traffic just to silence the pain. I have done my best to just avoid it but I think I really do need to talk about it more. I just really don't know what to do.

Speechless

Though the title might imply that I have nothing to say to ever say that I had nothing to say would be lying. I just don't think I should or can say what I wish to say. As a general rule in my life I don't keep much to myself. I don't hide or pretend or lie to the people around about what I'm thinking because it will make things easier. That is not the kind of person I am.

In this moment and in these last few days I have managed to say things I have regretted(which is also a rare a occurrence) and have thoughts things I have regretted not saying. Sometimes I wonder just what is wrong with me that I don't want what the rest of the world seem to crave. That I push away the things that most humans thrive off of. Such as complements and affirmation from your peers. The more people say nice things about me the worse I feel. I even had one instance when I didn't want to leave my home in fear of having to face someone who was going to tell me how pretty I was that day, or how much they liked my hair or shoes. I only seem to enjoy the wrong kind of attention.

Another feeling I have recently stumbled across is that in a relationship when you give me what I want I don't want you any more. Just like a guy dumps a girl after they have sex the nicer you are to me and the more defensive and protective of me you are the less I want you. In my minds eye I crave someone who will give me these things because isn't I love you what every girl wants to hear? To me though the thought of someone saying I love you makes me ill.

Which moves on to my next problem. I am dumbfounded by the human infatuation with life. I don't see the appeal of living especially if you believe in a higher power. Why prolong your suffering hear if you really believe that there is something better waiting for you elsewhere. But here is where I come to that roadblock where I know what I want to say but just don't think I can say it. But since I know no one will actually read this I might as well. Recently I have been struggling with faith and I have come to realize that it's not because I don't want to believe but what believing will mean for me.

In my minds eye heaven is an extremely undesirable location I have about as much desire to go to heaven as I do to go to hell. But I have to thank whatever God there is out there listening to me in these weak moments of mine that it has plagued me with all these questions for without them I don't think I would be writing this right now. You see without the fear of hell and even heaven I would let this meaningless life slip through me fingers like mist in the night. When these thought first started to crop up I just pushed them aside and pretended they weren't there. Then it morphed into fear of the unknown or what death would hold for me on the other side. Now as I grow older as I struggle to believe there is something to be afraid of my only battle is with the pain I would leave behind. It must say a lot about how terrible of a person I am that the only thing keeping me here is the constant anxiety that has plagued me most of my life about my family and hurting them or them being hurt.

So back to the love thing. I wish people would love me less because then this choice would be easier to make. Am I living for them or for me? I send a thank you out to those who do love me and try so hard to fight the battle I don't want to fight for my self. But if you are reading this people who love me keep in mind that Heaven means nothing to someone who can hardly face tomorrow, compliments fall short when the person your complimenting can't see what you see, and love means little to some one who can't love themselves. I have spent approximately six and a half years riding this roller coaster.

Let me paint you a picture of this roller coaster ride experience. On this ride there are many lengthy steady places with only a minor twist or turn then these rushing highs where you are then snuggled with bunnies, doused with glister and illuminated by a rainbow followed by that steady place again, but just like any high it wears off. When your going down I want you to imagine being plummeted down a pitch black abyss that seems to last forever where you feel as if you are being crushed with hopelessness and surrounded by all of your greatest fears and every regret you have ever had; literally begging and screaming for the suffering to stop without even a glimmer at the end of the tunnel.

The worst part is knowing that in the last few years I have done my best to play the games and put on the face they want to see. The worst part is knowing that if the tunnel never reaches the light no one will ever know I was riding.

Valentines Day

I don't believe in most of the cheesy love cliches. I don't particularly like romance books or movies. I've never been in love. But I love Valentines Day. So many people don't seem to like Valentines Day and I just don't understand why. Valentines day is a day to celebrate love!! Birthdays are so everyone can celebrate your life. Anniversaries celebrate the joining of two people in a relationship. These are both days that we look forward to and appreciate getting gifts on, but for some reason some people get upset when someone showers them with presents on Valentines Day. They ask, "Why is there a day for someone to tell me they love me?’ and I say why the hell not!! Valentines Day is a celebration of love. It is the day we sit aside to bring special attention to that love. Some people have a hard time saying I love you, and on this day take special care to make sure their other knows it. They might say I love you by cooking dinner when you have to work late, or starting your car in the morning for you when it’s 15 degrees out, or just by letting you yell or cry about something. So why not on every February 14 let the person you love buy you chocolate and flowers, give you a sappy card, take you out to a restaurant they can’t really afford, and maybe a candle lit bubble bath with rose petals? Why is that so terrible?! They only guy who will tell me he loves me and give me chocolate this Valentines is my Daddy, but I’m ok with that because he doesn’t have to give me anything to remind me he loves me but he does it because he does. So next time you complain about Valentines Day remember they didn’t have to love, but they do and if they want to give you things you don’t need just shut up and take them and kiss them when they say I LOVE YOU!

Love

I believe that there is just one person in the world for everyone some may never find that person and others may just screw it up, but I believe there is only one person meant just for you. I don't believe in happily ever after or love at first sight. I don't believe someone will come and sweep me off my feet or be so overwhelmed that my heart skips a beat every time I think of him. I don't much enjoy romance books or movies, and I believe Disney romances can set young girls up for disappointment. Americana's put more emphasis on love than any other culture we drink it up like water and throw it away as if it were trash. We spend millions of dollars on Valentine's Day and billions of dollars on jewelry. Yet so many of use struggle with love more than any aspect in our lives. I believe that love can be the greatest thing that could ever happen to you and it can also be the worst.

Existing

One of my favorite Christmas movies is It's A Wonderful Life that tells the age old tell about how your life means more to others than you think it does. And some days I do feel like my life is important and that it means something in the grand scheme of things. Almost as if I were destined to change the world in some way whether it be small or unrecognized while I'm alive it will happen all the same. But on most days I feel as if I am just existing and am uncomfortably aware that I am only 1 in 6.2 billion people on this Earth. That isn't even including all the people who came before us or will come after us or that may or may not exist beyond our world. Andy Warhol once said, "It’s not who you are, but who you think you are," and if I am who I think I am then on these days am I not any more than the person chosen to fill this particular time slot; like your typical 9 to 5iver am I not simply punching the clock in and out of this world with birth and death? Some days pass when I feel nothing at all. I simply am. Those days come and go with no particular effort or meaning. Then there are those days. It's not really the entire day, but merely a brief subtle moment in which times seems to stop and I feel like I'm floating alone in the void of space and all the people around me are merely figments of my imagination. It's like a slow motion scene in an action movie as if I were just prolonging the inevitable; as if I were watching from the outside. I always go back to normal as if it had never happened, but do you know what it's like to feel trapped inside your own mind with thoughts so complex you can't seem to form the proper words to describe them almost as if you were grasping for bubbles: cohesive, stable, and tangible yet translucent and fragile. But even on these days when the world seems to stop, even if only for a millisecond, for me and sometimes even more so I feel as if I were simply existing with no real purpose. Days and weeks blur together with no foreseeable end forming my life. I sometimes wish that I really could stop time or perhaps relive the same day over and over for awhile just to remind myself that this is real. This is really my only chance. Maybe I set my self up for too grand an adventure in my early childhood causing discontentment in the begings of my adult life. They scarist part of that thought is that I've always been a pessimist form the moment I formed my first free thoughts, and even in my childhood fantasies I never imagined a happliey ever after for myself. So if my young life is already falling short of my expectations for happieness based on my presumptions from a time in my life when I believed true love was nothing but pure fantasy what does that say about my distant future? And as the clock ticks away into another day I have to wonder how do I know there will even be a tomorow.

I'm not mean I just say the things most people keep in their heads.

People say that honesty is always the best policy, but what they really mean is that when you get caught doing something you shouldn't you should be honest not that they really want your honest opinion on everything. I run into this all the time and I've come to find 9/10 that when someone asks for your opinion on something what they really want is for you to tell them what they want to hear. I never do. Lets says for instance that your best friend/girlfriend/wife asks you does a particular outfit make her look fat. The socially acceptable answer is, "No sweetie you look gorgeous!." I can grantee you those words will never come out of my mouth if I think you look like an old hippo. My problem isn't the fact that I'm honest it's they way I do it. Where any normal person might say, "Well it's not all that flattering." It's much more likely that if you're a size 9 or up and trying to squeeze into anything leather or spandex there is a good chance that you won't even have to ask how you look because something along the lines of, "Dear God you're not really planning to be seen in that!" will come flying out of my mouth. I'm neither tactful nor subtle and people tend to be more than just a little taken aback the first time they hear me say something. The moments though that I see the most jaws drop and hear the loudest gasps are when people older than I ask my opinion on pretty much anything from religion to fashion. I guess they're expecting me to shuffle my feet and wring my hands and mumble about how I don't really know enough about whatever it is they are talking about. Instead of me looking them in the eyes and serving them escargot when they were expecting chicken. (My attempt at a food metaphor.) I don't really know how to curb my need to be overly honest, but some times I think some people don't ever hear the truth and somebody has to tell them sometime.

Setup

I have a lot of thoughts at odd hours of the day. In fact I have delievered intire speeches to an audince of me, myself, and I. From now on I will try and make sure they get here instead of being lost in the tangled realm of my mind.