:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Friday, August 29, 2003 ::

can you make it stop?
I read a poem today about pain. It asked for someone to make it stop. Unfortunately, some pain doesn't stop unless you make it stop yourself. I learned that the hard way. Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and keep going. I've done it. It's not easy. There were days where I've had to literally drag myself out of bed. It was not, "I want to." It was, "I have to." I would go for weeks at a time like that, just surviving. Knowing the next day would bring more of the same numbness and apathy. The same lack of care for anything that required more than laying in bed staring up at my canopy. And knowing that the next day included more of the same knowledge that the day after that would be just the same again.

How can you get up when you have nothing to look forward to?

For the longest time, I didn't even have the willpower. I almost got kicked out of school because of absences. Teachers dropped me like a hot potato. I dreaded taking certain classes because I knew I'd have the same teacher again and I didn't want to explain what was happening to me. I didn't know how to explain what was happening to me.

What was I going to do? Tell my professor, "I hate coming to school and I never want to do anything ever again." Yeah, that would have looked great. So, I clammed up. Made excuses why I couldn't be there. Family trouble... car trouble... The one time I really had a flat tire, the professor didn't believe me... I'd used the excuse a few too many times, apparently. I wanted to say something like, "I'm paying your salary with the money I could use to get better tires," but I decided against it. Especially since only one out of the however many times it was that I used the flat tire excuse was actually true...

Besides, he was pissed off at me enough already. First day of class the second time I had him, he asked to see me in his office after class. Asked me if I was going to be serious about it this time. I just plastered on my plastic smile and nodded at him. He scolded me like a five year old. I tried not to cry. I walked out, hating everything that much more, wanting to come back to class that much less. I didn't finish that semester, either.

Why does everyone think it's up to someone else to get them through tough times? Why can't anyone actually do it for themselves anymore? Have we become that dependant of a society? Have we become that reliant on social acceptance that a rejection makes everyone feel like the whole world is out to get them?

I'm not even going to get into how many people I feel like I've talked the razor blade out of their hands. I want to know why no one did that for me. Was I really that good at acting like everything was fine? Did I really clam up that much about how I was feeling? or the lack of feeling? Was I so afraid of looking like I was weak that no one noticed I was?

And, yet, here I am, right? Here I am, alive and well, somewhat well... {{shrugs}} alive. I'm writing. I'm trying to communicate. It isn't easy. After depression, nothing's easy. I still have times where it's a struggle just to get out of bed and go downstairs to watch TV. I'm not even talking about having breakfast, getting dressed, or going out. That's a whole other level of difficulty.

But, you know what? I never asked anyone to take my pain away. I never asked anyone to help me. I was too scared to. Frankly, I didn't think anyone would care. I was afraid of rejection. I was afraid they didn't want me around if I wasn't happy. So, I forced myself to be happy. Apparently, it worked, because I was never talked out of doing something rash to myself. I never gave the signs that I needed to be.

I didn't want the pity.

I didn't want to be kicked while I was down.

I didn't want people to mock how I felt... or the fact that I didn't feel.

I didn't want things to get worse.

So, I pretended everything was fine. Even my parents didn't catch on. They just thought I was going through some sort of isolationist phase or something. I rarely talked to them. And I live with them.

And what now? People come to me wanting me to stop their pain for them? At the risk of sounding callous, do it your own damn self. I'm living proof it can be done. Just try it. Screw the world and do your own thing. While it never completely goes away, you can learn to live around it and start doing things again. But you have to do it on your own. No one can do it for you.