Stigma

Something has been on my mind for a while now. When I first got on FB, some of my friends and family would tell me to stop airing out my dirty laundry on social media. All I did was bitch about my life, my dad, my depression, etc. I hated my life and didn't really have any friends to express my heartaches to.

Fast forward 8 years, I don't talk to those friends and family members anymore, and some may say that I still bitch about my life, my dad, my depression, etc.
But, I beg to differ. I don't bitch, I recollect by giving a name to the specific forms that my deepest aches take every day.

Everyone around me expects my life to be great; after all I am married, am extremely educated (intellectually and empathetically speaking) and have good friends, but to be brutally honest, even if I may not hate my life anymore, I am not at all happy. I just can't shake this feeling of loneliness.

Every day I wake up and wonder if today will be any different. I still post about my dad and my depression on a daily basis and even though I have survived the past, I am still fighting for peace. I believe that I am not broken anymore, but I am undeniably bruised, and I want you all to know that I don't think the marred skin that has protected me through years of instability will ever grow anew over the dark welts only I am familiar with.

I say this because I wonder how many of you see my posts and perhaps block them or bypass them. This is not to say that I care if you do. I just need to express my thoughts on this platform so that I can move forward and conquer life whether or not God has given me the courage to do so.

I don't know what I am going through. I have stopped taking part of my depression meds, and maybe that's why I am feeling this way. I am becoming a social worker, and I feel like I am drowning. Part of me wants so badly to give up, and I haven't felt like this in so long. It is so fucking frightening to have so many people around you, and feel like you don't have a soul in the world fighting to keep you alive.

I have tried to uphold this truth that anyone can make it out of the darkness, because I believe it. I wake up every day to prove to my clients and people I connect with on social media that living with a mental illness is possible and that the notion of suicide can be a far-fetched idea if we all come together to fight the stigma, but I just can't today.

I began this status with a purpose and now I don't know what the purpose of it became. It may seem disjointed or might make perfect sense; I'll leave that up to anyone who reads it.

I am tired more so today than yesterday.
Whether tomorrow will greet me with pain or comfort is a mystery to me, but chances are I'll awake with all the energy I can muster to greet her with a smile.

Can I Ever Get It Back?

I used to write short stories while everything exciting was happening to those around me. If I cared to join them then the excitement in my life would have never seen a chance. I believe that I had something that couldn't be touched. Something that kept me speaking; tangled in cherished discourse with characters I had never met in real life, even though if this took the shape of my real life, I would never have one qualm with it. Birthing the climatic situations of their lives came easy; it's fortifying any present execution of them that has become trying.
Writing began when I was a happy sixth grader; when the excitement of being in junior high and then high school prompted daydreaming in class about the crush I had that present hour, which then allowed my characters to share a kiss or act out that teenage relationship that I wouldn’t see until the tenth grade and then mourn its loss for what seemed like forever after. Writing began when I was impressionable, morphed into something necessary to survive when I no longer was and died when I realized there was nothing left to fight for.
Every year when I clean out my past stored in plastic bins upon plastic bins, I come across that black pee chee folder torn at its fold, filled with 150 stories I spent writing either in Mr. Kidder's American Government or at home on Wednesday nights watching Party of Five, while my parents hollered in excitement at the NBA playoffs emanating through that little Toshiba television set that will live long with an unsavory reputation, yet with a twinge of something that will always make me smile in service of it.
All I heard then was the sound of happiness. I only wish pleasant stimulation could hit me the way it did then, now.

It's Been 365 Days

You have brought me the most insatiable appetite for love. You are the man I've always dreamt of and written about. You make me want nothing more than to write the best fairytale ending that any story has ever seen. It’s been 365 Days. No other man has ever crossed this threshold and I thank you for loving me longer than they ever thought possible. Thank you for believing in my worthiness. Thank you for allowing me to be myself, and thank you for being the man that I miss even when you're sitting right beside me. You fuel the fire that resides deep within my longing to taste childhood again. You calm me down, gently, each time I realize I can’t. You make me want to pursue my pipe dreams and to be better at everything and to everyone that I have ever let down. You build me up with the cognizance that my writing is of respectable substance all the while trusting that I am incapable of ever having let anyone down. I am at fault more than I led on. I admit this here, without retraction. I am one stubborn woman. I have major anxiety and dislike when you try to fix it. I react in ways a reserved lady never should. I am an angry little bitch. I have a major crush on you. I am thankful for all that had happened before I came around, even though I know it hurt. I fear things like the future, but I embrace all the uncertainty that comes with this strange love. This is one rollercoaster I’d wait hours to ride without a Fastpass. Here’s to waiting as many years possible together. Happy anniversary to you, my 6ft-something pollywog. ♥