Dear... Me (Thoughts From Age 16)
Am I supposed to know how much I love my parents? How to quantify it specifically and what decisions I would/ should make based on that level? If I really loved them, would I give up my happiness, even just partly? How do I know if this is what a good daughter would do? I guess I don’t. And like I told Mom, someone is going to be upset with me either way, it’s just how it’s going to be. So I should try to find something I can live with and enjoy, right?But I don’t know what that is either.
It’s hard because I’m trying to grow up (at least a little, and positively at that), but who I’ve been has driven people away before, so I’m nervous about all of it. Even my guidance counsellor said that she didn’t mind talking to me so much, but that I had to eventually learn how to handle my own problems. I’m trying to, really trying, but it’s hard. Though every time it gets tough, her voice echoes in my head and I deal with whatever the issue is myself. She’s right, I can’t keep dragging her and other people in to hold my hand all the time; not when they have other problems to deal with. But I’m not enough of an idiot to take it much beyond that, I still talk to my therapist, adopted-aunt (not really family but she may as well be), friends, and stepmom about my problems, just less than I used to.
It’s a lot but I can’t shirk, slip, or fall when I’ve got so much riding on this. I’ve got into a college after high school that I’m accepted to (and it’s a reasonable distance with decent people), my major mostly figured out, the start of a resume for my field, family that supports and loves me, decent hobbies (mostly listening to music and reading), great friends, okay grades and a safe school… so why am I still so unfulfilled?
I’m a teenager I get that, I’m not going to achieve self-actualization or inner peace sitting on my tush and taking notes on trig functions. But I wish I could feel less full of doubts and fears and rage.
I’m taking psychology, but it’s not my favorite subject. It’s because I don’t like thinking for too long, and when things don’t have easy answers, that terrifies me. That part that longs for order and neatness and some sort of… math problem to solve for human interaction and happiness, so I get why people with OCD do what they do, at least on a basic level. It’s because sometimes all I want is something to be easy and to make some sort of sense, but nothing does. Does no one else realize that (of course other people do, I’m just frustrated) NOTHING makes any sort of sense? My folks don’t make sense, they hurt me and I love them too much to hurt them back. Does that make me weak or dumb? Silly or stupid? I have no idea. And that part of things scares me, but I don’t cope by filling my head with what I think is real. I cope by filling my head with things I know aren’t real - imagination - we all use it. I just use it like some people use heroin or opioids, to live and breath the same poisonous air into my lungs every day. To survive, because sometimes it’s too much to be an unimportant little human all alone in your skull on a ball of dirt. Because maybe I’m more than isolated, maybe they’d throw me away somewhere and lose the key if they thought I wasn’t good enough. Because maybe I’m not good enough, and is that okay? Is it okay to be less than everyone expects you to be? What is the standard, what is this invisible pressure keeping me trapped, like a bug under glass? If it rules my life more than I do, I should at least know where it’s coming from right? Right? Well I don’t. Which tells me that maybe that pressure to be perfect and please everyone comes from myself. My head, my heart, something, which means the only reason I’m dying to survive, living the way I do, is because I’ve made myself miserable. How? And why did I decide to do this? How many years have I lost just riding the same circle of pain and anger? Will I ever escape? Can I? Should I? What’s life like when it feels worth something more than just your own weight? I don’t honestly know. And maybe I never will.
I think that I forget that normality is this relative little bubble of painful experiences, like running late to every class and the inevitable comments from my “locker companion”, or showing up at home and being in a terrible mood for no reason at all. Though “no reason” can be more clearly defined as: I have a headache, I’m dehydrated, I just sat next to my best friend for 40 straight minutes and we were fighting the whole time, we’re playing a sport I suck at it in gym etc. Basically a litany of things I should be able to effectively manage, but in my 16-year old ignorance I prefer to unconsciously stew on. But, it’s when said best friend gave me the best birthday present ever (for the birthday I got a freaking CAR mind you) of a few personal gifts, like a picture of the two of us that covered a good chunk of my wall, a new messenger bag, and a box of “open when” letters for bad situations. She knew what I wanted and that meant more than my folks who just gave me the keys to the car we’ve had for thirteen years and I knew I’d inherit eventually anyway. And it’s when I get a physics problem correct just as the year starts and I’m not sure of myself. Or when I go to the ER at 1am in awful pain and get my first experience with a dye-imaging machine and morphine, though that one was more of a mixed bag than I’d like to be honest. “Normal” is what I’m living and breathing right now, and maybe we call it that, because like ourselves, we can’t accurately define such a back and forth state.
You would think we would know more about or have a better definition for the biggest hunk of our lives and what we spend that doing. But we don’t, like everything else, those moments only have the meaning we assign to them, i.e I treasure the time I spend with my friends, but let go of the times I’ve gone off on my Mom because she just doesn’t get it. And not to break up the mature air of my “voice” here, but sometimes she really doesn’t. Whether it’s being a twenty first century teenager or just my life circumstances specifically, sometimes Mom isn’t the be all and know all, and that’s totally okay, so I wish that teenage cliche was less negative.
And then, I think the internet is one of the best inventions that the human race has ever conceived, not just for the information gathering and sharing potential, but for the communication aspect. I wish I could tell you the amount of times a YouTube video made me smile and laugh, or one of my favorite ASMRtists posted something that made me feel less alone, or better yet, connected to another person. And it’s silly to say but I think that it’s our refuge, my generation’s playground if you will. I don’t know about other kids, but Mom never let me go outside to the park or even up the street alone, but I got unsupervised internet access at age eleven. I abused it for a while, but I also gave myself a crash course in every question I ever had. The ones I couldn’t ask my parents mostly and the internet gave me some interesting answers back. Now that I’m a little older though, what I do is mostly communicate and consume content. Webcomics, fanfiction, YouTube videos, news articles, I read voraciously, but I don’t worry about checking above my limit at the public library anymore. I’ve been on a bit of a self-help kick lately, but those words… from someone who’s experienced something greater than I can imagine… they have something in them that I can’t explain my connection with. And yes it’s a book or video, I’m not schizophrenic, I can distinguish reality and fiction thank you, but sometimes I’ll still talk to them or write them letters. I started a box of them a few weeks ago, letters to people, real or otherwise, and a few addressed directly to the universe. I figure there’s no better mailbox for my thoughts than the source so all this is for me, more so than the address. I figure I’ll eventually fill the box and bury it somewhere it can rot in peace, just like all of us will someday. It seems morbid I know, but the fact that I’m not permanent gives me some comfort, after all, there was time before me and there will be time after. Hopefully better times and I hope to be one of the people to determine that.
My brother and I are very close, even after he moved out of my mother’s house a while ago, but the circumstances of his leaving were… tumultuous for all of us. Not sugarcoating is my policy, so the night he left (really made the decision and literally stood apart) was one of the absolute worst of my life. My nosey relatives, who I had to spend the following hours with, treated me, alternatively, like a porcelain doll and a piece of steak, delicate but also something they wanted to tear apart. I was so relieved to see my Mom after them that I almost cried, but by then I was crying anyway, I had no idea how things would change after he didn’t come back. And for a while they didn’t change for the better. I think even now the house feels empty without him. Maybe everywhere he’s not is always going to feel empty for me. My stepdad rebounded with banning him from coming to family events, blacklisting my future nieces and nephews (his and my mother’s freaking future grandchildren!) and kept saying bad things about him around me. I’ll take a lot of things being said around me, but I grew up with that boy, and he could do anything in the world and I’d still love him, so I wanted my stepdad to stop. He did eventually, but not before the damage was done. Like when he poked through some of my old notebooks, the trust was irreparably damaged, and it’s never going to be the way it was. Call me stubborn or dumb, but I try not to make the same mistake twice.
My Mom and stepdad started remodelling my brother’s room without telling me. They’re turning it into a media room for me and my friends. See, the irony is that I only have one friend over on a semi-regular basis and they know that, so I clearly don’t need another room. My Mom spun it into a mother-daughter bonding experience by asking me to help decorate the space, so I chose the color scheme and some decor but felt like a dirty rat the whole time. The only victories out of the whole thing were that I talked her out of recycling his manga and magazines (we donated them to the library instead) and she sent me over to my Dad’s with two of his old coats, one of which he really likes. God, it’s so ironic, the only time in months that his bedroom door is open is when every trace of his existence is scrubbed from it. I don’t know how they expected me to react, especially since they’re clearly much further ahead on the “moving on” train than me.
I just got back the other day, so needless to say I didn’t sleep too well last night… if I had to label my emotions it would be betrayal and anger predominantly. What’s going to be next? Taking down all the family photos with him in? If they do, I hope they start with that awful portrait of the four of us in the foyer, it makes us look like pretentious buttholes. Ugh, well they’re not touching the pictures in my room so it doesn’t really matter what they do to the rest of the house. Am I going to have to fight them for every inch of him that I have left? Is that really what we’re coming to? Families shouldn’t do stuff like this, hating someone’s guts or no, oh well. No use getting fired up when I can’t change it, right? I spent last night staring at the ceiling from my bed and turning over a thousand thoughts and questions that I can’t answer even if I tried. And I really don’t want to try, least of all at 11:30 on a school night. One of those was who I want to date, specifically, what kind of person, if you catch my drift. That’s something that no one else seems to have to think about, so what’s the difference with me? There’s supposed to be a label that everyone fits, but I don’t know if I do. To tell you the truth, I don’t care who I date or marry, adoption is still a thing last I checked so I can have children either way. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that biology means squat in terms of families and love. But it still bothers me that I can’t slap a label on my forehead for the world to understand me better, I guess. As always, I’m an undefined variable in this equation, and I hate it.
I can tell that today’s going to be one of the tough ones, where I’m not sure if I have a right to feel what I’m feeling and I’m a conflicted, writhing mess. I’m going to have to keep repeating my anger mantra too (which I’m not going to type here for obvious reasons), just so I don’t go off on the first person who looks at me wrong. One thing I learned from Dad I guess, is how to not explode on people who don’t deserve it. I simultaneously love and hate my temper (and despite what Mom says, I definitely have one) because the only time I don’t feel helpless is when I’m raging about what’s wrong in my life. Ouch, okay that was a bit too honest. How much should I care about everything that’s going wrong? Most days I feel like I barely have a handle on the situations I have to deal with or appear competent in. Maybe almost everyone feels like this and that’s why “fake it until you make it” is a popular phrase. I’m kinda tired of faking though. Have you ever wondered about how paradoxical it is to teach kids that lying is wrong then expect them to lie about who they are and how they feel the rest of their lives? I’m reasonable so I can see why we have to keep our emotions and impulses reigned in, otherwise we wouldn’t have a society to live in. And I’m not going to bring the whole ordered system down by acting like a bear with a sore backside, but I will unjustly hurt other people and myself in the process.These feelings don’t last forever, but when they do come, I feel like I’d rather be rude to someone else than act normally and reasonably. Which really isn’t fair, is it?
I’m still hesitant to ask for help and not just because of what my guidance counsellor said, it’s also because I don’t like bothering people or dealing with my problems in other ways. It makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me, when I can tell you (from my current perspective at the bottom of a pit no less) that there isn’t. And maybe I need to grow the heck up and learn to ask for help more often, and maybe I need to start exercising again and writing and reading again. And maybe I don’t want to acknowledge this either (who am I kidding? I never want to acknowledge anything) but I’m self-aware enough to know that I’ve been over-indulging in my phone lately, which is blatant escapist behavior. Huh, guess my psych class is paying off. Kidding, I knew that much from when I was around eleven and I started reading books more often, trying to diagnose myself or give myself some form of mental help. Yeah, trying to be your own everything does not turn out well in the end. I broke down in my second year of middle school and started talking to the woman who would eventually become my adopted aunt (who, like I said, isn’t really related to me, but I consider a lot of people family). I still talk to her on a semi-regular basis, but only when she and I both can spare the time.
Overall? I’m not okay and that’s alright to acknowledge, especially when I can still function and do alright even when all I want to do is curl up into a ball. The ball-curling’s going to have to wait though, too much going on to do that quite yet. I guess I’m at least in the running for a decent daughter award this year since I remembered my mother’s birthday and made her breakfast, even though I had to get up at four in the morning to do it. I love her and everyone in my life at least enough to try to be considerate and not a completely rude butthole. So why do so many miscommunications still have to happen, and so often? I swear I fight with my best friend as often as I have good time with her, and maybe part of that’s our age group. I have so many parts of myself I want to change and there’s nothing I feel like I can do about any of it. I’m not a fictional character (for an example), I’m never going to be perfect or reach my highest level in life, and maybe it’s the hardest thing in life for me to accept. I’m not perfect and I never will be okay? So let’s deal with every situation as it comes and acknowledge it as a human error because we’re flawed and I’m sorry that I screw up but I do my best even on my worst days and I try not to give myself too much slack so that I don’t give up and become lazy. Y’know? The last thing I want to become after all the effort my family’s put into raising me, is a failure. I’m afraid to fail, but I need to accept that I will / I’m not okay, I never will be.
I’m sad, sadder than I have any right to be. Life is so heavy some days that I don’t know what to do. That doesn’t make me crazy, if anything, that makes me sane, so freaking sane that everything hurts all the time but I can't not move forward. It’s my screwed up life and I’ll live it, sometimes because I have no other choice. Because I have people who need me, I have a reason. Even if I won’t do it for myself everyone else has to be more important than me. I don’t want to be like this, but I am. I want to do good in this world, I don't want to hurt other people, but I’m going to have to live with the fact that I’m always going to hurt someone in the end. Usually, that person’s me.
I talked to my Dad and my stepmother last night about what’s bothering me most right now. I feel responsible for my mother’s happiness and my stepfather’s, I almost feel like they’re miserable all the time and that I’m part of why they even bother. Our house is so quiet and since they changed my brother’s room it’s been even worse for me, it’s dead and the house is never going to change. Yes, I know, so revolutionary to realize that people I love are never going to change, but I have trouble with this. I can't change my Mom’s tech addiction, I can’t change my stepfather’s lack of emotion and detachment from everything, and I can’t change the way they both look so freaking lost. But, then the next second they’re putting someone down and acting like everything's okay again because of the ego boost. I am catering to them a lot, trying to fill the silences and holding myself responsible for making them feel better. I need to stop and have more respect for my own emotions. I’ve been blaming my brother for leaving and their being upset as a result, but my stepmom had a point, haven’t they always been unhappy? Even before my brother left? And convincing myself that “oh, I won’t/can’t hurt them like that” and saying that I won’t leave? That’s garbage, I am hurt by them just as much as they’re hurt by me, I can acknowledge that, I HAVE to acknowledge that. What you’re doing is wrong, okay? I don’t need a room for no reason, I have a bedroom already. I don’t want it, don’t need it, I don’t want my brother’s room okay? I don’t want you to be so silent during car rides that if I don’t talk then there’s nothing to be said for 30 minutes. So what can I do practically? Maybe something like focusing on my own emotions and dreams rather than theirs, my games and my books and my friends and my life. How I can help myself and move forward step by step, I guess. It would help a lot more if I knew how to stop hyper focusing on them and their happiness overnight.
I’m not bad right now, I think because I actually got some sleep last night. I’m wondering about that question they sometimes ask when you’re the new person in a group or class, something like, “Describe yourself or tell us something interesting about you”. I can’t sum up my existence in a sentence, in three digestible words or less, or a smart-butt remark. If I had to answer that question (and I’d do everything possible to avoid it) I’d probably just say “figuring it out” and sit down in the very, very back. For as boisterous as I can be at times, I’m pretty awkward in front of groups of people.
Today’s another not-bad day, surprising since I don’t even have a name on my mental calendar for my “good” days. I read a book once about a girl with some kind of schizophrenic-paranoid disorder mix and she had black days and very few good days, fewer and fewer as her condition progressed. Now obviously I don’t have a personality disorder, or any other disorder for that matter, and I’m frankly sane enough to scare myself, but I still have those good-bad black-white days. Frequently, I wake up feeling like a truck hit me and after my coffee and ride to school I’ll be alright. Other times, I have that same truck meets face feeling and it doesn’t go away for ages.
Life isn’t all hurt and negatives, it’s also smiling and laughter and love and sunrises and sunsets (I love sunsets, they actually make me feel something); god, anything to make me feel something is worth it, you know? I spend do much of my time numb and out of it in some way. I’ll quote Ray Bradbury (one of my all-time heroes) here though “You must stay drunk on writing so reality does not destroy you”, I love to write more than I love to breathe. Too bad the muse is so fickle no? I won’t become an author, I know that. Only the best of the best can make a living off of art, I can’t stick with my stories long enough to share the stories with other people, but I can come up with concepts left and right. That’s one talent I’ve always (depressingly) had, making up stories and lying. I don’t say that to plant a seed of doubt in your mind that I’ve been lying to you this whole time, but that sometimes I’m not even honest with myself. I can lie so easily because sometimes I really don’t know what the truth is, my stories are like that. I’m not writing them , I’m just recording what's going on in my mind, as easily if I was seeing someone else’s life playing like a movie. Whether they really exist is inconsequential, what matters is the act itself and that I can see figments of my brain appear in a format other people can understand. For all I know, the person I perceive myself to be might just be a conglomeration of all the fictional characters I’ve spent time with throughout the years, Harry Potter’s bravery and Artemis Fowl’s sense and Meg and Aidan Falconer’s sense of loyalty and love. What’s wrong with that though? I’ve spent as much time in Hogwarts and the Underground as I have on school buses and trains, reflecting on everything going on in the world I inhabit.