Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Flight or Fight

It's been quite a while since I last posted a blog or wrote anything outside of my academic endeavors. I can't explain why I felt compelled to write a blog today. I am not able to tell you whether or not this blog will be as well written as my former blogs. What I can promise is that life has been kicking me down further into the ground. My optimistic self is having trouble fighting through the darkness these days and I'm afraid rather than fighting I have succumbed to flight. Rather than coming to this very blog in order to make sense of my darkness I have become a monster. Much like Silent Hill, I feel as though I am in some sort of nightmare and inevitably at the end of the game I am considered the bad guy. It has been exactly 4 months since I last allowed my fingers to expel words at my minds digression. Four. Four long months. Four months of ups and downs. Four months of wishing something, anything would change. Four month wondering where my life has gone so tragically wrong.

The other day I read a hyperbole and half blog. She is absolutely one of my favorite bloggers, because she always managed to bring a smile and laughter into my life. Her blog this time was about depression, and she too hadn't blogged in a long time. Being able to see someone who I thought was happy go lucky feel the same horrible feelings I do made me feel positive in a sick weird way. "You are not alone." I constantly tell myself in my mind. "It's just stress." What is it though? I reach deep inside myself to understand whether it's all just stress related. Is it deeper than that? Hyperbole had people reaching out to her and trying to help her "cure" her depression so to speak. One of the issues I have is the lack of people reaching out to me. Mixing these negative emotions with the feeling of isolation is perhaps the most destructive combination. How does one get out of isolation on their own when feeling this way? People always tell you to take initiative, but when you already feel awful and have lost confidence in yourself it's hard to do so. It's hard to try and care and put in effort when you can't even put effort outside of school into your own life. So I sit here alone day in and day out. Waiting for anyone to call me so I can do something every once in a while.

One thing I've noticed when you are experiencing such negative emotions, is that people really try to "fix"
you. People assume that it is something that can just be solved or go away. They don't ask how to help, but rather that it is not possible to help. You are recommended to go see someone, even if you truly believe that help does just the opposite. The one thing I know I need is a supportive group of people in my life. During hardship, my family served as the group of people who would help me. Living in Lincoln makes me feel isolated and alone. I have Brandon who does his best to help me, but it's hard to describe the same issues repeatedly to someone who has heard it all before. It is not easy to come up with new things to tell me and eventually you give up trying to. Society has dictated what "normal" behavior is. If you go against it in any way you are deemed "crazy", "unusual", "demanding". Negative terminology is used to classify you as something that goes against the norm. To become the norm again you must sacrifice pieces of yourself to maintain and achieve this normal facade that will eventually fail.

For those of you out there that have been dealt a bad hand do not forget that you are strong. It is easy to forget the strength you have acquired over the years when people classify you in negative ways. You may never be deemed normal, but you can't allow that to dictate your life. This has been a rough year for me and one of the things that I notice is that I've given up my fight. There were so many years I spent fighting the darkness. I was a light warrior trying hard to rid the world of the darkness that surrounded people. Despite your strength you may fall in battle. When you fall you may not get up right away. You may quit in frustration and not come back to the fight again for a long time. It doesn't matter how long you are down and out, but what matters is that you come back to fight that monster. It may take months of strengthening and preparing yourself to have to right skills to fight the monster, but you must come back and defeat it to progress on with your story. I have given up fighting and have tried to flee, but the monsters hold on me won't allow me to escape. It's my choice on when to finish the monster off, but for now I continue to try to run and have a lot of strength to build before I can successfully "move on". When trying to get back up, know that this monster may feel impossible to defeat, but that in the future they may not be as challenging.



o here I am four months later attempting to write a coherent blog that describes why I have been absent for so long. This blog may seem disjointed in sections. It may even resonate as an incomplete blog, but I tried. My writing is one skill that helps me combat these "monsters" in life. I have taken the first step and I hope that my blog will once again become the friend to which I confide in the most. The one place that ceases to disappoint and can only bring light into my life. It will take energy to continue to write and build the strength I need for this battle, but I am going to try. If my efforts are futile for now I know that in the future they will help me achieve what I need. I just want to say that I'm grateful for the group of people I do have in my life. It helps to have someone who puts efforts into trying to ensure my happiness by doing little things. It's nice to have a family back home I know loves me much. I just have to remember the party I do have to help me fight this monster and revive me when I'm down.

<3 always="" p="">Lexy