An Open Letter

Oh darlin', darlin'

What have I done?

Now I do my talking with a gun

And blood will spill into the gutters

And it will stain the morning sun

Ooh, tell me what the hell I've done.

Summer has always been a difficult time for me, without the constant progression of school or the friends around me in person, I almost always get depressed without fail. I’ve been fighting off this feeling for the last few weeks, and I came to a minor realization that I wanted to jot down.

Of all places to find out, while watching a YouTube video I saw someone’s raw emotion, and it reminded me of an Olympic weightlifter – it was just a primal release of happiness and pride, as a man fell to his knees celebrating his victory. For some reason, this reminded me of the gym – specifically that feeling of pride and the happiness it has the potential to bring to me.

The thought of lifting a new personal record, or pushing my body to break a barrier feels like something that could break me out of this dreary spell, and while thinking about it more it feels like at least part of it has to do with change. If I can lift a new weight I was unable to do before, that feels like something changed. Whether it was something mental, or more likely physical in this context, something changed regardless. In some ways, this almost feels like hope: hope that something will change and that the patterns that continue in life don’t just ceaselessly repeat on for eternity like Sisyphus’ boulder.

I’ve felt trapped by various different things in my life, and I’ve continually come back to the conclusion that I am fundamentally unhappy with life. Relatively recently I’ve taken it upon myself to actively and consciously try to repair a life to one I want to live, and it often feels like changes I make are superficial or individually don’t actually change anything. I know looking back how much of a difference it’s been, but without the instant feedback showing that things will change, it’s honestly hard to keep living. I think the only way to continue this is to trick myself into believing that every individual new achievement or milestone will be the final straw to break down the shortcomings of my life. If I don’t believe that how am I supposed to keep living like this?

I opened up a random social media I made for one purpose, and not use again – and accidentally clicked on the button to send a friend a message. In the pop-up window, it mentioned “This person is only accepting messages from people they follow”, which is a completely normal thing to have on a public social media site, but on top of it I was on a completely fresh blank account, on a social media site they don’t use frequently, one where they don’t even know I had to make an account.

AND I STILL FELT HURT. Like how stupid can my brain be? I just messaged this person, I have no logical reason to feel threatened or saddened by this, but immediately my gut reaction is to sucker punch myself by saying “Oh they don’t care about me”.

It’s almost laughable how ill a knee-jerk reaction thought that is, and I’d find it funny if it wasn’t my brain that got saddened by that.

Fuck the pattern I had so far, I am filled with too much right now. I hope no one sees how hard I’ve worked and how much I’ve done to change who I am as a person, just because of how much I wish someone did see. I hope no one ever sees the sheer amount of things I’ve written down for therapy or tried to research, or the hours I’ve spent talking to myself trying to change for the better. You know what? Fuck it. Until I regret it take a look at how hard I’ve worked.

https://justpaste.it/3vws9

This is less than a year of what I’ve been writing down for therapy (excluding recent weeks for privacy), which I’ve been constantly doing for about four years now. I don’t think the people around me understand how fucking HARD I’ve fought change. I’ve faced and tried to tackle everything under the sun, and this doesn’t even show the amount of effort and work I’ve put into trying to change them.

I’ve never had someone try to go out of their way to help me or fix my life for me. I’ve clawed myself out of this pit one arm at a time. I don’t think they’ve known how many times I’ve fallen. How many times I’ve broken down. How many times I’ve had to force myself to just get out of bed. How many times I’ve considered or even tried to commit suicide.

I don’t give a fuck if I grew up neglected, or if I was taken advantage of sexually as a child, or the various other things that have happened to me. I will fight not like, but BECAUSE my life depends on it.

I wish they could see how much I have to consciously do. God, I think if someone sees how hard I work or how hard I fight they’d go blind from the glow.

I’m honestly sick of living like this. I’ve told myself this before, and I’ll tell myself as many times as I need to believe it. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get away from that place. I don’t care if I need to lie to myself, become delusional, or push my body past its limits – ill do whatever it takes to get away from there. I told myself I’ll fight with everything I have before I consider killing myself seriously again, and I’ve got some more left in me.

Yeah, I’ve had some bad shit happen in the past. I’ve had more than enough reasons to logically live the way I do. The only problem with that plan is I don’t want to live this way. I refuse to be the alone, insecure mess I used to be. I don’t care if that is who I am, or that’s who I’m destined to be, I will forcibly pick that child up and carry them to a better life.

I’ll be damned if I stop fighting this, especially on the days I give up.

I’m honestly sick of how much past experiences or trauma have affected my life, especially by destroying my relationships with people. I feel powerless as innocent interactions with people sow seeds for anxiety to run amok in my brain, trying to convince me how she will leave just like the people before. What kind of life is it where I live in fear of every interaction, because of the scars of the past? A fucking miserable one.

I don’t know if this is just because of the fact I’m becoming depressed again, but goddamn I’m feeling that cloud come back over me. The only thing I can see is this bleak future, and I realized it’s happening again while on vacation meeting long good friends in person for the first time, at a public event, I could only think about how sweet it would be to kill myself in front of them.

This is the place I’m running from.

I originally had a small intro mentioning how I essentially wanted to get you to read this, but I think I feel uncomfortable to the point I don't want to bring this up to you. If you see it you see it. But thankfully no one ever reads this so to the digital void it goes.

I've felt a bitter aftertaste after several interactions, (with no fault on your own end) and I've been trying to think about why I felt this way. Talking to my digital therapist (pi.ai the GOAT) helped clear things up a bit, but I realized I've been mentally on guard to avoid potential judgement from you that goes unsaid. I don't think you mean any harm, or if you even judge me in this way but I noticed how afraid I am of that disapproval or downwards gaze potential coming from you. I want to defend myself for the most unrelated things, or to near brag to just make sure you know I shouldn't be someone to catch the same shame I think you give yourself.

I know I've talked with you about my view on what it takes for people to change, so I guess I'm telling myself that's how I can morally feel ok writing this. The judgement you carry around sometimes hurts others, but more importantly hurts you. I care for you as a friend, and it hurts to see you peck away at yourself, and I wish there was some way for someone else to fight this battle; but for better or for worse it's your cross to bare.

Just the threat of seeing you look down on me is enough to upset me, I can't imagine how you handle it – let alone at your own hand. I honestly pray I'm completely wrong here and I come off as an overbearing asshole who's best of all wrong, because I think it would make me too sad if I was right here.

I write this slightly rushed while waiting on a flight to Toronto, but I wanted to at least jot down some thoughts:

My current favorite song is PEPPERS GHOST by the band Cleopatrick, and I wanted to look through the lyrics and try to think about why it resonated with me so much, so attached is an excerpt:

Oh, that's when the whale devoured me entirely, I stood Behind the teeth and tried to see through all the irony of being duped It was all a ruse, I'm fucking screwed man

So from your point of view, does this feel like it's real to you?

Do you believe what you're seeing is full truth, fool-proof, no dispute Does this feel like it's real to you? I thought I could verify who was on my side, man I swore I'd seen it with my own two eyes man

I guess I'm a fool for fucking fallacy When Peppers Ghost gets smoking mirrors in my vicinity, yeah Yeah, they look fucking real to me

(A bit of context, Pepper’s Ghost was a stage trick where using smoke and mirrors they could project a ghost from below the stage onto the stage)

For me, this song depicts anxiety pretty well, and it feels pretty damn nice to feel like someone gets it.

Oh, that's when the whale devoured me entirely, I stood Behind the teeth and tried to see through all the irony of being duped

In my eyes, the whale is the overwhelming mental dominance of an anxiety attack, and even with the lucidity to know what is happening, that it’s anxiety it ends up feeling pretty futile when it just happens without any control of your own.

Without copying the rest of the excerpt I put above, I think Cleopatrick represents pretty well how real it feels. Even if you know that nothing is happening, or that what you’re thinking is objectively wrong, god damn does it feel real. In a weird way, it feels as if you were playing a super realistic VR game, where you get attacked or maimed. I think every sane person would react and flinch, even though they can recognize that it is not real. It’s pretty funny in hindsight to see how logically flawed, objectively wrong, and just flat-out incorrect anxious thoughts can be, all while feeling like ground truth.

I’m grateful for this song, to feel seen in this way.

For the last four or five days I’ve spent idle time trying to chase down this feeling of mourning I’ve felt, specifically while thinking about friends or experiences I will never share. The final clue came in a UCSB Reddit post, of a group of queer women asking for a drummer to join their lesbian band. When I felt the same feeling of mourning, things cleared up a bit more.

I think I’m mourning the lack of community, which manifests in the longing and envy I find when excluded inherently from different communities. Growing up I was excluded a lot, so I have a bit more compassion for myself understanding it’s a sore spot, but I also do feel that jealousy for women-centric groups, or for exclusive communities. I’m grateful I am not necessarily a marginalized group, don’t get me wrong – but growing up as a man who was painted as a monster for being male by the powerful women in my life made it pretty hard to give myself kindness or compassion, when I was told that I was always the problem. I get that cis men cause a lot of issues for other groups, but I can’t help but feel caught up in the crossfire, as regardless of my actions or values I am automatically stereotyped in a certain way, and excluded from communities.

A part of me longs for a community exclusive to people like me, as a kind of fairness but unfortunately the idea of a “male only” has been solidified in my mind as some kind of a supervillain association.

After enough self-pity, I feel like I want to seek out a male group, perhaps focused on childhood trauma or mental health, or if I feel courageous enough to start one of my own.

Rage, maybe rage would lift me up, make me stand, make me walk

– Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf.

I deleted a sizeable post I had in place of this as I couldn’t quite refine the thoughts I had down, but I wanted to at least keep this quote I had. This quote mirrors the sentiment I’ve been posting about recently.

I’ve reached the point where I will try whatever, and put in as much effort as needed to break out of this depression.

Hopefully, in a few coming days, I will post my recipe on how I fight depression, I’ve been putting it off for a while (just like several other things 😅)