being crazy...

I know I've written blogs before about my fears. I don't pretend to be perfect, although I wish I were. I'm not saying I'll ever be able to accept all these negative things about myself, I hate them all and they ruin my life... but I guess it's important to be honest. From a very young age we're taught to not be sad, mad, jealous, ashamed, disappointed, suicidal, depressed, etc, and if we are then there's something wrong with us, it's our own fault, and we should be ashamed for being so fucked up. Realistically, everyone feels this way on a daily basis! Everyone is unhappy in their lives, has serious, deep rooted problems and issues that they cause themselves as well as problems the world or their genetics dumps in their laps. I know that in the end, everyone is afraid of the same kinds of things, and I find a lot of comfort in this notion of a shared experience. Perhaps it's because I feel like if I'm not happy, nobody else should be.

I've always been nervous about the fact that I might be crazy. It seems like on both sides of my family, there are very serious mental and emotional problems. In passing, my mom mentioned that there have been suicides on her side on the family. That side of the family was most likely rather inbred, from generations all living in small towns. Judging from my mom's way of relating to the world, as well as her white trash family from the country, it's easy to see why she never found any sort of power over her own life which makes me think that she was just as fucked up.

At the same time, my dad's side of the family was a lot worse. So many family members have so many problems. The whole family is full of drug addiction, and abuses of all kinds, physical and sexual. I'm so glad that I at least got a good last name out of it. It was impossible to identify with people like my parents. They're from a world long ago. Just think, they didn't have the Internet, TV, cell phones, e-mail, computers... obviously the huge lack of any kind of progress from 50 years ago makes it impossible to understand their world view... because the world view was regional at the time. Nothing changed, and everything stayed the same. Now everything changes, nothing is ever the same.

In my past, I realize now I have had many manic episodes. As I've aged, and now that I'm 24, I've gotten better at identifying the signs and symptoms, although it really is impossible to know when it's going to end until it's over. I've embarassed myself in front of so many people- we're not going to elaborate on that because it really is something to be ashamed of. I used to never get embarassed, in fact it's a new feeling that made its debut in my 20s. Throughout my young adult life, I used to think I was always just tired, yet realize now these feelings of "tiredness" are not from being stressed out or sleep deprived. It's called depression.

Just like everyone else, I do hear voices in my head... yet I accept the fact that they're all mine, and I guess it's really just one voice (my own) yet it still does tell me so many different things. I do sometimes catch me talking to myself, and it's rather common for me to not remember if strings of thoughts were vocalized or not. I'm constantly wondering, "did I just say all that stuff out loud?" Just like everyone, I get feelings of loneliness, worthlessness, isolation, suffering, opposition, submission, wasting my life, and suicide on a daily basis. Even though nothing in my life is settled, and my life is essentially worse than it ever has been before, I know I'll be here tomorrow, that I can't just let a corporation allow me to hate my life so much that I kill myself. I'm constantly looking for stories of people who overcame their grief, because it's my biggest problem. I wish I could be the person I was before, more than anyone will ever know. But that person is dead and gone.

I wonder what they did in the olden days? I guess anyone who didn't completely fit into society was immediately singled out and killed.