not dead (yet)

Above, “an extinct flying dragon.” Middle, bat. Below, generic bird. The Animal’s World. 1936. 

If my memory is correct then that would mean that I was in sixth grade when I first experienced anxiety. I didn’t really have any friends in my home room class. All the kids in my class were different from me and they actively made me feel like I was different. Like I was a nerd. Like I was weird for drawing and writing. Like I wasn’t black enough. That situation changed the way that I talked to people. I used to talk to people without any thought about what I was saying and how it might be perceived. After my encounters in sixth grade, I started calculating everything that I said in order to avoid being judged or made fun of. I knew what I could talk about and what I couldn’t. I knew what I could do and what I couldn’t do. I felt like I was being policed by others while simultaneously policing myself. This made me anxious about what I said, the way I said things, who I said them to, blah blah. I didn’t feel like a person anymore. I felt like a robot that was just saying things that the people around me wanted to hear in order to get by. I never talked with anybody about those feelings. I just bottled them up. I continued to do that for years until I had a countless amount of bottled up thoughts and emotions. Those bottled up, constricted, feelings of sadness, loneliness, and anxiety eventually grew into feelings of depression. What did I do when those feelings of depression came? I bottled that shit up too. Throughout the course of my life, I’ve bottled up so much stuff that it makes it hard for me to recall when shit started to get really bad. I wish I could pinpoint it like “this moment, this moment, and that moment are the exact points in my life where everything started to go wrong,” but I can’t do that. I’ve spent a large majority of my life trying to find happiness. However, at this point in my life I realize that some of my efforts to find happiness were half-assed. I’m done with that half-assed approach. I’m telling others about how I’m feeling. I’m opening up to my parents. I’m talking to a therapist. I’m working out consistently. I’m getting more sleep. I’m drawing and writing more. I’m doing things to protect my mental health as opposed to harming it. I’m not taking my issues out on others. 

My mental health struggles have caused me to lose out on a lot of things. I’ve missed a lot of fun memories and experiences. I’ve strained, or lost, a lot of friendships. I feel like I’ve slightly strained my relationship with my parents. I’m not as close with my extended family as I should be. I’m not as close to my brother as I should be. I’m not as confident in myself or in my art as I should. I’ve lost the love of my life. 

All of that is over though. I’ve let my internal issues put a hold on my life for way too long. Not anymore. No more regrets or hanging myself over past mistakes. It’s time to start living life again. it’s time to start living and experiencing life in a way that I haven’t been able to since I was twelve years old. The clouds have opened up and it’s time for me to see blue skies again.