Nothing Gold Can Stay

Do you know what it’s like to live in a memory? Do you know what it’s like to live in the past? But have to stay present? I don’t remember where it all went wrong. Maybe I was just cursed from the start. Doctors say “It all stems from trauma. It all stems from your childhood.” I don’t remember things being that bad. But then again, I don’t remember. The problem with the brain is that it plays tricks on you. It can block out trauma, abuse, painful memories. Thinking that’s going to help you proceed to live your life as normal as possible. Until you can’t. Until it’s 3 o'clock in the morning and you have blood pouring down your arms and you feel nothing. And you don’t know why. And you will sit there. And you will take your medications. Specifically designed to help your brain rewire. Specifically designed to help the serotonin stay in your blood stream a little bit longer. But what happens when you take those pills at 8 a.m. And you’re back to cutting your wrists to let the sadness out at 11 p.m. And when the blood is trickling down I can’t help but to think of all the serotonin that’s supposed to be in there. Supposed to make me feel better. Supposed to make me feel. Something. Anything. And when you wake up in the morning. And you can’t recall what made you make those marks on your skin. So you go through the motions. Same thing every day. Until one day it stops. You meet someone that catches your glance. When you weren’t even looking for someone. They just came into your tunnel of vision. And suddenly everything stops. And you stop cutting your wrists every night. To every other night. To every other week. Until you can’t remember the last time you cut. Those obsessive thoughts of self harm start to be replaced with obsessive thoughts of them. Until you finally open up and let them consume you. I don’t believe that another person is supposed to be your salvation. But then again, I don’t believe that these drugs help. And I don’t believe that these doctors know what they’re doing. But they have a piece of paper saying they do. So we have to believe them. We have to believe that they know our brains better than we do. The problem with these doctors is that they are there to teach you. Teach you the tools on how to differentiate what a panic attack is and what dying is. Teach you how to distract your hands so that they don’t end up hurting yourself. Teach you to realize how to “build confidence” and “let go” of the past. But they don’t teach you what it’s like to fall in love. Or what it’s like to fall apart. Or how to pick up the pieces. They try to teach you expression. Express your thoughts, feelings, self destructive tendencies in a “healthy way” Art, writing, music, sports. I never understood how I’m supposed to pick up the pen when my hands are filled with razorblades. Just waiting. It’s like the calm before the storm. And everything is fine, and you smile to yourself. And everything is good. Until it’s 1 o'clock in the afternoon and you’re at work and you feel heavy. And nothing made you feel this way. But I took my pills this morning. But I wrote down how I felt. But I identified my feelings. Why do I feel like this? Why is it coming back? I thought I was cured? And you go back to the doctor and they tell you that it might be a side effect of the medications. And that you have these disorders, and that your brain is sick. But they never tell you it’s okay. Because they know it’s not. They know that one day something will trigger you, again. And it will happen suddenly before you have a chance to use the tools you’ve paid to learn to fix this. And you cut yourself. Because you never threw out those razors when you said you were going to. Because your brain doesn’t want you to forget. Selective memory is one of those things that makes your mind a magician. It’s able to bend and distort your thoughts and make you believe that things were better or worse than they really were. But you never believe things were better. You only use selective memory as a form of justification for why you do what you do. The worst part is, you don’t even know if it’s real. None of this is real. This is all an illusion. We are living a day to day life in a simulation. They are clearing our history, our cache; Force closing all of our commands. You ever walk into a room and forget why you’re in there? They just deleted your next steps. Now, you go tell this to a doctor and they lock you away. Don’t think like that, you’re just disassociating. You tell this to someone else who has been struggling. They look at you with relief, thanking you without words. Because now they don’t feel crazy. Because they aren’t the only one who feels like this. Because now there’s a word for this crazy feeling in their head. But you don’t have it in your heart to tell them that it might not get better. So you look at them, smile and tell them that it will. And that you’ll promise to be there if they need you. But at the end of the day, staying here is the one promise that’s always the hardest to keep.

I don't think I've ever related to a post so deeply before. I really hope the tides turn for you soon, but reading this honestly made me feel less alone, and less crazy. Thank you for being so open.