#hashopedied

[hiddenprofound]

Painful Observations

There are things about my life I wish I could change. Waking up everyday feeling the existential, lonely sadness of my life makes things much more difficult to accomplish. It’s not that I don’t have goals, I do. The problem is, I’m starting to realize these goals aren’t actually I feel like I cab obtain. I think we all can relate to wanting a happy life, with the person you love. Building a happy, successful life. That’s the dream right? I wish I could let myself live that dream. It appears as though I choose misery and insanity every single time. 

I’m sure it has a lot (if not everything) to do with my fractured relationship with my parents. I was child being brought into the world by adults who were still children themselves. Seems like a lot of kids born in the eighties had to deal with parents still learning how to grow up. I was treated like a piece of garbage that was thrown out and sent to live with my grandparents, while both of my parents decided to have other marriages and children of their own. This has always made me feel like I am not worthy of love or companionship. This is why I push people away.

I also never had a lot of friends growing up. I was a chubby, (and admittedly) annoying, hyperactive kid who did not know how to properly and socially interact with other kids my age. I was made fun of, got into fights, and would pretend it didn’t bother me. I know now, it did bother me. It bothered me a lot.

Years have passed since childhood. I got into music, and I found friends through music and playing in groups with like minded individuals. At first, it all seemed to be falling into place. It seemed I found my tribe of people. I was even comfortable enough to start living my life out of the closet. Life was in a good place for a little while.

But I learned that I was stuck between two worlds. Though, everyone involved in the music portion of my life was accepting of being gay, the gay subculture wasn’t something that intertwined with the music scene I was so heavily involved in. Trying to be a rockstar and also trying to be authentic are two very different and difficult things to juggle. No matter what, or no matter who I found, the two never seemed to overlap.

I traveled a lot and even made my way across the country to warmer climates and thought maybe I could do a new start. That would fix everything. And for a while, it felt like it did. But ultimately, I messed that up too. I pushed people away, and even though I got burned and feel people were mistreating me, I definitely didn’t react the best way I could have. The curse of happiness in my life seemed to have struck again. After a few years, and a few relatives passing, I ended up back home, with many bridges having been burned. I went kind of into hiding for a while. I couldn’t face many people. I then found who I thought might be the love of my life. He was sweet, charming, and was able to get me out of a shell I was putting myself into. 

It didn’t take long to find that the world through rose color glasses is simply an illusion. Soon enough, the abuse started coming in. I started to see the drug and alcohol problems that painfully brought me back to my own parents. Four years of lies, broken promises, manipulation, and depression. After I finally left, I was a changed man. I was a broken man, trying to pick up the already shattered pieces of life. 

Since then, things have somewhat gotten better. Slowly but surely. But sometimes I think I have peaked on my happiness. Sometimes I don’t know how much damage has been done. Sometimes I don’t know how much left there is that I can fix. Sometimes it feels like my psyche is something of the consistency of an egg shell, that its been dropped and put back together so many times. It feels like its been dropped so many times that there are simply pieces too small to find and that maybe this is as good as it gets. 

There are always people who say to look at the positive side of things. That positive energy will negate the negative energies surrounding us. But, I just can’t bring myself to believe it. I want to so desperately, but I can’t trick myself into believing things get better.  I have been diagnosed as having bipolar I disorder, so maybe it is the lows talking. But, I guess I just believe in my misery over theoretical happiness brought by mystical positive energy. I believe my pain and my misery is real. I feel like these things are there to teach me to be careful of who I trust. I guess its “cynically” correct. But being the cynic isn’t what has caused me the most pain. Being a cynic is what has protected me in the past. Not being a cynic is what has caused me trust issues, love issues, etc. 

I know they say you can’t love if you won’t put yourself out there. And I actually do agree with that. I wish love was in the cards for me. I am guilty and can admit from practically being a generation raised on television, my perception of happiness is warped and unrealistic. But I guess that’s where the dream lies. It sits somewhere in a dark corner of my mind where it gives me a false sense of hope, and also torments me at the same time. As an adult, I am starting to realize and accept that dreams and nightmares aren’t that far apart. In fact, dreams and nightmares can be one and the same. Dreams can just be another word for waking nightmares. All I can hope for is a miracle, or some person or event that can change my mind. Until then, I guess there is nothing else to do except to take this medication and try to find hope inside myself again.