A good day

My head is clear today, my thoughts are settled and my body is at rest. Today just might be a good day. A day that comes without warning and is taken as swiftly as it came. It’s days like these that I clean up the house, read a book and go for a walk. I’ve made my bed and I’m getting ready to have a shower after I write this blog post. I have a little bit of motivation, and a clear enough head to not worry about failure. I can only hope this feeling lasts the whole day, and I don’t have a switch flipped somewhere in the middle.

It will be hard to focus on the good things and appreciate the little bit of time I have to enjoy, as it’s easy to start to dread on when it all falls down. And in the end, it usually does fall down again.

It’s almost funny how you can’t remember what the flip side is like, when I’m feeling down I forget what it means to be happy, when I’m happy I forget just how far down the hole I can go. I would like to write about the human condition today, and how draining on the soul it can be. But Perhaps then I would be missing out on the other side of the human condition, that being joy, pleasure, acceptance, happiness and sharing.

So I would like to say a few things I am grateful for. I am grateful that I live in a country that supports to some extent people who are in a situation like I am. I know there are so many others with so much less, and I am so lucky to be where I’m at.  I appreciate that I have a safe place to lay my head at night. I am grateful for my wonderful pets, who keep me company and put a smile on my face when I don’t think I have a smile to give. I am grateful for the clothes on my back and the shoes on my feet. I have food to eat and I know I won’t go thirsty, which so many people out there can’t say for themselves.

I almost forgot what it’s like to feel the sun in my face, and just let it radiate without a thought. It’s beautiful out today, and I think I might go for a walk down to the river if it stays nice out.

I do feel the itch at the back of my head that sais “You’ve got an hour of this bub.” I’m trying to ignore it. There’s a good chance things will turn around for me, I do have rapid cycling some days. I have to try to not think about it, or I can cause things to spiral down myself.

It starts with me thinking about how good I feel and everything I could accomplish with those good feelings. I could do the dishes and clean up the bathroom and get in some exercise. When I don’t accomplish one of those things I start thinking about how I’ve failed again today, and the self-loathing starts. The racing thoughts come on because I’m hectically trying to think of what I could do with what little energy I have to make the day productive. And uh-oh, then I start thinking about how everything is pointless anyways. That’s when the depression really starts to take hold of me, when I start asking myself what the point of it is.

It’s not everyday that I feel good that I can allow myself to feel good either. With the dread of the next onset of depression, it’s easy to ignore the good feelings and focus on the eventual downswing of my emotions.

It’s easy to be hard on myself, to say I don’t deserve to feel good today. That there’s something wrong with me and this won’t last because I am not worthy of it. That the good day will be wasted anyways, what’s the point in trying to enjoy it. It’s almost funny I call it a good day because I still go to dark places trying to figure out what exactly is happening in my head.

But I digress, if I try to explain too much into the negative I think I’m going to ruin the day. Today is something to be enjoyed as much as it can be.

Here’s to you life, with your wacky ups and downs, and all sorts of weird feelings.

Feeling good, not so good

I feel like a fraud today, because today I feel okay. How am I supposed to write about the lows of depression on a day that I’m feeling pretty good? Nevertheless, I feel the need to write and get my thoughts out in words. The biggest problem of the day is how to get this blog off of the ground with some interesting content. Frustration grows inside of me as I try to contemplate something worth reading.

And slowly I feel a come-down coming on, a feeling that today will be as useless as yesterday. It’s so annoying to have the feeling of wanting to create something, but no muse or ideas to guide me!

I have all these great visions in my head but I just do not know how to put them down on paper. I think part of the problem is these visions are really fractured.

I see people reading and getting filled up with some sort of comfort. Why are they comforted? I have no idea.

I see people laughing at something, but what could I possibly say that somebody would laugh at?

It’s frustrating to say the least, and perhaps a preview into my poor executive function. The tips websites say to create a clear niche, to envision the types of readers you want, to have a purpose to your blog. I try to come up with these things and I find myself running in circles. Racing thoughts come and go and I’m lost in a sea of mediocrity.

I have a point but I don’t know what it is. I have ideas but I don’t know where they go when my fingers touch the keys.

I’m lost in my writing style even. Do I want to be open and vulnerable? Do I want to be straight to the point and easy to read? Or do I want to be deep and poetic, and make the words sing out my hearts music?

Okay, deep down I think that I like being poetic, but it’s just so damn vulnerable of a place to be. And you really have to suck at it for awhile before you’re any good. It’s hard to suck at something so vulnerable and easy to shatter.

Maybe it’s best that I see this time as a starting point, a finding of my grounding. I can’t expect myself to have a great voice right away without having found my footing.

I know I would like to discuss mental illness, but I feel it’s something more then that. Something that is hard to find words for. Words that work for a blog name anyways 😉

The closest thing I can come up with is “the struggle”. With life, with problems, with people, with self ideations, and with everything that has ever made me or you feel challenged. Aha! I think I just found a better catchphrase for underneath the blogs title at least.  “A look at the challenges faced by Mankind”. Hmm, a little sloppy but that will work for now. I’ll have to sharpen it up in a little while when I think of something better.

As for an audience, man I really have no idea what kind of audience I’m reaching out to. Those who feel the struggle of life? Well that’s damn near everybody isn’t it? I suppose it would be closer to those who feel lost and without answers. Wait a second, that’s a whole lot of people too. People looking for comfort? Ah, well that seems to ring a little closer to home. People who need some comfort in their lives, that’s probably who I would like to provide for.

How do I bring comfort to peoples lives? I think I would like to give people some sort of healthy escape from their reality. In a way that’s not really so much an escape, because the things I discuss will be troubling. Perhaps I can comfort people in not feeling alone?

I really don’t know, I have some homework to do to figure out this blogging thing.

Racing Thoughts

I am an endless question that spares no answer. There is no point, no topic to discuss, just an endless flow of thoughts and emotions and a buzzing in my head that won’t quit. Thoughts come and go at a million miles per second, some with no beginning and many with no end. It’s hard for me to articulate just exactly what I’m thinking because I don’t know for sure what’s going on in my mind. This post is an attempt at articulating how hard it is to articulate, an exercise to push my brain to a more concrete form.

Different ideas come into my head all at once about what the issue is, a quick pattering of thoughts like raindrops on a windowpane. Depression, adhd, poor executive function, laziness, fear, escape, all of these reasons for my scattered mind enter my consciousness at once. How do I write about something I cannot grasp? Slowing down feels impossible, focus escapes me and a growing anger builds inside my chest from my frustration at the failing of my words. A glimmer of hope that maybe there will be a flow to this that is enriching to read, perhaps there will be no point but you will have felt an ease in your heart that somebody is doing their best to describe racing thoughts. Will this be a random rant, a useless bunch of whining that serves no end?

Perhaps it will be nothing but empty words but I’ve noticed when I write I feel a sort of easiness in my head, a sense of accomplishment and pride that I’m doing something. Things are coming together more coherently in tiny little spurts, and maybe that sais something. In one moment I feel as if a thousand voices are all speaking at once, and in the next a loud voice booms over the rest, saying “I am beautiful, I am deep, and I know.” A quick instance of clarity that allows a few more words to spatter across the screen.

“Dumb, boring, try-hard, there’s a million writers who fail, you’re falling apart, what’s the point?” All at once the negative seeps in. I’m trying something, I’m being vulnerable, and that allows the critique to step into my mind. He’s cruel and he’s mean, he knows all my weaknesses and will spare no mercy when he cuts me deeply. My response sounds feeble, my chest has no fire, “godamn you, shut up godamn you!”. The critique knows that I feel hollow and weak, like a child crying for help in the darkness. There is no help, there is only me and this keyboard to struggle with and make my servant.

“I like this, and I’m allowed to like this”. What’s this, a voice seldom heard and always ignored? The Lover, my inner strength, my passion and the duty to myself. Slowing down and getting into my stream, or am I really slowing down rather then catching up? The critique lets go of me, I’ve bruised him in the heel and he cries out at my sudden backlash. “I love writing damn you.” He responds “You’re losing your intention”. I’m feeling stronger now, “I don’t care, this feels right!” He scatters into the woods, waiting and watching for my next slip up, a pair of red eyes so calculating and cruel.

What’s most frustrating is the beauty in some thoughts that will never be shown. The ideas that are both soft and poetic, easy to hold and a pleasure to digest. I wanted to project a bible verse, to split it in twain and make it my own as a lyric to my thoughts. What bible verse was that? What was the context of it? I don’t know, it was here and gone as fast as it came.

I yearn for my mind to slow down and let me pick out the words, and allow a fair critique to review them. It’s so difficult to find balance between the Critique and the Lover. To trust the lover is to find gold in every word written, to be so foolish to not see what could be built more robustly. To trust the critique means nothing will be written at all.

A fumble of fingers and paragraphs of writing are lost. A deep frustration and anger arises that I will never remember the words on the page. I can only deal with that anger by laughing at a post about forgotten thoughts that truly contains forgotten thoughts. It’s silly to be angry at what was lost as so much more was lost in the thoughts that never took form.

A certain satisfaction comes from freeing my thoughts at least to some degree. I know I have written nothing in so many words, and yet I feel some peace in the knowing that a few of those thoughts are cemented in vocabulary. They can be forgotten and released because now there is a record of them. I only hope I have the courage to continue putting my thoughts down, to bravely expose myself and peel back the layers of this endless droning of pondering.

Depression and the Journey

There’s no release until I’m a billionaire. There’s no freedom until I’ve saved the human race.

It’s hard to admit that I’m selfish in my depression. As much as I like to think that I care about others, I know that there is a selfish side to my philanthropic dreams. It’s a need to feel worthy, to feel independent, to feel loved. I need billions of dollars to assure my freedom. Don’t ask me why, probably a few million would suffice for a healthy life. It’s that deep, visceral need for personal welfare that creates a want for more money then I could possibly ever spend. Perhaps another side to the coin is that I want the dopamine rush of spending a big lump of cash on something nice. That sweet release of owning something that wasn’t yours before. Can I put it more simply? I want stuff I don’t need. And this messes with my head. Aren’t I a good person? Don’t I want others to have more, feel more, experience life? I think I’m a good person, so where does this greed come from?

I came from an upbringing where material possessions were the least of concerns. In a religious faith that taught me that your gold lies heaven, I never had much want for cars and clothes and beautiful homes. I’ll live simple, I used to tell myself, I’ll provide for my family and that will be enough. The faith wallowed away, I saw things from different perspectives, and now I no longer follow my past beliefs. It’s here that I see a crack in the paint, a place where I can peel away the layers and see what’s really underneath. My ideologies, my morals, my points of reference all used to relate to my faith in god. With that faith shattered, I’m left asking myself constantly who I am, what matters, and what the hell is going on?! It was easy to have an ego when I was a believer, it was all I knew and all I was taught.

I’m not against good morals now, I’m not against being a good person, it’s just that I have to justify those things on an intellectual level now. Fear of god was enough before to be a good person and treat others with respect. It’s a lot different of a process learning about myself and what I want out of life knowing that I am free and responsible for myself. I decide what is right and wrong for myself now, it’s a new thing for me at 26 years old. The last of the residual effects of religion wore away a year ago, when I really had to start thinking about mine and yours and what the worth of anything and anybody really is. For a small amount of time I listened to the dirty billionaires who trash the planet. It was a new thing for me hearing ideas that I used to hate before, and giving them a chance and really listening to their side to the story. And I’ll be completely honest, I saw the elite as having some righteousness to their being. I bought into their ideas for a time, started thinking about how much I wanted what they had.

The need and greed for an expensive lifestyle festered and grew. I became obsessed. I kept reading about their lifestyles, the fabulously rich, and I was hooked. I read books about success, I watched videos about money, everything about my lifestyle involved thinking about how to become dirty, stinking rich. Oh and by the way, too bad so sad for the poor, they just aren’t on the same level and that’s the way life works. I kept working on myself, thinking of how I could become rich. All of this work brought me to the turning point, and the confusion, that I exist in right now. I realized I wasn’t one of the elite.

I’m a nobody. I have bipolar. I have tremendous setbacks and things to overcome that makes even becoming one of the working class a hard achievement. I can’t make billions when I can’t even get a minimum wage job. When this dawned on me I started a new thinking pattern, a lesson in the works if you will, a road I’m on currently. I had to think about the ways I thought about the poor and my attitude of too bad so sad. Because if I was never going to be rich, what did that mean about me? To bad so sad? Life’s a bitch and then you die? That didn’t settle to well in my stomach. I spent all this time thinking about how only certain people mattered, only to realize I was one of the bunch that doesn’t matter. And this is hitting me hard, it doesn’t feel right. Maybe other kids learned this lesson at a younger age in more simple terms, but it’s a lesson I’m learning now after a “factory reset”. Being 26 and having to base my morals on my own reasoning and not religion. I’m learning a lesson that should have been taught in terms other then a fear of the almighty. Complaints about arrested development aside, it’s a weird place to be. I don’t know exactly what I think, and mostly I’m just trusting my heart.

Depression and bipolar are crippling, I struggle with everyday things that should not be a problem. How can I justify being filthy rich when I know what it’s like to be poor and struggling? How can I justify having so much more without helping anybody? Here’s where I’m stuck though. Like the saying “you need money to make money”, I understand that the more successful you are the more you have to share. Creating a business means creating jobs, sharing capital means others can thrive, and money can always be put towards medical and psychological research. I’m not so delusional that I would think that money isn’t necessary in our current western system.

So I wander on lost, thinking about reasons to do this or that. To strive for financial wealth, to just do my best to get by, to become a homeless man on the corner. I don’t know exactly what to do with myself. Which brings about stagnation, a huge cog in the wheel of depression. The only way I navigate through it is thinking with my heart. Do I really want to be rich? Sort of. Do I want to be rich in a way that hurts others? no. Do I want to be at least independent enough not to rely on others? Definitely yes. Do I care about others and think of there worth? Deep, deep, deep down, I think that I do, there’s just a lot of bullshit to cut through to get down to the bottom of it.

Another question I ask myself is do I want to helps others because of my own feelings of worthlessness? Is it really that I care, or is it that I want people to care about me? Do I just want and need love and acceptance. To be honest, I probably do need those things. That need probably does influence my behavior. Is that all it is then? A chemical reaction in my brain that sais I need to feel something, and so I put on a show of philanthropy to meet my own needs? Maybe, I don’t know. Is it okay for others to be happy while I am not? Again I don’t really know, it can change from day to day. Today I feel like only certain people deserve to be happy, and those people being by my own picking. That doesn’t sound right though. Is it just my hurt and pain caused by others that spurs on a hatred that makes me feel people don’t deserve happiness? Is it something sinister and selfish and simple like past traumas affecting how I feel about people? Perhaps. I don’t know. All I know is I’m peeling back layers and finding out more and more. Maybe my problem is that I expect and endpoint, and answer, a final “me”, and maybe that final person is never found. Life is a mystery as they say, maybe I need to learn how to accept that so that I can have some peace and quiet in my head for once.

I don’t know where I was going with this post, or that there is a point to it. Perhaps that complements the idea that there is no final destination, there is only the journey. A struggle of mine with no outcome or response. Simply spending the time sharing my thoughts, hoping that just for a little while I can escape the thoughts in my mind by putting them into words.