Hello my sweet dreamers,
It’s a dark one today. Lay back, look at the sky, play mad world, or hoax (t. Swift) or the dance (Good ole Garth) or something that speaks to the broken part of you. And take a deep breath, because it’s a dive.
I’ve been writing a lot lately; I’ve been feeling a lot lately. However, there’s been so much in my head it’s like a hurricane in a drain. Rapid and dangerous to not only the sea that makes me but to those who love to stare at it.
For the last eleven years I go through serious bouts of depression, I always work my way through it so well that when it’s over I pretend it never happened. When I look back, I tell myself it was never that bad. It wasn’t that bad when my sophomore year of highschool I sat underneath a sink and cried. It wasn’t that bad my senior year when I lost 12 pounds and my hair started falling out. It wasn’t that bad the summer I was called a whore every time I went out outside because of my poor decision to allow love in places it should have never been. It wasn’t that bad my freshman year when I decided to drink the entire year away. It wasn’t that bad when I thought about driving my car into a river when I was pregnant. It wasn’t that bad when I settled for less to keep my heart from exploding. It isn’t that bad now when it’s far less from those things, but just the familiarity of running sinks into my soul.
The last 4 weeks thats all I’ve thought about: leave before you’re hurt. Leave before more damage can be done. You’re still as fragile as you were when you started this. You’ve never healed anything. You’ve repressed it. Unlovable. Replaceable. Forgettable. Unremarkable. Don’t forget to put your walls back in place, and do not cry. Chin up. Shoulders back.
A viscous cycle of something that was drilled into my head by the time I was 13. Strength lies in your ability to handle yourself, not rely on others for comfort. To need no one is better to be shattered by someone.
It’s two separate Gabes. The one writing this is consulting with the one locked in a glass box. Years of therapy to soothe the child that was broken by broken people, a person who isn’t society’s responsibility to consul when the days are hard.
It’s just the hard days is when the box is unlocked. We switch out. I am me, and she is me, but we are thousands of miles apart. It’s a careful game to become the person that was unrightfully placed in the box instead of the one terrorizing everyone on the outside. I’m watching it, but I can’t do anything about it. She needs her time, her space; she’s only trying to protect the gentle person I’ve become with her brutality. Her numbness.
She’s cruel, to me and to everyone else. She doesn’t care about voicing the things that filets my soul to someone else, turning the knife away from me. Hurt before you’re hurt, Gabe. Get them away from you. Run. You don’t need them. You need you.
And if I so much as try to come out of that box during that time, there is nothing short of pain with emerging. Pushed back in but this time it’s filled with water. A drowning creature in an aquarium while everyone stares and says things like “wonderful how she handles it so well. She has this.” I have the ability to breathe while my lungs have been ripped from my chest because I have known no life with consistent peace and foundational love. There is nothing to brag about it.
It’s a process though. The drowning, the breathing, and then there is darkness. It can be sea of thoughts in my aquarium or a rain drop, but the entirety of the darkness doesn’t care how much is there; it spreads. Like the creatures in the sea that haven’t been discovered, untruthful thoughts wrap their way around my brain. Tenticals that know no mercy; just survival. Like an octopus was thrown into my tank, and it’s arms are wrapped around me. Weather it’s to shield me from the destruction my other half reins down, or to blind me to my true self, I never know. It’s just another loyal demon in the parts of me. (Spoiler, the parts of me, aren’t my whole.)
Eventually the worst part of me gets tired. Her shoulders too heavy from carrying the burden of the love we give. Tired of screaming her pain in every direction, a wounded animal with nothing to lose. She runs herself out, she crawls back to her tank. She whispers reminders to me that if I walk away if won’t be as bad as next time. Whispers to keep my head up and my walls up; to be indifferent in the state of the potential pain. It’s easier that way. To expertly avoid the emotion that will allow a piece of control out of your hands.
Shes unhealthy. She leaves me with a fire scorched earth, and chasms between me and everyone I love. The anger still lingers, the defensive comebacks at the tip of my tongue, the desire to snatch whatever vulnerability I’ve offered back. It is better to be shattered by yourself than to be falsely loved by someone else. If what is said in anger is the truth, then what is unsaid is that what is whispered in love is a lie.
The thoughts that lie in my head proceeds to do its filets, ripping the knife back from the people there in and back into me.
Thankfully, it’s not so bad anymore, and I know most of it isn’t true but it’s still a fight we have. I look to my tiny human and I swear I’ll swallow, burn and fight any parts of me that are unhealthy to avoid it sinking into her. It is everyday. It’s exhausting. But it is worth it. To do what my broken people couldn’t do to avoid breaking my person. My air, my world, and my galaxy. My two year old with the attitude to crush the worst parts of me most days. (It’s not her job though. It’s all me.)
It’s not always a beautiful story to where your growth lies. It’s not always a wonderful process full of happiness, and unconditional love. You are always your biggest enemy, and sometimes you have to go up against yourself in order to prevent the destruction you cause to your peace. Sometimes you have to allow the people around you to tackle you like you are the monster in Moana. (Lol a joke for you and me.) Let them love you. Let them calm the one in you, who is screaming for the isolation. Sometimes, the better part of you will have to rally on your worst behalf and demand that space anyway. There is no one right way to find your air again, to soothe the hurt in you. But above all, love those around you and to those within you, and it will set your hard path with brief eases. To find shelter, in the middle of the storm. It is better to take the chance of being hurt in the journey of being gentle and loving than to miss what was there. For every gentle part may there be steel, and for every steeled part may there be an escape. Do not listen to the parts that tell you to harden, in an already hard world. Be better, do better, but be balanced.
Somewhere coming out of the faults,
Gabe
Thoughtfully and Faultfully, Gabe 