Where You Belong · 10:28pm Mar 24th, 2020
"Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone."- "Alone" by Maya Angelou
I've been thinking a lot about loneliness, and about self-perception lately.
For most of my life I have been ruled by my thoughts. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy would tell you that you are not your thoughts, but what if they are? I mean, thoughts dictate words which dictate character, which dictate destiny, so doesn't it follow that your thoughts rule your life?
My thoughts definitely rule mine. For those who don't have a mental illness, sometimes our line of thinking can be difficult to understand. People don't get why we're so freaked out over something pink being on our milk carton or why we don't touch other people for fear of germs or why we're so depressed all the time, so I'll break it down as best I can.
People have intrusive thoughts. We all do. Thoughts like "I could jump in front of that car right now" or "I could slit my wrists with this kitchen knife" or other ones. People without a mental illness can move past those. People with them cannot. The thought is a seed, planted, and even though you don't want it to, it grows roots, or branches if you prefer. The thought of "I could jump in front of that bus right now" happens, and then grows a new root or branch that says "Who will clean me up when they scrape me off the street?" and then segues again to "What will my family think when they find me?" and then goes to "How many people will mourn me?". A thousand different futures based on possibilities are before our eyes, most of them grim. We grow so many roots and branches that we don't realize how far down the rabbit hole we've fallen until we're so deep in that we can't get out. We have friends who can try to get us out of the rabbit hole, but it's only a matter of time before it sucks us down again, and the thing we know that others don't is that the rabbit hole doesn't have an end. There is no other side, and most of us are left wondering if we'll ever get out.
Sometimes, you purposefully fling yourself down the rabbit hole. Other times, it's involuntary- like this morning when they gave me milk in the hospital with pink stuff on the carton and it freaked me out so I tried to clean it but it just wasn't enough and I got it in my head that the only way to cleanse myself of the contamination was to drink hand sanitizer (which I did not do, by the way). The question that remains for us in or out of the rabbit hole, is how we can escape ourselves.
I guess I've kind of operated under the assumption that anywhere I go there's a different me waiting there. Like when I go to the hospital I always feel more positive but sooner or later there's a crash and burn from it. But the thing I realized this week in the hospital is that you can't escape yourself. No matter where you go, your personality, problems, and baggage go with you. Your perceptions about the world, your views on people, your optimism, neutralism, or pessimism, all follow you, and you cannot escape you, no matter what you do.
It makes finding your place in the world that much harder. Often this week, I have felt that I don't belong anywhere- like there's no place in the world that is truly mine. The house I live in is not a home (and most certainly does not have the preconceived notions of what a home entails) and is my parents. The food I eat, the bed I sleep on, even the computer I'm writing this post on, have come from them. My name is mine, but it's not a place. So I have been asking myself- Where do I belong?
Leaving my husband a few weeks ago has made things that much harder, undoubtedly. I thought I belonged with him, but circumstance has proven otherwise. So I am also unsure of who I want to belong to, if anyone. I've been having to adjust myself to loneliness again, and often feel as though I am not heard.
This journey of self-discovery was not meant to be an easy one. But it's posing some difficult questions that I have to answer about myself. When I figure them out, I'll let you know.
-Cloe
I'll be there if you need someone to talk to
5227690
As will I.
The internal battle you speak of is one I have personally been doing for over 13 years.
Long-to-short, life traumas and uncertainty have made me do exactly what you did when it came to thinking, "I could just run out into the street and make it all end.". However I'd be stopped by the results of my demise's impact on those closest to me.
I had the most thoughts of ending my life in 2012. I was stuck in Pittsburgh under conditions that did not allow me to physically move much, if at all. I could not see as my eye imploded from an overly successful surgery. There is a laundry list of how I considred ending the pain... but I didn't for, again, the trees, branches, and roots you made mention of.
In 2014, I very unproudly experienced an even worse feeling. This being truly wanting to kill someone. I had mental images of how I'd do it, what I'd say while doing it, and feeling I would have avenged the wrongs done to me in which this person, who I trusted for years, allowed to be done to me.
I almost slept for 4 days straight when I bailed away from that homicidal consideration. It was terrible. I really and truly wanted to kill her. I wanted to do it by my own hands until it was over. It is my greatest hope you have never, nor ever do, get into this state of mind as the homicidal 'rabbit hole' is terrible and, once opened, you know it is there and do all you can to make sure you don't get there again.
***
You're right about our thoughts. However there is something about our thoughts that we can do to make them less negative. This being to take a strong feeling, write it out, and see what you think after those thoughts are out. You also have what I learned to do. This being 'rewriting' life moments / thoughts to where I want them to be. You can't control your thoughts. However you can control how those thoughts get used. Use them properly and they will not haunt you as badly.
***
My wife left me nearly 2 years ago. It was not because I was totally blind but for just how, as she said, she had been losing feelings for me since 2012. What hurt most is she was dating someone immediately after she said she was done.
Since then, she is now on relationship #5 since leaving me. Our son is not happy with it and, at times, I wonder if I was really that awful to be around to where she'd go out and continually be with other men and women.
***
Life has quite the way of continually pushing and kicking us down. However, if you can, try to use your writing talents to 'rebuild' the hurt along with 'negative thoughts'. What saved me was owning that which I cannot control by finding a way to control it. As an author, you can 'control' outcomes. Sometimes just being able to 1UP the situation in fiction is all it takes to feel notably better.
All my best to you, Ms. rarity.