One Step forward, Two leaps back...

Hi, it's been a while. This is going to be a but of a ranty waffle, but as I said it's been a while...


I scare myself sometimes. Some thoughts are so overpowering its hard to tell what's real and what's not. It's been a long time since I've been able to write anything down. It's been hard to be honest with myself like I had been doing before my break away from the blog.

My motivation has been shot to pieces. Before this was really helping, but something happened that made me stop. I can't really tell what it was, my brain just stopped me from articulating how I've been feeling.
The darkness has been overwhelming, the inability to function properly has been excruciating. I've wanted to open up here so much and be honest but somehow the darkside has been winning.

I think about death a lot now. Not suicide though. I don't have that in me. I don't want to hurt anyone more than this disease has already caused me to do. But I'm getting so tired. Because of this though I've made some huge steps. I have a therapist now. I finally got there. It's both uplifting and difficult. There's so much hidden in me that bringing up things old and new has helped both confuse and make sense of so many things. I've taken that first step into battle, and I have no desire to retreat. I need to face the past, present and future and take power of my life again. I want to live. I want to live my life to its full potential. I know I deserve that. I live wanting other people to live their lives and I need to realise and hold onto the fact that I want that for myself.


I look at pictures of when I was little, Smiling and laughing, but now unable to recognise that person in me anymore. I want to meet him again. I want people to see that in me again. I don't want people to refer to me as someone who "used to laugh so much when you were little". I want to laugh now, I want to feel it through every little bit of me. I want my eyes to open and my muscles and stomach to ache from happiness and not from anxiety and tension and not being able to eat or hold food down. I don't want to be how I am now. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be me.


There are hurdles getting in the way. I thought I was making some progress the other day. I felt good for the first time in however long. I'd found an inch of confidence and I liked it. Then I left the house and got mugged on the way to see my therapist. FUCKING. TYPICAL. The experience threw me two leaps back and took away those feelings I had finally picked up after such a long time instantly. At first I felt that the universe must have something against me, that it's telling me that I'm not allowed to feel those positive feelings I was experiencing at that time. Every time I've been mugged (four times now, "Lucky Pete" they call me), I've felt really good beforehand. The spiral my brain goes down every time tries to convince me that the world is against me and that I deserve to be unhappy.
But that's not right. As much as the demons inside me try to make me believe it. It's stupid, horrible, bad luck. It makes me disillusioned with the world and society yes, but I shouldn't let it cause me to judge myself. I'm vulnerable at the best of times and I don't need a piece of utter scum to make me feel even more so. I will in a natural, "I've just been violated and it was FUCKING SCARY" way, but I can't let it in a "Pete" way. That complete and utter shit is society's problem. Yes I am part of society, but I have my own problems I need to concentrate on.    


I was petrified of writing any of that, but I'm glad I did. Feel like I'm able to take a little step towards getting that leap back. So maybe I'll be hopping around here again a little bit more... if you're lucky.

Let me out.

I haven't enjoyed being me for a long time. It's not that I don't like who I am, I think as a whole I'm a pretty good and decent person. 

Through bullying as a teenager my life as me took a massive knock. It made me ask too many questions about myself and made me think that people who weren't nice to me were that way because there must be something about me that people don't like. I know now years after that that wasn't the case and those people attacking me had problems with themselves and I was an easy target. Quiet, sensitive, inoffensive and non-threatening. Though realising these things hasn't made me enjoy being me much more over the years. Yes I've enjoyed parts of my life, and certainly enjoyed the people in it but my feelings about myself have affected my relationships with friends, family and partners and have stopped me taking full advantage of them and therefore my own happiness.

I think most people like me when I meet them, or at least don't dislike me. But is that just because I want them to? Maybe some people really don't because I'm so bothered about not offending them or what they think of me that  people see me as fake? I'm really sure I'm not fake. I really do want to see the best in people, I want to be interested in what they have to say, but I want them to be interested in what I have to say too. I want to like people and find it really awkward when I don't and can't. But I have to realise that we are all different and that's why sometimes we can't help but clash. 

I'm getting better at being indifferent to those people, to accepting those who I can't click with and challenging those who I disagree with or am offended by. It's important that people I know and consider friends, like me. They contribute to my happiness and I don't want to damage that. However there will always be clashes due to differences and they can be confronted without offending or hurting each other. The important bit is to be level headed, honest and constructive. It doesn't always go down well immediately but in the long term it's vital for relationships to grow and mature.

I want to enjoy being me. I have little reason to not to appreciate myself more and take the most from what I have, but part of me is stopping doing that and I need to find out exactly why that is and take the appropriate action. I need to find a sledge hammer to break down that wall and get out there and take advantage of what's on the other side. It's something I could probably write a thesis on and I know I've got a long way to go in figuring out what to do to sort it out. It's just something I had to write down to set the ball rolling. It helps.

Learning How to Scream.

Anger is an emotion I find so difficult to express. Don't get me wrong it's there (much more than I want right now) I just have no idea what to do with it, which scares me to bits.  


In the short term music helps, but the problem with that is that someone else is expressing anger for me. That's not my rage, its theirs and that's why listening to music isn't going to solve the frustration boiling up inside me. I might feel I understand what they are saying, but they have no idea what's going on in my head and there again is something I need to address. This is MY anger and not anyone else's and I need to get that into my neatly clippered flat capped skull that it is my responsibility to sort it out.


Ever since I was little I haven't been able to shout out how I felt in fear of upsetting or hurting someone else. One example being that I was once scratched in the face by a little girl in front of her mother. I stood there frozen wanting to swipe back but I was unable to in fear of what might happen and how it will make her feel. 

Now I certainly don't ever want to be violent, thats not who I am and it would be something upsettingly serious to bring me to that level, but I need an outlet. I need a voice. I need the confidence to tell myself it's ok to be angry about things.

I'm afraid what I've let stew inside me all my life will boil over and become messy. I don't want or need that and can't let that happen. All I need is a way to show it and to do that I may have to do something I find even more difficult than being angry. BE A BIT MORE SELFISH.