lost

I'm lost.

So lost I don't even know where I am anymore

And I didn't even realize I was lost until I looked up and realized I couldn't remember how I got here.

A friend told me to try writing about it. Maybe that would help. Maybe that would ignite something in my brain and I would remember who I was again.

As a kid I always felt so sure about everything. I was going to move to New York and go to Columbia and be on Broadway. And then I got scared of moving so far away from home.

And then I was sure I was going to move to California and work for Disney and one day I would work myself up to be an Imagineer. And then I moved to California, and I worked at Disney, and I realized how horrid it was. And it drained everything about me.

And I was sure I was going to marry that boy and we would have a family and I would be a stay at home mom who was an author of YA novels. And I did not marry him and I fell out of love with him and that was ok. But in the darkness that came with that, I also lost all of my creative spark that made me believe I would be a great author.

Writing for kids seemed so easy when I was a kid. I wrote my first manuscript at 15. A Cinderella type story. Wrote it all in a month after being inspired from a book about writing.

My second book came at 16, a story about having a sibling with Autism that I wrote for my best friend.

And another book at 18, a behemoth of 300+ pages about Wendy being torn away from Neverland and struggling to find her way back after it was lost to her. I loved that book, still consider it one of my greatest works. It was the last piece of my writing that my dad read before he died. I wouldn't let him read it until it was finished. It came together when he was in the hospital and he took it with him to his chemo treatments. He was the one who urged me to go to school for writing. He was the one who said my true gift was writing.

And yet I'm the one that's lost now.

I'm 26 and I don't know where the last 8 years went. I graduated college 5 years ago, and it seems like I've been treading water ever since, getting farther and farther away from shore.

And I just don't know where to go.

I look towards the future in my mind and it's empty. Like there's nothing there. I mean, the important things are there, like my boyfriend and my best friends.

But people keep asking me what it is I want to do...and I really don't have an answer for them. Because I feel like nothing.

And even that is not necessarily true.

What I want to do is go back to that childhood version of myself that was so sure she was going to move to New York and be on Broadway. I want to move to New York. I want to audition for shows and try to make something of myself. I don't feel like I was ever happier than I was on stage. I want to try and find that happy again.

But I say nothing because it seems impossible to me. I am too old. I have nothing on my resume since 2010. I am not coordinated enough to dance anymore. The only singing I do is to soundtracks alone in my car.

And I look around and I just feel so lost.

The Burden

My brain won't let me type the words I have to say. It's really frustrating because the entire time I was on my way home, I knew precisely the right way to lay it out. But now that I'm here staring at the page, everything goes blank.

I guess the gist of what I'm trying to say is that there's two sides of depression-- the during and the after. When you're in the midst of the depression, you feel like you need to bottle it all in. You feel like you can't talk to anyone about it because you don't want to bother them. You feel like you're in it alone, because you are a burden to everyone. 

You know somewhere in the back of your brain that that's not true.

But the rest of your brain is full of black clouds, full of bars on windows that won't let you see that rational place at the back of your brain. 

It's a war zone and you're lucky you're alive in the first place.

But then there's the part of the "after" depression, cuz, you know, depression is like being an alcoholic, you'll always be one no matter the length of time that passes.

When the worst part of the depression is over, when the black rain cloud that has shrouded your brain for years and years on end finally moves along, you begin to see it in others. And you never want them to feel the way you did. You want to do everything in your power to keep that feeling as far away from them as possible.

You fight with all your might to keep your loved ones safe. You try to take on their battles and you fight off that black cloud that is shrouding their brain like an old enemy. And you toe the lie, because you're doing this because you love them and you want them to know they are not alone.

And the thing that sucks about it, is that you know that they feel the full force of that burden. They know you genuinely care and are not bothered by them, but it's in the back of their brain full of black clouds and bars on windows that won't let them see that place in the back of their brain.

It's a war zone and you just hope they survive.

stronger

I've noticed a repetitive theme in my writing and my thinking and my life dealing with mental illness.

I constantly feel like I'm so detached from the person that I used to be "pre-mental illness". I always strive to be back to that person.

I want to be that person that didn't feel dead inside. The person that took joy in everything. The person that always had a reason to be happy to be alive.

The weird thing is that lately I've noticed I will occasionally start to feel like my old self again.

And the more I feel it, the more I realize that I don't want to be her again. The time that I idolize in my mind never really existed.

She was unhealthy.

She had so many issues.

She wasn't a nice person. To herself or to those around her.

She let her emotions take over Would go blind with rage. Red with jealousy.

And she would let herself fall so far into the black hole of her mind, that it would take days to get out if it didn't destroy her all together.

The more that I sit and think about these things, the more that I realize that depression has always been a part of me and who I am.

I don't want to be the old me anymore.

She's bullshit.

I just want to be one thing.

Stronger.

I want to move forward with life and allow myself to feel my emotions, but not let them overpower my common sense.

I am learning to be kinder to people, including myself. Because everyone is already hard enough on themselves.

I'm not going to let my mind take over anymore, not allowing myself to get destroyed from the inside out.

I strive to build healthy relationships with people and not let myself get the better of me. I want to understand that everyone has a past, including myself. It does not define them.

I accept that I have my issues and that what I am will always be a part of who I am, but it will not define who I will become.

I will not be in denial about who I used to be. But I will not be that person again.

I will be stronger.

black hole

The thing about black holes is that they look so beautiful from afar.

They look peaceful.

They literally redesign the universe around them.

And in their eyes, you can see into an entirely new universe. Or maybe you see into nothing.

No one really knows.

Sometimes I feel like a black hole.

I start out as a star.

Bright.

Providing to those around me.

Going along just like I always have been.

And here's the thing; all I want to be is a star.

I just want to go about my day as I was intended to, providing happiness to the worlds around me.

I want to enjoy things and not worry about breaking and destroying it all.

All I want is to be happy.

But I feel myself starting to crack. I feel everything that I've built up inside of me, the strength and the power that has taken me billions of years to form, start to fall away. I feel myself imploding.

And I've seen it happen before.

I break and slowly, so slowly, I start to fall into myself, start to fall into darkness.

And everything that made me happy, everything that I helped, everything that I helped build and grow gets sucked away.

The light I once had is gone.

And I'm wasting away into nothing at all.

numb.

Is this what happiness feels like?

It's been so long, I think I've forgotten how to feel.

Because it's been so long, and all I've ever known is numb.

One day at a time, I try to feel something new, something real. I try to enjoy the little things in life. I try to feel the breeze that brushes across my face and actually feel something. Anything.

And all I want to feel is happy.

Sometimes I wonder if I do feel happy, and my brain is so confused, so shocked, that all it's letting me feel is nothing. 

Sometimes I worry that I will never be able to experience true happiness again because my brain has forgotten how to respond with anything but numb.

Sometimes I think that maybe I'm fooling myself into thinking I'm happy, when in truth, I'm still nowhere near.

Mental illness sucks. I can never be sure that the feelings I feel are mine, or if they're part of the messed up chemicals that are misfiring in my brain. I never know if what I am is actually me.

Things have been going so right for me lately.

So many reasons for me to have moved on and feel like my life is improving. So many reasons that I should be happy.

And yet, the more I fight to have access to my feelings --the more I try to engage with those parts of my feelings that I haven't touched in years--the harder it is to feel anything at all.

But I still fight, because I know I'm meant to feel more than numb. I'm meant to feel happy.

This is what happiness feels like, right?

crash

I've almost managed to tune it out completely.

It plays constantly, but I move so fast, it fades into the background.

The faster I move, the farther away it seems. The more normal it seems to feel.

If I don't stop, it won't catch me.

And if I take a moment to breathe, it will consume me whole.

And so we keep going. Going, going, going. And it's never gone.

It's loud.

It consumes me at every moment, so loud I can barely hear myself think. I just have to process louder, think louder, talk louder, be louder than the loudest thing I've ever known.

From time to time, I'll sit down and can ignore the noise. Pretend like everything is OK.

It's not until I'm truly by myself, until I truly have nothing else to do to occupy my time, does it take over.

Like waves, the noise inside my head crashes over me, time and time again. It's overwhelming, it's too much to handle, and it doesn't ever stop for long. It comes to be too much where I can't hear anything else, can't see anything else. It's just everywhere. And it never ends.

And if I stop and sit there for too long, I will drown.

There are times, though, when all is silent.

Those scare me.

Times when I listen to the right song. Times when I'm with my friends and having a good time. Times when my dog is cuddling with me and everything just seems OK.

Perhaps the most terrifying of all are the times when I'm the most vulnerable, but I feel completely protected. When I'm content to lay there in silence, and have it actually be silence. To make it feel like the noise never even existed in the first place.

Like none if it was ever actually there. And it just feels so...right.

I sit there and wait for the next wave to break, wait for it to crash into me. And wait for my safety and protection to turn back into drowning. The anticipation of the ending of that feeling lasts a lifetime.

And that's what scares me the most.

smudge.

  There is a hole in my soul. 

  Maybe not so much a hole as it is a smudge. And the more I scrub at it to get rid of it, the larger it gets. That pesky black smudge keeps getting larger and larger until I can’t remember the parts of me it’s even covering.

  Maybe I’m down there. The real me. The one that is funny and sassy and likes to have a good time. 

  The me that can stay up until all hours of the night talking and laughing. 

  The me that can trust. 

  The me that feels excited about the smallest things in life. 

  The me that doesn’t feel the need to sleep constantly so I can ignore my loneliness. 

  The me that feels passion. 

  The me that wants to write anything and everything.

  It's been 5 years since I’ve felt like myself.

  Not that you were the integral thing that made me feel more like myself and without you it’s suddenly gone.

  No. There was something within me that existed before you and somehow now that you’re gone, it’s disappeared too. Like you spilled the ink that made the smudge and covered that part of myself.

  I can already hear people’s thoughts if they read this. Here she goes, talking about him again. Won’t she ever stop and get over it? 

  I am over you. For the record.

  But this isn’t about you. I don’t hate you. But I hate the mess that you’ve left behind.

  The only time lately where I truly feel almost like myself again is the moments when I’m alone in my car and I’m blasting some of my favorite bands, bands I listened to before you. And I’m shouting along to the lyrics and I feel…alive.

  We all joke about how we’re dead inside. It’s my personal favorite type of humor.

  What if it’s true?

  What if the smudge is not a smudge and the mess is not a mess. What if it’s pieces of me withering away and dying, never to come back to life again?

  What if I’m actually dead inside, never to come back to life again? Never able to have my quick witted humor come through again? Never able to trust again? Never able to feel truly alive again?

  Chelsea—dead at 25. Maybe earlier, actually.

  Chelsea—dead at 21, but didn’t realize it until 25.

  Here are my wishes, in case you were curious. I want to be turned into a tree, no plaque, no memento. And at my burial (planting?) I want “Blackbird” by the Beatles to play. Oh, and I want an open bar. And for everyone to bring their dogs to visit my tree so they can pee on it.

  But most of all, I want it to be a happy occasion. I want to be a happy little tree (thanks Bob Ross).

  Funny how I can discuss the biggest commitment of the afterlife, but in real everyday life, I have trouble committing to anything.

  And I have you to blame for a lot of this. It was a huge whirlwind of a relationship, of promises of commitment and belief that we could beat the odds. I planned a whole life at 20 years old, figured out a career and a life path that would work for us.

  And when it was over, I was 3 weeks away from graduation and never more clueless about what I wanted in my life. You dropped the first blot of ink.

  With time, I decided I wanted a life for myself. I would be independent. I would make my own plans, and do my own things and never wait around for a man or let one change anything that I wanted to do. I was going to life every day for the rest of my life for myself, and myself alone. 

  Now if I only knew who myself was.

  I scrub and scrub and scrub at that smudge on my soul and it never gets smaller.

  I try to find myself in any way that I can. Writing doesn’t appeal to me anymore—you have to have some form of passion within your soul for that. But I can’t see my soul. 

  I tried to find myself in booze, but instead found a lot of bad decisions that wrecked more havoc on my soul.

  I tried to find myself in work, but instead found that I can’t seem to be truly happy no matter where I am. No matter how hard I work, how high I climb, it never seems enough.

  I tried to maintain strong friendships, which have gotten me through more than anything. My true friendships have brought me up, have given me glimpses at my true self, make me remember who I’ve always been.

  But friendships only go so far. Friendships can’t be with you at 2am when you can’t sleep and can only stare at the ceiling, wondering how you got yourself here.

  I’ve moved on from you. I’ve gotten hurt, not by my own design. Things outside of anyone’s control have kept me apart from some true connections. Failure after failure has gotten me questioning if maybe I’m meant to be alone.

  And the smudge grows larger.

  At this point, I sabotage anyone that tries to get close to me.

  I swipe left and right, and occasionally I’ll meet someone who I feel like I can maybe connect with. And very quickly afterwards, before we even meet, I find some great reasons not to continue this.

  Chelsea, dead at 25, ghosts every man that walks into her life.

  And the thought that maybe I’m not good enough grows more. And I’m the one watering that plant. I’m the dog peeing on my own tree.

  Part of me thinks maybe I need some major life change to help blot out that stain. Maybe if I move 3000 miles away to the other side of the country, I’ll find some form of happiness out there in the sunshine. 

  I could outrun my issues. 

  Maybe I can run right into myself.

  Or maybe everything will be the exact same, but now I’ll just live 3000 miles away from almost all of my friends and I have another excuse to fall deeper into the black pit of my soul.

  ...

  And I still won’t be myself.