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Clearly it’s not so clear.

Events of these past few weeks have dredged up memories from less stable times like a month ago.

And while digging for nylons that didn’t have major runs in them, I found my duct-tape covered Binder of Angst. Where I wrote page after page of depressing poetry between the ages of 13 and embarrassingly-old-for-that-sort-of-thing.

I’ve been fairly open about my struggles with depression and anxiety, I think.

Those that have known me since way back when can probably tell you that I’ve had these “issues” since at least adolescence. Example? Excerpt from angst-filled poem written when I was all of 14.

 

Losing control
Out of my mind
Selling my soul
One piece at a time

I don’t live
I just exist
What kind of life is this?

Clearly not the mind of a well child.  Of course, I couldn’t really see it at the time. My head was clouded, both by mental demons and by religious convictions. I was convinced that I, too, could be normal. If I just read my Bible every day, and prayed a little harder.

There’s a song that I learned as a child that actually runs through my head every time I see the phrases. It went (in part), “Read your Bible and Pray ever day, Pray ever day, Pray every day. Read your Bible and Pray every day, and you’ll grow, grow, grow!”  But I digress. I think.

I wish I could look back at that and shake my head, and say, “Gosh, am I ever glad I outgrew that!”

But I can’t.

Because I haven’t outgrown it yet. Not the hopelessness that catches up to me more often than I’d like to admit, nor the tendency to write angst-riddled, poorly constructed poetry.

The main difference is that at least now I admit and embrace my lack of skills, rather than convincing myself that I will someday be rich and famous. Don’t laugh, 14 year old girls tend to have rich imaginations, you know.

I realized the other night that I’m much farther from moving on from that stage than I thought.

After a week spent picking fights with the husband, bankers and the dog, I lay there in my darkened bedroom, possibly because none of my family/friends could stand being in the same room as I, contemplating how physical pain is closely linked to mental pain. I realized that clearly there are times where I am still just a scared, pissed-off little girl.

I wish there were a better conclusion to this post. I wish I could say, “And so I realized that, in order to fix everything, I merely need to start doing XYZ! And then life will revert to rainbows and snuggly puppy hugs! Yay!”

But. Alas, no such clarity was bestowed upon me.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 12th, 2010 at 6:20 PM and is filed under Mental, The Past. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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