struggle to juggle

I feel overwhelmed, like I'm a juggler in a never-ending show. I know balancing aspects of life is not unique to me but what am I doing wrong? It can't be this tiring right?

I'm trying to sort out my mental wellbeing, trying to figure out who I am and what I am going to do in the future. It just feels too much sometimes that I don't even bother trying. I can't just separate them, they come in a package deal. I feel like crap and I want to be alone but at the same time, I want to go out of my comfort zone and not feel lonely. There's this battle in my heart and no matter what I always end up losing. I go out even though I feel like being in my room but I don't socialise enough to gain new friends that I can talk to that isn't limited to time before lecture starts. In the end, I'm still alone but somehow more tired, more alone. I'm trying but it feels like it isn't working.

My future, a big question mark, another thorn among the thorn bush encircling my mind. I have no clue what's going to happen. The infinite possibilities used to excite me but now it just slowly chokes me until I get my numbing agent. Worry is useless since it can't solve anything, sounds reasonable but I can't do it. Just adding another reason in a long list of why I'm angry at myself. What am I going to do? At this point, I don't know, internships are already open to apply but I don't know if it has closed yet and my resumé is just a blank page. I came here to figure out my life but it feels like the only thing I've done is remembering how lost I still am.

New place, same old crap

I knew it wasn't going to be that easy, that I would be able to run away from everything, be halfway around the world and hopefully from my problems.

As the novelty of being in a new place fades away, I'm back at the place where I fled, forever a captive. I am not fleeing anymore, just staying stationary, letting it consume me once again because I realised I can never escape, at least not with physical distance. How do you escape from your shadow while fleeing away from darkness.

Sometimes I feel so alone, so disconnected and it wasn't as if I didn't try, try to initiate conversation, try to be more outgoing but trying to swim when you're so tired just being afloat is difficult. In the end, I'm back at the starting line, more alone than I thought possible and too tired to go on.

I'm seeking help again. Week 5, new record I guess. Took me 6 weeks back in real life to crack again, such a fragile little creature. I wore my bleeding heart on my sleeves for them, hoping for a salve, a cure to make it stop hurting, stop torturing my mind as I lay wide awake at night, to make it better before I become desperate enough to stop its beating altogether. They heard my woes, saw my sleeves stained red, gave me comfort but in the end I left again with a trail of blood.

With kindness in her eyes and empathy oozing from her voice, one of them said, ' I think you're the only one that can truly help yourself, no one can provide you an answer to solve all your problems'. With that I left, with my t-shirt stained red and with my mask put on. I always return to numbing agent, better to feel numb than pain. Oh, I know it doesn't help solve the problem, just leaving the wound to fester but I that was all I could do.It's easier to say I'm fine when I'm numb cause that's the truth, I am as fine as I could be. With the numbing agent, I could get up, eat, shower, dress... appear like a functioning person so no one would ask me questions I don't want to answer.

The other ask me to fill in a form, to rate myself on a couple of aspects, to manifest a numerical score of my pains and problems. I understand the rational behind the test, to give a simplistic but essential introductory view into my mental state. But do they know when I rate that I am able to get up to lectures every day, I do this because if I want to appear like a normal being; When I say I am able to hand in my assignments on time, do they know what it is at the cost of deteriorating my already fragile mental state? But I fill it in anyway because I hope she can help me, help me to become a person that doesn't fluctuate between detesting his life and numbness.

Who can I talk to? The friends that know are going through their own turmoil. I feel like we're all in an alcoholic anonymous meeting, every time we talk, it is about our woes, the crap we have to deal with to live a normal life again, the addiction to victimising ourselves. Once the meeting is over, we go back to our own separate lives, no longer in contact until the next meeting. I see pictures of them having fun, eating good food with other friend, but me, as their 'best friend' only get the sad part of their lives, a meeting/rant once a fortnight then its goodbye until the next one. I'm angry at them but more so myself because even though I want them to be happy, I want them to share the happiness with me, not just all the problems but shouldn't I be content that they are happy regardless whether it is with me or other people?

I don't know what to say in those meetings anymore. How many times I can say'I'm sorry for what you're going through' and how many times can I say I'm freaking depressed in another way. I feel helpless when they tell me what they are going through because I can't say anything comforting because I don't believe it myself and they know it as well. All I hope is that they find comfort in knowing my ears is always there for them but lately, I don't feel like that's the case anymore. I don't think it's a case of me wanting to feel like I'm wanted, it just feels like I'm holding a rope that supports you and vice versa but your grip is loosening up and I'm holding on yours even though it looks like you don't need me to hold onto your top anymore. So why bother?

Woe is me, I'm the victim, poor little me. For once, hate is not too strong a word to describe my feelings toward something which in this case is myself.

The naggy one

I really don't understand why I keep trying to correct my dad's behavior. It's not like he actually listens and changes. In the end, I am the one who gets frustrated and become the bad guy, the "naggy" one.

Example scenario from tonight:

After dinner, I saw dad grabbing two apples to peel.

Me: I don't want an apple.

Dad: It's for mom and I.

Me: Mom doesn't like eating apples after dinner. You did this multiple times before and she told you that she doesn't like it.

Dad: If I peeled it then she'll has to eat it. The apples are crunchy and sweet.

Me: It's not about how good the apple taste, she's full after dinner and she doesn't want it.

Dad ignores me and keep on peeling the apple. He gave it to mom after she came downstairs.

Mom: I don't want it. I am full and I just brushed my teeth.

Dad: Eat it, it's crunchy and sweet.

Me: I told dad that you didn't want it.

Mom: Ricky, help me eat half of it.

Me: No.

Then I started to gloat/nag my dad to which he ignores and call me a nag. I started to get frustrated because I told him it would happen but he seldom listens. I vowed to myself more than once that I will not do it again but I still do it every time. The scenario frequently ends with me frustrated and snappy with him ignoring all of what I just said.

Please, I beg of myself, don't do this to yourself anymore. Let him do what he wants.

I can't start writing that freaking personal statement. Everytime I want to start it, there's a barrier and my motivations just withers like leaves in autumn. How can I convince someone else to give me a chance when I can't even convince myself to do so.

I can't do it and I'm willing to do pretty much anything else as long as they are not beneficial to avoid this.

What is my life right now? A whinny and ungrateful young adult who has pulled out of two universities. That's the freaking page that I have been stuck on for 3 months and there seems to be no way out.

I keep doubting myself and wishing that this was all a dream, and all will be well once I wake up from my deep slumber. Great, add delusional to the growing list of what's wrong with me.

Positive thoughts, positive thoughts, positive thoughts... I am awesome. I can slay that personal statement. I am a self-aware young man. I have hope. I still have a chance.

Unhappy

I spent too much time worrying about not being happy in the future until I became unhappy in the present.

Numbing agent

For me, distractions are like analgesics, without it the pain floods in. I rather be numb than experience the self-loathing and despondency.

Oh, I know full well that distractions are just temporary relief, they don't remedy my source of pain. Moreover, I have to start facing reality without all these distractions to really start getting my life back together.

However, I got used to feeling numb and I am scared of pain. I am too cowardly to forgo my numbing agent to face my life in hopes of getting better. Watching youtube video mindlessly beats going down memory lane reliving all your failures and disappointments.

I am trying though, well at least I'm trying to try. I really want to get better, to live again and not just be numb. But everyday I wake up saying this is the day but I get lulled into my comfort zone and all is forgotten.

I am still going to try though because I know if I don't then there really is no hope of recovery, no hope of a better life.

Now, I am avoiding FB. It just hurts too much when I scroll down see my friends moving on with their lives, seemingly happy. Pictures of brunches, outings and birthday celebrations just reminds me of what I could have and what I have lost. I am too selfish now to be a good friend, I don't want to contact any of them or see how they are progressing in their life.

Being in this state really screws with my mind. I want to be happy for them, I truly do but I can't do that, at least not genuinely.

I know we all have our own hidden demons/crap in life and they might be in a similar state but I don't know what to do. How I can give comfort when I don't know what to say, when I don't want to talk, when all I want to do is watch video mindlessly and tell the world to leave me the heck alone.

Hope. I want more hope. I want to have faith again. Rediscover when I never though I was lost is hard but I better freaking do it.

2 Corinthians 1:5

For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

A repeating cycle

Somedays I go to bed determined that tomorrow will be a good day for me, I will make sure of it. Filled with hope, I shut my eyes and dream, dream of a better tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I will be out of my slump, maybe tomorrow it will be a whole new chapter, maybe tomorrow I will paint on a new canvass, retiring the old one filled with tears.

Then I wake up, rubbing my eyes and looking at the surroundings. Same old, same old but it's a new beginning for me. I won't let life screw me over, I will fight today, beat the drum of war because I am tired of being the victim. However, as the day goes on, my conviction wanes because indeed everything is still the same.

Just because I decided to have a new beginning doesn't mean that all the suffocating baggage is gone, the issues are still there, the source of pain is still firmly lodged in my heart. I try to maintain the hope that I had gain but to no avail. By afternoon, I have become despondent and give up once again. The cycle of hate continues to swirl and manifest in my heart as the last sliver of hope disintegrates into nothingness. Once again numbness overcomes as I navigate through life, smiling when needed, spoke when asked and cry when alone.

After a few days, the surge of hope comes and the story repeats itself. In the end, I don't trust that feeling of hope anymore because only devastation and disappointments follow. Every day is not a new day just because you want it to be, standing up is not easy just because you wish it every night and persistence wanes when light fades yet again like thunder on a dark sky, a flash of hope followed by consuming darkness.

The solution seems so simple to everyone around me. Get crap together and do something, fight for yourself, stand up when you fall down, don't think negative thoughts and you'll be right as rain.

Oh how I wish you could be in my shoes, experience for a while how I feel. It's like people handing me the same manual over and over again asking me to follow it to finish the task. I followed it but the problem is still there and people keep giving me the same manual and telling me that it should work. Do you know how frustrating it is to hear the same thing repeatedly even though it is laced with good intentions? How much it hurts when I am reminded on my screwed up life since they insist the manual works but it isn't so I must be the problem as if I don't know that already.

Slumber is the only escape and thankfully for me it still comes fairly easy but I don't know how long it'll last.