Since my blog readership is limited, I will be getting rather personal here and discussing some issues with which I have been struggling lately. I know that this is a very long post but it is something that I needed to do. I won’t be offended if you don’t read it all.
You may or may not know that I have been dealing with some very serious depression. About a month and a half ago things began to pile up, stress was really getting to me, and I had some other personal problems that I won’t get into here. One day I was in Wichita, and one of the afore mentioned factors just set me off. I drove five blocks before I stopped the car and could not move. My body was racked with sobs and I couldn’t control my crying. All I could think about was how much I wanted things to be over. I was tired of trying, tired feeling alone and lost, tired of feeling worthless. I sat in the car for 20 or 30 minutes, crying, thinking about where the best place to wreck my car was and where I would have the least chance of surviving without endangering anyone else. I contemplated writing a note to leave in my pocket, explaining what was going on, that it was no one’s fault but my own and that I didn’t want anyone to feel guilty. I just felt that it would be easier this way, to not have to worry about anything. I didn’t know if God would forgive me for doing this, but at that point death and hell was better than life.
After a while, I don’t know how long, I tried to call my mom, several times, but she didn’t answer. I didn’t leave any messages because I thought it would be easier if I just didn’t. Finally, I felt that I had calmed down enough that I felt I could drive again. When I set out I didn’t know where I would go. If I should try to drive back to Newton and shrug this off, not talking about it like I had done in the past, or if I should go to the Harder’s and try to talk to someone, hoping that I would figure things out. I didn’t decide for most of the trip, not really caring, beginning to drive recklessly for a minute before calming down. Eventually I made it to the Harder’s and as soon as I got there, I was showered in hugs and love, but they knew something was wrong. Lois asked if I wanted to talk and I could barely say yes, so we headed over to the church. I knew that this was critical and that if I didn’t tell her everything I would probably not be alive for very much longer. We talked for what felt like a long time. I cried most of it. I told her everything that I could, which was not everything. (I don’t know if I will ever be able to talk to someone about certain things.) When I had settled down we headed back to their house and the evening got better.
The next day I sought out the professional help that I needed. I talked to Chad Childs, the VP for Student Life here at Bethel, and he connected me with the counseling service that the college provides with Prairie View. That Friday I went and had my first counseling session. I explained my situation and what was going, my history with depression and how I had dealt with it in the past, and the route that we wanted to take for treatment of this illness. By this time I was feeling better and was unable to articulate very well why I my self-esteem was so low and why I hated myself so much. We decided that it would be best for me to enter long-term therapy and also begin medication. From this point on the story begins to become less intense and thing began to level out.
I know that parts of this paragraph are out of order but it doesn’t fit anywhere. That day I felt as though I was the most selfish person in the entire world. I knew how killing myself would affect others. That everyone who loved me would feel the pain that I had escaped. I knew that it was the easy way out but at the same time, it would be the hardest thing that I could ever do. I didn’t know if I would have the courage to follow through with what I felt was best, but I knew that it would be incredibly selfish. Most people think that committing suicide is a cowardly way out; that it is something that a weak, crazy, disturbed person would do. I beg to differ. Suicide is incredibly hard. Please believe me when I say that committing suicide is not cowardly, but courageous and that it takes a very brave person to be able to go through with it. I am not a very brave person. I am a coward who was too weak to do the one thing that I truly wanted at that point. At this point I am still unsure how glad I am that I am such a coward. When you read this please understand that this is a realization that I have just come to. I am not currently thinking about committing suicide but I still think about how much easier it would be if I had followed through that day.
What exactly prompted this incredibly long post? Why am I baring parts of my soul that I have told so very few people to you readers? I don’t really know. This evening was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me so I suppose that this could have been the trigger. I played some basketball tonight and was out of control. Is it normal to lose almost all emotional control when playing basketball? Is it normal to not care what people were thinking about? Specifically how their image of me was changing the longer we played as I became more and more frustrated? One of the sources of my self-hatred that my therapist worked on with me was anger and controlling my anger. These strategies have worked relatively well since we have talked about them. In ordinary situations I have been more able to maintain control of my temper and be more respectful and confrontational with people rather than being passive aggressive as is my nature. However, there are exceptions to this, the prime one being the basketball court. No matter how hard I try to not care, to control my emotions, to not let me performance or the actions of other get to me, it does. And once that happens I cannot stop what has been set in motion. This is the primary trigger today. The reason that I am writing. But now that I have explained everything, I’m going to go even deeper. I’m going to write about some things that I have been thinking about a lot lately. I plan to write about aspects of me that I don’t like, or know what to think of, so please offer your suggestions and thoughts. None of these questions are rhetorical.
To begin this section of the post, what is your favorite style of music? Is it classical or rock or country or pop or whatever? How does it sound and feel? How does it make you feel? To fully understand me you must know that my favorite music crosses all genres and styles. It does not inspire or bring about awe, it is not necessarily upbeat and fast, or all slow for that matter. The music that I love the most is depressing. It make me sad, it makes me cry, it makes me want to be able to express what I think and feel in songs that make someone else feel the same way. Why do you love the music that you do? I believe that I love this music so much because it makes me feel sad and depressed and it makes me cry. It makes me feel vulnerable and small and weak and unimportant. So if it makes me feel all these things why do I like it? Why do I put myself through these feelings? They can’t be good for me, can they? I believe that I like these songs so much because I like feeling sad, depressed, sad, yes I know I said sad twice. I like crying. I don’t know why I like these things so much but I do. I played two of these songs for my mom recently, the ones that I had just discovered, and she asked why I liked them so much. I didn’t have an answer for her at that point. Mom, here is your answer. I like them because I can relate to them, or I want to believe that I can relate to them. I feel broken, just as one of them says, although it is a different type of broken. It also could be that I just want to relate to them. I want to be broken. I want to have an excuse to fail or something like that, this is a thought that I cannot yet articulate but I want to express it as best I can at this point. I will try to include the songs or links to them if I can. Even as I write this I am listening to the playlist titled “Today.” I don’t know exactly why I titled it this way but I think that it might be related to my depression and the potential for me to feel depressed or down each and every day. This is my favorite combination of songs ever, if you’re reading, sorry Jason.
Now that you have read my musical insight, I will try to explain several other things that I have been thinking about, not just lately, but really, all the time. I struggle to live in the present. No, that is putting it too lightly. I rarely ever live completely in the present. I am constantly thinking about what I want to do tomorrow or the next day or in a year or five years or 50 years. I think about the future and the life that I want to have and what I want to do in that life and how I am probably never going to have that life. I am also constantly thinking about the past and what I have done, both the good and the bad. Things that I am happy with and look back on with fond memories and things that I hate and wish I had never done. Most of these memories have to do with girls. But either way, I do not live in the present. I don’t really think about today. This is another source of my self-hatred; one that I have not worked on and have no idea how to begin. I have no idea how to live in the present. Period. There is a significant part of me that can’t wait until I graduate and get a job. I have this perception that it will be easier socially. Things won’t all be based around people. It will be so much easier to find time and space to be alone. Completely alone. It seems like it would be more consistent and I could spend time with friends when I wanted but it wouldn’t be every night. I want to feel worth something and maybe when I am no longer being a burden on others I can experience that.
Along with my future gazing I think constantly about teaching. At this point in my life it is my only real passion. Sure I like playing guitar and mandolin, reading and taking pictures, but I don’t have the dedication to those things that I do to teaching. I want to be a better guitar player and there are times that I have moments of inspiration and I say that I’m going to start playing more, stretching myself and getting better, but then 10 minutes later I have forgotten about it. Teaching is the only thing that I haven’t done that with and while you might think that this is a good thing since it is the field that I will be entering shortly, it isn’t. I am scared to death of teaching. I love it so much but I am scared to death that I will be a horrible teacher, that the students will hate me and I will not be able to teach them anything. I know that all of you are saying to yourselves, “You will be a great teacher, what are you talking about?” But there is absolutely no way that you could know that. Have you seen me teach anything? Have you talked to anyone who has? What makes you an expert who know what makes a good teacher? These are the things I think about and worry about almost all the time. The thoughts that I cannot get out of my head.
Finally, yes this is the last thing that I want to talk about this entry, the juicy part. At this point in my life I am single, and I am happy with life this way. I feel free, I don’t have to hang out with anyone or do anything. But at the same time, I want to be in a relationship. I want to have someone I can spend time with when I feel upset or angry or happy or whatever. I want someone to “make” me watch chick flicks. I want someone to hold me when I feel alone. I want all of these things and yet I don’t want them. What the hell! Another thought about my romantic interests, or lack there of, is that there is so much that I want from this person. I’m pretty sure that I will never find a person who will be everything that I am expecting and more which presents a problem that I struggle with. My solution to this issue is to think about any number of others who all together would have all the pieces that I am looking for but I can find flaws in each individually. I read something this summer in my study of family systems theory and birth order that really caught my eye. It said that the youngest minority male often times has problems being “satisfied” with one female because for so long they have had older sister and a mother taking care of them. I fit into this mold quite well and am currently wondering whether this might be a self-fulfilling prophesy.
I know that to you this all might seem quite random but there is a connection in my mind and this has been a therapeutic process for me. Thank-you to everyone who cares enough to suffer through my ramblings and I hope that you now feel as though you know me better through these writings. I would welcome anyone who wants to talk about what I’ve written here. I love you all because love is more powerful than anything I know, even though I may not know what love is.
Love and peace,
Daniel
Here are the links to the two songs I played for my mom.
And for good measure, a picture from the snow this weekend.
Just an idea of what I've been doing this interterm when I haven't been making prints or watching youtube videos for class. My favorites are mixed in with some others.
