Connection And Suffering

Intro

I am not okay. And neither are you. I am swamped with trauma, some days floored by it. I can get by okay, but on the days that it takes me, when it pulls me down and drowns me, I don’t even know what to do with myself. Most recently I resolved to lying face down on my bed and passing out. I find suffering to be odd and hilarious. It always feels like melodrama, silly issues that are better forgotten, but I know my feelings are important. Recently I’ve been doing some introspection, and I’ve found myself on the cusp of growth and maturity. I’m somewhere between the boy I’ve always hated, and the man I’d like to be, and in this journey, I need to come to terms with the darker parts of my past. I think art it about expression, and about being yourself. Most people are okay being themselves everyday, but a lot of us don’t have the courage to show ourselves. I don’t mean in the way that gets you arrested, I mean in the way that makes you vulnerable. The way that makes you feel small and silly and childish. I’m sure you all know this feeling because you’ve fought this feeling. The need to show something resting deep within you, something not easily communicated. Art is about exposing our problems and showing them on the worlds stage, so that maybe they can find a resolution or conclusion. If another person lives this, that person being the character or subject of the work, then maybe you’ll have a chance to look down at yourself and understand your issues better. What I’m trying to say is, in order to truly grow, I need to open myself up in ways I’ve never wanted to, and that begins with the revelation I had last night, alone in the dark, after an hour of rambling to myself and pacing my room. I realized very miraculously how ordinary I am. How everyone, no matter how hard it is to believe, thinks in a similar, if not the same way as I do. This all sounds silly I’m sure, but I’ll get into it. What I’m really here to talk about is the fact that we’re all a lot more similar, and a lot more connected than we believe. I hope that by sharing sharing my own suffering with you all, you can be closer to understanding and connecting with yourselves, and in the process each other. That is the point after all.

Trauma

I am full with trauma. I only realized how full recently, how I had been staring it in the face year after year, how it had been sleeping inside, and rearing its face around my mother. It’s roots stretch deep into the crevices of my memory, the parts that lie in depths where if not so pungent they might have been forgotten. But the sight of her makes it all surface, the smallest flicker of anger makes me curl up into a ball, and suddenly I’ve got the survival instincts of a five year old who just wants to watch cartoons and play with Power Rangers. A child who wasn’t particularly against his mom, or living with her, but knew that he would never last there. I haven’t been able to let go, or move on, because she never apologized, and more importantly she never changed. Even as I become an adult she continues to treat me like a child, and abuse me in all the same ways she always has. She pushes blame for a million things onto me, and tries to use how I turned out to slander my father, though it only ever makes me feel horrible about myself. No mother should ever treat their child like this, making them feel small and resentful. But it doesn’t matter how much I cry, how stiff and distant I am, how many walls I put up to keep her out,  she’ll never stop trying to have her way with a child that’s grown up, and a life that passed years ago. She’s neurotic and obsessive, and I’m tired of it. I am tired of trauma. But today I’m hoping it does some good.

Connection

To be human is weird because to be human is to always be connected. We’re all born, we all die, and between them, we all suffer. Nobody escapes pain, and certain heartaches in life seem to be more common than others. Hearing that there are eight billion people on Earth scares some, but it comforts me. Because out there, beyond the noise, is someone like me. And like you. Someone who has fallen on hard times, who has walked the same path, and every now and then, steps on the same grass and mud you have. They didn’t think they would get through it, just like you don’t think you’ll get through it. Though one way or another, we keep going forward. Do you see what I mean? We all think, we all feel, and we all suffer. I know that other people have struggled with their parents, and have found a way to better their lives. And if a million people before me can do it, then I can do it next. We have to learn to take comfort in one another, and draw our strength from the feats of others. Living in this world can be hard, but in the end we need to let each other in, remind each other than we suffer too. There’s so much more to it than this, and it’s not as easy as typing a word and hitting upload, but I hope that through this, through my words, you all can make a better way for yourselves. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last seventeen years of living, its that in order to end your pain, you have to share it. As much as I look to end my sorrows, I hope that something I wrote today will help ease yours. You are not unique. You are not alone.