The joy of being miserable
So the other day (Monday, if I recall), it was raining here in Southern Cali. I was at work, and went to my lunch break around 12:30. Now, I normally eat at the food court in the mall, which due to the L-shape of the mall, would be easier to reach by walking outside and cutting through the parking lot, instead of staying inside. So in order to conserve energy, I apply Pythagoreas' theorem and walk directly to my destination. That and the fact that I enjoy watching drivers follow me cause they think I'm leaving the mall and walking to my car and they want my parking spot. It amuses me to no end when they follow me for 10 minutes, then see me cross the street and head back into the mall and they honk and yell and flip me off and I yell back at them to 'blow my ten inch DICK'. This game is especially fun during the holidays, when people are so insane with holiday shopping that they cease to exhibit normal human behavior. Good times.
So anyways, there I was leisurely making my way across the parking lot (because I wasn't all that hungry so I wasn't in a hurry), when the mild drizzle turned back into an all out downpour, and the wind kicked up with enough force to make me unbalanced.
Recently, things in my life have taken a turn for the worse. My parents had increased the frequency of their histrionic fits and the immature crap they keep throwing at me. An ex I had a messy break-up with came back into my life with her new boyfriend and embarked on a vicious and deliberate campaign to throw it in my face with a complete disregard for me and my feelings. My best friend and I had an actual disagreement, nay, a full-blown argument with yelling and short tempers and a smothering sense of frustration.
So as I'm meandering along, iPod on random, contemplating all these things crashing down on me at once, the song on my iPod changes to "Bleed" by Cold, which is a simple song, raw with despair and is the most depressing song I have in my vast collection. I decide to stop walking, and stood there with my arms held open, and welcomed the storm. I stood there, rain soaking me to the bone, wind whipping my hair, clouds dark and menacing looking, Scooter Ward's lonesome voice and guitar in my ear, and I had never felt so miserable in my entire life. So completely dark and depressed and conflicted and confused and totally, utterly alone.
It felt fan-fucking-tastic.
Not literally of course. Depression isn't a warm, tingly feeling. But it was fantastic in that I could *feel* it. Up until that point, I had generally felt kind of.. empty and numb. Like I was walking through my days with my emotions dulled. Each time Shannon sashayed past my store with her new ogre of a boyfriend, making sure I was looking when she stopped him and kissed him, I felt nothing. A small sense of anger at her immaturity perhaps, but for the most part, I didn't feel anything. But there, in that parking lot, I felt something, and I felt something intensely, and it's been a couple months since I've felt something so strongly.
The second part of it being fantastic is the fact that I can feel depressed, and I'm not afraid to feel depressed. In my past, I've found many alternative ways, some extremely harmful to my health, to handle depression instead of just dealing with it. I've been clean for 3 years now, and there had always a lingering fear that one of these days I wouldn't be able to handle those types of feelings and head right back to coke as a way to cope. But I've now reached the point where I'll only give one nanoseconds' thought to using drugs to make these feelings go away (the thought will never completely go away, any ex-addict who tells you otherwise is full of shit; true addiction is for life, the only thing that changes when you go clean is how much power you let it hold over you). Rather, I'll let myself bask in the glorious feeling of depression and feel intensely happy with the fact that I'm no longer too chickenshit to experience life and feel like a normal person without the crutch of substances.
I am not afraid.
So anyways, there I was leisurely making my way across the parking lot (because I wasn't all that hungry so I wasn't in a hurry), when the mild drizzle turned back into an all out downpour, and the wind kicked up with enough force to make me unbalanced.
Recently, things in my life have taken a turn for the worse. My parents had increased the frequency of their histrionic fits and the immature crap they keep throwing at me. An ex I had a messy break-up with came back into my life with her new boyfriend and embarked on a vicious and deliberate campaign to throw it in my face with a complete disregard for me and my feelings. My best friend and I had an actual disagreement, nay, a full-blown argument with yelling and short tempers and a smothering sense of frustration.
So as I'm meandering along, iPod on random, contemplating all these things crashing down on me at once, the song on my iPod changes to "Bleed" by Cold, which is a simple song, raw with despair and is the most depressing song I have in my vast collection. I decide to stop walking, and stood there with my arms held open, and welcomed the storm. I stood there, rain soaking me to the bone, wind whipping my hair, clouds dark and menacing looking, Scooter Ward's lonesome voice and guitar in my ear, and I had never felt so miserable in my entire life. So completely dark and depressed and conflicted and confused and totally, utterly alone.
It felt fan-fucking-tastic.
Not literally of course. Depression isn't a warm, tingly feeling. But it was fantastic in that I could *feel* it. Up until that point, I had generally felt kind of.. empty and numb. Like I was walking through my days with my emotions dulled. Each time Shannon sashayed past my store with her new ogre of a boyfriend, making sure I was looking when she stopped him and kissed him, I felt nothing. A small sense of anger at her immaturity perhaps, but for the most part, I didn't feel anything. But there, in that parking lot, I felt something, and I felt something intensely, and it's been a couple months since I've felt something so strongly.
The second part of it being fantastic is the fact that I can feel depressed, and I'm not afraid to feel depressed. In my past, I've found many alternative ways, some extremely harmful to my health, to handle depression instead of just dealing with it. I've been clean for 3 years now, and there had always a lingering fear that one of these days I wouldn't be able to handle those types of feelings and head right back to coke as a way to cope. But I've now reached the point where I'll only give one nanoseconds' thought to using drugs to make these feelings go away (the thought will never completely go away, any ex-addict who tells you otherwise is full of shit; true addiction is for life, the only thing that changes when you go clean is how much power you let it hold over you). Rather, I'll let myself bask in the glorious feeling of depression and feel intensely happy with the fact that I'm no longer too chickenshit to experience life and feel like a normal person without the crutch of substances.
I am not afraid.
posted by chosen at 1/06/2006
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