SIMPLY ELABORATE blog

Archive for the ‘emotional’ Category

I wrote a goal list out tonight. It stemmed from a really long, beautiful talk I had with my friend Laura. It just came out, all these things that I was feeling, not a sappy “cry your eyes out” talk but lately I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been wrong and seem to have these talks with everyone. I didn’t fully figure it out, but I started. I decided that things started changing in my life around the same time I started acting like a different person. I started acting like a different person when I started hanging out with new people.

In some ways, I really like this person I became, as I was more open and outgoing, and generally, more happy. But as time has gone by, the more I realize that a lot of stuff has happened and a lot has changed. The more open and outgoing I was, the less I began to know about myself. I’ve lost myself in this quest to fit in with others, this quest to better my life in seemingly other ways than what used to be enough. I always wanted to see what else was out there in terms of the way I looked at my life and acted in it.

And I did. And quite frankly, I don’t like it too much.

I like it, but this person, this overly-outgoing person has made me lose touch with who I am. Being by myself – which is something that I really prided myself in doing, and liking. Somehow, now, I can’t seem to do it. There’s some incessant need I have to go and always be doing something, and by doing that, I never seem to have any time to do nothing. And I think that’s a big deal. This whole change, it’s not anybody else’s fault but my own. But at least I can do something about it now.

I told Laura about how I used to draw all the time and paint, and other stuff like that. I told her about how I bought a new sketchbook in the summer to start again but somehow it didn’t work out. And she told me that the answer to all my problems was right in front of me, because I’d dared enough to question myself, my actions and my wants and needs.

She told me “you’ve already bought that sketchbook, Emilia, now all you have to do is open it” and I sat back and thought about that for second. And I kind of haven’t stopped thinking about it.

I’m opening the sketchbook. I’m ready to do that now. I came home, rearranged my room, finished up a reading I have due for tomorrow and got ready for my counselling appointment I have on Thursday. Yes, I finally made one. I’m ready to get better, I’m ready to change. I ventured off, I changed my life last year, but I figured out that I didn’t like who I had become while doing it. So I’m going to change again. It’s all in the process of growing up, right?

It’s something my sister always tells me when I’m in “crisis mode” and need her advice. She always tells me that everything I’m feeling is normal, which I believe, but I hate feeling like it. But she says, I have to feel like this in order to realize the aspects of my life I don’t like, and learn how to stand up to them.

I’m ready to do this. I’m standing up to this. I will do whatever it takes to make myself feel better, because I need my footing on my life back.

And this time, I’m confident that I’m going to get it.

I went to a health fair at my university today.  A friend of mine asked me to be her date for it and I happily accepted and brought C along with me.  While I was there, listening to the stories of the doctors they had on hand made me realize a lot of stuff about myself.

I’ve been feeling really “down in the dumps” lately, for lack of a better saying, and I haven’t been able to figure out why or what to do to get out of it.  These pamphlets they handed out gave a lot of “do you feel like …” with a semi-diagnosis at the end.  According to these fabulous phamplets, I may have a slight form of depression.  Big surprise.  But tomorrow there’s a free health screening at our student centre and I really want to go to it.  And I am.  C’s going with me and making sure I go, because I asked her to.  Basically it went like this:

ME:     I know that this isn’t your problem and not something that you need to deal with, but tomorrow, when you wake up, can you make sure I wake up too?  And make sure I leave the house to go to this screening?

C:       I will go with you to the screening to make sure you go.

Just knowing that someone’s going to go with me, to be there with me, makes me feel better about the whole thing, because I think recognizing the problem is the first step to wanting to do something about it.  L, the one who asked me to go to this thing in the first place, said I didn’t seem like the person who needed to go to the screening at all.  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes because she’s not the first person to tell me that when I’ve mentioned that I think I have a problem.  C, knowing the conversations we’ve been having over the last few months told L that she believed that if I wanted to go, I should.  It felt good to have someone understand that.  To others, it may seem that nothing’s wrong and I’m a well rounded individual (not to say that I’m not) but I don’t understand this stigma of if you’re not a full out alcoholic or addicted to drugs or have an eating disorder that you don’t need help sometimes.

I need help sometimes.  I need help now.  I’ve realized this and I want to do something about it now before it fucks up my life any more than I feel it already has.  I need to make time for more important things in my life, one of those things being me.  I’ve put myself on the back burner for a long time this past year, without really knowing why.

I think mostly it has to do with the fact that for such a long time in my life, I was alone, content with dealing with my introverted self because I had no other option.  It might sound pathetic, but I enjoyed it, I got used to it, and I dealt with it.  During that time, my love for writing grew, I read, drew, sketched, painted and refined my HTML skills.  Once I started to become a more people person, I honed in on my skills for communicating with others.  After a while, socializing became a priority because I wasn’t used to balancing my introverted self with my extroverted one.  I’m paying for it now.  I don’t really do any of the hobbies I mentioned above that much and I constantly miss it.  And I don’t know how to get them back because the socializing still seems to take a forefront sometimes.

How do you balance it?  Is it possible to be both types of people?  For the last year, I’ve made countless new and strengthening friendships, but at the same time, I’ve lost my sense of self in a way.

And I want it back.

- my arms have been itchy for days and i can’t stop stratching. heat generates from the marks i create and the itch is not satisfied.

- i can’t sleep.

- i’m hungry all the time, but as soon as i eat, whatever i’ve just had makes me sick. – thoughts have been pouring through my mind and i can’t get rid of them. and i want to. because they’re thoughts of the past that cannot be changed.

- i’m uneasy.

- i want to be around people but i want to be alone.

- i want people to understand what’s happening but i can’t because i don’t even know.

- i would like some support regardless. but i know i’m just going to end up losing it all.

I’m going to the Avril Lavigne concert tomorrow and I’m saddened by the fact that Butch Walker is not going to be the opener for her as he is for every other show she’s performing.

I’m weirded out by this going home event. I feel as though it’s been so long since I’ve been there, because so many things have changed since the last time I was there.

I’m wondering what it takes to change something. Is it our actions? Our feelings? The fact that we grow up more and more every day? The fact that maybe we become more and more like our childhood selves each day?

I’ve recently been thinking about cutting my hair, not trimming it like I’ve been doing for the past two years but chopping it all off. Doing the whole cut off the back ponytail and donate it to wigs for cancer or something and change the way I look. E says that it probably means it’s because I feel that changing the way I look will help me change the way I want to be as a person. I don’t know if he’s right. I mean, if I had access to a car when A left, I know I would have visited a hairstylist and gotten a crew cut. I just wanted to be unrecognizable. This time, it wouldn’t be a spur of the moment type of deal, I have actually been thinking about cutting my hair off. It’s difficult for me to say that, or maybe for some people to here from me because my hair is really a part of life. I know it sounds stupid and superficial but my long hair has been a part of me for more than two years and a goal of mine for I don’t know how long. Well, the point is, I’ve reached my goal. I did it. I have long hair. Really long hair, like two to three inches past my bra strap. And what did I accomplish by it? Wow, I have long hair and it’s not damaged by the constant heat straight iron I use. Has it made me a better person? I don’t think so. I’m sick of it. It gets oily fast. Takes up my time to style it. And uses so much hair product for it to look good. And I’ve spent the last ten minutes writing about it.

But the thing I want to know is, can your appearance change who you are as a person? Your hair, eye colour, weight or style? Can it affect how you act towards others? Or to yourself?

I’ve spent so much time out of my life changing who I am in order to find out who I am. And I feel as though it’s been a waste. I’ve had, um, maybe four different eye colours, yet I still have poor eyesight, even worse from when I started. My hair has had so many different styles and I don’t even know what the point of that was.

It doesn’t change who you are, none of it does. I guess because that’s what is a part of you. Your appearance is a part of you, and if E’s right, and I want to chop my hair off because I feel like it will somehow change me? I don’t know, but maybe that’s exactly what I do want.

I just want to do something. Something that will get me out of this plateau of indifference, boredom and pain.

And I’m in desperate need of a haircut.

It’s all been said and done. 24 hours of October 1st have finished. And I’m old. I’m now 20. No longer a teenager on the brink of everything. I’m now an adult on route to life. It’s funny how the time flies so fast and you feel as though the world is spinning around you like a merry-go-round out of control waiting for you to jump on.

Yesterday had to have been the most stressful, confusing, pull myself in every direction day unlike any other. I have a love-hate relationship with those days. I hate that I didn’t get to sit down for two seconds with myself and just sit and think – today is my birthday. But I love that I got to see almost everyone and had a good time.

I guess that’s the deal on birthdays, it’s a love-hate relationship with getting older.