You Were Never Supposed To Fit In

Life is what you dream it, but they seem to not want us to dream. What are we doing? We always make fun of the one that’s trying to save us, and only want to support them after they’re dead. I am tired of being silent. Tired of trying to make sure everyone likes me. I spent too much time shrinking myself just to be in your presence. I thought it was polite, but now I know that it’s just self-deprecating.

Sometimes I get this weird under-feeling that I am making myself feel like this, and it scares me. It truly does. Do I want to be this sick all the time? Why do I not just get up out of bed and do the work? Can’t I just snap out of it? But maybe there wasn’t really something wrong with me, more than there was something wrong with how I understood my own brain.

We are not taught how to exist in our body, just how to exist in the world. And so when we feel like we had it figured out and it all comes crumbling down, we no longer trust our actions or theirs. But on the same note, life is beautiful. I want to live. I want to feel the sun on my cheeks and the soul in my chest. I want to sing my heart out for hundreds to hear. I want to travel to every country, every state, every continent just so I can understand more. I just want to understand you, and I just want you to understand me. Because maybe then we could all call it a truce.

I am tired of staying silent because I am afraid someone will think I am crazy. I have OCD, anxiety, myofascial syndrome, persistent depression, other specified or related bipolar disorder, hypermobility, patellar instability, PTSD. I am unemployed. I graduated magna cum laude. I have been in therapy since 2014. I have published two books (one at the age of 17 and one at 21—I’m 24). I got dismissed from an MBA program because my health was deteriorating and I didn’t know what to do about it but keep juggling like I always did.

I am a bisexual, Black, Buddhist woman who is very creative, thoughtful, kind, empathetic, and caring, but also sees faults in all of these qualities. I am just a girl trying to live a broken life in a broken world, because until we do something about what is happening, that’s all we will really be doing.

Why are we not all screaming with our hands up outside, crying and throwing up? I would understand freaking out like that, but instead we choose to be silent or do nothing about it. I get it. You are doing the best you can, but I think that something drastic has to happen, and I don’t really fault anyone for not taking that next step—it’s scary. They kill people with big ideas. They kill people that dream big. They kill people that solve chronic problems. So I understand that maybe no one wants to take that stand.

So I feel that the second-best option is for us all to stand up together. No one ever said we had to do this alone. We just made it that way. This system was set because man set it. But it’s not always graduate high school, graduate college, get a job, have a family, and live happily ever after. No, that is not the key anymore.

The thing I wanted most as a kid was a happy family, and I promised myself that if I lived to an age where I could have kids—I didn’t even know if I would make it that far—I would do it differently. I suppose I thought having kids would fix my problems. Not in a toxic way, but I really wanted to support someone the way I wasn’t supported. Allow them to be them. Loud, weird, dumb, creative, and fully supported, with their wellbeing first.

I hate that halfway through writing or telling someone my idea I start feeling like what I am creating is stupid and it was always just a bad idea. It’s a constant fight against myself. I want to create all the time, but I also forget how to do basic household tasks and things to take care of my body. It’s a telltale sign that I mentioned my environment before I mentioned my own body. I don’t know what it is. Deep down I feel like I love myself, but for some reason I can’t “love” myself. What the fuck is up with that?

So I stay in this cycle of feeling bad for myself, hurting myself, and hating myself. But then I have this feeling that I don’t really hate myself, I just hate that I can never cope with situations. I always felt like I was too sensitive, too loud, too talkative, doing too much daydreaming. So what am I supposed to do now?

The thing I am best at is creating, but I am just too scared to create. Because who gets paid to create? It feels like a rare occurrence and it seems to always have a stipulation. The reason is because art is dangerous if we use it right. They want us to cut down the music because it makes them uncomfortable. Now here we are, and no one feels comfortable.