From the Ashes a Fire Can Be Woken?

I didn't watch any of the video because I don't generally like watching people - but the first part....

I finally got around to listening to this.

Life is a funny thing.

It's a terrible, wonderful thing.

I go through...phases. Moods. Anyone that's talked to me (or read through this blog, or my stories, or has any contact with me for any period of time....) is aware of this. Is aware of the predominent one. Is aware of the....surviving ones.

There's a few main ones: overwhelming hopelessness and terror, joy, numbness, and clarity.

Hopelessness and terror are the primary ones it seems.

The times at night I wake up from a nightmare, from the sickening assurety that I did NOT want to die just then. The times I looked in the mirror and knew with a certainty that I had absolutely no worth, no value - that I was only good to be an example of what NOT to be for others. The time I prayed and praised and felt only that I was falling, falling, falling....

Lost.

Hopelessness and terror and doubt and fear and overwhelming worthlessness and emptiness. Loneliness. Drowning alone in a crowd of people.

How often have I felt this way? How long have I felt this way?

Long enough that I thought it would be forever. Long enough that I had no idea how to get out - if I could get out. If maybe I was just made this way.

....it was a funny thing about a month ago: it all. went. away.

In some ways? It was relieving. Amazing. I was....free, light, hopeful - alive.

In most ways it made it worse when I crashed again. When I woke up again to feel those venemous fingers clenching around my heart and mind.

Then there's clarity.

There are two versions of this: there's the version that goes hand in hand with the despair, and the version that goes along with the emptiness.

Clarity often is the same as emptiness.

It's not so much 'emptiness' as it is 'numbness' - the silence of the voices inside of me, the anger and doubt and fear inside of me. I don't feel anything, I don't care about anything - I am....sort of at rest. Sort of.

....Clarity is that voice inside of me that is outside. The logical voice. The one that points out how much of an idiot I'm being. How much of a pessimist I'm being. How much I am CLINGING to my depression because I'm afraid of healing, afraid of changing. How much I am hurting those around me by insisting I am worthless, that I do nothing well, that they are being kind by complimenting me on anything.

Clarity is that voice that points out that that I complain about the same things repeatedly - that I struggle with the same things constantly. That points out that I burden people with my problems under the guise of looking for help but never actually ACCEPT the help. That points out I'm more comfortable being broken than I am not.

Clarity is the voice that points out that i want to be remembered for failing at least. For doing something on my own. Clarity points out I want to be NOTICED. Listened to. heard.

If it is with my death, so be it.

Of course, as that distanced voice points this out - speaks tinged witht he negativity and regret and fear and hopelessness that I've fallen into, wrapped myself in - I only fall further into darkness, knowing it's true.

And then there's the Clarity that stands outside of it all and sees that I'm just running myself down to the ground - caught up in an infinite downward spiral that's destroying me.

I'm self-destructing.

Part of me wants to heal.

Part of me doesn't want to be made well.

Part of me knows it's not hopeless yet.

Part of me screams that it was hopeless the day I was born.

When you talk to me? When you get caught up in one of those nights when I'm screaming at myself and I pull you down into the maelstrom I've built inside myself? When you get left on the recieving end of listening to my same complaints over, and over, and over again? When you have to hear me apologising for apologising for smiling?

I'm listening. I'm listening so very, very desperately.

I don't have anything left to lose anymore, really.

I'm listening.

Part of me is screaming. Hates myself for hoping. Hates myself for listening. Hates myself for burdening you with myself.

Part of me is quiet. Part of me won't shut up - won't go to sleep. Part of me remembers what you say - turns it over and over, thinks about it - builds up one little brink in the bridge out of here. Builds up one more thread in the rope I pray will lift me out of myself.

Joy.

I had joy once.

I was a child once. Happy.

....I'm not a child anymore. I haven't been for a very, very long time.

I learnt to depend on myself. I learnt to not trust anyone. I learnt to not love. I learnt to doubt. I learnt to not believe in fairytales.

I was so empty all of the time - so distanced from myself. Broken, but I didn't know why. Then I was in a play that was basically an allegory of sorts for the salvation story.

Since then I've felt. Maybe it was acting. Maybe it was the act of reaching into myself to find emotions again so I could act them out. Maybe it was it was just stress shattering another piece of myself.

So now I trust without wanting to. I love expecting to get crushed. I believe knowing it will come to nothing. I dream even while i say dreams aren't real.

I'm looking.

Desperately, hopelessly, hopefully.... I'm praying at an empty sky, believing in something that's never worked before. I'm torn between two truths - torn between what I've been taught is true and what is true.

I'm torn between truth and lies. between what I've known and what is. Between death and life.

But I'm listening. I'm trying. In the stillness I hear. I'm lost - falling; but I'm listening.

So when you talk? I'm listening. When you teach me? I'm learning.

It feels like I'm going against every single particle of myself.

But I'm listening.

You are invaluable. Your words are treasured.

Sokrovisha.

Krasivayusha.

Korosha.

I'm believing in a fairy tale because there's nothing else. I'm believing in the lie becuase what's 'true' isn't really. I'm believing in others because I can't trust myself.

So forgive me. Please.

I'm believing a game because it's all I've known and because there's no other choice.

I'm sorry.

(This is written in one of the moments of clarity......in one of those moments when I'm quiet.)