Boatloads of shame/better daughter/son

Life is good and life is great but also difficult. That's a given I know. I'm just annoyed because I know I'm not doing anything bad or weird or too terribly awkward, I'm attractive, I have social skills, I'm funny, interesting, etc. yet most days I wake up with this ache in my gut and chest filling me with shame and regret and guilt. I can't quite quantify it, but I feel like it happens every time I have any sort of social interaction. I don't dwell on dumb things I said like I used to. I rationalize with myself about how people are too focused on themselves anyway to worry about something I may or may not have said or acted like. Yet this feeling still persists. I think this is depression but I keep going. I can't let it engulf me again because it's a lot easier (but not less painful necessarily) to fight and keep your head above water than to succumb to it - it's a lot more painful to make that journey back out from my experience. 

I keep listening to the Rilo Kiley song called Better Daughter/Son. This line gets me "and sometimes when you're on, you're really f***ing on, and your friends they sing along and they love you, but the lows are so extreme that the good seems f***ing cheap, and it teases you for weeks in its absence. But you'll fight, and you'll make it through you'll fake it if you have to and you'll show up for work with a smile

You'll be better you'll be smarter And more grown up and a better daughter

Or son and a real good friend

You'll be awake and you'll be alert

You'll be positive though it hurts

And you'll laugh and embrace all your friends

You'll be a real good listener

You'll be honest, you'll be brave

You'll be handsome, you'll be beautiful

You'll be happy

Your ship may be coming in

You're weak but not giving in

To the cries and the wails of the valley below

Your ship may be coming in

You're weak but not giving in

And you'll fight it you'll go out fighting all of them...

I have written you down

I love lyrical prose. Words are lovely. Alas, words are also just that. People talk and talk but what they do speaks volumes. This cliche we are all intimately acquainted with. I have found myself in the most interesting predicament as of late. I have always struggled against my so called Mormon culture while still maintaining my faith. I guess over the last year is when things really tipped toward losing my faith more than anything else. The culture of the world became so much more attractive, yet my belief was always still there gnawing at me, beckoning, even begging at times. I've really only entertained certain notions in my mind, but oh how the pull has become stronger to act in different ways. And then of course there has to be a boy. Attractive and worldly wise, whispering wistful notions in my head. It's really not him though. I just get really excited to be able to connect with someone and crave that feeling of being fully accepted. But like every blessing I receive, 'not him, not yet, patience my child'  there are still things I struggle with, probably always will, but one thing I cannot deny is that of my faith in the fundamental principles of the gospel; God as our father and Jesus Christ our Savior.
So this is me trying to cling to my faith still and trust that I will find a way to move forward in the way that I'm supposed to.

I can walk a miracle

Can I get paid every time a guy tells me that I'm not worth dating because I don't believe in my worth? It sounds stupid when I say it like that, and maybe it is, but this time didn't even bother me; well, it bothered me but I started laughing and thought "wow my life is a joke."  I know I'm supposed to find validation within but it's really hard when this keeps happening.

Update: I realized it doesn't matter anymore because I can't base how I feel based on someone else's perception even if it's true. It is just exhausting. I know the difference between people who drain me and people who make me light up and get excited about life. I'm still in the midst of big questions and doing stupid things but I'm figuring it out.

I capture the sun

I sink down into the chair, a futile search for comfort. Closed eyes manifest a layering of sounds: sports announcers, a call for drinks, slot machines, and drunken yells.

"what's wrong?"

I search for the words as my brain floods with the usual criticisms. ... 'Stop acting so immature,' I think to myself.

"nothing... " I mumble then add, "I'm just in a bad mood."

I'm still learning how to take care of myself.

No man is an island, I tell myself. I'm told I have style and that I'm gorgeous. I'm told a lot of things. Validation. I try to hold onto this, but it leaks through my fingers like wet sand. Ocean waves crash in my head; I try to drown out the words of worthlessness.

Heart accompanies body sinking into chair. The island in my head dark and lonely, water eroding shore.  Back and forth, the tide takes no thought for its actions.  So why can't I, like the waves of the sea, accept what is and just be?

Dissociation

I dont know if I will be back in the day when I was in the hospital haha I will probably transfer to a new job haha the gym and the gym is so crowded sometimes the room is a very nice and clean up the good news is that the world is ending. .....  I just clicked the top row of prediction words on my keyboard. It's actually rather telling. This is your subconscious dissociative nightmare.

paradoxically trapped between ignorant numbness and apathetic bliss. It's like walking in a dream, but not a pleasant one. This is a dream where you can see yourself in the distance, drifting along dusty desert landscapes made interesting only by the lengthening shadows of the encroaching twilight. Only once in a while a snake or something of the sort, or perhaps just a shadow, hijacks your amygdala. Panic rises and falls again. Then resume wandering. Listless. Lethargic. Amnesiac.

There are people there but you don't really see them or remember them. Like trying to read a page on the verge of sleep. Eyes can't focus. Disconnected. I'M THE THE PERSON WHO IS A GREAT FRIEND AND SERVES OTHERS TO KNOW ABOUT THE SWINE FLU LIKE THAT AND THE OTHER HAND I AM MOVING FROM THE SINGLES WARD THIS WEEK AGAIN. it's your subconscious screaming at you from the void.
The doctors told you that you were your mind but I disagree. Your mind is a machine evolved to connect words. To connect anything. It wants to prove itself, but it's a paradox. A thinking box. Building blocks.

An elastic snaps against your wrist. A friend offers to smack you in the face. You laugh and joke and cry but those are merely bodily reflexes at this point, akin to a cough or sneeze.

The mind is a paradox. It talks and it talks.

..... Rough draft.  Just toying with new style about what I've been feeling lately.