The past

To all the people who say to be in the present and just keep moving forward: BS. Gosh people don't know what they are talking about. Don't listen to anything that anyone says unless it feels right. BS BS. They say things and don't know what the heck they are saying. For years I have been trying to fix all my crap by "moving forward (exaggerated negative sarcastic voice)" and "being in the now" but really all I have been doing is running away from real issues in my past that I don't feel like I can mentally deal with. Running and running and running. It's amazing how much people think they know and how entitled they feel to give their opinion as if it were fact. "Girl, I was there, that is NOT what happened."
They have their issues too so I will be nice. I understand, they simply want to feel loved in their own mixed up way. Validation. Feeling important. We seek after all these things and forget that by being true to our thoughts and feelings we are drawn closer to those around us who struggle and there is no greater feeling than sharing your deepest, scariest inner self with someone for no other reason than the need to share. And then, when you feel understood, you are ready to understand.
Yeah, yeah, I talk about all of this as if I know. I'm just saying that this is it, this is real. These are my feelings: unadulterated and with no frills. No more filters. Well, some. I guess no one can ever really say "no more." We don't just choose to stop doing something and then be done, no sane person at least. Yeah, people quit smoking on a whim, but any true behavior that has occurred again and again is connected to our mental makeup. We can't will our neurons to fire a different way or disconnect memories to experiences.
I'm done.

Fix me, Passion Pit.
Passion Pit - Kingdom Come

Not until...

I seem to tell myself things like "I won't be happy until I figure out how to not be intimidated by other guys." I don't know how long I have been telling myself things like that but I know that if I don't notice the thought that I will start to act around it and construct my life in a way that makes it true. In other words, I have been living in a way that doesn't make room for happiness until all my problems are figured out which translates into never being happy. Stupid naps.

And again

Again I am able to see the transition of depression. Man, is it tough. I am so used to fighting it that I don't realize how all-consuming it can become. It seems like it could go on forever. A half hour ago all I ever wanted to do for the rest of my life was sleep. That is literally what I thought. I thought to myself "There is nothing in this world that I want to do right now. Absolutely nothing seems appealing." It is those thoughts that one can barely grasp that drug me out of it. And that is how it feels. It feels like being drug out of a feeling. As it happened, I realized that if I pushed too hard, I would fall back down again. So fragile. Right now as I type I can feel it simmering on the surface again and simple from acknowledging it, it started to go away, but if I didn't type about it, I would have inevitably slowly fallen back into it. Awareness is more than simply acknowledging something, it is more about not being afraid and giving up but not giving in. It is so complicated. I could try to ignore the feeling in hopes that it would go away, and it would continue to get worse and worse. I could start to get afraid from it and it would get worse. I could look for things to fight it with and it would get worse. This time, it was simply drawing my attention to it that it got better, but i can't try that next time because that will be a form of fighting it and whenever I fight it, it gets worse. It is very fragile. People can't understand unless they have REALLY felt it. And you can't REALLY feel it unless it has become a way of life for you. One day, two days; doesn't really cut it. When it becomes normal for you, it becomes a whole different game. Getting out doesn't "just happen" and your mind knows that. You know that in an hour it may come back and tomorrow won't be much different. It CAN'T be much different because then it wouldn't be true recovery and that thought is depressing all on its own. I know that next week I won't feel like much has changed because the change has to be so slight that I don't notice it for it to be effective. My system can't handle a big internal change, it wouldn't know how to react. It's like working out: if someone just piled a bunch of muscle on me in one fell swoop, it would quickly go away because I wouldn't know what to do with all of it. If I didn't have the habit of working out and doing what I would do with that muscle, I would quickly lose it. Or it could be like hitting the gym really hard; I would only get super sore and pull something. Maybe these analogies are my brain's way of saying "dude, we gotta work out." Crap, I really don't want to. I need to get a whole new routine now that I don't have access to my school's gym.

I love this CD. It was a very surprising CD to me. It felt like I had a musical hole in my soul that I didn't know about.
Junior Boys - FM

Don't want to

Maybe one of the reasons people with depression are immobile in making decisions and have no desire to do anything at all is due to some mental/physical/emotional habit of running away from thoughts. When we don't want to do something, we think about it, think how we don't want to do it, think about something else, do something else, think about it again, and continue to go through this process until we eventually do it. This may be a very quick process (a minute), or really long (a few hours/days). I think when someone has depression, they have physical and mental reactions to simple thoughts like this. These thoughts may be connected to very difficult things in their lives that they have no awareness of. Because of this, their mind may tend to shut off when faced with the thought of doing something they don't want to do, or not wanting to do something they need to do. I guess I am just going off of what I experienced about 3 minutes ago.

Kinda cheesy music but I'm feeling it. I love his voice.
Paper Route - Two Hearts

Trust

I can remember a few times that started me on the road toward losing all trust in myself. I remember one specific time that I was driving on my way to the beach and going down a straight part in the winding road and thinking "I should just keep driving straight off the road." Another time I thought to myself "I should just drive straight into that parked car (when coming upon a red light)," and another time where I thought that I should just jump off a ledge. Ok but I should have prefaced; these were not attempts at suicide but explorations into choice. I realized that I had full control of myself in making decisions like these and I felt a desire to exercise agency in areas that most do not. I realized at an early age that anything is possible within the sphere that I am acting. Ok, not anything, but a lot more than how we act within what we term to be "acceptable behavior." Even within the "acceptable behavior," there are infinite choices and possibilities. There are so many things we can do, but don't realize it. So many things. So many random things. I think we usually dismiss them and just dumb or not appropriate. And then what really even is "appropriate?" I can make choices regardless of whether they are termed "appropriate." Can't I decide how to act and change that decision? Aren't I free to do ridiculously stupid things? I mean, I have morals for sure, but aren't I free to disregard all morals I have and choose to drive down to Watts and yell something stupid and see what happens? I guess I feel like I can imagine what would happen, but experiencing it would be something entirely different. Our ability to run a scenario through our head and base our decisions on that is amazing, it's maybe the only thing that makes our human brains unique, but that doesn't mean we have to obey it. I mean, what is it that really keeps me from making absolutely stupid decisions? There have been times, standing on the edge of a high cliff with friends or family or whatever, where I have thought to myself "only a few inches more, that's all it takes," or "just a little slip up in my balance and I'm a goner." And then I would start to dwell on the thought and would really start to get scared because the more I thought about it, the more it became plausible.
I guess that's what really scares me, is how much I think about things. I don't know when to stop most of the time and the only thing that separates us from being murderers is our thoughts; what we choose to dwell on. It's one thought, then another, then another, then another and next thing we know, we are doing drugs and sleeping on the streets. Maybe I'm not being clear but I guess I have decided that everything we do is somehow based on thoughts and our only real control in life is what we think about. Then I started to wonder even how much control we have over what we think about.
Oh man, it all makes sense now. I just have always been obsessed about thinking deeply into things. Just let it go, just let it go, just let it go. What a huge, giant circle I have gone in. It's late. It's 1 am and I am at the library on campus because I was studying earlier and as I was walking out to my car I had some insights so I had to stop by the library again on my way out and get it down.
Ok, I'm cool.

Deep inside

I've wondered for so long why it feels like all the work I am doing isn't manifesting into results. I realize that I have been focusing for so long on the external individual known as Bret, but who really is that guy deep inside? I haven't wanted to know for a long time. I have always felt a little rotten inside. Well we all have right? I guess I have felt that way so much that I have done all I can to not listen to it. I figure I can't trust that individual and that I have to do all these things on the external part of me to try and fix that person inside. Just a few hours ago I realized that all the things I try to figure out have to do with the surface manifestations of something deeper going on inside. Well no, I realized that a long time ago, just not the way I did earlier today. The reason change is so slow is because we need to work on that level. The external things we do are shots in the dark at changing and improving our internal feelings, thoughts, memories and desires. If we really want change we will focus on those deep, deep things and the external will readily follow. But how easy is it to change our internal being? It's tough because we often don't even know what is going on in there. We find so many ways to ignore it and get distracted from it that we have no idea what we are even running from all the time. But most of us seem to be running. I know I have been and if people have no idea that I have been then there are a lot of other people probably doing the same thing. I guess I know this because when I do talk to people about my problems, it's not usually about what someone has done that bothers me but more about why I am disappointed in myself and feel like I can't be who I want to be.
I have been using meditation to try and fix my external individual. When I say external I guess I am referring to anything people see or hear from me. I've been trying to "fix" myself so that I can feel worthy of having friends and being loved. I run away from people before they can love me and I tend to ignore those who may already do so. I have let so many friends slip away. Sure, people and things change but I have intentionally done so. I get to a certain point with people and either let them in or run away. And if I let them in and our relationship or something else (like moving away or they get a significant other or become busy or too much time goes by and we haven't talked), then I avoid. I watch these things happen time and time again and wonder what the heck is going on.
I don't trust my deep self to be good enough or become good enough so I keep that person away from everyone and play this external game until I am worn to the bone. You can't go too long working purely from your conscious. It's miserable. I wouldn't let my subconscious take over because I have told myself for so long that it is not to be trusted. There are so many reasons I don't trust my subconscious but now I recognize that there aren't many other ways to live life and any other option is no better than the previous. I can't keep living consciously thinking every thought and performing every action. Some things just gotta happen. I think because I am a natural pessimist that I have seen so many bad things that come from when people just go through everything however their subconscious takes them and rarely consciously making decisions. I am afraid of meritocracy and I am afraid of being something great. I have wondered for so long why I am any inkling of something good. Where do these good things about me come from? I can't exactly say I chose to be naturally a certain way or to be prone to making good decisions over bad ones. This idea scares me. Where do these good things come from? I didn't ask for them, did I? Maybe I did. I do believe in God and that we lived before this life but what does that really even mean. I don't want to think about it right now.
There are so many warnings out there. If you do this, you may get divorced. If you don't do this you may regret not having spent more time with your kids. And what really makes a criminal? A series of unfortunate circumstances?
Ok, I'm stopping. There comes a point where you have asked enough questions and rambled enough and I recognize that I have gotten to that point so it is time to stop. I will leave with a song:

My favorite song in my library right now.
Flume - Insane

Sucks

Things feel pretty sucky right now. I don't get pleasure from anything and I feel so empty inside most of the time. I think the pleasure thing is my fault...I decided that I didn't want other things to determine how I feel so I taught myself to think being happy because of external things is "bad" and now I am not happy because of anything most of the time. I just didn't want to let the things around me that I can't control determine how my life would be. I wanted to feel like I could be happy even though I don't ever know what is going to happen. None of us do. We are so fragile; we're always teetering on the edge of something. I didn't want money or things or other people to tell me how to feel so I just shut it all out and now I suffer every day because of that. I don't know what I want anymore. I want everything. I want to have nothing and still be happy. I want to be unhappy and still be happy. I guess I just want to be happy but what does that even mean? I've been trying to figure that out for so long and here I am; feeling like I've got so far to go before I can do what? I don't know. I'm done for now.