Today, I feel empty; as if someone has taken an ice-cream scoop and extracted all my inners. It feels as if there is a hole, somewhere in my chest, which is made heavy with the weight of the nothingness that crouches in there. It’s a monster that attaches itself to every fibre of your being; seeping into every pore of your body, so that each thought and motion you attempt is like releasing a lead balloon.
I wonder if emptiness is an affliction or a state of mind. It is certainly something that crawls inside, lodges within the gaps amid your bones and sleeps between your lungs, but it is also all encompassing; all consuming. You get lost in it; you drown in it, but all the time it is within. It seems paradoxical; impossible almost, but it is a nothingness with several dimensions and no shape.
It is not just emotionally consuming: it is also time consuming. It remains with me for anything between several hours, days or even weeks at a time, and all the while existence seems pointless. I do not feel like doing anything, I cannot think straight, and everything around me just seems to wash over me, erasing me. Each time the emptiness sweeps over me, I lose myself a little bit more. It’s so frustrating when, at my age, you are desperately trying to define yourself, make life-changing decisions, and just be you, you find that for every step you take closer to your ‘identity’, you’re taking twenty steps back.
Or maybe this is me, faceless, doomed to be forever lost in emptiness, and a sea of fabricated facades that I’ve constructed myself to get me through life. Each one different, likeable, and well-meaning; but disappointingly lacklustre and one-dimensional. I hate them, but I depend on them, my multiple personalities, to hide behind, for safety. Even if they are only a collection of hollow puppets, at least I am the one pulling the strings.
I would like a nervous breakdown, to collapse, to finally lose control. I am sick of being the one who’s always so composed, so collected, so empty. I put so much pressure on myself to retain this visage of immovable perfection – what I think others want to see – that I am left defenceless to emptiness. I am imprisoned in the carefully constructed house of cards that is myself. I long to let go.
For even in madness, there’s freedom.
Freedom from myself.
Sometimes I just want to scream and scream and scream.
I'm not sure if this is fact or fiction.
Oh no Jen!
ReplyDeleteI really don't want you to feel like this, this is really sad, I hate thinking that the happy hilarious Jen at school is only a facade! :(
If it's any comfort, I often feel like this: in fact, yesterday I felt so empty and so depressed I couldn't even cry and usually I'm like a leaking tap.
It's called being teenage, sadly!
Hope you feel better soon
Love you lots and lots (and don't worry about the perfection thing, if you were some kind of perfect doll I wouldn't like you!).
xxxx
I'm such a fail!
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, I don't know which one of the many Jens is the facade: I don't know who I am! D:
Life is so overwhelmingly confusing at times...
I know the feeling, believe me. It is comforting to know that I'm not the only fail who doesn't understand themselves though (not that I like the thought of you being upset at all!).
I think that must be it. Hormones are so annoying! They should be banned... :D
Thank you J! And thank you for cheering me up today too~ I feel a lot better now!
xxx
I understand that identity is confusing, but all humans have complex and differing faces. They're all part of you. "You" doesn't have to be a cardboard cutout, or a caricature of what a human should be.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, one of the purposes of feminism is to try and remove this unhelpful image that the ideal woman is uncomplicated, meek, mild etc. You are none of those things, which is a bloody good thing!
We're all made of up of different, sometimes conflicting, faces but we just have to let them peacefully coexist by accepting it's just the crapped-up way humans are.
And if you want to know who you are, perhaps look externally: perhaps you're running the danger of looking a bit too deep? Our true selves are a mix of nuture and nature that we can never understand, but if we look outwards at our friends, family, appearances, talents, successes, failures and everything else that makes up our external world we can get some basic clues.
As for me, I see a very intelligent, very witty young person with lots to give and I don't think these things aren't part of you just because you might not feel like that all the time.
I hope you get there in the end!
Sorry for babbling on!
xxxx
Aww, thanks J!
ReplyDeleteYou always know how to make me feel better! :D
I think that 'looking too deep' probably is part of the problem. It's just generally frustrating because you'll never get to the bottom of what's inside. By nature, humans are fathomless creatures, and I guess that by trying to look too far down, you just end up falling.
I need a little perspective!
xxx