Just a flow of conciousness. Not very interesting but read if you're bored or procrastinating like I am.
So today in work I realised how often the people there are telling me that I look tired or that I need to smile. I work as a waiter and so obviously a cheery facade is beneficial (tips) but as hard as I tried, people kept telling me to smile. It was a genuine struggle. I wasn't even particularly upset about anything. It got me thknking about my general disposition.
I'm never really upset about anything in particular. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've cried since becoming an adolescent. I've always just been partial to melancholy for no aparent reason. My thoughts always have a hard, black edge to them. I don't get excited over simple, trivial things like most people I know do. This is true for as far back as I can remember. I'm only now realising that maybe that's not so 'normal', whatever that means.
I've never been formally diagnosed with depression. I was initailly put on antidepressants for a pretty severe bout of anxiety just over a year ago. But a few months ago, for weeks on end I thought about killing myself. I didn't tick all the boxes of the textbook depression case, but I was pretty certain when I caught myself (it was like walking in on somebody masturbating) writing a suicide note, in all seriousness, that I became pretty sure I was depressed. I don't even know if I really did intend to kill myself. All I know is that from somewhere I mustered up the courage and the energy to give myself a few more days, and then another few, and so on. And that's what my life feels like all the time now. Giving myself a few more days to weigh up the pros and cons of killing myself, of remaining alive on this earth or just leaving. For any Radiohead fans, the lyrics "I'm not living, I'm just killing time" pretty much sum up my existence. When good things happen, yeah, I am happy about them, but when the initial excitement fades, it's back under that hazy grey monotony that weighs down so heavy but leaves me just enough room to breathe.
It's like limbo. I'm not so bad that I'm having a full-scale mental breakdown and rubbing my excrement all over the walls. But at the same time, I can see what life should be like, what life I can so easily have, and I just can't grab it. I go through the motions. I get up and go to work. When university is back I'll attentd whatever lectures I can be bothered to and I'll hand in all my assignments on time like a good little boy. I'll feed myself. I'll bathe. I'll make myself look presentable when I go out. But it's just an imitation of life. I don't feel alive.
And it all brings me to the one looming question: What do I do about it? I don't want to go on this way. I don't want to die either, believe me on that, but I just really don't want to live if it means going through every single day knowing that I'm just wasting it all by not enjoying it. I can see all the potential for a good, hppay life, but I don't quite know how to get there.
Apologies for the long-winded post, but it feels good to document exactly how I feel. I've tried before, but the wanna-be artist in me always tries to turn it into poetry or a screenplay or whatever medium I feel could be my ticket to the hall of misunderstood depressives alongside Sylvia Plath and
Vincent van Gogh. But I'm not a poet. I'm not meant for greater things. But I hope to god I'm meant for better than this.