Saturday, May 31
Today has been a complete contrast of emotions. When I got in last night / this morning, around 4.30am, I was really depressed, so I wrote the following.I am seriously thinking of seeing a counseller or a psychiatrist or somebody like that. I seem to have become a bit of a recluse recently, and I also think that I may be slightly depressed. I can think of a couple of reasons why, and I'd just like some advice on what to do. I don't think that I'd go for a series of sessions, I can't afford that, but one may help somewhat. Tonight, out at a club with a few friends, it got to a point where I just wanted to go home and cry for a while. No idea why, it just hit me like a tonne of bricks that my life is currently crap. No girlfriend, haven't pulled in over 6 months, still a virgin, doubting my friends' views of me, feeling left out of a number of things, always an outsider looking in on social things, used when it suits people, ignored when it doesn't, plus a whole host of other crap. Just looking at that list now makes me upset. I have a really crap life at the moment. I've lost touch with all but 1 or 2 of my closest friends from back home, and I don't have anybody that really replaces them. I feel alone up against the big bad world. I know I'm not the only one that feels like this, but it doesn't exactly help the situation. So, here I am pouring out my heart to a computer screen and keyboard, where only a number of anonymous people will read the words that I have written to express the way I feel. There's nobody in the "real" world who I can talk to about this, at least nobody I want to say this to. That's me though, I bottle everything up, and never let any emotions show. All men do this, but I think i'm fairly extreme with the way I handle things. I get the feeling that something truly awful has got to happen to let my emotions out. That's what happened 18 months ago. My Dad contracted cancer of the throat, had an operation and then a series of chemotherapy. Less than a week after he finished the chemo, my Nan died. I've never been particularly close to my Nan, but it hit me hard. I'd never known anybody to die before, which is a strange thing for an 18 year-old. After watching my Dad get incredibly weak and immobile, then to have somebody die, hits you like a steam train. My dad has always been a strong figure in my life. A success story, and somebody to look up to. To see him practically incapacitated on a hospital bed, with tubes and god-knows-what sticking out of him was something I could not cope with. I only went to see him once in hospital, and went with to chemo only a couple of times. I should have done more, but it completely destroyed me seeing him like that. You try to be strong, but nothing can come close to the feeling that you get when you get told that one of the people whom you hold most dear in the entire world has a good chance of dying. Of course, I went into denial for a bit, a textbook case, but you soon realise that it is a very real danger. After all of this, then to have my Nan die, well, it just screwed me up completely. I sat and cried myself to sleep a few times. Not just 10 minutes of crying, but an hour of just sobbing uncontrollably. But nobody ever knew I did this. My parents certainly didn't, and I didn't tell anybody about it. Bottling it up inside, you see? Anyway, that passage in my life is over now, but I can feel myself becoming more and more depressed and just sick of life generally. Nowhere near suicide, don't worry about that. I'm too much of a believer in no afterlife to want to end my life this soon. I'm still in my teens, for crying out loud. Life has to improve at some point, I just hope it's fairly soon. Much more of this depressed and crap existence I don't want. Like I said, I might see a counsellor or something. But, again, I probably won't tell anybody else about it, not even my parents. They'll just get really, really worried, and I don't want them to have to deal with this. I am 19, after all, not a little kid. Whether I like it or not, I've got independence now, which means no running back to the sanctity of home just because I've had a crap few months. I really don't want a course of anti-depressants though, I've seen what they do to people. Some of the side-effects include becoming more depressed, even suicidal, which surely defeats the point of taking anti-depressants in the first place... I wish there was just somebody here who I'd feel comfortable pouring out my heart to, and crying on their shoulder. In fact, never mind here, but someone, anywhere. That's a counsellor's job, so perhaps they are the right person. I do feel uncomfortable talking to random people about this kind of thing though. Which is why I'm able to put it into words through a computer, and hide behind the anonymity of the internet. I only know about 2 people who visit this site in real life, which makes it a lot easier to express they way I feel right now.
I don't want to re-read this, because I'll edit it and change it around. The above is a rambling monologue of the way that I feel at this point in time. Maybe at some point down the line I will be happier and write a different passage, but for now I'll just leave it as is. Welcome to the low point in my life.
After I wrote this, I listened to some music, then got into bed. Problem was, it was pretty much daylight by then, and I couldn't get to sleep. I kept thinking how cool this place I knew on Hampstead Heath would be to watch the sun rise, so I got out of bed, got dressed, grabbed a book and a bottle of water and started walking to the Heath, which is about 20 minutes away from where I live. I got lost, as per usual, but I'm so glad that I did, because I found the most idyllic spot imaginable.
I found a bench facing a big pond / lake, with the sun directly opposite. There was still mist / vapour over the pond, and the sun was just above the trees on the far bank. It was gorgeous. I took my shoes and socks off, rolled my jeans up, and promptly sat there for 3 hours, watching the various people and their dogs go past, reading my book and just generally relaxing.
Eventually I walked back to my halls, had a quick shower and some breakfast before leaving again to go to my local park. I should mention at this point that it is the hottest day of the year so far (high 20s) and there is barely a cloud in the sky. I'm writing this the old-fashioned way (pen and paper) in the park right now, soaking up some rays. Obviously by you reading this, I've typed it up...
One little thing which amused me on the way to the park: I had to pop into a supermarket to pick up some sun-cream, but there was this woman outside who asked me to spare a minute. She went to hand me a leaflet, which I saw straight away was a Christian-type thing. I'll just dig it out of my bag now. Here we go: "The Pursuit of God Conference." I instantly said that I don't believe in any religious stuff, which the woman seemed pretty taken aback at. She then asked if she could just develop this a little. I was in no particular rush, so I let her say her thing. She asked me if I believed that there was no reason for us being here, which I said yes to. She then said that there were a lot of people who believed otherwise, which I replied to by saying that there is their choice, as my belief is mine. I started to say that I was a nihilist or an existentialist, but she began going on about how God sacrificed his only son to save the human race. I said that I had been to a Church of England school, so I knew about all of that, but had rejected it. That shut her up, but she still gave me a leaflet and asked me to think about it. Like a chance encounter with a religious nut who gives out leaflets is going to make me become a devout Christian...
Just the sounds of the mini zoo, planes flying overhead and general people making background noise.
