Who wants to be common? Who wants to be plain? Or who wants to be ordinary with nothing about you to stand out or to be bright or noticeable?
Who wants to be boring or humdrum? Who wants to be unwanted to the point where your life is about as interesting as a mandatory continuing education class at work.
Or who wants to be as much fun as an insurance seminar?
I can say this because I have been witness to both. So I can say this with authority—no one wants to be plain or tasteless. Nobody wants to be bland. We all want to have something. We want to have our own spice or flavor. I know I do.
We want to be noticed and wanted and more than just included, we want to be valued and desired. Or again, at least I do.
No one wants to be unfunny or witless, and nobody chooses to be seen as someone that brings nothing to the conversation.
I can say that this is one of my biggest fears. These are some of my biggest insecurities. This has been the case since I was very young. I had always believed that for some reason, or perhaps as fate would have it, there was something about me that was different.
I always saw myself as someone who is unlike anyone else.
Aside from the belief that I looked different or that I was unsightly or ugly, there was something so distant about me. This was not just about my physical appeal.
I always saw this as something that went without words. Or perhaps I was never able to put this into words, at least not before.
But either way, I believed that I would always be emotionally, physically, spiritually, and terminally different. And not in a good way.
I never understood why I never felt joy like other people. I never understood why nothing was as funny to me as it was to others.
In fact, I have always learned to define my brand of depression as this—
It’s like trying to reach for something with all your might and no matter how hard you try, no matter how badly you want to touch something (or someone), it always seems that I come up short; as in, I can almost touch the object of my desire, but not quite.
Understand?
I can almost feel this with my fingertips, and I can literally feel the heat or the energy that beams from the things I want to touch; yet I can’t reach it — everything I want to touch always seems like it’s a millimeter too far for me to grab or feel.
Take color for example.
Sure, I can see color and I think colors are beautiful. But there is always something dulled or muted or dimmed about the glow.
Do you get it?
I can laugh. I can have fun, but there was always some kind of underlying idea that this was only fleeting, and like being imprisoned for 23 out of 24 hours — sure, I can enjoy the hour or the moment, but what’s the sense of enjoying anything? Why learn to enjoy the fleeting moments if I have to go back to my hole in the ground?
Euphoria—
I suppose this word represented a source of freedom. Euphoria is like taking a breath when your chest was too heavy, and ah, just like that; the panic is gone and the tension lifts.
Sure, the drugs help. They can sure hurt too.
Trust me. I know.
But not all euphoria is drug related.
A smile can be euphoric. Like, say, a girl, or the way she makes you feel when coming through a doorway, and then suddenly, your eyes open to the lights of some brand new thing called love at first sight.
And yes, this is real.
Yes, this is more euphoric than any brand of heroin on the market.
Trust me again, because I know.
Euphoria, as in to feel “high.”
The colors of life are brilliant again, or vibrant, and beautiful.
Hell, even I can be beautiful. Even someone like me, unsightly, too small, too thin, too awkward or at an older point in my life, I was too fat.
I was too weary or cynical, and insecure and too uncomfortable that I might say the wrong thing or that the crookedness of my smile might show the jaggedness of my teeth.
Or north above my smile, I was too afraid that people would see that my eyes are not shaped the same and neither are my ears. One of my shoulders is lower than the other from a broken collarbone injury too.
Euphoria—
I’m not weak. I’m not thinking. I’m off somewhere.
I’m not insecure. I am elsewhere and catapulted into the divinity of absent space or curled like an infant and safe in the cupping palm of God the Father’s hand. Or maybe I can be swaddled like a newborn in The Father’s beard, and safe, weightless, and unobjectionably gone, as in distant from all and unrequired by any human law to return to gravity.
I cannot say that my introduction to euphoria or to drugs was this intense or as deliberate as it evolved to become. I cannot say that I knew what I was in for.
However, I can say that I enjoyed the temporary vacations of mindless bliss—I enjoyed not thinking, not worrying if I am awkward or not, or in the cases of beer muscles and the false braveries that come with drinking before the vomit takes hold; I can say that there I was in the center or surrendered to a moment of protection.
I can say that there was safety in the violence of my actions. I can say there was an attraction for the badness or the outlaw versions of life, or to be the tough guy, or to be the wanted one, the desired one, or even the beautiful one.
I could be beautiful too, no?
I admit that I have this thing with movies and characters. I admit that I often see myself, dreaming of me as the main character, cool, clam and collected.
I could be the count.
I could be the man who breaks out of prison and skips away to find freedom down in good old Mexico.
I could be the dark hero.
I could be that way too, you know?
I could find a way to lean against the wall with that mysterious look, and light up a smoke with a lighter, like I was cool. Why not?
Or if at all possible, I wanted to pull off a look that showed me as someone who is impenetrable, or that I could endure, or that I could take pain, and even if the world fell apart, still, nothing could beat me.
I wanted to be the underdog and the favored and the desired. Sure, I used to rehearse what I would say, “If” I had the chance to face my fears or my enemies.
I used to rehearse my lines if ever I was to find “my girl.”
I remember rehearsing my lines or trying to “be cool” when figuring out how to approach a girl, but I was always out of my head. By the time it came to say my lines, I was out of my head and my words never came out right.
I have always wanted to be this way too — a hopeless romantic, a real-life Shakespeare, and not so much a Casanova or a Romeo, but more, I always to be the poet.
I wanted to share this with you for as long as I can remember.
But I was always too afraid to show you the different corridors or the depths of my heart.
I always wanted to share these things with someone like you.
But I have to agree . . .
There is truth to the aftermath of trauma. There is truth to the inaccurate and unhelpful lessons from our youth, or the past regressions of unwanted lifetimes or memories which seep into the cracks of our subconscious ability, and become the arrows that shoot down our dreams that hope for the sky.
There is truth to both the cognitive mind and the distortions of self, which we assume are real. We assume our thoughts and ideas are as true as the first time we were hurt by someone’s words. Sure, pain hurts. But not really. Physical pain is nothing compared to the remnants of emotional anguish. This is the real bully.
It’s all in the mind.
Or what about our first memory of our parents fighting?
Or what about our first memory of being hit or punished?
Or what about the times when we were let down or hurt and we wept?
Or what about the first time you offered yourself to somebody, and they rejected you?
What purpose do these memories serve?
What about the time you found out that not everyone is really nice or honest?
What about the time you found out that no one takes turns anymore?
What about broken hearts?
Or what about when you thought love was real, until you realized that no, it wasn’t.
At least, not from the other side . . .
What do moments like this do for the soul?
I have these memories. I have these, “so-called” stains and the stigmas which I lived with for as long as I can remember. I have the ridicule of internal judgment and the memories of abuse or pain.
Or what about the times when we assumed everything was good and we let our guard down? What about the times we did this only to find that we were in the middle of betrayal?
This was sad for me and terrible, and foolish as always. I remember the levels of awareness that took place and yes, I went back to my hole in the ground.
I went back to the darker places where I hid. Better yet — this is where I found out the benefits of systematic highs.
We call it euphoria.
I have heard people dismiss the talks about the inner child. I have discussed the layers that cover emotional wounds that people take on after being hit or hurt or abused or laughed at.
I have listened to people dismiss the accounts of their life or their youth or their learning curves, which came from the trials of their existence.
I have talked about the roadmap of people, which are their pasts that date back from their earliest memory and life up until now.
I do not dismiss this.
I do not dismiss even the simple things, like my old fears of the monsters beneath the bed.
In fact, I still fold the blankets beneath my feet to keep the monsters from attacking me.
This was a little kid rule that I made up in my head, to protect me of course.
I would not call this a conscious thought. Wrapping my feet up, I mean.
No, I would call this a habit, which is a natural reaction or something that my body does, and this happens automatically, without any input from the mind.
See?
This is why we have habits — to find something comforting or to find an easier math so that our surface level of thinking can allow for more important decisions.
How many times have you reached for something, like your phone to call someone who is no longer around? You reach but come to a disappointment because this habit was part of your life for so long, and now it’s gone.
Everyone knows where they put their keys when they get home or where they put their cell phone when they go to sleep.
Everyone has the first thing that they grab in the morning. And we do this without thinking.
Ever drive and not really be thinking so much as you are in autopilot?
Your body knows where to go, or when to change lanes, or which exit to get off.
Your body has learned the habit of which way to go.
Everyone has a pattern or routine, which is their way of allowing their body to do their math so that our surface mind can think of more important things or make the more adult decisions.
By the way, fear can be a habit. So can self-sabotage. And assumptions can be a habit too. So can fighting. So can hurt and pain. Or wait, as crazy as this sounds, pain can become an addiction, which doesn’t mean anyone likes or enjoys the pain.
This just becomes the life that we are used to.
But again, it’s not the pain that becomes our habit.
It’s more the case of when or if the pain returns. What then?
This is why we hold on so tightly.
This is why we don’t let go of the hurt or the memories because what if we give ourselves up and the pain comes back?
What do you do if you let go of the pain or if you allow yourself to be vulnerable or to trust someone, no matter how amazing they are or beautiful or how soft they can touch—what happens if you allow them in, and then, they realize who you “really” are? Then, what do you do if you allowed yourself to love and then your love comes back, unreturned?
How painful is this?
How humiliating?
Euphoria—
I never carried a girl’s books as I walked her to class. I never went on a real date when I was younger. I never went to a prom. I never went through the basic rites of passage that come with young love because I was too afraid and too hurt.
I was too ashamed that someone might see me for who I was, and all of my invisible things would come to light. In that case, what do I do when everyone sees me, exposed?
How can I play the role and “be cool” if the whole world is laughing at me (again)?
So, I put on my thick skin and pushed the world away. I kept everyone at arm’s length. I was alone in crowds. I was alone by myself. And I lived this way.
But ah, euphoria
She knew me.
She knew me well.
The Written Addiction 