"Pain Sponge"

Why do I write? What purpose am I really serving by just telling you about myself, writing paragraph after paragraph about how I feel about things, as if it's some attempt to try and force feed you my point of view. It's not my intention to come off completely self centered, I just so happen to be the subject material that I know the most about.

My head is like a particle accelerator, when I lay down at night and try to fall asleep, if there is a single shred of a thought left that can be turned into something negative, my brain will spin it around and around and around, letting it gain speed until it becomes an issue I am left to deal with by morning. I can jokingly say "It's because I hate myself", but the truth is that I am just so fucking critical. It doesn't make me better or worse than anyone else, and it's not to say that I always know whats right. All it means is that my brain is constantly going a million miles an hour, and I can't shut it off.

In the past when these thoughts started to emerge that I knew had the potential to grow into something that could send me into a bad mental place, I would find way to silence them, and I would accomplish that by any means necessary. I've always used some sort of "Pain Sponge", someone or something that I could present my problems too that would make them just go away. For a long period of my life that sponge was alcohol. I could drink and just avoid my problems. The magic liquid would turn me into a fun loving person who could be their "true" self with no hint of shame or fear, at least most of the time. I have had my fair share of drunken nights ending with smashed furniture and hurt feelings. All I wanted was an escape, and if I was drunk and still forced to deal with my problems, I would just lash out at whomever or whatever was around me.

It was to the point where my intoxicated outbursts would land on such an extreme on both sides of the spectrum that "friends" would encourage me to constantly be drunk with them. I was their entertainment for the night. I could go make a fool out of myself, do things that no normal person would do or say in public. I reveled in it, I mattered, I was the center of attention. I was a whore for the attention, and I didn't care a single bit about myself. I had no self respect. I just wanted to be liked. I wanted that comfort of being wanted.

I also used people to a draining extent as the sponge for my pain and sadness. I would lay out all of my problems to a close friend, presenting them as a challenge for them to make me feel better. They would try and convince me that I was over reacting, that things weren't that bad. I would be told to look at all the great things I had in my life, but I didn't want to hear it. I would make up reasons why everything was shit, I would completely dismiss any notion that things weren't anything but miserable. The truth is I was getting off on watching them work. The fact that they were so dedicated to make me feel better in some sick way proved that they cared about me. I was emotionally abusive, demanding affection by making myself miserable.

When I finally drained the energy of the people around me, I turned to preying on complete strangers. I would usually strike up conversations with people online. Their first interaction with me would be this version of myself that was cheery and bubbly. I would be full of charm and wit, setting the trap for this unknowing stranger. I would let them see the best parts of me, make them fall for me, make them care for me. Then I would spring the trap. The next conversation would be full of sorrow and self pity. I would dump all of my problems on this new person, explain in great detail why there was no hope, how the world was against me, how nothing I could do would ever solve my problems. I would even go as far as to say "I am whole heartily convinced that I have already died, and I am now living in Hell." I would then drain the life force out of these people as they tried to cheer me up. Could they have even known that while they were dealing with this massively depressed person, he existed right outside the room as his cheerful self, seducing his next victim?

It's fucked up. I realize that now, and am still in the long process of forgiving myself for it. There are so many people, so many relationships that could have gone to great places if I had chosen not to exhaust them with my self pity. The sick part of it all is that once I had sucked these people dry, I would blame them for not being able to help me. I was in a perpetual state of blaming the world around me for my problems.

I try not to be that person anymore, I try damn hard. I want to find the beauty in life, I want to find the silver linings in all the shit that life throws my way. I want to stay positive, and that is why I write. I have made a conscious effort to abandon the "Pain Sponge", to find ways to channel my thoughts into a place where I can deal with them on my own.

I write so that I can work through these issues. I write so that I have a canvas to put all of these feelings on, so that I can then take a step back after everything is laid out, and look at a bigger picture. I write so that I can have these negative emotions exist outside of my head, and am able to see all of the great things that I do have in life, so I can how lucky I am. When I get these thoughts out of my head I can look at them objectively, and no longer have to rely on comparing myself to other people. I can take the focus off of the one single thing that is trapped in my mind.

I also write because I know that I am not alone. I have learned through this journey that their are other sailors tackling the same seas as I. Knowing this fact, truly believing it, has made it easier to deal with my own shit. I can take a breath and remember that I am never truly alone, I can find peace in the silence. I write these words as a testament to myself, as a diary of my journey through my own emotional growing pains.

I write as a way to help heal myself. It took getting as low as I possibly could let myself before I had the balls to grow up and realize that I needed to start taking care of myself. The help I needed didn't come from people telling me everything was going to be OK, it wasn't from someone holding me and stroking my hair. The help I needed came in the form of tough love from people who truly cared about me, people who were willing to fight for me instead of comfort me, people who sincerely held my best interests at heart. My healing needed to come from within, I had to be willing to get better. These people showed me that I was strong, showed me that I was beautiful, showed me that I have the power to stand up for myself. They showed me this by making me see it in myself.

I write because I wish to inspire hope. I make these journeys into my head space public in the hopes that I might say something that resonates with someone dealing with similar problems. I share my pain and healing in hopes that I can inspire just a single person. Maybe it's someone who needs to hear the words for the first time, or maybe it's someone who just needs to be reminded. I write because I man I have never met and never will decided to make the journeys into his mind public, and they changed my life. I share all of this with you because of the happiness I have found by being able to look into myself. I am not afraid to share my pain, my failures, my growth, and my victories if it means I can help just a single person.