What Are You Most Afraid Of?

Societal Norm

I've spent most of my life trying to fit into the 'societal norm'. Gods is it awful. Say this, do this, dress to impress..

Don't curse, please watch what you eat, black is the devil's color..

Get down on your knees and pray to Jesus when all is going wrong, you need to find a man to marry before you spread your legs, sundresses and bright colors..

I'll get down on my knees to pleasure who I wish, it will be sinful. I sleep with who I wish and it will not only be men. If my graphic black shirts offend, well good for me.

I do not believe in your 'God'. I am one of those gays you despise.

Guess what??

I do not exist to please anyone but myself.

I'm doing a damn good job of it too.

Kindly avert your attention elsewhere, while I do whatever I want.

I rightly don't give a single fuck about your comfort.

I think you knew what you were doing this whole time. I hope I don’t get hurt in the end.

I want to be one of those normal people.

I know what you’re thinking, ‘there’s no such thing as normal.’

There are people out there though, that don’t hesitate to walk out the door to go to a store. There are people that don’t fantasize about death. There are people who don’t have trauma or flashbacks and nightmares about what others have done to them.

I want to be one of those people that wasn’t diagnosed with a major depressive disorder at 17.

I want to be one of those people that didn’t have to try several medications just for them all to fail.

I want to be one of those people that doesn’t have an anxiety disorder, and has a hard time just leaving the house.

I want to be one of those people that didn’t have to go to a therapist, just to add PTSD to the list of mental disorders.

I want to feel like a person again, instead of a number of things wrong with me, that affect my day to day life.

Please. Just let me be..

I read this quote once that said something along the lines of, "If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ideal of being known".

Of the thousands of quotes I have saved across varying platforms of social medias, this quote has lived in my subconscious more than the rest.

We as humans have to have social interaction and through our interactions we search for love. Our greatest fear as a species is being alone and within that being lonely.

To not end up alone though, we have to put ourselves out there and open up and let people get the chance to know us. Opening up to let people see our true selves is possibly the most terrifying thing for a person to do. Here let me show you my demons and the things I struggle with on the daily and please, dear god love me for it?

How are we supposed to open up and let people see our inner desires and not have them run screaming because what they have seen doesn't line up with their struggles or beliefs?

Here are my demons, love me anyway.

You don’t understand I’m trying everyday to just stay alive. I’m not lazy, I know I have hours alone. There is no excuse for me not doing what needs to be done throughout the day. Other than, I am trying not to die. Literally. It’s not an expression. I spend my hours alone, writing, reading, playing video games. To distract myself. I’m scared of what would happen if I did not have things to distract myself with. The thoughts of dying are just too much some days, and I’d rather just sleep the day away.

Depression is a bitch on a good day.

I believe in magic.

Not like the magic in fairytales, full of dragons and spells.

I believe in the magic of those small moments.

I believe in the magic of a dandelion growing in the crack of asphalt.

The moment between your inhale and my exhale.

Finding a constellation in the sea of millions of stars.

The way your eyes light up like a stormy sky.

The dew on the early morning grass.

Magic is what makes this world go ‘round.

I’m so thankful to be a part of these small magical moments.

Let me be a moth with soft papery wings.

The moon my muse, in the witching hours.

Only the strange can see my beauty.

Do you realize how difficult it is for me to put myself first? I have lived in the shadow of everyone I have ever been with. I have made myself smaller trying to fit in and be everything that they need, always. 

Now, is the time for me. It took me thirty years to finally acknowledge this. I will lose people in doing so. I will have to put my own feelings ahead of everyone else. 

Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin. How do I learn to not care about how I make everyone else feel? How do I do what I need to do to heal and become this better version of me? How do I even be me?

Who am I, really?  

When I have no ideas for putting together the thoughts that need to read aloud by others, I like to pretend that it is not my time yet for my words, thoughts, feelings to be put out in the world. Please, give me a sign when it is my time to emerge from my subconscious once again. These thoughts are slowly drowning me and must be set free.

I mourn for all the women that were misunderstood in the past. The women who wanted to live their lives without the restraint of man telling them how they should live. Women who were burned alive for no reason other than they were born the wrong gender. Women who spoke their minds and were persecuted because their beliefs were different.

I will mourn for all the women who live after me. Women in the future will face the same things we have been experiencing for thousands of years. I have never considered myself a ‘feminist’. After years and years though, you’d think that something would change. If it hasn’t changed yet…why would anything ever be any different?