Sep 11th, 2009 2:41:00am
You know what I find truly interesting about us humans? Our ability to feel so awful about ourselves at any given moment. Everyone has felt it at one point or another: that sinking sensation that is not in your stomach, nor your heart, but in every part of you. There is that immensely heavy feeling in the core of your being that weighs you down; you feel lifeless, defeated, destroyed.
This could be triggered by a small mistake, or a whopping failure, a simple comment someone made to you or to someone else about you, or blatant abuse. Whatever the cause, there is no denying that there are times when we feel lower than low, with no hopes of ever coming back up. When cynicism and apathy rule supreme and any bit of optimism you have is shot down by the aforementioned cynicism and apathy.
Some people call it being “down in the dumps”, while others more crudely refer to it as “feeling like shit”. Therapists, psychologists and the like may term it “depression” or perhaps the milder but no less impacting “low self-esteem”. It goes by many names, but that feeling remains the same everywhere, for everyone.
What really gets to me, though, is how… silent the emotion is. Think about it. Anger is all chaos. It’s a torrent of roarings and screechings, hissings and spittings, clawing and tearing that takes over your insides. Sadness is this huge gaping pit; a black hole that sucks away any joy with the a sound reminiscent of the last swirls of water going down the drain in the sink. Happiness is buoyant, bright and bouncing; laughter and music, Jealousy similar to Anger, but on a different level.
Losing faith in ourselves, however, is a quiet thing. It’s like an early winter morning of thick fog and mist, and a slight chill that makes you wish you were in bed under the blankets. It’s feeling worthless, useless, a waste of air and space. It’s not bothering to do anything because you feel there’s no point – you’ll just screw it up anyways, right? It is not the sudden going off of a light bulb, but the flickering and subsequent fading out of a candle. It is all those things, yet it doesn’t make a sound. Not one peep. As swift and as agile as an alley cat, with the silence of a ninja making his way through the night, it just comes over you.
And then you sink further, deeper, until you choose get yourself out. No one else can do it for you. They may throw you the rope, but only you can pull yourself through it. It’s all a matter of rousing up enough determination, enough hope, and not letting them get attacked, until you are not thinking of yourself as anything less than you truly are. I freely confess I am being completely and utterly hypocritical here, by giving out advice that I myself refuse to take. However, that doesn’t make what I’m saying any less important, any less true, nor any less necessary for you to read and remember.
THE ANYTHING / EVERYTHING BLOG 