Sleepless

I don’t sleep at night….

No. Instead I kind of just lay there motionless staring at the ceiling. What am I thinking about? I’m thinking about every place I would rather be other than here. I’m thinking about every mistake I’ve ever made. I’m thinking about tomorrow and if it will suck or not, but most of all, I’m thinking of how the HELL I’m going to get to sleep. 

I don’t sleep at night….

I’m thinking of her. If I didn’t lie and get dumped, would we still be together. Would it even matter? Would I still feel alone every day that I was with her? Would it have mattered that we argued pretty much every day? I don’t think I would be. Even before that day that I was thrown out, I was beginning to not even like her anymore let alone love her. I may still be alone, but at least I feel like I’m better off.

I don’t sleep at night….

I lay there and think of all these ideas that I have for my book that I STILL haven’t put on paper. So many character devolopments. So many new plots. I just can’t fix myself to wrote them down. It’s not like I’m doing anything else since I’m just lying awake most of the time. Maybe I need a new inspiration. Maybe I just need to get my ass up and write it down. At least it would give my insomnia a little more purpose.

I don’t sleep at night….

Where is my mind going this time? Italy? China? Outer Space? Sometimes it’s all of the above. My mind constantly wanders off. I can’t always just focus on one thing at a time. Sometimes though, my mind gets caught in a seemingly infinite loop of the same thought. Sometimes my mind gets so mixed up that I forget where I am, or even WHO I am. I just wish I could fucking sleep.

I don’t sleep at night….

Will I ever be able to? Will my thoughts and feelings ever shut up? Something has GOT to give. I’m so fucking tired of being exhausted all the time. I’m so fucking tired of flaking out on my friends because In always tired. I’m so fucking tired of being sick because of this. I’m just so fucking tired. Please…. just let me fucking sleep.

-Valken

8 Summers

8 Summers ago….

I had FINALLY moved out of my parents house and moved in with a few friends from work. Times were great then. For the first time in so long I was genuinely happy. I no longer had to do things on anyone else’s time but my own. I didn’t feel so alone because I finally had someone to talk to and hang out with. I got to meet a lot of new people because we would have parties almost every weekend. It’s been 8 Summers since I smiled… I miss happiness.

8 Summers ago…

 I had FINALLY got my drivers license. My dad had been trying to teach me how to drive since I was 15. I hated learning from him. He made me nervous as hell because he would yell so loud if I even went ONE MILE over the speed limit. It took so long for me to gain the confidence to have my dad take me to the DMV. Since I was over 21 at the time, I got to do the written and drivers test on the same day if I wanted. It took me 3 freakin tries to pass the written test. Once I finally passed it, I decided to wait to take the drivers test. I failed the test the first time because I accidentally went 45 in a 40 and I turned the wheels the wrong way hill parking. I got to take it the next day thankfully and I passed. I was so happy. It was my birthday when I passed as well and as an added bonus, my parents gave me my first car that day. It’s been 8 Summers since I did that… I miss freedom. 

8 Summers ago…

 I got the courage to finally start talking to girls. I hadn’t had a relationship since high school and the breakup was pretty bad. I ended up meeting the girl that would change my whole outlook on life since then. It was crazy at first. At the time, she was already taken, but for some reason, I still wanted to pursue her. It took a little over 6 months until she was single and we began to talk. When we finally made it official it was so great. She actually asked ME out. She would always come over. We would stay up late just talking. We didn’t even have to be talking about anything specific. We dated for 3 years before it ended. To this day, it was the worst breakup I ever had. It’s been 8 Summers since we first kissed… I miss comfort.

8 Summers ago…

I was 22 then. Time didn’t seem to pass by as fast in those times. I had a car, a girlfriend, and my own place. I couldn’t have been happier. Why did I screw that up? Why did I make it so I lost all of that at the same time? I really need to stop beating myself up about it. I learned a lot of valuable lessons in those times. I finally learned how it was in the real world. I finally learned what most people’s intentions were. I’m 30 years old now. A lot has changed, but not really at the same time. I’m still trying to figure put my life. It sucks, but I just have to keep moving forward. It’s been 8 Summers since my life officially began… I miss who I was back then. 

-Valken 

Hope You Can Fit A Size 14

Here he is again…. Just sitting with this blank stare on his face. A beer in one hand and his phone in the other. He has no idea why he has his phone. No one calls him. Not anyone he cares about anyway. Most of his friends message him on FB or other messaging apps. He’s fine with this because he only has a small number of people that he can stand to be on the phone with. Talking to people is exhausting for him anymore because everyone always talks about the same fucking thing over… and over… .and over…. Either work, school, the dumb fuck that they slept with last night, while drunk. It’s all the same.

He’s listening to that same song again. The same song over and over. The song that reminds him of his ex and all of his former friends that left him for whatever reason. The reason doesn’t matter to him anymore. He knows he shouldn’t play it, but for some reason, despite the lonely feeling he gets, he still wants to hang on to the small memories of them. He takes a sip of his beer.

He forgot to eat again. His stomach is constantly growling from hunger, but he can’t fix himself to get up. “I ate a big lunch yesterday. I should be fine,” he says to himself. He didn’t. He isn’t.  He is nowhere NEAR fine. He keeps holding on to every terrible memory of the past. He tries not to, but he can’t. You see… That’s his curse. He remembers… everything… He takes another sip of his beer.

His teeth are rotting out of his mouth. He makes up all the excuses in the world, but he knows the truth. Everyone else probably does too. It’s a combination of poor dental hygiene and a former addiction to prescription meds. He just gave up. He just stopped caring about his teeth. Soon… He stopped caring about everything. He takes another sip of his beer.

He’s staring at that fucking wall again… What’s he thinking about this time? All the work he is going to get done? Finally finishing school? No. Of course not. He’s thinking about the same damn thing all the time. His bullshit job. His ex that left him because he was a fucking loser. His friends that left him because they couldn’t handle his constant depression and anxiety. He goes to take another sip of his bee… No! He shouts “Fuck it!” loud enough for the entire apartment complex to hear. He throws the bottle against the wall as hard as he can. The glass breaks all over the floor. Some even hits him in the face, but he doesn’t care. He just can’t take it anymore. He can’t stand to live in the fucked up situation anymore. He looks at the bottle of pills next to him…. He goes to reach for it, but stops.

“No,” he says. “I’m not going to go out like that. I still have plenty of people that I care about. People that would be really messed up if I go like this.” He stands up. Cleans the glass up off the floor. He then pours himself a glass of water and makes a sandwich. He is starting to feel better. Things just got bad again. It happens every once in a while. The only thing keeping him going is the fact that he has great friends. Not many, but good enough where he doesn’t need a lot. The ones he has are enough.

The man in this story is me. I struggle so much with my depression and anxiety and I constantly fight this every day. I have help now though. Though I feel alone every day, I know that I am not alone. No… They aren’t enough to completely cure my depression and anxiety. That’s ok though. They help me get through it. They never leave me. That’s all that matters. That’s more than enough.

 

 

-Valken

Ian

Before I lived in my current apartment, I lived in an apartment complex that used to be a nursing home. It wasn’t so bad despite being filled with mostly old people. I only say that because I thought I would have a lot of noise complaints against me, but ad it turns out, I was pretty quiet most of the time.

The first few weeks kind of sucked because I had no furniture. I had to sleep on the hard floor. They had carpet, but it wasn’t very thick. I might as well have concrete floors, since there wasn’t much of a difference. 

I woke up so sore. Most mornings it took me like 20 minutes just to stand. Sleeping on a floor with a steel hip did not mix at all. I ate all my meals on the floor too. Mostly just bologna sandwiches since I couldn’t afford much better while I was still getting settled in. It was cool though. I was just happy to get out of my Dad’s house.

It wasn’t until I was a few months in that I met Ian. Ian has Autism. He had to have a nurse check on him every night. He couldn’t go to the grocery store, or the library without his nurse with him. Despite all of that, he was one of the kindest souls that I ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Every morning, Ian would yell hi to me from across the room. No matter how far away he was from me. He would then proceed to show me this app on his phone. The app was actually really cool. When you spoke into it normally, it would say what you said backwards. You could also speak backward to it and it would speak back to you normally. He would show it to me every time he saw me. It didn’t bother me at all that he would sometimes show it to me 10 times a day. The reason for that is, I LOVE listening to someone talk about something that they are passionate about, or something that just makes them really happy. It just always makes me feel good to listen to that.

Ian would always tell me that I sound like this guy on a gaming channel on YouTube. I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he swore up and down that I sounded like him. He always used to tell me that I was so well spoken and that I didn’t speak in Ebonics like most of the other black guys he knew. Ian had no filter. 

I didn’t get mad or offended by this because I knew what he meant. I know he will probably never read this post, but in the off chance he does, I hope he knows how much he always brightened my days. I hope he knows that no matter how much he repeated himself, it didn’t matter because I would always listen. 

I don’t see Ian anymore now that I live on a new apartment. That really sucks because these days I can use a pick-me-up. We need more people like Ian in the world. People who are just genuinely kind. I think the world would be a lot better. This is for you, Ian. Miss ya man.

-Valken

The Existential Crisis of a Depressed Man

Yeah… Go ahead. Scoff at this post. Tell me that depression and anxiety aren’t real mental illnesses. Tell me how I just need to let it go. To suck it up. Tell me how I need to just be happy because there are SO many reasons to be. Tell me how I should just be grateful to be alive. 

Yeah because being alive is the BEST thing in the world right? Not in a world where you’re not allowed to feel anything except for what everyone else feels. Like, yeah, you can be sad, but don’t you DARE be depressed. People seem to do a lot of complaining about how other people are depressed. They call them things like “big babies”, or my favorite recent term, “snowflakes.” 

It’s hilarious how people can turn something as beautiful as a snowflake into a derogatory term. Like what the fuck, people? You’d think hearing this shit enough would make me used to it to the point where I don’t care about it anymore, but you know… depression/anxiety. 

People always think that we are this way just for attention. Who the hell would even wanna FAKE this? I’m not one of those people that just self-diagnosed myself with this. I was diagnosed with both in 2007. They started me on Abilify, which I hated by the way. It basically just turned me into a human vegetable. I would just sit there staring off into space with no coherannt thought going through my head. Hmmm… sounds like the same problem I went through before they prescribed that in the first place. After a couple of more years taking a few more medications that I can’t even pronounce, I just sort of have up.

It fucking sucks when you hit that point. You just sort of stop caring. I’ve lost too many friends in my life to this. I don’t blame them. Not really. You can’t really expect anyone to live through that. The constant mood swings. The days where you sleep for 12-16 hours at a time. You can only HOPE they will still be there. So far, I only have 1 friend that I know for a FACT, will never leave. 

When did everyone else stop caring completely? There was a time in my life where I REALLY hit rock bottom and I had to sleep out of my car. I hated it because there were very few parking lots that you were allowed to sleep in. The part that sucked the MOST was, that people never asked if you were alright. No. They just immediately called the cops. Yeah… I’m sorry that I’m scaring you because I’m broke. I can understand that some people aren’t always innocent, but you didn’t even bother to ask. 

I don’t care what you think of me after reading this(Actually I kinda do). The thing is, I’m trying. I’m trying SO fucking hard to feel better about myself. It just takes time and less negative criticism. Anyways… Gotta go. Lunch break over.

-Valken