Collecting my thoughts
I am sure I’m not the only one whose mind has run wild, and suddenly you find yourself staying up until three in the morning, wondering if the thoughts inside your mind are actually yours, or if that’s how you think you should behave just to be accepted by society. We all have a collection of our thoughts, don’t we?
They can go from the simplest things to things that are more complex.
Today, I thought it would be a fun idea to share some of those thoughts with you, and who knows, maybe we’ll have the same line of thinking.
A Collection Of My Thoughts
First of all, I want to make clear that these are my personal thoughts and my personal thoughts only. You can agree with them, or you can disagree. Regardless, I don’t think anything could change my mind. Also, I am in no way saying that this is how things work in life, these are just my perceptions of certain topics. So, with all said, let’s take a look at the collection of my thoughts.
• It’s so exhausting how you can be friends with someone and you’ve told them about that one thing they do. That one thing that makes you feel so uncomfortable, insecure and it can even trigger you, but they just keep doing it over and over.
Then, when you start drifting away or distancing yourself a little, they get so defensive and just full of fake apologies.
But they do it again anyway.
I am almost sure that this is not just me collecting my thoughts, but also, opening your eyes a little more to figure out what’s happening around your surroundings.
• You know that intuitive sensation you get when you’re feeling sad and just empty, you tell someone to see if you can at least ease a little of that weight but they just end up making everything about them and how it would be better if they weren’t around, so that just triggers you even more…that feeling but as an everyday thing.
I don’t know if any of you have felt this way, but it truly is an overwhelming feeling. You try to be there for everyone, you really try, but when it’s you that needs someone to talk to, the conversation always moves in a different direction. I mean, I don’t mind listening to what’s happening in your life, in fact, I would love nothing more than to do so, but why do you need to shut me out as if my feelings didn’t matter? Again, I’m just collecting my thoughts.
• I’m in my 20s and I have never felt safe in my own skin. It’s not about looks. It’s about how damaged my soul is, and how intoxicating it is to dig into those open wounds just to learn that there’s no way out. There’s no fixing. There’s no escape, nor any saving. It’s all a bleeding mess of repressed feelings and empty emotions.
Sometimes, well…most times, I feel like I’m burning in my own skin and there’s no way to tame those flames. Everything becomes too much and you just become too numb.
• Please stop telling people that if they don’t have a degree, nor a job, then they’re worthless and not trying enough to make life better. People with mental illnesses would love nothing more than to be productive and to do normal things, like actually maintaining a job, or being strong enough to go back to school. There are other people that are incapable of doing it due to whatever the circumstances they. Those circumstances are building a barrier between what they want and what they can do. It’s a daily battle and it’s degrading hearing people say things like that without knowing a person’s background.
You have no idea the amount of stress and anxiety I feel every time someone asks me “so, what are you studying? are you working?”. How do I answer that without feeling judged for my disabilities and all of my mental issues? Do I lie, tell the truth or twist the truth a little bit? There’s no wrong or right answers, believe me. I have been trying to work on myself as someone who is strong enough to have a voice for myself and not let other people’s opinions invalidate my capabilities, but it’s not that easy. In fact, it isn’t easy…at all. It’s rather way harder than telling someone a twisted version of what they want to hear. All that just because you feel the need that you have to please absolutely everyone around you. I know that feeling. Those are also some of my collection of thoughts.
• It’s hard when you grew up in an abusive home and you were forced to learn certain things, and now being older and out of that toxic environment, you just find it really draining and tough trying to convince myself that what I saw and what I went through isn’t really how things work in reality, nor that I shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help when I need it. it’s still hard being open about my opinions without thinking that I might not make it out alive regarding certain situations.
After some serious childhood traumas, your mind just becomes a reflection of what you were back then and what you’re trying to be right now. Those forces are fighting with each other for your custody regarding your mental health and how you’re going to deal with all of those unsolved life traumas.
Is Collecting Thoughts A Real Thing?
One of the things I’ve learned while growing up is that you’re in full control over your own mind, your own trauma, your own emotions, and somehow that is extremely hard to do when no one ever took the time to explain to you what any of that meant. Because of that, you have been bottling everything inside. At this point, you’re just…existentially tired. Though, regardless of that, I do believe in collecting my thoughts. For some reason that is something that makes me analyze what I have been through and my perception of life when I was a teenager with no knowledge on how life worked as a whole, and now that I’m an adult, I feel like I have more control over who I am and who I am trying to become.
I know it will take some time to get there but I’m in no hurry. I just want to feel alive and like I matter for once in my life. I’m just eager to get to that point in my life where all the pieces in the puzzle finally fit.
That has been me collecting my thoughts, but now, I want to know about your thoughts. What keeps you up at night? I would love to hear from you in the comment section down below.
Hi 🙂
Reading your article made me think about my sister. In some situations she has a similar point of view which I can see doesn’t make her life any easier. I’ve bought her a book ‘The Power of Now’. I’ll highly recommend it for you too. Unfortunately sometimes our thoughts can be our biggest enemy. Maybe this book will ease up your mind a little bit as it did to me. All the best and thank you for sharing!
Thank you for stopping by!
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I don’t think you are alone, though I do think it’s sad that you have had to go through so much and have come away with lots of questions. I think what you are doing with your blog is an extremely healing activity, and may do you more good than you realize. Very often we see things clearer once we write them down and then read what we wrote.
I am 81, so have been through the trials and trauma and have come out fairly well-adjusted. I remember when I was about your age, I’d get depressed about something and would spiral down into this black hole. It would take me a few days to work myself back out, but I did it, and learned from the doing. It is not easy.
Now, I collect my thoughts when I first go to bed at night. One thing I do is think about all the things I’m grateful for. Then, I play back my day and think about what I’ve accomplished, if anything. I also keep a notebook by my bed, because I’ve found that the time right before I go to sleep is the time when I get many of my best ideas, so collect them on my notebook so I can remember them the next day.
You recognize your problems and your past and you are doing your best to do something about them. I think that is an excellent thing, and believe you will come through it all with flying colors.
Hi Fran!
Thank you for sharing that with me. I really appreciate your points of views and I’m so glad that you have managed through your problems. You’re an example that there is actually light at the end of the tunnel. Take care!
Hi Stephanie,
I appreciate the way you handle your thought, you take ownership and responsibility for them. For me I feel, a person is a summation of his or her environment. A child that grows up in an environment where love and empathy are the other of the day will learn to replicate such, while a child that grows up in a hostile arena will also naturally replicate such.
The only thing that keeps me up at night is a desire to deliver my job timely, as a freelancer, I stay late to meet deadlines. That is the only thing that wakes me up
I hope you’re managing, my friend!
What I have written below is a response to one of your collected thoughts and I really wish more people would think this way. Think through their thoughts rationally and see if there might be a better way to think. AND THERE IS. Hence my response.
People with mental illnesses and disabilities… It’s not their fault that they are the way they are. A chemical imbalance or deformity or syndrome… these are all things that people are either born with or could have suffered from a concussion or childhood abuse or drugs (trying to quiet the noise in there heads with medication), or who knows what.
I’ve been around for a few years so I’ve had a few thoughts run through my head. Things like, “I sure could have made some better choices when I was younger then I wouldn’t be stuck in such rut now.” Or, how about “if I had taken action on an important opportunity 4 years ago, life WOULD be quite different now.”
One that can really get me going is (you may have had this one too), BAD DRIVERS. I know it shouldn’t bother me but If everyone would just drive the way they are supposed to there wouldn’t be so many accidents, lives would be saved, insurance rates wouldn’t be so high, road rage wouldn’t exist. I mean, don’t people get it? We are all responsible for our behaviour.
Many things can get us going and cause sleepless nights, bad days, separation of friendships and marriages and your right… we are the only ones that can control or emotions and, for some of us, that’s the hardest thing for us to do.
And, yes, we get better at doing our lives as we get older, (at least some of do), we can change if we really want to. It’s not easy and it will be a lifetime project and there will, most likely, always be another puzzle show up. the positive side of the equation is that if we persevere, and live long enough, we will get mostly there.
Getting to the point where we feel like we matter: This Stephanie, what you are doing here, Is a great way to do that.
Food for thought, that’s what’s here,
Wayne
Hi Wayne!
Thank you so much for stopping by and giving out your personal overview of what I wrote.
Yes, a mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance, but that’s not the only thing that causes a mental illness. People whose brain are functioning just find can be depressed and not have a chemical imbalance. We’re too focused of that “chemical imbalance” assumption that we forget to speak out on what’s causing us to feel that way.
Most of the things you’ve said about yourself to an extent applied to me too. I was usually always there for my friends, share their thoughts, and make them feel better. But when it gets to tell them or rather him (my friend) about how I felt, to him, it doesn’t feel somewhat important, and it would be looked away. This have been my thoughts.
Truly, I have lots of the time drifted away. But he will always come apologizing and feeling somewhat repentant. Then later afterwards, he continues the circle again.
Now this one comes directly to me not from my family entirely but directly alone from my father.
He kind of says that I don’t have a direction in life. He hadn’t even taken the time to know how I felt, what I passed through, what my thoughts were, and lots of things as a son. He doesn’t care about that. But to him, he was being fatherly to me.
Sometimes, all these kept me thinking late at night. But the most surprising thing was that I overlook all this things because I have my own goal set, determination, and aspiration best known to me that I want to achieve in life. Despite the discouragement, I spend most of my time working very harder to achieve this. I never backed down. So I considered everything else going on around me to be worthless, of no value.
Again, this have been my thoughts, and despite everything, I’ve been able to get through it and don’t find it a problem no more.
Thank you for this article.
I am so sorry about your situation with your father, but I am so glad that you have that type of determination to keep moving forward and focusing on yourself and yourself only. You have amazing aspirations and that’s something to feel really proud of. Keep up the good work!