Hi.

Lately I have been feeling overwhelmed in my life, as I start up a new job and keep my old one. I am having trouble focusing my inspirations into a coherent blog post. I feel that my thoughts are flying through my head extra fast, and there are more of them than ever. This concerns me because my biggest fear in life is becoming a schizophrenic. I am 23 years old and I am not out of the woods just yet. Women tend to get diagnosed in their late 20’s. Like seriously this is such a big fear: the fear of not being able to express my thoughts in a coherent fashion, of losing control over my mind. I think this is the most terrifying thing because I value my thoughts and opinions very much. Possibly too much.

I let my thoughts get the best of me a lot of the time. I let them tell me nasty things about myself. I will never make good money, they say. I will never write a novel, they say. I will never love myself, they say. You will never amount to anything, they say. You are not deserving of love, they say.

See this is why I get scared about losing my mind… I am well on my way…

I think one of my biggest problems (since you are so curious to know, I’m sure), is that I dissociate from myself. By that I mean I need constant and consistent external verification to maintain a semblance of who I am. 

This is why I always loved getting grades in school. All my life, I absolutely reveled in getting grades, ever since I was in elementary school. If I could describe my relationship with grades in a word I think it would be codependent. I relied on grades to give me my self-worth. And I mostly got good grades so that my self-worth could be preserved, safe and sound.

I was homeschooled for middle school (explains a lot right lol), and even then I voluntarily took the MCAS standardized test for 8th graders. I loved to get grades because they reminded me that I am smart. And they didn’t just remind me. They created my smartness. Without grades, I could not know whether I was smart or not. Grades have always given me validation of my intellect. Without grades, I find it difficult to maintain the belief that I am smart and capable. I feel lost without them. Fucking grades. I am a nerd I know. 

Being out of school has left me feeling abandoned. My lettered comfort blanket has been ripped away, and I am left with only my thoughts. You’re an idiot, they say. 

Every day I try to remind myself of who I think I am. I got a frame from the dollar store and shoved my college diploma in it. I hung it on the wall across from the bed so that every morning when I wake up, it is the first thing that I see. This backfired because now I am immune to its presence. I see it and feel absolutely nothing. No feeling of accomplishment that I graduated college, no pride, no joy. 

I often think about Jenna Marbles (anyone remember her youtube channel?) and how she joked about her daily routine of crying over her framed college diploma. I watched that video when I was like 12 and it stuck with me all these years. Now I finally understand. I cry over my diploma sometimes. It took so much time and effort and dedication to get it and now it just stares silently out from my wall, collecting dust in its shitty frame. The title “Bachelor of Science in Psychology” belongs to my wall now, not me. 

I have been crying at work more often. I work at Target as a cashier. People treat me like I’m dumb, all day long. I often believe them. I try to tell myself I am not dumb. Sometimes it works. Like I said, I am a product of my environment. I am a chameleon. I forget about my old colors right when I come across new ones. I wrote a shitty poem about that actually. Maybe I’ll post it here.

I think I am beginning to realize that there is a fine line between being humble and not recognizing your true worth. I am always so concerned with staying humble. I should be more concerned with recognizing that I am smart and beautiful and capable of doing anything I want in life. I don’t often recognize this. And I’m not really sure what possessed me to write all of this for you… I don’t know if it will help anyone to read this… I want to help people, and I want to help myself…  I don’t know… I also felt guilty for not posting a blog in a while… so it goes.

This is what you get, I guess, my dear reader. Some jumbled up words on a page. I don’t feel as if there is any utility to this post, but I guess art does not need to possess utility. Does it?

I hope that one day, I can, with integrity, carve onto my tombstone the words “I tried.”