I stood in the dark as my world crumbled.
I didn’t want to go inside and I didn’t want to stay outside. I wanted to drop to my knees and cry, but not a tear would fall.
No traumatic event had happened – in fact – for an observer, my world looked great. I’d finished High School, recently returned from representing Australia at the junior World Championships, signed with a Continental Cycling Team and been accepted into University. Still, I wanted nothing more then to be dead.
Fear had lingered at my door for some time. But on this night, the door was knocked off its hinges and panic rushed in.
I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t want to do anything.
Every moment ahead seemed to be burdened by an invisible weight. One I didn’t think I could carry, that I didn’t want to try and carry. I felt pathetic and petrified.
I wanted to be strong, I wanted to face it, to pursue the goals I’d once valued. But, I found no value in anything and that’s not a great foundation for strength.
Forcing myself inside, I clenched my eyes shut, hoped for sleep and begged to god this shadow would pass.
It was 3 years before I sought help or verbalised this ever present absence of life.
It’s been another 9 years since that and I’m not fixed. Not by a long shot. But I’m managing better and better. This only happened after admitting I had a problem.
I could finish this post here, but It seems something is missing. Like the depths of my disgust in myself have been glossed over and made palatable and generic.
My loss of purpose had led to bitterness and jealousy. I couldn’t bare the thought of people enjoying what I had once loved. I was jealous of my girlfriend and the direction she had for the future. Jealous of anyone that enjoyed riding their bike. I hated seeing people achieve. I had spent years trying to prove my worth – to the world and myself. But, it began to feel pointless and fruitless, the pursuit was empty, life was empty.
These feelings consumed me, I didn’t want them. I didn’t want to be jealous and bitter, I prayed it would go. I stood in churches hands to the sky literally begging God to untangle the mess of my mind. To bring comfort and peace. Every time, I left more and more desperate, with no respite, just an ever increasing dread of having to live with my thoughts.
I hated myself but couldn’t “switch off” the resentment. I faked life for years. I know exactly what its like to want to be dead. To not want to face the parts of you that are dark and vengeful. I’d want to find whatever fault in people I could. I didn’t verbalised it, but in my mind I’d drag them down. Desperately trying to bring them low enough that I could scramble on top and feel like I was something, somebody. It just served to make the web thicker and my mind more alone and dark.
“Fear” can be used as a polite way of summarising a destructive despair. A clutter of inexcusable thoughts and an inability to escape them.
It was not just a fog of nothingness that numbed me to the world but also a “fear” of myself.
