This evening has been a tough one. I'm attending summer session at Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. It's a pretty nice place, really. I love the sense of community here, I love the academia, I love the school spirit. Though unfortunately I've not been as social here as I would ideally want to be, I still find ways to enjoy myself. I spend time with my roommate and my friend from next door. I've been spending a fair amount of time reading in some of the more idyllic places on campus (the garden under the cantilever of the Millenium Science Complex is such a wonderful spot and allowed me to immerse myself in the lion's share of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World). However, despite all this, this evening still managed to be a tough one.
I never really externalize anything that I feel when the effects of my depression/anxiety/what-have-you hit me, and tonight wasn't much different. My buddy from next door -- a big, happy-go-lucky kind of guy named Steve -- came over and was watching videos with my roommate -- a lanky, quiet, but still good-humored guy from Pittsburgh named Matt. They're both great guys, and I sincerely consider them my friends already. However, while they were enjoying themselves with YouTube, Vine, and whatnot, I was off someplace else. Physically, I was just laying on my bed, glancing out the window, and running my fingers along the plastic slats of my window fan (almost like I was daring the gray blades of the fan to come and bite my fingertips like the vicious dog that lives in the backyard of the house down on the corner in our childhood). Emotionally, however, it was like I was adrift on a tiny raft in the middle of the Pacific.
My emotions consisted of the following ingredients:
2 cups (heaping), loneliness
1 1/5 cup, self-doubt
My emotions consisted of the following ingredients:
2 cups (heaping), loneliness
1 1/5 cup, self-doubt
1 1/5 cup, being convinced that I'll never make new friends here
8 fl. oz, irritation at things I shouldn't be irritated at
2 handfuls, "God, I wish I could just go somewhere and do something."
1 tbsp, guilt
1 pinch, pure granulated "Why the hell doesn't this medication work"
Mix all together and heat at 8000 °C in the "General Depression Symptoms Oven 5000 by KitchenAid."
OK, I'll admit, even I chuckled at that. But all joking and metaphors aside, I was in a pretty rough state. For some reason, I felt incredibly distant from everyone here at Penn State. I felt like I would never make any friends here. For some reason, I kept getting this vibe that people didn't like me, that I was for some reason weird, or unattractive. This bothered me so much that I went to the bathroom down the hall and trimmed my beard because I thought it made me look too old and unpopular. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm proud of my beard. You can tell I was messed up.
Even after this trimming, I came back and laid on my bed, still glancing out the window. I'd see people outside Simmons Hall, all walking with all their friends. There were sporty, attractive boys wearing $70 Hollister shirts or over-sized sports teams tank-tops. Their hair was cut short, without character or flair. All the same. Their faces were rusted into a sort of self-confident, self-sure sneer. These sneers were clearly found attractive by the sporty, attractive girls who walked with them. They all wore shorts too short and shirts with neck-lines too deep. "Hey, boyssss, take a nice look at my ass and my tits. Welcome to college, boysss." Though I inwardly resent things like that, there are times -- times like today -- where I think to myself, "Dammit, why can't I be like that? Why can't I be a complete dickbag with no regard for the respect of women and not a care in the world for my education? What the hell are ethics? What the hell is modesty? Those things don't matter when I've got all these friends." I think that the way people my age act is at times really, truly stupid, but at the same time... I'm inevitably drawn to it. It's almost like a moth to a bug-light. It's a damnably stupid move to go towards it, and yet... It's so beautiful, so alluring, so tantalizing... And then I stop myself and notice the electrified metal frame around that pretty light. I notice the charred exoskeletons of all my little bug buddies who went toward that pretty purple light and got fried because it was all a joke. Keep your path, Mr. Benner. You might be a moth, but you're a smart moth. Keep moving.
I found myself falling into more of an inward struggle as night fell. The loneliness persisted, and though my two friends across the dorm were enjoying themselves and having fun, I couldn't feel that I could be a part of it tonight. I hid myself under the guise of typing a paper for my rhetoric class. In reality, I just had my laptop open and was completely zoned out, lost in a sort of psychological twilight zone. That tends to happen, FYI. With this cocktail of depression, there are times when I just sort of lose focus and get drawn off into la-la land. Of course, it's not la-la land, it's sadness-and-misery land. Then, to put it colloquially, the shit hit the fan. My girlfriend and I had an issue involving the administration of a comedy page we run on Facebook. There was a mistake made, and there were some momentarily serious issues I had to address. We had a sort of falling out for the evening over it. Now, not only was I sipping that bitter, bitter cocktail (or rather cake, I suppose) of emotions from earlier, I was tossing in a few extra spikes of anger, guilt, sadness, and frustration. By the time things settled down, it was after midnight. She and I both decided it was best for us both to cool down for the night and said good night to each other.
This leads me to where I am now. As I type this sentence, it is 2:09 AM (EST) on July 25th, 2013. For the past hour-and-a-half or so, I've been laying here, basically a stagnant pool of emotion. The pool is full. It's all there: all that sadness and frustration and loneliness and worthlessness. But it's not going anywhere. It's not hurting me. It's just sitting there, stagnant. I feel that as long as I am conscious, the stagnating will persist. I find that the only thing that can really release me from the effects of my depression is sleep. Thus, I will press that ever-trusty reset button and turn in for the night. In conclusion, forgive me that this was all so long and rambling. It's been a long and rambling sort of night. Hope you've gained a degree of insight into what actually happens in my mind.
8 fl. oz, irritation at things I shouldn't be irritated at
2 handfuls, "God, I wish I could just go somewhere and do something."
1 tbsp, guilt
1 pinch, pure granulated "Why the hell doesn't this medication work"
Mix all together and heat at 8000 °C in the "General Depression Symptoms Oven 5000 by KitchenAid."
OK, I'll admit, even I chuckled at that. But all joking and metaphors aside, I was in a pretty rough state. For some reason, I felt incredibly distant from everyone here at Penn State. I felt like I would never make any friends here. For some reason, I kept getting this vibe that people didn't like me, that I was for some reason weird, or unattractive. This bothered me so much that I went to the bathroom down the hall and trimmed my beard because I thought it made me look too old and unpopular. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm proud of my beard. You can tell I was messed up.
Even after this trimming, I came back and laid on my bed, still glancing out the window. I'd see people outside Simmons Hall, all walking with all their friends. There were sporty, attractive boys wearing $70 Hollister shirts or over-sized sports teams tank-tops. Their hair was cut short, without character or flair. All the same. Their faces were rusted into a sort of self-confident, self-sure sneer. These sneers were clearly found attractive by the sporty, attractive girls who walked with them. They all wore shorts too short and shirts with neck-lines too deep. "Hey, boyssss, take a nice look at my ass and my tits. Welcome to college, boysss." Though I inwardly resent things like that, there are times -- times like today -- where I think to myself, "Dammit, why can't I be like that? Why can't I be a complete dickbag with no regard for the respect of women and not a care in the world for my education? What the hell are ethics? What the hell is modesty? Those things don't matter when I've got all these friends." I think that the way people my age act is at times really, truly stupid, but at the same time... I'm inevitably drawn to it. It's almost like a moth to a bug-light. It's a damnably stupid move to go towards it, and yet... It's so beautiful, so alluring, so tantalizing... And then I stop myself and notice the electrified metal frame around that pretty light. I notice the charred exoskeletons of all my little bug buddies who went toward that pretty purple light and got fried because it was all a joke. Keep your path, Mr. Benner. You might be a moth, but you're a smart moth. Keep moving.
I found myself falling into more of an inward struggle as night fell. The loneliness persisted, and though my two friends across the dorm were enjoying themselves and having fun, I couldn't feel that I could be a part of it tonight. I hid myself under the guise of typing a paper for my rhetoric class. In reality, I just had my laptop open and was completely zoned out, lost in a sort of psychological twilight zone. That tends to happen, FYI. With this cocktail of depression, there are times when I just sort of lose focus and get drawn off into la-la land. Of course, it's not la-la land, it's sadness-and-misery land. Then, to put it colloquially, the shit hit the fan. My girlfriend and I had an issue involving the administration of a comedy page we run on Facebook. There was a mistake made, and there were some momentarily serious issues I had to address. We had a sort of falling out for the evening over it. Now, not only was I sipping that bitter, bitter cocktail (or rather cake, I suppose) of emotions from earlier, I was tossing in a few extra spikes of anger, guilt, sadness, and frustration. By the time things settled down, it was after midnight. She and I both decided it was best for us both to cool down for the night and said good night to each other.
This leads me to where I am now. As I type this sentence, it is 2:09 AM (EST) on July 25th, 2013. For the past hour-and-a-half or so, I've been laying here, basically a stagnant pool of emotion. The pool is full. It's all there: all that sadness and frustration and loneliness and worthlessness. But it's not going anywhere. It's not hurting me. It's just sitting there, stagnant. I feel that as long as I am conscious, the stagnating will persist. I find that the only thing that can really release me from the effects of my depression is sleep. Thus, I will press that ever-trusty reset button and turn in for the night. In conclusion, forgive me that this was all so long and rambling. It's been a long and rambling sort of night. Hope you've gained a degree of insight into what actually happens in my mind.
My sincerest regards,
Brandon
Brandon
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