Hey, Miss J!

I had another idea in mind for my title. It was strange… less so than this.

I’ve been trying to bolster my moods while I’m awake for some time. It’s quite difficult. One thing I’ve been digging into is music that I listened to during my childhood.

One came up of course, and I had to add it to my Amazon Playlist. These are some of the lyrics.

“We lie about each other’s drinks

We live without each other

Thinking what anyone would do

Without me and you

It’s like I told you

Only the lonely can play

So hold on here we go

Hold on to nothin’ we know

I feel so lonely

Way up here”

I kick about ideas in my head these days like a can down the sidewalk. It’s possible that the anxiety I’m forced to deal with is getting worse. I don’t like taking medication to calm it down, not if it makes me sleepy.

I know that my doctor will be changing it soon, but that doesn’t mean that I want to keep putting myself through this.

What’s the alternative?

Dealing with racing thoughts again. Feeling like I’m drowning nearly every second I’m awake.

Early on, I was euphoric over how high my moods soared with my new meds. Less depression! The higher the increase though, the more I feel like I’m losing my mind.

I’m destabilizing in front of my own eyes.

I never said that I thought too much, nor acknowledged that it can happen. Overthinking can happen though, and I find myself doing it every day.

I put unnecessary pressure on myself to appear one way, when it’s always the opposite.

I can’t keep doing that. I have moments where things squeeze through. I can’t help it.

When cracks appear in that wall… Dust collecting over and over until what’s the floor and what’s not can’t be determined…

And water appears around the edges… Droplets slowly sliding through…   

It’s when people flee in the opposite direction. No one wants to be around when something like that happens. And it happens daily. Normally it’s not obvious…

Other times…

Sometimes I feel like I’m walking down a very long and dark hallway alone.

People peek around the edges of their doors at me, but when they notice me looking – all of the doors slam shut. It’s not all in unison, but one at a time. And I end up wondering if it was better if I’d never seen them at all. The sound of slamming begins to pile in on itself and hurts my ears.

At the end of my hallway is a window, too small for me to get out… It’s no bigger than what a bird would need to escape.

I want to be a bird then because I know the only way out is back the way I came.

And the door slamming resumes all over again because everyone just has to look.

Am I some sideshow act? Perhaps I’m seen as someone who just dances around, clapping my hands – all to entertain others?

I begin to worry that these darker thoughts are another unwanted and unexpected side effect of my pills.

Is it me? Am I just self-conscious?

For a fact, I know that I’m constantly looked at in public and am mistakenly addressed. To satisfy a friend of mine, I wore a jean skirt to visit her.

I felt bad because one of her neighbors asked if I was her son.

Until then, she doubted it when I told her that I’d been addressed as a man for nearly two decades. She didn’t understand.

So, in this skirt? Oh, the comments and attention I ended up with that.

She looked at me and told me that if I ever fell, I had something to cushion my fall.

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed.

So many years of being told that I was never enough, never smart enough – not talented enough, not attractive enough.

All of it a waste.

I wonder when I’ll ever fully believe that I am just enough.  

Can I convince myself?

We’ll see.

~ J. Lyst