i’ve always struggled with the concept of mental health. like, in theory i understand, but in practice it never made sense to me. i think i’ve always had a pretty strong hold of my thoughts and feelings, i’m not usually prone to sudden outbursts of emotion, i can usually rationalize most things, i can usually win the battle between brain and heart easily enough. so things like depression for example just always seemed kind of made up to me. like it was just a convenient excuse to get out of anything because heaven forbid anyone ever calls you out on it. like ok, you’re sad, great, suck it up butter cup, i’m sad too, but we got shit to do, so bottle that shit up and lets go. it doesn’t make sense to stay in bed all day, it doesn’t make sense to zone out, none of that behavior makes sense! if you have something you need to do, then do it. or don’t, but then be prepared for the consequences.
i think part of the problem is that i’ve always seen it black and white like that. as if all the world was binary and there are always only 2 values possible. i mean, for a lot of things it really is like that. right or wrong, up or down, more or less, in or out, yes or no… but feelings… mother fucking feelings… they ain’t so binary i am slowly realizing. i mean, i know there are not only 2 feelings, but for pretty much my whole adult life i’ve treated most feelings like an on/off switch. you’re happy about something or you’re not. you are sad about something or you’re not. you’re nervous or you’re not.
you love someone or you don’t.
wait… what was that last one? you love someone or you don’t… ouff… i’m not so sure any more. i mean, for most people in my life it’s true. i love z and l and would take a bullet for them no matter what. n and m, even though it is not usually reciprocated, i love whole heartedly as well. e, j, g, t, all of them, say the word and i’m there, no questions asked.
k8 i will always love, even though she’s no longer present in my life.
k i will always love… but… i don’t think in the same way… in some ways it’s more than all the other’s combined, but in other ways, it’s the exact opposite.
think of it this way, i always believed i lived in a world where everything is binary, there are valid values of 1 and 0. everything is easily processed and categorized. and then all of a sudden there’s a 2. and a 3. and an l,m,n,o and p as well as a, emoji representing macaroni salad. how do you process that?
i guess that’s what i have been feeling for a while. and my stupid brain just rejected the “faulty” data and only accepted the valid 1’s and 0’s. but all of a sudden now i am realizing there are petabytes of this supposed invalid data in the cache and it all needs to be processed.
i’ve got some work to do.