Depth in a Shallow World
Jul. 23rd, 2025 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seeyatI had a very long time to turn inward while living in my father's basement on disability income, during which time I attempted suicide more than a dozen times and spent a majority of my time in the dark, laying on a loveseat and just rotting.
I wrote journal entries occasionally and constantly thought about what I would do to connect with people, solve my own feelings of inadequacy and reach out to help people but all these musings eventually wove their way into feelings of hopelessness and suicidality.
That era of my life was profoundly traumatic, especially after living 17 years of childhood as a very active, socially engaged, exercise-driven creative with all the resources I could ever imagine needing. The issue there is that any unusual or "rebellious" behavior such as staying at a girlfriend's place or writing a depressed poem was met with either physical punishment from my father of psychiatric hospitalization implemented by either parent, only predictable by whether or not dad's insurance rolled over into the new year.
I wound up sketching dark, depressing things like skulls with skin hanging off and half-socketed eyeballs, writing both hopeful, loving poetry and a handful of poems expressing deep pain. I still have many of these things including a collection of essays, journal entries and unshared suicide notes.
Life, to me... was never small. Life felt much bigger and more beautiful than I was ever allowed to share with my father who prioritized his boat and cars as either an escape from reality or a way to feel in control of something. His favorite way of dismissing me was to tell me anything he didn't want to talk about was for my therapist.
So now, it's hard to feel safe sharing my inner world with people and it just doesn't feel fulfilling to talk about tv shows and movie culture or video games. I do love the ensuing connections with people... I just prefer expressive arts, emphasis on connection and philosophy, or conversation about psychology and the how and why.
I wrote journal entries occasionally and constantly thought about what I would do to connect with people, solve my own feelings of inadequacy and reach out to help people but all these musings eventually wove their way into feelings of hopelessness and suicidality.
That era of my life was profoundly traumatic, especially after living 17 years of childhood as a very active, socially engaged, exercise-driven creative with all the resources I could ever imagine needing. The issue there is that any unusual or "rebellious" behavior such as staying at a girlfriend's place or writing a depressed poem was met with either physical punishment from my father of psychiatric hospitalization implemented by either parent, only predictable by whether or not dad's insurance rolled over into the new year.
I wound up sketching dark, depressing things like skulls with skin hanging off and half-socketed eyeballs, writing both hopeful, loving poetry and a handful of poems expressing deep pain. I still have many of these things including a collection of essays, journal entries and unshared suicide notes.
Life, to me... was never small. Life felt much bigger and more beautiful than I was ever allowed to share with my father who prioritized his boat and cars as either an escape from reality or a way to feel in control of something. His favorite way of dismissing me was to tell me anything he didn't want to talk about was for my therapist.
So now, it's hard to feel safe sharing my inner world with people and it just doesn't feel fulfilling to talk about tv shows and movie culture or video games. I do love the ensuing connections with people... I just prefer expressive arts, emphasis on connection and philosophy, or conversation about psychology and the how and why.
