"Tal how are you?"
Good!
"How you doin girl, you okay?"
Yasssss b...totally fine! Im good!
"Hey you seem down, you good?"
Ya! Do I really seem down? ..Just tired.
But is it really that I’m tired?
If you know me, I’m never really down, nor do tend to really stress over things. Contrary to popular belief, I stress over pretty much nothing. I can make a joke out of any and every terrible situation and can in some way, shape, or form, find some good from whatever bad I may be experiencing (but a lot of people are probably like that now that I think about it).
Anyways, If I just failed a midterm, I brush it off like nothing happened.
Got my bike stolen? No biggie.
Went 0-9 from the three last night? There’s always next game.
See?!
I mean, this is why feeling the way that I am feeling at this unfortunate moment in time is so avant-garde.
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What a lot of my friends see is ...me. The happy side of me. The ‘express no emotional distress because everyone is going through something right?’ me.
It is the me that has a complete inablity to voice my any and all dispositions I am experiencing.
The me that will eat blue cheese with a side of black licorice before ever projecting an ounce of emotional vulnerability.
It is ultimately the me that never truly learned how to express what she is really feeling because let’s face it, society sorta made it seem like it wasn’t that important.
(This isn’t a cry for a help. I’m not in any way struggling at the moment. I Just felt as though this image provided a true depiction of the ignorance that still lingers amongst society’s perception of mental health today.)
Too harsh?
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I call myself ‘emotionally inept’.
As a joke of course!
Or is it?
I have always been the happy, charismatic, postive, strong minded "dork" that just laughed everything off.
Always.
Unfortunately, those characteristics listed above are what ultimately molded and shaped the current emotional proficiencies that plagues me today.
Why do people care about what I am going through?
Why does it matter?
Everyone goes through SOMETHING in their life right? So why are talking about my mood bearing emotions any more worth while than talking about, per say, 6ix9ine, who is going back to jail for the third time this year because of his inability to keep his big d*** energy in his pants when surrounded by minors. He has it WAY worse than I do anyways does he not?
Look at him, poor guy..
Anyways!
These are the ways in which I cope with all of my mental despondencies. Maybe this is why my emotional angst has FINALLY succumbed to its breaking point.
Ever dropped one of Starbuck’s seasonal peppermint mochas when walking out of the coffee shop before? Well, Yea.
.. that is where I am at.
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I suffer from anxiety. It’s not terrible anxiety, but it’s there. Some days it consumes me, other days I forget I even have it.
But why is that?
Does me being an athlete..
On top of being a student..
..in addition to being a daughter
..a sister.
..or even adding on to the tireless notion of trying to be a descently good friend..
..provide valid reason as to WHY I feel so perturbed more times than not? I KNOW for a fact I am not alone in regards to athletes but my intention is to find an answer for all aspects of my life.
I have heard people talk about ‘not knowing who they are anymore’ though I never truly understood how one feels in such a way.
WHY they feel in such a way..
Oddly enough, Now I do.
But don’t get me wrong, not knowing who I am has ventured through my mind once or twice before. I mean, I’m 21 years old and Ryan Reynolds has YET to slide in my DM’s. DO I EVEN MATTER? I guess the world will never know, BUT, for the sake of this post, I’ll save that story for the wake another time
As of now, I felt a broken DVR would be most applicable in explaining my current state of mind.
What an empty feeling that is, huh.
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I used to think I was exceedingly mentally robust, you know, playing a collegiate sport and all. And I TRULY believe that at one point, I certainly was at the peak of that toughness.
"Momma ain’t raise no bitch" right???
Wrong. I have never felt more antithetical to that peak than I do right now. I am as mentally weak as I have ever been for underlying reasons beyond just basketball.
My biggest flaw is that I am so consumed by what the people around me think.
What they think of ME.
What they think of MY successes.
MY failures..
It consumes me.
But where do those stem from?
Disappointment?
Is it the fear of disappointment that brings about my anxieties?
I’m not sure to be perfectly honest. But maybe that’s the problem..
In regards to basketball, I have had a tough go at it. After a season like my freshman year I felt that I was destined to have a stellar career at whatever institution I ended up in.
I work my ass off.
I do what needs to be done.
So what is it?
Why do I feel so low 5 months out of our long 7 month season?
....
"Bro, just stop thinking too much, who gives a shit?"
YA!
StOp ThInKiNg ToO MuCh
How simple is that! To ‘just stop thinking too much’. Isn’t it just so easy. I mean, there we go! All my problems out the window! I’m cured! Life is good! Life is gr-
Life is the same.
If I could stop thinking I would have stopped years ago.
Imagine! Maybe my bank account wouldn’t have taken some solid hits if I had just done so, because let’s be real, who do you really buy your cute, new and improved, 2 and a half sizes too small crops top for anyway???
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"The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck"
It’s a book I came across a couple months back and I know you won’t believe me when I say this but I read it!!!
...half way through. (Should have trusted your gut).
It helped me in terms of numbing out the pain, but did not do much for me after the fact.
"The power of Now"
@carolynruffino
I read this one as well. This time all the way through. It teaches how you to live moreso in the present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying too much about the future. In other words:
‘Live a more simplistic lifestyle you uncultured swine’.
"Compulsive thinking has become a collective disease. Your whole sense of who you are is then derived from mind activity. Your identity, as it is no longer rooted in Being, becomes a vulnerable and ever-needy mental construct, which creates fear as the predominant underlying emotion. The one thing that truly matters is then missing from your life: awareness of your deeper self -- your invisible and indestructible reality.
For about 3 days this worked. This notion really REALLY worked.
I tried to live more presently.
more mindfully.
And I did just that!
... for only about 3 days.
Then it all came back.
The anxiety.
The worries.
The distress.
I have tried it all.
Reading. Writing. Mediating. Yoga.
Nothing. There was no budge. I was still going through the same mental discrepencies.
Melancholy (n): a feeling of pensive sadness
I believe a lot of us experience this emotion frequently, except, what is blasphemous is that 99% of us STILL don’t feel comfortable sharing those feelings.
Yes, I am a part of the 99%.
I almost NEVER talk about my feelings UNLESS it is about my sweet sweet obsession with the woman, the myth, the legend:
DEMI LOVATO.
Don’t @ me.
The thought of someone pitying me makes me cringe.
Vulnerability makes me cringe.
Sadness makes me cringe.
But lets not mistake that for my homegirl ‘sadness’. Sadness is cute.
My emotional sadness, however, not so much.
What I can’t seem to come to terms with is why feeling so blue makes me feel so .. uncomfortable? These emotions are just as viable as feeling happy or excited right?
When I got into college I yelled it for the whole city of Tarzana to hear!
When I transferred to UCSB I yelled it for the whole city of Seattle to hear!
So why is it, when I am experiencing insufferable chest pain because of the overbearing angst consuming my every last breath, I dont ..yell it ou...t...for the whole city of Isla ... Vista to hear?
Oh, Right! because it is, I guess, looked down upon, to essentially feel sorry yourself..
But what a sacrilegious notion it is to express yourself in a negative like demeanor.
Our emotions, they are natural. Completely and Utterly natural.
Embedded in our human DNA even.
You are inclined to feel the way that you do.
The way you feel is neither an inconvenience nor dramatic. It is who you are. Your emotions are simply a testament to your individuality.
Amen to that!
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It is EASY for me to smile through my pain because it is something I have done my whole life. I have accustomed to this pretense of feeling ‘okay’, even when I am not.
Why? Because in my mind people have it much worse. Much much worse. So what do I do?
I place my emotions in these cute little purple boxes (figuratively speaking of course) and I make room to take in the emotions of my friends. To BE THERE for my friends.
So, I smile. I smile with teeth. I smile with teeth so no one asks questions. I smile with teeth, so I don’t burden those around me with any of my so few emotional inconveniences.
I guess writing this was moreso for my own selfish reasons.
I needed to word vomit without actually word vomiting. I needed people to know that sometimes I am not okay, without actually saying the words ‘I’m not okay’.
Don’t get me wrong,
If a person asks me
"Tal how are you?"
I will stil convincingly (but maybe not always) say :
‘Good!’
But writing this expresses to my friends, my family, my peers that I am human. That I feel and have every god given right to feel. That because I am going through something that someone else may never mutually experience does not in any way diminish what it is I am truly feeling.
And same goes for you.
SO, If you find yourself consumed by the bottomless pit of emotions that you have so hesitantly refuted to express, just know, you are not alone.
Because I AM that person. The epitome of such. I don’t express how I am feeling. I never have.
Though, hopefully, when comes the unfeasible time where someone asks:
"Tal how are you?"
and I hesitantly respond with:
‘You know...I am NOT okay.’
THAT will be my own depiction of what a million dollar lottery win looks like.
But until then, this will do.
To conclude this subtle but not so sweet excerpt on how I’ve come to the realization that it’s okay not to be okay,
Thank you for reading, yet again.
Best,
Tal