A confession

I’m a serious person. It’s always been that way for as long as I can remember.

Like I said earlier, I have been questioning myself more and more over the last few weeks. I can feel in my heart that I’m not happy. People never see it because when I’m around them, I’m generally fine. It’s when I’m alone, left to my own thoughts that the gloom starts to come over my head. The strange part of it is, I am aware of what’s happening, and yet I can’t help myself.

A person who read this blog left a comment that I’m asking myself too many questions and that I’m making a nightmare out of my own life.

(Thank you NL for your comment. Please consider this my reply)

There was some truth in that statement. Perhaps I have been digging myself into a hole. Perhaps I have doubted a bit too much. But I have always been a reflective person. It’s who I am. The world needs a bit more honesty; to others, to one another, but mostly, to one's self. That's where the journey to finding yourself begins. It’s the header of this blog. I wrote that because that has always been what I believe. We find the truth about ourselves when we are willing to confront what’s hidden inside.

I ask myself if I was in fact clinically depressed. I had to seriously consider this because my family had a history of depression. My mother suffered from depression. And my personality was a lot like hers. I took a quick test online. In fact, I took a few. And the results all came back the same – that I was showing signs of depression.

I found this impossible to deny. I find myself living in a long dark tunnel over the past few months. Nothing bothered me in particular and yet I find myself feeling gloomy and unhappy. I didn’t go around sulking at everybody…. I just don’t laugh as much as I used to. I found myself avoiding people. I found myself rather spending time alone that to go out with people. The only exceptions were my family and friends I considered close. I constantly struggle through feelings of loneliness, guilt and worthlessness and even self-resentment.

Loneliness…. because the woman I loved was sitting five thousand miles away. She and I had been living together for the past 8 years of our relationship. She left to work in the middle east for a year and I have been alone for the past 10 months. In that time, I have gone through many stages of trying to cope with her absence. She was the sunshine that filled my day. If we were a song, she was the melody and I was the words. And now that she is away, my words feel dry, harsh and lifeless. It’s been hard… harder than I’ve been willing to admit. I’ve been trying to battle the loneliness.. going out, meeting friends, working hard, keeping busy.. and yet deep in my heart I know I am still lonely. After 8 years of constantly having someone around to listen to you, to keep you company, to hear your lame jokes, to nag you at you, clean up after you, chasing you to come home early, go out for dinners with, having to suddenly do everything alone… it’s hard… hard not because those things are more difficult to do… but everything I do, I do with a feeling of emptiness.

Guilt because I did some things I have not been proud of. When I was young, my mother kept telling me that when I grew up, I was not to become like my father – an adulterer who had a weak spot for women. I told her and myself that I would never do that. And yet, I did. I fell in love with another woman. Or at least I think I did. I’m still not sure. But I know this. I met an amazing woman, and despite already being in a serious and committed relationship, I found myself being swept completely off my feet. I don’t know if the loneliness had anything to do with it, but for a long while she was all I had eyes for. It felt completely wrong and yet I could not help myself from walking straight into it even when I knew I was walking into a brick wall. She was the only woman I seriously had second thoughts for in all these years. But things came crumbling down as fast as it went up. Despite the obvious chemistry – I think we both knew this was never meant to be and neither one of us wanted to live this lie anymore. It was too painful. And when came to an end, I found myself feeling completely lost and disillusioned. I felt guilty not only for having cheated on my partner, but that also that I had hurt this woman as well….

Over the next few months, I went into this downward spiral of guilt and self-resentment. I hated myself for having done this. I had failed in my bid to stay loyal. I felt like I had secretly let my partner and my mother down. I had turned out to be like my father after all. He could never control his lust. My fiancée would find talk about how some of her friends’ partners had cheated on them, and how she felt so blessed and lucky that I wasn’t like that – and though she never meant it, those words were like daggers to my heart. And with this other someone – I had no idea of knowing what she was going through. She avoided me and I avoided her. We both needed our time to heal. I felt stupid, because I realized that had I not gone down that road we could have been great friends. We could connect and relate to one another. I actually found someone who gets the things I say and the emotions I feel. And for me, that was rare.

Coming out of all that, I was (or am) beaten. I find myself not only with a lonely heart; but an impure and broken one. One that has never felt quite the same ever since. And while I think I have managed to prevent myself from continuing on this downward spiral, I do find myself emotionally at the lowest point in my young adult life. I struggle through feelings of wanting to make amends. I struggle with moving on. I struggle with trying to find proper closure. I struggle with trying to fill out that void of loneliness. I struggle with trying to wake up and not feeling like the biggest idiot in town. The worst part of it all is, it’s all internal. Because outwardly, I’m fine. Outwardly, I function. Outwardly, I’m OK. Everything that is required of me, everything in my care, I have done and cared for in the most normal way. Yet inside, I know I’m still trying to deal with this emotional meltdown. The fact that no one knows, and that no one can know just adds to the feeling of loneliness I feel.

God knows I try not to think so much. I try to focus on living life and keeping busy occupying my time with work. And yet, alone at night I find myself calling out to God to grant me forgiveness, to grant my heart peace, to give me opportunity to make amends, to stop having these feelings of gloom, sadness, guilt, shame and self-resentment. I don’t know what else I can do. The only tears I have shed are dry ones. The only wails I have made are silent ones.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense. I don’t know if I have even made the point first wanted to make. But there you have it.

An admission;

A confession;

I’m lonely.

I’m shattered.

I’m depressed.