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Voices

And How I Learned to Deal With Them

By payton lynnPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Two Voices

The earliest signs showed when I was in the sixth grade. The numbness followed by intense elation, I wasn’t too sure what was happening to me but it didn’t seem normal for an 11-year-old. The depression really hit a little after my twelfth birthday. However my lowest points didn’t show until I was in the eleventh grade. That was when I finally processed that something was truly wrong with the two voices in my head.

When it came to the first boy I thought I loved, I was afraid to tell him how I felt about him, afraid that it wasn’t real and only the feel-good chemicals that were in overdrive in my mind. I ended up being right. You see he didn’t know what was wrong with me. I had been too afraid to tell him, yet somehow someway he knew just how to distract me from it. The effects he left on me only lasted while he was physically near me. He had become almost like novocaine, numbing all the bad things. The voices didn't fight to be heard when he was around. I tried to explain to him just what was wrong with me, but the right words never came out. It drove us apart. I had distanced myself but yet was in need of him there. I didn’t love him, as it turned out. I had just loved the way he numbed me.

For a small amount of time after he had left, I tried to find ways to cope, ways to mute the conflicting voices in my head. I knew nothing good would come from it, but at the time if I didn’t feel anything I was satisfied. One day not feeling anything worked a little too well. I started to wonder what my limits for not feeling anything were. I didn’t know how to control the few emotions that I managed to actually experience. There is now a faint dent in a freezer where I work, and a permanent scar on my once broken knuckle, due to my punching said freezer out of the smallest bit of anger I had felt. Even with the numbness, the voices were still there. The voices in my head, from the one that told me I was worthless all the way to the one telling me I could do anything, scared me. I had no control of it, so I took control.

One of the hardest things starting out, I would say, was overcoming my social anxiety and talking to someone. It was my own idea, yet it scared me half to death. The determination to have control of my own self awareness and emotions, was far more stronger than my will to curl in a ball while I sat alone crying in my room. I needed to know I wasn’t going to live my life doubting everything I felt. The darkest of my thoughts had progressively gotten worse. I was terrified. Dark thoughts, paired with little to no impulse control, had the potential to be highly dangerous. There was a day where I was driving and the only thought that went through my mind was “I wonder just how much it would hurt if I crashed right now.” That was the thought that worried me the most, the thought that moved me to help myself.

Since that point in my life, I have gotten help. Now, I have more control over my thoughts and emotions and not the other way around. There are still days when I’m not sure how exactly to handle everything, but I’m slowly learning not to be afraid of it anymore. The numbness is still there, just not as much as it used to be. I prefer it that way. Despite the things that go on in my head, I will continue to grow. I’m not ready to give up on this thing called life, as cliche as that sounds. Things aren’t done for me. I have room to grow and this will just become another thorn attached to me.

recovery
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