Coffee with an old friend

My mind feels really full and I feel completely drained after speaking to an old friend for 2 hours. I thought it was going to be therapeutic but it honestly made me feel physically sick. We gossiped about old friends, discussed our old lives and talked a little bit about our new life. I didn’t want to say too much, about how depressed I have been, this whole time. I did talk about some of the bad events, because she did bring them up.

It stung knowing that everyone else is doing well and finding themselves, at least being who they wanted to be, moving out and staying in touch with old friends. I mean I took the first step by reaching out to this friend and we connected well. Though I still felt like there was still a big gulf between us.

I feel really sick and I don’t know how to cope with it. It is ironic because I took this as a ‘self-care time’ by seeing my friend and I was very nervous about seeing her. I guess it was a good idea at first but then it became bad. I was dealing with a headache and I was rushing from a 2 hour lecture. Transport gives me headaches already and the journey home was cold and I felt suffocated on the bus.

I feel quite claustrophobic but really just want a hug. I want to talk to someone but I really feel full and drained from people. I don’t know why. It scares me because I think this is just how I have become. I cannot be with people for too long. Although I have been with a significant other and spent long hours with them, but it didn’t feel like hard work or felt draining. Maybe its because we talked about uncomfortable topics. Maybe its because I saw pictures of old friends and foes and really just did not want to see them. It hurts knowing that everyone is moving on and growing towards what they want, meanwhile I am struggling to get out of bed each morning. I feel sad and worthless and my beliefs have been confirmed.

I have all these achievements but its so hard to feel like I have actually achieved something. There is constant chatter in my head and I cannot stand another word. My head hurts and I feel nauseous.

Successfully ethnic

It is really infuriating when people talk about coming from difficult backgrounds but then coming out successful and thriving, despite the long hours of part-time work and studying. It pisses me off because it neglects the pain and struggle, and the way many of us are not really the child prodigies that everyone expects the bridge with the broken wing to be when they come from a life of tribulation. Most of us are haunted and trapped by financial problems and face difficult narcissistic family members who abuse and bully. How can you study when you are constantly hearing war at home? How can you focus when you have a war inside your head? How can you remain calm and think of fucking sunshine and rainbows when you feel like aggression is the only way to stop it?

I understand that people are trying to say that we are on the same boat and that if they can do it, so can we. But it results in this ignorant expectation that we have no excuse to want to shut down and brood about the shit that we face on a daily basis. I find it infuriating when companies and business people talk about equality and diversity and get out specific applications for disadvantaged people with extremely high standards of people who come from low standard quality lives. They look for that diamond in the rough, they look for that high-IQ’d individual who fought back against the mayhem and troubles and expect them to be sensible and polite and even shy away from talking about the hypocrisies and oppression that Neo-liberal societies impose on the working class, even the just-about-surviving class. It is not that I think that we are not capable, I just cannot deal with people who EXPECT us to cope with it. It’s unfair pressure. Yes people’s intentions may be that they do not want to patronise us or hold us to a low standard so as to set us up for failure, but by holding us up to a standard that people from healthy living non-abusive privileged backgrounds are subjected to, it almost ignores the painful journey and daily struggles.

I appreciate the meditative outlook of this new wave of ‘positivity’ from those who promote yoga and meditation. You find even work places and schools who promote these workshops and excel days to meditation and ‘tips’ about how to manage stress and keep a positive outlook. Yet they forget that their ‘5 easy ways on how to maintain a positive mindset’ cannot ‘cure’ life-long struggle. These quick tips are too simple and even offensive to someone who has battled with depression, lived their whole life in a dysfunctional family setting, faced rigorous scrutiny and painful rejection and had institutions who were set up and designed to help those in these situations.

In this climate, under which we live in fear of losing our lives and basic human rights of having a home and finding security, it is impossible and unrealistic to think that trying to make everyone think that life is full of ‘sunshine and rainbows’ will lift off the pressure and trauma.

Inevitably we equate health with wealth, happiness with net-worth and we end up postponing our lives to an uncertain future. Some of us find money and fame and to our detriment still feel empty and unhappy, and it becomes a vicious cycle of anger and fear. This is because we have never felt stable, we have been forced to live in uncertain and insecure conditions. I don’t think that finding a job will help bring security for me, although it  is hard not think this way when you were brought up living in fear that you will be evicted, or having to starve in order to the pay rent, or being mocked for being on free school dinners. How could you de-condition yourself when everything external to you points to that answer. How could you believe that you matter in a world which looks at wealth, brands and fame which has become the one dichotomy; you are either rich and famous or poor and homeless. Being in the middle means teetering towards the latter.

I hate the way people downplay the struggles of a rising poor person, as much as I hate the way people degrade them for lacking wealth. We cannot gloss over the painful past and expect people to be ready for work or for school 100% ready. Some of them can do it, but not everyone can and not everyone has the will too. It is as if that s the only thing that matters to everyone, researches and bosses will look into what causes people to the ready busy bee worker who brings money and clients and try to implement it so that other ‘less motivated underprivileged workers could learn, because that is the only thing that matters to them.