Feelings

     All right, in this blog post I'll try tackling feelings. Note how I say 'try', because usually I end up going way off topic or divert from the point I'm actually trying to make. Actually, I'm pretty sure that somewhere I'm going to divert from the topic of 'feelings' and go to something else...
     I don't really know how other people see me. I believe that everyone's minds are different and we all think of things in a different way from each other. Which is why some people find math impossible and others find it as easy as breathing. I look at some things in a way that other people don't seem to do, and when it comes to things like feelings and other questions with no real answer, I try analyzing them in my own way.
     First I have to say that I think I suffer from depression. I'm not entirely sure if I do, but it does feel like it sometimes. And while it is harder to describe emotions than anything else I've ever tried to explain (and believe me, I've tried explaining a lot of complicated things) I can try. I never really feel 'happy'. Sometimes I think I've lost sight of what it really means. Most of the time I just go through my day with a neutral feeling that borders on being sad or angry, depending on what's going on around me. But almost never happy. The only time I'm actually aware that I'm happy is when I have this sudden burst of energy that I can't explain. Because most of the time I feel exhausted, like I never get enough sleep (which sometimes I don't, but it's very strange if I sleep for a normal amount of time and still always feel tired)
     I don't get angry often either. Annoyed, yes, but angry? Not so much. With so many people living under one roof, with only my mother to keep us all under control (and for the record, us kids consist of very lazy teenagers and mischievous toddlers that don't know what 'quiet' means) it gets very loud at times. In fact, the only time when I find it to be quiet, with the exception of when a majority of us have gone out for shopping or whatever, is in the middle of the night when everyone's asleep. Which might be why I stay up so late at night sometimes. Because during the day, I often get headaches because of the noise. Not headaches that actually hurt, but it feels like something is pushing down on my head just not enough to cause pain. That's really hard to describe, because that's not quite it. But that's more or less how it feels. There are times when I do get headaches that hurt, but that pushing kind of feeling is what I get most of the time.
     Like I said before I got distracted, I do get annoyed. I like it when things are quiet. And when people leave me alone. I'm not a social person, and I never will be. I think that I'll always prefer curling up on my bed either to just lie down or to read or go on my laptop as opposed to going to some other place, whether it be in public or just down the stairs, to hang out with other people. And I like being with my own thoughts to analyze things or just make up stories. I often get bothered through the day for various reasons; chores, requests to make brownies (that I don't really feel like making because to feed my family I stand there making and baking them for two hours minimum. And then it's rare for me to get more than one or two brownies) and just to see if I want to sit with anyone else to keep them company. And it's not that I don't appreciate that my family wants me, it's just that they'll never understand that I don't actually like talking all that much, and I like it even less listening to them rant on and on about one particular subject when they could sum it up in a few sentences. And while I don't have a short temper, I can't really help but get annoyed at them.
     But still, I don't really get angry that often. It's more common being angry than truly happy though. There are times when everything just seems to annoy me. And normally I would think that those days would be the days where I don't get much sleep. But they aren't. For some reason, when I don't sleep much during the night, I'm more calm through the day. I think it might be because I don't quite feel 'there' and it feels more like a dream than anything. But when things really do start annoying me and I can't stand to listen to anyone talking because of that, I get into a bad mood.
     Now, in my house, a bad mood is when a person starts stomping around and isn't doing things as nicely as he/she is able to do, and yelling more than normal. Normally I walk almost silently through the house, so when I start getting angry you'll know because I'm actually putting more weight on my feet but not exactly stomping, though it does seem that way. I also have a tendency to glare at anyone who talks to me and turn up my music loud enough so that I can't hear anyone (bad habit, and I know I'll probably go deaf because of that, but with the amount of yelling going on I'm actually half surprised I'm not deaf already) and do everything faster than normal, if not entirely as neat or accurate as I would've done it when I'm not in a bad mood.
     But I don't do that very often. That's what happens on the really bad days. Otherwise I do what I normally do and just swallow my feelings and go around with the same blank expression on my face. Well, not exactly blank, but more like carefully composed. Some would argue and say that I'm frowning the entire time and I'm not happy the entire time, but most of the time that's not so much the case. Most of the time, I store away my feelings and think about something to distract me. Most of the time when people are talking to me, I'm already thinking about something else and I'm only paying half attention to whatever they're talking about. There are very few conversations I'm actually ever interested in and will participate in more than just some yeses and nos. So most of the time I'm actually more in thought than anything. Which might be why sometimes I try figuring things out that don't make any sense to me (the meaning of life, for example)
     I cry. I can admit that. And though I haven't done it so much in the past two months or so, I still cry a lot. The reasons why are not always reasonable (teasing was the most common reason in school, but now just because I can sometimes, with feeble excuses for when someone does see me cry) but I've found lately that I don't like my family. I wouldn't say that I hate them or anything, considering how I still respect some of them and I've grown up with them for my entire life, but I don't like them. I realize that I don't actually like anyone, let alone my family, but because I'm always around my family they seem to strike more nerves than anyone else. And it's not just because they're so loud, though that is a problem. It's because they can't stop fighting. And I don't mean fighting as in a fistfight, I'm just talking about yelling insults back and forth and bringing everyone else into the whole argument that doesn't want to be there (mainly meaning me, since I try avoiding fights) And they fight over the simplest things. If my brother doesn't do one of his chores, my mom starts yelling, he yells in return, and if he's actually doing the chore at that moment, he'll stop and yell about how he won't do it then. And then we don't hear the end of it because his privileges get taken away, my mom takes the chore completely away from him (most of the time it gets dumped on me) and then there's just complaints. And I have the 'special' honor of listening to everyone's complaints. If my mom has a problem, most of the time she'll tell me even though I have no interest in it whatsoever. Same goes for my siblings. And the worst part is that I can't tell them anything because they always misunderstand and make me seem worse than I really am. Well, that, and they can't keep a secret very well.
     And when my sister complains...then we really never do hear the end of it. She doesn't know how to drop a subject (except when something is her fault. Then she's very eager to drop it) and sometimes I'll hear a topic coming out of her mouth that she was busy going on about a week previously. Everyone complains about everything that annoys them (and I'm talking about everyone I know, not just my family) and most of the time they feel better afterwards. I'm not the type of person to complain much. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't really have any other choice. You'd be surprised at how much I get yelled at when I complain. Anyone else in my family? They get annoyed, but they don't really care. But because everyone expects me to be a good girl, they're never impressed if I start complaining about something.
     Mostly I just feel sad though. I'll rarely feel happy, I'll get annoyed a lot, and I won't get mad that often, but sad is what I feel more than anything. Well, apart from confusion. But still, mostly sadness. I'm not sad enough to think about hurting or killing myself, but I do feel sad. And sadness is probably the hardest emotion for me to describe. It's just something that feels almost so constant that it's become normal to me. And it doesn't make it any easier knowing that (for me at least) there's more than one kind of sadness. Some people might argue and say that while one feeling might be sadness, another variation of it would be called despair, or sorrow, or whatever. But to me it's all the same. It's still sadness, no matter how I look at it. They just vary in how strong it is. As for what I normally feel, it's not very strong sadness. Enough for me to know it's there, but not enough for it to influence any of my decisions. But there are times when I'm alone (almost always in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep) when I find myself crying. Crying for no particular reason sometimes, and just having a very sad feeling. They're silent tears, just so you know. No sobbing or anything. If I'm sobbing about something, then that means that something has gone very wrong. I'll cry silently if I don't think something is fair or for no reason, but the rare times I actually sob where I can't stop even if I wanted to, something has gone very wrong. In my eyes, at the very least. And it's usually around then when I just want to be alone. I push everyone away and ignore them for as long as it takes me to stop, and then a while after that as well to get myself under control again. But as much as I wish that they would leave me alone, I still sometimes want someone to ignore me and actually try to help. Not by asking me what's wrong (because I never answer that. They never understand and always make false assumptions) but by actually trying to help me. To listen to me for once, instead of making me listen. Because as much as I hate actually talking, sometimes that's exactly what I want to do.
     I'll stop there on the sadness. Not because I'm getting sad myself, but because from there on it just gets harder and harder to explain anything. So now I'll move onto confusion. Confusion is something I feel a lot as well. As smart as I may be, there are things that I will never understand. When I was younger, my family was happy. We actually did fun things, instead of sit around the entire time doing basically nothing. We didn't fight so much. We were functional. But now all that happens is that we sit around with our eyes glued to some screen the majority of the time or making a mess. We don't go out for family outings anymore, and we don't even go to church. There's so much fighting happening in general here that my ears ring from the noise all the time. A very high-pitched but only loud enough to irritate me sound. And when things get really bad and I get real headaches, I have that as well as a very low buzzing sound that hurts. But anyways, I thought I used to know a lot about my family. My mom always went on about how great my dad was before and how she didn't regret marrying him or anything, but now they're needing a divorce. I say that they need one because all they ever do is argue. They haven't actually done anything about it yet though. And I know that people change, but when I look at how my family used to be compared to what it is now, I just can't help but get confused. I don't think that it will ever make sense to me how we went from happy and getting along to fighting so much. So basically, most of my confusion stems from my family. I do get it when I don't understand other things, like math of physics equations, but mostly from my family.
     Since I explained a bit of confusion, I think I should also add fear in here. I've never been a brave person. It's hard for me to make choices because many times when I do make a choice something goes wrong. It's not always something that's my fault, but something still tends to go wrong. And because I've been teased a lot in school, I've never actually wanted to really say anything. Fighting back almost never seems to help in my cases, so I've never really bothered trying to. I just stayed how I was: alone and afraid. Most people wouldn't know it just by looking at me, but I am afraid. Afraid of so many unimportant things that just seem to weigh heavily on me. When it comes to putting out a fire because my little brother accidentally set a blanket on fire? There it seems like I am brave. This actually did happen the other day, by the way, which is how I know that. But five minutes afterwards, and now, it felt like it was a dream. Like it wasn't really me doing it. I think I did that more out of instinct than anything. Instinct and fear. Because as much as I don't like it where I am, I don't want the house to burn down either. But I know that if something else should happen, no matter how much I imagine that I'll be brave enough to deal with it, I won't be able to. Unless some stroke of luck hits me like it did with the fire. Because I've always been a coward. I've never been able to talk to anyone properly because I didn't want them thinking the wrong things about me. It's extremely hard for me to find anyone to open up to about anything because most people don't understand and get the wrong idea. And I never really stand up for myself in anything because I can't stand the idea of having any amount of attention directed at myself. I don't like change, and I've lived far too long being the way I am that I'm not sure I'll ever be ready to change.
     Of course, I did start this blog. This is one big step in my life, no matter how much it doesn't seem like it. Because I can still remain anonymous enough that even if my family finds this, they won't think to connect it to me. Because I can talk about whatever I want and not feel bad about it. No one will make me feel bad, because even if there is someone who says anything I don't like, I can ignore them. There's no actual person here making me feel bad.
      Basically, I can be what I want here. For once in my life, I can be honest about what I'm really thinking. I don't have to tell little lies to keep myself safe or sane or to keep others from some sort of danger. I don't have to go along with whatever else anyone says, which I actually hate doing. I can enjoy this freedom from the things that hold me back so much in the real world, and know that at least someone out there will read what I'm thinking. I don't know what other people might think of me, whether they think that I'm confusing or easy to understand, whether I'm 'right' or 'wrong', whether they think I'm being mature or just childish, but I don't really care. I've found something that helps me. And maybe, just maybe, it can help others too. I don't really know how, but maybe it can.
     There are other feelings I could talk about here. I could talk about hope, or love, or a variety of other things, but I feel that this is long enough. I might get to those other things one day, but for now I'm content with what I've written already. It's taken me about 4 hours to write this particular subject this far, with long breaks for chores and watching my little siblings. And I've paused a lot to think about how these feelings affect me, and how to put it all into words. And that was the hardest part about writing this. Finding the words. I'm not scared of how others think of me. I couldn't really care less if my family finds out about this (unless of course they actually find out that it's me and confront me about it, in which case I'll care so much) It's almost funny to me how sometimes the smallest of things can matter the most. And I also want to say that these are just my feelings. I don't know if anyone else will ever feel things the way I do. In order to understand someone else's feelings, you'd have to ask them.
     The last thing I wanted to say on feelings here is that even though I believe that I suffer from depression, I'm still more or less fine. I've been dealing with what I have for as long as I can actually remember, and I know how to control myself. I've never wanted to hurt myself, and I've never though about killing myself. Just for in case anyone is thinking that I'm saying all of the above stuff because I'm planning on doing anything like that. Actually, I don't think will, but you never know. It just feel slike something I should say here. And if anyone here reading really does think about those things, know that no matter how bad your life is, it can get better. You just need the right outlook and to find other people who are willing to listen and to help. And maybe listen to music. Because that's what helped me so much. But that's another topic. Something I probably won't get into fully for a long time either. But don't give up. Because then nothing will happen. There's always help out there somewhere.