My grandpa was buried today.

I’m so glad got to see him before being buried. I’m very sad he’s gone, but glad i got to learn so much about life from him. He was always happy and grateful for what he had over the course of his life. He led a hard life and I’m forever grateful for what he did to get my family where we are today.

My grandpa loved music. He loved Jazz and had so many Jazz CD’s. I remember how excited he was when I told him I picked up the guitar, and when I picked up the drums. I remember telling him about the Jazz I had started listening to from the 60’s but that he was more familiar with older Jazz. So much I didn’t know that he had first hand experience with.

I remember him telling me recently about how old he felt he was, and how grateful he was to have had the long happy life he had.

We thought he would live to 100 because he was always so healthy and full of life. Sometimes people go before you expect and it all happens incredibly quickly.

For me my grief hits immediate, and then fades. I remember falling to the ground and crying when I found out he had cancer, same way when my Nanny(grandma) died. The tears hit before the actual emotion of the news did.

I felt the same way last Monday when I found out about his death. I remember sitting down with my lunch with a smile on my face because I was feeling happy for no real reason and then getting the text from my mom. It can all happen so fast.

Last night at the wake I got to talk to my grandma on my Dad’s side who is my only surviving grandparent. I’ve spent little to no time talking to her over the years, but I’ll remember the time I got to be with her yesterday forever. We just talked about the weather and how old all the grandkids were getting. Just a normal casual conversation about life that I often shared with my grandpa through texts he’d randomly send me.

I’m so glad I got to connect with him through that over these past years. I didn’t expect him to get sick, and it just sucks, but I’m grateful for what I have had.

Wherever he is, I hope he has books and Jazz, and is looking down with that same happiness he always had. Say hi to Nanny for us, Grandpa.

The world is not designed for the mentally ill and I’m supposed to just act like that doesn’t bother me or impact my life.

I constantly have to look down on myself because of how uneven my mood and energy can be. The world is telling me that I’m lying and I can do it I just don’t want to. Thats what every source around me has told me. That I should just get over it, and that I’m a burden. It is not just me who thinks I’m a burden it is everyone around me and everyone I’ve ever known has said with their eyes and sometimes even their words.

I make half of what I made two years ago and have hundreds of dollars more in expenses a month. And I’m supposed to just make that work somehow. I’m trying, but the world continues to say shame on me for asking for understanding and accommodation. I’m selfish I know they are saying it I’ve always been such a taker.

I sit here ashamed for quitting my job when I really shouldn’t be two years ago. I shouldn’t feel ashamed for my mental health getting worse and making me unable to stay awake a full day consistently. I shouldn’t feel ashamed for needing help over the course of my life emotionally and financially.

I sit here ashamed for getting fired in March. I tried so hard and genuinely was just doing what I thought was okay and I got fired. They saw my desire to grow and heard what my coworker said about my improvement, and fired me anyway. If only I did something different. If only something worked and my efforts to improve mattered.

I’m so broken being poor. I barely leave the house because I can’t afford it. I stress about groceries and eat so little to save money. I feel shame for all my waste. When will it end? When will I be allowed to need help instead of being embarrassed by it?

I believe less and less in my talents with every failed job application. Three interviews and then a no, but a AI generated apology mentioning my “accomplishments.” I feel so defeated and worthless. You could tell me I was worthless and it wouldn’t take much for me to believe you. So easy to drive my mental into the dirt, and I don’t feel compassion. I feel pity for not matching up to the rest of the world.

I made it to 26, I now get the privilege of realizing I am a failure. I spent so many years being warned about how when 26 comes I’ll need my own health insurance and I need a job that covers that by then. Well I failed. I got close so many times but close is useless it’s maybe even worse for getting my hopes up. The inkling feeling of relief I started to think I would get. My talents are meant for being harassed by middle school students on the daily and still being poor anyway. Me and my nibbling conscience.

Making less money with higher expenses. And that’s just what I have to accept I deserve and not let that get me down. I’m not allowed to get down I have to bounce back. There is no room to cry or even suffer. Me and my nibbling conscience.

I used to keep a very detailed journal in high school. From 2015-2019 I would write everything. I thought if I wrote everything, I’d never forget what was important and I’d never forget what I’d been through. Most of all, I’d never forget how I felt.

The good and the bad. I’d meticulously write everything I struggled with in a similar way to what I do now here. If I missed a day or a couple of days I’d spend hours filling it in because I didn’t want to forget a single moment of extreme pain or joy. It was a form of therapy to me— a child who desperately needed help but was trying to figure it out on his own. A child who would rather carry an unsustainable load than burden anyone who cared about him with the idea of him not being okay.

I remember writing in this journal the day Chester Bennington died. As a preteen I loved Linkin Park, but had been out of that “phase” for quite a while when I found out. What really saddened me about his suicide was the horrifying fear that no matter what I do now and how I feel now, I can’t control how I’ll feel down the line. Everyone goes through a daily battle that is invisible to everyone around them, and one day, that battle might claim their lives out of nowhere. I could write about depression my whole life, and still lose to it. And I can’t do anything about that.

I’d like to share an excerpt from my journal from that day:

(July 20th, 2017)

“…And yea depression too. But it hasn't solved those problems; It's merely covered them up like I would cover them up with anything else. Is that really any better? Am I really solving anything right now?

Could things really turn that easily? Obviously I have no idea what Chester's personal life was really like but than again does anyone really know what anyone's personal situation is like? I don't think his wife or his family and friends saw this coming either. One day a person seems fine, and the next... there gone.

The point I'm trying to make is despite how happy I may feel now... I still feel like I'm trapped. I still feel like I'm lying to myself and to my friends and family about who I am and how I feel, and being in a relationship doesn't really change that. Forget where will I be in the next five years... where will I be in the next five weeks? How will I feel? Will things change for the worse or the better?

I wish I didn't feel feel the need to keep up appearances. The need to keep up appearances is what killed people like Chester and so many others. But there is to much crazy messed up logic in my head keeping me from really being who I am and accepting it. I don't really know what to think. I guess I'll just be tragically stuck in my ways until I finally run out of things to cover this up with.”

I’m glad I didn’t give up, and that I continue to not give up. The war isn’t over, even with help and medicine and therapy. It’s still a war, and life’s just not fair. But that’s no reason to give up.

I think about all of those who died young whether its to tragedy or anything. It sometimes feels even more frustrating when there was “something” that could be done. We couldn’t help them? Why not?

They had so many things I lack, yet they lost. How am I supposed to survive if they couldn’t?

I believe in the interconnectivity of humanity. I believe we are all fighting together against so many things, so to me it feels like the tragedy is piling up over and over again.

I feel saddened for making it, while others haven’t. I feel deeply saddened, and hearing about how those who are supposed to know more than me fall. they made it to 35? They made it to 45? And they still suffered all the way through.

I feel survivors guilt for all the lives lost to suicide and depression and drug abuse. We were supposed to all be in this together… but we can’t, we haven’t all made it.

And what do you say to that? It is incredibly difficult to think about it as a preventable loss, because we didn’t prevent it.

We couldn’t.

Or could we?

Maybe more could be done

How do you go on after failing?

One of the less talked about aspects of OCD is the removal of trust in yourself. Everyone is born with the feeling that your gut knows something— something that you don’t understand but know. You know what you want, you know what you like, you know what you value. You know what you feel.

Well I don’t know how I feel. I know I do feel, deeply so. But I don’t know what to make of it.

I try. I want to know. I want to trust myself, too, but its so hard to regain any sort of “gut” feeling when the entire framework has been robbed and pillaged.

I don’t think I trusted my gut much before I knew about OCD, either. Even then I always felt so unsure, and always felt like those around me must know better than me because they had more confidence. My gut was always weak.

“Nothing ever seems to help

I’m not hiding it well”

I don’t trust my feelings or my thoughts. I often feel so many dramatic feelings, and I can’t help always feeling like something is wrong. Everything I feel, something is wrong.

I’m jealous, I’m embarrassed. I’m too much.

Do I trust my beliefs? Maybe for a time I did. In that brief period of my life where I was realizing I didn’t believe in god, I felt so sure of something: not that god wasn’t real, but that I had been lied to. About everything.

The answers were never as sure as they made it seem, the adults were never as confident as they portrayed. The history and literature weren’t as concrete as they were built up to be.

I learned not to trust what was around me or what was inside me.

I want it to be freeing to know nothing but it usually isn’t. I often feel jealous of those who are sure of things, even though I simply could lie. I could say I was sure of so many things. I could tell myself that I am confident, and then become what I believe. That’s the only way to do it.

But I can’t. I can’t fake anything, because no matter how little I trust my own thoughts and beliefs, I trust everything else I’ve ever encountered less. I believe what I believe because it had the most right while the rest was wrong. But its not enough to be certain.

I’m tired of thinking so much, but I couldn’t be any other way.

Not hiding it well.

I don’t have a gut. It was shriveled and malnourished before I even made it to the therapist, because I was so afraid of being wrong. Because what then? No one ever seems to think about what would happen if there gut was wrong. What do you do if your gut tells you something wrong? How do you ever trust your gut again if it steered you wrong?

That’s trust. You’re supposed to trust something. Your supposed to believe in something, Ryan. Your supposed to, because how sad would it be if you didn’t? That’s what she meant.

I have dreams and nightmares about topics I haven’t thought about while awake for years. Are my dreams secret meanings that I’ve wrongfully forgotten? Those trapped thoughts and feelings never change; they’ve been stuck in the past. My dreams are just more of the stuttering and repeating; replaying the same trauma over and over again. What more is another dream about the same thing supposed to mean?

What do you do if you are stuck, and can’t move forward. It happens to people all the time. They end up traumatized for life by a loss or by a love and never move forward. We think its so normal to move on but what if you can’t? That’s what my life would be if I listened to dreams, or to my gut. I’d sit here questioning in circles, thinking my brain knows something I don’t know about what would make me happy or fulfilled.

Searching for distractions… but distractions are the essence of stillness. I spent years looking for that earnest expression that would help me understand, and then years trying to understand all the negative ends that come from trying to feel so intensely and trusting whatever gives you that intense feeling. I don’t want to trust my gut because I don’t want it. I don’t want to feel like there are moments and life, and that’s it. You experience those moments and spend the rest of your time reminiscing about those highs, hoping for your gut to lead you to more of those moments. Emotional climax or photo worthy moments or pieces of art that symbolize a lifetime of pain.

That’s supposed to be it? That’s supposed to be it. A weight on my chest.

I feel a special relation with those songwriters who are willing to share themselves fully with strangers.

There are artists out there who have written about the most painful things you can go through in life, and its not disguised by a metaphor or translated through a performance in a movie. It is raw and honest.

Does singing the songs you made in your lowest point again make them just a performance? Are they no longer that personal piece of your being because its on stage?

I often think about how people in my past have often expressed happiness for me when I first started writing and talking about my mental illness, and then drifted off from that point. I think we have an idea in our head that when you beat something, it goes away, and when you “let it all out,” you’ll feel relieved and the pressure with release.

But I’ve kept writing. Sometimes I write about the same thing just in another way on a different day. Sometimes I just reread something I’ve written in my past.

I don’t think a cured me would not express anything because he was happy. I think for a while I tried to make that my goal. That I’d be so well adjusted that I could close down the factory in my mind and just live. The ideal man.

I know for so many my pain was a burden in the past, so I thought a better me wouldn’t need to do any of that. If I say I’m fine, and act like I’m fine, I’m fine. But I’m not.

I don’t want to not want to write and not want to feel. I don’t want to be so stable that I feel nothing.

The back and forth nature of my mood makes me think that I am broken, and that I need to be fixed. Its a terrible way to think about yourself— that you need fixing rather than just needing help.

“Mental illness.” Its a defect, but its who I am. I don’t forgive myself for needing help, and I don’t forgive myself for being a burden and its a horrible way to treat someone who was in an immense amount of pain. He doesn’t deserve all the judgment I give him. He was just doing what he thought was best, and he was just trying to feel alive.

There’s reconciling to be done with the me that lived in song, and looked to feel the passion of emotion in the most important moments. That me was not a defect, he was beautiful.

Its weird when good things happen to people who have hurt you in your past. Comparing your whole picture to cursory knowledge of their lives isn’t fair, but I do it anyway.

I do wonder if every pain goes away, and I unfortunately still feel the pain of years past all these years later.

Today I’m depressed thinking about stagnation. Its hard for me to tell the difference between stagnation and between stability. I often wish things could slow down, but I then feel guilt for not looking for more. It seems the end goal that society instills into us is simply more. You should always want more.

And that’s so stressful. Its such a burden to be stuck thinking about what you don’t have and what you want in the future. I wish I always was just happy with what I have.

I think about my mistakes, even more than that my flaws. Its one thing to make a mistake, but another to have it define a part of you. A flaw is something intentional that you should work to change, even though it’ll take a lot of effort.

Sometimes i think about what people from my past would say to me now. I still have hypothetical talking heads in my mind judging me. Thinking about my mistakes and flaws, and what the real problem with me is.

Have you ever talked about someone like that and thought about how awful it is?

“Well the thing with them is that they are a bleeding heart and will never change.”

“Well the thing is that they are immature and self destructive, and they’ll never change.”

“Well they are so erratic and self obsessed and that’s why they’ll always keep falling apart, and they’ll never change.”

Partially I worry that everything I say or do is reinforcing some narrative about me without me knowing. That someone could see the through line of my personality just by reading my words and hearing my voice.

What is the goal of expression? I admit I don’t really know even though I might act like I do. I write because I want to. I write when I feel lonely. I write when I feel like I’m trying to figure myself out.

I feel the eyes of silent judgment for feeling the need to express. My desire to be known by people may be one of those flaws. I want who I am to be known somewhere in the nothingness and I don’t know why.

I think about musicians who write about their trauma and life experience. Is using art therapeutically a good thing to do? Or is it simply egoism to want to sing and dance and write while thinking about your own darkest moments?

I have so much yet am not always satisfied. Is that my own fault? I wish I craved nothing, and was happy with nothing more than I have. But it seems to me whenever I feel satisfied it wares off, and I return to thinking about things I couldn’t fix in the past and if I will forever remember those things I couldn’t fix. And then I write about it, and then I read it and see if there’s something there.

I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I do it anyway.

This is the latest song to send me into tears because of how I connect somewhat simple lyrics to my own life.

“All I Know is How It Makes Me Feel”

I think I often gets caught up in rumination and trying to put words to thoughts. I’ve spent much of my time writing trying to internally translate my feelings into thoughts and my thoughts into words and my words into therapy. It can be so exhausting to mine value out of these thoughts.

When I was younger I couldn’t stop talking about my pain. I don’t think I did it because I wanted attention, I just wanted someone to understand. Some sort of validation that my interpretation was worth something and might help me. I wanted that translation to lead to action that could fix things or to a valued connection with those around me to feel better about what I deal with.

I ended up so tired of that interpreting, because I never felt like I got what I was looking for out of it. I would write and talk for hours on end to be left with silence.

I think what this song makes me recognize is that what makes a true artist has nothing to with financial and critical success. In this entire rollout of Charli’s new album she has made it clear she is an anxious depressed mess. She achieved the highest highs that could be expected in the music industry, and still feels alone and self-hating. If she has truly achieved the goals that an artist is supposed to achieve, why is she not happy?

On both verses of this song, Charli mentions “wanting to throw her life away.” She also alludes to wanting to shoot herself. Maybe its done in in a way that dilutes the intent behind those words, but I know those words. I know those dodging responses to the banal “how are you doing?” questions. I wrote those same words so many time trying to find some meaning through them.

Maybe we need to change the goals we look for when we engage with art. Maybe what we create doesn’t have to be conclusive. Maybe all it should do is show how it makes us feel, and no more than that.

I often wonder if I would erase my pain, the pain I’ve been through and not yet encountered, if I could. If you were to ask me in the moment of said pain I’m sure I’d answer easily. Try stepping on someone’s foot and see what they say. I highly doubt they’ll tell you to step harder because it builds character.

It is true that the best way to understand pain and suffering is to experience it yourself. It shapes our ability to empathize and appreciate the things we have.

I think the people who are most willing to accept thi are those who have already been through a great deal of pain. If you were to tell me today that I had a great pain ahead of me, all I’d ask is that I don’t know when it happens. More-so than the pain itself I fear the anticipation of said pain.

To know the future seems like some sort of twisted joke. I spend so much time trudging through what ifs about when I’m going to die or when my family is going to die or when the next climate disaster is going to strike and finally collapse society… I guess if I knew at least I wouldn’t have to wonder.

Feeling sure of things is what I and most other people with OCD would probably say is ideal. If I was sure if everything, then I wouldn’t worry. If I was sure of who I was and sure I was a good person, I wouldn’t have to waste so much energy on wondering what the truth is.

But is being sure of everything what I really want to be? Those who are sure are never able to question if they should change or not. I want to be able to change, but not worry about if I should change.

You don’t get to roadmap what you’ll go through in life to lead to you becoming your optimal self, all you get is the results and you have to deal with it.

The worry adds nothing. But I guess if I didn’t worry I wouldn’t have much to write about.

There is no formula to a good person.

“I keep looking for distractions
Hope the feeling passes
But I've got to say
It's getting harder every day
And I can't seem to get around it
Head just keeps on pounding with
The simple thought
What if this isn't what I want.”

I don’t think you can really understand the pain of endless doubt unless you experience it.

Sitting and not knowing yourself. Not knowing what you want. Questioning your goodness, questioning if it would be better to just turn out the lights just to get it to stop.

It is OCD, yes, but I think there’s more to it for me.

I always was unsure and self loathing. The minute I was able to think about who I was, I questioned why I deserve the right to ask such a question. What makes me different and more worthy of anything then all those suffering.

If we truly wanted to show gratefulness for what we have, we would never stop thinking about it. There is nothing but eternal pain that would make up for all the pain people go through in this world. Shame to me for forgetting that. Shame to me for discounting that.

There’s a lot of art that talks about the importance of human experience. It discounts the validity of virtual worlds and simulated experiences, because humanity is reality. Humanity is believing in something better.

Absolute foolishness. The arrogance necessary to still choose reality over something better is just foolishness. To look at the pain in the world and think it was worth it for your vapid happiness. Millions of deaths. Billions of tortured and suffering so you could be blessed with the Knicks winning the championship. Praise be Jesus, he killed the Palestinians but gave me an A on my test. God bless.

I would choose a better reality any day. Sign me up for the virtual reality pods as soon as we can make our own heaven, because it is absolute nonsense to choose this dying world with death all around just because of human pride.

My girlfriend thinks much more highly of the old me than I do. We talked about that this week in therapy.

She says she misses when I was more honest about my thoughts and feelings. She feels I’m all blocked up, and she’s right. But I don’t know how willing I am to uncork.

I guess the old me was more romantic. More of a dreamer, more of a believer. I was in the stage of grief where I was bargaining, and I believed there was someone or something that would heal me. Some sort of extreme experience— love, passion, drugs, memories. Human experience would bring me happiness. The endless struggle was the best way things could be.

I could be an author. I could be a famous music critic. I could be the teacher who reached out to students and made them believe in something more.

The problem was expectations. Its always expectations that dictate how we feel. I expected something that couldn’t have existed. That was hypomania to me— constantly thinking my life was going to be defined and that it would serve as an important piece of something that would reflect humanity or something.

I took an edible and watched the final episodes of the office, parks and rec and other sitcoms and cried.

I wrote my friends letters telling them how much I loved them.

I guess stability is cowardly, because I don’t think I’d do it again. Its not anyone else’s fault, I’m just locking that desire for extreme vulnerability behind a sign that says “risky.”

I never want to experience that pain again. I never want to even consider letting it happen, so I don’t.

Ask anyone, and they say they’re looking for peace of mind.

But peace of mind is anti human. We’re always moving. That’s how we are supposed to live, right?

The old me did not want stability, even if that’s what he said he wanted. He wanted to feel happy to be human.

Now, I don’t know. I’d trade the uncertainty of the future for peace of mind.

But if that’s what I want, I might as well kill myself now.

These are the thoughts that are locked up. She doesn’t want to hear them even if she thinks she does, because no one would. I wouldn't. And yet, I type.

I don't think there has been an album that so strongly resonates for me in a way that I don't see anyone else recognizing.

I just read a lot of comments about it being a "fun" album and an album with very childish lyrics. I just don't know how you could possibly listen to this and take it that way.

It could very well just be me. Olivia might not even herself mean the lyrics here to connect with relationship OCD in the way it painfully does for me here. And that's totally fine.

I've always been a huge supporter of music having a unique relationship with each listener. It's what I write about, and it's what I listen to music for. It is the highest form of artistic connection for me, and even before this album came out I had felt an extremely strong connection with the single "The Cure."

Obsessing over a cure was something I struggled with heavily when I first found out I had OCD. I felt so choked by the hold it had on me that the only solution must be complete surgical removal of the disease. I couldn't believe that such an operation was impossible. There is no cure for the way my brain is.

I thought love could fix me. I thought that the reason I had so many doubts is because I didn't really know if I felt "love."

"If it's meant to be, you won't have any doubts."

I could cry my eyes out trying to get these statements to fit for me.

To doubt the very foundation of yourself is something I wouldn't wish on anyone. I felt like my own brain was trying to take away my love from me.

I think there's something wrong with me.

Maybe Olivia doesn't even know about relationship OCD and it's all a coincidence. I can't lie and say that wouldn't hurt. To feel that I'm grabbing at something that is only there for me.

I think the culmination of this line of thinking comes on "less."

"Maybe it'll fix itself tomorrow

But I've been saying that like every night."

"If loving me means letting go and wishing me the best

Then I wish

I wish, I wish you loved me less"

Maybe my head would fix itself if it ended. Maybe if I went through with the endless checking in my head I'd feel a release.

I battled with this way for years. It was years of trying to fight my own brain to choose my own love rather than trust whatever was going on in my head.

If it’s not intended, does that make my feelings about this album not real? Invalid? I’ve always been very okay with connecting myself with an album regardless of the creator’s intention, but for this… It feels so lonely to connect with something when they don’t feel the same way.

Maybe its just a simple coincidence of lyrics. I guess that's okay. I guess that'll have to be okay.

I was suicidal for a long time, even though I didn’t want to die. It’s hard to explain.

When I was in high school, I truly believed I would die young, because I couldn’t imagine a world where I made it through the pain I was going through without dying. I never wanted to kill myself or attempted to kill myself, but I had a passive belief that I would eventually be unable to take the pain anymore. I think I mostly thought I’d die drunk, and that was why I was so sad when I was drunk.

You’d think that would make me want to stay away from drinking, but I think most people who have dealt with depression have experienced some sort of an obsession with the feeling of it. Obsessed with feeling “real” and looking at yourself as you truly are-- awful and evil. My true nature was worthless and drinking only made it easier to see that. I thanked drinking for bringing out the me that was honest about his pain.

I was so far in the hole. So far trapped in the well of authenticity— looking to feel real and understand what the point of all the pain was, even though I knew it. I knew there was nothing on the other side of my pain that would make it all make sense.

I was never outright about this feeling, because I would never have admitted it even to myself.

“Oh I’m not suicidal like I'm a danger to myself, I just hate myself and feel I am worthless and life is meaningless and I cry myself to sleep because of how depressed and lonely I am. But I’m not suicidal so its all good.”

There was this night the summer before college started. In this one week I had gone from extreme high to an extreme low because of some “relationship stuff.” The night it all came to an end I remember a deep pain of heartbreak in my chest. It was an awful, awful feeling. I remember that pain because it felt like a physical injury. It wasn’t just the numbing lull in the background constantly, it felt like I was cut and bleeding and wanted to shout “OW” at the top of my lungs.

I remember sitting on my back porch with my friends at three in the morning, staring at the ground without many thoughts other than “why?” “why me?” I wasn’t crying or even talking at all, but my friends around me were crying. I didn’t really understand why at the moment, but I remember being told that they were truly worried about me. Worried that I wouldn’t make it out of “this.”

Its been years now, and there’s a part of me that feels confused by this. How would they know how bad it was without me saying? I never said I was suicidal, but they knew. They knew how much general pain I was in to a degree that I didn’t understand. They felt true worry for me that I only felt numb towards.

Only around six month later during my freshman year of college, I admitted it to a close friend of mine. We were out walking on a Saturday night with a couple drinks in us. Even then I didn’t say it clearly, I just implied how far the pain had gone for me, an di made sure to phrase it as “in the past.” I danced around the words, because as long as you don’t say the word “suicide” it isn’t real.

She was crying, but I had a blank face. It wasn’t anything shocking to me— it didn’t jump me out of my thoughts and make me realize I needed to do something about it. I think I felt an acceptance of it— that I would die from this pain.

A victim of passivity.

“One foot stuck in a tar pit of my ways.”

Accepting things as they are… It seems like common sense to accept reality and push aside the opinions and conjecture we are often pelted with. How could it do any harm?

I guess it depends how you see it. I think there have been times in my life where I thought I was accepting reality by focusing on the negative. Stamping out positivity because it was foolish. Foolish to think about good things when history has shown human nature is cruel. It is only reality to think that we are not special, we are insignificant specs in the greater scheme of things.

I sometimes envy the certainty that generations past were gifted with. There was a time where people truly believed that they were the chosen people, that the earth was the center of the universe and that all we had to do is do good deeds and live a positive life and everything would work out. I’m sure I’m oversimplifying things, but its true that ignorance can often supply a good amount of bliss. Enough bliss to make the days easier.

I don’t think any of us respond properly when we are told about the universe. Imagine living your life, thinking about your issues and fears and how hard they are, only to be told the next day that not only do they not matter, they are so insignificant they don’t even show up. The little blip of your life is less then a spec on the timeline of the universe. And we all just sit there in our 5th grade science class being told we don’t matter, and no one reacts. We all just sit there and write down in our notes, “Nothing matters in the grand scheme of things. Test on Friday.”

“It’s been a long, a long time comin’,
but I know, oh-oo-oh,
a change gon’ come, oh yes, it will.”

And yet I still believe it. Why? It seems so illogical. Is to have even a shred of optimism foolish? Would the certainty of disbelief provide clarity? If anything, its the opposite.

From a very early age I grew mad at the certainty I was provided because I could see right through it, and I didn’t want a lie. I wanted to know what is real, so I could be real. I’ve spent even longer now exhausted by my own brain, and my own uncurable desire for certainty of reality. I do not need a class or a mantra from a religion or story to think more about the world, and I always found it odd how so often people are looking for a reason to think more. Why would anyone possibly want to think more?

Maybe if I radically accepted how awful the world is… I would what? What would I gain? Its so easy to see how awful the world is. I carry a device in my pocket that could almost instantaneously present me with human travesty. Maybe if I present myself with enough facts, the constant rumination will end? Maybe I’ll reach a state where I feel nothing. If i know enough, maybe I’ll be full.

I’m a hypocrite, and I’m selfish. I don’t want to know more. I don’t want to watch the news everyday to know how lucky I am to have what I have. I just want to stop thinking.

The birds seem much more happy then me. They tweet and fly. They sing— without thinking if they are on key or have the right note. They die in an instant and think nothing of it. They don’t worry about if they have meaning in life or when they are going to die. They just are.

But I’m in a tricky situation where I don’t want to loose what I am. I see the ignorance of inconsideration as wrong despite all of this. I wouldn’t want to not care about people or the world, because I’d be abandoning every other person in the same place as me.

”It’s been too hard living but I’m afraid to die
‘Cause I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky
It’s been a long, a long time comin’,
But I know, oh-oo-oh,
A change gonna come, oh yes, it will.”

Someday…

I cry to a lot of music, but its very rare for me to feel like sobbing on a first listen. In almost every case it takes a few listens to get to me. I listened to Charli's "Forever" many times before it became a song that can make me cry from just the first note. Hell, the entirety of "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" shrugged off of me until the third or fourth listen, and that's my favorite album of all time.

The second half of this song hit immediately. The minute I looked up the lyrics I was fighting tears, because these lyrics speak perfectly to a younger me. The version of me in high school that thought relationship love would keep me from my inerntal pain. It wasn't as long ago as I'd like it to be.

I'm grateful I went through what I went through in order to realize it would never work. You can't fix a mental deficincy with the rush of dopamine that comes with new love. It will only ever be a temporary fix to a permenant problem.

The symbolism relating love to medicine strikes hard for me, because I understand where she's coming from. I spent so much of my younger life dreaming and thinking about my romantic crushes-- almost thinking they were what would make me feel like everyone else. If I acquired the projected ideals of love and stability, I would be like everyone else. How couldn't I be?

"And all the night I spent fighting bad thoughts in my room
Feeling so alone, might as well be on the moon
I thought I found the antidote with you."

When you have overwhelming depression and negative thoughts, you will grab onto anything that works-- because the desperation is all-consuming. That is why the most deperate people turn to things they know are temporary like drugs or alcohol, because the consequences don't matter when you feel like you are about to die.

I'm not enlightened, and I haven't figured out the golden rule to life. Even therapy and medication are imperfect-- all you have to do is look at my writing to see that.

I have felt the low Olivia embodies in this song, but I have ebbed back into a brighter space. It is a back and forth, and it'll never be all good. No miracle person or medication will make you feel good forever. The goal is learning to be okay with that, and beleiving that any fall can be changed. That is the cure.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to think about sex without thinking about how OCD has comendered every sexual thought I’ve ever had.

I don’t know why sex was the primary association that OCD made in my mind when it first became unbarable. I had a relitively standard view of sex before hand, which is to mean it ruled my thoughts and ruled my validity as a man. Everything about you is compared to other boys and their “abiltiy” to attract women. In a way, I was already obsessed with sex and relationships before OCD even formally started.

I wanted a girlfriend since kindergarten, and went so far as to embaressingly pretend I had a girlfriend in the 6th grade. It made me feel “cool,” because I was able to get someone to like me. It made me feel less alone, because for some reason I believed it would solve my ever growing list of problems.

I thought I was growing past that when I entered high school, but it actually just became worse. In elementary school it felt much more valid to have interests such as video games or cartoons, but I willingly saw that I had to hide all of that if I wanted to indentify with the people around me. High school is such a suffocating place that it stamps out individuality and replaces in with the classic american, and that everyone shoudl strive to be the ideal.

There was never a point in my young life, even before depression, that I thought I was enough as is. I thought if I could just have one person who really liked me, I’d feel more secure.

When I had my first girlfriend, I put to much into it too quickly. What I was looking for was too much for a fellow 16 year old to handle and I fully recognize that now. The relationship only lasted a month ot so, but when it ended, it ruined me. I felt so ugly and worthless. Looking back on it, I think I was looking for something that wasn’t fair to ask of someone. I wasn’t looking for a fun time, I was looking to feel loved, because I didn’t love myself.

It was a chemical imbalance in my head. There was nothign another person out there could do. I kick myself for my selfishness. For whatever reason I still don’t forgive that 16 year old version of me for asking for so much.

I don’t forgive the 18 year old me who was quite similar. Always depressed, always unhappy. And I thought a relationship would fix that, because it was what I was told makes people happy. I was obsessed with romantic relationships in sit coms, and tried to emulate that life because it was what I knew. I was buying into a dream that would fix things without any evidence supporting that idea. Looking for a dopamine release that was socially acceptable and didn’t involve having to admit that I was abnormal and had an abnormal brain.

Sex was proof of manhood. I’m ashamed that I let it consume what made me valid for so long. It was such a small part of me that actually wanted sex-- mostly I just wanted to feel loved and accepted.

When I got that proof of manhood I felt like a weight was lifted off my chest. That I didn’t have to worry about that “first time.” I think that pressure was a big part of the reason I allowed myself to be convinced to have sex with soemone I didn’t want to have sex with in a situation where I was drunk. I think that pressure is also why I blame myself for something that happened that wasn’t my fault, and why I don’t blame that friend for what she did.

I recently saw a video on instagram where a woman was talking about how a painting she made was associated with sex when it wasn’t the intention. It was meant to be a painting of her friend based on a fun picture they took together. It was an expression of friendship and care that was perverted.

I feel shame about sex and the harm it has doen the world. I wish it wasn’t real and it wasn’t important at all. I don’t think that’s healthy at all, but every article I see about a man r*ping a woman with no consequence or the hundreds of microaggressions women go through, I think its not worth it. And I’m not just saying this for them, I’m saying it for me too.

There’s friends I might still have if it didn’t exist. If sex didn’t exist then I wouldn’t have had to go through the trauma of r*pe. I wouldn’t have spent years thinking sex would have fulfilled me like all of the other men, and maybe I would have came to therapy sooner. Maybe I wouldn’t have ever gotten OCD where I’d spend day and night obsessing over if I was gay or a pervert or any number of things I’m not.

No nuns whipped me or flaggelated me during my time in catholic school, but the fear of God landed regardless. That fear didn’t work, and it never does work. So much pain and trauma that couldn’t have been whipped into the men around me. So many hour long lectures about consent that never stopped those who never listened.

Is it so wrong and awful to wish for some things to never have existed? Can’t it be more than a pointless fantasy to wish that the world was better and that the people in this world were better? That I was better? That I didn’t have to go through the things I’ve gone through?

But it all happens for a reason, does it. God’s Plan. All the obsessing for a good reason.

I’ll never forget when that brother asked me to go on a men’s retreat and talk to others about how to be a “good man.” Maybe it’d be better to start with being a good person, if such a thing really exists.

California dreaming on such
a durgeful day
Sick in May
Lost in my head, springing
to say
I've lost my way
Can't wait to hear you say
It'll be okay

Love, love love
Takes each and every man
Chiling in the dark
Dreaming that I ran
and ran

and ran away


Built ships for lakes on land
Puddles built with sand
Take me by the hand
And say

"Lord don't beat me down,
I've already been beat enough
Take this love
and hold it till it busts."

I've been relying a lot on my mother lately.

I've said this before, but if it wasn't for her support at this time in my life I don't know where I'd be. Homeless or destitute.

The past couple of days I've been filled with regrets. Regret over how I spent all my savings over two years because I couldn't find work-- barely feeling capable of work anyway. I looked and looked, and was left with nothing.

I was depressed and tired constantly, and in a way I feel like I don't deserve any of the recognition for getting out of that place. The only thing that really helped was a change in meds. There was nothing I could do even though I kept fighting and fighting. I wasn't able to change anything at all through my own effort.

The money's all gone. I beat myself up for wanting better back when I quit my tutoring job because my only options have been even worse since then. I wish I could go back so I wouldn't have to be poor now. I'm beating up that past self for not just being better. For not just being able to do what I was loosing the capability of doing. Why couldn't I just toughen up and do the job? Why couldn't I just not be the way I am?

My mom did not naturally understand mental illness. I think for her it took years and years of exposure from her children to truly start to understand being mentally ill. That may be the only way to understand it without experiencing it.

I was so afraid to tell her or anyone how much I was suffering. I think one of the hardest parts for me was telling her, not because it would disappoint her, but because it would burden her. I so desperately wanted to be okay so she wouldn't be overwhelmed with the burden of my pain. In my freshman year of college I tried to get a therapist without telling her or my dad. I tried to go through our insurance and schedule it all, and I thought it would it be fine. I thought I'd be in and out quick.

She didn't cry or place any burden on me when I eventually told her. She was just worried, as a mother would be. In the end it was me crying trying to tell her this wasn't a minor thing, and it wasn't a new thing. The image I had tried to show her as a very normal well adjusted teenager was a lie, and it was hard to make that clear to her.

I'm so weak now. The burden I carried constantly back then was so great, I don't know how I even got out of bed. But what happened to that guy? I know many of my friends following that summer felt I had changed. I wasn't as loud and happy and I wasn't as fun to be around. I wasn't saying stupid outlandish shit all the time or constantly recounting stories of my friends from high school. I wasn't drunk acting like a fool up until 4 in the morning. I was a deflated husk. A gone ghost of what they knew.

I know that's not how it really was. I know that who they saw and who I tried to be for my mom and many others wasn't real. I guess the only one who really knows that is me, as no one else was there to see the worst moments that stick out in my mind. When I would get drunk and cry about how I really wasn't okay, how I'd see my friends from home and always end the night depressed and hating myself.

In my second semester I'd sit on my bed with a youtube video on, closing my eyes and trying to stop the obsessive thoughts. And that was what I would do every day when I wasn't busy so that I could stop gasping for air. No one was there for that; no one saw any of that. So when they'd say a year later "what happened to you?" They just didn't know. They didn't know how things really were.

I wish I wasn't in a place where I constantly needed to ask my Mom for money. It feels like I'm reliving that conversation about how things really are. But how are things really? What does how things are really mean? We all just say "good" when asked, so how is anyone supposed to know? Am I still just a projection?

Maybe I'll find a job, and loose it all again because the medicine stops working. Maybe, I'll loose it all and be left with just me and the projections of what I was or what I want to be; all just sitting there in a room, trying to figure out which of us is real.

"But he himself was broken long before the sky would open
Forsaken almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone"

I hope to one day have a load of money to pledge to all y'all’s accounts. I really empathize with any of you struggling with money… if it wasn’t for my support system I probably would have ended up homeless. There was a long period of time where I really felt like I couldn’t function at an all day job and it was so frustrating and scary. I couldn’t find anything that would accommodate while also paying enough for me to pay rent and food. I stopped going anywhere or spending any money for a while because I couldn’t afford to hang out with friends or any activities. Thank god for my mom and dad.

I went through two years of savings and seriously had to go check to check. So frustrating hearing all the “good luck with that’s” from relatives and friend’s of my dads who had nothing to say but “You shouldn’t have majored in writing. Isn’t AI going to make you obsolete?” So much for networking.

In my life, oh why do I give valuable time

To people who don’t care If I

Live or die…

So much crap I did for an invisible reason that couldnt ever predict the current state of the world. So funny seeing advertisements for “recession proof jobs.” The levels people will go through to avoid saying a system is broken and needs to be changed. Nothing or recession proof, because we are all expendable to those who own what we consume.

I’m a substitute teacher for now and am happy to say I’m in a much better place mentally than I was the past two years. I actually have energy and can actually function, even if things are still hard sometimes. I hope we all find our dream job if such a thing exists.

I think I've mentioned before how with certain songs I picture myself singing it while listening. When my connection with music is deep, it becomes my own song in a way. Its a song I picture myself singing. Sometimes on stage, sometimes to myself. Sometimes its while I'm laying on my deathbed.

I've been asked many times why I don't play any instruments if I love music so much. Its a fair question, but I don't have a good reason for keeping my love separated like this.

Guitar was probably the one I put the most effort into. It was quite a while back when I was still in middle school. I went to lessons every week, but eventually stopped. A couple years later I got a drum set which I was really excited about, but for whatever reason, nothing clicked. It felt weird to me to play songs I liked. It sounded phony; like I was putting on a facade to look like the artists I admired. I didn't much see the point of doing something like that.

Quite ironic in hindsight since its quite similar to what I do here. I take music that isn't mine, and write about it like its my own. I make in my own through the words and emotions I pull from it.

I stopped writing for long periods of time as well. I loved to write so much at an age before I had even really developed a sense of "me." I wrote a book in elementary school that might as well have been a Harry Potter fanfic, but I was proud of it. By the time things started to get more complicated in my head, I stopped writing and reading.

I think I was ashamed of my writing at the time. I think I started to realize what writing was: self expression. And self was something I was growing so ashamed of at the time. I was immensely depressed, and I felt like the only one. I was known for being depressed amongst my friends and school, and I was truly scared and ashamed to be emotional. So I tried to stop expressing myself, because alongside it not being cool to be sad, I had no confidence in myself. I didn't think I was any good at writing. I didn't think I was any good at all.

Shame is a powerful emotion that has had such a significant influence on myself. What I was seen as was so important to me, because I didn't know who I was, and I didn't have anything to remind me I was good as I was. I was so concerned with creating something that was authentically me, authentically quality, that I created nothing. I thought it was better to be nothing that to be a creative without true creativity.

Why would I create something if it was going to be so bad? Why would I play the drums or the guitar or write poems if they were bad? What's the point of art if no one likes it or remembers it?

"The point" is a tricky thing. I think I have spent a lot of time obsessed with what the point of anything I do is. It definitely intersects with my obsessive mind in a suffocating way. The most meaningful times and emotions for me were based on how long they stuck, and how good they were at helping me stop thinking about the point of anything I do.

I've always been so obsessed with self awareness because I want to be a good person. I want to constantly see myself how others see me, and I want to know what I can do to be better.

But what does that mean when I'm treated poorly? That I deserve it? They think I'm worthless so I have to consider that maybe I am, and maybe I should retreat. Shrink back inward; recoil into nothing. Avoid judgment, to avoid pain.

I still do this. I still could be described as a "people pleaser," but I hope you believe me when I say it goes further than just wanting to be liked. I sometimes feel like I just want to be valid. To be worthwhile in the present.

Years later I started a Youtube channel, and I think I did most of what I did creatively at the time to try to feel like I was worth something in some way. That if I tried my best, I could make that little number in the corner grow, and then that would be it. If enough people liked me, I would feel liked. It would be as simple as that.

It never is as simple as that. You can't get enough money to feel eternally satisfied. You can't win enough championships to never want another. You can't write the best song ever and never need to sing again because you figured it out. You won the game, and the game is now over. Never.

We are changing.
I am changing.
You can't tell me I haven't changed a bit
because you don't know me.
How dare you say that to me.
I'm trying to change everyday
how would you know I haven't changed?

"Exhausted...
God loves you
Everybody want to feel like everything is going to be right
God please make it all right"

The most determined and hopeful people are worshippers. It would be understandable to think that blind hope's power is dangerous, which is certainly true. It breaks my heart to hear about the numerous stories of faithful people whose lives ended too soon because they refused treatment against their own religions. If you ask me people should be entitled to their own deaths, but its still tragic. Its still tragic when any life that doesn't need to be ended is ended.

So many of those recently. So many dead or suffering for no good reason.

I went on a retreat in college with a bunch of friends my sophomore year. I was staunchly atheist and had been for years, but for whatever reason I still wanted to go. I honestly don't know why. I don't think I thought about it much which sounds very funny coming from me. I had a friend who had gone who really liked it, but he was catholic. What would an atheist get out a religious retreat?

There were no phones the entire trip which was very refreshing. I think a couple days disconnected from the outside world can do everyone some good. It slows things down --quiets everything. Willful ignorance to the world for just a couple days.

I had a good time the first day and enjoyed getting to socialize with a bunch of new people. At the time I wasn't so far away from my time in catholic high school so it didn't really bother me to be surrounded by very religious people while holding beliefs that were pretty dismissive of their beliefs. I embraced the people around me anyway, and tried to be respectful of the prayer circles and talk about god.

Unlike my high school, everyone was open minded. They were okay with the fact I didn't believe in god, because I respected the fact that they did believe. It might seem like a small thing, but I had felt very little acceptance for my lack of faith up till that point. It felt like a dirty secret that only encouraged scornful looks. It felt good to be accepted.

During the second day we did something I'll never forget: we wrote open letters to god. We had the choice to share them to the whole group, and despite being nervous I walked up and spoke my true unaltered thoughts about god.

Well, not really unaltered. I actually wrote a very vindictive and angry first letter full of curses and true spite. Spite for all that god has represented in my life. A symbol of unacceptance and dogma; a symbol that was imposed on me my whole life that only caused me strife. Only gave me false platitudes and conclusions that I had to accept despite not making any sense. A chain wrapped around my neck that I had to pretend was a life preserver. Fuck you, god. Fuck you in your fat fucking face. Fuck you for everything.

I almost did read that letter to everyone, but I thought about the value in pure anger. Pure anger and emotion is never what I wanted to define myself by. That anger was true and real, but it wasn't what I wanted to project. It wasn't the feeling I wanted to define my relationship with anyone. There are a couple people in my life I might want to say the same to on first impression, but I know I'd toss a letter like that to anyone, god included.

So I wrote a new letter. Instead of cursing, I replaced my anger with frustration. God's "plan." If this was all for a good reason, why did so many have to suffer? Why do so many have to die sad and alone? If he controls everything, why would he allow all of this to happen? Why wouldn't he change his god forsaken plan if he could? How could this all possibly be justifiable?

Why would god say that my brother doesn't deserve love because of his sexual orientation? What kind of benevolent force would allow that? And I said that I couldn't believe that all of the pain in the world was worth some divine plan. If there is someone out there pulling the strings of the world, there's no way in hell I'd ever worship them. I refuse.

I remember the brother leading the retreat talked with me after and really appreciated my honesty and raw emotions. I wish I still had that letter somewhere, but its long gone.

One of the final events of the retreat was a big secret that the leaders had held from us all. We all sat in separate corners of the room in anticipation, and they started handing out letters to everyone to the point where we all had a big stack in front of us. The group that ran the trip had reached out to the family and friends of every single one of us to write love letters.

I remember reading them and clutching them to my chest while crying. It meant so much to me to feel loved. It meant so much to me to feel like I mattered to people. It made me feel that everything was going to be okay.

I have no idea where those letters are either. I wish I did, but it might be for the best. Maybe there's some reason to ordain from the letters being gone, and that its okay to forget meaningful things. They still happened, I know they did, even if they are gone. Memories are forever, even when you don't remember them.

It is possible to hold two opinions at the same time. It is possible for me to hold deep anger towards this world for the pain it allows and creates while also feeling grateful. Grateful to have felt loved and to be loved in spite of that all.

Disclaimer: These are my first impressions of the newest album by Ye also known as Kanye West. I’ve written a lot about his music as well as the impact of the dangerous things he has said. I don’t agree with any of the positions he has held in the past, nevertheless, his music has been foundational to me as someone with bipolar disorder and as someone who uses art to express myself. I hope you can accept my decision to listen and write about this album despite the harm Ye has done.

Bully hit me hard; I have to admit it. I can't pretend liking or even just listening to Kanye nowadays isn't something I'm embarrassed by.

I'm still forming my thoughts, but I like it. I like that a sense of whimsy has returned to Kanye's music from a very dark feeling with the Vultures albums.

I'm not sure yet if I want to dig into the lyrics because they could very completely change my thoughts on this. I will say that the production is great and takes influence from many different Kanye eras which is interesting.

I feel this album more than anything he's made is a hodgepodge of the various styles he's worked with. first few tracks are very Yeezus, there's his classic soul sample sound on many tracks, some tracks that remind me of the intimate choir inspired music of Donda along with a lot else. Some tracks like the Don Toliver one sound like Pablo.

I still don't know where Kanye is at this point. I only really gave this album a shot because he said the AI was gone, and I'm glad I did. Most of it is very good, but if you haven't liked Kanye in a long time this won't convince you. He still sounds weak vocally, but unlike Vultures I think it works and fits with this album more. Tracks like Preacher Man and Beauty in the Beast work well because Kanye still seems capable of capturing some emotion in his singing.

"This the light that gonna illuminate the way we moving."

Maybe there's an answer to that question I asked in an article a while ago. "When will it be time to wrap up the Kanye West story?"

Maybe just not yet. For better and most certainly sometimes for worst, he's still alive and still creating.

I realized how much I relate with this perspective that Kanye is coming from. The older I get the more I come to understand what its like to get older with bipolar disorder as someone who also suffers from it.

This idea of feeling so tired, seeing all the destruction he's caused and the damage to his brain and soul, and trying to pick things up one piece of a time to simply ask "what can I do now?"

Maybe with what makes him happy. He's made made allusions about feeling like a kid and trying to capture childlike wonder to bring himself happiness and I think this album is working with that again.

I truly think Kanye thought he would die by now. I think he partially wanted to die as he did in the theatrics of the Donda concerts, and following that consciously leaned into destruction.

But now he's here. He's still here. Maybe its best to just pick things up a piece at at time.