march 20, 2025

content warning: in-depth discussion of mental illness, substance use, suicide

Julien Baker writes in her 2021 zine Loss Protocol, "I have never kept consistent diaries because at some point in the writing I find myself thinking 'who is this for?'". like Julien, i've long struggled with the idea of journaling much to the discontent of my therapists and other mental health professionals, though the act is often lauded as some sort of cure-all by Instagram "psychologists" and other people who think they know what they're talking about but really don't.

i have this tendency to lie compulsively. since childhood, i've constantly found myself making up facts about my life with absolutely no basis in reality with absolutely no reason to lie about these things in the first place. i've made up stories about having sex with detested figures in my personal life, about hitting stop signs with my car, about manufactured struggles with addiction. i've come clean about many of these things to my friends who heard these lies originate, but some of them have become such a core part of my identity that i feel trapped and unable to remove myself from these stories. i write these lies into journals, into songs, and into my overall story. i lie to a non-existent audience, feeling some sort of need to impress the sheet of paper to make my struggles seem valid.

much of this ties into the fact that i have no clue who i am. i have never had a sense of real identity. in an adolescent development class i'm currently taking, we were tasked with listing out what makes us "us". i sat quietly while my classmates completed this exercise with ease, writing down only "who the fuck am i?" much of human identity stems from our childhood experiences, but i have virtually no memory of my childhood. i've likened my understanding of my early years to skimming the sparknotes over reading the book. sure, i've got the big concepts; i could probably give a loose rundown on the gist of those years, but don't ask for any details because i don't know them.

this still fucks with me in adulthood. even now at 19, my attempts to form some sort of personality or identity feel futile. anything i've become mildly interested in is overshadowed by wildly intense imposter syndrome. i'm currently in school to become an educator, but i constantly feel lesser-than because everyone else seems to care more than me. i've gotten into different video games, but it feels like i'm jumping on the wagon too late and now i'm just a poser. i've tried to start writing stories and songs, but i never feel good enough and eventually give up on them like i do everything else.

this translates also to my friendships and relationships. i've convinced myself at least 20 times that my lack of distinct personality means i am absolutely insufferable to be around, and will either withdraw myself completely or self-sabotage to drive people away from me in order to validate my feelings of inferiority, which leads to even more feelings of inferiority like some sort of really fucked up positive feedback loop.

i've tried to cope with this in a multitude of ways, none of which end up working. one thing that does stick, however, is intermittent reliance on alcohol and weed. after all, it's pretty easy to forget that your self-concept is completely shattered when you're so drunk all you can focus on is trying to keep your balance. i wouldn't call myself an alcoholic, at least not a regular one. as of writing this, i haven't had a drink in 3 months, not out of a commitment to sobriety but more just a lack of desire. yet, i go through periods where all i can manage to do is get drunk or get stoned. and it's not having one single drink just to take the edge off, or smoking a little bit of weed to calm my brain down. no, i'll get myself so drunk that i'm nearly blacking out. i'll get myself so high that i have panic attacks and dissociate for days, not because i don't know my limits, but because i do know my limits and actively choose to ignore them.

my usage goes through cycles where i get super depressed, start smoking or drinking to cope with that even though i'm well aware that it only makes me more depressed, and i do get more depressed, so i smoke and drink more, i get sadder, i smoke and drink more, i get sadder, i smoke and drink more, hit rock bottom, try to kill myself (or get really close to it), get help, feel better for a little bit, before it all comes crashing down again.

there's a part of me that enjoys that cycle. i laugh about it a lot. it feels oddly therapeutic to feel like i'm starting over from square one, because it makes me feel like the only way to go from the bottom is up. that's not really true though, because i constantly carry with me a shovel that allows me to dig below rock bottom and make the worst place for me to be in even worser. it gives me a sense of agency. the boulder may be rolling all the way down the hill, but at least i'm the one pushing it.

my struggle is more that i feel no valid reason to be in the cycle in the first place. i've talked to people facing similar issues and 98% of the time, it stems back to traumatic childhood experiences. and i do acknowledge that i wasn't raised in the most functional family. but ultimately, i don't have those same issues with childhood that a lot of those other people do. i don't have intense flashbacks, nightmares, or any super intense physiological reactions. i hardly remember any of it.

there's little reason for me writing and publishing this other than to just put things out there, and on the off-chance that someone reads and resonates with any of this, maybe feels a little bit less isolated or alone. i don't feel that everything is completely hopeless. i'm sure someday that these things won't bother me anymore, at least not in the same way. but until then, i guess there's not much more i can do than just try and take it all day by day.