Reflecting On My Past; Unfinished 9/14/2022 - 10:39 PM

     Before I dive into any specific topics, I'll talk about myself for a minute. Stream of conscious style. I have always felt like I had something great to offer this world. When I was a child, like many young boys, I was obsessed with superheroes. The idea of having immense power and international attention was glorious. I had constant fantasies in which I would use my powers to defeat some enemy and save the girl I was attracted to that day. These fantasies would tread into delusion territory. I would daydream in class, even trying to use all of my willpower to try to do something impossible. I thought of myself as incorruptible, I would be the perfect choice for the first human to have superpowers I remember thinking. However, as life is famous for, these fantasies became less fantastical and more impractical. It impacted my grades, my behavior, and how I viewed myself. I began to wonder about these fantasies. Why did I want to be special? Why did I want to be different? In truth, it was because I never felt good enough as I was. I always believed I was gifted with intelligence and physical skill. I was a natural athlete, my dad would say. As I grew older and I began to use these skills less and less often, what I used to represent myself started to dwindle. I wasn't taking school seriously, my mind was always elsewhere. I didn't have the motivation to participate in any sports. I also considered myself to be an incredibly kind and gentle person. Someone people could trust and lean on. This was also a fantasy. Not because I was a bad person but because I had little evidence to back up that I was a good one. 

    I experienced anxiety early on in elementary school. I wasn't necessarily a good kid. I was smart, I knew that. Smarter than most. I never had to try very hard to do well. I had a devil tongue, spouting out curse words most kids my age didn't know. Of course, this was purely for attention. Throughout elementary school, my friends would change each year. This was jarring but I suppose it is good practice for making friends. The problem was that I stopped trying. At some point, I either fell out of understanding with my peers or had no care for their thoughts. I relied on my one consistent friend, John. Eventually, I lost him too. At around the same time, in fifth grade, my parents got divorced. It was messy. Watching my parents act the way they did toward each other created so much confusion. My life was shattered. This had an intense effect on my social life. Throughout middle school, I became more and more isolated to the point where I wouldn't respond to people trying to talk to me. This became normal behavior. But I wasn't aware of it. I wasn't aware that it was myself isolating from others but perhaps protecting myself from them. I learned the pain people can cause early on. I watched it. I was an observer throughout late middle school and early high school. I lived in a world in which I was a fly on the wall. Nobody wants to interact with a fly except for those weird kids who don't talk to anybody. Hey, wait. Anyway, I was never too weird of a kid. My fantasies were pretty normal but I just didn't understand how people acted the way they do with other people. I felt so out of place because I tried to believe that I didn't need other people. 

`In high school, my journey of introspection really kicked in. I compared myself with other people, or how I would imagine myself in a situation another is in. I thought about how pointless it was to compare myself with other people. This didn't stop me. Part of me wishes I could remember all the things I thought about in high school, it would certainly be interesting. A big part of it was girls. I always thought I would luck into a girlfriend. I remember thinking in Freshman year that I would surely date someone by Senior year. Senior year came and went.