Poem: I Want My Heart Back

I Want My Heart Back by: Scott Barnes
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I said goodbye and walked away,
Tired of being used and lied to,
And left behind so much there,
Lost so many things to you,

You can keep the clothes,
You can keep the toys,
You can keep all of it,
Except for one thing,

I want my heart back, please,
I'm sure you don't want it now,
Just hand me the bloody pieces,
So I can try to fix it, somehow,

I'm finding it hard to live,
With the hollow hole in my chest,
Where you tore me to shreds,
I just want to be able to rest,
And feel my heart beat again.

I don't want you back,
I just want you gone,
I don't need the pain,
I just need to move on,

I want my heart back, please,
I'm sure you don't want it now,
Just hand me the bloody pieces,
So I can try to fix it, somehow.

You don't need to love me,
You don't need to be there,
You don't need to lie to me,
You don't need to say you care,

I want my heart back, please,
I'm sure you don't want it now,
Just hand me the bloody pieces,
So I can try to fix it, somehow.

Weekly World News

Well, an era ends with a whimper. Weekly World News, the greatest paper ever written, has ceased publication. I always kinda wished I could have been a writer for them. Please take a moment of silence for the world's only reliable newspaper.

Potential.

All my life, I've been told I had so much potential and I could be this and I could be that, and I still hear it constantly. I've tried my whole life to remind myself that I can't possibly be everything to everyone, I can't possible live up to all of their expectations. Even though I know that, and remind myself all the time, it still haunts me. Disappointment. No matter what I do, no matter how I try, I'll always feel like a failure, because I can't possibly succeed at the goals that have been set before me. I know I shouldn't worry about it, that I should just let it go and not let myself fall into that trap, but as hard as I try I can't forget about it. It always comes back to that feeling, like no matter what I do it's wrong. No matter what I do I'm a disappointment and a failure. I hate potential. I would be so much more motivated if all the talk of my "potential" throughout my life didn't make it seem so futile to even try. It's incredibly difficult to get yourself to act when you know that in some way you've already failed no matter what. I just wish I could forget about all these things I'm "supposed to be" so I wouldn't know what a screw-up I am. I used to try to be everything I was told I could be, but once I realized that I can't be everything, it all just stopped seeming worth it. And I can't figure out how to make it right again, how to make myself stop feeling that way, how to make it mean anything again. *sigh*

Change.

I'm glad I'm me. My ability to deal with things, to turn the other cheek, to forgive and forget never ceases to surprise me. I came to the realization today that I no longer harbor any negative feelings toward my ex and her new boyfriend. It's all good. I was never that upset with them (except when I was in a bad mood anyway) but now it honestly doesn't bother me anymore. I just hope they both can get past it and we can still be friends. I know he can, and I think he has, but I'm not so sure about her. I think she still has a lot of repressed feelings there, and it seems to create some tension. I'm sure part of it is her strangely skewed view of me, and part of it is just her normal tendency to repress everything and let her feelings slowly destroy her. I just hope one day she'll get better at dealing with her feelings and get past them. There's so much good in her, if only she wasn't so bitter and resentful at the world, and she could get over the hate and be the good person she really is if she could just learn to deal with things instead of lying to herself. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do, it's something she'll have to face on her own.
On a different note, I've been doing much better at being confident. I'm slowly learning to like myself, instead of always focusing on my shortcomings. I've noticed people are responding very positively to the change as well, which helps encourage me. Now I just need to get out more. :)

Confidence.

I need more confidence in myself. I've been feeling more confident the past few days and it feels great. I want to be confident like this more often. I want to feel my worthwhile and courageous. I want to be able to let loose more. I want to let my impulsive side roam free more often. I want to stop being so scared and worried. I just want to learn to appreciate myself more. I want to say what I think without worrying about what people will think. It doesn't seem like it should be so hard, but it is. I'm making progress though, mostly thanks to Nikki, Matt, and Rachel. They've been helping me a lot with my confidence problem. And of course Jennifer, without her helping me keep myself calm and helping me not get so depressed I know I wouldn't be getting better. Thank you, all of you. I don't know what I'd do without such great friends. And I should thank Kenny for being a sounding board when I needed to release my frustration about things, and just for being a good friend for so long. Of course, I don't know if anyone except maybe Nikki will actually read this, but I'll be sure to thank you all personally too. It might help if I didn't get so serious and intense about life, but I really can't help that. I'm so lucky to have my friends and family in my life. I love you all.

Poem: Tides

Tides by Scott Barnes
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The past is gaining ground,
The memories flooding though,
Wiping away everything inside,
And destroying my mind.

It's a constant struggle,
to keep myself intact,
to keep myself together,
bracing for impact.

The waters of time recede,
The tides of misery subside,
I'm left all alone,
In the wasteland left behind.

The wasteland slowly regrows,
Into a lush and fertile land,
of ideas and thoughts and feelings,
Overgrowing and absorbing me.

The process begins again,
The tides rush in anew,
I slowly remember everything,
I begin to remember you.

Memory

I usually have almost no memory. The few times I start remembering I realize why I usually don't. It makes me miserable. The past is a horrible blur of terrifying and sickening images. I'm not saying I don't have any happy memories, just that my happy memories only serve to remind me how much I've lost and what I fear I'll never find again. It's better when I don't remember. Things seem brighter, happier, more hopeful when I forget. I'd like to think the future will be better than the past, but unfortunately I find it difficult to be optimistic sometimes. The only time I'm really happy anymore is when I'm with my friends forgetting all about these things. I don't know though, part of me wants to just embrace my depression with open arms and let it consume me. Part of me wishes the mania would start up again and never end. Part of me doesn't know what to think or say or do anymore. All of me wishes things would change. I'm trying my hardest to change, and I have, but changing what I want without changing myself completely is so difficult. Nothing is really enjoyable anymore unless someone I care about is involved. I'm tired and moody most of the time, but the moment I'm with my friends I start getting hyper and excited. I never want to be alone again. It's not a real solution, but it's the only thing I can find. These mood swings and episodes are killing me. I don't even know if I can blame this on the bipolar disorder anymore, it's become far too frequent for that. It's like my entire feelings, mood, and outlook change drastically from day to day, sometimes more than once a day. I don't understand it. I shouldn't be like this. I know I'll never make it if I don't figure this out and fix it. I can't live the rest of my life like this. The bipolar episodes I can deal with, these recent violent mood swings I can't. It's driving me to madness. Don't get me wrong, whatever this problem is, I have no doubt that it's no one's fault but my own. I accept that. I just wish I knew why. I just wish I could put an end to it. I feel like I'm destroying what little life I ever had every moment of every day. I put on a smile for my family, my coworkers, my friends, and sometimes it's a real smile, but mostly it's just for show. My closest friends and family can still pull out a real smile occasionally, but mostly it's an act. I just don't want to whine or bring anyone else down with me. And it scares me that a lot of people see me as overemotional and dramatic, but I hold back so much as it is, I can't even imagine holding any more in. I swear I feel like a drama queen, but it's not like I do it intentionally. These feelings are real, for the most part I'm not exaggerating them either. In fact, as I said, I usually hold back and try to be more reserved about it. I just can't seem to do it anymore, and I really wish I could just let go and say what I feel all the time, but no one would ever want to be anywhere near me ever again. I've been trying to find a balance, letting it out without overdoing it, but it's proving far more difficult than I anticipated. It's like opening up a dam, once it starts pouring out there's no stopping it. I'm so confused, I'm not even sure what's real anymore. Most of the time I'm not sure anything is. Most of the time it just feels like life is a movie and I'm just watching, not really part of it. I don't know how to really explain it, just a vague sense like everything is a dream, or more appropriately, a nightmare. I can't stand it anymore, I want to feel real again. I want to feel like I'm actually alive. I'm just a ghost trapped inside my own walking corpse. Once in a while I'll have a short period of being real, but it's just enough to make me recall the life I'm missing. It's actually a deeply frightening feeling, not being real. It's terrifying actually, but I can't even show my fear because I'm not even connected to my self enough to control it. If you've ever had that sense of panic and disorientation that can only be caused by a loss of self, then you can imagine what I'm dealing with all the time. If you have never found yourself disconnected like that, if you've managed to keep your consciousness and the rest of you linked at all times, then you couldn't possibly understand what I mean, but you should consider yourself lucky for that. That's one of the reasons I keep this journal, to get these things out during my sporadic moments of connection. Luckily it's easier to stay "connected", or at least to not panic so much, when other people are around. Which is one of the reasons I hate being alone. I disconnect much more easily when I'm alone. But enough explaining to myself for now.

Venting.

I am seriously not in a good mood and I'm so fucking sick of everybody's bullshit. For every honest person I've ever met, there's a ocean of fucking self-absorbed hateful liars. Fuck them all. What the fuck is wrong with all these goddamn people. Goddamn fakers and liars, all of them. Why in the hell can't all those goddamn bastards just fuck off and leave me the hell alone. The worst ones are the ones that got the closest. The ones that pretended to be decent people just so they could fucking abuse me. Shit, they're still pretending, they still won't fucking admit what heartless selfish greedy egocentric assholes they are, they still think they can fucking convince me to let them keep fucking walking all over me. It's not even worth telling them off, they'd probably enjoy knowing how much they fucking hurt me. They'd probably just laugh about with each other like the goddamn heartless bastards they are. Fuck it all, people are so goddamn fucked up, how the hell do people like that live with themselves? If I ever treated someone the way they treated me I'd fucking kill myself. What the fuck is wrong them? Part of me just wants to tell them both to go the fuck to hell and die in a fire, but that's just because I'm in a really bitchy mood right now. Goddamn it. Fuck it all. Goddamn stupid self-absorbed greedy manipulative hateful sadistic evil mother fuckers. I fucking hate this shit. I'm sorry for all the hostility, and I'm normally not this angry, even at them, I'm just in a really fucking shitty mood right now and thinking about this shit was pissing me the fuck off, and me getting pissed off doesn't happen often, so I needed to vent. I know once I cool down and I'm in a better mood it'll be fine and I won't feel like this, but I needed to get it out just to help me regain my calm and composure. Sorry for the hostile angry rant, it's very unlike me to think like this, so it's best that I don't bottle it up. By tomorrow I'll probably have calmed down and they'll just mildly irritate me again, instead of full-out pissing me off. So it's all good.

I've been tagged.

I don't even know how to start. I'm supposed to put ten things about me that most people don't know, but I'm not sure if there are that many that I don't openly admit to. Where to begin...

1. I have a running competition with my friend Bob to see which of us is more feminine.

2. I think girly guys and tomboyish girls are really cute.

3. When I'm around a lot of people who aren't talking directly to me I feel invisible. I don't mean that in the sense of feeling ignored, I mean I literally forget that they know I'm there.

4. I'm a lot more impulsive than I seem. I almost never plan ahead or prepare because life is more exciting when I have no idea what could happen.

5. I act embarrassed by things sometimes when I feel like I should be embarrassed, but I'm actually almost never embarrassed by anything I say or do.

6. I tend not to admit when I'm irritated, not because I'm afraid to, but because I don't want to ruin someone else's day just because I'm in a bad mood.

7. I usually try to play off my quietness as just being shy, but in reality I'm quiet because I'm terrified that people will think I'm insane.

8. I actually like kids most of the time, but I'm always nervous around them because I can never bring myself to tell a little kid "no" to anything.

9. I pretend not to care how I look but really I worry constantly that I'm fat or ugly.

10. My sense of touch is so sensitive that being touched by other people actually slightly hurts, but I love it anyway because it makes me feel closer to them.

Hugs.

Note to self: Invent device to make it possible to hug people over the internet. The world needs more hugging.

Moodiness.

I hate this. I've been really moody and irritable, and not just a little bit bitchy today. I don't like being like that, I like to be the nice, even-tempered type that I usually am. Why the hell am I so emotionally unstable? I mean, I know, the bipolar thing, but even so, it seems like I shouldn't mood swing this much. I know part of it is because I've just always had quick, frequent, mild mood swings, but not like today. They haven't been mild, they've been incredibly strong. As in, going from "about to cry" to "beating my head against the wall" to "cursing to myself about everything" in the course of five minutes type of moody. It sucks.

Adderall is evil

I have come to this realization. I haven't had my Adderall in a week and I'm starting to remember why I didn't want to start taking in the first place. I feel more energetic, more awake, more alive. I know I need it to function in normal society, but seriously, I don't want to. I like being the real me. The sporadic spontaneous random ridiculous crazy confusing energized eccentric me. The me that apparently alliterates a lot. I don't want to be stuffy and locked into one train of thought. I don't want a train of thought. I love my bouncy ball of thought. So many thoughts and ideas and feelings and sensations and random images and sounds racing through my head with blazing speed and when I take the Adderall they're all still there I just can't keep up with them. I want to keep up. It's not my fault I can't express my thoughts as fast as I can have them. My lack of attention span is mine damn it, and I finally have it back, I want to keep it. But I know my bosses at work aren't too happy with it. And I really don't want to lose my job. But is holding a job worth losing my self? I shouldn't even have to ask myself these questions. Why do I have to be stuck in a world that can't appreciate my unique state of mind? Oh well, it's okay though. I'm just happy to be me again, at least for now. I don't like medications. Fuck medications. Stupid pills changing my brain, forget it. I'm much happier this way, and I feel my useful and social without the stupid Adderall. I just wish everyone else didn't think I was unreliable and impulsive without it. I admit I get distracted really easily and lose track of what I'm doing and end up not doing things I was supposed to do, but still I do a lot and I'll eventually come back around to whatever it was I was supposed to be doing, it just might take a while. And I feel less anxious and freaked out. That's always a plus. Anxiety sucks. I just like it because I feel more at home inside my head now. I don't feel like a stranger to my own mind anymore. I love that. Of course, don't get me wrong, a lot of this happiness could also be because I just got over being depressed a few days ago and when the depressed episodes end is usually when the manic or hypomanic episodes start, but I feel really good about myself right now and I don't want to ruin it with those stupid pills. No pills. Ever. Pills = bad. I just wanna live and be myself without people raining on my parade damn it. Why is that so hard? Why can't real life just leave me be and let me enjoy my mind. Why does everyone want me to be something else, why can't I just be the force of creative randomness I am naturally? I have a million ideas in my brain and I don't want to live my life with them racing circles around me, scaring me and threatening to consume my tortured psyche because some stupid pills slow me down. I want to embrace my madness. I want to free myself and stop trying to anchor down with pills, just let the currents and tides of the chaos of my thoughts sweep me away. Drifting aimlessly in a stormy ocean of ideas is the life for me. Besides, maybe one day someone will come along to anchor me. I'd rather be anchored by love than by chemicals. I'm reminded of "The Perfect Drug" by Nine Inch Nails. I love that song. It's so forceful. You know what other Nine Inch Nails song really moves me? "Hurt". I cry every time I hear that song, it's just beautiful and powerful. Kinda like what I want in a relationship. Someone emotionally beautiful and powerful, someone who is on the outside as I am on the inside. That would be my dream come true. Too bad my ex was more the first part, she just made me cry. But she was powerful. Oh did she ever have power over me. I hate to admit it but that was one of the things I loved about her. I hate being bossed around, but somehow I didn't mind when she did it. I'll never understand that. And there aren't many things I can't understand. I'm very good at figuring things out, what with my hyperactive mind and all. Anyway, I suppose I should end this post eventually shouldn't I? Yeah, I probably should end it now that I've starting asking myself questions in writing. So yeah, end transmission.

Getting better.

Depression sucks. Thankfully my latest "episode" is going away, and I'm starting to feel more spirited. I need to do something with myself at this point, make some progress in my life, before the next episode starts and messes it all up again. I'm in a better place, and I'd like to make the most of it. It still feels strange to me that I always get like this when the depression starts to fade, this phase where I'm not as down anymore but I still haven't reached my normal state of high-spirited idealism. Sometimes I think I'm most productive at times like this, when I'm getting over the depression but my head hasn't quite floated back into the clouds yet. Analyzing myself like this makes me feel like a crazy person, but I suppose in a way I am. It's okay though, being crazy keeps things interesting. Personal psychological drama for the win. This is what I don't understand about people that whine and complain about their mental problems (or the ones they claim to have). I'm perfectly okay with keeping it to my blog and occasionally talking to a good friend about it, I see no reason to make a big public spectacle of it. I guess I'm just not as attention starved as they are. Oh well, to each their own.