Disorder In The Cosmos

I wish everything didn't have to be about money. There are so many places I still wanna go, there's so many people I haven't met. I don't think people are meant to be unemployed. For every day that passes I feel more recluse and shut myself in my room so I won't have to talk to people. Friends come over and go again but I still feel lonely, lonely, lonely. I have the best partner anyone could ever ask for; so I'm not sure why I'm experiencing this heartbreak. I feel scared and alone and I long to go home. I miss the mountains and the rivers and the forest where I ran around on adventures as a child. I miss it so much sometimes, it feels like my heart is bleeding. I'm going there in a few weeks but it won't be the same. I'll miss my Loved One a little too much for my own liking. A lot of the time I forget that he is younger than me, he's so mature and reasonable, I love him for that. But sometimes I just feel like I'm growing old while he isn't, as if the distance of time between us is an untrespassable gap that will lead to our demise. My thoughts of doom and the ending of the world are increasing lately. I think about dying and what ways would be the worst or the best. I think about what'll happen when the universe collapses, when none of us will still be here. I think that I can't handle thinking of all these things, but if there's one thing I hold on to even while going through a creative stalemate, it's thinking about the mysteries of life. The universe and the cosmos is one of those, right? One of those mysteries that you can conceptually understand, but when actually imagining it happening... that's when your mind really runs free and roams wild, out of your control. Isn't that so?

It feels typical of me to begin thinking about the cosmos with a mention of money. But hey, money makes the world go round. And that's the main part I hate about it.

I really miss having my own place, my own apartment, where I can have everything in my way and where I can be safe and alone, or invite people as I wish and nobody would have any say about it. I miss being an independent spirit. I don't know how much longer I can take living the way we do, we just don't have the privacy needed to lead a serious and adult life. My time with Loved One feels as though it's borrowed, and as if I had stolen it. It can't be allowed to exist in a more permanent form, or I would be struck out of the deal, and all of our time just taken away. It's possible that it's surreal to think this way, but come on. We're all going to die eventually, my problem is just that I can't seem to stop obsessing over when and how. I'm terrified of dying. Probably because I don't believe in being reborn or there being an afterlife. It makes it feel as though I have to really LIVE every moment that I have the chance to and really spend it while I can. But still day after day passes and I've never been more passive. All I want to do is submerge myself in games or films and I don't want to have to be subjected to the real world. I want to work, but I've given up on finding any job. Even if I got something I would be too angsty to enjoy it and I would end up screwing it for myself much as I have done at every job, I've ever had. This is saddening, and I feel like a complete failure. It's not as easy as it used to be to just snap out of it and force myself to do this or that. Nowadays when I'm sad I'm mind-numbing sad. When I'm restless I am so restless I can't sit down or be still for a second. When I'm angry, I throw things and yell. I'm so unbalanced. People think they know me, people think they know what signs to look for in someone depressed. When I let my feelings take over this fully, then know, I'm deep down, and deeply troubled. But no one seems to bother. Since there are no particular outer factors to point out, I must be fine, right? Those people must never have struggled with their inner worlds.

Why can't I just get help? Was I so wrong to ask for it?

POET IN THE JAR

Unanswered Call

The world couldn't be responding any slower. Even when you wave your arms around and shout from the top of your lungs, screaming "Help me!"; they don't seem to hear or care. That's how it works in this country. I recently read an article saying that while there is a drastic increase in mental illnesses in young people, the availability of psychological care decreases. A few weeks ago I went to my doctor to try and determine whether I might be diagnosed with ADHD (essentially a hyperactivity and concentration problems diagnosis). The doctor seemed less educated than me on the matter, and kept asking me about family and home relations as if he was going to diagnose me with a wreck of a past (not a diagnosis last time I checked). He was right to conclude I need further evaluation though. He told me their therapist was an expert on cognitive problems and that I should be pre evaluated by her before moving on. The problem is, this was weeks ago and I still didn't get an appointment. This despite calling them and leaving a message twice. The therapist is apparently on sick leave for an undefined amount of time. So why couldn't they send me on to the hospital instead? I'm supposed to wait until this person gets back to work? These evaluations take long as it is without this so called, unfortunate delay. I need help today. Hell, yesterday.  Hell, years ago! Now that I am finally making myself ask for help I feel like I am being ignored completely.

Did I mention that people with ADHD are particularly prone to depression?

In Sweden, we like to brag about our welfare and we pay 30 percent of our salary each month so that we can access free health care.  The truth is that many health care institutions are run like businesses, aiming for a high profit while the remaining live off tax money and suffer constant cutbacks. The truth is despite paying taxes we still have to pay for our medical care, our doctor's appointments and our medications. I can't find it in me to blame the doctors and nurses when the problem lies in the system as a whole. I know they don't have enough staff or money, and risk their mental health working long hours for no appreciation.  Health care should be without fees. It should be a fundamental human right. In another life, perhaps.

With a diagnosis I could explain my whole life. I could pinpoint why I act and react the ways I do. I could let other people know what to think about when they're around me. It would simplify everything. It would explain to the world why I was always perceived as different, and why I always felt that way. It would be a tool for me if I could get help drawing strength from it. If I wasn't knocked down by it. I feel like I'm currently being hindered from functioning. I always thought this was just the way I was. That someone made up what was normal and that maybe I was the normal one while everyone else had it wrong. A bizarre deduction, almost. There is a difference between adjusting to norms in society and adjusting to a completely haywire chemical balance in your body that makes your life an endless emotional roller coaster, always swinging back and forth between hyperactive restlessness and mind-numbing apathy. Perhaps my notion of normality could be applied to my school years. But it doesn't explain my childhood or my inability to function as an adult. I owe my family an explanation for my behavior, I owe it to them to let them know why they could never quite get me.

People have this notion that they know what ADHD is all about. When I told my friends I was seeking help for it, a lot of them didn't believe me or take me seriously. They seemed to think I had read about it online and then imagined I had the same symptoms. What people normally associate with ADHD is the characteristic of being hyped up and "all over the place". Although this is true there are different types of ADHD, and you can be diagnosed without even showing a sign of physical hyperactivity. The diagnosis can also include subtler restlessness, like always fiddling with things, having racing thoughts and getting bored quickly. The idea that I would just apply a diagnosis on myself because I went online is almost laughable considering how many different diseases I've looked up without applying them (many of these moments caused by forementioned boredom). No, this goes back further; this is something coming from my heart and intuition; only recently backed up by the general research and talks with afflicted friends. It seems strange that I could always intuitively understand and relate to other people with the diagnosis. Or is it?

It's time to get to the bottom of this, and I'm not willing to wait for the system to work this one out for me. I've waited long enough.

I've waited my whole life.
POET IN THE FRUSTRATED JAR

Hands In The Water

I watch from my island, made of stone.

Pillar-like, it rises from a raging sea.

The waves are silent, but monstrous in proportion,

in their ancient war, beneath of me.

I'm seated on a withered, powerless throne.

Once meaningful as a core defense.

But it lost its magic eons ago,

And left me alone with its lens.

I see hands in the water, I see shivering arms and skin.

I see faces of chaos, and their torture within.

I see beckoning eyes and jagged lies,

cloaked behind distorted grins.

They are lost now, and beyond me.

They haven't always been.

I'm chained to a tower, that splits the sky.

The remnant of a monument, a mighty cage.

I've been depleted, every last restortion

weakened by the untamed waves.

I see hands in the water, I see shivering arms and skin.

I see faces of chaos, and their torture within.

I see beckoning eyes and jagged lies,

cloaked behind distorted grins.

They are lost now, and beyond me.

They haven't always been.

Beast-like, they manifested, one after one,

until their creations could not be undone.

With claws and nails and teeth they spun,

until their world was an ocean.

And I, I see them scream and pray,

their silent pain, directed at me.

I, who see them struggle and fade,

I grieve for their decay.

You must understand, when the world began,

these beings were not beasts in agony.

They were ideas, inventions, and ideologies.

They were spoken words, impulses, promises, and pleas.

They were harmless, before they were spoken.

They were beautiful, before they were broken.

I see their hands in the water. I see their shivering arms, and skin.

Their faces of chaos, and torture, within.

They beckon to me, with jagged lies,

treacherous tales and thwarted grins.

They are all lost now, and beyond me.

I, perpetual guardian, carved in stone,

watch over them until they end.
I'm untouchable.
Invulnerable.

Alone.