Category Archives: Hope

Doubt, Hope, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Poetry, Self-Care, Self-Love, Writing

Subpar

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It’s a constant struggle dealing with my feelings of inadequacy
It just seems that I’m never good enough
Time after time it’s a notion that comes back to me
Why can’t I ever be good enough?

I’ve set impossible standards for myself
Set the bar so high that I’m having trouble clearing it
But what’s the alternative?
I’ve gone through life before with no self-belief
I’ve gone through life before expecting failure

I always knew that was not a healthy way to live
But neither is this
I have to find some middle ground
I need to find some balance in my life
Do better than what I’ve done
But at the same time, I can’t keep beating myself up so much

I need to learn how to show myself some grace
Be kinder to the man in the mirror
But I just can’t help feeling that I’m not good enough
It feels like everything I do is subpar
Nothing I do is up to my exacting standard
But I swear I’ve been working so hard

So where do I go from here?
When will what I do be good enough (for me)?
Satisfaction and fulfillment seems few and far between
I’m looking for some direction in life
Some clarity on where to go and what to do

I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum
Worked hard for decent money but failed to find passion
Worked passionately for the love of it, but without getting paid
There has to be some middle ground

Why can’t I have both?
But maybe one things divides into two
Maybe I find what I’m looking for in a dual pursuit
Regardless of what it is, I gotta keep chipping away
I know that’s the truth

But it’s hard to keep on going when so far it hasn’t borne fruit
I just can’t help but feel that I’m not good enough
That everything I do is subpar
Self-belief will only get me so far
I can’t get my foot in the door if I’m not given a chance

I know I should be in a better place
But opportunity has been limited
I know I have skill and potential
I just haven’t been able to show it in a while

The longer this goes on, the harder it is to silence my doubt
I pray something comes together
Cause I dunno how much more I can take
Something desperately needs to change

I know I’m good enough
But that small voice gets louder by the day
The one that tells me I’m not good enough
I wish it would just go away
But until I get a chance to show my worth
I’m afraid I’ll keep questioning my role on this earth

Changing, Discovery, Doubt, Dreaming, Growth, Healing, Hope, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Reflections, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness, Writing

A Mixed Bag

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I’m sorry I’ve been MIA for as long as I have. I guess I’ve just been going through some things mentally. No reason to worry though, as my emotional state is good—I’m happy and stable. But something still feels off. Lately, I’ve found that I’m not as excited or enthusiastic about my writing journey as I was previously. I wouldn’t quite call it burnout or writer’s block, since I am still writing daily, even if I’m not doing it on here. But in truth, I don’t really know what I would call it. 

Unfortunately, it’s been a year full of disappointments, which affected me more than I was willing to admit. I’m not really the type of person to complain about things though. If I’m upset about a circumstance I’ll either suck it up and deal with it, or try to find a way to improve it. I pride myself on my problem solving and adaptability, which normally help me come out on top. However, that was not the case this time around. It seems that none of what I tried this year ended up working. While it wasn’t a terrible year per se, nothing ever really swung my way. It’s been more of a mixed bag than anything, so it’s not like the year was a complete disaster—there are still some small blessings to be grateful for. Here’s to hoping that 2025 will be better. 

For the longest time now, my therapist has started each session with the same question, “How are you doing, Justin?” For a while, my answer used to fluctuate greatly from not good to triumphant and everything in between. No surprise there considering my emotional state back then. I wasn’t even-keeled like I am now. I didn’t have the self-awareness that I have now. I didn’t show myself grace or acceptance like I do now. I let bad moods linger and snowball. I allowed my stress level to build and build and build. I didn’t know how to control my anger or sadness all that well. I went through high highs and low lows. My life was a whole rollercoaster of emotions, without a real centerline to return to. I was either elated in the moment but without any lasting joy. Or I was upset and disappointed, with nothing in between. 

That much has since changed. I’ve learned how to accept and process my emotions for what they are, positive or negative. I’ve learned how to regulate them better. Be the one in control of them, rather than letting them control me. Happiness, sadness, anger, are all inevitable parts of life—every emotion is. You can’t just avoid your sadness or anger because you don’t like how they make you feel. Ignoring them or pretending like they don’t exist will only make you ill-prepared for the next time you feel that way. Like many things, I learned this the hard way. Each time I felt anger bubble up I would feel ashamed of it. Every time I felt sad I would beat myself up for it, and end up feeling worse. My life for two and a half decades was riddled with guilt. I had conditioned myself to believe that both of these emotions needed to be avoided at all times. I believed that even the smallest inkling of them was a sign of weakness.

It wasn’t until a few months into therapy that I realized the wrongness of my approach. For the first six months or so, my therapist spent the first fifteen minutes of every session going over one specific emotion in an objective and unbiased manner, in hopes of separating me from my misconceptions. She started out with giving me the definition of the word, which led into thought exercises such as word associations, talking about proper and improper ways to react to said emotion, and other things. Her goal was to get me to accept and embrace all of my emotions, regardless of if I had a positive or negative perception of them. And it worked! But it took some time for me to get there.

Finding my way back to a healthy mindset was a multistep process that took a lot of time and energy. It wasn’t instantaneous like a lightbulb turning on or off. It took a lot of understanding, a lot of breaking down and building up, a lot of self-acceptance to get me to where I am today. But most importantly, it took years of therapy to uncondition myself from my old mindset, and recondition myself into my new one. If you compared who I am today with who I was ten years ago it would be like comparing night and day. You would find two vastly different individuals. But I didn’t change overnight. I didn’t transform from a naive, depressed, twenty-three year old straight to a confident, knowledgable, and calm thirty-three year old. I got from here to there in small increments. I took a few steps forward, a few steps back. I made a few mistakes, I learned a few lessons. But most critical of all, I showed myself grace regardless of the outcome.

I started to accept all parts of me rather than hiding certain things. I stopped trying to suppress interests that I thought clashed with the image I was trying to portray. When it came down to it, the most important bit wasn’t other’s perception of me, but rather, who I actually was. Was I staying true to myself? Was the image of me a genuine portrayal of who I was? Was I proud of the person I had become? For the longest time, the answer to all of these questions was, ‘no.’ I realized through therapy that I was spending way too much time on maintaining the facade. I was wasting energy on this pretense when it would’ve been more productively spent on bettering myself and improving my situation. This led me to a second realization: that the biggest disservice was to myself. The person I hurt the most with these lies was me.

The truth of the matter was that a large part of me was afraid of what life would look like without the facade. For many years, it was part of a safety mechanism that I’d put in place to protect myself. It was a way for me to cover up my biggest sensitivities. To prevent myself from becoming too vulnerable in a relationship—as a shy kid who had a hard time making friends, losing a friendship was one of my biggest fears, so I kept my distance and built up walls (little did I know that it often backfired, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy). It allowed me to minimize the “target” on my back by suppressing my nerdier tendencies. It helped me mask my lack of self-confidence. I was able to live in a bubble, pretending like things were fine when they weren’t. It allowed me to continue ignoring my problems, to shove them into a deep corner of my mind where I didn’t have to deal with them.

But as I’ve stated several times before, “out of sight, out of mind” ends up doing more harm than good. By ignoring your issues and shoving them off to the side, you give them room to fester and grow, outside of your purview. Pretending like problems don’t exist doesn’t fix them or make them go away. The problem is still there whether or not you want to acknowledge it. The only way to fix a weakness or a flaw is to face it head on, to address it directly, to admit that it’s actually there. Once I accepted this, I was finally able to move on with my life. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step is admitting that you have a problem—something that’s relevant to life in general. 

Once you make this first admission, everything else starts to come into focus. I was able to admit that I didn’t have all the answers and that I needed help. I was able to come to grips with who I was and accept me as I was. And with that acceptance came confidence that I’d never known before. Rather than letting my circumstance dictate the way my life unfolded I finally felt in control for the first time. I was able to rely more on my strengths, and work on my weaknesses. All of this helped me mature into an adult. And I couldn’t have done it without therapy. 

I owe my life to therapy. It rescued me from the darkness inside my soul. It saved me from an untimely death. It liberated me from a life of mediocrity. It gave me purpose again. It gave me courage to face the gloom that clouded my mind. It gave me the strength to face my fears. But most importantly, it taught me self-awareness. It taught me how to be confident. It taught me how to rediscover my passion. Without therapy my life would’ve turned out differently. Without it I wouldn’t be adequately prepared to face what life has to throw at me. So even though 2024 was full of disappointments I can still move on. I can continue chasing my dream. The dream doesn’t change, but how I get there might. So all I have to do is keep an open mind. Be adaptable like I’ve always been. It’ll all come together eventually. 

Art, Growth, Healing, Hope, Mindfulness, Poetry

Lend Your Ear

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Everyone always seems to have an opinion
Thinking that what they have to say matters most
Putting in their two cents when nobody asked
Whatever happened to lending an ear, to listening?
Whatever happened to speaking only when necessary?
Why is there a need to fill the void?
Why are words spoken when nothing need be said?

The silence can be deafening
But it can also be tranquil, full of peace
A reprieve from the fake news cycle
A brief moment of reflection and contemplation
A moment of silence where we can be together
Soak in each other’s presence and be at peace
You didn’t ask for my opinion, you didn’t ask me to speak
All you needed was an ear to hear
All you needed was for me to be there

So that is what I’ll give
If there’s more I can do, you’ll let me know
But I won’t make this about myself
I won’t say, “don’t worry. I’ve been there before.”
I won’t say, “I know your pain.”
I won’t equate my situation with yours

For even though there may be similarities
Our stories are not the same
Each one is unique
Each individual has different tools 
Each individual walks a different path
We have our similarities and our differences 
We can leave it at that

I will be there to comfort those who are hurting
I will be there to show that I care
I will listen first, and speak later
Because all I need to do is show that I’m there

The silence can be deafening, but no words need be spoken
I won’t fill the air with noise if you’re feeling broken
I will listen first, and embrace you afterwards
I will speak if necessary but I won’t prattle without a care
You know that I’ll be there
I’m always there to listen
Always willing to lend an ear

The silence may be deafening
But it’s better than words thrown around without care
Sometimes all you need is a shoulder to cry on
An ear to hear
Opinions don’t matter when all you need is care
So shut up and listen
Don’t feel the need to fill the air
Listen first and just be there
Lend your ear and go from there

Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Hope, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Peace, Reflections, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness

Without Action

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When all is said and done what will my legacy look like? As you probably know by now, this is something that I spend a lot of time thinking about. I know, I know, I’m putting the cart before the horse. Thinking about what the results will look like before I’ve put in the requisite time and effort. I can’t help it, but one can dream right? In a way, this keeps me motivated and pushing forward. It works for me, but it may not necessarily work for you.

It didn’t always work for me either. I’ve always been a dreamer, even if I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, at times. Dreaming was done, but what came of it wasn’t always productive. I spent more time fantasizing about crushes and becoming famous than I spent thinking about career aspirations and what kind of person I could become. I dreamt of nonsense not of impact. I spent more time in my subconscious than I did in the waking world. It was safer that way, easier. Nothing to goad my anxiety into overdrive. No embarrassment that I would have to suffer through. I did plenty of dreaming in my teenage years, but it wasn’t healthy for me. 

I didn’t go out and live my life. I didn’t put enough effort into my schoolwork or in finding connections and developing relationships with other people. All of my interactions were surface level or non-existent. I spent more time talking to people in my dreams than I spent talking to them in real life. I was partially held back by fear, and I was partially held back by having unrealistic expectations of what a friendship was supposed to look like. I’ve always been an introvert, but early on I was also painfully shy—I don’t know if I ever fully grew out of that—that being said, friendships had always been hard to come by. The effort that it took to try to maintain the status quo was already draining enough, I didn’t have the energy to invest in new friendships or to deepen the ones that I had. To say that my shyness stunted my growth would be an understatement. But we all have to work through adverse circumstances. 

We’ve all been raised by nature, nurture, pure dumb luck, and perseverance. Your parents raise you using certain values, but there comes a time when you start thinking for yourself, and you either continue to agree with them or you start diverging from them. Thinking for yourself is the final stage in your transition from childhood to adulthood. At some point we have to grow up, whether we want to or not. With growing up comes the understanding that sometimes shit happens. But sometimes you can do shit about your circumstances. Either way though, you have to make something of your life. You can’t just exist for the sake of existing. Your life should have meaning, purpose, and passion. Without those, you are living without actually living.

I’ve done more than my fair share of that. Of course that’s something that I regret, but the past is not something that can be changed. Oftentimes people say to, “live life without regrets.” That’s a statement that I agree with somewhat, but I don’t adhere to fully. How can you move forward without regret? So, for me it comes with a caveat. I don’t regret the things that I’ve done or the decisions I’ve made because there were lessons to be learned from them. But I do regret some of the things that I’ve said that have hurt people or ruined relationships. I do regret the times when I should’ve spoken up but didn’t. And I do regret the time that I’ve wasted. Our time is precious and we only have so much of it, so it’s best to use it wisely.

You might be able to spend five years at a job that you hate, if you’re still learning or growing or making good money. We all can come up with reasons for staying, but it usually comes at a cost. Every week or month or year is a good time to think deeply about what your job is costing you. Weigh the pros and the cons. Check in on yourself regularly—it’s easy to forget to do so. Sometimes we’re so busy looking out for our family or friends or significant others that we forget to look out for ourselves. That’s something I’ve been getting better at the past few years, but I’m still learning how to do it. Looking out for myself is not something that came natural to me. I attribute that to my Asian-American heritage, the morals I learned from church, and what I learned from school (amongst other things). The way I was raised stressed politeness, humility, helpfulness/generosity. None of which are bad traits to have, in a vacuum. 

But sometimes what’s unsaid or hidden in subtext is equally as important. That’s become clear to me as I become a better writer. Unfortunately, what was unsaid here was vital information that I missed. I was told time and time again to help others, to not be selfish, to focus outwardly rather than inwardly. Which is all well and good, but I was in no position to do so. I couldn’t impact others or contribute meaningfully to society with the war that was going on inside of my mind and my soul. Some people are ready-made from the moment they were born to be a positive influence on the world around them. Many others will need time to develop. Some may not ever develop. 

For a while, I was part of the latter group. On the one hand, I did not develop or learn, grow or improve. I was stubborn and stuck in my ways. Trying to approach things the same way, and expecting different results. But on the other, I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know what doing things in my best interest even looked like. I thought maybe it was making my parents proud, or meeting my friend’s expectations, or pursuing a career path that was prestigious. Later on it was being a company man and a team player. But none of that was fulfilling, none of that satisfied me. Because I wasn’t living for me, I was living for them. It sounds bad when you put it that way, but it wasn’t weird to me at the time. It was all I had known really. It took me years of therapy to break me out of that mentality. 

Doing things for yourself does not make you selfish. Nor does looking out for your future. Nor taking the time to get your shit together. Sometimes we need to take a step back and focus on ourselves before we can help others. And helping others should not come at the detriment to your own health. It’s hard to help others when you haven’t helped yourself. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way. I neglected my self-interest and ambition for more than two and a half decades. It took me more than a year and a half of therapy for me to even figure out what I wanted. Even though I had grown up, I still didn’t know what I wanted to be, because I hadn’t thought about it in so long. I didn’t think that I was allowed to be what I wanted to be. I had been conditioned to want to be what others wanted me to be.

I know now that it never satisfies. If you’re living for others and not for yourself, you’re essentially telling yourself that you are second place in your own life. Your desires and dreams take a backseat to the desires and dreams of your parents, your peers, your employer, or what have you. Trust me, that’s not very fun. Life is meant to be enjoyed. You’re supposed to work hard, but you’re also supposed to have time to rest and relax. You’re supposed to be kind and helpful to others, but you’re also supposed to be kind and helpful to yourself. Put yourself in position to have a positive impact on those around you by putting yourself in position to succeed. 

Everyone has their own strengths, weaknesses, passions, and interests. Do what you can to make the best use of the skillset you’ve been given. Dream big and never give up. But when you dream, make sure that there is a path to meaningful action that follows. Think of what steps you need to take to get to where you want to go. Without action, your dreams bear no fruit. Without action, your dreams are just hot air. Without action, your dreams are meaningless. 

I know that full well. I have nothing to show for all the dreaming I did in high school. I didn’t get the girl. I didn’t become famous. I didn’t even come any closer to figuring out what I was put on this earth to do. All that dreaming left me with my wheels spinning, wondering what’s next? While I was playing out fantasies in my head, others were out living their lives, pursuing their passions, finding happiness. They were honing their crafts, learning what they needed to learn, mapping out their career paths. I didn’t envy them, I still don’t. But I do wonder what if that had been me? What if I hadn’t wasted all that time?

But as I said earlier, I can’t change the past. I can however, move forward. I can live in the present, and work hard to set up my future. I can think about what kind of legacy I want to leave. I can think about how I want to make an impact. I can think about how I want to be remembered. I can keep on dreaming. I can think about all these things, but I must do everything in my power to make my dreams a reality. If I want to leave a legacy I have to do something worthy of it. That’s what keeps me moving. That’s what I remind myself every time that I’m having a tough day. The process may be hard now, but the end result will be beautiful. It will take time and effort upfront, but it will pay off later. It may seem premature to think about my legacy now, but I have to. I can’t get to where I want to go if I don’t know where I’m going.

Brokenness, Changing, Discovery, Growth, Healing, Hope, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness

Mind-Numbing Complexity

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English is a funny language. Not all synonyms are entirely interchangeable—they’re not all created equal. Some similar words have different connotations. The meaning of a word might change depending on context. Other words create implications via subtext. There is quite a lot of nuance involved when it comes to wordplay. That’s why I love it so much. A complex language for a complex person. 

Being complex, isn’t always a bad thing, however. Oftentimes, complexity is conflated with high maintenance. Not the same thing, although they might overlap. You can be complex in your personality, but simplistic in your goal setting. You might be easy to please but have varied interests that don’t seem to fit together. But that’s just it. Each person is a unique puzzle with differing pieces. There may be some similarities, but no two people are identical. Most people are complex in some areas, but simplistic in others. Not often will you find someone who is completely one or the other. As with most things, making it black and white oversimplifies things. Personally, I don’t like being told things in absolutes. Doing so makes it easy to think in terms of us vs them. I’ve taken enough sociology classes to know that that’s a dangerous place to be in.

When you think in terms of us vs them you have a tendency to make “them” the Other. There’s an in-group and an out-group. Good vs evil. Heroes vs villains. Again, that’s not how life works. Almost everyone thinks that what they’re doing is right. Everyone will find a way to justify their behavior, even if they know what they’re doing is “wrong.” What really defines right or wrong anyway? Everyone’s moral compass is different. So, what purpose does this really serve? You’ve created a sense of belonging at the expense of alienating others. In this system of constant in and out, there are outcasts everywhere we look. Are we not all humans? Should we not all strive for the same goal—making the world a better place?

Being an outcast is nothing new to me. I never really seemed to fit in anywhere. I’ve felt that way my whole life. Some things were within my control, some things were not. For a while it pained me, I was in a constant struggle between trying to find acceptance and trying to maintain my individuality. At times, I tried so hard to conform, not realizing that conformity isn’t in my DNA. It’s something I can keep trying to do, but now I know that it will never make me happy. Unfortunately, it took me quite a while to finally understand that. I maintained the war inside my mind, not knowing that I didn’t have to. I was free to be me in all my glory, if only I would let myself. But as I’ve said before, fear held me back. It prevented me from embracing every aspect. It forced me to suppress certain interests and qualities just so I would have a cleaner image. This cleaner image wasn’t real though, it was just a facade—not a very good one. It only served as a hindrance on my road to self-discovery.

Worse than lying to others, I was lying to myself. I was trying to convince myself that I was something that I was not. Trying to mold myself into a shape that fit neatly inside a cookie cutter, paring off parts of me that made me who I was. However, clean-cut was never meant for me. Conformity wasn’t the solution. Fitting inside a cookie cutter was not what I was called to do. I have varied interests and hobbies, it’s always been that way. I’m passionate about fantasy and sci-fi, but I’m also passionate about watching football. I appreciate literary art, but I also appreciate seeing people beat the shit out of each other in MMA. I love building Lego sets, but I also love killing things in RPGs. I like what I like, and that makes me who I am. I have gentler interests and I have more violent ones—they can co-exist. Without that duality, I am not the same person. If only I had been more accepting of that as a teenager. 

In High School, I hovered between the nerd crowd, the potheads, and the loners, not connecting entirely with any of them. It turns out I am in fact all three, but I never would’ve known it. I focused way too much of my energy on trying to suppress certain parts of myself that I didn’t want others to see, instead of loving me for me. I tried to hide who I was instead of trying to understand who I was. In trying to remove the parts of me that I didn’t like, I unintentionally actuated a cycle of self-loathing. Attempting to sheer off slivers of the cornerstone of my personality only led to inevitable disappointment, which caused me to spiral deeper into self-contempt. In all honesty, that’s probably why I suffered for so long. If you don’t love yourself, it shows through in the way you talk and the way you act. It’s not as well-concealed as you think it is.

Of course, it’s hard to see that when you lack self-awareness. It’s hard to do anything really if you have an unrealistic outlook on life. Unfortunately, that was me for a long time. My constant wallowing and self-pity blinded me to what was going on around me. I was incredibly self-absorbed but also incapable of improving my situation because I was stubborn and didn’t have a coping mechanism in place for dealing with adversity. If your primary instinct is to run or to hide from hardship, you’re in for a lifetime of pain. Emotional trauma that isn’t dealt with head-on isn’t going to heal on its own. Each new bit of pain that you repress is only going to make things worse. It’s easy to ignore your trauma or to suppress it, but it’s only a temporary fix, no better than a band-aid.

I learned that the hard way. For twenty-seven years I pushed the pain and adversity deep into the recesses of my mind. Each negative experience was tucked away, never to be thought about or dealt with, it hurt too much, but I was only delaying the inevitable—a nervous breakdown was imminent. Aside from failure, emotional pain was what scared me the most. This fear proved to be crippling, preventing me from moving forward with my life. I didn’t know it, but I was stuck dwelling on the past. Until I drilled down to the root, until I dealt with the things I was ignoring, I would not find healing and circumstances would not improve. I was stuck in a holding pattern, wanting better but seeking to achieve it in all the wrong ways. I naively thought I could set myself up for a bright future without addressing the past. Life doesn’t work that way. That will become clear to you in short order.

After a tough breakup my junior year of college, things began to spiral. All the issues that I had tried to ignore the previous seven years had stacked and were coming to a head. But instead of addressing them directly, I returned to the well-oiled machine of running, hiding, and ignoring. This time, however, I added a fourth item to the mix: numbness. I tried to numb my emotions with anything I could find: cigarettes, weed, alcohol. This was the physical anesthesia, but it was accompanied by psychological anesthesia as well. I dampened my expectations—bad times were bound to happen to me, and the good times wouldn’t last. The walls that were starting to come down during college, I built back up, higher than ever. I had a few friends that I leaned on for my support system, but I’d be damned if I let anyone new through—not before I’d had a chance to vet them first. I was living a hedonistic lifestyle without the hedonism, because pleasure no longer existed to me. Thus began my cycle of despair. Thus began my descent into nihilism.

Surprisingly, my attempt at numbness worked, and it was more effective than I had anticipated. So much so that for five and a half years I forgot what it felt like to be human. Each day was the same as the last. Stuck at a dead end job. Living a dead end life. I wasn’t happy, but I also wasn’t angry. I was in a perpetual state of melancholy. Low energy and unfeeling. A robot going through the motions, running through a preset program. Go to work, come home, get heavily medicated, go to sleep, eat only if I feel like it. The one thing I found solace in was that despite my aversion to emotional pain, I was still capable of feeling physical pain. I didn’t self-harm, but that was only because I’d found someone else to do it for me.

I’d known since Junior High that I was going to get tattoos later in life. It just took me a while before I finally got my first one. But once I did, it was an addiction that I had no intention of controlling. And it was probably better that way. Without this outlet, I probably would’ve been even worse off. For that half decade, tattoos were the only thing that kept me sane. The only thing that made my life feel real. The only thing that I could actually feel. Sure I got high every day, and sure socializing gave me a bit of a rush, but nothing beat the burst of adrenaline I got from a tattoo session. The physical pain of a needle reminded me that I was still capable of feeling. It reminded me that I was still human despite the nothingness that my life had become.

Numbing myself had seemed harmless at the time, but so too did running and hiding and ignoring. That’s how it all starts though isn’t it? The path to self-destruction doesn’t start out at that magnitude. You let the little things slide and they start to add up. Before you know it, several minor issues have become a monstrous one. That’s when life becomes overwhelming. That’s when you feel like you’ve lost control. That’s when the gears start spinning, but the wheels stop turning. Unfortunately, my story is not unique. Many young adults have been through the same shit. Ideally, you want to tackle your issues one by one, nip them in the bud before they have a chance to snowball. But oftentimes we don’t have all the tools we need to fix our problems and we don’t have the awareness to know when things need changing. Even if we do, we might not know what to pivot to or how to pivot when we find that things aren’t working.

But not all hope is lost. You’ve reached a dark day, but there is always a way out. It might appear to you in the form of a permanent, long-term catchall solution that brings about an end to your suffering. More likely, however, you will come across a temporary fix or several. There’s nothing wrong with that. Broken people need to find healing some way, some how. What matters is not how quickly you are able to heal, but rather how thoroughly. It might take you several tries to find the path of healing, but that’s okay. Once you acknowledge that things could be better, you’ve taken the first step.

Still, words mean little if there is no action to follow. It didn’t take me long to realize that living wasn’t fun for me anymore. I knew that as early as 2006, but I chalked it up to teenage angst. I believed that in time, my depression would go away on its own. How innocent. How naive. How misguided. It wasn’t until 2015 that I decided that I wanted more from life. I wanted to find meaning, to do something fulfilling, to be happy for the first time in a long time. Once again, there wasn’t any meaningful action to follow. I was too afraid, too nervous, gave up too easily. 

And yet, unbeknownst to me I had stumbled onto the right path. Everything happens for a reason. My adversity made me stronger. Everything I went through made me into the man I am today. The devil tried to bring me down, but he only made me better. The numbness hindered me more than it helped me, but it was necessary. Without it, I wouldn’t have gained a deeper appreciation for the little things in life. I wouldn’t have learned to cherish my emotions. I wouldn’t have learned how to feel again if I hadn’t forgotten how to in the first place.

The tattoos weren’t a landmark on my path to healing, but they led me to it. The physical pain couldn’t replicate my psychological pain, but it helped me to feel something. There aren’t many stories or meanings behind my ink, but they mean something to me. The physical scars masked my psychological ones. They didn’t bring meaning to my life, they didn’t make me feel better about myself, they didn’t buy me happiness. But what they did do was remind me of my humanity. Remind me that I’m not a program. Remind me that I am in control. My tattoos tell the story of a broken kid. Someone who had lost his way. Someone who had lost all hope. My tattoos didn’t change who I was, but they helped me to find what I was looking for. The numbness slowed the damage, but it wasn’t able to heal. The pain showed me that, at the very least I was real. And in that moment it was enough.