kamcalste

Every so often, I find my way back here.

It's an emotional experience, every time. Bittersweet.

I no longer obsess over journal entries from ten years ago, so that's nice. Reading those things is next-level cringeworthy at this point. But I still get a little nostalgic and wistful when I read my old creative works, and the lovely things so many people had to say about them. There is such a beautiful and supportive community here. I really took it for granted when I was younger. I'll never be able to just drop back in - I'd have to work at it, and working at things is something I no longer do.

I'm 25 now. I started this deviantart account when I was 14. It feels like a lifetime ago, because it was. I'm married, a college dropout, and more deeply affected by my mental illnesses than I ever was as a teenager or young(er) adult, when I could write thousands of words on the subject.

Maybe that's the problem.

I have a few friends from here who also follow me on tumblr. Those online connections that have persisted for seven, eight, or nine years feel so surreal to me now. They're informal and casual, but they still feel significant. It was hard for me to remember why until I came back here and started reading old comments and feedback. There is a culture of caring here in the Lit community, and I happened to connect with some of the best people in it a few years back. I'm happy to see so many familiar usernames in my inbox, still working, with fresher and more refined styles. I wish I could say I was in the same place.

The prose and poetry I wrote for this website still feels as though it were written by someone else. Maybe it's just time and distance, but I can't imagine writing so openly about my personal issues now. Maybe that's the problem, too.

I had completely forgotten about that poem I wrote in 2016. It was pretty good, given how long it had been since I'd written anything. It's so hard to start again. It's so hard to keep going.

Life lost meaning for me a long time ago. Then I lost the will and drive to seek meaning, and now...it feels foreign to want to create something, to want to contribute to a culture with my own words. It feels weirdly egotistical of me - and I think it's because I've spent so much of my life numbing myself, convincing myself that I am insignificant, that what I feel doesn't matter, that what I do is ultimately pointless.

This is what I am after a decade of mostly untreated depression and anxiety. I'm not scared and suicidal anymore. I'm just...ready to stop existing. I'm only still here because I don't want to hurt the people I love, the people who love me. Step into the pond quietly, leave as few ripples as possible, sink to the bottom, and inhale.

I can't. Feeling hurts too much. That's why I stopped writing prose and poetry like I wrote here. Digging up fossils under cracked earth is exhausting.

I have done some other writing. A little freelance work (does that mean I'm a professional now?). I started a series on an erotica website, but it's not for everyone, so I definitely won't be sharing it. Writing those things felt good, because I was writing again. But it wasn't about this. It wasn't about the things I've always written about here.

I'm not even sure what I'm saying anymore. I'll bet no one missed my rambling journal entries, aha.

Show me something you've written or drawn or photographed or sculpted lately.

I miss writing so much.

Where did the words go? How do I get them back? I read over the things I've submitted here, years ago, and they feel like they were written by a different person. A stranger. Someone who knew herself, or at least knew how to write in a way that let her discover more. Every time I try now, it's clunky, conversational, uncreative. I've lost my voice. Completely.

I'm worse off now than I've ever been. Totally lost.

I see some of the same old faces are still here. People I considered friends, or at least friendly. People who supported my work and encouraged me to keep going. That makes me happy, but it makes me really sad, too. I'm glad people are still creating but I can't help but feel envious too. I want it so badly but the drive is gone. The ideas are gone. The way with words is slowly going, too.

What do I do now?

Gaht damn. Every time I come back to this website it's completely different.

I turn 24 in about ten days. I'm getting older. Every year seems to go by faster and faster. I feel like I'm still in the same place. I know I've changed, incrementally, but it feels like I'm still an 18-year-old trauma survivor who has no fucking clue what she's doing, personally, professionally, or just in general.

My anxiety has only gotten worse with age. Same with the depression. I'm medicated now, which I suppose should be making a difference. Maybe it is. I don't know. All I know is that I'm either crying uncontrollably, unable to get out of bed, or so anxious and restless I want to self-destruct. Neither state of mind is ideal for being a productive member of society. Maybe my real issue is that I don't want to be a productive member of society - half the time I don't even want to exist, and the other half I'm so fed up with societal expectations like having a job and not being a total waste of space that I'm just pissed off. People will tell you over and over again to find the things that matter to you in order to combat mental illness, but I don't even know what matters to me anymore. I just smoke a shitton of weed and wait for the day to end.

I don't even "worry" about things anymore, not the way I used to when I was younger. I don't bother naming my anxieties because I know they're all bullshit. I'm not worried about anything in particular - just constantly fucking worried. When that cycle is done, I'm so exhausted and drained that I don't have the energy to shower, let alone go out and seize my dreams or whatever-the-fuck I'm supposed to do as an empowered, "good" crazy person.

I'm a little bitter today. This is probably not the best reintroduction to dA, but y'know. I'm grasping at straws here. I need something. I don't know what it is. I've never known what it was. Apparently this is the feeling that drives everyone else on the planet. This is the feeling that inspires people to move, to create, to be something. All it makes me want to do is crawl into a hole and hide.

I am supposed to be getting better about engaging with life. I used to be able to sit in a crowded place and find stories to comfort me. I'd make up things about the people around me, or I'd just start dreaming and write what came to me. At some point, I started hiding instead. I've gone so internal that only one or two people really know how to bring me out. I don't feel like myself, but I also don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I avoid, avoid, avoid - any and every thing that makes me uncomfortable, I will try as hard as I can to find a way out of it. Or I just sleepwalk through.

I need to get in touch with my creativity again, but that's been true for years. I have a billion things I need to do to be better. No energy or drive to actually make that happen, though.

Regardless, dA is most likely going to become what it once was for me, a long time ago - a place to rant, to vent, to just let my thoughts be what they are again. Maybe I'll figure out a way to write in the meantime.

Once upon a time, this place was a safe haven. Between the pieces I submitted and the journals I wrote, I found a quiet space I could make sense of things. I look back now and feel a little embarrassed over how candid and open I was to a bunch of strangers on the internet, but then I remember that I haven't been that open and honest to anyone else (besides my husband) since. The past year (and maybe a little longer) has been a period of complete disconnection for me. I have lost touch with just about everything that once made me "me". I think this was necessary. There's a lot of harsh truths I needed to internalize, and I've needed time to feel and fully accept my depression and the things I've been through. I grabbed little spaces of time before to do this, but it was never enough. There was always more details to attend to, always more things to get done, always another trauma or loss to survive. Living with my in-laws and going to school online offered me the space I needed, and I took advantage of it. I didn't veer off the edge completely - I got shit done, I finally finished my Associates degree. But if I'm being honest with myself, it was a minimal effort and an anticlimactic reward.

After a year of what has felt like just wasting time, I feel starved. I feel dull, like there's a fuzz around everything and everyone. I'm not sure anymore of what's important to me. Major events (getting that Associates degree, getting married) came and went and it felt like I was just a passive spectator. I seem incapable of finding things to get excited about, but never run out of things to feel anxious or scared about. I spend so much time in my head I sometimes forget that everyone I love isn't stewing it in with me too. I lash out and don't know what to tell people when they ask me how they can make it better. I've lost touch with the things that make me feel good, that make me feel like life is worth living. And it's touched everything - my relationships have suffered the most. Particularly my relationship with myself, as corny as that shit sounds.

I guess the point of all of this is pretty simple - I need to change. I need to figure out what I have to do to get back to basics, to get in touch with what connects me to the world again.

Starting is hard. Knowing where to start, knowing what to do next. I want to follow this momentum, keep going. I want to move forward and I want to keep getting better. I've spent a long time sliding backwards, and I'm the only person who can pull myself back up. I'm scared because this isn't the first time I've had this realization, and I always end up in the same place. But I just don't want to be here anymore. There are things about me that I can't change. My past and the trauma I've experienced is not going to go away anytime soon, and certainly not without some outside intervention. But I won't get anywhere near ready to take care of my issues if I don't find the momentum to just do more than survive. And I'm not a kid anymore - there are expectations, both internal and external, that I take care of myself and contribute to my community. I have to be better, and I have to start now.

There's always going to be days where I can't quite do it, where the energy isn't there or I'm just too overwhelmed. But that shouldn't be every day.

That being said, I'd love some writing prompts. If you'd made it this far and are still reading, throw me some words or phrases or ideas in the comments. I'd be really grateful for the inspiration.

I don't know if this will work, but I think it's something I have to try.

Ever since I stopped using dA (almost a year ago), I've pretty much stopped writing. I've had a couple of creative writing classes here and there that have required me to produce content, but once they're over I revert back to just not doing it. I think this has made my struggles with depression worse, to be blunt. I need to write again. I need to have a reason to, though, because the past couple of years have absolutely proven that my own motivation is not high enough to get it done. I need some sort of external pressure. If nothing else, dA makes me feel like I have an audience, and more importantly, peers to encourage, support, and share work with. I hope I'll still find some of that after such a long time away. 

Writing has always meant so much to me. I know others can relate. It taps into something in me that I have a hard time connecting with otherwise. I don't think it's something I'll ever pursue as a career, but it's something I need to work at to keep in my life. It makes me better.

I can't make any promises, but this feels like the right thing to do. If I can just get back into the swing of things, I think I'll be able to connect with that part of myself again.

I'm not going to sift through the thousands of messages and deviations that piled up in my inbox in my absence. If anyone wants to share something with me, please do. I'd love to read it, I just don't know where to start with my inbox.

Even writing this journal is a bit of a struggle - the words don't come naturally anymore, and I feel like I've lost touch with my "voice". But it'll only get worse if I don't try to make it better, so here goes nothing.

Hello again, dA. It's good to be back.