A day in the life of a Misanthrope.

When he wakes up he doesn’t look at his phone

He doesn’t shut off his alarm

He lays awake in bed.

He counts everyday he is alive. Sighing every time his birthday comes. He picks up chain smoking hoping it will take years off his life span. He feels alone and contemplates the reasons why:

1. Awkward in social situations

2. Because he cannot connect with anyone

3. Because he is reserved

4. Because he doesn’t allow anyone to get close

5. Because he does no trust anyone

6. Because everyone close to him always leaves

7. Because he is so despondent

He doesn’t understand why he feels this way

So sad

Feeling only self-loathing.

He has the perfect life,

Two soild friends.

A girlfriend who love him.

A family.

A well-paying job.

A car.

Yet this pressure lives in his chest. The pressure of life, that he no longer craves but no longer fights.

He gets out of bed, walks into the bathroom, letting cold ceramic tiles tickle his feet. He stares at the mirror only for a second, lifts the lid, flushes with discontent.

He hates brushing his teeth,

He hates staring at himself,

he just sees a boy with a learning disability

struggling to read but ashamed to admit it,

that his pride gets the better of him

He stares at himself

Cold blue eyes

Constantly thinking, constantly repulsed

By everyone and everything

He brushes the remained vodka off his teeth

Drags his heavy temples to his room

That hasn’t change since his freshmen year in high school.

He steps over cans of beer that litter his bedroom floor

As his vinyl spills over every inch of surface-space

He dresses, eats breakfast, gets into the car with his father

As they drive to work, they talk about typical things

His mind is elsewhere and nowhere.

He spend the first half of his day in front a computer

In his cubicle in a sea of other cubicles people

The man behind him has a picture of his wife and kids

The women on his right has various figures of starwars character always dressed in a seasonable manner

His 6 by 6 square is bare, most people assume no one works there

He sits and types away at coding for a program that does something for a company he knows little about

His email keeps sounding an alert, emails from his girlfriend probably but he never answers them,

Lunch comes and goes, and the rest of the day he sits in a conference room where he his forced to socialize with the people he works with. Yet he doesn’t know any of their names.

The next hours he can’t recall dinner and “family bonding” occurs in this time span.

Nighttime is his least favorite part of the day, he spend the evening drinking while watching late night TV alone in his living while his family is asleep or doing something without him. He has forced conversation with his girlfriend, simultaneously working on his fifth screwdriver. He drags himself up the stairs and passes out, until the next day this happens again.

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Alright so as winter break is slowly coming to an end I've been doing a lot of reflection on various subjects. But I am really revved up over one thing. It is something that my friend told me last semester.

"You are the most emotionally stable person I know. You always have your shit together"

And when he said this all I thought was you have no idea what you are talking about. I do not think anyone knows how fragile my mental health is and has been for a long time. It's strange because when I think about my life and who I am, I am pretty average. I cannot complain about anything in my life because honestly my life is pretty solid. Other then ill feelings towards my father, there isn't anything that would make people say, Oh that's why you have bi-polar disorder. According doctors, it's a chemical imbalance in the brain. But I always thought mental disorders were caused by psychiatric issues.

This post will be about my story, I guess. None of my friends or family know this about this aspect of my life. I am baring a little piece of me that isn't a random youtube video.

I don't really remember that much of my life before middle school. So my story starts when I am around 13 years old. One three people know this about me, but I am a self-harmer. I use present tense because I cannot say for certain that I will never do it again. I know it will always be part of me, and the scars I have might face but I will know they are there. Although I have hurt myself in 9 months, which I am very proud of. Well middle school is where i started. I moved to Florida and it was a weird experience. That is when my self harming was at its worse. As I said before I have ill feelings towards my father. And I missed him so much when I lived in Florida. I was really conflicted because I really resented him since he and my mother got divorced and now had a new happy family with another women, that I was invited to but always excluded socially from. I was really torn between two feelings. This and being a new kid in middle school was, for me, hard to deal with.

During that year my family also suffered from a the traumatic death of my niece Josline. At this point I had moved back to Providence, and had been doing well for the most part. During her funeral I made a promise to her and myself that I would not hurt myself again.

When high schooled came I had was "clean" for a few months. But second week of school is when Josline's death really hit me. It hit me hard. I remember crying, really hard. I had a million thoughts running through my head. I also remember looking for something sharp to hurt myself with. After this panic attack I decided I need to do something that would take my mind off hurting myself. I picked up theater. I spent every waking hour working with the theater company at my school. Drama happened and I left the theater company. During those two years I never cut myself, but I started getting depressed often.

Fast forward to my junior year that was when I knew something was really wrong with me. Without theater to keep me from thinking so much, I really became depressed and when i wasn't depressed I was in this weird mood of happy. Nothing bothered me, I did whatever i wanted and i didn't care how it affect me or other people. This year I developed both a sleeping disorder and an eating disorder. All i wanted to do was inflict states of mania, which meant not being home and hanging out with people who i knew would hurt me in the long run. I before 11th grade was an honor roll student. After junior year I was considering dropping out because I was on the break of flunking out. I was so unhappy and felt so sick all the time. But I will say two things happened this year that change my life. One discovering New Urban Arts secondly meeting an amazing group of people, who I consider my closest friends.

After that year my friends and New Urban Arts became my life line. If i was down I would walk through those doors I felt this rush of positive energy that made me smile. My friends showed me what real friends should be. Supportive, understanding, and generally made me feel like a kid. Senior year I received all A's, re-introduced to art and my creative practice. I felt like I was living a life worth living.

My first year in college felt like my junior year. Losing all my support systems I sank into a hole of depression. I began self-harming again, with both eating and sleeping disorder. I was lost and confused. I believe this time is worse then my junior year because new pressures were added to my life. One realizing the color of my skin being different. I obviously noticed this before, but it wasn't until that year did I understand how it really alienate me in this new community. Two being on my own really shocked me. Not having my mom to talk to when I was feeling shitty, really hurt me. I applied to different college because I thought being somewhere else would make me feel better.

Then summer '10 happened. I can not put into words how happy I was for those months. The sun, my bike, having two jobs, beginning a relationship with someone real and an internship with amazing nonprofits. Spending my days working in the son with my best friend, becoming friends with some amazing people and making art with the coolest kids on the planet. Then summer nights biking to sushi places, then listening to rad spoken word. It was perfect, in every way.I have never felt that kind of happiness, and it made me realize that I could be happy.

I promised myself that summer that the next semester would be better. I knew that my happiness depends on me being preoccupied all the time and fulfilling all my needs. That i what I did. But losing my support systems again the semester was still difficult. Towards the end of it I was feeling really down and excited to leave. Life was getting hard because all my friends from home have gotten really distracted. My best friend getting into a relationship, learning that my dad had another child outside of his second marriage, my family getting used to my brother being a diabetic. Self harming was looking really good at this point. But oddly enough My boyfriend also suffers from bi-polar disorder, but differently from me, was in a really depressed moods. Having to worry about him, kept me from hurting myself. Realizing that for him I am his support system made me put my own thoughts in-perspective. My metal disorder won't stop me from making sure he is okay.

And here I am. Still dealing with my issues, but from a different point of view. I still struggle everyday, but I know there are more important people in my life to worry about. Picking up social change has really help me keep in that mind set. In a few days I will be in New York learning about grassroot organizing, working with some rad non-profits and getting real experience that I have been craving for.

I want to thank one person who I know will possibly read this. Jenn I really think I like you more then you like me, but I have come to terms with that. You really cheer me up when I am down, and I know you never knew that. Just hearing your voice and seeing your face reminds me our time together and that there are people at home you want me around.

Thanks.

A cutsy poem about the cute things he does. Yes I am a sucker.

Reasons

Its getting lost

In a room with one door

And talking about become a hipster and getting into bike culture just to get a tattoo

From a deck of card you got for 3 dollars at the supermarket

Its Arguing over the color of cups

And being disappointed that the gold ones aren’t

Made in America

Its awkwardly singing pop songs

Obscure songs and made up songs because you forgot the words

And tell me how you don’t like that type of country

And justify that your lyrics are better

It how you race to the door

Just to hold it open for me

And try to explain how it isn’t

Sexist

That I can tell you want to hold my hand

While we sit in your car

As you narrate people walking by us in the parking lot

But never do because you are nervous

Its how when you explained to me

that your ex-girlfriend

Wrote I heart RNT on the interior roof of your car

With crayon and how its impossible to remove

I wished I wrote it

Because you are the most ridiculous, crass and forward

Person I have ever met

But couldn’t think of one way you could be anymore perfect

Its because when were drunk

And talking about how we both believe anarchy

Could totally be real

We both understood we were being idealistic

And that is what love is

In the long run

An idealistic

Ambiguous term

That has social rules to follow

I think king-sized beds are too big

That there aren’t enough hours between midnight and three in the morning

That SNL has never been funny

That Blue Ridge Vodka will always be in my mind

I believe love is in those moments of awkwardness

In the pause right before you reach for their hand

In inside jokes that only have become jokes because they make no sense

In the hours spent making the perfect mix cd for the fourth time

That is about nothing

And everything

In all the moments that they thought they were being weird or making things uncomfortable you find adorable and endearing