Beyond the Realm of Positivity

A note from manager “John”

I sat in the dimness of my bedroom, frantically curating a playlist of the saddest, most depressing songs I could think of. Surely one of them would get me to cry, or at least feel something. Moments before, I had been attempting to write, to put myself in the shoes of a character I created. In that scene she was supposed to feel heartbroken, but I could not empathize with this fictional girl, even though she was supposed to be based on me.  

As each melancholy tune ended and faded into the next, I focused so intently on producing tears, yet nothing seemed to work. I assumed it was because only a couple weeks prior, all my tears and sadness had run out – the night I left behind everyone and everything that had defined my life for nearly three long years. 

There was so much more to it.

I knew on the surface that I missed the man I maybe loved and called Boyfriend, and the few people I hoped would be life-long friends. I was able to feel a longing for the open road and ever-changing scenery, and the diluted sense of freedom and belonging. I could also feel the instantaneous fear and powerlessness that followed my thoughts of being stuck there again.  

What I could not feel was grief for all that I’d lost, because I hadn’t yet realized I lost anything – in my mind there was only a heavy handful of gains. 

I gained a life full of exciting adventures and unbelievable stories, but lost my ability to be still and feel peace in doing nothing more than existing. Living in constant motion, always doing something to prove I was valuable and leading a life worth living and talking about, I was blind and unable to notice my old vision of a beautiful future fading away.

The girl who left Nebraska could lie in bed staring at the ceiling for hours, simply pondering life or letting her imagination run wild. The girl who came home couldn’t waste even ten minutes in silence, doing what she deemed as nothing. Her existence was not enough.

What should I be doing? Surely, I need to be doing something! What does one even do when given a choice? What did I used to do? What do I want?

Gains came from being able to sell, to have quota, to make money; to have money that could afford the basics, but also to earn the privilege of taking part in occasional recreation – the fun times that were almost always chosen by management. All those supposed gains from being able to travel and see the country – were they worth losing my ability to know what I deep down enjoy and what I want to spend my life doing?

Three years and thirty-some states later, I had a vast collection of stories for days, but so few of them were relatable except to those in them, and most weren’t easy to believe. In my search for a story worth telling, I lost my relatability and cast myself out even further than before. 

The old me loved creating fantastical stories, the new me no longer had to create them, they were true tales from my past. During the creation of an intense and unimaginable experience, the imagination I once held dear seemed to no longer exist. My once abundant array of human emotions was out of reach. My love for writing and my attempts to create fiction were tainted not only by how difficult it was to feel, but to think as well! 

If my playlist of musical sorrow couldn’t save me from the apathy, I knew of one thing that likely could: dad’s Southern Comfort in the kitchen cabinet, which might hold me over until my twenty-first birthday in a week or two.

When that magical age hit me, I felt in control because I could finally buy my own alcohol at the store, but I was out of control when it came to handling my consumption of it. It became the crutch I leaned on to help cool the rotten stew of dark emotions bubbling within. Yet, it was also the only thing that allowed me to feel something, anything. It gave me the courage to occasionally dish out bowls of an unhinged, emotional concoction to others, but with an obvious cause to blame it on. As if being human weren’t enough. 

If nothing else, at least I could still fulfill my adolescent dreams of becoming a writer, because booze allowed me to feel, to empathize with my characters, to write their stories! Those early dreams never included details of being the stumbling, fumbling, alcoholic kind of writer, but at least there was still hope of being one. That is, until I was inevitably crushed by a debilitating lack of confidence in my creative abilities, and a newfound pessimism about my future. Cursed with a pointless, unattainable dream, I realized. 

The road helped me gain tolerance to large amounts of alcohol, but I lost my desire to never become an alcoholic like much of my family. I gained the skill to turn my true feelings off in an instant, to stop myself from even having them, but I lost any sense of knowing that it’s perfectly acceptable to feel anything beyond the realm of positivity. When I could no longer hide behind forced smiles and my mask of stoicism began to break, alcohol provided me with an excuse to give it a rest.

Dispassion became the default mode, and all other modes were just skilled acting. So long as my mask didn’t shatter beyond repair, I’d be okay. But one cannot sustain those modes forever. 

A mental breakdown, a thick and heavy fog of shame – shoddy patchwork with just enough glue to hold the pieces together until next time. Ultimately there was no next time, nothing left to piece together. There’s no use for a mask when the person who wore it has completely broken, no strength left to even put it on.   

Unbreakable resilience and shatterproof strength were sold as the ultimate gains, but with those never came the capability or awareness to know when it was time to take a step back, to rest and reflect. 

The immovable strength and resilience I thought I gained had no boundaries, it caused an insufferable internal darkness, and a temporary blindness to what truths stood before me, until it was almost too late. 

Most of what I gained was sourced from soiled illusions of love and acceptance, and none of it was worth losing my sense of humanity and self-protection, my ability to care even the slightest about my safety and well-being – of losing my sense of identity. 

True strength and resilience have come from unmasking and facing the heaping mounds of unfelt, unprocessed emotions that lay dormant inside for so long; from allowing them to explode out as they were and are, with curiosity and acceptance, instead of shame, embarrassment, and judgment.

I lost who I was and wanted to be, but in the process of grieving the loss of that caring, creative, free-spirited girl I once was, and embracing – rather than neglecting – who she became to survive, I have gained a new companion: a wise, compassionate, protective, and loving woman…me.

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This piece was written to Prompt Three in the Writing to Reckon Journal: For Survivors of Spiritual, Religious and Cultic Abuse — December 2023