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“Stop passing the days away and start living them”
You hear your alarm blaring through every space in your head. After shutting it off, you quickly roll over and contemplate whether you can actually bear getting up today. You go back to sleep and decide you’ll catch up on your class later.
You avoid food for the day because you ate pasta last night, and when your friends ask you to come out for dinner, you make up an excuse. You just can’t handle sitting there and watching them eat tonight.
You join your friends later that night when they’re going to a party, and despite not eating all day, you decide it’s a good idea to drink until you pass out.
Your boyfriend calls you that night and screams at you, as you scream back because you went out without letting him know. He is exhausting you. But you need him, right?
It’s the next day now and you wake up to go to class, but the anxiety is eating at every part of you because you have no idea what part of the book you are even on.
When you get home from school your parents ask you about your day and you snap at them before retreating to your room.
You lay on your bed sobbing about nothing, and text your friends looking for sympathy. But they could care less, as they have lost any interest in whatever issue you have going on at the moment.
You decide to quit cheerleading and instead spend every day lying on the couch with your boyfriend, continuing to ignore the world.
You lay on your bed sobbing again the next night. Because you are the victim. Nothing is going right for you. The world is conspiring against you, right?
I’m sorry to say that is not the case at all. If you truly believe you are the victim of your own life, then you may not want to continue reading. What I have here for you is a wake up call, not a soothing romantic poem of sweet words to make you feel stronger in this conviction.
You are ruing your life. You. You are individually, entirely responsible for every aspect of your life. You might find yourself questioning, “what about my parents?” Well, unfortunately they wont always be around and even so, they can’t fix everything. Surprisingly, they’re only human too. It is your responsibility to take control of your life and your actions. You can’t throw a temper tantrum whenever something doesn’t go your way and expect that will result in a solution.
Maybe you’re depressed, or anxious, or you had a really traumatic life event occur. Whatever the situation is, you’re not in a good place. The reality of these feelings is that this is mostly your own doing. That being said, when life suddenly decides to slap you in the face and certain things ARE out of your control (disease, natural disaster, death, war, other peoples’ stupidity etc), you are still responsible for the way you react to them; the reaction to uncontrollable events, no matter how horrible they may make us feel, is the ONLY thing still in our control. And negative responses only produce negative results.
I can only speak from experience, as the above statement took a long time for me to be able to admit. I many have offended a majority of those reading this article who can relate and while I would normally apologize, I know that this is the truth that you need to hear. From one person who was trapped in this vicious cycle and was able to escape, you need to hear this.
You need to save yourself. Nothing can help you until you decide you are ready to help yourself. You can sit in countless therapy sessions week after week, and not a single thing will change until you admit that you are truly sick and tired of being sick and tired. You must realize that you have trapped your brain in this pattern and that you can not do it anymore. This is not an easy realization to come to and it will not automatically fix all of your problems, but it is the start. The start to choosing life over letting the days pass you by. We often wish for some magical fix to come along and solve every problem, but if that is what you are waiting for, I am sorry to break it to you, it will never come.
In order to overcome and escape these awful places we feel are trapping us, we must consciously choose to live an empowered life every day. No one else cares if we feel good or if we are really happy. No one else is checking up on us, so that leave us with the responsibility to check up on ourselves. You are entirely and solely responsible for rebuilding your life as well as for your immanent happiness. Once you take responsibility for that, your entire life will change.