Nr. 20

One of the many things that changed within me when my sister died was a drastic increase of empathy and emotional awareness. Her death forced me into a situation where I had to feel, think and overcome. Many times I have despised the way I was before she died. Immature, unaware, and selfish. However, I have lately tried to see if my perfectionism -which grew exponentially either because of my depression or my ferocious search for self awareness- has clouded my judgment of my younger self. I’m not after vindication, I am still objective enough to know all the negative things I did still counts and that I am ultimately responsible for my actions. But I have heard in recent years from childhood friends and classmates that they remembered me as kind and creative. So maybe I wasn’t the unintelligent and reckless monster my mind remembers. Maybe my mind has constructed a distorted version where I amplify the negative and suppress the positive. Just like perfectionism would. I’m not saying I was a good person, there are plenty of things I did or said in my teen years which would qualify me to be a racist, bigot, sexist idiot. Although I don’t think my values were ever prone to be like that. Like most racists or sexists it stems from a lack of moral awareness due to insecurities and a twisted view on how to impress the pack of other immature men. 

I think this observance of going from immature to aware has festered itself as a belief that people can change. And it gives me some sense of hope that I will be ok. Maybe ‘change’ is the wrong word, I think I’ll go with learn. 

Heightened awareness did play its part in my depression, but I think it’s also what will ultimately help me get out of it as well. I feel I’ve been fighting so hard to keep myself rational and sane when my ‘lows’ hit me. Too occupied of saving myself and analyzing how incredibly irrational and at fault I am, I forgot that I am actually quite capable. That every day I wake up after a low is a result of how my awareness saved me the night before. People say I should be kind to myself, and they are right regarding my incessant self criticism, but I need to understand that I have actually been kind to myself all along, at my core. 

Maybe I’m not the worst after all.