Feelings Don't Expire

It was one of those late nights where I couldn’t go to sleep last night, so I decided that I would go onto Tumblr and see what all there was on my dashboard. In case you aren’t familiar with Tumblr, it’s a blogging site where you can reblog photos, text posts, audio posts, etc. Basically, it’s the same thing as sharing a picture on Facebook, and the scrolling goes on forever because it’s one of those never-ending scroll websites. It can make it pretty difficult to find a stopping point. Anyway, I was reblogging posts and happened upon a text post with a picture, and it said something like, “I’m sitting at a restaurant and just witnessed a break-up between two 13-year-olds. This was the aftermath.” Following that text post was a picture of the boy with his head buried in his arms on the table.

Underneath was another text someone had added saying “Poor little fuck,” and it just struck a chord with me. You know how as young adults, we’re always putting younger kids down? “Oh, they aren’t really in love. They’re too young to know what love is,” or, “They’re too young to be dating.” Well… I’m not so sure we’re entirely right about that.

I read a response from John Green on his The Fault in Our Stars Q&A page to a question about love, and he said, “I find it really offensive when people say that the emotional experiences of teenagers are less real or less important than those of adults. I am an adult, and I used to be a teenager, and so I can tell you with some authority that my feelings then were as real as my feelings are now.” At first, I used to be one of those people who said teenagers don’t know what love is, and that they were too young to know. But I read his answer and really thought about it for a while because I didn’t know what to think of it, as open-minded as I am. And then I saw that picture on Tumblr and felt this pang of sorrow for such a young boy, and I realized that it was because I could completely relate to him. When I was thirteen, I had one of my classmates constantly asking me out over AIM. And even though I was very young and didn’t have my feelings figured out yet, I still felt horrible every time I told him no. I always thought it was a joke, because that’s what the guys did back when we were in grade school. God forbid you fall victim to the awful rules of ZAP, or worse, to a dare. I felt like half the time, I was usually the punch line of those ask-out jokes, and I had gotten so used to saying no that it became an automatic response. Although I had not become romantically involved with anyone, I still feel like I have some say in how miserable of a time it was.

When you’re that young, you don’t really understand why you feel the ways you do. With my AIM experience and being around him at school, I felt more scared than anything. Scared and confused, because I didn’t understand. My emotions were mixed up. I don’t think I had ever really acknowledged how I personally felt until he caused me to face them. And it didn’t help that my depression had started up that year. It was a roller coaster for me, and the one time I did say yes to him, I chickened out and changed my response to no. To this day, I still feel bad for the younger him and the younger me, him because he might have really actually liked me and had to hear me say no a hundred times. For me, I had to worry about my self-esteem and my confidence in myself. When I was that young, being rejected gave me enough of an emotional meltdown. If I would have let him crush me for the sake of fulfilling yet another joke, I don’t know how I would have handled the humiliation of thinking someone actually cared for me when they didn't. 

So in a lot of ways, seeing the picture of that young boy with his head buried in his arms reminded me of how frustrating it was to try and make sense of this concept we call love. But at such a young age, confusion of emotion is probably the best confusion there is. You don’t have to worry about distance or social status or looks or money or any of that stuff. You’re at an age where your relationship is based solely upon feeling, and feeling alone. It’s wonderful to experience it, because you’re taking in so many different emotions at once. It gives you a rush, and you’re blushing and stuttering and feeling anxious and you just can’t understand why you’re such a mess over something that adults make look so simple. I know this young boy is going to figure it all out one day. Being rejected by a girl you really like has to be the worst, and I’m sorry to the boy who I was too scared to say yes to. I still don’t know if it was a joke or not, but it’s something that I don’t think I’ll ever get an answer to, and I’ll just have to trust that the feelings were real, no matter how doubtful things may have been.

I hope that one day, I have the courage to say yes to someone that I really care about and who I would like to try and be with. There are still a lot of commitment issues that I need to sort out and rationalize with, but the emotions were and are still existent, and they are real. Like John Green said, “I can tell you with some authority that my feelings then were as real as my feelings are now.” Feelings don’t really go away, and they don’t change or become fictional. We still have the same emotions that we did when we were young teenagers who thought we could take on the world. Our priorities just changed. We grew up and became wiser, more grounded by humility, braver through fear, and more confident in ourselves and in our paths through our own mistakes and/or limitations. But love, fear, confusion, the thirst to live, those things all still exist. I feel them every day. I face them every day, and that boy who sat at that table faced them that day. It won’t change for him. It won’t change for any of us. These feelings are real, and I think that young teenagers have a better understanding of what love is than any of us adults ever will.

So, to the young boy who looks absolutely devastated, keep fighting through it, but never doubt your understanding of what love feels like, because I think you’re feeling it. You just don’t understand it yet. 

The Bieber Trend

I really don’t think there is anything I can say at this point that hasn’t already been said, but I still feel the compulsion to say something. And for those who take self-harm as a touchy subject and find it difficult to discuss or read about, I advise you to close the browser page right now, because I don’t want to make things worse for anyone who is recovering or who is still struggling. Alright, here goes.

For those who don’t know, there was a troll started on 4Chan called “cut for Bieber” in which young girls (and possibly boys, to avoid any exclusion) started cutting themselves to protest Bieber smoking marijuana (which no one has proved to be 100% true yet). It became a trending topic on Twitter entitled #cut4bieber in which people posted the pictures of their cutting jobs for the world to see. I visited the trend page and a lot of it is now composed of fellow Twitter users begging other Twitter users to not follow this trend. There are also a lot of pictures going around that are making fun of the trend, such as people cutting their hair, marijuana leaves, and cake since Justin probably has “the munchies.” I was relieved to see more people “against” the trend on the trend page than people “for” the trend, but the fact of the matter is that there are still Bieber fans out there doing this to themselves.

I don’t think I have to convince anyone of how stupid or serious this matter is, because most of the people I know are decent about these kinds of things, and we’re usually on the same page. But I do want to speak out for the few people who may not be taking this seriously and who may not completely understand it. As a sufferer of depression, it makes me absolutely sick to know that there are people cutting for some celebrity who is now an adult and who, just like anyone else in this country, can make his own decisions. There are people out there who cut because they cannot deal with the emotional pain, and I don’t expect everyone to understand what it is like to hurt that much.

There are those who would argue that there is nothing that hurts more than physical pain, but you’d be wrong if it were up to me to decide. With physical pain, yes, the outside hurts. But you could run into a pole or trip over your own foot and hurt yourself, and you could still laugh about it because you’re a klutz. You could be completely fine emotionally. But for people like me, it is possible to feel so emotionally miserable and depressed that it actually causes physical pain. There are days where I become so lost in my own sorrow that I can feel my chest throbbing, and it isn’t a good feeling. That is when you are truly hurting; when you hurt both ways at the same time. And I don’t know how to explain why cutting is so comforting (although I have not done it before, but have been tempted on several occasions), but I have been told that it releases endorphins. It is also used as a distraction method so that the emotional pain isn’t so prominent.

The thing that really upsets me about the trend is that it was started as a joke. Then someone took it seriously, and all of a sudden, everyone began doing it (and when I say everyone, I mean the people stupid enough to do it). Cutting is not a joke. It is an actual problem for people who suffer from mental illnesses, and the pictures, not to mention the topic itself, has made it difficult to deal with for the people who are recovering from self-harm and who are still suffering from it. It would be like putting an alcoholic in a room full of alcohol. It is just as tempting and triggering for cutters to see these pictures. Not only that, but cutting could actually kill you. There is the risk of losing too much blood and getting hospitalized, and there is also the risk of cutting the right vein in the right direction. The fact that anyone sees physical harm as a joke ought to be shot, because it isn’t something to take lightly, especially for a stupid reason like protesting against a marijuana-smoking celebrity. It would be far more effective to protest by not purchasing music and/or not supporting that artist if you feel that strongly about what he or she has done. But don’t fucking harm yourself for someone else’s choice. You didn’t see anyone cutting themselves when Britney Spears shaved her head or when Miley Cyrus was caught smoking from a bong. So why are you doing this for Justin? What is it about Justin that made this trend so fucking important? He’s a person just like everyone else and has the right to do to his own body what you have the right to do to yours. But the choices he makes for himself should not determine the choices you make for yourself.

Also, parents, please please PLEASE take responsibility for your own children. You control the things that they are exposed to and the people that they find to be role models, but you should not let their role models become their parents, and you should not be outraged by Justin making a (the way I see it, by personal opinion) bad choice. Everyone makes choices, good and bad. We’re all people, no matter how famous some of us may be or may become. But it does not become a celebrity’s responsibility to give up his or her free will and humanity to make a great impression on the people that happen to like their music. It is your job as parents to bring your children up well and to steer them in the right directions, and to actually sit down and talk to them about this kind of stuff. Not only that, but how are you not aware that they could be doing this to themselves? If you’re going to be that disconnected from your child’s emotional and physical struggles, I find that to be very disappointing. No one as young as ten years old should be doing that (although, really, no one should be doing it anyway). But that young? For some stupid celebrity? And damn, watch what they do on the internet! If it weren’t for the internet, none of this would have even happened!

I am not a parent yet, but I for sure wouldn’t want my child to be doing this to him or herself, and I’d like to think that I would have a little more control over what they’re exposed to. So please, sit down and talk to your kids. This kind of stuff is important, and it’s no joking matter.

I find it very difficult to emotionally express my frustration and disappointment. I am disgusted at the trend and at the person who started the troll, and I am even more disgusted that people disrespectfully followed it for no fucking reason. Yes, I said disrespectfully, because it is disrespectful to me, to my friends who struggle with this problem, and to all the other people who have fallen victim to it and cannot find the will to quit.

The trend has disappeared from the top ten trend list on Twitter, which I am relieved about. So thank you, Twitter, for removing it.

I’m done here. I hope my words carried weight. 

Some Old Formspring Questions Re-Answered

I was looking on my old Formspring account and found a number of questions that I really wanted to go back and re-answer. Some of them are the same answers, but typed out in a more thoughtful manner, and a lot of them are questions that I have changed the answer to over the past four years. Hope you enjoy them! If you would like to comment on anything I said on here or if you have more questions you’d like answers to, you can leave them in the comment box at the end of this post.

If you had to pick a single moment in your life which affected you most profoundly, what would it be?

-I think that this question is going to have a different answer every few years I go back to it, which is why I’d like to answer it again. My last answer was the time I was bitten by a Pit Bull and spent two weeks in the hospital because it “changed me” as a person. It did, in fact, change me, but it changed me in a way that caused me to be fearful. Since then, I have really become the opposite. The single moment that affected me most profoundly would now have to be the moment I found out I was an empath. Because I figured out where my emotional problem was coming from, I was able to get some control over it, and now I am a pretty stable person. I have learned how to handle my abilities and how to make myself feel better, and because I have a renewed confidence in myself, I have become a much happier, successful person.

Do you have a DeviantArt page?

-Yes I do, but it just has the same stuff on there that I post on Facebook, so adding me on there would be redundant. If you don’t have me on Facebook but would like to see my pictures, my DeviantArt page is stephropabst.deviantart.com

16, never been kissed nor have had a boyfriend? There must be something wrong. There are some gross fat chicks that are total bitches, and they get boyfriends? Have guys lost their way..?

-The only thing that has changed about the above is that I’m 20 now. Haha. But I will tell you this. Yes, there are “bitches” who treat their boyfriends like crap. Yes, some of them might be overweight. But there are a lot of girls out there who think they’re hot, skinny, sexy shit, and because of that, they let looks control the way they feel about a person, not to mention the size of their egos. But just because a guy decides to date an overweight person does not mean that I deserve a guy any more than that girl or any other girl on this planet. I’ve been patient with myself and have decided to figure out who I am instead of depending on someone else to shower me with affection. If I can’t love myself, then I don’t see how anyone else can. Not only that, but if the attraction isn’t there, then I am not going to date someone who I don’t have feelings for. That would make me a bitch, and I don’t believe in false hope or in using people. Also, guys are just as human as girls are. They’re going to make dating mistakes just like us. When I find someone who I really like and who really likes me back, things will be different. I’m willing to wait for that.

What do you like about winter?

-When I answered this question before, I mentioned the hustle and bustle, fresh cookies, snow days, and I don’t remember what else. But I never mentioned actually being outside at night when it’s frigid. Most people would probably find this odd, but I love going outside on cold nights because the sky is usually clear, so there’ a great view of the stars. It’s also extremely quiet, so when I feel like there’s too much noise, it’s a place I can escape to for a little bit. Then there’s the feeling of nothing: being numb. I love when I can’t feel my skin, because when I close my eyes, I don’t feel like a person who is sitting out in the cold and freezing. I feel like I’m in another world where I can escape being and feeling human. I am a free soul wandering about in a place of nothingness and feeling at peace. No pain. No runny nose. No emotional feelings or bothersome thoughts. It’s just the state of being.

Are you a social person?

-I never used to be social. Sure, every now and then I’d find people to talk to. But for the most part, I was really closed off and actually pretty fearful about talking to strangers. But that part of me has really changed since then. I’ve come to love and understand people, and I take every opportune moment I have to make a new friend (if it can happen without me being creepy). I think I was scared about it before because I was bullied emotionally as a kid, and I used to be afraid that more people would do that if they really got to know me (I had always thought myself to be weird). But now I realized that no matter who you are, you’re still a person. You’re as much of a person as I am, and if I’m going to be fearful of someone who I don’t know and who may not even be a threat, then I might be missing out on someone pretty spectacular.

Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet?

-Last time I answered this, I said you rarely see me in bare feet. Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Haha. I love being barefoot and wearing socks. I usually kick off my shoes the second I walk through the door because they annoy me. My feet get cold easily, so sometimes I argue with myself about slipping my shoes off when I know it’s going to cause my toes an instant freeze, but if I don’t have to wear shoes, I don’t.

What non-banking related card in your wallet is the most valuable to you?

-My license!! I kind of need it to drive. Haha.

Do you ever wish that for one moment you were someone different than who you grew up to be?

-Definitely not. Sure, maybe being in another child’s shoes might have been easier, but I find it more fulfilling to know that I survived some pretty rough moments in my past. I made it through bullying, my dog bite, private school, losing friends, losing my grandma, and many more struggles. And it makes me realize how many sweet moments I’ve had and how much I’ve accomplished by just being myself. I like who I am, and I wouldn’t want to ever change that.

what happens if the glass is half empty to you but full to me?

-I don’t think the glass half full/ half empty concept is constant. As humans, our spectrum of emotions is pretty colorful. We’re going to have days where the glass is half full just as equally as the days where we’ll see it half empty because our attitude towards life fluctuates all the time. However, if there is ever a time where I see the glass half empty while you see it half full, I hope you’re there to help me through my rough patch.

Do you drive?

-Yes yes yes! It feels so good to say yes! Take that, 16 year old self!!

Do you ever miss people from your grade school?

-I do occasionally. I mean, I know that a lot of the time I kept to myself and didn’t really reach out to make friends with my classmates, and I know that I felt as though some of them were really mean to me and said things about me, but I’ve come to the understanding that it wasn’t their fault, and it wasn’t mine either. We were kids who didn’t know any better, and as much as I would love to blame them for the bullying contribution, I can’t, because I had depression and had no idea that it was an illness at the time. So I still have moments where I do miss seeing my old classmates, because although I felt messed up at the time, I think that they did contribute to helping me believe in myself as a person and making me realize that we’re not so bad once we grow up a little.

why do you like thunderstorms so much?

-I wondered about this for a long time and had no direct answer. But after figuring out I was an empath, I started studying it more and came up with a conclusion. Thunderstorms recharge us. We have seven chakras, which are energy points in the body. And since empaths are more aware of this energy, they feel when they are being worn down or when they are losing that energy. Like batteries, thunderstorms recharge us because they carry energy of their own; energy that helps rejuvenate ours. That is also why we can usually feel the weather change before the rain actually reaches where we are. Plus, thunderstorms are gorgeous and they keep plants alive, which make oxygen that keeps us alive, so why not love thunderstorms? (:

what makes you go in life?

-Knowing that I’ve been through rough patches before, and knowing that I can overcome them because I am still here. My friends and family also keep me going. Oh, and books. Books are good.

would you rather spend your life never knowing how that one person truly felt about you or know your whole life that they didnt care?

-Last time I answered this, I said never knowing how someone truly felt. But I feel differently now because I actually went through both sides of this. And it is much easier to know how someone feels about you and to find out that they don’t care. Why? Because I don’t need people in my life who don’t care about me. It’s unhealthy to be in a relationship where you are just being tolerated or being used, because if there ever comes a day where you really need that person and you find out that they don’t want to be there for you, you’re going to fall on your ass and be an emotional wreck. But if you know that they don’t care, at least you can get that person out of your life and find someone better; someone who does care. Not to mention, it hurts a lot less when you know vs. not knowing.

what do you do when life doesnt go as planned?

-Well, it’s hard to move on when life throws mountains in the way of where you are trying to get to. And when life does that to me, sometimes I sit down and think, “Well, this is pointless.” But a lot of the time, what follows that feeling of defeat is the stubborn ass of a person that I am telling me that there has to be another way. And I think that there is always another way to get past an unexpected difficulty. Yes, it may require some sacrifice and harder work, but I never just sit there and give up. I might cry a little. But in the end, the words “don’t give up” stay with me, and I get up and try to find the alternative that will get me out of my funk.

out of all of your years of HSchool so far what is one thing you have learned?

-After two years of college and coming back to this question, I think the biggest thing I have learned is to accept change and change with it. I started off as a scared freshman, and I graduated being a much stronger, more beautiful person. That wouldn’t have happened to me had I not accepted change. Everything in life is constantly changing, whether it is relationships, grades, talents, ambitions, etc. You have to learn to let go and to embrace who you are and who you can be. The world doesn’t slow down and time doesn’t stop. Choosing to hold on instead of letting go and refusing to become instead of becoming is just going to hold you back. Life is hard, but change can be good if you just decide to make some smarter choices and to keep people around you who matter and who love you and care about you. I accepted change, and I couldn’t be more proud of the person who I have become.

hardest thing you have ever had to do?

-The hardest thing that I have ever had to do would be to let go. I’ve been through a lot of crap caused by a lot of people, and it was hard for me to see them as the people they had become vs. the people they used to be. Although I wanted to hold onto the idea that they were still good friends, I knew that they weren’t, and it was hurting me. It hurts me whenever I have to let go of someone and move on, because how could I just let go of someone who mattered to me so much and who played such an important role in my life? But, change is inevitably going to happen, and sometimes it causes us to grow apart from each other. It doesn’t mean they are bad people. It just means they are no longer who we need to be around. It’s hard for me to let go of friends, but I never forget what they teach me or what they do for me, and that is where the true root of our relationship lies: forever in my heart.

                                                                                                                                                                                       

Last book you read and hated?

-The last book I read all the way through and hated was The Glass Castle. It wasn’t a bad book, so I don’t hate it because of that. I just hate it because it is truly a frustrating book. I wanted to throw it at the wall each time I turned the page. I have never felt that angry reading before.

Ever been in love?

-They say that if you are crushing on someone for longer than four months, then you are technically in love. In this regard, yes, I have been in love twice, even though I have never gone out with said people. But the second guy I fell in love with was more worthy of my time and devotion than the first, because although the first guy was the one I fell really hard for, he didn’t make me feel happy and loved and appreciated like the second did. The second guy loved me as a friend despite my flaws or shyness. He cared about me as much as I cared about him, and he was deathly afraid of losing me as a friend and didn’t (and still doesn’t) want that. And that meant a lot more to me than what I felt for the first guy. I had two very different “being in love” experiences, and there is a truth in saying that if you fall in love twice, choose the second, because if it was love with the first, you wouldn’t have fallen for the second. I am currently not in love with anyone, and there are to be more crushes and possibly loves in the future, but for now, I am content and happy.

Have you ever loved someone so much it hurt?

-Yes. Yes yes yes. Being an empath probably doesn’t help much, but hey, not much I can do about that. Lol. People think that it’s bad to hurt over loving someone. But I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Yes, with the first guy I fell in love with, it was a bad thing to hurt from it because I was hurting myself emotionally over someone who didn’t care that I was even alive. And being in love should make you happy, not depressed and upset. But with the second, loving him hurt because I knew how important he was to me and how important our friendship was. And it was so easy to love him, but it hurt when I couldn’t help him with some of the struggles he had to face. And it hurts to see someone you love be in so much pain, and to know that no matter how much you care about him or her, sometimes there isn’t anything you can do other than be there. It hurt because I wanted him to be happy. It hurt because I cared. It hurt because he mattered to me. And I think that hurting in that aspect is completely different than hurting because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to. Loving the second made me selfless and hopeful and happy to wake up in the morning, and loving him meant being able to hug him and laugh with him and be myself without feeling shameful or feeling like I needed to change who I was.

What is your favorite nursery rhyme?

-I don’t really have a favorite currently, but whatever one I choose in the future, I’m sure it’ll be a pretty messed up one. I like the really creepy nursery rhymes when I can stumble across them. If you have any suggestions, that would be great!