I know n̶o̶n̶e̶ not many of you want to read a blog post about me ranting about my life.
But here it is.
I need it.
I have needed it for quite some time to be honest.
Why? That question itself is hard to answer. Because I'm trying to be a better me. Because I suck at communicating and making friends. And no, it's not because I am one of those "online monsters". I wasn't raised by a computer or a cellphone. Back when I was a kid, computers were a novelty thing that you just couldn't afford and the one in class (if you were lucky enough) was only used to play Snakes, a game where you'd try to eat as much pixels as possible, to become a bigger snake, while not eating your tail.
I have lived most of my childhood surrounded by books, hidden in far away lands. Once internet became a bit popular, it opened my world to the English language and barriers broke. I could read so much more, and understand things that just couldn't be well translated in my own. And I went deeper and even deeper into solitude. When it wasn't books, it was drawings. When I wasn't drawing, I'd sing to myself. When I'd do none of the above, I'd play with my Lego. And so on.
All my life, I was seen as a loner. I would stay under a tree reading while kids were enjoying team sports, and would be asked why I didn't want to go. But I kept believing it was normal, it was just how I was. No adult ever came to me to say they thought I needed help or when they did, not straightforwardly enough, not understandingly enough, and never for the right problem. As I grew, it never got better. I never learnt how to behave around people, how to act "normal" (which, by the way, I have always hated).
Now that I am older, my mom told me she "knew" something wasn't right and she tried to help. I just never realized it. Never realized I'd been using so many things to try to cope with myself. I am now much, much stronger than I used to be and I can now, head on the road to recovery in a way. I don't know where it will lead. But I hope you will take a step with me on the path.
I have struggled, most of my life, to put words on it. I have searched how to explain myself countless times and was faced with the inability to do so. People wouldn't hear me. They'd hear themselves through me. They'd say it's normal and to just "tough it out" (another expression I hate). I know now it isn't and it isn't healthy, since health, by definition, encompasses both mind and body. But people would never put a name to it, because I was never "sick enough" to be sick.
I think I finally found it. The word that explains it. Dysthymia