excerpts

3.6

***TRIGGER WARNING***

DONT KEEP READING IF YOURE EASILY TRIGGERED AND IF YOU CANT DEAL WITH EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE MINDS AND IF YOU DONT WANT TO READ 1000+ WORDS ON ME, JUST SKIP THIS ITS ALL GOOD

AN EXTREMELY LONG AND TRUTHFUL EXPLANATION TO WHY WATTPAD IS MY SANCTUARY AND WHY I STARTED TO WRITE AND HOW I GOT INTO BOOKS AND JUST A LENGTHY BACKSTORY OF MY PRESENT SELF

I don't exactly have a space I can call home or feel comfortable in or make my own. If I had to choose one environment that I thrive in, it would be on Wattpad. Here I can hide from the world under a false persona and just be myself, a brooding, sarcastic, creative, deeply contemplative, dreamer, a teenager screwed over by society, just trying to navigate through this world, as I'm still lost at sea with a broken compass, hiding my heart in a box under layers of ice so nobody will ever hurt me again. But I still feel emotion, doesn't that suck. 

The passion I have for writing keeps me sane. I can never truly express out loud the things I think or the words I have squashed down my throat, because I don't have the courage. I'm not a brave person, or very good at talking to people for that matter. I've always battled social anxiety disorder, and it's gotten better, but I still can't buy something at a store without feeling extremely self conscious and terrified. When I write, it's like every boundary vanishes. It feels like I'm trapped in a mesmerized state, unable to stop the flow of words, my siblings complaining about the constant tapping of my laptop keys, but it's the only way I can feel somewhat okay. 

The only thing I could ever depend on was myself, and when things get tough, I still try and convince myself that I'm fine and that I don't need any help. But that's not true. It took me a really long time to figure out what emotions were and how to feel them, up to the eighth grade often being labeled as the emo kid or the one who never smiled and couldn't laugh and was probably cold and dead inside because she never showed emotion. Discovering Emily was originally written as Emote, the story of a girl who couldn't feel a thing and when tragedy struck she had to learn how to deal with that tragedy, feeling these weird things, called emotions, and she just didn't know how to deal with it because she didn't have anyone in her life to show her care or love. Then it was a girl who had an eating disorder and was obsessed with food and controlling it because of that mental illness. Walter somehow got added to the story and it became the girl rejecting the guy, too similar to UnCinderella, so I scrapped the entire story. Then, I was feeling particularly pissy because everything in my life just felt wrong, and nobody understood the pain of being me, and I was sick of scrolling through every happy family post on social media, because they'd never know what not celebrating Christmas with their family was like, what it meant to be so truly alone and craving having a loving family was like, so I opened up Discovering Emily and channeled my angsty teenage depression into a new storyline. Spiteful, moody, Emily and hopeful, caring, Walter, in an attempt to show that sometimes people outside of your family can care for you more than those related to you are. 

However, no matter how much I write and try to keep the separation between the fictional lives and mine, they cross once or twice or fifty times. I write when I feel extremely sad or mad or happy or any extreme of an emotion because I believe that's where the best writing comes from. If it's from deep inside you and you put your soul into writing something, chances are it'll hit someone else the same emotional way that the story did to you. 

Stories have been a part of me for as long as I can remember. I begged people to read to me when I couldn't, and then I read on my own when I could. I'd read everything from food labels to road signs. Then one day I made up a story and I told it to my siblings as we were on a long drive. I never finished it, but they all thought it was good. We used to have writing contests that were mandatory in elementary school, and I penned a story out of my resentment for my swearing, scowling, science teacher. It won the school level prize and then moved onto the district competition. A couple of years later in my life, I was going through a really tough time because I faced a singular tragic event and then I had so much emotion washing over me, I didn't know what I was feeling, because before then I only thought there was happy and sad and mad, and I didn't feel any of them. It's like my cold, dead heart defrosted and started beating again. 

Unable to deal with everything, I spiraled into depression, keeping a journal that I wrote in regularly, for about two years. After reading it again, let me just say, I was a depressed, pathetic twelve-thirteen year old. I hated the world (still do), cursed everything and everyone in it (sort of still do), and blamed anyone that I could for my own problems, choosing to feel resentment at the world instead of going to fix them. I went through a similar time again, only instead of blaming people for my problems, I completely disregarded them. My mind would always be elsewhere, pretending that I was fine and I convinced myself so well that lies slipped out of my mouth like Niagra Falls. Yes, I am fine. Yes, I've eaten lunch. No, I'm just tired. I'd blame my sleepiness on late night studying and cover up the fact that I was crying my eyes out, even in my own mind. 

And then I snapped, because such a thing really takes a toll on you emotionally and physically. Stupidly, regretfully, I started self harm again, and had to put on bracelets that I'd shoved to the back of my drawers, not wanting to see reminders of the darkest times of my life. I dug out all my long sleeved shirts and sweaters and folded up my short sleeved tees. It's just a cycle, constantly shifting from denial to acceptance, and when I accept that my inner mentality is screwed up, I do destructive things. There were a lot of bands that I used to listen to, but I still love. They were really hardcore emo and screamo bands, but I stopped because I couldn't bear to keep hearing the echoes of my younger teen's regrets resonate in my mind, only finding consolation in someone screaming their heart out in song about how they just want to throw themselves off a bridge and drown in heartbreak. Sure, you can listen to and like emo songs without relating to the raw emotions there, but you won't get why others are so invested in them unless you can feel the hurt spoken in every note, filling your body with the same pain that the singer feels. 

Wattpad has been almost therapeutic for me. Here I am, an emotionally unstable, pessimistic teenager with a fist to shake at the world and American Idiot blasting through her earbuds, but somehow I'm a little more okay now that I put my thoughts and feelings into words that people relate to and give me feedback to, and that makes me feel a little less alone in the world. Writing is a home, a safe place, where I can say anything and feel anything and none of it's invalid. My profile on Wattpad is the little space in this infinite world that I can say is mine, I can call my own, finally, away from everyone that judges me and insults me, one I can personalize with raw, unedited emotions splashed onto a versatile canvas of an empty document. 

This is where I belong.

--LWG

(known as the lonely writer girl)