Left That Body Long Ago

Hello all,

I feel like I don't know who I am.

Underneath it all, behind the front that I put on to the world, there's this lingering feeling, an emptiness. I don't know who I am or what I'm supposed to be... doing here.

If you asked me who I was years ago, even as early back as 2015, I probably would've told you I was a writer. For as long as I can remember, that's all I've wanted to be. To share the stories I come up with to the world, to let you meet the group of broken weirdos I spend a lot of my time thinking about. Maize, Cameron, Tex, Ella, Dani. My babies.

Once, when I was in high school, my counsellor was concerned about my mental health going into a weekend. I reassured her I would never kill myself because I hadn't told the story yet. I was half joking, but in some of my very darkest days, I used the story as an excuse to keep living.

I can't die, I've got my story to tell. I can't die, I've got my story to tell. I can't die, I've got my story to tell. 

But, something went wrong.

When I finished high school, I decided to study Professional and Creative Writing at Deakin University for three years of my life. Amazing years. I met my closest friends and they gave me the confidence to be open in a way that I'd never been before. I discovered my truest self. At the same time, my self confidence reached new lows.

As the years went by, I compared my writing to the others in my class, to my best friends, my classmates. And I realised I was a bad writer. That everything I tried to write was awful and poorly phrased and a mess and I hated every single thing I put to paper.

Objectively, this was probably not true. My scores were actually pretty good, and my work was well-recieved. The only time I remember my pieces failing were when I tried to get experimental or made stupid mistakes.

One piece I wrote used a strange structure. Due to it taking place during a high stress situation (the author was being held hostage and made to keep writing continuously), I formatted the piece as one massive paragraph. I was raked over the coals for it. And I understand why. It was visually intimidating, a massive block of text on the page. But even despite that, that story was well-recieved. Yet, my brain held on to the negative.

You're a bad writer, don't even pay attention to what your reader would want. Look at you, you're so fucking selfish. Why are you even writing?

Other thoughts began to form.

In maybe my second week of classes, I was waiting for the bus with a guy who would later become one of my two best friends. I was excitedly telling him about my "novel", my character babies, all the different things I was going to put them through and how incredible they were. And he interjected with something like "it sounds like you only went to University to write about them..."

Those words have stuck with me. Because maybe I did. Maybe my greatest mistakes in that course were because I was determined to get my one envisioned story right. My confidence took another beating. So I decided to make it right.

During my second year, in one of the most stressful classes, I put forward a fiction piece. It was a kind of prequel to the story, starring two of my leads (Tex and Cameron) at a religious gathering. It wasn't my best piece, but I liked the characters in it. Workshopping it confirmed what I thought. General feedback was the story was all over the place, but the character work was strong. My friends argued that Tex was the more interesting of the two, something I hadn't thought of before. That led me to explore his character more in the actual story. The one in my head. I dutifully submitted an edited version of the original excerpt to be marked. And it was a bad mark, really bad.

Again, I know why. It was part of a larger project and didn't work as a stand-alone piece. And yet, even though I objectively know that, my brain still feels that is evidence that I'm a bad writer.

You can only write one story and you can't even write that well. Why are you writing? What is the point of you?

These thoughts and feelings got worse and worse and worse.

In one unforgettable class in my third year, I had a realisation. I messaged Adam, my partner:

I think I may have made the worst decision of my adult life.

I'm nothing if not overly dramatic. In that class, the teacher had been talking about how in order to get published, you have to be able to sell yourself and believe in what you're writing. And my brain exploded. I can't do that. I don't even like myself, how am I supposed to sell myself?! Following this conclusion to its natural end, I realised I should never have gone to University. Why the fuck was I studying writing? It's something you're not even good at, you're only trying to write one story, and you hate yourself so much, why do you even think anyone's going to read what you have to say? The hole inside me began to grow and grow.

Then, another realisation. What if I'm not a writer? Maybe I'm a filmmaker! The evidence is there. I've always been more drawn to cinema and TV than I have to reading. At that point, I'd seen just under 1000 films so maybe making films was what I was supposed to be doing. That makes sense, right? And there was that one piece in script class which your teacher and the class had loved, that was basically a film right?

So, as the course ended, I decided to study Film and Television. Because of my prior credit, I could get it done in 2 years. Easy! I can finally know who I am and this will be great! I know who I am, I'm a filmmaker!

I am dumb and I do dumb things.

Going from a course where I knew a lot to something I knew nothing about was a crash course in pain and stress. My filmmaking classes required a complex understanding of the camera and lighting and editing and I felt dumb the entire time. Feeling like you know nothing and are just constantly making mistakes did nothing for my self-confidence levels.

That said, I still made films I was proud of. I was able to capture something visually I'd never been able to find the words to describe and that was incredibly freeing. Yet, the work it took to get there, the sheer amount of social contact involved made me keenly aware of my Asperger's. Because social activities to me are exhausting. After long periods of interacting with people, I get so tired. I feel it in my muscles. Like I've just run a marathon. It's just hard.

And the less said about my final group film project the better. It was by far the most challenging, stressful thing I'd ever worked on, three months of my life that destroyed me. If I'd been happy with the end outcome, then maybe it would all have been worth it. But it wasn't. It was the least successful project I worked on at University, and it was the one that had required the most effort. It made me so stressed that I got sick and entered a serious depression like I hadn't known since I started dating Adam. I never want to do anything like that again.

So, what am I?

I'm a bad writer, so I can't be that. (Ignore the scores and the friends and the feeling of satisfaction when I write something good).

I'm a bad filmmaker, so that's not it. (Ignore the good films I made, my inexperience and my one awful final project).

Maybe I'm a reviewer? Are you kidding me? I couldn't even finish the fucking MIFF notes? (That thing that was too ambitious and difficult to complete in such an intense month. And after that, you got sick for another month).

Well, maybe I'm a good person. Maybe. Doubt it, though. Definitely not a good friend, as the tattered remnants that fill my guilty mind when I'm trying to sleep remind me.

Maybe a good boyfriend? Okay, sometimes. But, that's not enough, is it?

I don't know who I am. When I write these emotional blog posty things, I do so because I want to find an answer. But I don't have an answer to the question of who I am. I don't know what I'm supposed to do or why I'm still living. Maybe just because it's easier than dying.

Yet, as I find myself working in a basic, uncomplicated, mind-numbing job, the answer begins to feel more and more important. Like if I don't know, I'll just bury these ambitions inside me, ignore the resentment and the guilt and let my self-hatred win. That would be easier. Much, much easier.

But as I feel myself sinking in to repetition and boredom, something inside refuses to let me drown.

That's the real reason I've never killed myself. Because there's some frustrating, wonderful part of me that refuses to give up. That sees a crisis and will stop at nothing to find a way out. It's gonna suck for ages, but my brain, my stupid, fucking useless brain will find a way to fight on. Because, maybe, just maybe, there's something I haven't done yet. That I'm capable of something more. That I don't have to feel this way all the time. If I can overcome the deepest depression, then maybe I can find a way to overcome this feeling of emptiness.

And you're probably wondering why I'm writing this if I can't stand it or myself. And I would agree with you. I'm at war as I write this, part of my brain telling me this is awful and to just live with the guilt, the gnawing emptiness. But then the other part keeps typing, refusing to give in. This blog feels like a way out of the darkness, a creative outlet to explore these questions. Like it used to be when I first started dating Adam.

Back then, it was a tool to figure out who I was in a relationship and what that meant. It was also a record of my move away from depression and into hope. Honestly, that series of blog posts might be my best writing. And maybe this will be too. Or maybe I'll let the feeling of self doubt take over again and I won't write until it comes to the end of the year.

But at least it's a start. At the moment, that feels like enough.

Regards,
James