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jdukay24 · 3 years ago

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No where Land

I always seem to be searching for purpose. I seem very okay at times and then other times it’s merely hard for me to look up. I have just come home from work and I am now writing in this blog, while eating my cheese hash browns. Is this my life? Though uneventful, I have always found my life a little endearing. Something quaint and subtle about my way of living. I used to always imagine myself by the ocean in a small cottage. Writing novels. Growing my own veggies and just going back to basics. Life is so messy on it;s own that I truly believe your living space should be as simple and solid as possible.

My name is Jonathan and for 37 years Ive suffered from depression, OCD, and generalized anxiety. I hate it so much that sometimes I get to a point of wanting to just become numb by indulging in outside pleasures. My mind feels like it’s going haywire sometimes. Almost like it’s on overdrive. I try to focus and I can’t. The scariest part is when I truly start to believe there is no way out. It’s almost as if I’ve become a victim to myself...I will never find my way back home. Home-my comfortable, neat living space. The warm place that always fed my soul suddenly becomes unrecognizable. The people who are your very own family start to appear as strangers...

The world starts to become this foreign place. You start to walk and tell yourself to put one step in-front of the other...you begin to feel yourself making progress, when you suddenly look up and every where around you appears barren and unsettling. You start to understand that you’ve not made any progress. It was all just a cruel joke. You hear someone laughing and when you turn around there is nowhere there.. You are in a strange land, a strange place you’ve never been before. You see a sign. How odd? A land with virtually nothing and no living creature but yet a sign remains, rooted upright staring right at me. The sign looks like a sign you would typically see in any neighborhood, green with white letters- You slowly read the sign, in large white capitalized letters reads,NOWHERE-what does that mean? All of this is making little sense. The sign seems so out of place and furthermore the letters are all capitalized, NOWHERE. That’s when I am realizing I am not where I am meant to be. I have to figure this out. My eyes dart up, and I again see the sign looming over me. As I look upon the barren land and the sign that says, nowhere, I decide to start to walk towards the direction of the sign. Right when I take the first step, everything turns dark. So dark I can;t even see my hand infront of me.....I feel around and to no avail I cannot feel nor see anything. It becomes clear suddenly. Not clear as day but clear as night apparently. I am in Nowhere Land. You know? At one point or another we’ve all been there. Sometimes we don’t even know we are there. You’re not meant to reside there though. We go there most of the time when life throws us a curve ball. We lose our job, we get a speeding ticket, lose a close one. You know that place. Though most of us go through this place and it is a short lived trip. When we leave, this place becomes a distant memory, a forgotten dream that maybe comes back in flashes-Kinda like deja vu when you look at something but you can;t quite place where or when youve been in this memory. One you leave nowhere land you aren’t supposed to remember. .because it’s the dark side of life, the creatures of the underworld reside there, it’s cold and unpleasant. You search furiously for the life boat-The Nowhere Land is devoid of love,compassion,hope...i pause and realize I in fact, have been in this place for so long I have had an amnesia of sorts. A vicious cycle in which there isn’t a way out. The damp smell worsens as I step further. The coldness is absolutely grueling. My legs begin to feel like silly string. I start to feel myself sinking and panic arises. I use all my strength to kick and keep myself afloat. I see dark murky water enveloping me. I kick off and begin to swim and realize I infact am not moving. I scream but nothing comes out. The water has now arrived to my head and I prepare for the inevitable. I realize there is nothing more I can do. I close my eyes and take a deep breathe. I feel the humid, swampy water envelop me. I can feel myself sinking. The odd thing is, the water feels almost like seltzer water.The water makes a fizzy noise...I hear a hissing noise as I am under and begin to slowly open my eyes. I see tiny bubbles all around me. I begin to feel like the bubbles are starting to attack me. I begin to swim.

As a kid I was never a strong swimmer. My older brother was always the swimmer. I will even go as far as to say at times I didn’t particularly look forward to swimming. I was always a better underwater swimmer though. It was always so sound and quiet underwater. Almost like a safe haven in which only God and myself could be one. I also out of everyone in my group was the one who always could hold my breath the longest underwater. I believe I began to realize that perhaps being underwater was a bit of a rescue to the outside world for me. I enjoyed the solitude and peace that could only be found in the quiet world of being underwater.

Though my real strength was the ability to realize a challenge especially when it came to moving my legs. I always would race my peers as an adolescent As an infant, I remember my mom telling me that my legs would furiously move like a wind up doll during bath time. It was more interesting than anything. Though I believe this had more to do with sensitivity to sudden changes in temperatures. I would kick my legs as a defense mechanism to change, even if it meant trying to escape the common laws of physics. Moving my legs seemed almost a conclusive answer to a complex problem.

As a teenager, I began running with my dad. I remember the first mile I achieved felt like a place I had always belonged. It was quiet and maybe difficult but regardless I kept going. I could run far. I mean like really far. By the time I hit the age of 14, a 4 mile run became a natural part of my day. Equivalent to say brushing your teeth. I slowly started to understand that my endurance could be a way to outshine others and release the natural stresses of life. To this day I truly cannot tell you when it started, but running started to become a dangerous outlet that I realized I could control both internally and externally. By the end the age of 15 I became painfully thin. The the more thin I was, I believed the more the advantage I had. I was proud that my body followed suit to my efforts. Even if I accomplished or became this shell in an unhealthy, self destructive way. An enjoyable activity that was supposed to be fun, had became a rigid life line. I was afraid to color outside the lines. I was always right at the tipping point. I was holding on to the rope tightly. My endurance was unyielding. I didn’t stop. By my 16th birthday, I was bulimic.

‘I need to get out of here”. That was my thought. That was my only thought. That was a tall order considering I was under water and no where near land or any sort of escape or reason. All my senses felt like they were on fire. My whole body was burning. I decided to succumb to the pain. Give in to the hot water and not fight it anymore. Whats the point? i became a shell of a human. My whole body began to shut down. My lungs felt heavy however I had no intention of really understanding nor feeling this pain. I closed my eyes and felt myself hurl down the bottomless swamp water where other lost souls reside...

High school is sometimes a big blur for me. I remember little moments. Sometimes it seems like it was a completely other life time. Perhaps, because in a nutshell it kinda was. I was a quiet high school kid. I wasn’t secure and I was always a big ball of anxiety. In class I frequently would raise my hand for the restroom. I would use the time to wander the halls. Sometimes I would go to library and end up falling asleep ( I do not recommend this by the way). Through it all I mastered the art of being quite an accomplished actor. I managed to convince others that I could sometimes be funny. By Senior year I was comfortable with the realization that my life most likely was going to be quite ordinary. Though still I was curious about the world, I had no desire to take the steps to find out. To be honest I don’t even believe this makes sense and if it does? You are my people. I graduated in 2004. As I walked across that stage, the only solitary thought in my mind is, “will I be okay?”

I slowly open my eyes and I am in what looks like a massive cave. I look around noticing the architecture of the rocks. The boulders loom over me and I can’t really explain it, but I feel impending doom enclosing in on me. I close my eyes again. Perhaps, this is all just a horrible nightmare and I will wake up soon. I will be in my bed breathing a sigh of a relief. I open my eyes, to no avail. I again, look around and notice there are all large grey boulders looming over me-In the distant I can hear what sounds like water dripping. I begin to think of Chinese Torture and how I could never survive. I look up, to the left and then to the right. Then suddenly I see something. I begin to open and close my eyes to see if it’s just my imagination. There by some rock debris, I see the same green sign. Again looking like a sign you would see in a neighborhood, pointing to the right. “NOWHERE LAND”.

My 20s were interesting. I always thought of myself as a creature of habit. I hated coloring outside of the lines. I hated to be the one to mess it up for everybody. So, I don't know if this makes sense, but I felt like I had an obligation to show up. I was extremely uncomfortable throughout my twenties. I didn't know which route to take. I didn't understand the basics of human nature. My common sense was completely non existent. I began to think that perhaps I was a different being. In my narcissistic bubble, I truly believed that I was the main actor in an existential crisis. I had this twisted belief that you had to be fit to a 10 to really succeed in this world. I based my worth and status, on how thin I could become. In my warped mind, thinking others were jealous of my frail frame and vacant, wooden face. This period of time I remember I was always hungry. So, I guess it’s fair to say I remained hungry for ten years.

Walking again down the narrow path..or I like to think ‘the road less traveled’ ( Robert Frost) I became very curious as to that exactly I was doing in this strange land. I looked around and saw the leaves on the tree were black. This wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I knew my instincts were kicking in, and intuitively on some level I just had a understanding I was not where I was supposed to be. Suddenly, I saw a shadow in the distance. As the shadow walked closer, I noticed it was in the figure of a man. His footsteps were heavy.

#mentalillness #running #exercise #writing #bulimia #my story

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