My many existential Crises throughout the years

I know I can’t be alone in this, but it’s alarming how alone I feel. As usual, I don’t know what to say or how to begin.

When I was 13 years old, I remember writing in my journal,

“For the first time, I am starting to think of myself as a very depressed girl.”

I can remember watching myself think as I wrote that though. I remember thinking about my sister and my mom who were taking depression medicine. I was unsure if I knew how to separate myself from their problems, but at the same time I knew I had a choice. I wondered if I was putting myself in some weird pre-destined bubble when I wrote that line in my journal.

And then some years passed. I watched my mom struggle and work insanely hard. I watched my sister go through her own high school stuff.

I’m not going to go into it all, but when I got to high school things got complicated. My junior year I pretty much stopped eating and I stopped caring, and I know this is controversial, but damn I was happy. It was a different kind of happiness though. It was finally letting this weight off of my shoulders. I let go of everyone’s opinions and questions and just said fuck it. And I know saying I was happy doesn’t even make sense for me to say, because at that time I was thinking about suicide a lot. I even tried to commit suicide when I was 17.

I don’t even remember it. All I remember is being in the back of my friend’s car the night before, crushing up a pill on a disc golf to snort. I was told it was a klonopin, but looking back I know it wasn’t because it was too big. I know what a klonopin looks like now, and that definitely wasn’t one. Whatever it was, it fucked me up for the entire next day. That day was a blur. All I remember is lashing out at a group of girls at an assembly, breaking down during class, crying, and walking aimlessly around campus during lunch. I remember a boy brought me a lunch because he knew I wasn’t eating.

Later that day I just so happened to have a therapy appointment. My therapists name was Beth and I absolutely loved her. I thought of her as my secret keeper, and I’m pretty sure she loved me too.

This appointment was different though. I don’t know what we even talked about, but I was incredibly angry for some reason. I even insisted on her drug testing me. I have no idea why I would do that because I was on drugs, which obviously showed up and got me in a lot of trouble.

Anyway, I went home with my mom and didn’t even think twice about my plan. I said I was going on a walk to clear my head, and instead went to the Food World across the street, snatched 5 boxes of Triple C’s off the shelf, and went to the deserted bathroom. I popped all the medicine out of all 5 boxes, poured them in my hand and looked at my hollow eyes in the mirror as I swallowed them.

Then I bought some skittles in case anyone wondered why my tongue was red, and went home. I put on my favorite T shirt, invited the boy who had brought me lunch over to hangout, didn’t tell him how many I had taken, and fell asleep talking to him.

The next time I woke up, I had a breathing tube down my throat and my mom was was standing over me. All I saw was the ceiling and the blur of her face. I remember she didn’t look like her, she looked like a dementor. I couldn’t talk so she passed me a piece of paper and I wrote,

“I’m sorry.”

Hm. I don’t know why I wrote that story out and I hope if anyone is reading this, they don’t stop here. To be honest, there is so much more to all of that, but that isn’t really the point of what I am getting at here.

****Fast forward to after my parents sent me to a pentecostal boarding school.

When I was a freshmen in college, I took this philosophy course and it kinda pissed me off. I just didn’t see the point of it — all of these unanswerable questions. It depressed me to even let myself think about it too much. All philosophy classes have that one person that just likes to hear themselves talk, and it got on my damn nerves. I remember my teacher giving us this assignment about Free Will and Determinism and we had to write about which one we believed in and I just thought it was so damn stupid. I said I couldn’t choose, and I still can’t. Both perspectives have merit and value.

When I was a senior, I took this Ethics in Communication course. It’s funny because at that point I was the one that seemed to talk a lot in class. The teacher just seemed to probe me with questions during class discussions. I really enjoyed it, but even then I was struggling with my existence.

I’m also not really one to lie about how my day is going when someone asks, even if it’s just them being polite. So one day when my professor asked how my day was , I told him I was “having an existential crisis, but it’s fine.”

I’ll never forget the way he looked at me and said, “Well you know what the dilemma is with an existential crisis don’t you?”

I just stared at him.

“To live or to die,” he said.

****

Back in June I tripped on acid with this dude I was seeing. I didn’t trip super hard, only enough for the interconnected of everything to bubble up to the surface. I should probably note here that I watched Donnie Darko for the first time that night. The next day, we decided to micro dose before going out, and I think that’s when he put on the Tiny Desk series from Mac Miller.

That following week, I started listening to Mac A LOT. I couldn’t stop listening to the song 2009, which was actually my most streamed song this year. I repeated it over and over again and all the sudden, something weird in me snapped. I swear I wasn’t even sad. I was in the best mood ever, but all the sudden words just started coming to me. When I got to my desk at work, the saddest slant I’ve ever written poured out of me. I started crying and I just couldn’t stop. It was so weird because I just didn’t know where it was coming from. I didn’t even know that I was hurting so bad.

“My version of good enough is slippin’ back slow, all these trivial matters like the air is too cold

And how you carry yourself matters like woah, but all I’m trying to figure out is where do I go

All this surface shit is eating my soul, wondering can a person be sensitive but not vul?

Cause here I am struggling to keep my light afloat, this inner resistance is killing my flow 

These sidewalks, feelin’ the slightest bump, but these blinders I put up, tryna pullin me up

*

Threw away my old journals so I couldn’t go back, only looking forward but still fallin’ off track 

Wondering if anyone even has my back, crying at work, these words feel like an attack

Don’t know who’s on your side till you’re broken and crack 

*

Convincing myself I care for the root cause, nothing is wrong and yet I’m searching for god 

Overthinking interactions, need a drink to help me cope 

This life is so beautiful, and yet so fuckin dull 

Tired of fighting, so I sit back and indulge 

This struggle to resist just feels so detached and old 

Making progress, trying to grow 

Showcasing my insecurities like once again here we go 

All this shit is stuck in my throat, in a room full of people, no one notices me croak 

*

Deleting myself cause distractions take hold

Quick to make decisions, I’m either in or I choke 

How can I love you when I feel so alone

Never falling again, I fake it real slow

Walking away in search of my own, wondering if anyone even read what I wrote.”

****
After I wrote this poem, one line in particular stood out —

“Nothing is wrong and yet I’m searching for God.”

I mean what is an existential crisis? It’s when we question what the fuck we are even doing here. If ANY OF THIS HAS ANY MEANING other than what we decide to assign it. It’s the search for God, isn’t it? No matter what form of God you’re into.

It reminds me of Donnie Darko. Watch this:

This scene, where he is talking to his therapist about his neighbor, Roberta Sparrow —

“She was standing there in the middle of the road, frozen. So I got out of the car and walked over to see if she was okay. And she leaned over and whispered in my ear.”

“She said that every living creature on earth dies alone.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

“It reminded me of my dog Callie. She died when I was eight, and she crawled underneath the porch.”

“To die?”

“To be alone.”

“Do you feel alone right now?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I mean I’d like to believe I’m not, but I’ve just never seen any proof. So I just don’t debate it anymore, you know? I could spend my whole life debating it over and over again, weighing the pros and cons, and in the end I still wouldn’t have any proof. I just don’t debate it anymore. It’s absurd.”

“The search for God is absurd?”

“It is if everybody dies alone.”

“Does that scare you?”

“I don’t want to be alone.”

An existential crisis is the search for God. The desire to not feel so alone even when you’re surrounded by people who are feeling the same way.

I wish I could be like Donnie Darko in a way. Just dismiss the idea that there is something more out there, accept the fact that I’ll never really know. Even though he very clearly isn’t doing that.

****

In my quest to save myself from my eating disorder in the past, I started researching how to rewire my brain. What I came across was meditation, and after countless articles I began to meditate a few times a week. Eventually, it became an every day type of practice. It’s weird because meditation isn’t really something that has clear boundaries. Like I know people talk about different types of meditation, and honestly I think they just complicate the whole process. There are a couple of things I do when I meditate, but I will save that for a different time. What I want to say about it now is simply that meditation is one of those things that you don’t notice is working until you look back and almost marvel at all the quiet progress that has been made.

One way I meditate is by practicing feeling how I want to feel, even before I have what I think I need to feel it. Like how would I feel if I had all the purpose, support and love that I need? I focus on that feeling, and from that comes this feeling of gratitude.

But one day I was sitting there, meditating, just listening with no expectations. And I know this sounds kinda crazy, but I started feeling so grateful for everything in my life. And I said outloud, “I love you.” And honestly, I was talking to the universe/God/cosmos/whatever, but when I said it I realized I was speaking to myself because

… I am God.

Like in a way, I am creating these experences through how I think, feel and act.

And then I realized that I could have anything in the world that I want, if only I could decide WHAT it is that I want.

It’s like when the monk, Dandapani describes enlightenment and he says, “Through deep meditation, I realize that God and me are one in the same being.” Defining God as pure intelligent energy permeating everything. Realizing you are one with that energy.

It’s funny though. Because even if I sit here and decide that I am God, that we all are…

that still doesn’t give me purpose.

It’s like when Bukowski said,

“Hell, it doesn’t mean anything unless you want it to.”

None of this has any purpose unless I want it to.

Fuck. I am confused. It’s hard for me to connect all of these thoughts.

****

Awhile ago, the book The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren was suggested to me. Knowing it was a Christian book, I shied away from it. One day I was walking down the street however, and I came across this little “Take one, Leave one” book box. I saw The Purpose Driven Life sitting there and decided to take it home with me.

I read the first chapter and put it away. I know this sounds fucked up, but I read that first chapter and I knew I wasn’t ready to read the whole book.

Recently however, I picked it back up and have been reading one chapter a day.

To be honest, I think it is shaking me up in a bad way. I’ve been writing the most depressing poems and crying in my bed. Turning talks with strangers into therapy sessions on accident.

It’s okay though, hopefully after going through all these difficult questions and emotions each chapter brings up, I’ll be better for it.

In the meantime, I’m just going to plan on this current existential crisis lasting for 35 more days.

Thanks for reading.