Opened Eyes

Let people love who they want to love. Let people be who they are.
I read something earlier and it broke my heart, I may never be able to fully relate to everyone in the world but there comes a certain period with pain where you feel completely alone and I know that all too well. I read a suicide letter from a teen who wasn’t even able to live out their teen years, and that’s a tragedy, people die everyday yes it happens but someone was depressed to the point where they felt there was nothing to live for and killed themselves, if that didn’t impact you try and read it again. There is a rather large discrepancy between generations and it’s harming these kids and it’s not fake, it’s not ‘just a phase’ because these kids are dying. I can only imagine how difficult it is to be a parent, I would have no idea how to have handled myself as a teenager let alone be a parent to any child with depression, but down the line your child is and forever will be your child. Their decisions are not made to ruin your hard work or to damage your appearance, they didn’t choose who they are attracted to to anger you, they didn’t choose what gender they identify with to embarrass you, it is simply who they are and they are your child.

If your daughter identifies herself as a lesbian, and dresses in a way that makes her feel comfortable with the person that she is, then that’s the way it should be. She shouldn’t come home for the holidays to you holding a dress with ribbons demanding her to ‘dress like a girl’, as people mature so do their brains, as family and friends we don’t have the choice to decide for them, but they are in our lives and we love them so we have the obligation to support them. Eventually that person is going to dread coming home, dread dressing in your pre-selected outfit and dread even speaking to you, no human wants to consistently feel uncomfortable especially in front of their family where they should feel at home. I would rather have a relationship with my child then to have them despise being in my presence, just to take a family photo, to take a photo where they would look at themselves and not even identify with who was in it.

Where does all this hate and ignorance come from? Previous generations? You mean the same previous generations that believed being a skin color predetermined your right to walk freely in your own neighborhood, to eat? to go to school? The same previous generations that were okay with one human being enslaved to another? Or is it the bible? People will lie, cheat, steal, look at celebrities’ wealth and fame and wish they were them, have sex well before marriage or with no intention to marry at all, sing songs in sync about murder, but two people who are the same gender are in love with each other and it’s ‘sick and wrong’? I don’t understand, it’s socially acceptable to actively break these commandments but if two people you don’t even know are gay it’s an ‘abomination’, it’s not even a commandment, besides, words in a very old book should not stop two people from loving each other.

I have friends of many different races, ages, sexuality and genders and I’ve learned that I can learn from every single one of them. I’ve opened my eyes and realized that every single one of those humans are just that, humans. They have the same right to love as you and I, and it scares me that at any point any of those friends may realize their sexuality or gender and be completely afraid of who they are, afraid to be themselves and may develop depression and consider something like suicide and this isn’t crazy, this could actually happen. Nobody knows the future, lottery winnings and betting would increase one hundred percent but all joking aside that is why it is more imperative to appreciate life and love who we are, however for some it is impossible when everyday they have to hide who they are in order to avoid being shunned, disowned, and in some cases in order to survive. Sometimes it’s not the action or the words, it’s the person. Love your families, it’s the one you got, please be kind to others, some people don’t have much to go back home to, they were using their escape and your interaction could be the only one they’ve had all week or it could be their last. Live and let live.
Happy New Years Everybody -Nerd Out

This farce is over

I can’t pretend anymore, this is the worst my depression has ever been and I’m truly beginning to hate myself. Everything this entire year I’ve looked forward to has ended up terrible, it’s difficult to stay positive and optimistic when I fail at everything and end up alone. The past couple months have been me praying at night, crying, telling myself tomorrow will get better and it never does. To be honest I don’t know what I’m waiting for, there’s not going to be any phone calls or text messages, whatever opportunity I had to be somebody is gone. I’m stuck here fighting myself because I don’t know what to believe, am I this person capable of helping myself and others or am I already dead and nobody really cares what happens with me.

So obviously I’m sick but how do I get better? Can I get better? Some people get hurt and steel themselves, they make sure nothing will ever rock them like that again and some people break down and stay broken, I’m not sure how you even go about fixing a person. What happens to someone who’s sick? Strangers with guns force them out of their homes, take them to a place with other sick people who don’t have the choice to leave, then some complete stranger who you’ve never met determines whether or not you’re a danger to yourself. If yes, goodbye plans, you are then force fed pills that completely change your thoughts and who you are and crisis averted. Just take these pills until Stranger #4 believes you are no longer a danger and voila, you are obviously no longer depressed, best two week to a month vacation ever. I don’t see how that helps, sure they’re alive but next time they feel at the brink and they want to talk they might not want to in fear of being hauled away instead of helped.

But remember, I did this to myself. Plenty of rich and famous people have had rough times but they’re rich and famous now so I could have been there too I just didn’t ‘put my mind to it’. Oh you mean the same mind that is constantly forcing me to relive trauma and telling me I should kill myself? Believe you me, I didn’t wake up and aim to be depressed, depression is not a choice, mental illness is not a decision. Try as you may, some people will never understand, some people are so warped that they go out and murder another human being simply because of their skin color or sexual preference. Normal people are just living their lives and in an instant they are tragically cut short because somebody planted a seed in their head that because their skin color is different they somehow don’t deserve any human rights, or because they can’t understand how two people of the same gender can love each other and they hate them for it. I don’t know what else I can say, I can’t concentrate or sleep I’ve fallen back into the cycle and it might be for good this time. I just got to keep fighting this depression until I lose I guess or maybe one day I’ll ‘fit a description’ -Nerd out

Wound

First off, Hey everyone Happy Holidays. I know I haven’t written in a while, I’ve wanted to but couldn’t bring myself up to do it. This time of year is hard for me so I try to outright avoid my emotions instead of writing them out and sharing them. The truth is I’m afraid of my emotions, I’m afraid of getting so upset I hurt myself or getting so depressed I overeat until I stop thinking about it. It comes with the territory that this time of year I’m always going to feel terrible regardless. It was this week, four years ago that I crashed my car. Even explaining it I tend to downplay it, I drove over 130 mph into a brick wall fully intending to kill myself and I should be dead. I couldn’t sleep leading up to that day, I couldn’t eat, I cut myself and was always alone. I felt that nobody could help me and I was probably right, I hated myself, everything about me; the way I looked, the way I sounded, how I was stupid enough to throw away golden opportunities. Very few will understand this post, to be at the brink and completely lose yourself, to feel you are nothing to this world and that dying would be a positive. I can understand myself because back then that’s what I felt and now I feel it’s worse, others have felt exactly the same and unfortunately they aren’t able to write about their experience.

It’s not at all easy living with doing something like that, let alone feeling like doing it again everyday. You do the things that make you happy but deep down you know there’s no point, the feelings come back if not double then stronger, you end up alone staying up until the sun rises just thinking to yourself. As if you’re being held captive in your own body you simply want to be free but each thought stabs through your psyche until you break down, you’re held prisoner in a cage of your worst thoughts and it makes you feel the only way out is more pain or death. The frustration builds, either because you can’t end up doing it or because you can’t stop thinking about it, you end up looking at your phone, scrolling down your contacts but can’t find anyone to talk to. I sent out a text that night, I had done my best to reach out but got nothing back, those are the people who were really close to me and that would’ve been the last thing I ever said to them, me telling them to take care of themselves, that I was going to kill myself and I didn’t get a reply.

Can you imagine? How sad and defeated you must feel to leave your home, get into your car, and drive off to go kill yourself. I hear it’s a selfish act, one person who went through some things in life and should have ‘gotten over it’ decided to end their lives ended up making everyone around them upset. Just as some people may never comprehend ending their own life, others couldn’t comprehend going through another day of theirs. I’m not saying what I did was fine, I was clearly sick, I’m still clearly sick, it’s not healthy or normal to want to end your life. I understand both ways, with mentoring depressed teenagers there have been late night phone calls, reading text messages that instantly made me cry, having to drive twenty minutes to someone at five in the morning when I have to be at work at ten. Me being that person who tried to reach out and ended up crashing into a wall, I know how serious it is, I know some feelings will never go away regardless of how hard you try to ‘get over it’. Some people will never understand and clearly aren’t counselors or psychiatrists and that’s okay, some people will think of me as a failure and weak and that’s cool. The people who know me now understand mental illness’ true effect, the teenagers I’ve helped will become adults and now know their feelings and how to cope with them and most importantly will live. Maybe I am a failure, maybe I am weak, maybe I do lose my life to mental illness the fact is, whatever happened to me I used that so it wouldn’t happen to others. As much as I love this time of year, I hate it equally, I’m glad I was able to survive that and turn it into something good. For me, where everyday can be my last, opening gifts does not soothe opening this wound. -Nerd out

Everyday

Everyday is the most important day of your life. At any given moment you can have the greatest opportunity presented to you or you can miss out on it. You can either meet somebody who will become a great part of your life, destroy a great part of your life or lose somebody who already is. You got to look at it in terms of building, nobody gets a perfect body or becomes a great public speaker just like that. There are countless hours in the gym, huge lifestyle changes with dieting and most of it all mental willpower, “I don’t want to get out of bed and run”, “The gym is so far”, “I’ll do it later”, “I’ll do it tomorrow”. Even with public speaking a lot of it is in your head, remembering a speech, pronunciation of words and the hundreds if not thousands of people who could be listening to your every word. Mostly everything we do is started by our first thoughts as we wake up. Without even realizing it we are our own worst enemy, you end up defeating yourself before you even try. Everybody is on a daily grind, to get better at anything you need practice and even when you get to where you want you can’t stop there because if you do you may revert. What I’m saying is your thoughts affect you more than you’d think (see what I did there), in most cases just getting there would be half of the work then you’d let adrenaline take the wheel, however for many of us our thoughts interfere before we go through the door let alone get out of bed.

For me it’s as if my future is already decided, I’m wary as to what I should do or even can do. I want to look forward to the future, look forward to; helping more kids, more fundraisers, spending time with family and friends, being happy. Although it’s true, my future is sort of out of my hands there’s a whole lot more I can do. I know I’m not okay and I’m far from being happy and sooner or later I’m going to drop the act where everything is perfect and worry everyone but for now I’m trying to distract myself with the good, the kids I’m mentoring are all doing okay, they’re in school and are happy, my friends and family are all doing well. There’s just one thing I need to do and it’s not easy, change the way I think. As I stated earlier, thoughts can become truly liberating and empowering or they can be toxic and imprison you. Somehow I need to overcome all of this and just re-train my brain how to think, instead of feeling pathetic and hating myself I need to look at what I’ve done and what I can do that’s positive. The future will come later there’s nothing I can do about that but for now as hard as it is I need to build myself up to the level where this Ronald is okay where he is, I need to strengthen myself so whatever the future brings I can survive. We all do, nothing in this life is guaranteed nor all of it predictable. Wherever we are at right now, we can be better just remember not all of us can do it by ourselves. When at all possible in life, lend a helping hand, we are all stronger hand in hand then we are as individuals. -Nerd Out

Racism is real. Pt.2

This may be a different post than usual because I’m furious. However I didn’t sleep on it, I wanted to freely write how I feel full of emotion and we’ll see what we get. My name is Ronald Fenton, and I’m black. Some reading this may think there’s no reason to state my ethnicity or skin color, that doesn’t matter only my words should. Some may think racism is no big deal, just a couple jokes here and there, but try to date my daughter or sister and I will actually threaten you with physical harm. I can try to understand the ignorance but enough is enough. There are some places I can go to IN A FIRST WORLD COUNTRY where I can be killed for simply being black, there will be no fair trial, the judge will probably be friends with the murderer and that would be it, I would die simply because of something I had no choice over, that’s a big deal. As a black man I am scared, I am scared everyday my life will be put in the hands of somebody with hate and it will be ended. It will be ended and whoever killed me might get a paid vacation and live happily ever after. As a human being I’m disgusted, I’m disgusted that people are blinded by some ambiguous difference such as nationality and think they are superior. There have been multiple times in my life where I have been bullied, harassed, excluded, beaten. Physically hurt because my skin color did not match their own, but lol jk idk racism is no big deal right? Black people are only good for music and sports, when a person becomes romantically interested in you suddenly I’m not good enough because you mentioned my skin color to your mom and “she freaked out” you can actually go fuck yourself.

Apparently I’m just this uneducated, thieving, criminal that does not know any better. I can be a filthy nigger, but if I play for your favorite sports team and I’m winning you a championship then I’m “one of the good ones”. Maybe I am uneducated, because I can’t comprehend that another human being said to you that another human being isn’t good enough because.. their skin color is different? That makes me what? A criminal? A terrible person? Less human? Someone actually, in person, told me that “racism isn’t going to go away”. So I should buy in to your blind hate because someone else told you that I’m inferior because my ancestors weren’t of the same heritage of yours? I’ve been alive for twenty four years, and as early as four years old, (I remember because I came home crying) I was told that I couldn’t play with the others because “black and white doesn’t mix” Seriously, what the fuck. How can a four year old, come to being a racist? They don’t, they were raised that way. Again, maybe I am uneducated but I don’t understand any parent telling their child you are better than so and so, do not play with them, and just grow up the rest of their lives like “K.” No thinking for yourself, nothing, mom said it was bad, no niggers allowed.

A couple days ago I went to the mall, I shook off the anxiety and the constant depression and left the house. I went to buy a razor and saw something I think a friend would like so after deciding it was an impulse buy I decided to put back the other item and just buy the razor instead. The cashier saw me and asked where the other item was, when I explained to her, her response was “It better be there”. I was shocked, I didn’t think I heard her clearly so I asked her what she meant by that and she repeated it with a stone cold face “It better be there”, again mortified, because clearly staff do not just insinuate things like this to customers I asked “As opposed to where”? She responded with “it better be back on the shelf and not anywhere else” and looked at my backpack. I didn’t look menacing, I have no prior record of theft. She didn’t accuse the white guy ahead of me in line when he put back an item as well, I wonder what the difference between me and him was because we didn’t look much different in age. I can understand, like depression, you don’t go through racism so you don’t understand. You need to wake up, every race, every HUMAN deserves to be just that, a human. I’m tired of feeling I am not good enough, I’m tired of feeling sub-par. After hearing “idk idk I mentioned to my mom you were black and she freaked out” I went home and I cut myself. What I’m being told is, you are not good enough, no matter what you do or who you become you will never be good enough because you are black and will always be black. I’ve heard it in the workplace and I’ve heard it in relationships over and over again and literally all of my life. Before you judge anyone, or blindly decide you are above them. Remember these words, “They are human too”. Nobody chooses their ethnicity, nobody chooses not to be privileged or entitled. So before more innocent people die for simply being of color, before more people get looked over because their name is Carlos instead of Carl. Look at the actual person, not their skin color, or accent, the actual fucking person. Wake up. -Nerd Out