Screaming for sanity

This was written a few months after my father died unexpectedly. He was diagnosed with cancer the last week of April and died on May 21, 2024, roughly three weeks later. To say I was numb, depressed, grieving, and just straight-up not okay, would be a vast understatement. Heck, I barely remember 2024. At some point, I will write about this, but not now, not today, and possibly no time soon.

August 2024:

I want to scream.

For days now, maybe weeks, these screams have been clawing at me just beneath the surface, trying to get out… or trying to get my attention. How long have they been screaming? How long have I been ignoring or simply not hearing them? Who’s screaming and why? What can I do? What should I do?

I’m realizing more and more that I don’t have a fucking clue about life. Not one fucking clue. Yes, I’m serious, here. We think we cultivated our lives, our thoughts, our beliefs, and so on, but did we? Was it really us, our true selves, that came to those conclusions? Was it really me, my true self, that decided this life was what I wanted?

I may feel differently tomorrow or next year, but today I’m certain that I feel like none of this was my idea. My beliefs are not my own. At least, most of them aren’t mine, I think. Hell, who knows? How can we be sure of anything when we’ve been programmed since birth by our families, friends, professionals, and society in general.

What's real? What does real even mean?

Arghhhhhhh! Again, I just want to scream.

I can’t keep my thoughts going in one direction for longer than a few minutes, sometimes seconds, before I’m lost inside a thought-spiral so long and convoluted it’s hard to find my way back to the beginning, to the initial thought, and this, this mind maze is more frustrating because it begins and ends with me.

I’m the reason I’m so lost. I’m the reason my thoughts are all over the place. I’m the reason I’m so confused. Or am I?

Didn’t we already establish that my thoughts are NOT my own, not originally, anyway. They came from outside of me. They came from the world I was born into. They didn’t come from me, but I adopted them, and then I made them my own. But why? Why take on a whole world that’s not mine? Why buy into someone else’s version of reality? Why not create my own? Why not search and find what’s real?

Wait. If everything we’re born into was already here, created from the thoughts of those that came before, then how are we ever meant to find or create the reality that's right for us? Everything we think came from someone or somewhere else. Every thought we have is based on data gained from someone or something else. So, how do we find the true us if everything we are comes from outside of ourselves?

Okay this is some Eckhart Tolle bullshit because he's right, clearly, Sandy is not who I am. She is a creation of the time and place she was born into, as well as all the experiences she's had since birth. The me behind Sandy, the one who notices everything she thinks and does, that's who I am.

So, who am I? Where do I come from? What does this mean? Why am I here? What do I need to do?

So, yes, as you can see, these thoughts, this thought process, I think this just might be why I'm crazy and wanting to scream.