The Path to Freedom

My thoughts have recently been severely damaged.

Things like: I'm not a good writer. I'm bad. I am stupid.

I'm not kidding. I can't handle a meaningful conversation. I will never be special.

The world has come out to find me. People take advantage of me. I'm bored and it doesn't matter.

Like I said, it hurts. Crippling, depressing thoughts. Something so bad after another, and it makes me want to cry.

Why the pain? Why are there negative thoughts? Recently, I spent two weeks playing a video game. From the time I walked in the door to work until the time I walked home at the end of the day I was playing.

It was my escape. Finally, recently, I deleted the game. I removed the toy from the little boy.

What I am left with is what I am trying to avoid - my negative thoughts and feelings.

Whether it’s done with video games, women, Instagram, Facebook, or food, to name a few distractions, I’ll use anything to look at me. The absence of my feelings of self-loathing and self-loathing.

That’s what I did with the video game for two weeks. I have chosen to faint rather than dwell on my thoughts and feelings and the struggles I faced in writing my first letter. Video game was easier than dealing with pain.

Ironically, the pain from two straight weeks of video games and not being able to put it down was worse than the pain of staying still with my thoughts and feelings.

Each day my eyes hurt and my contacts would become so dim I could not concentrate. Every day all the muscles in my body became stronger as I followed next to a young man on a dirt bike running around a small computer screen.

No wonder I had a stiff neck a few days ago. No wonder my head felt so bad. I've been hurting myself.

We do that, don't we? Flee from our thoughts and feelings, that is. We flee from anger, pain, shame, guilt and fear.

We run away from thoughts that tell us bad things. Things like us are strange, that we are unlovable, unlovable, and indifferent. We run and actually think we are helping ourselves.

Flash flash: Running, self-examination, push-ups, whatever you want to call does not help. It hurts. It takes you away from the gift of being fully present with you. Yes, I have called you a gift. So why are you running?

For me it’s because I’ve never been taught how to love myself and love myself. I have never been taught how to deal with my feelings or a head full of bad thoughts. Self esteem? I didn't have it.

You see, my mother died when I was three and a half years old, and I was raised alone with my violent father. Through him, I learned to believe that everything was my fault, that the world was waiting for me, and that I didn't care. No wonder I want to run away.

Feeling weird? No thanks. I think I'll check it out with a video game.

I don't know how I respect myself? Let's find a woman. You can let me know and solve all my problems.

But in the end, don't we always go back to where we started? Does not examining ourselves and our emotions give us a temporary solution? It certainly did, and it still does for me.

For years I thought a woman was the answer to all my problems. The woman who can finish me off makes me die. Yes, not so much.

My problems were there waiting for me when they didn't work with the girl. Hi, bad! So, I will try again with a different girl I think I got a different result. No. Same result. My pain and humiliation were still there waiting for me.

I repeated this pattern for the better part of my adult life, until one day I realized that it was not about finding something or someone that would make me feel better about myself; it was about me. I realized that it was all about me and my inability to respect myself. My inability to love and love myself.

So I did something I had never done before: I turned around and chose the path that was marked for self-discovery rather than continuing with the word for self-injury. Most of us have or would not be here on this wonderful site. Be proud of that; love yourself for that.

Turning inside of me looks like learning to love my painful side so much.

It looks like putting down a video game, wrapping my arms around my side, and remembering that I was okay and that I was always there. It also looks like I am honest and sharing what I have shared with you here today.

The way to freedom is to learn to stay calm with my thoughts and feelings, not a video game. Over and over again, I improve in my self-esteem and in seeing the real truth in me, the good man I was born to be.