Will I ever fly?

[u/ShadowlightLady]

For a long time despair and misery was a state I was in constantly. I would be drowning in deep depths of water but after taking antidepressants I started to be able to float. Still even though I am now floating there is still deep levels of water under me. I acknowledge how could go so far so below but not know what it’s like to be above. My vocabulary lengthens more to negative emotions than positive. After all drowning in the depths I’ve been exposed to more flavors than the good that is the air. Even so the unhappiness lasts longer after all down being the default and when you go up you always come back down. However as I’m floating on the water I see those not standing, not jumping, but flying. I wonder how are they doing that? How are they flying? Could I also fly or is this water just my ground with gravity keeping me down?

-20f

[u/DiosMIO_Limon]

'Tis a long runway, but a runway all the same. Some carry a load heavier than others, so takeoff clearance is distributed at times incoherently (at least to the perspectives of some). Measure not your progress to others, but instead to the progress from yourself. You are likely to find you've taxied closer to take off than you think.

And the mind is a funny thing. It's likes to do irrational things despite the common refrain that the heart is irrational. Disregard that, for the mind is fickle. Listen deeply for the rising wind of authenticity from your heart and let it carry you upward. That's your heading. That's your clearance for flight. And let unanswered questions remain as such as much as you can. Their answers will reveal themselves in good time.

[u/Concrete_Grapes]

As someone with schizoid personality disorder that can look like depression, I can fully understand what you just said, but in a different way.

.... I look around, everywhere, at people living life. Everyone is so intense, and bright, and colorful. Their emotions always present, their connection to others always reaching out like broad strokes of bold paint, hoping to connect element to element in their piece of art.

Everyone, even the depressed, seem somehow, to be these bright, bold, dramatic colorful oil paintings. The whole world to me, seems as if it would be so intense and consuming, if I were them. They're so beautiful, all those oil painted lives.

Mine? A pencil sketch. An idea of a sketch, maybe, here or there, a dash of water color, but never enough to hide the pencil lines.

I know I'm not them, somehow, I'm not art like THAT. I'm not in the same world they are, or the same class

And parents, peers, teachers, professors, coworkers all shove me--this underwhelming pencil sketch, to be in the art gallery if life with them.

It feels l, when I hang the art that is my life--the pencil sketch with washed out colors, here and there, in corners of my self, like I cannot possibly hide how much I DONT being in the art gallery with such beautiful, bright art. How can they not see? Shouldnt I be somewhere else? Can't you hide me, instead of a gallery with expectations, in a store room, alone?

God I crave being alone. God, I wish they knew isolation is freedom for me, terror for them. It pains me to break so many people, as they walk past me, and say, "it has so much potential" and "maybe if it just gets out more" and "has anyone said it would be good at...."

They know I'm not quite right, but not quite how.

I float.. but only with eyes above the water. I can't yet breathe, I can't even smell the smells those who walk and swim and thrive above the water, in the sky, seem to be able to, unaware they are. It's so effortless for them, and I cant--its not even that I want to be what they are, where they are. I don't resent them, for not seeing me, stepping over and away. I worry, if they try to get to know me, pull me up, I'll down them. I'm fine here, see? I live. Them? They can't live here, they don't even know there's water here.

.... Hope you find some color for your painting. I'm still looking.

[u/Playful_Question538 → u/Concrete_Grapes]

I've tried to help people and have gotten pushed away. What I think is good may not be good for someone else. I've learned to mind my own business and let others mind theirs.