I realized as I try to be more vocal, that I'm leaving the lurker life behind. In this post I'll explain a bit about why.
(TW: Depression, mental health, bullying, triggering quotes)
I think part of why I'm trying to leave my longtime lurker status and lurker streak, is because I'm tired of the lurker life.
It's safer to never post anything. You can't be disliked if you never say a word or enter the scene in the first place. But it's boring as fuck!
You scroll, you watch, and never do anything yourself.
You hide in the corner, hoping no one ever even glances at you.
You listen to everyone else tell their stories, but never add a word about yourself.
You don't even passively interact online by upvoting or downvoting. You don't even leave anonymous comments. You do absolutely nothing.
Day after day, month after month, year after year.
And I was super unhappy. I was safe, but I wasn't living. I wasn't contributing anything.
I'm not saying this about every lurker. If anything, it's healthy to lurk before you leap. But I'm talking about never ever adding anything because of fear.
But how does someone reach that conclusion? That it's safer not to exist?
Bullying. Lots of bullying.
The thinking that because you are weird, that you are awkward, that you are different, you deserve to be bullied.
You realize it's a game you can't win.
Because it wasn't ever about you, it was about finding an easy target. Someone smaller, someone weaker, someone who won't fight back, someone without protection.
That bullies only notice you when they want to pick on you. You start to build walls. But no one ever asks why those walls are there.
You start to see kindness as a lure to a greater trap. Why else would they?
(I'm kinda afraid to write about this one. I probably shouldn't, but I think it's important people understand the why. We often look at the results, but not the process of how they got there.)
I learned that if I existed wrong, I would be attacked for that. If I spoke up against the wrong person, they would throw all their hatred at me. So I tried to hide it all. But that didn't work either. So then I thought I must be wrong. That must be why it kept happening.
You exist in a state of limbo. Drowning in shame and doubts. An endless cycle.
Eventually you hit a point where you stop trying.
You decide if every move is a miss, the safest route is to never play in the first place.
Maybe if they forget you exist, things could be better...
When depression, and anxiety, and the inner critic takes over your life, there's a giant void.
That giant void is where a person should be. Eatten up from the inside.
Where a life should be, where passion should be, where memories should be.
For a long time, I was afraid I'd never leave that void.
But, something gets through the armor. Something leaks through. And you start to feel alive again.
You start to leave the void, a bit at a time.
You start to create again, a bit at a time.
You can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you keep taking steps anyways.
Until one day you feel brave enough to try again. To exist actively. To put yourself out there.
You start by tossing messages in a bottle.
You don't know if they'll ever go anywhere, if they'll ever reach anyone.
But you keep writing and keep tossing them out there.
You realize that you don't want to be in the void anymore. That you don't want to look back on a lifetime of grey and nothingness.
That you'll gather that courage, take that leap, and risk being seen. Risk being heard. Risk being hated.
They'll never see what their actions did. They'll never feel the pain and the shame. They can chop as many trees as they want to without so much as a slap on the wrist.
But, you know. You'll always know.
You wish you could scream to the world how much they hurt you. That this is a burden no one should have to carry.
And you decide that if you have to feel the pain either way, you might as well make something from it. Take those scars, and rebuild anew.
It'll never be the way it was before. It'll never be what it could have been.
But in a situation like this, living at all is a victory. Choosing kindness is a victory.
Choosing yourself after being rejected by them all, that's a miracle.
You decide to want a piece of that pie too.
You want to reach for that happy future. To work as hard as it takes. To pick yourself up again and again.
And maybe someday, you'll feel found. That someday those tragedies can heal and feel a bit less painful.
Ah... I try to say this time I won't be emo, but it leaks out... I hope this one wasn't too gloomy.
Thanks for reading.
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