For months I lived a life of numbness, vacancy, hopelessness and despair. But as soon as it felt like things would never change, my life completely turned around. I finally feel alive, I finally laugh and feel free and experience the beauties of existence. But is this all a mirage? Is this all hopeful wishing? I look at myself in the mirror and shake my head. I am not that kind of boy. I am afraid I might be letting myself be suckered into delusions and fantasies, allowing my mind to take my emotions captive and funneling them through dead-end streets. I want this to be real. I want this to be what God told me about. I want this to be one of the reasons I am existing on this earth. But yet I am so terrified: “What if this is just another dead-end road? What if this goes nowhere? What if I’m deceiving yourself?” I always let myself fall into gaping holes when I least expect it, where everything is supposed to be smooth and polished. Right when I stop watching my steps, I fall—and while I hope it is a beautiful collision, most of the time it just turns out to be another crevice which I have to pull myself free of. However, whatever happens, it’s nothing extraordinary: if it is a dead-end, as I fear, I shall exit the street and continue on. I’ve done it a thousand times before.

Why am I so afraid? I know of so many boys who are not frightened like me. I think it’s because of the accumulation of past events and emotional trauma due to mental disorders that have brought out such a stigma against myself that fear has become my most intimate ally. I refuse to believe that I am lovable. I am ashamed of my looks, ashamed of my past, ashamed of who I am. I realize I have not made the same mistakes others have made, mistakes that are apparent to all who might inquire, but my own mistakes and errors and pitfalls are deeper: they find their home in my heart. I have such shame that I feel like I can never be the good boyfriend, the good husband, the good father, nor the good servant of God whom I so strongly desire to be. I find myself dreaming of a future of being a good husband and a good father and serving God in advancing His kingdom, and instead of excitement I experience dread: This is the life you so desperately seek, a voice whispers to me, but you’ll never taste it. You’ll never be good enough. First and foremost, the voice tells me, I will never be good enough, attractive enough, funny enough, or cool enough for a girl to ever find her eye upon me—and without that first step, how shall I ever become the “family man” I so earnestly wish to become? All of these doubts and uncertainties plague me.

Courtney and I were sitting out on the swing last night, and she said, “I guess I’m just seeing where life is taking me.” While she didn’t mean it (so far as I remember) in the way that I now use it, that’s what I feel like I must do: just sit back and let life take me where it will. Sit back and see what happens. Don’t dream, don’t hope, don’t desire… because dreaming, hoping, and desiring all ends in disappointment. Better to resign than to hope in a resolution that will never come.

P.S. I am feeling quite good today. My medicine is doing wonders for me. I write this not in a depressive state. I just want everyone to be clear on that. Depakote and lexapro are quite good teammates. So goodnight.