Chapter 1:
Lead Me to My Future
Everything was different as I desired, a sliver of hope for me as I wished to forget all about my past and to heal the mental problems I’ve never been able to shake off.
Before the plane landed in Osaka, there was nothing in my life but bad memories. From isolating myself in my room every day, to being made fun of and hated whenever I was forced out to go to school, living in America, where every single day I would feel even worse wasn’t fun in the slightest.
As a product of the resentment I received, I hated people. I still do, but my negative feelings have eased up slightly as I tried to give myself a fresh start.
To add onto it, my hair, which is one of the reasons that I loathe myself so heavily, is black until the tips where it turns powder blue, which people jumped at to make me feel terrible about.
It's almost like I was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Time passed, life in my new home began, my first year as a high school student in a different country had just started and it finally became a frequent thing to experience something new. Becoming comfortable with my new surroundings wasn't much of a challenge due to how detached I felt from life in my previous setting. But, something always felt off. A fragment of the pain from before I came here with my mother.
Speaking of her, It’s always felt as if she did everything for me. Pouring all of her affection into me, trying to make the son that couldn't get a grasp of what the point in trying to coexist with other people was, happy. Still, there
was some lingering guilt in my mind trying to convince me that all of her effort would be put to waste.
I've always tried to be an artist, or to play a simple instrument like the piano or something, but eventually I would question what I was even doing because the feeling of being bad at something made my blood boil.
The pain and confusion of knowing you enjoy an activity, but find it straining and difficult to sit down and actually put pencil to paper in an attempt to make a drawing, or fingertips to keys in hopes of playing a beautiful song is like no other.
As stated before, I tend to isolate myself. So, it would only make sense that I've never really been an extrovert or an attention grabbing person (Hence me never being noticed by many people) and it caused school life to be tremendously different than my expectations had taught me. There were so many people that would glance over at me in the hallways, leading me to believe that they either all thought I seemed interesting, or hated the sight of me, but eventually, the possibility of being liked was shut down when the same people that tend to stare, started throwing insults.
These things have been happening to me for as long as I can remember. Day to day, night by night, most normal day occurrences agitated me. just people talking gave me a migraine.
I needed something….. someone.
I felt pathetic.
That day, Tuesday the 7th, on my walk home from school I was gazing at my surroundings like usual. I was genuinely shocked at how inspiring scenery could be. Multicolored L.E.D signs and billboards set the atmosphere. as far as the eye could see, it looked lovely, and the pleasant people of Dotonbori made it even better with their friendly conversation and gestures that erased any thought of being distressed.
It was a grey afternoon here in Osaka, where Sakura leaves had begun falling off of their trees and cold air filled peoples’ lungs, just to not have any effect as most were wearing coats and scarfs.
My mind was blank, for the most part. My eyes wandered, being captured by the ever so famous Glico sign that towered over Dotonbori, and the fluorescent water that separated two long walkways, which you could cross via bridge not too far up from where I was standing.
It truly soothed my mind.
But…. that’s when it happened.
An advertisement, offering assistance in what I was going through. Without being to understand why, it sent me into an extremely exacerbated state of mind. It also, obviously, clouded my mind with my usual thoughts of pessimism, hate, and loneliness.
“Do you feel lost? Are you struggling with mental health problems? Help is available.”
There was wording on it, but at the sight of the sign I felt sick which caused me to turn my head away immediately after what I read.
Not because they were trying to send a message that there's ways to get better, but I hated even thinking about the fact that I suffer from what's called a mental illness.
Most of the time people usually hear of someone that’s mentally ill and assume they're worthless, that they can’t help or take care of themself.
Even after everything people have already said about me, I still didn’t want to be looked down upon. Thinking about another person assuming I'm useless was more than crushing.
So, like many times before, I ran home in search of answers.-
...
-Earlier, I said I needed something, or someone. But honestly, I just wanted to solve my problems on my own, with no assistance at all.
Although, originally, that's how I wanted it to be…
In the end, the person who healed me wasn't myself.
It was someone else who was able to take on such a huge burden-
-And Lead Me to My Future.
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