Facing Demons

It's walking in the doors of a classroom of people unlike me. It's admitting to things you never wished I did. It's finding the courage to put my hatred at the side of the road and finally begin to forgive the people who made me as flawed as I now am. Facing demons is a cliché phrase used by people to describe the things that haunt them. I do think it's an apt term because that's what they are. Demons. Ghosts. At this point in our lives, most of my peers must surely have them.

Last night, I had a dream. I was choking on algebraic expressions alone as I was hunched over a book (when I told my friend this via text, she was quite concerned). Well, if I was to be more specific, the alegebraic expressions came up and choked me. It wasn't fun but fortunately I woke up and promptly went back to bed without incident.

My struggle with Math, as well as a few other things, has made me had to face my demons. It's made me feel tired, stupid and just frustrated. If Math was a person, I would have long been arrested for murder for killing her (if she didn't kill me first). It's set off a string of self-hating thoughts and anxiety attacks quite often. It's been making me start to doubt myself again but at least I can control those thoughts better.

Math, I'm afraid, isn't the only thing that has made me feel this way. Lately, I've been trying to win over these group of girls and make them my friends. I've tried everything but I don't feel as if it's working. I feel like even if I did make friends with these girls that I would be the friend who cares more once again. I keep worrying how they see me, if they think I'm a pest, if I really am the terrible, pathetic person I've so often seen myself as. That's not enough of a reason to give up, I know, but still it has required me to man up and face my demons.

And, of course, there is what led to those feeling of insecurities around them. Or, at least, what exacerbated those insecurities. There's seeing the girl I've mentioned so often on this blog (I'm sick of it but she comes up quite a lot) every day in some way and having to deal with the lingering feelings of anger I still have for her. I'm about to perform a poem about my feelings over what happen. This poem is obviously quite personal to me and I'm starting to wonder whether or not my decision to perform it was a mistake. It's also forced me to deal with some repressed feelings and each time I practice reading it... Well, the hurt comes each time as well as some of the other feelings.

I've learned from all of this that facing your demons is an unfortunate but necessary task. Your past, and those feelings from the past, are with you whether or not you try to face them. If you don't face them, they will only come up in unexpected and unforeseen ways. The ways that you do face them, of course, can be varied (I prefer writing).

Facing my demons has been a daunting task I wish that I did not have to take. My writing has lately been a confused jumble of words that, while cathartic, probably doesn't make much sense to the outside reader. And that's alright.

I will continue to have to face my demons. We all will. We will have to face them when they pop out unexpectedly, when they sneak up on us in quiet moments, when they spill out of our mouths as we confess it to a friend. They are varied, different in scope and they mean different things for everyone but they are real all of the same.

It hasn't been easy but... I am ready. I have to be.