My Inner Demon

"I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."-Marilyn Monroe

How many times I've been asked, "What's wrong? Are you okay? How've you been doing?"

Funny, though, they ask, but are they really, truly asking? Or do they just want to make conversation and feel that they have to 'check in' first? There are many ways I could respond to this, though:

"My life sucks, thanks for asking."

Or maybe, "What do you mean, 'are you okay?' I'M NOT OKAY! I get criticized on every little thing I do, every single minute of every single day, and do you even know what's going on inside my head? Do you know?! NO! You don't! People try and understand me, but they don't, and they never will."

But what I end up saying: "I'm great. How're you?" Mainly because people don't really give a damn how you're feeling; what's going on in your life. Oh, maybe your parents do, don't get me wrong, but who else? Therapists, maybe, unless yours feeds you all that bullshit about how "you'll be fine," and how "embracing change" makes everything easier.

Tell me something, though...I don't know if you've ever felt the way I've felt, but if you have, did you ever just want to punch someone's face out when they asked you something like that? Or did you just swallow up the blunt words and say you were fine like I do?

I think the problem in today's society is not the amount of people who get depressed, or who get stressed-out, but the amount of people who don't care; who don't even try to understand. It's like the population who has my sort of issues are freaks and are to be avoided because God forbid we get emotional sometimes.

I spend every single minute of my life trying to silence the demon lying luxuriously in my mind, feeding me insults and whispering things to try to kill my happiness. Boy I try, but I just can never completely ignore it.

"You're so unloved," it rasps, the words echoing, reverberating in my skull, slowly, brick by brick (or cell by cell, I suppose, since I'm talking about my body) desecrating my strength to keep my head up and stay in the present; to not get slugged down my past. But yet it haunts me, everything stupid I've ever done: taking on that idiotic fifth-grade dare, just to get bitchy girls to like me; lying about my family and our 'stature in society' just to impress a girl who was the Queen of the School (so frickin' stereotypical!); and getting blind-sided by the one person I thought would always be by my side.

So, yes, in a way I DID feel the Monster was right. Being loved is something I've always struggled with in my life, since most times I've attempted trying to get everyone to like me it usually ends with me getting metaphorically burned. Like, hmm, the time I did that 'favor' for my so-called best friend and she humiliated me in front of the whole school (long story). Needless to say, not only did I fail in getting my 'friend' to respect me, I lost every single good thing in that school as well.

Walking down halls, hearing, "Look at her! She's such a slut...can you believe she did that? That poor, poor boy!" it sort of got to me. I did the ole college try on my parents: "Mom, I feel really sick. Can I stay home?" My mom's response (she's too smart; she could always see right through it): "Have you been vomiting? Coughing up a lung? Perhaps sneezing?"

Of course, my answer would always be, "Um...no." So I'd get dressed, sling my backpack over my shoulder and toughen up enough to get through the day. But in classes, working on a report for a book in English class or doing a complex division problem, my inner demon would say, "Trying to ignore what's staring you in the face, are you? Can't you see the gazes of everyone who knows your secret? You can't escape what's right in front of you!"

Gritting my teeth, I'd tell it to shut up, to take a nap and wake up again when I was home, cuddled safely in the arms of my mother. Where I could deal with it; make it no so bad, not so hard to ignore.

Eventually, though, I was exhausted. There's only so much devestating comments one's brain can take before the skull cracks (metaphorically, of course; thus far I've been lucky enough to avoid stitches) and they collapse from the weight of depression. My mother, besides knowing when I was giving her crap, also knew when I was really struggling emotionally. It was at that period in my life when I had my first admittance to the hospital.

Now in case you thought it was, being admitted to a mental hospital is no great, admirable feat. No, it's more like a brand on your forehead: "This girl is insane and mentally unstable, so she's staying here until she can be released back into the general population!"

And I hated it. I hated that feeling of being a 'freak,' someone who couldn't possibly blend in with the 'Normals,' who just had issues.

Why was I so different? I yelled into my pillow each night, honestly wishing I could get an answer in return. Anything!

Didn't 'normal people' get mad, too? Have a good cry? Hug people who love them, people who cared about their well-being? And yet, these types of people weren't at all like me.

Well, maybe I was a bit extreme, more than most. Maybe I WAS unstable sometimes. But did that really make me so out of the ordinary? You can't honestly tell me life doesn't suck sometimes, 'cause it does, majorly.

Since that horrid period in my life, I've had two more. I sure as hell don't want more, but I sure as hell can't promise myself that, either. So instead, I get through each day, trying to act 'normal.' Luckily, at my school, I don't have that issue. No one is truly, 100% sane, but that's perfectly okay to me. I like seeing others who aren't picture-perfect; who have insecurities; who make mistakes and screw up horribly sometimes.

And, well...people who, for the most part, are like me.

And maybe, even, have their own inner demons.