As of late, I’ve been experiencing a wide and tumultuous range of emotions and feelings that I’m not really equipped to deal with. I’ve noticed that these same feelings of loneliness and isolation seem to come back to me every summer when I am at my most solitary and therefore more susceptible to emotional turmoil. All year long I work hard to bury these feelings deep within my subconscious only to have them spring forth in the summer months, like one of those cans of joke peanuts that spring fake worms on its opener. Well, since I’m finally being forced to confront these feelings this summer, I might as well do it on the internet for personal gain right?
Most #teens will tell you that summer nights are best spent in a dark room doing god-knows-what on those evil glowing boxes we call computers. But, the days are long and the nights are even longer; and all that solitude can lead to an unhealthy amount of introspection. As soon as my attention inadvertently shifts from whatever movie I’m only half paying attention to, whatever my mind hand reaches deep down into my subconscious and pulls out some long forgotten emotional conflict I didn’t even know I was conflicted about, like a Las Vegas magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. TA-DA!
As I’m waiting for the Netflix auto-play to begin the next episode of Sense 8 (which is great by the way) a voice says “wow you’re lonely” and because its 4 a.m., and I haven’t left the house in a solid two weeks, I’m inclined to agree. Now that I’ve discovered this feeling, I have to deal with it. But it’s very hard to remedy loneliness at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday, so I’m forced to try and beat that feeling back down into wherever it came from, at least until morning. An easy life hack I’ve found is to occupy your nights with menial tasks and various forms of media that require a basic level of attention. Lose yourself in these tasks until you can no longer keep your eyes open. Repeat.
Seasonal Affective Disorder, appropriately acronym-ed S.A.D, is a form of depression that normally begins in the fall, and is usually caused by a lack sunlight. However, I’ve personally found the scorching summer months to be my most emotionally turbulent. The idleness of being out of school, compounded by the copious amount of free time and oppressive heat can be very conducive to a breakdown in emotional stability. After long nights of self-doubt and oppressive self-reflection, it’s common to feel as though my emotions threw a wild house party I wasn’t invited to, and then made me clean up after it was over.
Annoyingly, this does not only affect my old emotions. Any new emotion I might experience is filtered through this lens of rabid instability and distorted into something rough and primal. Next thing you know, you’re walking into a coffee shop, happen to witness a couple together, and are immediately being hit over the head with something that could be vaguely described as “longing,” but before you can process this newly escaped feeling or at least politely shush it like you would a small child, you’re being asked whether or not you want your coffee hot or over ice. The feeling scurries away uncomforted, but shaking its angry fist and promising to return with friends.
Run! Run as fast as you can for as long as you can from your deeply seated emotional conflicts and never stop; unless you’re one of those people who can “deal with their feelings,” then by all means, go ahead.
