One day, I'm going from one thing to the next and not really thinking about the thoughts that occur in my head. I usually give careful consideration to what I think and how I think, so this is unusual. At the end of the day, I realized that I didn't like what was coming out of not only my mind, but my mouth as well. A lot of it was complaints, twisted perspectives and short-sighted things. Thinking and saying things like this shocked me - that's not who I was and wanted to portray to others. So how did I become this way?

I'm not one to typically lash out at others quickly, and am usually much more understanding and patient than most people realize. I think I eventually began to think and speak this way because of the people I was choosing to associate with. I allowed their opinions and mannerisms influence me, and not the ones that I was particularly fond of. These were mannerisms that contradicted everything that I was ever taught growing up, and I didn't like it. I actually didn't recognize my own destructive thought, and that it had actually come from me.

I didn't like what I'd let myself become. I didn't like myself. There are always things that people don't like about themselves - anything from physical features to certain personality quirks. It's another thing to completely dislike yourself and what you stood for. I seemed to disrupt and undo everything I had developed over the course of my twenty years on this earth. This all happened without me realizing it until quite a few months later. This was a gradual process, as these kind of things always are. It started out as just a few things here and there that I picked up from a few friends. If it had occurred all at once, I would've caught it much quicker.

With this new found behavior and thought process, I've found that I'm increasingly more frustrated, angry and alone. It seemed like no matter what I did, something or someone would make me anxious and like I'd done something wrong. I kind of was always angry at someone or something, or frustrated with the current circumstance. All of this is my own doing, and I had pushed the wrong people away in the process. I thought that if I were alone, no one would be able to make me frustrated or angry. I began to feel more and more alone, abandoned and forgotten. I let myself become an animal that I didn't recognize anymore.

So what do you do when you don't like what you've become? The obvious answer: you change. How do you go about trying to change yourself? Trying to undo behavior can be difficult; undoing a thought process is even more difficult. Attempting to do this on my own would be a mistake. Those people that I had pushed away before were always there, and I just needed to reach out and actually talk to them about what was going on. It's another one of those long, hard healing processes in life - but it needs to be done.

How often have we found that we think and say certain things because of this world that we live in. It seems like we can always find something to complain or be negative about. Guess what - we made it that way. With social media, the dark side of the world has come to light. What if we don't just change the way we think and what we say, but do our best to influence others the same. Even in the dark side being exposed, we can still choose to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

"So what if you can see the darkest side of me?
No one will ever change this animal I have become.
Help me believe, it's not the real me.
Somebody help me tame this animal."
-Three Days Grace, "Animal I Have Become"