The Beauty of Angst

Ever since I was little I'd always imagined I was someone else, this has nothing to do with self-hate you understand. I didn't want to be someone else, well not really, I just wanted to be in a different situation. Normally, I'd make up someone who was my dad. This could be anyone, usually a fictional character from whatever book I'd read, film I'd watched, but sometimes I just made him up. He'd be the best dad in the world. He'd love me, never leave me, he was always there for me. In reality as a teenager I probably wouldn't have been that close to him and done the whole “nobody understands me” act. But why is it just my dad? Probably due to my real dad leaving me, my mum, my brother and sister when I was little. The fact that the only father figure I've ever had spent most of my life being a useless drunk. I could use this as the starting point for all my fucked-up tendencies but that would be making excuses. My siblings never had any such trouble. Or maybe they had. Maybe they just weren't as vocal about it as me.

My oldest sister, Katie, there's every chance she handled it in a different way. When I was little, she went out drinking – a lot. I know teenagers do that. That is not particularly unusual. Which is what I thought originally, until I'd found something she'd written. She's did an English Literature degree and this is her old computer - this is going somewhere. When I first used it, I found some stuff. Poetry mainly, I think she did it for her course. Or my sister was a poet and she just never told anyone. In my opinion, the former is the most likely but who knows? Back to my point, I found something that I don't think I was supposed to read. I'm certain she wrote it, I think it was about her as a teenager. All about how much she hated how she looked (I know, what teenage girl doesn't but let me finish), about going to the back of clubs with men she didn't know and... Well you can figure out the rest of that statement. You're probably thinking that this sounds like most sixteen year olds, maybe it does. But there was something to it, something which showed depressed she was. There was something that told me it was worse than your average nobody-understands-me-teenage-angst. It was about taking drugs, sleeping with men, getting an abortion, hating your self-image. Maybe that is normal, what if I'm just the freak here? I wish I still had it. I could read through it about three years later and see if I see it from a different perspective. But that isn't the basis for everything I'm saying about her.

Around this time of year when I was fourteen, actually it was a bit earlier because this time of year when I was fourteen was the first time I got drunk at a Halloween party. But sometime before, I was lying in a hospital bed for reasons I won't go into. My mum was beside me crying, my sister came all the way down from Newcastle to see me. When me and Katie were alone she was talking to me about something, she was rambling a bit. I can't quite remember the point but I think she was talking about how depressed she'd got a couple of months ago. I've no idea why she was saying this, I think she was trying to show me that I wasn't alone. It didn't work at all, I was fourteen, I knew everything. I don't think those few years were as bad as I was making out. I can't quite explain how much I hate myself from back then, I still have scars from all the stupid stuff I did. I bet I sound really pathetic now don't I? I'm aware of that, if you hate how I sound now you would have hated me three years ago. I know it's not that long, but think how much a fourteen year old and seventeen year old change. Timewise it's hardly anything, but in terms of maturing? It's a lot. Maybe I'm wrong, there's a chance I haven't changed at all. perhaps I've just learned to deal with emotions better. Everything I went through is no where as bad as some people, maybe not as bad as what you're going through now. But at the time, I thought I had the worst life in the world. Looking back I didn't, I was just an idiot. A depressed idiot who was desperate and used everything as a cry for help but wouldn't accept it from anyone. But an idiot all the same.

Anyway, I brought this all up to talk about Katie and I've managed to bring it all back to me. I think she might have felt just as bad, she just hid it better. I suppose she had to, step-dad was a drunk and my mum was working about three jobs to keep a roof over our heads. Katie had to look after me and my brother, was there for us whilst I was growing up. Not that my mum wasn't there, I love her I know she was trying her best. She did better than anyone else could have done. But there's no denying it, Katie was there for me and my brother. In all honesty, I think she felt worse than I did, she might have even done worse than me. She just handled it all better, she to this day is so much stronger than me. She might have a hard time in her adolescence, but I'll never know because of all the strength she carries inside her. She's strong enough to hide it, strong enough to pretend none of it happened. None of which I can do to this day. Maybe I've got it wrong, perhaps I'm just weak. I'm okay with that, I'm a stronger person that I was I know that much. Fourteen-year-old her was definitely stronger than fourteen-year-old me. I wasn't a strong person at all. My brother, Darren, I think was a better person than both of use. He never did anything stupid.

Darren is like my best friend, I can't think what I'd do without him. But he's the most normal person in my family, well not normal but he was possibly perfect by my mother's standards at fourteen. He was quiet, got perfect results at school, has worked hard since and he's just an all round nice and caring person. But I know he had it hard, he just wouldn't let anyone know about it. That's the thing about Darren: he hates hurting people to the point were he won't talk about things that upsets them. He does anything to make sure everything's okay. I remember last time I went to his flat in Leicester – I remember his exact words. We were watching a movie. it was Dead Snow. Awesome movie, but anyway – something gory but so stupid you had to laugh happened. We'd both had a couple of cans of Heineken, when he said something. I didn't expect it to happen and I regret not questioning him. He said: “Y'know, I've had quite a depressing life I just don't seem to have done anything about it.” Yep, never questioned it, I looked at him a little shocked and confused. Actually I've no idea if I did it just seems like something that should have happened. Maybe my life was pretty bad and I wasn't strong enough to deal with it. It's a possibility both of my siblings is as fucked up as me. Or maybe I'm reading too much into all of this and everything is just fine. This was all supposed to happen though right?

I don't actually believe everything happens for a reason, I'm an atheist. A radical atheist as one of my favourite writers would say. I don't believe in a god, I don't believe anything happens for any reason at all. Everything in this planet is random, but that's just as remarkable – if not more so – than if an almighty deity had made it. A planet so beautiful just appeared, for no reason. It just evolved like this. I look out my bedroom window now: I see a magnificent tree in the gorgeous park opposite. Okay, that latter was man-built but that fact that a creature evolved to do something so remarkable? To build the park. This house I'm living in. This computer I'm typing on. That we could evolve to make such simple amazing thing happen? Okay, I'm digressing a bit. I'm not entirely sure how any of this is relevant to what I'm talking about but I'll get there eventually. I'm not religious and don't believe in a god… Or maybe I do and I'm repressing my true feelings. A lot of stuff has happened in my life and I want to justify that some how, with the idea of chance. If what happens is random then bad things are bound to happen to someone. It's nothing to do with me and I could have had no effect on it. Or is this all just me not taking responsibility? It isn't, I admit 99% of everything that's happened in my life is my fault. Two things I refuse to say is my fault though, my dad leaving and my step-dad's alcoholism. I've got over somehow believing those happened because of me.

Perhaps all of this is just me over-thinking. Over-analysing aspects of my life. Maybe none of this is important, and no one thinks this much about things as much as me. I think it's definitely a possibility.