Mission Sleep: Failed

January 7th, 2017

I was just about to go to sleep, but I started to get a bunch of negative thoughts and images as I closed my eyes and quickly decided that I should kill a little more time on the Internet to distract myself. It usually works and in a couple of minutes I can get back to going to sleep, but not this time.

I am a member of the Miraculous Amino, an app/community for people who love Miraculous Ladybug. You can probably guess that I write fanfiction. I have for about eight months now and I love doing it. Writing has been my passion for a long time, but writing fanfiction is a completely new experience. You don't create the characters since they're already made and have a personality already decided, but you instead get to interpret them. It's really fun because everyone interprets the characters slightly different. And you get to write in so many things you've always thought about the characters that no one else has thought of. It's kind of like characters and a story you share and can discuss with so many other people. Writing fanfiction is something I love doing.

I have written a good bit and got amazing feedback, but I've been on hiatus for a couple days and I find that it has the opposite effect than what I had intended. See, I went on hiatus after my youth pastors announced that they would be stepping down. It affected me quite heavily and I felt that I needed a break from certain things to calm myself down and bring my mood back up. I didn't want to write anything half-heartedly, that's not how I am. It's either all the way or not at all. So I took a break to sort things out.

I've been on hiatus for five days and it has only affected me in negative ways. I still get online, just without the pressure of needing to post things and comment and talk to people. It was kinda okay on the first and second day, but it's mostly made me feel disconnected from everybody on there. Simply watching has made me distance myself from the community and, if anything, It's only made me feel worse. I can handle this kind of thing though, I have before. I can handle feeling like I can't connect with people, because I feel that way on a regular basis, but while I was browsing the amino to distract myself, I came across a post that both made me smile for a certain user and make my chest hurt at the same time.

A very talented writer whom I will not name recently got a title. It has to do with fanfiction writing, of course, and this person deserves it! They really do, but I guess it made me upset because I've been jealous of this person. I'm not trying to sound shallow or petty, I swear. They can just do everything I can't when it comes to writing. I know I shouldn't compare myself with someone else, but I suck at doing the things I should. They're confident with what they do and they're quick, able to please both themselves and their readers. They can so easily flow with everything and create incredible pieces. I would like to think that I am a good writer, but I get anxious with everything I do. I worry and stress even over the rough draft of a fanfic I'm writing for fun. I overthink and make all these big plans that only make me overthink more. I love the ideas I have for my fanfiction right now, but I'm moving so slowly with so much indecision about them that I feel kind of hopeless. None of it is coming along as smoothly as I wanted it to and my ideas are just not getting across. I always have the problem of freaking out about everything that I end up doing more worrying than actual writing.

Writing is usually an outlet for my problems and something I do given any circumstance or emotion, but writing can be hard when you lose that inspiration you once had in the beginning of a project. I am going to see through all of it, do not misunderstand. I do not quit things I get so far on simply because I lose the motivation to do it, but while I'm just sitting here idly waiting for that spark to come back, everybody is moving ahead of me.

This user writes their fanfiction so quickly and they always turn out great. Everyone loves their work, and they should because it is amazing! But while they're moving along and writing and getting their work featured and everyone is singing their praises for them, I'm sitting here and doing nothing but whining about how much I'm going to miss my youth pastor and worrying about if I'm going to be able to open up to the new one the youth group is getting at the end of January. I'm sitting here becoming a nervous wreck because I can hardly open up to anyone. It took me over four years to open up to my youth pastor. Four years. I don't know how I'm going to be able to meet the new youth pastor and not feel bitter or upset. I don't want to judge this innocent person who is fulfilling God's will simply because I suck at opening up to people. I don't want to feel bitter about some amazing writing simply because they accomplished something and got a reward for their hard work. I don't want to be upset over so many silly things simply because I have no idea how to handle my emotions and I don't know how to deal with change.

I don't want everyone else to move ahead of me while I'm still floundering and stressing over what to do, but it's happening anyway. The truth of the matter is that I don't know what to do with any aspect of my life. I don't know what to write, I don't know how talk to people, I don't know how to just be happy for someone without adding jealousy to the mix, and I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what that silly hiatus was for at this point and I don't even know what I'm typing right now. I just feel hopeless and depressed, like I have no purpose and everything I'm even attempting to do right now is in vain. I feel pathetic for being so jealous of that writer and being so unnecessarily upset about a great opportunity for my youth pastor. I'm just a mess and I don't know what to do about it.

I am not truly upset about that writer getting a title. Good for them, really. I guess it just triggered something in me that made all these things I've been bottling up finally overflow. I just feel so incompetent, and I have nobody to tell this to because just feeling that way makes me feel like I'm being dramatic and ridiculous. I've always been one to seem composed and self-assured, but that's far from the truth. I have so little confidence and I'm far too sensitive for my own good. I just hide it well. I feel like that's more of a curse than a blessing.

I want to be able to call out and tell my loved ones this, but that's just the thing, I don't know how. I suck with words verbally. I can write them all day long, but once I actually try to get them out I just clam up and trip over everything I want to say. I know I said this once already, but I'm gonna say it again: I'm a mess.

I know God has a plan for all of this and I know that I will overcome this suffocating feeling of hopelessness. I just hope it comes into play soon.

(I apologize if this makes no sense. I needed to get it all out. In my defense, I am sleep deprived and emotional. Okay, I'm really going to sleep now).