Chloe’s Cranium

In high school, my dreams died, or at least I thought they did. I had no ambition to do anything with my life since I thought I wasn’t good enough to live. I went from not knowing if I’m going to survive the drug I was going to take and certain situations I put myself in, to wanting:

• BA in global geography
• Millwright Red Seal
• masters in Journalism
• a relationship to religion
• Move to another country to study
• Buy land 
• Volunteer or start a nonprofit in harm reduction/homelessness
• Work in News Media

The reason I mention drugs and people is because risk is what attracted me. Before my only goal in life was to feel something, the closer to death and riskier it is the more fun it was. I didn’t want to have a future and thought that I was already too gone and depressed to ever get better. Every bad thing that happened I blamed on myself, no matter what the situation since I was convinced that I was a bad person and that these things would happen to me because I deserved it, even though it was often my own doing. Self harm by cutting and drugs were what I used to do to punish myself for being alive. 

My problems were because:

• I didn’t deal with events that happened in my past properly
• Lacked initiative (will to change) 
• No self discipline 

How I fixed it:

• Took Dialectical Behavioural Therapy classes
• Replaced my hurtful behaviours with new less destructive ones (eating sour candy, hair elastics on wrist, holding ice)
• Stopped hard drugs and alcohol 
• Doing hobbies instead of self harm (golf, billiards, fixing cars, painting…)
• Making daily scheduled routines
• Take my medication
• Keep myself busy and distracted (extracurriculars, job, website)
• Take care of myself before other people (no romantic relationships or close friendships)
• Think before I make decisions (Pros and Cons of acting/reacting a certain way to situations)
• Surround myself with people I admire

What I’m struggling with currently:

• Loving myself
• Commitment
• Weed and nicotine dependency

My main fear was that I was a bad person, which I was to myself and didn’t realize it. Putting myself in harsh situations due to the people I would choose to follow was my downfall. I did not listen to myself and only did what I find would make other people happy, since my ideology at the time was that if I made people happy by listening to them and doing things I think they liked would mean that I am a good person.

There is no such thing as a good or bad person in my opinion, we’re just at different phases and some people take more time in certain periods of their life than others and that’s okay. Not everyone will pass Candy Crush level 637 the first try, but trying again and having new powers and skills to try and beat it raises your success margin.

I’ve now learned that the one person you should prioritize is yourself because it’s YOUR life and you have free will.

I’ve been obsessed with asking people this question: What do you think the point of life is? Why do you live the way you live?

For me, I want to be truly happy, and the way I think I can achieve that is by changing a system, wether it be women in trades or the shelter system I want to make a difference. I have a purpose and a goal in life, and that is how I justify living. I also think that happiness comes from experiences, with more experience in life (events, milestones, relationships…) resulting in more opportunity for happiness. 

My goal is happiness and how I’ll achieve that is by living life to the fullest and taking every opportunity imaginable so that I can have the best imaginary curriculum vitae. That is what real success is to me. I want to be Barbie with the amount of experience I have. 

The way I see it, life is a game. If you don’t know yourself you don’t know your strengths and weaknesses, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage, self sabotage if you will. Everyone has different goals but the way society is constructed makes us competitors against each other, with the vague idea of what achieving success looks like and what that really means to an individual. 

So…why do you choose to live?

I think that life is taken a little too seriously, and while most decisions you take in a day are random, I believe that all human actions have a reason for existing and its outcome, just like any game has ranging effects on yourself, other people, and/or “players” (NPC’s). We are privileged to live in a country full of opportunity, therefore why not take advantage of it and live life to the fullest.

I don’t think there’s a “right” way to live or a real answer to why you choose to live, but I find it important to me to try and figure out why and how I changed so that I can manage to get myself out of it when I get sick again. Preventative maintenance for my brain is what I like to call it, and hopefully reading about my struggles makes some people feel less alone. 

Xoxo, Chloe