Broken Toys

Broken Boys

Things That Just Don’t Have a Home

No Past

No Future

Just the Eternity of a Moment

a Moment In Time

a Moment That Has Made you Blind

That Life Is One Big Lie

A Long Good Bye

to Every Thing you Once Held Dear

That Made you Smile

Made you Tear

a Faded Snap Shot In a Tattered Book

Over & Over you Look

#B27321

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Seeking validation

Where are you, validation?

You are within.

#challenge @prose #socialmedia

I use the name justaperson on this website. I use the name Katt as an alias. It's my nickname I use on here. I'm comfortable with it. I won't tell you my name, because of my stupid fucking paranoia.

What all of you don't know (besides two of my friends on here), don't know about me is that I'm a anxiety and paranoia filled 15 years old. I'm ridden by the stress of looking at colleges (though I am a freshman), and the stress of getting good grades in my advanced classes. Every night the worst-case scenarios run through my head. From my mother dying, to me dying and horrible things in between. And it doesn't help I'm driven to one sport alone and my life revolves around it. Spring, summer, fall, and winter revolves around field hockey. Club and school, it's all I do. I'm a smart kid at a college-prep school. I'm in two advanced classes. Algebra 2 andHonors Biology. I am also in my schools first year of their leadership seminar. I'm full of anxiety, and paranoia.

I'm going to stop here. There. You know the me that I consider the "real me" and not the other faces I put up for different people.

Thank you for listening.

My name is not Cosette Darner. It is a name that I go by to feel confident enough to speak. Why do I need this name? It's not because I hate my real name (I love my name), but it is so I can speak my mind and not have people know who I am in person. To me, Cosette Darner is freedom.

I am a depressed 17 year old who is able to talk more on the computer than in person. No one who knows me knows I have depression, and I dont tell them. Knowing how society works, people with depression get left behind. People see me as a smart, caring, strong, independent, and a happy female. I am a go-to for relationship problems, school work problem, and social problems even though I have plenty of my own. When I asked someone who considered me to be their friend why they come to me for help, they told because I always sound like I can relate. To this, I smile and tell them the secret is to be happy.

Just be happy...it is strange to me how this is the common answer given to someone who asks for help when it comes to depression. The amount of times I look in the mirror and think to myself "why can't you just be happy?" is too many to count. Society seems to have created a bubble around happiness to protect it from sadness. Because bubbles are blurry when seeing through them, we see anything negative as a joke. Something silly. Social media does this all of the time.

Depression is joked about all of the time on social media along with suicide, and to be honest, it is disturbing. Every time someone says that they want to "go kill myself" I get mad. People who use it as a joke anger me because they don't know that feeling. They dont know what it is like to stare into the mirror every morning wondering how the world would be better without you. How when we shower we see our imperfections and scars. The thing said that I hate the most, is when people say "go kill yourself."

Social media seems to fall on those three words when they dont like something or disagree. I just saw on facebook a picture of a man taking a knee during the anthem and someone replied with "go kill yourself." The way those three words enter our minds is different and that is what society doesn't quit get yet. People dont see how their words mean more to others than ourselves.

I would never post this on social media because social media doesnt care. They think they are happy in their world and I will not take their happiness away. You cant help those who dont want to be helped. If people still feel better changing their face to look "better" and body shaming themselves and others to feel "better" then there is nothing this post can do.

I have a confession to make. I have a disreputable little habit that I don't usually choose to share. Something I only usually indulge in those precious few moments I have to myself, it's not dangerous or illegal just well, anti-social. I have all the paraphernalia, the trappings, the equipment, the books and the websites, some times I carry those shiny little things in my pocket, it gives me comfort.

I suppose its the rhythm and repetition that are so soothing, its quite an addictive behaviour, but not one any child would want to catch their mother indulging in.

And on that note my children will be home next week so after this morning I must go and put it all away in its expensive black velvet lined case and tuck it in the back of the wardrobe, for I must become the upright, church going, respectable mother.

No one must know that when they have gone and I have the place to myself that I'll draw the curtains and close the windows, then hammer it out on my banjo.

i.

you know that you're in no state to be

making decisions at this hour, dear.

you know that the night is for

letting the feelings

that are going to happen

happen without consequence.

ii.

you promised your mom you wouldn't,

and you can't bring yourself

to break her heart any more

than you already have.

iii.

you don't know if you're in love

with your best friend yet,

and you still

kind of want to find out.

iv.

your favorite song just came on

and you want to listen,

even though you told yourself

that you don't like music anymore.

v.

someone has to feed the dog.

where will the dog sleep when

you are no longer there

to let her into your bed?

vi.

you're so tired, love.

too tired, in fact,

to clean up the blood

when you are finished.

and you know how much

they hate messes.

vii.

the sun is rising

somewhere far away,

and even though

you can't see it yet,

it is beautiful.

I have a chronic illness, and it leaves me living in constant pain. I can hide my pain pretty well, but sometimes the tears escape my eyes. There is no cure and no treatment, just feasible mangement. At my age, doctors are hesistant to give me actual pain meds. I suffer from both physical illness and mental illness. I tried to end it all, more than once, both times by swallowing a bottle of pain pills. I didn't want to kill myself, I just wanted to kill my body. Or maybe, I wanted to kill my mind. It's hard to die without dying but the thing about having chronic illness and mental illness is that it is hard to say which is worse. Could it be the constant deppressive depths and lowly lows of my mind or the constant pains shooting and burning through my body? I'd say both, but killling both would kill me. So I'll suffer here, in this suffocating silence, and let my life slip through the cracks, of my shattered soul.

It's harder to explain why I didn't add you than to just do it, but now there are so many of you that it stresses me out just to log in. Family I haven't spoken to in years, kids I knew in school who live across the country now, old flames that I wouldn't dream of speaking to, and it goes on, and on, until I can't remember the names of my cousins because they're all just tiny icons clogging a sidebar. I'm not going to call you to say happy birthday, but I'll hit a button to pretend I remembered because if I don't, I'm a jerk. When it's so easy to be friendly, why wouldn't I? Only now when my best friend's birthday is coming up I log in to check the date because I've forgotten, and I hit the button and that's good enough. And they will do the same for me, because we're "friends" and that's what "friends" do now. I waste hours engaging in this meaningless, worthless facsimile of friendship, for hundreds of people I barely know, and god forbid I stop logging in because then I'm impossible to get ahold of. Nevermind that you could call me or text me or meet me for lunch if you actually want to spend time with me. I'm being antisocial if I don't click the button to give you extra lives in farmville.

And my mother wonders why I don't have any "real" friends. I don't have the time anymore.

I've never like the quiet. It gives me to much room to think. I think about my past, I worry for what is to come. I second guess ever move I've ever made. Then comes the break down. People... they scare me. I'm affraid to disapoint the people around me. Afraid to speak and say the wrong thing. But which is the lesser of two evils? The Silence... Or The Sound?

I think its scary that in the past few years we have all so quickly adapted to this artificial simulation of reality. The Big Brother eye has entered or homes, we carry it around in our pocket, we sleep with it next to our beds. We volunteer personal information not just to our “friends” but to the powers above. This is a form of control. We start to view each other based upon the image presented through our “profile” our “status”, is this really us? No it is an edited version of ourselves put forth before the pixilated court room. We are not just a statistic. People sit in bars, buses, cafes, parks hooked on their screens rather than actually talking to each other. Getting positive feedback in the form of a “like” releases a hit of dopamine as we feel validated and acknowledged, but does this actually compare to a deeper feeling of connectedness? It becomes addictive, how much time is spent scrolling through the news feed? How about spending time seeing peoples faces rather than screens? How about hearing people’s news through spoken words? There are positive aspects like seeing the faces of those we love and sharing creative work and news but there are other ways. Hope to see you soon in the real world.