Heartbreak

Heartbreak isn’t what you think

It’s not an isolated event that only occurs at the termination of a relationship

Heartbreak is prolonged

Recurring

Debilitating

Shattering

It’ll make you lose hope in people

In promises

And in love

It occurs in the lies

In the fears that become reality

And in the future that doesn’t exist

It occurs in the happiness they find without you

In memories that now seem a betrayal

And in the words that become unfulfilled promises

It thrives on the painful realisations that

You weren’t who you thought you were to them

And you weren’t ever going to be enough

All because you weren’t her

Heartbreak lingers

It follows you

Tainting everyone you touch

Poisoning your reality with bitterness

And guarding your heart with reservation

Heartbreak will make you want to give up

On people

On love

On life

It’ll bring out your darkest days

It’ll steal your hope and bury it

In insecurities

Fear

And bitterness.

It’ll fill that void with never-ending emptiness

A chasm of apathy, indifference, numbness

You’ll forget what it means to feel

To trust

To love

To believe in something magical

And you’ll convince yourself it doesn’t exist

That you’re destined to experience life of the lonely

You’ll regret ever having met them

You’ll hate them. Despise them. Resent them.

Give me my heart back, you’ll beg

Give me my time back, you’ll plead

Give me my innocence back, you’ll insist

Give me my hope back, you’ll wish

You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to understand

To figure out where you went wrong

To figure out why not you

To figure out what is so incessantly dysfunctional about you

You’ll blame yourself

You’ll internalise

Project

Generalise

Your future will appear glum

Happiness an unobtainable goal

Love an unrealistic fantasy

This nightmarish pain will consume you

Rip you apart, from the inside out

And it will destroy you

In the worst way possible

Because you are still alive

Heartbreak changes you

And not for the better

It brings out the worst in you

It destroys hope, abolishes optimism, and kills love

It’ll make you wish you never loved

Because love wounds

And love scars

And I’m still yet to find a love that heals.

The deathly price of technology

We live in a technology-dominated society. The same technology that was once invented to make communication more accessible has been abused and is now controlling our lives. Not only are most of us blinded to these damaging effects, but we have also become entirely dependent on it. Our lives are being lived through screens. Instead of meeting others serendipitously, we meet people through calculated swipes, filters, and by carefully sifting through artificially created profiles. And honestly? I don’t fucking care for any of it.

The reason I deactivated my Facebook is because I’m not strong enough to sift through the bullshit. To be constantly fed messages of positivity, of ‘happiness’, of success and prosperity. Facebook is not an accurate representation of reality. Nor is it real. It’s superficial. It’s artificial. And it’s destroying our wellbeing. The worst part about all of this though? Our brain has not, and will not, evolve fast enough to acknowledge that these are fundamental truths.

Consciously we can identify that Facebook (and when I refer to Facebook, I really mean all forms of media and news) is not an accurate representation of society. What we cannot do though, is we cannot stop the undeniably costly effect that all of this information is having on us subconsciously. Don’t believe me? Ask people if they are happy with their bodies and the majority of them will tell you no (if they’re being honest and not idealistic). We know we should love our bodies, but we don’t. And why don’t we? For the majority of us, it has absolutely nothing to do with traumatic experiences of being bullied, instead, it’s because of the millions of images we have been processing subconsciously since birth. We are constantly being fed images of what fit, healthy, and attractive bodies look like - consciously we can rationalise why ours don’t look like that (maybe it was photoshopped), but subconsciously, we can’t. Subconsciously we internalise. We compare. We criticise. All of which creates internal conflict, emptiness, and deep-rooted dissatisfaction.

Some heterosexual individuals might wonder why homosexual adolescents still struggle so much with their identity when society has made significant gains in accepting the LGBTQI+ community. And it’s because we still live in a very heterosexual dominant society. Homosexual characters are still severely underrepresented in the media; “We cannot be, what we cannot see.” Although opinions are becoming more accepting, individuals still internalise their sexuality as being ‘wrong’. To them, it still isn’t considered ‘normal’; they still have to ‘come out’. When was the last time a straight kid ever had to ‘come out’? How many parents discuss their child’s sexuality synonymously and as freely as they do with their achievements? It doesn’t happen. Because although consciously we might be more accepting, most of us internalise the subconscious messages from the media that being gay is still deemed ‘wrong’.

Many counterarguments I’ve heard regarding the destruction of technology on our wellbeing centres around the ‘positives’ of such media, such as the increased accessibility and connection to others. But is connecting via a screen really connecting? All it is is words. You lose tonality. You lose context. And you lose body language. So you lose 95% of communication. Words, as I’m sure anyone who has ever been burned by them in a relationship will agree, are superficial. They’re easy. Flimsy. Hollow. One of the main reasons I think relationships are faltering in today’s society is because of this flimsy and empty foundational basis in which two people try to create a life from. People are becoming masters of their vocabulary; articulating the perfect concoction of words to seduce you into believing they are everything they say they are. Perfect. Whole. Secure. But all of that is a lie. Why? Because none of us are any of those things. The problem? We can’t see it, because no one lives their truth.

And the truth is, we’re all broken. And damaged. And struggling. And although that should bring comfort to know we aren’t alone, it doesn’t. Because everyone is living this same paradoxical life. One in which struggles appear absent, negative emotions repressed, and authenticity lost. Who are you when you’re not trying to be someone else? Because that’s the person this world needs to see. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, your daughter, your son – all of whom are suffering in silence much like you. What the world needs is it needs individual heroes. It needs individuals to stand in the confidence of themselves, their real selves, to show the world what it means to be human. In struggle and in success. In defeat and in prosperity. In rage and in joy. People can’t be what they can’t see – so be the hero you want to see in this world.

I heard an acclaimed author the other day say something like, “Don’t share your problems with the world in real-time, it’ll just look like you’re doing it for attention. Wait until you have learned the lesson and gotten through it before you share the struggles of your private life.” So individuals instead need to struggle in silence? That contradicts the very social nature in which we were designed. Often the hardest problems can only be resolved with a fresh pair of eyes, new ears, and alternative perspectives. Our old thoughts and methods will ultimately become stale and eventually lose their efficacy. We need to stop telling others not to feel these so called ‘negative emotions’. Nothing in this world ever changed from indifferent, emotionless individuals. We need anger; it’s the fuel that proceeds change. And it might just be the fuel that saves humanity.

Right now, I’m struggling. I’m struggling to contain my deep-rooted resentment towards white oppressive men. I’m struggling to talk to people because I refuse to do so via a screen. And I’m struggling with wanting to get to know people. Why? Because the last girl that I gave my heart wholeheartedly to and who confessed to never having felt more herself, consciously and preferentially chose to surround herself around those who made her feel like her representative self. Her ideal self. Her unobtainable self. What this communicates to me is that people would rather pretend to be someone they are not than actually be themselves. And that, to me, is overwhelmingly heartbreaking. We are being conditioned to become emotionless robots, but we are not. We are still human. And we still feel. So instead, we are being filled with despair. And emptiness. And conflict. Society, and particularly the media, is encouraging us to be these representatives – everything is encouraging us to be anything, but ourselves.

I’m worried for our future. The advancement of technology is occurring at rates that evolution cannot withstand. Our brains are not equipped to successfully process the millions of messages we receive and internalise subconsciously every day. Because of this lag, our brain is dangerously deficient in coping and defence mechanisms to counteract this poison. That is why, I believe, we have seen, and will continue to see depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicide rates continue to rise at alarming rates. As beneficial as helplines are, they are merely temporary bandaids for the much more complex, universal, and potentially apocalyptical crisis that is affecting the world. And until we rebel against technology, it will continue to be the silent killer; killing us in the worst way possible because we are still alive.

Post-election feels

Over the past couple of months I have learnt that emotional pain invariably originates from misunderstandings. Whether that’s the failure to be understood or failure to understand another, one thing is true: misunderstanding causes suffering. So what does understanding create? It creates empathy. Acceptance. And love.

I have struggled with these election results. Not just because of the man elected, but because I could not understand how America consciously elected him to be president, especially given everything that we witnessed in his campaign. Ah, but what about the media’s influence I hear you say, are the media responsible for what we witnessed in not just one, but all three presidential debates? The child-like behaviour, the narcissism, the degradation of women, the racism towards Muslims, the hypocrisy, the lies, the failure to take accountability for his words and actions, the emotional instability, the clear absence of respect for others - yeah that was Trump as his most authentic self.

When I look at Trump, that is all I see. I see a man who does not represent the American people, he represents a small minority; white, wealthy, straight men. I do not see anything that he proposes to do for this country because I cannot see past the aforementioned shortcomings. And perhaps that is very close-minded, or perhaps it is merely because that is what is important to me.

Because this is what I see in Trump, admittedly it was all I saw in his supporters too. And it enraged me. How could anyone support such a clearly racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic bigot like him without being one themselves? I didn’t understand. And that caused such negative energy to reside within me. Anger. Frustration. Disappointment. I have been filled with all of these spiteful emotions even prior to these election results. I assumed that supporting a candidate meant that you not only agree, but also condone all that he represents. But tonight, I think differently.

Scott Stabile wrote a fantastic piece on this very issue tonight stating, “They weren’t voting against my interests. They were voting for their own. That’s how elections work. No candidate will meet all of our desires. We decide what issues we care about the most, and what convictions we’re willing to compromise along the way.” He further continues, “A news reporter stationed himself at a polling place in rural Pennsylvania on election day. He asked a woman in her mid-40s if she was voting for Trump or Clinton. She said she had a couple kids in high school and wanted them to graduate and be able to find jobs. She planned to vote for Trump, even though she “didn’t like some things about him,” because she believed he was a better choice for the economy. “I’m voting for my children,” she said.

The reporter interviewed another woman, mid-30s, who was also voting for Trump. He asked her if she was bothered by the things Trump has said about women. She answered “yes, definitely,” but that she was bothered more by the threat of terrorism and felt that he would keep the country more secure.”

These individuals voted for Trump because of what was most important to them and their situation. They didn’t vote for Trump because they thought that his behaviour was by any means acceptable, it was merely less important than issues of the economy and security. Can I really judge them for that?

The reason I struggled to understand these individuals who supported Trump is because social issues are very important to me. My life is governed by the value of how we treat one another. We are all humans and we are all deserving of respect. To see a man so clearly disregard that, how could I possibly support anything that man stood for when he failed to fulfil the value that is most important in my life?

I understand that this value is not shared by all, nor is it overly important to many. I can respect that. I also hope that others can respect that this value is of the utmost importance to me and I cannot, and will not, support someone who fails to fulfil it. In the words of Scott Stabile, “And let’s remember each other in the interactions that make up our day. If you don’t support Trump, please remember that the majority of his supporters are not white nationalist racists. If you’re in conversation with others who want to lump all Trump supporters into some hateful category, speak up if you can. Be courageous enough to say you don’t support Trump but you don’t condemn all those who voted for him. Be a voice for unity, not division.

If you voted for Trump, please remember your candidate was not only enthusiastically endorsed by the KKK, but he himself spent much of his campaign insulting minorities and immigrants. If you’re in conversation with others who support his bigoted views, speak up if you can. Be courageous enough to say you support Trump, but you don’t agree with bigotry of any kind. Be a voice for unity, not division.”

I have no doubt that we will all be okay, we usually always are. But telling someone “everything is going to be okay” only does one thing: invalidates what they are presently feeling. Things aren’t okay for many. Whether they’re riddled by fear, rage, devastation, sadness, grief, or fury, we need to let them feel. We need to encourage them to feel. Suppressing, struggling, and fighting against our feelings only intensifies and prolongs them. It also creates secondary emotions of resentment, bitterness, guilt, and hate – none of which serve anyone.

So if you are not a Trump supporter, I encourage you to feel what you need to feel. I encourage you to be as humanly you as you are, in all the beautiful assortment of emotions that make you real. I encourage you to be loud and vocal; do not be silenced or suppressed, even to appease those on Facebook. It’s about time we use Facebook to accurately portray what it means to be a human, to be real, to be alive. If you are a Trump supporter, I encourage you to step into that space of misunderstanding and to empathise with your fellow Americans (and non-Americans). We can unite through this, but first we must acknowledge, understand, and accept what others are presently thinking and feeling. “Because the truth is, rarely can a response make something better, what makes something better is connection.” And connection starts from understanding.