Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the moment I stepped into this world I never felt like I was the same as anyone else around me. Though we all came from the same mother… I was different. They all made me painfully aware that I was different. As a child I felt alone. I didn't feel a part of this family. My family didn't do very much to change that opinion. They called me an Oreo, lame or implied that when I became an adult I would be an inconsiderate snob. Amongst my friends I felt different. My mother told me it was because I had older siblings so I was a little bit more mature than my counterparts. I wasn't sure what it was I just knew that I didn't think or feel the way they felt. I didn’t see things the way they saw them.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, I loved alone.

I used to feel so depressed and through weekends and summer’s I never got out of bed. As a child as a teenager I could never understand why it seems that everything I love you think I like everything I was part of the things that other people didn’t find is important. It became a pattern. I didn’t want to face the world. I felt safe in my room locked up with the characters in my head tone their stories all night.

Then- in my childhood, in the dawn

Of a most stormy life- was drawn

From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still:

I've learned that things you experience as a child can carry on with you into adulthood. It became a part of me to get into the habit of thinking that I myself was not enough. I got it in my mind that it was okay to be me. It was difficult for me to keep friends because I can only be someone else for so long. Eventually all my friends were gone and I was alone again.

From the torrent, or the fountain,

From the red cliff of the mountain,

From the sun that round me rolled

In its autumn tint of gold,

From the lightning in the sky

As it passed me flying by,

From the thunder and the storm,

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view.

I then grew into an adult that feared the world and never trusted anyone. When others saw heaven, I saw hell. When others saw a blue sky, I saw rain clouds and darkness. I became the forever pessimist seeing the glass as half empty at all times. It became depressing to not be able to see the happiness that surrounded me. It took a lot of work to pull myself out of this.  Depression is difficult to deal with. But getting help was the first step. Coming out was the second, accepting my own differences was third and being honest with family and friends was fourth.

 I’m on step three.

**The poem above is one of my favorites. It is “Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe