How To Get Out of My Carefully Constructed Cage

I'm back...who knows for how long. This time I'm posting because I'm in a...well for lack of a better stereotype and word...emo mood. I've thought about a lot within the last few months and I've never let it out. It's like it's all on repeat in my read, like thoughts embedded within my mind that I can't erase no matter how many times I try to act like I'm okay. It's so sad that I can act like a happy girl around my family and be so incredibly good at it, that it completely surpasses my whole families radar. Especially my mom's since she knows me so well.

I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Except I'm Amber in EverLost-Land. I feel like I fell into this big, black hole expect it's all in my mind and I can't escape by defeating the Red Queen of Hearts. I don't think I've ever used a Disney analogy before. I could definitely make a Peter Pan analogy but it would be a dark, dismal, sad one and I like Peter Pan too much to do that right now.

Lost. That's such a word to describe my state of mind right now. Mess, too. I'm a lost mess. I used to love school, loved to learn and in a way I still do. I'm taking community college classes online full-time right now. And I hate it. I like the prospect of learning what I'm taking, but I'd rather just read the textbooks then take the class. And I always loved my grade school/high school teachers. I'm taking Criminology, Into to Global Security and Information, Computer and Security. They are all eight weeks long and then I start Forensic Science. All these classes are what I've looked forward to since I was 13 and decided to give up on my dream of becoming an actress and go with the reality of becoming a Special Agent in the FBI and working my way into the Behavioral Science Unit.

I love analyzing people and picking apart the way their minds work and why they do what they do, say what the say, think what they think. I gained that interest and love from watching movies and television. When I first saw Pirates of the Caribbean I was enraptured with the way the actors and actresses could make me smile, laugh and cry; how they could make me feel happy, sad, betrayed, scared, confused, excited and adventurous. I wanted to be able to do that for people too. I wanted to be able to give people an outlet from reality and fall in love with another world of fantastical, motivating, wonderful plots and stories. I still do...and I don't know what to do with the struggle of dreaming to be an actress and writer and learning to be in law enforcement. Both careers are all about human behavior, but instead of portraying it like I dream to, I have to settle for perusing certain (criminal) behaviors.

When you live in a little town in Arizona (a place of no opportunities) it's nearly impossible to become anything other than what I am now...A gas station clerk..no no, an injured gas station clerk, that's just going to a community college that are a dime a dozen. I'd love to live in California or Florida where I could get out of the small town life. I don't have natural motivation and I'm so reserved that it's difficult to get out of the carefully constructed cage I've tricked myself into.

Like I said...I'm a lost mess and I don't know how to dig myself out. I hate the self-pitying and self-destructive and self-hatred I've locked myself into. If only, I just knew how to start unlocking myself from it all.

Simple As That

Someone told me a few days ago that I'm so confident. I mentally scoffed. The same person told me I was pretty, I told them "I'm not, but thank you."

I've looked in the mirror naked for 2 minutes. Every day. I walk away from it as fast as I could because I was so disgusted and put off and saddened by what I saw. Me. I saw me as a fat girl, with crooked teeth and an acne embraced face.

I've become self loathing.

And it kills me inside.

I think about this every night. I think about how terrible I look. And I cry. I tell no one. Not even my mom or Nan or best friends.

I understand that no one is perfect. I understand everyone has flaws. I know that the girls on TV, magazines, and the like have body flaws too and that they're just covered up better than most girls. I honestly do. I know that looks should not be everything. And I know they aren't.

So here's the "but"... I have nothing to be confident about. Not one thing. I have no talents, though some say I do. I don't have an absorbent memory. I don't have a healthy, athletic or thin body. I don't have clear skin. I don't have straight teeth. I don't have any natural beauty. Hell, I don't have any courage. I don't have anything to be confident about.

And I'm saying this to a cyber world of strangers who probably think I'm nothing but a teenage whiner on a "Woe is me" fest.

But I know I'm not. I just....I can no longer keep this inside of my, eating at me. I'm beginning to hate myself and that scares me.

I'm 180 pounds of fat.

I'm a teenage scary cat with no social life.

I'm a talentless nobody.

I'm a lost, lonely and self-loathing girl.

You tell me different and I won't believe you.

Simple as that.

Animal Cruelty...Acts of Human Selfishness and Violence

Animal cruelty. Sometimes it's acknowledged, a lot of times, it is not. And for what reason? Why do humans become ignorant of the pain animals go through? There are humans who become outraged at the thought of another human murdering another human yet they themselves will slowly kill an animal through neglect and cruelty. What gives a human the right to cast cruelty on an animal merely because they can and because the animal cannot defend itself?

Hunters will get together do take down a single bear or more, gorillas, elephants, tigers....beautiful and unique SOULS! They do this to kill and sell their coats of fur, skin and the like. Dogs are put into fighting contests, are beaten, neglected, abandoned and starved....Cats are kicked, thrown, abandoned, burned and starved.

Now some will say, "Isn't putting animals in a Zoo cruel?" Here's my answer- I can understand putting an animal in a Zoo, if it has nowhere else to go and if it is suffering because of nature, or most usually, the carelessness and viciousness of humans. If it's in a Zoo for it's care- I can understand fully. But to put an animal in a cage for the sake of the often attitude of "I can and will" is downright wrong.

Below I have listed some facts from a website called dosomething.org. Anything in the parentheses are my own comments.

• In many circuses, wild and exotic animals are trained through the use of intimidation and physical abuse. Former circus employees have reported seeing animals beaten, whipped, poked with sharp objects and even burned to force them to learn their routines! (After learning this, I shall never go to a circus again.The nerve and indecency and cruelty they put them through for the entertainment of us humans is not necessary and not right! )

• Elephants who perform in circuses are often kept in chains for as long as 23 hours a day from the time they are babies. (Tell me, why? Why do animals have to suffer for the entertainment of humans? Do humans suffer for the entertainment of animals?)

• More than 15 million warm-blooded animals are used in research every year.

• Scientists estimate that 100 species go extinct every day! That's about one species every 15 minutes.

• If you live in Pennsylvania, California, Florida, Rhode Island, Illinois, Virginia, Oregon, New York, New Jersey and Vermont you have the legal right to refuse to participate in dissection in class! In Louisiana, there is a State resolution and in Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland and New Mexico, there are Departments of Education resolutions in place that allow you to refuse to dissect, although it hasn’t yet become a law.

• Dog fighting and cock-fighting are illegal in all 50 states. (And yet it still hasn't stopped. Harsher punishment needed? Or ignorance of the law?)

• It is estimated that on average it takes 1,000 dogs to maintain a mid-sized racetrack operation. New greyhounds are continually entering the system to replace greyhounds that grade-off due to injury, age or poor performance. There are currently over 30 tracks operating in the United States.

• Tens of thousands of wild and domesticated horses from the United States are cruelly slaughtered every year to be used for horsemeat in Europe and Asia. Since the last horse slaughter plants in the U.S. were closed in 2007, thousands of horses have been shipped to Canada and Mexico for slaughter. (Just because the US stopped slaughtering horses here, does NOT give them the right to ship them off to be slaughtered elsewhere. You still have a part in slaughtering them!)

• Many studies have found a link between cruelty to animals and other forms of interpersonal violence.

• Neglect and abandonment are the most common forms of companion animal abuse in the United States.

• A fur coat is pretty cool—for an animal to wear. Eighteen red foxes are killed to make one fox-fur coat, 55 minks to make a mink coat. (Us humans become outraged when we here of a serial killer, killing many for his own selfish reasons...What makes this any different?)

My heart aches for these animals subjected to the cruelty and selfishness and carelessness of the human race. My belief of what is right becomes more potent and unshaken. What is your belief of what is right? What do YOU believe in?