This is me

A Story by Cam vd Walt

A collection of ideas that keep me awake

Hi there. Im Cam, I am a person with an overactive mind and the following that you are about to read is a collection of thoughts and mental debates that keep me awake at night.

I crave any kind of affection
I get attached too easily
I love the feeling of being attached yet i hate it because i know that i will either do nothing about it to further my intrests or i will end up alone again.

I hate being alone
I hate the feeling of knowing that no one loves me outside of a family situation
I hate the fact that i miss her
I hate the fact that my wondering of weather she thinks of me ever keeps me awake at night
I hate the fact that one day i will have to commit to a relationship.

I search for any signs of intrest and pursue it too hard.
I always develop feelings for a person too fast
That drives me back into the darkness beacuse I know they dont feel the same

I love making people laugh and be happy, because I don't want them to feel what it is like to hurt even though they do, everyone does.

Ive learnt to internalize my emotions and the emotions that I pick up from others so i can try to understand what they are feeling and think about my own feelings.

I like to be there for people i care about, friends, family and lovers. No one wants to face their demons alone, so I open up to allow for them to feel less impacted by negative emotions or situations, the problem is that I begin to feel their hurt and sorrow and that makes me face things in my life that i dont want to yet.

I know that my friends are kind, i know that they have my back in tough situation. I try repay the favour as best I can by being there for them but it doesnt always work in my favour.

I fear being forgotten, purely because it makes my mind wonder about what made people forget me. Will i leave a legacy? A question i find myself asking to me often. Will i be just a blip on the radar, gone and forgotten in seconds? Or will i be someone that the world remembers for a long time. I guess we are all just a speck to the rest of the universe so does being remembered matter?

I dont like trusting people because i feel like i can be untrustworthy

I refelcted on myself today after a staff meeting at work at a summer camp. People discussed suicide and other dark emotions. I shared a few points on it but my emotions were welling up as the session went on and someone brought up the fact that the happy, loud, funny people around us arent always alright. This pushed me over the edge, I had to walk out and take a breather. Its nice to know that people understand my predicament. I always make jokes, smile and try to liven my peers spirits, to seek self happiness I guess. I promise that I am not as depressed as my writing is, i actually am quite pleasant.

I havent cried in a long time, I hate the saying, "boys dont cry" but i am the perfect example of it. I haven't cried properly in about a year and 5 years before that. I suppose i should talk about why i cried in 2016. Ghislain. A 15 year old kid was killed racing off road motorcycles. He was a good friend of mine. I got a phone call from my ex telling me he had declared brain dead and they were going to pull the plug the next morning, i swore at her and didnt believe her, in my blind panic I phoned my best friend who was in touch with the family with tears in my eyes, he answered the phone crying and confirmed what my ex had told me. I dropped the phone and ran out into the yard of my property and screamed into the night. I didnt sleep, i cried all night until i passed out from shear exhaustion from wailing and punching walls. I couldnt cry at his funeral. I looked into the eyes of two parents who had just lost their child to a sport that they were all passionate about. My heart broke as i saw his dad putting on a brave face. I couldn't cry though. Nowadays i can still see his smiling face, but i cant remeber what he sounded like. The pain has resided now i just feel the emotions of longing To see someone for one last time. That was the last time i cried. I feel that i really need to cry soon, but i hate crying because i feel like i have to be strong for my family that likes to tear its self apart at times. I often have to help put the pieces back together.

I think of my self as some what normal... not really, i seem like a really happy guy but in truth im not. I get upset about things way to quickly but i keep it in. Woman are an issue for me as well. I wish I could be like those moral-less drunken hook up crazed "f**k boys" that treat woman like s**t. But i know i cant. I wish i had less respect for woman cause then maybe i wont feel so bad when i see a girl that i some what like hook up with another guy. I guess the saying is true that nice guys finish last. Maybe i could go to the gym and get into better shape and max out my credit to buy a fancy car to impress people i dont like, maybe then that will bring some woman to me. Is that what a man is? A collection of ego, testosterone and sex drive. I hope not. I want to choose life, choose a exotic adventure, choose taking a mix of uppers and downers to numb my anger, or choose a life that makes me happy.

Do the people ive met ever think of me? I find my self asking this rather often. My brain likes to run amok in fields of werid thoughts. For example, does that stranger i spoke to on the beach today remember me? Did he think about me after our interaction? I highly doubt it , but what if he did? What would he think of me?

I mannaged to shut my brain out alot today. I had a refection session in which we had to write about a person that one is thankful for and means alot to you. I thought about my sister, she means alot to me. I do miss her now that im thousands of miles away. She is the one who i can talk to when ever i need to.

Kids change you. I experienced this on the first day of being at a summer camp working as a counselor. You have to be mature and be responsible cause kids are dependent regardless of age. They grow on you as you become more of a role model to them.

Family. For me family isnt defined by blood, it is defined by what people do. Alot of my friends i do consider as my brothers, my best friend sleeps at my house more often than he sleeps at his. I love them as if they were my own blood. My sister is one of these people who i consider family. I opened up to her about what she means to me and she shared the same feelings. We have a weird relationship, its along the lines of insulting each other constantly but taking comfort in each other when we need it.

I have always considered myself as a big brother type if role model to younger kids. I help them with what they need and keep them in line when they need some adjustment, but being a counsiler is strange, you are stuck between the older sibling and teacher (enforcement of rules and so forth) so one will be friends with the kids but also discipline when needed. You grow closer to the kids than most of their parents are. They trust you more, they feel more comfortable to tell you about thier issues that their parents dont even know about. One minute you are being a set of open ears to them to being a force of discipline.

Seeing couples makes me angry, not towards them. More towards myself and my history. I enjoy meeting new people and "hooking up" but i know i crave love over lust. Honestly I want a partner for the sake of having someone there for you all the time, as well as being able to trust someone, though trust is often what leads me to heart break, this is why i have a hard time trusting anyone. I kmow what you are thinking,"Wow just another hopeless romantic like the rest of us". That is partly true, but I know how to make people like me, well a version of me so to speak, its when they find my flaws then they are scared off.

I need to talk to someone. Im too scared to open up to someone though, ironic seeing as i have no problem with risking life and limb. I think thats why i am writing this. These pages have become my shrink in a way. By default you have become my shrink.
In all honesty, I miss my ex girlfriend so much right now it has become a slow ache that seems to never stop. Im thousands of miles away from my home and I dont miss it, of all things that i could miss about my home its a girl who became bored with me and did not want to deal with 4 months of me being gone. I dont blame her for breaking up with me, thats a tough situation in any relationship, what bugs me is the fact that the same night she ended things with me, everything seemed to be going just right for once. I was employed, making a good salary, became a competitive life saver, i had wittled down my friends to a small group that i genuinely loved like siblings, my parents were proud of me and tell their friends how well i was doing and then with in the time of 15mins my world that i had so proudly built began to crumble. I later quit my job because i couldnt stand to be a salesman anymore, i spent all my time either in the gym or drinking to keep the sadness out of my mind but eventually it was to be on a plane to america to be a camp counselor. I had time to reflect and think and now i am here stuck in this rut of missing her because i still love her so much. She is with another man, she moved on so quickly, it doesnt even seem that she was upset by us spliting much at all. I hate wondering if she ever thinks about me anymore, i really want to just talk to her and tell her how i feel and have her familiar warm embrace and her understanding of my feelings, she is one of the very few people in my life that knows what im feeling. I am very good at looking fine and looking happy but inside im hurting and she could see that, she was also one of the very few people that has seen me and heard me cry. If i could cry to her on the phone right now i would, maybe it would help me maybe it wouldnt. Maybe i should write her a letter or send her a message to tell her how i feel. Hey who knows maybe fate will bring us back together after i go home maybe not. Im just hesitant to tell her how i feel and having her reject me, i think that would send me over an edge that i wouldnt come back from. Maybe i should send her a copy of these memiors. Then she would be able to see how i feel. If I do then all i have to say is. "Hey. Its been a while since we've spoken. I hope you are doing well and you are happy. I just want you to know that i still love you, ive tried to tell my self that i dont, but i do and thats true. Even though we aren't together anymore i just want you to know that im gonna be there for you. I hope you still think of me every now and then." If this collection isnt sent out then it is because of 1 of 2 reasons, i have either died a horrible death or I have stopped writing because i have found something to keep me happy for a while.

I feel like I may be depressed, but im not sure about it. I always am a bit more down when i am alone, i hate being alone. Id rather have a stranger sleeping in my arms than nothing. When im around people im much more fun and in the moment. My thoughts scare me sometimes when im alone. I always manage to stumble deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole when im by my self. When i am alone i feel like no one is there for me in a weird way. Do other people feel like this? I cant be the anomaly in the expanse of the human race. Is this feeling that makes me sad and uneasy count as depression? Im not sure. Im not suicidal, I enjoy life, people and the little things, i just cant seem to like myself all that much when im alone, and that feeling of being alone is intensified when you are on a different continent at the age of 19 and going through the healing process after a breakup.

It is raining tonight, the sound of the soft pitta patter of rain on my cabin roof and my campers sleeping are relaxing, its times like this that i like to write, all be it to my demise because the only free time i have is after 10:30pm and i only head to sleep around 1am then having to wake up at 7:30am. But i am at peace in the cozy of the darkness in my cabin.

The sky was a dull grey the whole day today, almost Foreshadowing and accompanying my s**t day, i got in trouble for taking some time to myself, a stupid game and a term of endearment, i nearly lost my job over it. I got a written warning for the stupidist of s**t.

Hatered is a weird thing for me, instead of reasoning it out i use hatered as my fuel to be better. I have learnt how to hate someone but still have respect for them. Hatered and anger are what make me want to live, yet i can be happy it seems strange to think about but it is possible. I believe that hate, anger and sorrow are nessicary tools to live, with out them life seems too simple.

I have trust issues. I know this because i dont trust my self never mind others. I dont trust my feelings therefor i dont trust other peoples feelings for me. I think it all stems back to the first time i got into a relationship well what i thought was one, i got played after i had given all i could, after that period of time i learned to not trust someone. For better or for worse that is how i am now, i feel like the less you trust someone the less it hurts when they betray your trust and when you betray theirs. I trust my decisions and i go with them snd the consequences that come with them, but my emotions betray me.

"Love is just a camouflage for what resembles rage" a line from a song titled Snuff by Slipknot. I find that be true, because when love is ripped away from you, then and then only will you experience true hatered, sorrow and self loathing, mix that together and you have one big flaming ball of rage. I know this because it holds true for me. I hate alot of things because of love, i know true sorrow because of love and i know what it is like loathe ones self because of love. Plutonic love is not singled out here, the love felt by families and friends can also be the spark in a gassed room, and once the fumes ignite, inferno. The same thing happens with ones self.

Addiction is a strange thing. I am addicted to a substance, Nicotine. I dont think of myself as addicted, but i have cravings and daily fixes. I first tried smoking whrn i was about 13 or 14 and ever since then tobacco has been a part of my life, purely because i used it as a release as a teen. Nowdays i dont smoke tobacco much anymore, i use a vaporizer to get the nicotine into my body to feed my addiction, i have cut back alot on my nicotine levels, i am now on 3mgs of nicotine, a quater of what is in a cigarette. I can stop when ever i want, ironic thats what addicts say. The reasons i dont stop are muddy. "You're an addict, so be addicted to something else" a line from Mark Renton in Trainspotting. That is pretty prevelant for me because i have davbled about in drugs, the worst i have tried is Kat. A dirty and cheap methamphetamine that is running ramped in South Africa. I enjoyed it, i never became addicted to it because i decided to rather be a nicotine addict rather than being fucked up on somrthing that bad. I have seen and dealt with the addiction phase of it, my best friend who is my brother rather than friend was heavily addicted to it because of family issues. He changed so much because of it, i like to think i helped him kick the habit by being supportive of his decisions. One thing about an addict is that they wont stop unless thry want to stop. Alot of my family are and were addicts so i know how the story goes. The biggest thing with my personal addictions is that i know i dont want to kick them no matter gow much i say i do. I have learnt how to moderate my in takes so that i dont become a niccotine fiend as i like to call it. Its a strange thing addiction, it is a double edged sword.

I have given up on love officially. I feel like it is just overrated and depressing. Watching people fall in love with each other when they know the end of it is in less than 6 weeks makes me angry, not at their love, but their blindness towards the fact that summer will end and they will be left heart broken by it. I know from experience. Those that wish to reach enlightenment must stumble and fall in the dark first. That should be a quote On a shirt.

I believe that people who are religious are blind. If it makes you happy then it makes you happy but i think that faith is a concept made up by men wgo could not understand the workings of the world around them so they made up a being that did it all, who could blame them? Back in the times of mankind's infancy when science was not a known thing by anyone.

We are all in the same machine, but we all have our own devices. We are enslaved by machinery we create and addicted to the greed we enjoy. We choose to be antisocial on social medai, we'd rather fester in our own self pity than bring ourselves joy for the idea of being noticed. We want what we dont have and we hate what we dont understand. We try to live with no consequence and shut out our guilty consciences. We love being hated and we hate expressing genuine love because it seems weak. We want to be strong but we opress emotions that create strength. We pray to the thin air hoping to be heard but we wont hear the voices of other people.

"I love you" is not a phrase i use often, i mainly use it when talking to my parents and partners, tonight i used it in a very loose but heartful way, a girl who i am colleagues with at the summer camp who was a potential hook up at first gravitated to a good friend thatwould hug me and grab me like a lover, we spent the night out on the town getting drinks illegally (well i was at least because she is over 21) and she drove us around, we shared cigarettes and liqour with the others in our car until we cake back to our camp and signed in, as we walked back to the split between our cabins i hugged her and she grabbed me and held me tight and said, "I love you cam." It took me by suprise at first because she has a boyfriend back home and she is about 5 years older than myself, i replied, "I love you too." I felt those words slip out of my mouth and off my tounge. She held onto me for longer and burried her face into my chest until she felt suffice and then let go slowly. Im not sure how to treat the situation as i know i am the one whos is always there for her to talk to, to cry to and to laugh with but it always feels as if she sees me as more of a friend, until tonight. I will have a sleep on it and think tomorrow.

Trust. I trust my self physically in anything i do, i dont trust myself emotionally though. I am learning how to trust my emotions slowly. I have been doing alot to build trust between me and my campers because i want them to see me as the older brother that they respect. They have been seeing me as that lately, they said it themselves that i am like the big brother that keeps them in check, rough houses them a bit and i am always there for them when they need to talk. I have learnt to love these boys as if they were my own kin. Despite their flaws and their behavior i see them as little brothers. They know that they can trust me because if they are climbing or are on a high ropes element i make a point of being their belayer and giving them support as they face their fears. I trust myself in the physical and emotional aspects of being a mentor/brother i just dont trust my feelings of love towards others. Most likely because of my past, and raisin cookies that look like chocolate chip cookies. You cant trust those cookies. I would like to come back to this camp one day in the near future and see them all grown up. Listen to me being all parentish.

I feel like a rebel with no cause, purely because my generation has no great strife, no great conflict and no great depression. Our strife is social media, our great conflict is a spiritual one and our great depression is our lives. I rebel against the system that we create, i live in an age where rebellion is cool and trendy, everyone is a rebel and not being one is fround apon. No body can think for themselves anymore. No one communicates in any way other than a vague status. I hate that. It is that which i rebel against.

I believe in the stages of a break up. Anger, negotiation, hate, depression and acceptance. I am currently in the acceptance phase.
I have accepted the fact that she has moved on from me, it still hurts but i have moved on. I have realized that the only way out of rock bottom is up. This is what i have been trying to accomplish for a while now. I am pursuing other relationships and trying to better myself emotionally and mentally. So as i sit here burning through my last packet of cigarettes and packing my last few lips of chewing tobacco, i can say i am healing.

This collection of thoughts and mental debates has no beginning and no end, strange since everything has a start and end point. I enjoy writing like this because it is reliant on my spontaneous thoughts, it isnt linear yet it is fluid. It is me looking into my own head in a third person perspective of soughts.

"We are nowhere and it is now" -Bright Eyes. It is a strange thought but true, we are all going somewhere in life but as a species it seems that we are going nowhere as our future seems brighter but we are destined to destroy ourselves and all of that is just a blink of time. Strange but true.

Ego death. A term used by drug users and spiritualists. An ego death is the complete loss of one's self, you begin to see that what makes you you aka the ego is just a thing that is attached to our physical being. We can become sure of our existance by forgetting it. One has to accept that we are all just a collective consciousness and that we can tap into that reality by destroying the sense of individualism to become a ball of consciousness that understands how the universe is connected. We are all just condensed matter, slowed to become solid. We are all created by star matter that exploded and expanded ieons ago. We are all made of the same elements, atoms and matter, we are everything, everywhere and everyone. All of this comes from going through an ego death and coming back. I have achieved this through meditation, while others use hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD, DMT or psybociline.

Pursuing someone older than you is strange, there is a girl who is 5 years older than i am, she looks younger than i do and acts like girls my age. Im not sure if she wants to get with me or not, she does have a bogfriend back home thay she talks about all the time, but she treats me like a boyfriend more than a friend which is strange. she always comes to me when she has a problem and i am always there hear her out and hold her when she cries. She grabs me and holds me tight every time she sees me during the day amd looks at me with the longing eyes that i have seen many times before. She loves hearing about my stories of my past when we hike to the staff smoking area in the parking lot. She cuddles up to me when we are sitting and star gazing amd she has said she loves me, i feel in a loose way because she was drunk when she said it, it sounded genuine but then again with liquor in ones system anything can sound genuine. We have not kissed each other, but there have been a few situations where the moment did seem right, i backed out because i did not want to ruin our friendship, she is my best friend at camp but i would like to kiss her. I wish we could be together for the next month and then just leave it at that and have no feelings after we return to our respective countries. Emotion is a curious thing because it wont let you go after. I dont want to go the process of loss again, i dont want to reopen scars that have healed.

Realising that i have to be an adult wasnt as hard as i thought it was. I was forced to be the second i stepped foot on the plane out of south africa. The one thing that was hard for me to accept was that as an adult all the emotions that you feel as a teen didnt change. I thought that it kind of just fades away because you have to deal with more responsibility, but i found that not true, i still feel the emotions that i had when i was 16 but now i am more emotionally mature and can deal with them in a more constructive way. I think thats why i always want to be there for people when they are feeling bad, because I understand the emotions that they are dealing with.
A dull pain drives into my left side brain that pressures my eye in its socket, the pain itches my upper back jaw and causes my mouth to become restless as the pain drills into my temple.

I am now 19. On the 28th of July 2017 at 1:07am i am lying here in my bed at camp thinking about the years i have lived. I have lived a good life, all be it a tough one at times, well most times, i have lived well. I have learnt alot and grown up. I feel like i am an adult that still has the flair of a youth. I am a little bit older and a little bit wiser now. I have raged against the dying light. I have not gone gental into that good night. I have lived the carpe diem and carpe noctus life. I am happy deep down, i still struggle with boughts of depression but i am getting better at getting through them.

Love is the monster. My summer interest confessed that she likes me and that she wants to be with me but she is messed up about her relationship back home. Understandably. I know it isnt the nicest thing for me to do but I didnt instigate the feelings. I stood my ground as a friend, she began to feel more inclined to be more than friends with me. Now i have become invested. Not emotionally but mentally because before she was an interest she was my friend and still is. I dont want to loose her as either.

I lost my job today. 1 August 2017

It is now 12:10 on the 31rst of October 2017.

Its been a while since I have written. Let's recap, I got fired from my summer camp jobs in america because my day off group and I we're drinking and one of my fellow counsilers thought that it was a good idea to go and drink in the camps van and spill beer. 5 of us left camp the next day. That was the first time I cried since Ghislains passing. Time has passed and wounds have healed, I have regrets but I am living with them. I now spend my days wasting away in an office job provided by my father to pay off the debts that I owe, my band has released our first album and it is doing well, we have garnered a decent following. I am powerlifting again as well as lifesaving. Everything is carrying on and seeming to get better yet here I am again spilling my metaphorical guts all over this page. Why? To be completely honest I don't know.

Today I fought with my dad over his views of my hard work, he doesn't seem to know that I know how to work hard and he does not seem to get that I don't spend all day in his office listening to music and browsing Facebook. I hate his way of critizing me, I believe that everyone needs criticism because with out it everyone would have their heads so far their own a*****e that it would take the jaws of life to split their mouths from their small intestine.

I still long for love yet I don't want to get back into a serious relationship. The more I love the less I get back and the less I get back the more I love. Kinda s****y catch 22 in my opinion.

Late at night I sit away listening to melancholy lo-fi hip hop and other cringy s**t that I haven't listened to since I was about 15. Next year I go to college and try to make a legacy for my self. Sigh.

After working in an office environment for a sum total of 2 months I have deduced that I hate corporate office life. Being forced into a cubical told when and where to do things and being under played for it. This has made me focus on music alot more, I want to live a life free from any and all office stationary and s****y lunch time small talk with people you can't stand to be around for more than 3 seconds that ensues when you are waiting to microwave your s**t packed store bought teriyaki chicken that would make any Asian man turn his nose in revulsion at the sight of it. Is this the image of a true man, one who is chained to his desk by his tie and castrated by the idea of talking to thief hot female co worker at the photocopying machine who knows that you "coincidentally" need to photocopy a insignificant piece of the corporate bullshit pie when ever she is at the photo copying machine. My disgust and casual hatred for the world of suits and paperwork stems from the fact that I cannot sit still for longer than an hour let alone pay attention to sending emails detailing the amazing quality of the wristbands we are selling for longer than 10mins. I work to pay the debt I owe. I want to travel and play my music to the world, I want people to know my name. I want people to know that I exist and I have something to say about the s**t show we call life.

I haven't been with a female since I was in america, it sucks frankly. I miss the intimacy of having someone around who knows your deepest fears desires and aspirations in life. I still think of my ex every now and then, primarily and yet quite sadly when I am pleasuring my self, the reasons, probably because she was the first woman I actually made love to, not having sex but making love. Sad I know but the truth is the truth. Looking back on this memoir I can see the progression from heart broken to lost to depressed and now to... Well I would describe my state at this time as being sick of the current state of affairs that my life is in right now.