I know it’s not normal. It’s something that needs therapy that I can’t afford or get to fix. Most people don’t sit there when there’s a quiet moment thinking about how horrible of a person they are, pulling examples from throughout their life to reinforce just how much worse they’ve made the lives of everyone around them. I know it’s not normal to need constant noise to try and keep your brain distracted enough to quiet those thoughts as much as possible. But I just wonder, what must that be like? What’s it like to be normal where you can just enjoy a little peace in the silence without going through your biggest hits: regrets edition?

I know part of it’s just being born broken because I was doing this shit when I was a little, little kid. But these days, I can’t even blame bad luck when the reason there are so many examples at the ready is because of my history of terrible decisions and bad behavior. I had opportunities many beg for handed to me, and I squandered, wasted, or rudely refused every one of them until I got where I am now.

Every problem I face today is one of my own making. Every time I vent about it I’m reminded of that as people will come in and tell me how they were, “Just like you once, but I fixed myself up and got out of that, so you can too.” But I can’t. It’s doable. Just not by me.

So instead, I sit here, day after day, just trying to make enough noise to drown out the regrets. But sometimes there isn’t enough noise, it all boils up, and I’m left stewing in my regrets until it all runs dry and the process starts all over again.