Hello again everyone, It's Jaye from At Least i Try ready to take a deep dive into one of my previous songs.
Alternative Title: This is a story all about how I gaslit myself
This one is going to be difficult to explain because of two reasons: This song is about someone I know and I don't want to reveal too many details and because the mental state I was lead to my judgement being compromised. I'll explain, but please forgive the vagueness of the situation.
First of all, the song is all about anxiety. Anxiety leads you to you thinking many different things, all at one time. Maybe my anxiety stems from ADD. I wouldn't say I have ADD because I haven't been diagnosed with it, but I definitely have been diagnosed with GAD or Generalized Anxiety Disorder. That lead me to start creating many different scenarios in my head about someone I knew.
After spending some time with them and their friends in one of the most awkward situations of my life, my mind began to unravel. What the hell had I just witnessed? There were different signs of things happening that I wasn't okay with. No one ever outright told me anything was happening, but I picked on little clues here or there.
I felt bad afterwards though. I felt like I was making up stories out of thin air and trusting my gut felt like a mistake. I felt like I was categorizing people into boxes that they don't fit into. I began to dislike those people because of ideas in my head, and not reality. That's what the song is about: Me hating myself because of demonizing people for no real reason
But it gets WAY more interesting because I wrote the song while basically gaslighting myself
After a while, the truth came out when I confronted the person I was close with. My gut was actually correct. The ideas I had of these people were true.
So my anxiety let me be hyperaware of a situation, then led me to feeling bad about myself for putting pieces together, and then led to me confronting someone about something that was bothering me. The only part of that I regret? Feeling bad about myself.
Anxiety can be detrimental at times. My heart races at the thought of everyone looking at me. When I eventually start playing my music live, every night is going to be a panic attack. Anxiety can also be a super power. Wanting to remove negative stimulus from your life, AKA negative reinforcement, can be a powerful tool. Over time, and with therapy, I have turned my anxiety into a weapon. I know what thoughts to give myself to psyche myself out and spur change.
This is just me personally, everyone is different.
I'm sure you've heard it all before about how if you think you need to talk to someone then you should, and I agree with that. I'm not going to give you a long lecture about it though, just know that it has helped me a lot. I used to be a lot angrier of a person. I lacked assertiveness as well. Now I stand up for myself first and foremost, to hell with the cost.
I used to want to save the world, now I'm just trying to save myself.
Oh and why the title? I first step was admitting I had a problem with anxiety, and with how I judged people. It's weird though because my judgements were correct. So it's like double jeopardy.