Talking to Myself

October 24th 2023

Hello and welcome to Talking to Myself. If you are new here, I am excited that you have made the decision to follow my writing journey. For those of you who have been here since day one (there are only 8 of you, so you know who you are): thank you for being here and supporting me along the way.

A year ago, my opening post on this blog was an introduction to what “Talking to Myself” truly means, and why it is important and meaningful to me.

A lot has happened in the last year.

I am still working through what the past 12 months have looked and felt like, so we will get there. For now, here is a brutally honest re-introduction of Talking to Myself:

I still remember the first time I told myself an elaborate, highly detailed story and wished so desperately that I had written it down as fast as I told it. I had spent the better part of an afternoon riding a razor scooter in circles on the driveway of the house I grew up in. I told the story; speaking the words and thinking the thoughts of multiple characters simultaneously. I was twelve.

The older I got, the more I recognized this deeply engrained ache and long for storytelling. I started a personal blog in high school that I filled with angsty, depressing poems, shorts stories, music lyrics…I wrote down the things that I felt and things I longed to feel. I wrote about my heartbreaks, my wins, my goals. I wrote about hating myself and others. I wrote about being angry with God and myself. I wrote down the things that I was not able to speak out loud, for talking to yourself is not how you make friends in high school.

I may not still be walking this earth, had I not learned how to talk to myself. Working through things in my head helped to an extent, but I never found peace in the burdens I held or the mistakes I made until I sat with myself and talked things through. This did not begin happening until recently.

When I found out my scoliosis had progressed further and required surgical intervention, one of my only coping mechanisms was staring at myself in the mirror and, through tears, telling myself that everything would be okay. I found myself in this same place, inches from the mirror, several times in the years that followed. At my lowest of lows, I knew that it was my own self that understood best.

Other coping mechanisms that I developed were not nearly as healthy, and many of those I carry the burden of to this day. It is hard to tell your friends and family that, as a 15-year old, you bought prescription pain-killers from peers in school. It is even harder to carry that secret, and the dangerous progression of that, silently throughout the years, until one day the truth comes out for everyone to see.

In Talking to Myself I explore what it means to discover the most authentic “you” in the midst of suffering. I share my perspective on chronic pain and depression, and the debilitating effects that is has on a young person’s life. I hope to share, in the most honest and raw ways possible, what looming addiction and helplessness look like. I hope to lay out my life with the intention of making someone else feel heard and understood. I am not a victim of the things I have experienced, and neither are you.

I am so glad you are here.

~ Maddie