What Different Colors Mean to Me

I know, that this sounds pretty strange, if not dull but it is actually something that I think about a lot. Colors have so many shades to them, they are so complex yet they can be presented so simply and build together to form things even more complex. 

1. Orange:

There was a time when I felt that there was no hope. I was literally only twelve years old, but I had an anxiety disorder which made me extremely sensitive and paranoid. I really can't explain it now, so I'll try keep it as relevant as possible. Imagine feeling the weight of all suffering on your shoulders, feeling guilty for any bad thing that someone is faced with. Not just light guilt, but the intense sense of destruction. Then you hate yourself and feel like you can't start living again until you find forgiveness. I struggled deciding each time how I would gain forgiveness. I found it in the end, from my family. My dad. Now, that's all fine, the fact that I got this -frequently-only means that I had a conscience right? I'll repent. Forgive. Move on. Except I couldn't because there was nothing to forgive. I understand that now as really my 'crimes' were as petty as telling my mum I had finished my homework when I hadn't. Or, complaining about someone to a friend. But at the time it felt like my safe little world where my parents loved me and I was a good person would come crashing down on me, and even that wasn't punishment enough. I'll give you an example. I used to complain about my mum to my friends. Casual stuff, normal stuff, forgivable stuff. ''Oh my god, she yells at me for no reason! It's so unfair!' One day I stopped myself in my tracks and felt a pang of guilt which was unusual but not totally surprising. But I was afraid the cycle would start again.I came home and felt the pang again. And again. By night time I was crying in my room. What if this meant that everyone thought my mum abused me. What if social services took me away. What if she was punished. I felt like I had literally ruined her life just over a small, petty problem. Once the seed of doubt was planted in my mind it grew until it consumed me. I kept it in for days. Every time I would laugh, or smile or show the tiniest bit of happiness over trivial matters, like a joke my friend told I'd stop and remind myself everything isn't okay. Usually every time I had a worry, I was encouraged to talk it out with my dad. I'd wait for him to laugh, tell me it didn't matter and that he could forgive me and I'd immediately feel okay. But then a new one would come and it was always days, even weeks before I could work up the courage to tell him. Finally I told him and he simply laughed and hugged me. I can't really remember what he said but it was consolation, telling me to stop but it didn't matter. Yes. Whilst I'd sit around in my room thinking about this, worrying about it I'd smell the scent of my body butter. It was flavored orange, and my best friend had given it to me in a mini kit for my birthday. Of course I have the full set now, I don't buy anything but that line for my body. It had such a tangible scent as it was extremely strong. I'd rub it on me and smell only that. I can't really see the connection but I knew I started using it during the time period of my worst anxieties.I'd also light a vanilla candle as I huddled under the duvet literally picking the current 'worry' to pieces until I found a light. Hope that I didn't cause destruction and I'd hold onto that until I could relieve it and relent my troubles to my dad. Cheesy as this might sound, every time i apply it I feel so happy you can't understand. Euphoria. I don't have the candle anymore, which is a shame but it wasn't the most obtrusive scent out of the time so it doesn't matter. The one i always associate with oranges triggers extreme nostalgia and I feel elation. My brain doesn't cycle anymore. This doesn't mean I've become a good person, but at least I can handle flaws and humanly mistakes.