The Tap Theory

By Tanya F Ross

The Tap theory is about a young female taking a few days out of her life to go on a hike of self-discovery. The start of this delightful walk with friends turns into an incredibly mixed emotional adventure. The story goes off into a lot of different theories. Why people act certain ways, social media, anxiety, overthinking and self-confusion.

“The apprehensive personality is not spoken enough about for people who let themselves worry about it every single day”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Nov 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543495980

Tanya F Ross

It’s simply a story. Without obvious twists or plots. It’s an insight into an average girl’s thoughts that are considered too far from average these days. It’s a story you’ll find comfort in if you overthink. The way the mind works with these theories in this book that as the writer, I don’t feel comfortable talking about with even my closest friends because not only are these theories in our head, the paranoia about talking with people and the fear of their response, that’s where the going gets tough and when you need a story to read that is something similar to how you are feeling- instead of a book with a happy ending. I hope you find comfort and understanding. This story is for peace of mind. “It’s hard to write a story about your paranoia without getting paranoid about the story”

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Copyright © 2019 by Tanya F Ross.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/12/2020

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Gielinor Loop

Part 1. Is the colour that I see the same colour that you see?

Part 2. The Mountain

Part 3. Blue

Part 4. Officially living the dream

Chapter 2 A Little Expected

Part 1. Taboo

Part 2. Seize the moment with nothing

Part 3. I’m not sure if you know what I mean by bits

Part 4. Don’t trust anyone, not even me

Chapter 3 The eye sees but it cannot see itself.

Part 1. Butterfly

Part 2. The Alphabet

Part 3. The Tree

Part 4. Tread softly because you tread on my anxiety

Chapter 4 Bonnie

Part 1. Blossom

Part 2. I know you care

Part 3. You can shake the sand from your shoes, but it will never leave your soul

CHAPTER 1

Gielinor Loop

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Part 1. Is the colour that I see the same colour that you see?

When I was around sixteen years old, I wondered what it was like to reach the highest point of a mountain, the maximum level, the peak. I’m not about to pretend I’m the only person who has thought like this, we all have. In fact, I’m certain that ninety-eight percent of girls feel the same way. This ‘way’ is wanting to be on the top, but what we view as ‘on top’ is unreachable. I’m talking about girls and not boys because I am a girl, not a boy. I’m not saying boys don’t experience similar thoughts or insecurities. I am a girl and if I start talking about everyone feeling the same way then my information is false. If I give advice that will suit the many mental health issues that we experience today, then it would be merely based on internet research, which means nothing to me.

I don’t reach out to God, which is not to say he’s not real, or that anyone’s beliefs are untrue. I have never grown up in a religious family, I’m agnostic. I love the idea of these religious thoughts, but unfortunately grew up somewhere where religion isn’t necessarily strong nor taught. Religious education was the ‘mess around’ lesson in my school. I don’t blame anyone else for the reasons I didn’t listen much when taught about the old and new testament. When I did listen, I did find it interesting, but remember very little about it now. I think a certain kind of depression can convince people that believing in a religion is pointless. I can believe in a certain religion and although it might bide my time in the sense of having something to research and think about, it doesn’t realistically help me in life situations today. I consider it as the placebo effect, I think if I were to be religious, in any way, then having a good day would be because of God, and for the youth of today I think it’s not about having someone give you good days and give you something to learn about with the bad days, I think you should thank yourself for positive days, in order to reduce the negative ones.

As a child, I moved around more than the average person did at my age. They say it’s not good for a child to move around a lot as it affects their chances of relationships with other kids, and the way they apply their social skills. As I grow into the twenty first century, I believe changing homes was a good thing, just like change altogether is good if it’s what you want. I was young, and therefore didn’t know what I wanted. There’s no point saying now that things might have been better for me if I hadn’t had these experiences. You can’t change what has already happened, so this is a positive attitude on something you can’t do anything about. Creating a barrier of closeness, in my opinion, was a safer and happier way of living your life. I haven’t been close to many people, especially during my childhood, this might not even have anything to do with moving schools constantly. Mental illness can start at a young age, and maybe I didn’t have the ability to make friends with the people I wanted to, maybe I just never met anyone who was like me, who knows, I never will. I was born in 1997, and obviously have nothing to tell you about being a child, besides being awfully adorable. I’m not vein, I’m sarcastic and I will make jokes about loving myself to make others laugh, because I like the attention of making people laugh, this might be one of the most important problems, my constant need for attention.

Social media sites have and will continue to play a big part in the personalities of our youth. I’m not going to say that social media is bad, I’m not going to say that social media is good, social media is what it is. It has good and bad traits for someone at this age. It has inflamed our minds, whether it’s for better or for worse. Facebook was founded in 2004, and the internet was the earliest thing that I remember making me angry. Good old high school started, and of course this is where your personality first blossoms. For me, high school started in 2008, and sometime in 2008, I got my first laptop. A modern time for internet at this point. My laptop needed an adapter to connect to the Wi-Fi in my mum’s house. It starts naturally as it should for a thirteen-year-old, playing games like ‘Club Penguin’ and ‘Habbo Hotel’. These were great games but as you delve deeper into the internet you find more interesting ways of having conversations with people in the world, such as Facebook.

Facebook during high school was like a questionnaire way of finding out what friendship group you fell into. You would upload your photos, write statuses, add new people, and you would instantly know where you stood; unlike the natural way of meeting people face to face and having, what’s it called, a conversation? Some people already have the confidence to know what ‘friendship group’ they could be a part of, but from moving around a lot I felt like I was unsure what kind of person I was viewed as. Now, you see, it’s a well-known thing for us to pretend we don’t care about these popular girls and boys, and yes, now it’s been five, ten, thirty years, however long it’s been since you left high school, we don’t care. However, at the time it was something we couldn’t get over, something we depended on to give us an ‘upper’, just by talking to us. One thing I remember now and always will remember, was when a girl called Rehanna told me I was too pretty to be hanging out with the people I was with, implying that I was hanging out with unpopular people, when I should have been hanging out with popular kids. I think since that day, I cared less and less about being socially accepted because I would rather not be as stubborn and clearly as dumb as she was, I mean what a comment to make. Is that supposed to make me feel better? Even at that age I thought ‘fuck that’, if that’s the reason you’re in the groups that you’re in, because of looks, ha! Whatever, at least I was pretty, I guess it was a confidence boost at the same time.

To this day I will say that I didn’t belong in the friendship group that I was in. I’m not saying I belonged in a more ‘popular’ group, as I’m sure it didn’t bother us as much as these cool kids think it did (although actually yes, it probably did bother us even more than that). My mother had always told me I hung out with the wrong crowd. I know every mother says that, but maybe it’s created insecurities in which have resulted in who I consider good friends and bad friends. Again, I don’t expect friends to treat you exactly the way you want them to. One of my high school friends had lost her mother at a really young age, she had her own problems. Another ‘good’ friend of mine, and might I say was quite the bitch and had a great upbringing as far as I saw. I would go to her house regularly, her mother was lovely, however this girl was very distracted, I think she might have had ADHD, which I now consider having myself sometimes.

Anyway, these girls weren’t the nicest of friends, they used to make me paranoid on purpose by inviting each other to their houses, and I used to slap myself in the face, and take (not very sharp) objects to my arms. Really weird I know. I can’t imagine how weird it looked to them, especially me hitting myself. It was almost as if I didn’t think I was being a good enough friend to them, so I’d be angry at myself, and they would laugh at me when they would make me paranoid. Kids will be kids. I won’t blame them for anything. It is what it is, I feel this is irrelevant information to know about me, seeing how little I care about it now, although it’s good to know where my problems started and how they have impacted what I’ve done and the thoughts I’ve had since.

I grew up in a family of five children. My parents were both great growing up. My upbringing was different in my opinion. My mother taught me kindness and that the small things don’t matter. Mum had a lot on her plate, looking after five couldn’t have been easy. My older brother lived with my dad at a young age, as my parents separated when I was around six. My mum then got re-married and had three beautiful boys, which I’m honoured to call my brothers. Looking after kids who were as cheeky as us as was hard. My Dad, I always described as giving tough love. Where he taught me incredible things, he did it a lot more intensely; straight to the point, or at least that’s the way I looked at it. When I would self-harm as a child, which a lot of people like me did, it doesn’t mean anything to talk about it now, but it shows certain things with certain people. He thought it was ridiculous and a horrible way to attention seek. He didn’t tell me this, but I hope this is what he thought because I look up to that opinion now, and I’m happy to admit it was for attention. I’m not proud of it, especially when people who suffer with depression genuinely do it as an attempt of suicide. It’s almost as if I was taking the piss out of them, I didn’t even do it on the right side of the arm to take effect, because I had a phobia of wrists. But this is it, the way social media, people you choose to have in your life, and most importantly, what you choose to accept and deny has an impact on the things that you do, and how you choose to see yourself. The thing