Thursday, January 31, 2008

You know what I think?

I think that most people don't actually care too much about anyone else. I think when someone's down or depressed, we'd rather go through the motions and tell them to get better than to actually try and help. Because, you see, it inconveniences us to have to deal with other people's emotions.

I've been told I need to be more emotionally open. I've been told that my prickly exterior can be off-putting. Would y'all like to see the depths of my crazy and my issues?

(I'll imagine you saying yes)

(then if you actually did, you can scroll down. If not, don't worry about it.)

I feel like I'm drowning sometimes lately. Not that I'm struggling up for air, but that I'm just quietly sinking under. I can't summon the energy to be anybody or do anything anymore. Most of the time I don't want to leave my room. I just want to stay here and avoid . . . everything. I want to pretend that this space is the whole world, and just fall apart within it. I can't write or read--at least, I barely can. I like the television. Doesn't require much effort. I try to write but it all feels dead and so I get disgusted with what I'm doing and I forget it and leave it be. When I read I don't understand what's happening 'cause it's like there's nothing behind the words anymore and I don't know why. And I'm so scared sometimes lately just to go outside and be with people or to do anything. I make every excuse to avoid it. I can't rest either, though. I just . . . I'm too tightly wound to relax at all. I try to relax and everything siezes up and my muscles tighten up and I breathe faster and I don't understand what the hell is going on.

I vomit up words on this blog. They're just that. Vomit. I write things that I think might be good, but I'm afraid to let them out anymore. I can't show them to people and I don't know why. I'm scared of so much now. I want to be a writer--I have to, or I'll feel I've failed in life. I only feel real when I'm doing something creative, and if I stop that, then I'll just feel dead always. I'm too scared, though, to even do anything with anything I write now. I don't have the confidence to do it. I don't have the confidence to throw myself out there on my own, to let me rely on myself. I'm scared.

I used to be so confident, so sure of myself. I mean, I didn't seem it on the outside, but I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted. Now it's reversed--I appear confident, but I'm not. All that's left of me these days is fear. I don't feel smart or capable or such anymore. I feel so slow sometimes. I don't understand it.

I've this recurring nightmare I've had since my youth. General theme, something familiar, something I trust, it turns into something terrible that's going to destroy me. A paranoia dream, I know. It does rather set the trend for my social interactions, though.

You know, I've assumed for a very long time that anyone who's friends with me, who spends time with me--I assume that's done out of pity, that it's because they feel sorry for me. How fucked up is that?

Sometimes I date people I know I really shouldn't because I feel like--me being rather worthless in my own eyes--it's the best I can do. I have issues with being complimented at all. It makes me so very uncomfortable, and I don't know why.

I really don't know how to deal with my emotions. I keep them bottled down, and I feel like they're tearing me apart, and I still don't really know how to let things out. Even this is barely anything.

Terrible, terrible things happen and I don't feel hardly anything and I don't understand why. I feel so inhuman sometimes.

I've never been in a real relationship, you know (Maggie, I love you dearly, but it doesn't quite count). I don't know what it's like, and so I can't even imagine it anymore. Today, I was doing my laundry, following a train of thought, and I realized that I had come to terms with the idea of being essentially alone forever. It felt like a stone in my stomach.

And now I've let out a bit of all I've got stored up. And I don't think any of it can be solved. I feel so hopeless. I can't seem to strike the balance: either I am very emotionless, and I am told that I should show some emotion sometime; or I do show that emotion, and I'm - I dunno, shunned? Scolded?--for it. I think perhaps I'm supposed to be emotional enough to be accessable, but not so much that it seems like I have actual problems.

I feel like all I'm made of is doubt and fear and worry, and there's nothing else left.

3 comments:

Jordan said...

phillip.
That feeling of wanting to curl up in a ball and not do anything but hibernate for a few years?
I've had that feeling since I was twelve, again and again and again.
I guess it's agoraphobia, though it's also probably a response to stress or something.

I get the urge to create, too, and it helps me feel better (re: curling up into a ball) when I follow through with it.
I took up knitting; it helps me fulfill the urges, and it's nicely meditative. It makes me happy.

I've been accused of being a stoic. I dunno if that stems so much from not wanting to share emotions as it does from me wanting to work things out on my own (in typical Type A fashion), but


okay I realize as I type this that I don't really have any answers, either.

I guess all I'm trying to say is, I sympathize with you. sympathize, not empathize.

go watch garden state. it'll make you feel better.

Anonymous said...

Hey you.

Wanna know a secret? I don’t hang out with you because I pity you. In fact, sometimes I think you only keep me around out of pity. Like, I’m that old friend that you don’t actually want around anymore, but you have to be nice to me because I’m friends with your new friends, and I won’t take a bloody hint and go away.

I know for a fact that you are smart and funny and creative and brilliant and a thousand times more courageous than me. You’re instinctively intelligent when it takes sheer force of will for me to learn. You have such big hopes and dreams, and I know – even if you don’t – that you can accomplish them. I know you want to shrug this all off because you’re hurting right now, but I mean it. Every word.

You once told me our friendship wasn’t unconditional. You liked me for who I was at that very moment. Unfortunately for you, I’m more the unconditional sort. You’ve become one of the best friends I have, so sadly, you’re stuck with me. Thick and thin, and all that jazz. If you don’t conquer the world and complete every goal you’ve set for yourself, I don’t care. I’ll love you anyway. Whether you bottle up your emotions or spew them at me, I don’t care. I can take it. Happy, sad, effervescent, numb, it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re Phillip, that’s good enough for me.

You don’t have to believe in yourself. It makes sense that you’re bad at that. You’re an atheist. You don’t believe in faith, remember? But faith is something I’m pathetically good at. While I don’t always trust you not to do dumb shit, I do trust that you will scrape by and keep going. (If not, what are friends for if not to laugh hysterically with while picking up the pieces?) And what’s more, I have faith in the person I think you are. And you can tell me I can’t possibly know everything about you, that you’re crazy and so messed up and have all of these un-fixable issues. Fine. I have faith that you can be the person I think you are: strong, smart, creative and devilishly dashing.

I’m sorry you feel numb. If I dare suggest how you’re feeling, it sounds like you’re hurting so much you feel numb. Kind of like that moment of a really bad hurt before the ow-oh-god-owww sets in. Maybe that numb is even a defense mechanism, or something. I really didn’t pay attention in psychology. Or maybe it’s just the feeling of losing hope.

You will not end up alone. There has got to be someone out there who loves you as much as I do and more. (And by “more,” I mean in that actual relationship kind of way.) And even if that magical soulmate never appears, I promise you will not spend forever alone.

With that pesky unconditional love,
Your wife

Haley said...

Hey Phillip. I'm liking the blog, and I can most definitely relate to this one. I'm experiencing a plethora of freshman year woes a lot like what you're talking about that just have me saying..."Gosh. I fail at this whole fun crazy college thing." Creating things, as the above "jordan" says, does indeed help me a lot too. If I can coerce my motivation out of its dark little troll cave and actually write or draw--oh damn, even BLOG--it makes me feel loads better.

But listen, since I'm procrastinating school work at 4 in the morning I might as well say that although I've only talked to you a couple times at Demosthenian and such, I think you're a way cool dude. And not prickly at all. Anyone who has the cajones to tell me I'm going to hell for being the woman the FIRST time I speak to them gets points. Hey, if that's my idea of a warm greeting, maybe that's my bad, but it works for me. =)

Also, my friend Sagen and I made a blog. Our blogs should be friends! Yes, this warm and friendly post is really only about self-promotion after all: http://afunblogday.blogspot.com

(Not really.)