Wit's End

It's terrible, feeling this alone. It's my birthday in three days, and my parents both want to have a meal with me. I don't think I'll be able to, just because I don't think I can muster the energy necessary to cover my mood with a smile that'd pass as even somewhat-believable. They always ask me if I'm okay if I appear even the least bit sad, but if the past is any indication, they wouldn't be able to handle an honest answer from me. Besides, so what if they're my parents? Why should they have to bear the burden of my emotional state?

I'd really like some friends to talk to, but I find myself asking the same question. The one friend I have (who I think I've mentioned here before) whom I see regularly--and by that I mean more than once every few months--seems to always shy away from more serious conversations, and she's made it clear that she doesn't tolerate people off-loading their problems onto others. Ironically, neither do I, hence my current state.

I know I should see a psychotherapist, but I can't bare making the call to my insurance company to see if that kind of thing is covered. Besides, if my previous experience with a psychotherapist is any indication of what it'd be like (though I'm not saying it would be), it'd just be a whole lot of him or her trying to discredit what I say and how I'm thinking about myself. Which, of course, is exactly what I need: another person telling me that I'm screwed up and am in my current mindset through no one's fault but my own.

On a superficial level, I understand that that's one of the ways in which mental illness works--the mental facilities that one would normally use to resolve issues instead either twists them or magnifies them; I told my father the same thing when he was having his own issues, and that he needed help because of this fact--but having to concede that there's yet another thing wrong with me is just...really close to too much.

I just...feel like I'm drowning, and every time I manage to come up and get a breath of fresh air, that fresh air always has an odd smell about it, the kind of acrid smell that makes me choke, and I'm soon pushed back under by one thing or another. Even my moments of respite just aren't right.

I'd call a suicide hotline, but seeing as I won't really consider suicide because of all the debt I'd leave my parents, that doesn't seem like the right thing to do. I'm just not sure what to do, anymore.

Pain

I just don't know if I can do this anymore. Even typing is exhausting. My head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds; even turning it makes me feel dizzy. I don't want to cry again--it's only been about a month since I last cried--but moving my eyes so that I don't focus on a single spot and feel like I can't move them again makes me feel queasy. I know what's wrong with me, but to try and change it would feel like lying to myself. I don't know why my depression should feel like such an immutable fact about myself--maybe it's just acclimatization to the clouds I feel in my mind, and an expectation of their continuous presence--but truth is one of those things I just feel like I can't avoid. My heart is pounding and my hands shaking, just sitting here on my bed, from which I've hardly moved all day, for the past two days.

Yesterday, after coming home from work, I drove to the grocery store, which is walking distance from my new apartment (which I moronically thought would be a miracle cure to my self-loathing), even though I said I'd said to myself I'd only ever walk there. I used the rainy weather as an excuse, but really, it was just a retroactive justification for driving there, which I wanted to do because I wanted to buy a bunch of junk food to binge on. While at the grocery store, I met a woman from work. She was her usual pleasant and cheery self, and I found myself once again wishing I could be like her--pretty, kind, upbeat, fairly easy going even though she was the secretary in a busy hospital emergency department. I assumed that she had a spouse, and didn't sit on her bed all day trying to remind her self that she couldn't attempt suicide because of all the college debt she'd leave to those she left behind, and all the good people to whom she owed so much. Maybe she did feel as miserable as I do; maybe everyone does. God, I hope not.

As I walked through the grocery store, I did it in a harried pace and emotional state because I didn't want her or anyone else to see the crap that I was buying--some sane things, like apples and coffee, but also a frozen pizza and some fudge and a bottle of wine, all of which I've completely consumed in the past 24 hours. Having eaten all those things yesterday, I've had nothing but a yogurt and a carrot (and two cups of coffee) in compensation, although also due to the desire to avoid any further gastrointestinal unpleasantness. I ate all that food yesterday in the hopes of being distracted, which I was during my consuming of it, but now feel nothing about, except slightly guilty. It seems like no matter what I do--new apartment, new-and-improved job in two weeks, the occasional intense work-out--all I ever feel is bad.

I've been watching Sex And The City en marathon, and while I used to be inspired by what usually seems like an almost ethereal existence--little more than light meals, delicate outfits, and wizened sex and life talk--I'm now just depressed. Their lives (obviously artificial though they are) are so full, even if sometimes it's full of less-than-ideal stuff. Mine just feels empty. The only thing that keeps me going is a sense of obligation: obligation to parents, family and friends who have scarcely done me wrong, obligation to other people who objectively have it worse than me. I hate to call myself a martyr, as that sounds self-aggrandizing and I'm not worth that, but I'm short of words that describe a sense of imprisonment that don't sound self-pitying. Isn't there a non-subjective way of saying, "this sucks"? I just wish I had someone whom I could talk to that I wouldn't worry by saying all of this bullshit, someone who could be level-headed and let me be a mess. But then, I don't think I'm worthy of being any kind of burden on other people, so I guess I'm just left to stew on my own. I keep expecting things to change, without ever changing myself. What an idiot.

God, help me. Fucking shit.

The Other Messes

So, as you might imagine, having viewed my activities over the past ~3 years, I've had a lot of time to figure out what the fuck is wrong with me. In summary, I think it's some combination of/somewhere in the triangle of depression, body dysmorphia, and gender dysphoria.

Now, in further dissection, the depression is possibly asymptotic. Honestly, I don't know which of these things is oldest. On the gender dysphoria end of things, I played with Barbie dolls when I was little, I would wear my mother's clothing, and the whole gay thing does make me jealous of the ease with which women, with ~5x the dating pool, are able to make romantic and sexual company of men. Whether or not these things count as gender dysphoric, I don't know, but I'm inclined to say they are when combined with the type of body dysmorphia I feel.

As I've mentioned before, I don't consider myself ugly, per se, and I've been told that I'm somewhat attractive on more than one occasion. I've also been solicited for both sexual and romantic activities by something resembling my desired target audience before, but have always declined (when sober) due to feelings of inadequacy, both on my part and in the reflection of it in myself in the caliber of men who've asked (so shallow and superficial). However, I'm torn between it being either an inability to deny that or sudden realization of the way that I'm just not comfortable in this body. I don't feel right being a 6'5", hairy-chested male. It feels...offensive when people do things as benign as ask me how tall I am, or mention my relative size. And I say those comments are offensive specifically because they aren't just annoying; they truly hurt my feelings to hear. This is where the whole body dysmorphia/gender dysphoria gets all swirled together, from my own perspective.

I've come to realize for myself (I don't think I've said this here before) that beauty is a gendered word. A man can be handsome, but he can never be beautiful, and I've always loved beautiful things (or things I've been programmed to believe are beautiful, in any case; happy now?), and take that whole beauty-is-sublime-in-the-philosophical-sense thing to heart. So if a woman can, practically speaking, do anything a man can do and she can be beautiful and she has a much larger population of mates to choose from and the size of a woman's body feels more like what I'd like to have (in the imaginary scenario wherein I can shrink down a foot and be proportionately-sized for a slender woman of that height because sexism/lookism/etc.), does that mean I'm transgendered? Or am I just jealous of some aspects of my (outsider's) view of womanhood and also body dysmorphic? I'm inclined to feel the former, because unless I'm feeling confident in my masculinity--feels weird even typing that--I will use gender neutral pronouns for myself and always feel funny if others don't do the same for me, as well. I could really use a gender therapist to help sort all this out.

So long story short, I feel as though some portion of my failures is attributable to the fact that, even in the most successful version of the life of a person in the body I inhabit, I still won't have things the way I really want, and therefore wonder why I'm bothering, all the while being constantly reminded by everyone around me--by anyone who mentions my physicality or even comes into physical contact--of my internal sense of mismatch between interior and exterior. But is this all just an excuse for other, unrelated personal failings? I'm I really just whining about a problem that others may not even have the luxury of discovering they have? Am I wasting mental and emotional energy worrying about a problem whose full resolution is (at minimum, presently) impossible?

Do you see where my depression might have its genesis? Or have I got it all backwards? These are the weights tied to my ankles which keep dragging me down, despite occasional success in the fight against my psychological drowning. I have, however, been able to assemble something while swimming through this too-deep pool. My life will take one of two paths:

1. I accept the existence of these irreparable feelings of misfit, and move on, trying to make the best of things in my current physical self. That means not giving up on finding a life partner, learning languages, playing music, travel, maybe even helping to raise a needy child, while maintaining some kind of social life and (hopefully) pleasing material conditions. This has the added bonus of alleviating the worries of those who say they care about my well-being--people to whom I shall always owe a great deal.

2. I accept the existence of these irreparable feelings of misfit, and decide not to bother with making the best of things. Being an optimist in the face of your own pessimism is exhausting, and in accepting that I can't fully self-actualize due to these feelings, I'll admit to admitting to myself that sometimes, it's better to live like the rest of those poor souls who haven't the luxury of discovering their higher strengths and weakness. To live like an animal, subsisting on physical sustenance and simply distracting from the knowledge of these higher-order problems. I've come to realize that this is the kind of death I mentioned that I find appealing--not the death of a physical state, but the death of the idea of a human life, specifically my human life, as anything special or rewarding.

I don't know which I'll end up choosing, but at least I know that a choice will have to be made once I've got the financial means to do so. At this point, this exact moment, I'm ambivalent.

A bit different now...a little, anyway

It's been four years since I last wrote, or even visited, this blog, and that I'm back isn't a good thing. In the past, I've come to this place only to express myself when there's too much flooding my mind, and I need to drain my thoughts somewhere. And so it is, again.

Anyway, a quick charting of the gap:

1.The whole bus driver thing didn't happen; I couldn't get over the classist, elitist thing (hypocrite). Instead, I took work at various minimum-wage service establishments for the succeeding year while living at home (ironic, I know). Until--

2. I was accepted into a graduate urban planning program at a university in Cleveland which was supposedly the 2nd best program of that type in the nation. However, due to a variety of factors, some legitimate (the program felt as though it was centered on fixing Cleveland, not studying urban planning, from what I could tell in my short time enrolled in it; also, Cleveland sucks) and some not (the usual me-ness of not feeling absolutely interested and therefore entirely divesting myself of what could maybe've been something truly worthwhile), I didn't really even complete the first semester, and dropped out of the second. Fortunately, I was presented with a more interesting opportunity soon after that decision had been made--

3. I worked as an au pair in Beijing starting June 2014, leaving naught but a happily-small period of returning from Cleveland to live at home. While I enjoyed the experience as a whole, and met a lot of wonderful people from quite literally every continent during my time there, I was also subject to a modicum of physical abuse by my host family, and so I ended my time in China after enduring 3 short months of what was supposed to be a year-long stay. Although the au pair agency offered to find me a teaching job, I was able to find work that paid as well, while living in a much more comfortable environment: at home in Manchester, NH. Surprise. Anyway--

4. A friend notified me of a position open in the local hospital's housekeeping department, which I took with gratification, for two reasons. The first was that it was humble, and no apologies were necessary for it because they were all implied. The second was that it felt like truly necessary work: even if it was about as unglamorous, menial, and low-paying (though better than minimum wage) as could be, it did have to be done by someone. My narcissistic ramblings here aside, I'm not one with huge ego needs, so that it was necessary was enough to make it satisfactory. It also showed me that that is what mattered in my occupation in life--I wanted to feel as though no matter what else was going on, the job that I did was genuinely important. Not that it was important that I was the one doing the work, but that it did need to be done by someone. That realization, in combination with the entire surroundings of my workplace--a hospital--helped me see that I want to become a nurse. A nurse, and not a doctor, because c'mon, it's me.

So, newly found and strongly-founded purpose having been arrived at, I've been busy taking nursing-related classes at a local community college, and will be taking a licensing exam tomorrow to be a nurse's aid. So at least that mess of what-the-fuck-am-I-going-to-be-okay-with-doing-with-my-life is settled. Back to the other messes.

Finished

I think I'm saying what I've said before. But maybe this is a bit different now. All I know is that it sucks, though, to be here, now.

I can't say what I'm going to say without sounding a bit proud, a bit big-headed, maybe even a bit shot-through with youthful naivete and simple recalcitrance. But I'm really beginning to think that it just doesn't matter.

At this point, I've spent quite a bit of time being (or at least attempting to be) inciteful, introspective, and reflective, and I've tried to be that way with as much painful honesty and as forthright an attitude as I could manage, under the assumption that that would make me a better person by society's measure. Force me to look at what I want, how I am, and how things are.

I now realise that none of that matters. It doesn't matter if my views, on myself or other things, are as self-consistent and sharp-sighted as I can make them. It doesn't matter if I attempt to think and behave in a rational manner, consistent with what I believe are the principles on which our society functions. And here comes the hubristic argument.

I may attempt to be rational in respect to my end goals, but I am mostly alone in this endeavor. The problem is not that people are so irrational, though they are (and, often, I am no exception). It's that even when they believe they are behaving rationally, the goals of others are not ones that I myself can rationalize. I had hoped to at least be able to help others rationalize their behavior according to their own goals, first by clarifying to them what their goals are, and then by aligning their behaior with those goals. But it should have been so plain to me that people don't take well to that kind of assistance, least of all from someone whom they perceive as so adrift himself and without the credentials which give him the right to offer this aid.

Of course, this realisation comes to me from a simple discovery of what might consistute those credentials. It's not the ability to rationalize and logically explain thought and behavior. It's not even necessarily achievements of whatever sort. It's perceived similarity. If I can relate to your situation, then I must be better at understanding it than someone who can't.

But how does this make any sense whatsoever? If I have been equally unable to change my situation from whichever aspect of it we share and you consider detrimental to yourself, then why on Earth would you want to commiserate with me about it? What's the point?

Unfortunately, I see now that the superabundance of such talk is just the product of the emotional shoulder-needing that all people are subject to; talking about problems without resolving them prevents them from being reduced to trivialities. If I can't figure out a problem that I have, and you have the same problem and are equally stuck, it must be serious, but at least we can persevere together.

Don't worry about fixing the problem, just don't leave me alone with it.

I see the appeal in that, and am certainly going to be found guilty of it by whatever judge and jury, but to have that be all that you talk about? Whether it be on a personal level or some grander social thought? Doesn't that just make you sad? Doesn't that just make you want to give up altogether?

It would me. And it does. And it has.

If I can talk to no one about actual problems, with the hope of resolving them, then perhaps I shall talk to no one at all. And perhaps I'll just stop worrying.

Rearview Mirror

It's been almost a year since I last posted here. I've graduated college with exactly the 3.2 GPA I mentioned some posts ago, and I feel like I'm socializing in healthy way. I've got a job that I will hold for a few more months until I can finally leave this place for somewhere (hopefully) better; more on that in a minute.

Things have actually been feeling...alright, all said and done, until yesterday afternoon. I went back up to my university for a few hours to chat and catch up as I hadn't seen my school friends all summer. We were talking about gender norms regarding dress code, and then about the difference between race, ethnicity, and culture, when another mutual friend of the three of us walked up. She has historically been a rather moody and gloomy prescence (if a good conversationalist), so the big smile on her face and the newly confident stride was quite a pleasant surprise, something we all hope marks a permanent change in her outlook. I was pleased to see her, but then she said, "What are you still doing here?"

Now, that wasn't intended as hard as I took it. You see, I've been planning for months now on going to South Korea to teach English for a few years before I move on to grad school for transportation planning, both for the experience and the extra money I can save up for said future schooling. I had hoped to be out of the U.S. by, uh, the start of this passing month, so her question wasn't at all out of place, or even rude.

But it was the phrasing, the bluntness with which that question was asked, that put me back into tailspin mode. What am I still doing here? The simple answer is that I'm waiting for paperwork to come through so that I can finally send in my application and then be on my way. And it is a true answer. However, why I am still waiting for it is because I didn't do it earlier, in a characteristic aw-I-can-do-this-later move by me. Knowing that I could have done it earlier puts to my mind the question of why I didn't. I know that one of the reasons is again sound--the application has as one of its components a copy of my college diploma, which didn't arrive here until, oh, a week ago. The other reason is not so sound; I simply failed to look further into the application process to realise that there were numerous other parts of the application which could have been done first. It's those other bits and pieces I'm waiting on now.

So, my laziness and apathy has once again caused me pain. This has only painted a worse picture of my current situation in my mind than I can probably find in reality. The job for which I have signed up is as school bus driver for the city. This seems, in some ways anyway, like a perfectly respectable position. I'll be helping encourage use of public transportation, which works along both my environmentalist and communitarian leanings. It also pays decently, even accepting that the liscensing procedure is intense enough that it ought to. But then...this is so stupid.

I went to the first training class and was...dismayed, to put it lightly. All the other attendees were clearly of a lower socioeconomic standing than myself; in simpler terms, they were lower class. This really put a damper on the efficient-and-functional view I had taken of the job. Why? I mean really, how hypocritical is that? That I should hold against this position of employment that my co-workers are shabbily-dressed and unkempt? I, who try to claim and sincerely believe that people are as much a product of their situation as their situation is their product? Where do I then get off for being mopey that those around me don't meet some arbitrary standard of aesthetics that I don't meet either? But then I realised that that was exactly the problem.

And so, here we are again. My feeling "bad about my situation" is just my feeling bad specifically about myself: that I haven't been better. Better looking, better-dressing, wealthier, harder-working, more intelligent, more self-controlling, etc., enough to not be in my present situation. In this particular instance, I hold the mere appearance of these people against them because I fear that in them, I see a mirror, and am obviously displeased by how short I fall from my aesthetic standards. I will say that all things considered, I may actually do something this time. Promise.


P.S. I may go into detail about my aesthetics v. my morals at some point. Judging by how I'm feeling lately, that may occur sooner rather than later.

As if this time is any different....

I just...I hate myself. More than I can express. I've been down this road many times before, and not every time has been recorded on this blog. I have failed to live up to the few commitments I have, for no particular reason than that I don't want to.

What kind of idiot has my life and lets it go to waste, simply from apathy?...Is it just apathy? Of course, there's a more-than-healthy heaping of self-loathing too, but part of that stems from my apathy. I wear myself down making myself feel bad for not being better than I am, and as a result, I fall short of even what little that I really am.

Why? It's not even like this self-inflicted cycle of damage, psychological or otherwise, is something I couldn't put a stop to if I wanted to. But it's not right to say that I don't want to stop going along as I am. I hate myself, but...now that I'm thinking about it, more for what I'm not than what I am. Is that absurd? Is it normal to feel a tinge of hatred for yourself everytime you look in the mirror, everytime that you look deeply into your own eyes and think, "Who the fuck is that"?

The problems are the same as always: low self-confidence in every regard (looks, intelligence, social skills, laziness, etc., etc.) makes me so depressed that I don't take care of myself, I don't do work, I don't even...think, at least not in a way any deeper than is required to write something as self-pitying, self-loathing, shitty, worthless, pointless, and stupid as this.

I thought, for the longest time, that even with my occasional downcast spells, I was doing better. Then, this semester comes along, and I wonder just how the hell someone as worthless as me is still existing. I tried to do the right things this semester...until I realized it was futile, and that I couldn't do anything to improve my life that wouldn't seem desperate and contrived.

Seriously, who does that? Who has opportunities to make things better for themselves, is perfectly cognizant of that fact, and then doesn't just pass them up, but thinks, "I'm not worth it, and even if I was, I'd look stupid for trying"? Who that isn't a depressed 13-year old girl, metaphorically punches himself in the face like that? Repeatedly, over years and years?

I think I'm seeing, evermore clearly, that that's pretty much what I am--a depressed teenage girl. Except, I envy even her; at least she could be pretty.

So pathetic....