Love's Labor Lost

I’m distant. If you know me, this is no fucking newsflash. I don’t really have a problem connecting with people so much as staying connected with people. I’ve spilled a lot of proverbial ink on this and why it might be. In a nutshell, low self-worth, anxiety, moving around so much as to never develop very strong connections, etc. Plus I much prefer face to face interaction and, well, with being in constant pain, I just don’t leave the house much. This is less to explain or excuse myself, but to show some work I’m putting in.

So I have an online friend. A very lovely online friend of recent acquaintance. We talk a lot, and in the short time I’ve known her, I’ve grown to value her counsel and perspective. We hit it off and fell into a fairly easy, fairly regular discourse. It was nice.

After a month or two, she pointed out that I essentially never say hi first. I gave her my pat explanation that it’s just sort of how I am, and that, while it might not look like it, I am grateful for her contacting me and our continued discussion. At this point, most people don’t press. But then, most people would simply fall back to interacting with me on Facebook, or take an “I’ll see you when I see you” attitude. But I’d never see her at Shadowland as she lives across the country, and she’d never see me on Facebook because she loathes it. So the ball would be entirely in her court to carry the weight and pace of our friendship.

I know this is unfair. I know this is basically the spot that I’m in with most of my friends. I know this is why I am rather isolated. I let it happen anyway.

But she asked me to bear some of the emotional labor burden. She was… not optimistic. She wasn’t wrong to be so, frankly. However, the next day, I messaged her. And then again soon after. It feels fucked up to me. Unnatural. Like being aware of my blinking or breathing. It feels forced. Because it is. Not the relationship or the ensuing conversations - those are perfectly fine. But the reaching out feels messed up to me.

So of course I had to analyze the shit out of it.

Ultimately, I feel grateful for the time, effort, and attention that anyone wants to bestow on me, and I hate feeling like I’m asking for more. Contacting someone feels like asking for more. As such, I sit like a fucking barnacle (not bragging about penis size, but read into it what you will) and wait for the world to check in on me. NOT because I want everyone else to expend their emotional labor, but because I ultimately feel like me saying “hi” is me trying to take from a person.

I know. I KNOW. When other people reach out and spontaneously say hi to me or check up on me, I view it as a near mystical gift. When I do the same, I view it as some horrible, needy ploy for love. I KNOW this is stupid. Many people profess to like me, for no conceivable reason than that they, in fact, like me. They would probably like it if I bestowed that mystical gift upon them. It might, in fact, be WILDLY SELFISH of me to not repay their consideration in kind.

Okay. So it’s that self-image thing. All I have to do to start connecting with people more is to stop viewing myself as poisonous. Gotcha.

I can’t imagine that there’s a level of empirical evidence that will make me feel like I’m desired as a friend, lover, etc. So it has to be me. Something inside. I have to begin the internal work, likely the seismic shift, of trying to view myself as a benefit to others’ lives. I have to start trusting that when people say nice things about me, they aren’t trying to manipulate me for some future betrayal or abuse. That people actually want me around. That maybe, if I say hi to a person, they won’t be annoyed or rethink why they ever pretended to be friends with me in the first place. I have to purge these shitty worst case scenarios.

I have to somehow find my way through nearly four decades of viewing myself as some sort of leper, constantly falling apart and infecting everyone close to me.

Or maybe it’s as simple as putting in the emotional labor? I know it’s just saying “hi.” It’s typing two letters. But the scenarios that spin out in my head bore a hole right through my chest. I literally begin having trouble breathing at the thought.

I mean Jesus Christ, my last lover of two and a half years - I couldn’t just ask her how she was doing. I had to search the internet for a funny meme to bring to her like a male bird bringing a gift for the female to incorporate into her nest. I viewed myself as having such little value to her (or anyone) that I couldn’t possibly imagine a world in which my acknowledging a person could be seen as beneficial.

Okay. End of the day, I know what I have to work on. I mean, self-image, that’s nothing new. But this is a new, specific application of it that I’ve contextualized for myself and with a specific set of actions I can at least fake until I make. I like people. I like talking to people. Sure, I need to disconnect often, but that’s normal. I’ve let my leg keep me stuck in my house, so I need to compensate somehow, so texting it is, despite how uncomfortable it makes me. I’m unhappy with the situation, so I need to change it. Simple enough.

All I have to do is not think I’m worthless.

Under construction. 

Eros and Thanatos

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Aromantic

It’s one of those times again. I’m perpetually short of breath. My skin feels tight and it feels like something has its claws in my chest and just keeps squeezing. Every day blurs into the next and all I want to do is scream. And sleep.

Sometimes I can learn something from my depressive episodes. It requires a moment of calm in the fury. It’s as if an alligator has me in its death roll, jaws tight, spinning and spinning and – somehow – I, in a moment of dispassionate clarity, notice which direction the bubbles from my scream are headed and I make a note to myself that, if I get out of this, that’s the way up.

Possibly more accurately, I’m in the irresistible gravity well of self-loathing. While I have nothing better to do than sink ever downward, I examine the physics of my fall, and, by doing some instinctive mathematics, noting all of the bodies powerful enough to exert their force on me. Thus I can infer the shape and location of the dark planets disrupting the orbit of the known objects in this tediously drawn out metaphor for my psyche.

Acute depressive episodes, if I can have that moment of clarity, allow me to measure the profile and power of the demons in the dark. If I can get a decent look at the shape of the horrifying feedback loop my brain gets stuck in, I guess it was worth something. Lesson learned, on to new terrifying vistas.

It takes a number of these insights to extrapolate a picture for myself, and it takes time, examination, and rumination to turn that picture into emotions and then words. My emotions don’t really translate well, at least not without a hell of a lot of work, so this process is laborious, at best.

This particular cycle seems to have shed some light on why I hold myself in such restraint when it comes to feeling connected to someone. To not belabor the point any further, I simply can’t place that much responsibility onto someone that I love. Allowing myself to feel loved, genuinely engaging someone on that level – at least at this point in my mental instability – is potentially a death sentence in which I make my loved one the executioner.

I have abysmal self-worth. I genuinely hate myself with the heat of a thousand comments sections. As such, I end up outsourcing my value to the outside world entirely. This ends up with me being kind of a needy piece of shit, begging for validation on the regular. Thankfully, there’s Facebook. It’s my one stop shop for people to make me feel like I have any trace of merit. I can diffuse the power of that sucking hole inside over whatever percentage of my friends haven’t unfollowed me yet.

I hate doing it. It’s tedious, annoying, and narcissistic. Also, probably not an effective long term solution. However, it’s gotten me through so far, despite… everything.

The reason I’m so scared to have a genuine relationship is because if I began to focus on just one person for all of that support I need, it would be hideously unfair, cruelly dependent, and ultimately it would taint any of the joy that romance is supposed to infuse into one’s life. They would become my reason to live, in the worst way you can imagine. Every word. Every action. Every facial tick. Everything. All of it. Everything that they do – it would be how I determined if were still worthy of drawing breath. You know, after it was all put through a filter of my own paranoia and self-loathing.

So there’s me, watching each minute thing a person does, weighing my life against that. They’d become my sole anchor to being a human. That isn’t a relationship – that’s profound sickness in the form of dependence. Romance, playfulness, confidence – they all die. All I’d do is panic each time the cloud of a bad mood crossed my lover’s face. Each harsh word, every deep sigh, all of it would send me into a catatonic haze, afraid that that would be the end of it all, that would be what pulled the rug out from under me.

What kind of person would I be if I knowingly did that to someone I professed to care about? And, in some dim, distant way, to myself? Logically I know that to rest my survival on something so potentially tumultuous as one other person’s perception of me could be disastrous. Especially when I know I’ll interpret the signs in the worst way possible. Especially since, when the chips are down, I begin losing all ability to communicate. Especially since, as soon as I begin seeing the signs of negativity, I immediately begin planning my exit strategy, hardening my heart out of self-preservation.

Especially since I know that I can in no way offer someone anything of equal value.

I can’t do that again. I can’t turn someone’s love for me into that toxic dependence again. I can’t turn someone into my life support system again. I can’t turn love into pity and obligation again.

I have to get better. I don’t know if I can, but I don’t want to be alone. Most of my relationships were pretty awful and easy to write off, but I’ve lost wonderful women now, because of my own weakness and terror. Because, like all abused children, I carved sword and shield from my own self, built myself into armor protecting… nothing. I used up all of myself to prepare for strife and suffering. I am prepared for battle, but not for life. A hollow suit of plate, fighting a battle many years lost. A ghost, needing someone to haunt in order to feel connected to the world, yet unable to stomach the guilt of being such a parasite.

There is no optimistic resolution here. No closure. No hero’s journey. I give you nothing and yet implicitly ask your validation. Same as always. 

Apathy

Recently, my anxiety topped out and the predictable result happened: emergency shut off. I've slipped into depersonalization. It feels like Actually David has fucked off and some sort of Backup David has had to take over.

I don't really feel anything, but logically I know that I need to maintain Actual David's interests in the world or else shit will fall apart, leaving Actual David a mess to deal with whenever he ends up getting back. I'm groping for metaphors, but it's like the store of Me is being run by the assistant manager who knows how to do everything but simply has no personal investment in the outcome, and just feels annoyed and harried by the unwelcome responsibility of running the show (or having to do anything, really). Perhaps maybe I shut down improperly and have rebooted in safe mode, only bare bones functionality until the problem is properly sorted. Maybe this is what Sam felt like when he lost his soul in season five of Supernatural.

During times like this, I feel like an observer watching myself go through the motions. When I care, I will often philosophize about the difference between this "I" and "myself," what is observing and what is being observed, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to properly express what it feels like when I say "I'm not me." The inherent paradox is staggering and nonsensical, but I feel it nonetheless.

Such times will inevitably lead to isolation, which is largely fine. I'm a fairly isolated person to begin with, so few would notice. I end up believing that it would be detrimental to Actual David's life if I were to attempt anything resembling sincerity with those who are normally close to me. They would notice the disconnect and take offense, if prior evidence indicates. Their opinions of me would, if history holds, shift to believing me to be "emotionless," "robotic," "rehearsed," or "distant." At this moment, all of those labels would be accurate, but I don't necessarily believe them to be on a longitudinal scale.

To carry the metaphor, the assistant manager believes himself to be competent enough to run the store for the untrained customer's needs. However, if any higher ups came to inspect things, they would immediately notice the AM's failings, drawing attention to how unprepared the general manager was for his own absence. The AM also knows that most of the problems come from the fact that he doesn't truly care about the outcome, but still doesn't want to get the GM in trouble.

So, yeah. That's where I am. Hollow and apathetic. Likely only for the moment. Time is flying past me and recollection of recent events is very hazy, as I'm not doing the normal human contextualization of events with emotional judgment. I guess it would stand to reason to ask why even bother writing this? Partly as a "Please excuse our mess while we remodel" warning/supplication. Partly because I'm aware that documenting my mental illness can help people and helping people is a good thing to do. Partly to lower people's expectations for me, mostly so that when Actual David returns, he won't have a pile of shit to clean up, as I anticipate serious feelings of guilt with the return of emotion.

So yeah. That's where I'm at. There's no need to worry about me; I'm likely more stable than usual. I'm performing all necessary life functions as well as normal. The worst I can say is that I've let some cosmetic issues go due to seeing no practical value in expending energy to maintain them. I've also not communicated this current situation before this post, so there's the chance someone could have noticed my change in behavior and been offended by it, which I certainly didn't intend. It takes a while for me to catch up with what is going on inside me. By the time I have adequate explanation, the damage is done. So it goes.

As for now, the store is tended, if sparsely. Please excuse our mess.

Trigger Warning

I want to kill myself.

I’m not going to do it right now, so don’t alert any authorities or anything, but I want to. I don’t want to want to, but that’s life, right? This has been my reality since around age eleven. I just want to kill myself.

Some days, I want to stop feeling and let myself die. Some days, I want to murder my greatest enemy - myself. Some days, I hate everything in the world. So. Fucking. Much. That I simply can’t see my way to exist through another horrifying day. Some days, I am so exhausted by the thought of doing laundry that I don’t know how the hell I’ll be able to accomplish any task ever again.

Those are the most prevalent flavors of my suicidal thoughts. Obviously, I haven’t gone through with it. I haven’t a fucking clue how I haven’t, but I’m still here. I’ve achieved some delicate balance. Most of it comes from releasing the notion of ever being happy. I don’t exhaust myself with chasing ideals of fulfillment. I don’t strive or desire. I’ve let my ambitions go. I simply don’t have the resources for such things. I’ve been much more stable since doing this.

Being a gamer, I have to make the comparison that it’s almost like mana usage in Dragon Age. There is always a part of me fighting off the desire to end my life, like a shield spell that uses a dedicated 30% of my mana pool. I start my day out at 70%. The Deal With Constant Pain spell takes another 30% or so, some days more, some days less. On any given day, I’m operating at about 40% of average mana, so I don’t have a lot of room for anything but work and basic life maintenance. I live within a very narrow margin that I have to carefully monitor.

It’s been worse, it’s been better, but I’ve been relatively okay of late. I only think of killing myself every couple of days, and usually without any real emotional investment in the idea. It’s been far worse. If you live in my town, there have been many nights when, had you been walking down Orange Street, you might have found me sitting on one of the benches outside of the eight story parking garage, crying softly to myself, going back and forth on if I was going to get into that elevator.

Right now, I seem to be at the Groucho Marx level. “I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.” I can find and experience enjoyable sensory phenomenon. Death will end that and I only have one shot at this, so, if I want more pizza and orgasms, I guess I’d better deal with the rest of the bullshit. This is Level One, and about as high as I can expect to function.

Level Two is I Can’t Do This To My Friends. I know firsthand how hard the suicide of someone close to you can affect you. At this level, even though my isolation and depression have separated me almost entirely from feeling like I can ever connect with anyone on a meaningful level, I know that many people would likely be damaged to some degree by my death and I can’t handle the guilt of doing that to so many lovely people who have been so charitable, if misguided, to care about me.

Level Three is I Fucking Hate You All.  This is when I begin to resent that every person in my life is passively guilting me into living even when they refuse to help (in my twisted vision of things). I want to scream in the face of everyone who professes to give a shit, saying that thing that I know I could say that would drive a permanent wedge between us. I want to dissolve every connection once and for all, leaving me alone and free, able to end my life with no one to mourn me. Because if all I’m doing is living for other people, and THEY AREN’T HELPING ME, why the fuck should I care how they feel after I’m gone?

Obviously, I realize the distorted cognitions of Level Three. I know people want to help, I don’t actually resent them (you). I just resent the fact that no one can reach inside me and actually do something to fix me.

I don’t know what Level Four is. I suspect that if I find out, I won’t have the opportunity to record it.

Why am I writing all of this? Chris Cornell just committed suicide, so the topic is in the ether. Naturally, we all have feelings about it. Naturally, there is a greater discussion about mental health, depression, and suicidal urges. Naturally, this sets me into a shitty place.

The following is a Facebook post I made about a year ago on the topic of how people want to help. I feel it bears repeating.

"If you're depressed and contemplating suicide, please reach out."

I've seen (and said) this statement many times. It's earnest and well-meaning and I’m glad for the many caring souls who say it, but I've begun to see the terrible flaw in it.

Let's say I have a friend. We'll call him Mort. Mort is depressed and becoming more and more suicidal. He is consumed by self-loathing and just wants it all to end. I post the "If you're depressed..." line on Facebook, which Mort sees.

Here's the problem. I have put the burden of action to protect Mort's survival onto Mort. I have put the burden of action onto the person who least wants to see Mort survive. He, in that psychological space, is the least qualified person in the world to care for Mort. The onus is on him to exercise self-care, when all he wants to see is his self end.

Do you see the problem?

If you are depressed, please, absolutely reach out if you can. But more than that by FAR; if you see someone who is having trouble, reach out to them first. Don't make the person being slowly crushed under their own suffering take the first step. And don’t tell them life is worth living, get involved and show them.

I’m astonished that people are surprised Cornell hung himself. For the love of cake, he wrote a song called “Pretty Noose.” Are people so naïve that they think money, fame, and love can fix this shit? This doesn’t get fixed. You cope. That’s the best you’ve got. And maybe you cope until life gets around to killing you. And maybe you find one day you just can’t cope anymore and expedite the process. But that’s what we’ve got. Coping. And sure, some of us can accomplish a lot with their remaining 40 or 70% mana. Maybe their pool of resources was just bigger by nature, I don’t know.

One thing I want to say as I close. When and if I kill myself, it will be my decision. There is no decision more personal and more mine than my continued existence. My persistence is my endorsement of my self and my reality. At some point, I may no longer be able to abide one or both of those things. And if you judge me for that, you can go fuck yourself. Be sad for my passing, be sad it came to such an end, whatever. Feel how you feel. But to judge someone who took their life? To call them a coward or weak? If you can even think such words, your myopic, infantile ignorance of how hard a person’s struggle can be makes you a useless sack of shit. I’m not endorsing suicide, but I do think there is a rather unnecessary negative stigma on it. It is sad, but that’s it. To blame or denigrate someone for their choice, to immediately jump to saying how selfish and thoughtless and awful and cowardly it makes the deceased? That makes you garbage, as far as I’m concerned. Take your judgment and shove it up your ass. It’s my life, it’s my death. You may have the opportunity to make either of them somewhat better, but in the end, for better or worse, I’m responsible for me, even if I, the actor, am a slave to myself, the construct.

And I don’t like what you got me hanging from.

Silence

I’m about three blocks away when I realize I’m still wearing my bathrobe. Must look like The Dude. I just had to get out of the house. I couldn’t face her. Even if she wasn’t disappointed in me, the very fact of her human presence around me made me hate myself and my failings.

I walk and walk. I walk in no particular pattern, just following whatever crossing lights were white. Path of least resistance, as usual.

Ugh. Why am I so not who I want to be?

The bad thoughts were starting to encroach again. I’ve been getting isolated and weird. Trying to meet people halfway, people whom I knew liked me and wanted to engage with me. People I love. I feel like I’m slowly warping into a person I don’t want to be. I feel myself slipping further and further away from them, even as I sit and smile mid-conversation. All I want is silence.

I’ve even stopped listening to music, one of my biggest passions of my youth. I don’t care about new bands or shows or anything. When I do feel the urge to listen to something, just to break the monotony, it’s always barely audible.

It’s like I can’t stop listening to the silence. It calls out to me. When I have to be subject to noise, I find myself longing for deafness. I want to finally hear nothing. Maybe if I didn’t hear how awful the sound of my voice is, I wouldn’t hate everything I have to say.

I walk, scowling at every car that passes for interrupting my peace. I try to step outside of myself, remember that they have as much right to walk the Earth as I do. But it immediately follows that none of us has any right. It makes it easier to hate them again for the crime of life.

There is a high parking garage gone dark. Only diffused moonlight filters through the cement structure. I duck into it and follow the smooth concrete upwards. The noise from the outside is turned down, having to traverse many angles to reach me. But it still seeks me. I walk slowly, carefully, as quiet as I can manage. Every scratch of sand beneath my shoes scrapes down my brain. When will this just end?

I make it to the top of the parking garage and the wind mocks me with its hiss. I sit down near the center of the parking level. There aren’t tears for this kind of desperation. I’m past tears. Tears are for amateurs’ little jaunts into sadness and despair.

Tears are for the living.

I sit and I stare.

I walk to the ledge and stare down. The city is quieter, but not quiet enough. As my foot shifts, a sharp metal clinking forces into my head. A long, thin nail lies at my feet. Maybe one last effort before I give in completely.

The second eardrum ruptures easier than the first one.

It’s quiet. I look down at the city and feel the wind brush me, neither one making a sound. I can almost enjoy my other senses now that I have the silence. Now, I kind of do want to cry.

As I start walking down into the parking garage, I notice the sound of my blood, round and organic. It was almost enough, but the necessary functions of my body still intrude into my head. The proverbial wind leaves my sails. I slow my pace to keep my heart rate low.

“James?”

I turn in fear and fury to the voice behind me. There is only darkness. I freeze.

I should not hear anything. And my name is not James.

“James?”

It’s still behind me. Closer.

“James?”

I turn again, met only by shadows. I can hear my blood rush. The shadows look finer, more defined in my terror.

“James?”

I run.

I can hear what sounds like wet meat slapping on the concrete and sound of bone crunching under heel.

“James?” The voice sounds afraid, pleading.

I corkscrew down the halls of the parking garage, hounded by the increasingly desperate cries.

I see the exit, a dark frame around the street’s safety of light and society. I burst out of the exit.

I don’t hear the car coming.

Warning Label

The past three weeks have been profoundly challenging. The pain has escalated so much, and with so many sudden spikes, that I have mentally retreated from the world as much as possible. 

I am emotionally unstable. It feels like the door to my happy place, whatever that is, has been barred. Not a minute goes by that I don't remember that I am in pain and that I have been in pain for seven years straight without a day of rest.

It has gotten Bad.

I'm not saying this for pity or sympathy. I am saying this because a wounded animal is a dangerous animal. It is a struggle to mitigate how much I want to lash out, and anyone in my sphere is at risk. I feel I have kept myself in check, but I want this to preemptively explain my behavior. No matter what I am going through though, I am still accountable for my actions, which is something so many people forget. My trials do not entitle me to be selfish. 

I want to go out. I need a good time. I simply can't bring myself to get out of bed for anything but an obligation. 

Even opening up about this is hard, which is a rarity for me. I'm not even sure that I want to engage people about the topic. Talking about it makes me think about it more, and there is nothing any of you can do for me. It simply felt unhealthy to keep this in for so long, as I have been in some serious depths. 

As for my plan, I intend to try like hell to stay distracted and to just keep plodding on.