Pressure

There’s a major conflict going on in my mind right now. And to make it all worse my twin brother might be spending a few months in jail for some stupid shit he got himself into. He’s the biggest sheep I’ve ever seen; following his friends and how they act…and now I feel like my mother has had it with her sons ever being very successful, and that the pressure is now on me to make something positive happen. Meaning I have to finish this course and I have to try and land a job. It’s more of a thing for her sake–not how I feel about it but because I now see the situation as necessary…

Today was a better day class wise, but the news about my brother is weighing on me. It’s not that I care about the trouble he gets himself into (I saw this coming, he never listens). I’m even more disgusted with what this life and society is made of. Too many people, too little opportunities, the lowest of human nature playing itself out in everything we see happen…

I have another song I’m distracting myself with. Practicing piano more when I get home to calm down from feeling so pressed about getting my life together. Because who’s to say it won’t be my last night alive? I’m not guaranteed tomorrow and it wouldn’t be right to close out another day without doing something I can enjoy on some level. This is all going to be over soon, I’ll hang in there until then.

Something always has to go wrong…

These days are getting worse. Or I’m just getting worse at every attempt I make at this school thing. Once again, I went into class this morning ready to give things another chance only to leave at the end of the day feeling ready to shoot myself. I would have gotten some use out of my knife had I tucked it away with me this morning. Getting home seemed to be enough to calm me down today though. I was so tired of trying to pay attention.

Not much time now to say much else…I’ve got to get to bed earlier even if it’s another sleepless night. As many hours away unaware of society and my meaningless place within it does nothing but good for me.

Might as well let it go, with no shame.

   I have another appointment tomorrow with my therapist. Now feels like the time to tell the truth. I’m getting up everyday feeling as if it’s all being done for everyone else. I put on a face for others, I pretend I have a plan- for others, I’m even acting like I want to get a job and be completely out on my own. It’s all a big lie. I don’t want tomorrow to come. Sometimes I’ll be staring off in a daze of disbelief that I actually have to endure more hours, more days.

 

I don’t really want to bother with making life goals, or with trying to survive as a part if this society. I want to disappear from it. It’s been clear that the few things I have a bit of care for aren’t enough to keep me motivated when I feel like giving up.

 

I started posting on a social anxiety support forum, the only thing about it is that we are not allowed to discuss suicide (feelings, thoughts, none of that) and so I’m thinking about leaving that site now. I’ve only been there for what-three days, but I figure if I can’t even talk about what’s constantly on my mind, what use it is to me?

 

Who cares anyway; we’ll never be fixed. The emptiness and cold has gotten to me, and today just feels like one where I wish the world would just end already.

 

 

A joke? To them…

       Unexpected news: I have the whole week off from school next week due to spring break. I will have time now to finish my painting and re-record a song. I hope my energy at least stays up, if not my mood. After what happened in class this week, the anxiety and everything, I’ve increased my dosage of medication. It affects my sleeping pattern and also causes me to have a short fuse at times when I get annoyed. But when that passes, I’m usually able to pull myself out of bed easier in the morning.

I’ve been finishing my class days feeling as if I just don’t want to come back anymore. On top of that, I’ve been thinking about some things I’d rather not fixate on right now. Seems there’s a certain amount of pressure and demand I can take before I get the urge to walk away completely. But I can’t say I didn’t expect this to be hard for me. It’s just difficult to think positively when you feel like you’re drowning even before you begin, you know? I think I’ll be so bad at this job I’m training for that I’m imagining they’ll just ask me to leave and not bother and waste their time. I tend to think it’s better if I remove myself before anyone has the change to notice the faults and tear me down for them.

Maybe I blow things out of proportion, but that’s what I’m made of I guess. I already have everyone thinking I’m just ’shy ’ or ‘timid’. They don’t get that this is a real disorder, something that is crippling me, and not something to be minimized or laughed at…Damn, who around really understands this besides those who have it to deal with? I just feel as though no one takes it seriously that social interaction has been hard for me to cope with. I think they’re laughing at me for it, you know? Just waiting for something bad to happen to me before they do finally see.  

Nobody knows how relieved I felt when I found there was an actual name for what this is. Knowing that it’s an actual anxiety disorder and that it’s documented may seem small or mean nothing in the end, but when you’ve gone years feeling so severely out of place and wrong as I’ve been, having any answer or piece of an answer is enough for me to hold onto.

My classmates are starting to wonder about me. I can feel it when I’m around them. I don’t jump into the conversations I hear. I mind my own business. I kill any small talk others try to start with me, with short answers and general words. Enough complaining though. I’m in this for the entire thing, no matter how bad I am at what’s to come. And I certainly didn’t sign up for this training to make friends and be distracted. I’m getting my certificate and that’s the bottom line.

Now, the poem below is odd but I brought it together using some old stuff I’d written and adding onto it. The title sums it up really. With the past and present opening up to one another and being immersed in the conflicts you thought were gone.

Regress

 

I’ve seen it in my dreams,

With keys and an inviting grin

The shifting glare of its knowing eyes

It’s form, stirring eternal winds

 

I’m aware the air is boring thin

The buzzing drills right through

I heard the stealthy specks of darkness

Creep, of midnight’s mystic hue

 

Weeping fissure; these two worlds link

Sorrows ricochet, the past redeems

I’m smothered in the poisoned fog

Of my returned riddance and wrong

 

 

A Bad Ending

 

Today was a pretty bad day.

 

We were practicing at making phone calls this afternoon in class with a partner and I was so embarrassed by the whole thing. I did try to complete the assignment but when the instructor focused her attention on me and my group partner, I was surprised at how quickly I fell apart. Crying, and my breathing went out of control…She was pushing me and when you know how bad you already are at something, other people pushing at you and criticizing makes it so much harder. An intense feeling of embarrassment and failure overwhelmed me and I decided to leave the room, twice actually. I came back once thinking I could get through the rest of the assignment, you know, put on a face and say what I was supposed to say. But the feeling over came me again, and I left a second time.

 

And while I was out of the classroom I was thinking about giving up on my efforts to even try to finish the course and get a job. Besides social anxiety, its the depression and self worth issues always there waiting to mess me up. To have fallen apart as I did in class today….It just felt like a nightmare had come true.

 

I guess I’m waiting for someone to tell me I’m a fool for going to school to work at a job that requires so much contact with other people; talking on the phone-greeting visitors, stranger after stranger…I’m terrified, honestly. I thought about not coming back after what occurred today. It just doesn’t seem as if anything will get better. I’m stressing already, and I’m not even half way into the course…     

 

Tired and Soulless

  Finally, some time to feel something other than tension and doubt….

 

I have been getting very little sleep so there’s not been much time to focus on anything besides school. There are a lot of insecurity issues trying to trip me up now. One minute I’m at peace with the fact I am introverted and that I speak only when I feel I need to, and the next minute I am breaking beneath the pressure I feel of not being good enough by just being what I am, you know? I’m so hesitant about every move I make, to the point where when I speak to my classmates, I still have to slow down and think out my words to keep myself from stuttering at the start of each sentence. This just started btw, within the last three or four months.

 

I still have some poems I have ready to be posted that I finished before my job training classes started. The one I have below is about the lie I’ve kept up finally failing and about being exposed and realizing that once it happens, there’s only a matter of time before you lose yourself completely. When even the good memories of the past can’t convince you to stay and endure the emptiness. 

 

Soulless

 

I’d rather you be happy

With joy upon your face

Leave me in misery

Kept safe and in my place

 

I am as touched as you’ve been blind

As cold as your fear of being frozen

The unseen sorrow sings these thoughts

I am jaded and well understand

 

When this mask of perfection goes un-kept

And secrets shyly show themselves, you will

Know soullessness, the scene will be unkind

In striking fail comparison of the fallen lie

 

Reasons cede and loosen the grasp of memories

As deaths of past run cold through me,

I know you will get over.

More than sure, you will move on.

 

 

One More Mistake…

   I think I’m making a mistake. Today was my firstday of classes and I’m already thinking about quiting. I know being a unit clerk is wrong for my personality in every possible way and I’m afraid of what I’m getting myself into. If I quit tomorrow, there can be a full refund on the $3,000 tuition cost. After tomorrow though, it’s a loss and complete waste of money if I decide later I want out.

But do I quit before I have another plan to fall back on? No one will hire me. I don’t think there’s any other area I could train in that would fit me at all. I’m hopeless enough. This whole world is one I have no part in; one I don’t care to have a part in anymore.

They are asking us to smile, stay positive, all things this job will require because it’s at the front desk…What the hell have I done? I was so excited a few days ago about being out of the house and learning some kind of skill, but now I don’t even think I can fake the confidence. Three months with an impossible work load. It’s almost as if they are lying about the success their graduates have had coming from this program…

The whole thing seems to be set up to weed out the weak from the strong. This whole opportunity to me has been about survival. Everyday I get closer to seeing that I may not be meant to last. I get in my own way by not only being honest about what’s messed up about me, but by emphasizing those things that are wrong. Because as long as I breathe in this life I will be at a disadvantage because of those things.  Is that not the bottom-line? It’s not supposed to work.

Last Option

           Today I went to see my new therapist. She is pretty cool actually. I’ve been more hesitant than out right anxious about stuff (talking on the phone with strangers, following up on calls and all). Too tired from the insomnia I’ve had the last month to think far enough into my anxiety I guess. I am recording a new song too, actually a few new songs. My voice is the only thing ruining it all…lol. My songs are more like slimmed down poems anyway-I don’t know what I’m doing, haha. And there are some canvas drawings I’ve put off painting; too lazy for it right now to make sure it looks like I gave it effort.  

I really do feel like a shell of whatever I was. While talking with the new psychologist, I had to face the fact again that I have no outside social life. And that I’ve never had any real relationships with guys I’ve met in my life. She found it kind of hard to believe I’ve never had a boyfriend, but I told her I didn’t look how I look right now. Not to mention the fact I was never looking for a boyfriend, being so depressed when I was finishing out school. It’s just not something I care about anymore. Relationships with people in general….My personality will never be enough to keep people very engaged, for whatever reason I might want them to be. I’m too introverted and have stopped apologizing for it.

I might love life if I didn’t have to sustain it you know, if I didn’t have to eat and have a place to stay to survive…if the basics weren’t needed to keep the body alive. I may sound confusing here, but that’s where all these issues seem to stem from- having to sustain. I don’t have a reason to, I’m just doing it because I have not built up the will to get rid of myself yet. Nothing has sent me spiraling that far, not even near it lately. I’m not excited about school starting next week, I just know it’s necessary. It’s a way out of my avoidance from everything. I’m going to try, because this pretty much is my last option. Otherwise, for someone like me, getting a job will be impossible. I don’t see it happening any other way now. And I’m too close to throwing my hands up.