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