Is Good Enough?

Okay, I’m starting to really feel the anticipatory anxiety I always experience before I have to follow through with anything I’ve thrown myself in. Telling myself things like “you have a right to exist here, to move in this world and hold your ground, don’t turn away.”

I wish I could be more than sure about being capable for the job I’m going to begin. This just has to work out. I don’t want to be a mess the moment I screw something up this time. Something has to go right for once. I have to make it happen.

Distraction at the moment: I love playing this song on piano, I find it very calming.

 

I’m one among too many.

 

 

If I had it in my control, I would erase the world along with the whole universe. My trying has no strength. I’ve been waiting forever just to see that nothing can be done—nothing will move. I could yell all I want and plead for how desperate I am, but to this world and these people, my words are just more to add to the noise of every other number out there, pleading as I am. We’re nobody to each other.

I can’t go through another year of dreading the days I wake up to. I don’t think I was meant to make it on my own in this life. Where’s my motivation, after all? Why am I more afraid of the future years I might have and not so scared to cut them short, or even to try to?

Yesterday while at the store my mother and I went to pick up an air mattress and a pillow and I didn’t think we’d need a cart, but with my mother being the way she is, we went into the checkout line with both of our hands full of needed things. Well, there was this woman there with a cart. She worked there and saw how full my arms had been, struggling to hold a huge box, a giant pillow and how my mother had packs of paper towels and cans stacked around her feet. The worker refused to lend us the cart she had when we asked. Instead she told us “I can’t give up my cart, but there right over there” nodding at the direction. Then she placed one small toy in her cart that another customer decided they didn’t want, and walked off.—I can’t even express how angry I was after witnessing that. I’d just returned from walking the whole food section looking for meat that wasn’t even carried (with the box and pillow still in my arms) and someone who works at the store goes and does something like that to us…She could have given us her cart and walked “right over there” to get another one for herself. I’m just glad another employee saw it happen.   

It was really just more proof for why I’d rather stay away from everyone—because just one prick can make the whole day feel like a disappointment. But what I was most aware of, even before the cart thing happened, was how a dark mood completely fell over me while walking through the store. I pretty much looked through everyone I passed as if they weren’t even there, but the irritation was building. By the time we walked out I was sure I would go home and take the anger out on myself, but it didn’t get that far. Yet right now I’m sitting here wishing it had.

Maybe it’s my body trying to adjust to the 200mg I took the night before, or maybe my not eating enough and trying to calm my hunger with drinking water the entire day; the entire week actually. I might just be trying to trade in one kind of emptiness for another. I’d rather feel hungry physically than feel empty or numb emotionally and have no control over when it goes away.        

….I’ve talked too long here haven’t I….

The painting above is supposed to be an angel with torn, bloody wings. Well, maybe it’s not an angel, but that was the idea. It had to be dark and I tried my best to make it look a little creepy as well. There’s another version of this on my art page (it’s the first image).

The End Is Better

I cancelled another therapy appointment. I don’t think I’m going anymore. If I can’t pinpoint what I need and what I’m in this for anymore, it’s a waste on so many levels. I’m in some kind of pain, but there’s nothing anyone else can do to help me out now. It feels like I’ve looked at all sides and I’ve heard the possibilities. There’s been so many attempts to get me to believe in the positive, but every time, I easily let it all slip from my mind. It’s weightless to me.

I didn’t know how to approach ‘getting help’ when I did finally speak up. There was nothing but a fear that has remained at the core of what I am now. It doesn’t allow me to say what I should be saying in therapy. I can’t let go. I can’t share my darker thoughts because for years I’ve felt that speaking of them is a dangerous option—one door would lead into the next and I’d surely lose all the control I only ever hope I have.

So, I cheat myself by not telling my therapist the whole truth. And I’ve had enough; I’m sick of myself. I hate how much time and money I’ve wasted, and I’m disappointed that I have not yet learned, after all this time, how to accept help. I tie it so much to meaning, while knowing I’ll never have an answer–for why I should live, for why I should care. Help is something I don’t have an idea for how to have it really sink in.

I’m tired of going through days where it seems I’m always about to fall asleep to what’s going on. Being blank about it. Watching up close but not fully taking part. There’s no desire to. And if I decide to let go all together, it feels like I know exactly how I will fall and where I will land. It’s quiet and I’m alone, surrounded by a calming cold; finished and resting, and on my way to being forgotten about.

Got through another week…

    This week felt too long. Not one night of enough sleep and a bad week all around. In class we took a transcription test I completely butchered. When the instructor was going over all of my mistakes as she turned the pages of my test, I stood there discreetly scratching my wrist to keep myself distracted from crying. It worked. I didn’t shed a tear but I did unexpectedly draw a little blood where I was scratching. I don’t know why I’m so hard on myself when it comes to my ability to do these assignments. I seem to be more of a perfectionist than I ever thought. But hey, the scratching is all I’ve done, and I think it’s all I’ll resort to (hopefully) if the same distraction is needed.

My brother only got 30 days in a county jail. Serves him right if you ask me. He seriously takes for granted how lucky he is, and it’s bugging me to even mention him now so I’ll stop.

I’ll be writing this weekend and finishing another weird painting I started last week. It’s been a while it seems since I posted a poem, so the first one below is one I’ve been a little picky about. It doesn’t really have a direct meaning but it relates a lot to how I’vebeen feeling overall the last couple of weeks. How it’s hard to survive when you don’t have a reason to; the emptier every passing day leaves you. The second poem below it is another one I wrote a long time ago and edited several times. It’s like a second version to the one I titled “His Closer Look”, about that incident I had in therapy. This was my second attempt at trying to explain the whole thing.

Quandary

 

Unanswered; I trust my broken lens

In solace as I descend

Let us switch places so you feel this grin

The chances and abundant hope I pretend

 

We can’t look one another in the eye

When one of us is resigned to die

When one is destroying their own strength

For the meaning they cannot find

 

A moment, removed in how I breathe

There is something unforgivable just

Behind this door, you’d never dare to see…

The saddest noise your ears could never reach.

 

My final glance back at the fall from a climb

The bloody wounds are real this time

As the empty vessel shatters, of courage grown

For diseased, the longer I remained whole

—

The Second Session

 

When he spoke

I was listed and told

I was just too impulsive and

Never learned to cope

 

I was dead in sharp silence

Quiet moments all too quiet

Already so unhinged,

His help felt like punishment

 

He asked what hardships I endure

And what releases I’ve reached for

He asked what pain; what blood and scar

To inflict one and go too far

 

And he saw the map I drew

The breaks for peace, of old and new

I tried to reason, tried to lie

And passionately justify

 

But no excuse was good enough

No stopping his intrusion

Great struggle remained in my eye

Of secret hurt, of sacrifice

 

He’s not right, I’ll not feel shame

Or reconstruct some fear of pain

In wasted time and stricken air

I left, in anger and waned of care

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.