Terrified, not much of a plan here…

     It takes a long time to do anything at my college, so I am not totally withdrawn yet, and unfortunately it has me thinking again about what I am doing at all. I tried looking for jobs today and it hurts knowing how unfit I am for every (seemingly) simple, out of the way job. Cashier?- not me, just thinking about that has me high in anxiety.

I also filled out two change of major forms just a few minutes ago actually. One for a degree in Graphic Design, and another for a Production Artist Certificate (this would take way less time to earn). Those titles fit me more than “Coding Specialist” or “HIM tech”. Now I don’t know how far I’ll get with actually switching my major, money wise. I hate having loans like this, it is so messy and puts a lot of guilt on me (as if I needed more). But right now I don’t care because I am satisfied that I made a move I didn’t expect to make. How long have I been talking about changing my major?…lol. For too long. But it scares me because I’d be starting over, once again with no clue what I’m in for.

It’s better than assuming my options are out, knowing I’ve not tried all my options yet, I’ve not tried. And while I know art is what I go to, it has done nothing less than save my life, I am not confident in being creative you know? Who cares though right? It’s not the college’s money that is being wasted, it’s mine. It’s the money I don’t have to waste being wasted….

Whatever though, this isn’t easy. It’s written all over my poor arm at the moment- I am losing and shutting down fast. I’m going to make an appointment with my therapist one last time, just so he knows I’m off my medication and that I’m not gone and dead yet, or maybe not….If I did, I would not hold back anything this time. The funny thing is I don’t feel depressed, I just feel completely out of options. I can’t become a brand new person over night, or even over twelve months time because it took longer than that to become the mess I am. So, my mother can be angry or feel at a loss with me, and my father can stay clueless as usual, and the rest of my family can cut me out, it’s not going to fix me and it’s not going to give me a reason to want the rest of the life I have. I can only try so much, and continue to see it fail so much before nothing matters anymore. Until my family’s feelings are nothing, and until my thoughts about disappearing and breathing no more aren’t even important, but are all I think about and all I am left to work toward. Do I make sense? It doesn’t shock me that I’m thinking about suicide, and neither does the fact I’ve sliced my arms open again shock me. It’s all so small and insignificant compared to what’s been going on forever in my head.   

I am already disappointed in myself. It doesn’t help that people in my life don’t know how far on the edge I am. They need to know I am hanging on desperately for something to work and for it to save me you know? Why I have to make things so hard, I don’t even know…why am I still here is the real question. I shouldn’t be and I don’t want to be, yet I’m still trying…silly right.

        

Shadow… an old drawing; it’s relevant now though.

Parts Two and Three…lol

       My internet access has been out for days, so I can finally post the rest of the lines I wrote. These last parts are probably the weirdest pieces of writing I’ve ever done. I was looking through a signs and symbols book while writing them so I included images I would normally have been lost and clueless to. Besides the internet being out though, there has been a little family drama. My spirits have been low and this mood has set off familiar thoughts I’m trying to fight off. Thoughts about worthlessness and what I could do about it. Out of nowhere though I thought to try volunteering one more time. At the art museum, instead of a hospital. No medical tests would be needed and I would be in a quiet atmosphere. I wanted to volunteer at the museum months ago, but like always I talked myself out of it. This time I truly don’t have a choice. It feels life or death, because I’ve been thinking about death, to be honest. Art has been a good distraction though. I’m making pendants with my drawings glued onto them to sell at a craft show in November my mom signed us up for. It’s all I’m looking forward to really.

So here are the other two parts…..They are more about my past relationships and how I wish they would have been, and also about what I have substituted in place of things that are missing. When I say doctor, I’m referring to my therapist.

 

Pt 2. 

 

The lone, irregular piece of opal with occasional, mean tendencies

I am the unlucky, the stubborn lock in the spoke of my dear Fortunes wheel.

I try to drink more goodness but it dries and disrespects my throat

And chokes me on ideals so often,

 

I say I’d rather be alone to perfect their judgment.

To make sure the dark rays murder each blessing correctly.

Prominent, unattractive noise and sight, simply because I walk by

As I silently acknowledge the critical disgust in words others will say, do say

And should.   

 

The knife in a dream, and collapse once it breathes, gives the circle its power

And resistance. With Its narcissistic ways…. Its reach and quick steal of calm securities.

But only with my blood and my lungs and contemplation, do these anxieties exist.

Only through my distant relationships and neglect, and frigid death to each one does this

Recluse, hermit creep.  

 

I didn’t need a friend, Doctor. I needed a blade, final words and a blinding migraine.

That year I had easy, hopeless ground on which to dig my grave

With a once in a while smile begging that I wait. I sat beside the hollow and listened

For non-existence. For the love and will carried by the hum of End.

 

You could say that I need help.

Some days I do agree, but Shadow has persuaded that I mark today my last.

He at least insists I mark it a wish to keep secret,

As the always unlocked door you will not know about. 

 

 

 

Pt. 3   

 

You should know the blood I sought refuge within

Has become nothing more than the place I languish in numbness.

The lasting nights of isolation swirling its shadows in justification has

Been a caring father. As soft and true as the birth-death disappearances

Of the moon.

 

There when I need it. Just like the black choker and fire fringed corset

Tightening their squeeze, a mother purging the poisoned germ of a

Measured, pulsating decay. This safety is unbreakable, knowing I will not fight

What leaves me shameless in its loyalty and guiltless in its crime.

 

I must keep away from their opened eyes. To see my flesh so saturated in fear

And distrust, the face of a deep ugliness hidden by a pitiful mask, it would

Mean an end on their terms. My five swords and all consuming fall.

Saying ‘don’t think of what they say’ won’t coax me from my cage.

 

I’ve inoculate myself with rejection’s shard-like tears, and I ignore the fact

It doesn’t work. I avoid, stealing from the pain, for solitude with my love.

Shadow has my heart, and welcome treatments of calm and clarity.

Your expertise presumes me ‘figured out’.

 

While my spirit dies of faithlessness.

You don’t know- my prayers are laced with doom.

Licks of a sick passion that scars the blinks between my weeping fits.

I quiver with flashes of cold shock, thoughts on a drenched scene,

 

Their piano song is muddled. I am the broken key. 

Yet, I continue to pretend I am something of significance.

Not a near death situation. Sleeping on what would be my finish of perfection,

Or daydreaming of the sort…. They want to be free of me. Do tell them I am sorry

I take so long to end.   

  

It’s a lot and I don’t think I made much sense at all, but I like the release writing this gave me. I can read over each part whenever I don’t feel understood.

SA-It Still Has a Tight Grip On Me

 

My discomfort with using the phone, I’ve noticed, has gotten worse. I don’t like to call strangers, or answer to strangers, or make appointments. If we didn’t have caller id, I doubt I would ever bother picking up the phone.

 

I feel as though my family thinks I am useless in a way, because I don’t have a social life, and because I still have not made any suggestions that would indicate I am even interested anymore in having or making friends.

 

I am disappointed with myself for not even trying to take the risks I know I should’ve taken in the past, and should take in the future. I constantly doubt my ability to do new things, even if I were to be taught how to do something.

 

It’s become a fact in my mind that I am very good at embarrassing myself, and even better at saying the wrong thing, at the wrong time, the wrong way.

 

To better explain how everything looks from my point of view, it’s as if I’m at the bottom of everything, and I am unable or unmotivated to balance myself and get anywhere in life. The future doesn’t feel as if it will be hopeless; its more of a fact now that I don’t think about altering, it simply is hopeless.

 

Things I’ll tell my therapist tomorrow……

I Think I’ve Figured It Out.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: that’s what I’ve been going through for the last nine or ten months, and last night something just clicked for me. So I wrote it out in my journal and I have a summary of it here….

Isn’t it crazy the way we justify what we do and think? Like fear. We rationalize our fears and try to bring them down to earth so that they make more sense, leading to justification. For example, my emotional response to social situations is anxiety. I rationalize my fear and anxiety by saying I am just not a people person, or that I don’t want or need to be around others. Or I get angry at those people and situations that affect the anxiety in an attempt to shift my failure from being 100% mine, to becoming everyone else’s fault (at least partially). After making such rationalizations, I then feel justified in avoiding social situations. So in other words, my avoidant behavior has been justified by the way I’ve rationalized my fear and anxiety. How do I change that?

 

Instead of insisting that people are scrutinizing everything I do, in order to diminish my anxiety I should rationalize that they are not worried about me and what I am doing. But in my attempts at diminishing my anxiety, in a way I seem to diminish my self worth also. Like, I’ll say others aren’t worried about me and I am the last thing on their minds, then I take that further and say to myself that I am unimportant and simply in everyone else’s way, diminishing my self worth.

 

So maybe the first thing I should rationalize with is by reminding myself that I am a stranger to others just as they are strangers to me. I don’t judge and scrutinize every little thing I see strangers do, so why would they do that to me? But I still feel self conscious about my very presence in social situations. As if I am wrong, even thought I am quiet and bother no one and disappear into the background. That will take longer to completely manage.   

I can’t control what my presence evokes in the minds of strangers. I know they don’t know me. I know I can’t change for everyone, and I must remember that they certainly won’t change for me.  

 

So does any of that make much sense? I know what I should be doing in order to manage my social anxiety. I must change my thought pattern. I’ve got to take more risks and practice this approach I’ve written about. I can’t run and avoid every situation that sets off anxiety for me. And I am tired of doing that. I accomplish nothing but short term relief from that anxiety, and long term isolation and depressive moods. I am just tired of it.