Day Three: 11/14
Nov. 15th, 2010 12:12 amToday was a good day; I was happy for the first time in a long time, but I know that happiness is fleeting. Tomorrow, I may feel worse or nothing at all. I don't know which I dislike more: the feeling of self-loathe or the complete absence of emotion altogether. For today, though, I felt joy and a little bit of confidence, and that's enough to convince me that I can truly be the person I want to be. I just have to work harder at making everyday a good one.
I've been thinking about self-destruction, which is not a pleasant topic to think about, especially after one has had a good day. Surprisingly, it only made me sober.
My sister - whether she realizes it or not - has self-destruction down perfectly. She drinks, and she drinks hard. When she drinks hard, she becomes less pleasant, less aware of herself, and more hurtful. She drinks more and more, until she's hugging the toilet, throwing it all back up, as she slings insults and hurts the people who care, who try to help her.
Or, she did, when she was living here in Indiana. I hope she's better.
My own self-destruction is less drastic, but still devastating: I work. I'll throw myself into my jobs and work and work and work until I'm exhausted and frazzled, at the end of my rope. Working allows me to distance myself from everybody, and gives me an excuse not to socialize. If I don't socialize, I don't run the risk of opening myself to other people. In the case of distancing myself from people I'm close to, it allows me to keep them at arms length. I'm afraid of their affection and love, because I don't believe I deserve it. My entire childhood was spent listening to how I was an inadequate child, how I was ugly or stupid or too weird to be friends with. There were moments of love from my mother, when she wasn't stressed, but that love was uncertain to me. Sometimes, it's uncertain to me even now.
I'm not entirely sure how love works, to be honest. But does anybody really know? Affection is involved, but I was never sure how much was too much or too little. It was easier for me to find an excuse - work - and cling to it; friends understood that if I was busy with a job, I had a legitimate reason not to hang around them. I could keep them at a comfortable distance.
If you knew the entire me, I'm not certain you would want to stay. It's better that you see what I show you at the distance that I allow you to stand from me.
Except, it's not. I end up alienating myself and other people. When I want company or to talk or hang out, I feel that the person I want to do these things with is ignoring me, when - in reality - I've alienated myself from their lives so much that I don't really know them or what's going on in their lives. I'm more selfish than I thought I was.
It's not a good sign of friendship or romance.
...
Aside from the thoughts on self-destruction, I've decided to stay away from social media - Facebook and AIM. I'm taking a hiatus, not because I'm "busy" and want further separate myself from the rest of humanity (or at least the small circle I run with). I really do need to think and reflect. Facebook and AIM just distract me. I find solace in neither, to be honest. It's the irony of social media websites and applications; the more "friends" we make, the more we "know" about those "friends," the less we interact with them in an actual, real social setting. We only remove ourselves from real life with Facebook, and there is no comfort in the text and .jpgs that replace real people.
The only reason I'm keeping a presence on livejournal and Dreamwidth is because both offer an outlet that neither Facebook nor AIM can give me. I'm expressing myself for the what feels like the first time in a long time; these sites are my outlet. Granted, my family and most of my friends don't know about these journals. If I'm going to find myself and my voice again or discover a new person entirely, my spaces on these sites are going to chronicle that process and help facilitate my own self-discovery. I need a place to write, a place to express the unexpressed.
For the readers on Dreamwidth, I really need to get an angst or contemplative icon. Sam Winchester's acknowledgment of another's pain with a sympathetic bear hug makes me feel like I'm not taking this entry seriously. It's the best I have, though.
I've been thinking about self-destruction, which is not a pleasant topic to think about, especially after one has had a good day. Surprisingly, it only made me sober.
My sister - whether she realizes it or not - has self-destruction down perfectly. She drinks, and she drinks hard. When she drinks hard, she becomes less pleasant, less aware of herself, and more hurtful. She drinks more and more, until she's hugging the toilet, throwing it all back up, as she slings insults and hurts the people who care, who try to help her.
Or, she did, when she was living here in Indiana. I hope she's better.
My own self-destruction is less drastic, but still devastating: I work. I'll throw myself into my jobs and work and work and work until I'm exhausted and frazzled, at the end of my rope. Working allows me to distance myself from everybody, and gives me an excuse not to socialize. If I don't socialize, I don't run the risk of opening myself to other people. In the case of distancing myself from people I'm close to, it allows me to keep them at arms length. I'm afraid of their affection and love, because I don't believe I deserve it. My entire childhood was spent listening to how I was an inadequate child, how I was ugly or stupid or too weird to be friends with. There were moments of love from my mother, when she wasn't stressed, but that love was uncertain to me. Sometimes, it's uncertain to me even now.
I'm not entirely sure how love works, to be honest. But does anybody really know? Affection is involved, but I was never sure how much was too much or too little. It was easier for me to find an excuse - work - and cling to it; friends understood that if I was busy with a job, I had a legitimate reason not to hang around them. I could keep them at a comfortable distance.
If you knew the entire me, I'm not certain you would want to stay. It's better that you see what I show you at the distance that I allow you to stand from me.
Except, it's not. I end up alienating myself and other people. When I want company or to talk or hang out, I feel that the person I want to do these things with is ignoring me, when - in reality - I've alienated myself from their lives so much that I don't really know them or what's going on in their lives. I'm more selfish than I thought I was.
It's not a good sign of friendship or romance.
...
Aside from the thoughts on self-destruction, I've decided to stay away from social media - Facebook and AIM. I'm taking a hiatus, not because I'm "busy" and want further separate myself from the rest of humanity (or at least the small circle I run with). I really do need to think and reflect. Facebook and AIM just distract me. I find solace in neither, to be honest. It's the irony of social media websites and applications; the more "friends" we make, the more we "know" about those "friends," the less we interact with them in an actual, real social setting. We only remove ourselves from real life with Facebook, and there is no comfort in the text and .jpgs that replace real people.
The only reason I'm keeping a presence on livejournal and Dreamwidth is because both offer an outlet that neither Facebook nor AIM can give me. I'm expressing myself for the what feels like the first time in a long time; these sites are my outlet. Granted, my family and most of my friends don't know about these journals. If I'm going to find myself and my voice again or discover a new person entirely, my spaces on these sites are going to chronicle that process and help facilitate my own self-discovery. I need a place to write, a place to express the unexpressed.
For the readers on Dreamwidth, I really need to get an angst or contemplative icon. Sam Winchester's acknowledgment of another's pain with a sympathetic bear hug makes me feel like I'm not taking this entry seriously. It's the best I have, though.