I keep thinking that I just want to stop. But clearly I don’t want it enough to overcome my fear of attempting. Or to let go of all the other crap that’s keeping me here. So I’m here, at least for the foreseeable future. I need to engage with reality, get my shit together, get out there. If I’m not going to end myself, then I have to find some way to actually live. I can’t be this hermit anymore – it’s not sustainable. I can recognize that, rationally.
But my emotions aren’t co-operating. All they want is to curl up in a ball and sleep. The thought of attempting anything even semi-functional just fills me with apathy and despair. I don’t want to go through this again – trying to re-engage with humanity. Dealing with the intense awkwardness, loneliness, shame and regret that doing so brings. I don’t want to have to face reality. My reality is terrible. My reality makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide. Having to be myself, around other people…Gods, just kill me now.
I don’t want to try anymore. The harder I try, the more time I spend around people, the more the emotional distance hurts. The more I’m aware of the unbridgeable chasm that exists between me and others. The more reminders I get of what could’ve been, and what is no longer possible.
But…there is no alternative. The alternative is death. And I’m too afraid to pursue that in a proactive way.
I just don’t know how to cope with facing reality. How to force myself to do it consistently. How to make myself do things I don’t want to do. There’s no end goal. There’s no point at which things will be ok, or easier. It’s just a question of survival – if I’m not going to end it, then I have to function.
Getting up morning after morning to drag myself to a job I hate, with people I feel alienated from, with no prospect of things ever getting better. I don’t know how to go back to that. I don’t know how to make myself do it again. But there is no alternative.
So I have to figure something out. Some way to force myself out into the world, and to keep myself there, when I just want to curl up in a ball, to hide, to sleep, to stop. A fair amount of self-delusion & addictive behaviors will likely be involved.
8 comments
This is the mirror image of my life particularly “what could’ve been and what is no longer possible”, if you find a way back in let me know how you did it. You’re also correct that there is no alternative that’s what frightens me the most.
I tell myself that all things change and so these feelings will to. They may change back but there will be a time that I feel a bit different and sometimes that’s enough to get me out and about. Honestly I just try to hyper focus on one thing and get that done and high five myself for doing it and then try to find something else to focus on. I don’t know what works for you but I hope you find something to get you through the days.
Thanks. I suppose my feelings do at least fluctuate, but it kind of seems like they’re always there, under the surface. It’s like they cast a shadow over everything else I experience. I never feel really ‘free’ from them, so it’s hard to motivate myself or push myself toward a time when I’ll feel better. I’ve try keeping my mind wrapped up in other things (like work), but it just leaves me feeling empty when I realize how meaningless it all is.
Fair enough. Well I wish you good luck on work stuffs and trying to find some meaning in all of this.
jesus man. if i hadnt thrown my old pc against the concrete i would show you some of my old notes. I know ive said it before but its just word for word, idea for idea. Literally the exact same. at least on the surface. obviously we’re different people with different situations but still.
for me the first year out of isolation was built mostly on delusions of grandeur and dealing with people through a fake persona. this lead me down the same old paths and i ended up depressed and suicidal again.
started using drugs and the next year was probably the worst in my life. came very near death many times and permanently ruining my life but at the end i was scared into submission.
spent some time in intense anxiety and fear then reverted to my child mind. started over from zero and recovered my health while opening up about my past for the first time.
spent the next several years at a new job and eventually started learning to let go and socialize better. Met a very close friend who, although his life is entirely different from mine, had many similarities in our personalities and outlooks.
we helped each other grow each nite talking after work and i constantly worked to open up more and more. let go of the past. and now i have things i never thought i would back then in the isolation.
it’s not something that ever goes away completely but telling yourself things cant change is just a misunderstanding on your part, because you just dont know that and by telling yourself that you hamstring yourself
The thing is, I’ve already been through this phase – trying to re-engage with reality over the course of years, build up friendships, getting a job. But I couldn’t make it stick, and I regressed. There’s no way for me to really let go with people, or open up about my past. There’s stuff I can’t ever risk people finding out about me, so I’m always stuck with that fake persona, and the anxiety just builds and builds. The past is ingrained in my subconscious, and try as I might to let it go something always happens to push it back into my awareness. The issue is still there like a splinter in my mind, and although I can try and build up walls around it it regularly breaks through, causing more distress and anxiety.
So I can’t see myself ever getting to that next phase. I feel like I’ll always be stuck with projecting a fake persona, trying to manage the anxiety that generates. But that’s what I have to find some way to deal with.
Yeah, i mean there’s things i cant tell people either. maybe mine arent as bad as yours, who knows? My persona may be more real but i am still struggling to form a stable inner self and flourish socially. i may never accomplish this im just trying to do better as time goes on.
i do hope one day you can find someone to open up to at least a little.
Thanks, I guess all anyone can do is try to be a little better each day than we were the day before, even if not all of us can ultimately get to where we’d want to be.
I can’t see really opening up to anyone (outside of therapy), but I may get to a point where there’s less of myself that I feel the need to hide.