-My mom says that I have been a kind person since I was a child.
-I believe that I became empathetic after my friend killed himself after an argument we had.
-Now I’m not really sure why I care so much about others, but I’m starting to hate it.
-I’ve always hated it, I just never realized it. It was and is ruining my life. I haven’t tamed it yet. yet.
-For the past 3 years, a good chunk of my friends (mostly online) have had mental problems that were put onto me.
-I thought that I shouldn’t let my friends death go to waste and use all the things I learned from his life to help other people. I sometimes like to think about it as if we are helping people together. But the longer you are an adult, the more you have to put those thoughts down, because as fun as they are, as they accumulate they will break you as you are slowly taken into a mental prison of your own creation.
-My professors tell me all my writing is too long, it takes too many WORDS to get to the point. I agree.
-Normally telling people the steps to getting therapy should be easy, right?
-I mean, you’ve gone through it so many times that it should be as easy as breathing. Telling them how it works, where to go, specific clinicians, price, what to expect, all that.
-My friend was telling me about how she wanted to go to therapy. I was opening my mouth, about to give my usual spiel about how it works and ask some questions to gauge her willingness and view on therapy, but as I opened my mouth I felt, almost in slow motion, that twitch you get before you start crying.
- you should try therapy, it may help you. let me know if you need help.
-I’m never this short with people, especially when I see they are in need of help. The reason I say this is being short is because I know there is a very good chance they will not take me up on my offer of being there to help them if they have questions.
(I can’t take it anymore) I include this line so you can have a little listen in to my intrusive thoughts while reading, so we are a little closer *warm smile* (i tried typing a smile face and i thought it was ugly and did not convey the emotions I wanted to convey, so I left it up to your imagination to do it)
-My friend texted me 6 days ago about how useless he is and did a short “trauma dump” which disturbed me. I’m not going to call it a trauma dump because I’m unsure that if I wasn’t so emotionally sensitive I would react the same way. However, He is an adult, he should know better than to say stuff like that without warning. I don’t like to think like that, but when I’m pushed into the corner I don’t know what else is going to keep me alive.
-Normally it takes me a bit away from people and some time in isolation before my emotional battery recharges and I’m able to handle trauma again. But my battery won’t recharge anymore. I’ll respond to it tomorrow I said. Tomorrow came, I said the same thing.
-Why are you doing this to me? I can’t help but ask, even though I know you have no concept of anything that happens after you press that send button, you don’t have the mental availability to think about it anyways. That’s what I like to tell myself anyways, helps me stay sane. This mindset will change soon. I will soon learn how to create a healthy distance between my friends and me. I do not need your help. I am smart enough to help myself. It’s not that, its just that I’m tired of having to pretend that your words help me, even though I really do appreciate them.
(I hope she didn’t kill herself. I wonder if she still knows that I care about her.) <– intrusive
-I developed a crush recently. I spent more time with her. I think humans are mostly boring and annoying but occasionally beautiful. It seems I can only feel happy when I drive her home at 12am because she needs to get back and we end up sitting in the car outside her house until 4am. These events are quite rare. Even when they do happen, they get kind of boring. I always feel like I have to do something risky to make it interesting. But the problem is that I don’t care for the thing I’m risking. I just want something interesting to happen. I’m tired of mundane people. Even though I myself do not try to make myself non-mundane for most people.
-Every human has true beauty. But depending on the person, It may be difficult to feel, see, hear, touch, smell. It could be difficult to pull it out of them. It could be buried quite deep.
-When I see spiders on the ground, I can’t help but thing we are the same. Your specific life may be useless on this earth. But I am useless in this solar system, galaxy, universe. This is a dangerous and stupid path to walk down. But something about it is just so appealing. I love spiders a lot. I love spiders a lot. I don’t like people who kill spiders. Although, I can sort of understand where they come from . There are insects that I do not find visually appealing such as centipedes. However, I do not believe I should abuse the fact that I happen to be brought into the universe as a superior species and kill it just because I don’t like the way it looks. Why can’t you look past that. If something wants to harm me. I will try to get it to stop and do something else without hurting it. I would say killing it, but hurting and killing is kind of the same when any injury can be severe and will be permanent for most insects. Injuries could make a painful and slow death from other creatures, it makes them very weak and unable to defend themselves. A quick flick of your finger leads to a lot of slow suffering. If something is going to seriously injury me and I don’t have the luxury of being able to defuse things with confidence I will value my life above anything and kill if I have to. It’s only natural anyways. I don’t really like this last sentence. I’ve never had to kill anything that has been threatening my life so far. How would I know?
-One time I was talking to someone and I could tell that they were a new to their own brain. I could be wrong, but I feel like I’ve spent so much time with my brain, I can pick up on when people don’t know themselves well. Anyways, this guy told me he has thought about suicide. The corneas of my eyes felt like glass. I felt my gaze cold. I felt extremely analytical. I felt kind of like I was above myself. Is this the state of being that therapists put themselves into during sessions? My voice still carried compassion, but I’m unsure if I mixed the correct amount of compassion into my thoughts or not. I felt I mixed in very little. It feels as if the more compassion you add the more unstable you become. I am not worried about this really because I have time to figure out how to avoid breaking down. But as of right now it is very annoying.
-Do people really care about christmas? I never really understood it. If I wasn’t annoyed by people I don’t talk to very often saying “merry christmas” I would forget the holiday existed. I know some people say that don’t remember that it’s christmas to appear cool, and It’s possible I am doing that to some extent, I think most of it just comes from the fact that once I care about christmas I’m taken away from my mind and forced back onto earth with the rest of the humans and their earth bound brains. I’m not capitalizing christmas out of spite even though the red underlines are annoying. keeps making me anxious that I forgot to include the t or i, those letters seem to blend in to me for some reason. I don’t mind people who like christmas, it makes sense. I just don’t like when they come to me and talk to me about christmas, see that I am not interested, keep talking to me, and then blame me for ruining their mood and ruining their christmas.
-If you like christmas, and no one has told you yet, I hope you have a nice christmas and holiday season. If things are going shit for you, you could always try to enjoy something really simple, like maybe a glass of hot chocolate. [edit: i have a bad habit of giving advice sorry. if your holiday season sucks. sorry. *hug?*]. you could go out and get some marshmallows to add on top. I only say that because as a kid, in the few times I had hot chocolate with marshmallows, I always enjoyed watched them bob up and down the surface of the liquid, and each time they rose from their chocolate submersion they always had this shield of chocolate wrapped around them that slowly withered away the longer they had been surfaced for. The point is: do something simple. enjoy something simple. I believe the ability to enjoy simple things is both a gift and a skill. Sometimes, enjoying simple things can be really hard, and it feels even worse when people tell you to “just enjoy the little things” something that should be so simple, and yet you can’t do it. It hurts. I know. Do something meaningful for you. Something I felt helped me was either removing or focusing in on a sense. I may turn off all lights and have loud music. Focus on the soundwaves, small details in the music (i listen to very detailed music so this is easy for me). I like to plug my ears, and feel what its like to not have my hearing, well the closest I can get to that on my bed. When I unplug my ears I feel my hearing slowly come back. I am grateful I am able to hear, I love my music. Even if all the music lately seems to be getting really boring and stale again. Nothing has color. I have been through this before, I won’t make the same mistakes. I hope you don’t either.
-I was planning on getting really high earlier. If you smoke weed, you’ll know that when you stop smoking for a period of time, your tolerance will drop, and you will be able to get way higher with way less stuff. I decided to write this instead. I thought that I would end up smoking anyways. But I don’t even want to anymore [edit: i am lying to myself i want to be high very badly at the moment. i hate these thoughts i just want them to go away]. I am really glad I wrote this and I’m really proud of myself for resisting the really good high I would’ve gotten. The reason I don’t want to smoke is more so because of principle, not health or time. I could sleep all day tomorrow and it wouldn’t be an issue, and health is health, but the principle is that smoking makes me happy when I should not be happy. This is why I lost one of my friends. I feel like my life is on pause when I’m high. Smoking is fun though, even writing this I feel the urge coming back. To be fair I have been smoking WAY less than I used to. I used to be high everyday. but I’ve been better recently.
-My name is 11 because I have a fond memory of my friend asking me in our woodshop class in high school if the 11 Advil he held in his hand would be enough to kill him.
-My name is 14 because he passed away when he was 14.
cool right? a little bundle of memories for me that is but a set of 4 numbers to all others. I like to remember people in ways like this. I’ve made too many accounts here. But I think I like this one.
Be kind to yourself. Do something you enjoy. Can’t think of something you enjoy? is there something that one of your senses enjoy? perhaps the feeling of a blanket, perhaps the smell of toast and cinnamon, perhaps the sound of music or waves, the taste of your favorite tea or food, or the sight of something nice in your city, nature, a friend, the moon.
Break it down. If it’s too big. Break it down.
5 comments
I like the way you wrote this by breaking it down into palatable chunks. I also don’t care about Christmas.
ty. i hate reading, especially long unbroken things.
It’s both rare and lovely to meet someone with either as much or more empathy than I. I definitely care too much, but I’m learning to turn it off in relation to self preservation. God, the temptation to write and write…. I often do, and most people don’t take the time to read and I get that, some people have pressing matters to get to.
Which is kind of my outlook on Christmas, it’s there. I bought a Hanukkah moose, I have a thing for moose; A moose is my ideal temperament. They can be quite caring and kind, but woe betide those that threaten it. The big difference between me and a moose is that I like dogs, most moose don’t. Well, fingers I guess as well as a vastly more complex nervous system, but I don’t think either of those are necessarily benefits…. I’d give them both up for a simple purpose.
Yes, I can confirm that analytical is a common feeling among therapists. I thought because I was highly analytical I might be a therapist someday…. for various reasons I’m thinking not right now. IDK if I’d even recommend therapy. I have a therapy appointment next week, my last one with this therapist. That’s the problem I have; unpacking my personality takes more time than I’ve ever found a therapist capable of.
So we sit and fiddle and I toss random issues at them, because I have no earthly idea either what the issue is. I had a great childhood….. too sensitive, that’s probably it. In our previous session my therapist suddenly had a freudian instinct and asked about my childhood…. then he’s like “that’s pretty revealing as to who you are” and I’m like, yes, but no one ever has the time for it. I’ve rehashed my childhood with several therapists, none of them can bring back my grandparents or make it so I was raised somewhere that appreciated overly sensitive people.
I’m intensely curious what you are studying, because you mention professors. Also, I’d like to give my two cents about rambling on; it can be worthwhile if someone reads it. Even if no one ever does, getting those feelings out is a good thing. Anyway, I finished my undergrad in psychology with a minor in computer science, and now I might be coasting into grad school.
The flat truth is that no one I’ve met pays enough for the job required. I’m so useful unemployed, so when I take a job it cuts into my side projects and I get miserable because I can’t pay to have them done.
That, and I feel like cheering up/bandaging my psychological wounds would in a way be giving in….. like this is the only defiance I have left; I won’t fix myself. I know how, and I totally would if it was going to be worthwhile, but it isn’t, so I don’t.
This made me smile, I like when people reply with long things that kind of systematically address what I wrote. Thanks. (i like meeting people who like writing too).
I get kind of sad when I hear of people who have a lot of empathy too, because it’s really not a fun thing to deal with especially if you have anxiety or trauma or both. It’s never too late to tame your empathy, and it can be quite a strong tool once you do. Although, I have found it quite rare for someone to appreciate that empathy before its gone.
If you could not guess. . . I am a psych student. Maybe one day I’ll become a therapist and avoid making all the mistakes my therapists made with me, and maybe avoid some of the things I hear stories about too, kind of like the story you told me. Even hearing it I just want to sit and break the past down, because it sounds like the past is still kind of just the present, to me at least. and if thats the case, well, yea, a therapist should probably address that.
Also, grad school might be an interesting prospect. I was always interested in specifying my studies, so I plan to go to grad school. Well, that is if I make it there in the first place.
How do you know if your wounds are worth healing if you don’t know what’s on the other side?
Just appreciating your post a whole 2 days later. I tend to also post a bevy of thoughts as well. I feel that my brain works in a similar way, and so, your post speaks to me.
I can see how you’re a pysch major based on the observations you’ve made with the various people you mention. Especially with feeling like you’re overanalyzing certain things. I appreciate that you were worried that you weren’t mixing the proper amount of compassion in your responses also. Empathetic individuals try to make it make sense, and so as a result little things like that pop up, when the majority of people should hear the compassion you display and feel some sort of gratitude for caring.
I’ve been on and off of SP for well over 6 years at this point. I’ve been involved in STEM for so long, I’ve questioned my own place in the universe, and if I’m worthy of kinship, love, etc. Even if the outside world deems me an intellectual, which I still kind of hate because of the expectations placed upon oneself, would anyone really accept my screwed up head and loner tendencies, my inability to articulate as well in person as with certain individuals, my mood switches, etc?
Thanks for this. I don’t celebrate Christmas, nor do I care for it, not growing up with it or any other holiday, but I hope you continue to find those little things you can be comfortable with, and maybe as you pursue those things, it’ll put other pieces into place that you weren’t expecting.
Cheers.
Your friend,
Trey, the mindless gamer