Every now and then I get a clear reminder of what I’ve done and who I am, and how everyone else feels about that. I live in this state of denial and emotionally distancing from it the rest of the time. Like I know, factually, what I’ve done. And how horrific everyone feels it is. But that knowledge doesn’t fully connect. I have this emotional shield of rationality, where I disconnect. I detach emotionally.
But sometimes an explicit reminder cuts through, and I remember. I remember what I’ve effectively been trying to bury for 17 years. I remember I don’t want to live in this reality. I don’t want to live with the knowledge of what I’ve done.
I don’t know if it’s pride, or shame, or something else. But I don’t want to live in a world that designates me as endlessly suspect. A dangerous animal to be carefully managed and contained. I don’t want that relationship with society. I see no meaning in that status.
So I’m too proud to be everyone’s villain. To forever be bowing and scraping and begging for forgiveness. But at the same time, I don’t have strong enough self-esteem or an internal sense of meaning to live in defiance of what everyone else thinks. I don’t have it in me to go full-villain, as much as the idea is appealing at times. I don’t see any meaning in that life either.
I just want to end this existence. To not be me. To not have the awareness of these things in my mind. And the only way that can happen is through death. And I’m terrified of death. And I don’t want to devastate my family. And there is a huge part of me that still very much wants to live an imagined life that isn’t mine.
So I’m sure I’ll keep on pushing that clarity back down and clinging to fantasy and denial. Tomorrow I will wake up and have a little distance back. My mind will reconstruct the walls. But I will never move on from this. I will never be free of it. It will always be there, dragging me down. Because of my fundamental resistance to accepting the reality. My refusal to accept my place at the bottom of society. My inability to find meaning in who I really am. I will continue to exist in misery and dysfunction for as long as I live.