All the words that have ever been said.

All the different words that have been used to describe me, that all probably ultimately meant the same thing.

Only child, gifted kid, monster, autist, selfish *****, the third antichrist, failure to launch, abuser, victim, bad person, depressed, schizophrenic, vulnerable, girl, boy, “it”, manchild, loser, missed opportunity for abortion, narcissist, disappointment, try-hard, pretentious, stuck-up, too-good-for-this, holier-than-thou, hateful, ungrateful, creepy, rude, rageaholic, rapist, rape meat, DIPSHIT.

I tried to be a good person to make the pain stop. Everyone around me saw this goodness and assumed I was good due to being “fully self-actualized”, they assumed I had my shit together because, well, I’m still alive, aren’t I?

I’m still alive- I must be doing something right, right?

Even though I told everyone around me, “I know that I’m only alive because everyone else is enabling me, and when push comes to shove, I’m not gonna make it.” And what do you know, push is starting to become shove, and even my own body, the one “person” who has always forgiven me and stood by me, has had enough. What do you do when the body says no?

I pulled back. I tried taking my energy back. But everyone had become accustomed to relying on it. I had become accustomed to relying on it as a form of penitence, debt repayment- credit for my existence.

My “family” (an ex-boyfriend and my parents) became accustomed to my existence as an object- pay it the right amount of the right currency and it’ll do what you want, even if it hates you. Never mind that they could just ask instead of continuing to lie and manipulate. I’m already broken and I already “hate” you (you disgust me and bring out the worst in me and I want you to go away because I don’t believe you can stop hurting me), just say what you mean so we can both cut this conversation short. I’m not going to be your friend.

Obviously being a “helpful doormat” and being employed and then trying to STOP being a helpful doormat is how you:

1. lose your fragile grip on reality and explode

2. get fired.

Still waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don’t have a backup plan. Selling my plasma is not going to pay rent. Neither is working fast food. Go back to school? What, so I can fail and waste my time and everyone else’s money? I wouldn’t be able to hack it in the trades, but it might be my only option. Just give me some pills that’ll sew my mouth shut so I can concentrate on the work.

I’m not going to argue the merits of capitalism as a theoretical economic system- there’s a shitton of that kind of talk already on the internet. But I will say that it is additionally difficult to “sell yourself” when you’ve had lifelong depression.

You either suck it up and lie, which every successful person will tell you is more or less the trick to financial wealth (on some level, you will always have to lie, because the line MUST go up, and your negativity is harshing the investors’ buzz, or the smarter ones can see that you don’t have your shit together and obviously are not going to risk their chips on you, unless they are also insane…)- or… you… just… rot. You lie or you rot.

I really thought I was going to make it. I thought I was going to be okay. That I had another miracle up my sleeve. But a quarter of a century of downward slide is just too much. It’s just too much. I hate myself and I hate the world but I don’t hate the people in it and that kills me. I really wanted to save you, each and every one of you, yes, even you reading this! No matter what you have or haven’t done.

I don’t want anyone to rot, not even the murderers and rapists. I want to send them to a farm managed by cold but firm staff, where they can weave baskets or recycle aluminum or god forbid, maybe learn new skills and subjects and give something good to the world.

I don’t want their victims and survivors  to be destroyed by the pain, I want them to be sent to a different farm far far away where they’ll never have to even THINK about the people who hurt them on a material basis- to not have to worry about running into them on the street.

I want everyone to be given whatever it takes for them to make it, whatever they need to become a person they can live with, a person who CAN get knocked down AND get back up, without having to kill or rape everyone around them about it.

Because that’s what I want. I want out of this metaphorical prison that I built with the help of my friends and family.

A lifetime that alternates between hearing, “you don’t know anything, you’re a crazy psycho ***** that doesn’t know what it’s talking about” and “you are a genius, you are the only person who can help us, we need you, we need your help, you are good at what you do and I need you to do it forever”… I can’t write anyone off, period. No matter what you have done. But I also can’t save you.

I don’t even know if I can save myself. I don’t know if my body will forgive me this time. I don’t feel right asking her to- not after what I’ve done, to HER. Does it matter if I stop hurting her now, after everything I’ve done, all the ways I let her be hurt? Does it matter if I support her now when I’ve always let her down?

Forgiveness either happens to you, or it doesn’t.

I don’t know where anything ends or begins anymore. I don’t even know if it does, at all.

People keep telling me that I have to define it for myself, but they also keep telling me I’m crazy and my judgement can’t be trusted. So, I imagine, what they ACTUALLY want, is for me to “choose” the “correct” answer- the one that they chose, so we can be enmeshed in perfect sync, so we can use each other to become something bigger than just ourselves.

But that’s not the right answer for me. But, my right answers seem to hurt people. How can it be right if it hurts people? Doesn’t that mean I’m still wrong?

(What about me? What about my hurt? Well, you dumb fucking slut, you were just BORN wrong. You should never have come into existence at all- you simply should have been aborted;even though your mother’s pregnancy was something she chose, she chose it under coercion- it was a “wrong choice”. She just simply should have been better, despite the impossible situation she’s in.

Everyone wants me to hate my mother, but I don’t. She was doing the best she could. How can I hate that?

I don’t even hate my father. He’s spent his whole life in pain, never wanted or valued or loved. He gave up a passionate romance to provide for his child. How can I hate that?

I wish my parents had made better choices, but I wish I had made better choices too.)

Some days are harder than others. I wish I could rip out the throats of my internal audience. But I know- revenge simply doesn’t work, and I know this because I tried it, and other people tried it, and it didn’t “work”. It didn’t make me feel better, it didn’t make them feel better, and it didn’t fill the hole in our respective souls.

I hope my first ex-girlfriend is thriving. Gun to my head, who do I look up to as my hero?

Her.

She got out.

She got dealt a shit hand and she got out. Or at least, I am fervently imagining that she got out- she was going to college, she had a boyfriend, she was doing well, before she got out of my life.

I want to believe she made it out, and she’s… well, I don’t believe in happiness, but I want to believe she’s okay.

Thanks for listening. We’ll see how autumn goes. I’m going to have my own Christmas or die trying. Good luck out there.