My Friends, My Habits, My Family
Jul. 16th, 2005 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
I was woken up by Mom. Good thing, too, because I probably would have turned off the alarm this morning and rolled right over. I was up late procuring the latest Harry Potter tome (the release party was a lot of fun, even though ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
arlekin and I just sat and read Ultimate Fantastic Four graphic novels), then writing my new lapine incarnation over on SpinDizzy. The slow, steady march to full bunnyhood trundles on.
So, my mother is in trouble with money. Again. And my sister is supporting a no-good man. Again. And my mother is throwing my sister out when she gets back from New York. Again. The world keeps turning, and balance is balance.
I've been depressed for the past week. The worst part about depression, at least these days, is the confusion it brings among conflicting emotions; I want to be alone, but I want someone nearby to understand me. I want to gripe, but I don't want to bring anyone down with me. I want to be productive, but I want time to do nothing. It's been a long time since I've just been able to wallow.
Anyway, now that I'm coming out of it, I sort of know what it is that I went through back there. Simply put, AnthroCon hit me especially hard this year, which caught me completely off-guard. This is the third year in a row I've chosen to sit this one out, and I don't regret the decision. Do NOT get me wrong; AC is an excellent convention, and dozens of people break their backs every year to make it that way. It's worth going to! I've been coming to the decision over the past several months, though, that I'm not really one for public life. I don't like parties and conventions...they drain me. I'd much rather save for months to visit a close friend for a week, where there's time for meaningful contact. AnthroCon, for all its wonders and greatness, is way too busy for me to connect with folks in the way I'd like.
Still, it's very difficult to watch all the people you admire go to this convention and report back on the excellent time they had together. There's the small twinge of selfish jealousy: Wasn't I missed? Was *anyone* looking forward to seeing me? Are they disappointed I never showed? This is something I'm ashamed to admit, because I already *know* the answer. They're unfair questions to ask. I *chose* to put myself in this position. It's not right to resent other people for having fun without me.
This brings to the limelight my deficiency regarding relationships, and why I have so few that are genuinely close. There's been a double-standard regarding what I expect from people and what I generally give in return. Honestly, for most people, it's not worth the work it takes to get to know me because I don't offer much in return.
I've developed a very insular personality because of past mistakes, and heartbreaks, and little chips that have been building up for years. I don't offer a lot of myself to anyone, partly because I'm convinced no one would be interested and partly because there's a lot in myself I'm ashamed of. I can be manipulative, vindictive, hypercritical, oversensitive. I'm easy to slight, and once I've been slighted, well...everything that's done in my presence is done to illustrate just how little I am thought of. Grudges are nursed and developed into full-fledged, resentful despair. Over this positive, life-affirming veneer there's this ball of poison: fear, and regret, and hurt, worming its way around and tainting all of my decisions. Just when I think I've barreled out the last of it I find sometime later that it goes deeper than where I've been looking.
So, my inner world has been perverted severely, and my outlook suffers from a result. People who want to talk to me (with a few exceptions) just think that I have something to offer them, and the people who don't want to talk to me know that I don't. The entire basis for contact with me is judged by what I can do for someone. This is horribly misanthropic, and gross, and pathetic, and I'm ashamed for it. But there it is.
What do I do about it? There's no way I can wake up one morning and go: "I suck. I won't be this way." The biggest problem is, I genuinely don't care about most people. I thought I did, I try to, but the bottom line is I don't. I don't care about them because I fear them instead. What they'll do when they find out that my warm and polite personality is a sham, or when they find there's not much I can give them in return for their friendship. Somehow, I've lost the emotional equipment to care. It's startling to realize just how self-centered I am. There are perhaps, five or six people I genuinely love. How do I get from that, to loving everyone I know?
I am emotionally dead, to most. I don't think I'm a bad person. I'm just empty. Everything I've lived through has taken my heart from me. I haven't loved anyone or anything for a very long time because I've come to think that there's nothing, myself included, worthy of love. There's no hate to replace it, there's no untempered passion for the potential of love or hate to exist. Until recently.
Things aren't as bad as perhaps they sound. The people I love, I love completely. I know the capacity is there, because it's happening; the trouble is admitting to myself how bad off I was, and how bad off I still am.
I've been a pretty shitty friend to almost everyone I know, and a lot of people may deny it, and that's good of them, but it's true. :) I don't show much interest in what interests them, I don't reciprocate good intention, reaching out and all the attempts people make to get that connection. I've become a passive friend, taking whatever is given, acknowledging it sometimes and refusing to give much of anything in return. This is a model that cannot work.
I want to start thinking of other people, putting the needs of others before my own. I want the satisfaction and happiness of my friends to be its own reward. I want to be able to give without hope of gratitude, for just the *giving* to feel good. I want to be able to meet people halfway. I want to stop wanting.
I just don't know how to do all of this. But now I know what I need to do.
arlekin and I just sat and read Ultimate Fantastic Four graphic novels), then writing my new lapine incarnation over on SpinDizzy. The slow, steady march to full bunnyhood trundles on.So, my mother is in trouble with money. Again. And my sister is supporting a no-good man. Again. And my mother is throwing my sister out when she gets back from New York. Again. The world keeps turning, and balance is balance.
I've been depressed for the past week. The worst part about depression, at least these days, is the confusion it brings among conflicting emotions; I want to be alone, but I want someone nearby to understand me. I want to gripe, but I don't want to bring anyone down with me. I want to be productive, but I want time to do nothing. It's been a long time since I've just been able to wallow.
Anyway, now that I'm coming out of it, I sort of know what it is that I went through back there. Simply put, AnthroCon hit me especially hard this year, which caught me completely off-guard. This is the third year in a row I've chosen to sit this one out, and I don't regret the decision. Do NOT get me wrong; AC is an excellent convention, and dozens of people break their backs every year to make it that way. It's worth going to! I've been coming to the decision over the past several months, though, that I'm not really one for public life. I don't like parties and conventions...they drain me. I'd much rather save for months to visit a close friend for a week, where there's time for meaningful contact. AnthroCon, for all its wonders and greatness, is way too busy for me to connect with folks in the way I'd like.
Still, it's very difficult to watch all the people you admire go to this convention and report back on the excellent time they had together. There's the small twinge of selfish jealousy: Wasn't I missed? Was *anyone* looking forward to seeing me? Are they disappointed I never showed? This is something I'm ashamed to admit, because I already *know* the answer. They're unfair questions to ask. I *chose* to put myself in this position. It's not right to resent other people for having fun without me.
This brings to the limelight my deficiency regarding relationships, and why I have so few that are genuinely close. There's been a double-standard regarding what I expect from people and what I generally give in return. Honestly, for most people, it's not worth the work it takes to get to know me because I don't offer much in return.
I've developed a very insular personality because of past mistakes, and heartbreaks, and little chips that have been building up for years. I don't offer a lot of myself to anyone, partly because I'm convinced no one would be interested and partly because there's a lot in myself I'm ashamed of. I can be manipulative, vindictive, hypercritical, oversensitive. I'm easy to slight, and once I've been slighted, well...everything that's done in my presence is done to illustrate just how little I am thought of. Grudges are nursed and developed into full-fledged, resentful despair. Over this positive, life-affirming veneer there's this ball of poison: fear, and regret, and hurt, worming its way around and tainting all of my decisions. Just when I think I've barreled out the last of it I find sometime later that it goes deeper than where I've been looking.
So, my inner world has been perverted severely, and my outlook suffers from a result. People who want to talk to me (with a few exceptions) just think that I have something to offer them, and the people who don't want to talk to me know that I don't. The entire basis for contact with me is judged by what I can do for someone. This is horribly misanthropic, and gross, and pathetic, and I'm ashamed for it. But there it is.
What do I do about it? There's no way I can wake up one morning and go: "I suck. I won't be this way." The biggest problem is, I genuinely don't care about most people. I thought I did, I try to, but the bottom line is I don't. I don't care about them because I fear them instead. What they'll do when they find out that my warm and polite personality is a sham, or when they find there's not much I can give them in return for their friendship. Somehow, I've lost the emotional equipment to care. It's startling to realize just how self-centered I am. There are perhaps, five or six people I genuinely love. How do I get from that, to loving everyone I know?
I am emotionally dead, to most. I don't think I'm a bad person. I'm just empty. Everything I've lived through has taken my heart from me. I haven't loved anyone or anything for a very long time because I've come to think that there's nothing, myself included, worthy of love. There's no hate to replace it, there's no untempered passion for the potential of love or hate to exist. Until recently.
Things aren't as bad as perhaps they sound. The people I love, I love completely. I know the capacity is there, because it's happening; the trouble is admitting to myself how bad off I was, and how bad off I still am.
I've been a pretty shitty friend to almost everyone I know, and a lot of people may deny it, and that's good of them, but it's true. :) I don't show much interest in what interests them, I don't reciprocate good intention, reaching out and all the attempts people make to get that connection. I've become a passive friend, taking whatever is given, acknowledging it sometimes and refusing to give much of anything in return. This is a model that cannot work.
I want to start thinking of other people, putting the needs of others before my own. I want the satisfaction and happiness of my friends to be its own reward. I want to be able to give without hope of gratitude, for just the *giving* to feel good. I want to be able to meet people halfway. I want to stop wanting.
I just don't know how to do all of this. But now I know what I need to do.
