Kaldi’s downtown. Hot guy in a business jacket, jeans. Smoking hot.
And I say nothing to him.
I excuse it. He has earbuds on, he’s working on things, I’m working on things. But I know better.
I didn’t talk to him because the second I saw him, I immediately dismissed him as “not interested in me at all”.
It’s a constant argument in my head, it sucks, and I’m fucking over it.
I went in to the local clinic to get PREP done, and while I was waiting on the med tech to come in, a mental health counselor came in.
“We just like to check on our patients from time to time.”
Which is fair. I’d had mental health services there before. In came a person I’d not seen before – older gentleman, frumpy, appeared to be somewhat disorganized.
“Oh, OK.”
“So how have you been?”
I’d been depressed… feeling pretty fucking worthless and more of a burden to the people I care about than an asset.
“I’m doing OK.”
“That’s good. Your mood has been good lately? Any changes or any issues we should know about?”
I feel lost and alone. I have a ton of people who love me yet I feel unloved and unwanted. I’m doing the bare minimum to take care of myself and sometimes, even that’s a bear.
“Nope – things are doing decent.”
“OK – if you need anything, you know we’re always here.”
Why? So I can be told to do stupid happy exercises that may make me feel good in the short term, but provide no real long-term solutions? So I can have a therapist take a lot of notes, but provide no concrete answers? So I can spend even more money on the equivalent of a junker car that will never be worth the amount of money and effort put into it?
“Sure thing. Thanks for stopping by.”
The lie wasn’t hard. In fact, the ease of doing it was what astonished me the most. Do I want help? Yes. Do I want answers? Yes.
Will I get them talking to you? Will you be empathetic if I cry and not just somebody who sits there and scribbles and suggest I breathe slower?
(door closes)
I carry around a lot of grief. And I’ll be damned if I can figure out why.
I really have no idea. But lately, the urge to cry for absolutely no reason has been way up there.
One thing about it, though, I feel like as I’m grieving for myself, and… I’m still here. I’m grieving as though I’m thinking, “damn, guess we had a good run”. Changing the outlook and rethinking things just seems pointless.
For all the times I tell myself “it’s just depression talking”, I can come up with 13 reasons why (pun intended) everything I’m thinking is true – and no evidence to prove me wrong. And so I grieve the fact that I’m an awful human being who deserves to not be here.
It’s a huge weight on me and most of the time, I can handle it… but it cracks every now and then – and I’ll be driving or I’ll be in bed, and I’ll have the sudden urge to cry about… something. And I can’t put a solid finger on what it is, and it frustrates me even more.
On Saturday, I went to a classical living room concert, had a 1/4 cup of sparkling wine, a 1/4 cup of rose… came home, ate dinner, and went to bed. Earlier in the day, I had bumped my head on the door of the weather office as I was backing out.
The next morning, I rolled over in bed, and felt ridiculously dizzy and wanting to throw up a lot. I was like…. it can’t be a hangover, because I didn’t drink that much, but I don’t think it’s food poisoning either. Regardless, I stayed home from work. By the time I went back to bed later on, the stomach issues were gone, but I was still getting dizzy whenever I’d roll over in bed.
That’s been going on for about 3 days now.
I have an appointment to see my MD in a few hours. Dr. Google makes it sound like vertigo or a mild concussion, which… would be the lamest damn concussion either. I mean, I get to see my doctor anyway, which is nice, but even then… yeah.
I was at a local coffee shop a few days ago, and the barista came up to me while I was working… we talked for a bit, and he lingered a little bit longer than usual, asking me about my day and such. And I wasn’t sure if he was hitting on me. I definitely didn’t know what to do if he was.
I got his name as he walked off, and like any person born of the Internet era, I did a Google search on him. And found out that he’s also a mega-religious gentleman going to the local Baptist seminary school.
I don’t know why I feel like I attract the religious crowd / they’re attracted to me… I’m purely agnostic. I shouldn’t dismiss him as automatically straight and not interested, but I’ve been around that community long enough to have a probable cause. And don’t get me wrong… for the vast majority of my life, I’ve been able to make friends (or at least pleasantries) with most anyone. But this is definitely not the first time this has happened.
I just hate that this is not the first time when I’ve completely misread such a situation. I don’t even know if I’ve misread it or not, because I have such problems reading these things.
Or maybe I’m just thinking too damn much.
Had a bizarre dream last night – the gist of it (among other things) is that it was Thanksgiving back in Arkansas (although some of my coworkers from KC were in it), and rather than participate with my friends or family, I was super scared and basically locked myself away in a room (not specifically MY room or anything). Afterwards, one of my coworkers came to get me (no clue why specifically her), and told me of all the things I missed – including, apparently, Mark Wahlberg showing up for some reason.
Although it was, supposedly, my own family Thanksgiving, it did play into one of my biggest dreads every year – spending Thanksgiving by myself. Christmas does this too – but Thanksgiving is even worse because it’s just SUPPOSED to be a big holiday of friendship and family, and every other year, I end up spending it alone by circumstance or such.
Plus, it compounds into my reasons for not going out socially – at all. I don’t do it because I fear what will happen, that I will get laughed out of wherever I go. In the dream, it was with people I know – but in reality, it’s with both people I know and people I barely know. And it really sucks to live that way, but I do. Like, daily.
A hot guy just walked in to the coffee shop where I am… and I have no idea what to do next. But mentally, I’ve already told myself that he’s not interested and would probably laugh at me.
The last vampire is the mother of all vampires and that is the vampire of despair
It’ll wake you up at 4 am to say things like-Who do you think you’re kidding?
You look like a fool
No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be good enough
Why is it if some dude walked up to me on the subway platform
And said these things, I would think he was a mentally ill asshole
But if the vampire inside my head says it
It’s the voice of reason
I don’t know what it is about super-cold weather, but it just makes me frakking cranky… and everyday annoyances are annoying. Joy.
I’ve been taking my frustrations out on MarioKart, which is good and bad — good because at least it’s an outlet, bad because it makes me want to throw things. (Plus, it’s still a passive activity, but at least it’s better than me watching YouTube videos of British Rail safety videos.)
(yes, I do)
I haven’t figured out if it’s a sign that I’m coming out of my rut and such… I’ve gone from feeling depressed to feeling angry, which surely must be a phase of some kind.
Anyway… at least my schedule for the next month or so is consistent, and I’m not having to pull full overnight shifts, so I can focus on getting my life back in order for WHEN the changes happen. Maybe that’ll help as well.
Yes, winter is supposed to be cold in KC, but it’s even colder than usual… and I’m not sure if it’s the main reason I’m so down these days.
I mean, I know about “winter blues”, but I think it’s just a feeling that I’m sick of the winter… and sick of a lot of things to go along with it.
There’s a lot of “sitting on the fence” with me these days, and I don’t know why. A lot of “I know what I should do but…..” and finding ways to either procrastinate things or excuses why they’re not necessary. Organizing my life… returning to the gym regularly… all things that I can make easy excuses not to do – even though I shouldn’t.
I don’t know if it’s just me being a procrastinator or me not thinking I’m worth it. I think it might be a big mixture of both; most of the time, I really *don’t* think I’m worth the trouble. And I know it needs to stop, but I don’t know a good way to make that happen.
Maybe I just need a swift kick in the ass.
Was talking with a friend last night about the fog I’m going through, and how I feel as if I have an intense need to be not disliked… and he pointed out that everyone else is worried about being the stars of their own shows as well, and not necessarily harboring resentment towards me if they’re not communicative or if they fade out of view for a while.
And… that just didn’t compute. That was a complete brain short-circuit. In fact, he said he had to go right after that, and I apologized for bothering him.
I don’t expect to be the star of anyone else’s story but my own… but I worry about not even being in the cast – especially with the people I care about. Which is a ridiculously stupid thing to think about logically, but it makes sense as I sit here and type it.
If I were to die today (no, not happening) – would anyone be at my funeral? Would anybody bother to remember me at all?
I worry about this every day – some days more than others.
I put a high value on friendship, but don’t feel as if anyone puts a high value on mine – again, logically, it makes no sense, I know – after all, you’re a trusted person if you’re reading in here, since this isn’t a public consumption blog. But at the same time, I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve having that friendship reciprocated — in fact, I feel completely unworthy of it.
I compound that with people who choose not to have me in the supporting cast – and I wonder what I’ve done to wrong them, to hurt them. And again, I know that in many of those cases, it’s not that I’ve done anything, it just… is what it is. But internally, I can’t get past the feeling of “I must have done something to wrong them, otherwise, we would be magical friends and be skipping down the sidewalk” – and we’re talking about people who I have zero in common with, except for us existing at the same time in history.
There’s a guy at the coffee shop reading. And I’m too scared to say hi to him because I fear the worst – and refuse to be humiliated in public – despite the odds of that happening being… absolutely none.
I’m meeting a friend for coffee in 15 minutes… someone I care about, but see very sporadically. Is it because I’ve wronged him? No, that’s just how things go sometimes. But can I shake the feeling that somewhere along our history, I did something to cause him to pull away? No.
It’s a hell of a burden to put on myself, I know. At the same time, I feel as if I don’t, I don’t accept any accountability or responsibility – and if I don’t accept responsibility, that’s not, well, responsible.
And I interchange responsibility for blame.
And I blame myself.
Because if I don’t accept the blame, who will?
And so I wonder if this friend would mourn if I was gone. Or if they’d even care. Or if I’m even worth mourning over.
I’ve said in the past (and it’s still true) – that I don’t feel like I have a need to be liked – I have a major need to not be disliked. And it kinda coalesces with me going “LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEE” a lot – yet simultaneously thinking “OMG I’m an attention hog, sorry.”
I bring it up in the case of online interaction – the fact that I’ve shut off Messenger notifications so that I’m not pouncing on people all the time, because I don’t want to be a pain in the ass… yet feel like if I DON’T, I’m liable to be lost and ignored forever.
Which, logically, I know isn’t true. I know that if I go one day without talking to (x), they’re not going to immediately forget me and disavow knowledge of me. But at the same time, I feel like I’m not doing my duty as a friend if I’m not checking on them.
Funny thing about that. I’ve had several folks dealing with emotional difficulties that they’re grateful I check in on them… when really, I worry that I’m annoying the fuck out of them and that they’re just tolerating my company.
It’s a need to not be disliked.
If a friend doesn’t answer, I immediately think the worst – that it’s my fault and that I’ve done something to fuck up the friendship we have.
Turning off the vast majority of notifications on FB has helped, but I still feel like I’m a PITA to the folks I do keep on. And that’s just on one platform – on Insta and other things, I feel like I’m an annoyance rather than an asset, and the more I try to fight that urge, the worse it gets.
And it manifests itself in some bizarre ways to boot. There are people I have literally not spent appreciable time with in years – if at all – that I’ll see float by on Insta or Facebook or wherever, and think – what did I do to make them not like me? But by God, if we started hanging out, we could be awesome friends… even though logically, I know that’s not how friendship and life works.
When I’d thought of harming myself in the past, the main concept surrounding that was this – if I weren’t around, the general populace would be better off because I wasn’t annoying the shit out of them – that my only contribution to their lives is that of being a pest. Even on days where my depression isn’t a 7 or 8 out of 10… I can’t say that it’s not a thought. And I’ll be damned if I know why.
Palabra Jot 