Writing, failure, and a will to do better.

“Bad art is tragically more beautiful than good art because it documents human failure”

The first time I heard that, I laughed uncontrollably. That’s how I like to think of my “art”, as failures. I never quite get what I want out of it. With writing, I hate how I can’t articulate, and with drawing and painting, I never can quite create the image in my head. With drawing and such, I realize that one has to practice in order to accomplish anything…and I don’t. Haha. So it is understandable that I can’t draw for shit sometimes. With writing, however, I have no such excuse. I write more often than anything else, I breathe writing, day in, day out. It’s a constant in my life, because it allows me to forget where I am and centralize myself around one thing, whether it be writing a useless entry about how I’m feeling, or writing a story. I read other people’s stories, normal people, mind you—not famous authors or poets—and can’t help but want to strangle myself for not being able to pull that calibre of writing from my own brain.

A friend said to me once that my characters are too angry, and that she hated my main character. I thought that statement was sort of funny…it hurt a little, but the sadist couldn’t help but find the irony hilarious. I have the problem of projecting myself into who I’m writing. It’s an urge that I never seem to be able to completely ignore. Every time I write a character, whether I like them or not, they are almost alwaysgiven a piece of myself. With my main characters, there are admittedly several…ahem…similarities between them and myself. My main character in my novel for instance…the one my friend hated…I don’t know how much more obvious I could have made it. You hate my character, you hate me. That was why I laughed. My character shows the side of myself that I hide from the world, and captures the very few traits that I happen to like about myself.

Writing is like a field full of mines. There are so many things I used to avoid talking about, so many characters that never sprouted because I was worried what others would think of them. I found myself writing a very odd story the other day, one I plan to NEVER let anyone else read. The characters are different from many of the others I have written. For some reason, every time I sit down to type a paragraph or two, I end up with pages of writing without even meaning to. I don’t have to think about what I’m writing; it’s just there…as though it has always been. I tap into it, and I write. I don’t worry about plot, this story is purely for character development. And that’s the conclusion I’ve come to as well: I am not the entirely plot driven author with the somewhat bland characters. My stories are completely focused in character and little else, that is my weakness. I make myself imaginary friends…people who seem real to me. I lose myself in it so much, that I forget sometimes that these people aren’t real. They are more a part of my life than anyone else…I guess because they are incapable of harming me unless I will it.

You only get better through practice, that much is clear. I think I just need to stop trying so hard and allow the words to come to me rather than bashing in my skull in a vain attempt to get them out. If it takes 6 months to get out a chapter, so be it.

I’m beginning to think life itself is one of my bad habits.

My mood is…indescribable. Unfortunately not much can be said of the feeling of “nothing”.

I focus on one thing; it’s my way. I choose an activity, then I push my way with my stubborn skull until I get what I want. Basically life is distractions, my bad habits. They are all that keep me sane, grounded, in a world I despise more than anything. However, my short attention span causes me to develop newer habits to replace those that have become dull to me.

Dieting has always been a habit, since I was about 8 or 9 years old. Maybe a consequence of getting called fat for most of young life by not only bullies, but friends. I realize now that the only reason I was getting called fat was because all of my friends were tiny, petite things, while I was the complete opposite. Of course I had to wear bigger clothes than them, of course I was going to weigh more. But at the time, I couldn’t accept that as an answer. No matter what adults said, I could only believe my peers. I look back at the pictures now, and I understand just how brainwashed I was, so gullible. If I was ever “fat” back then, it would have been at the most, an extra 10 pounds. Obviously, even at my worst I would have been “chubby”, not grossly overweight as the kids around me had drilled into my head. It wasn’t until later that my weight was really a problem.

Bad habits developed quickly, permanently. For years it’s always been a battle. I hated my body more than anything, I hated how I’ve always had broad shoulders and big feet and could never look remotely like any of the other girls in my clothes. I always seemed to end up friends with the short, petite types, who were naturally thin (I knew one girl who used to eat about six chocolate chip cookies for lunch, then go home have a bowl of popcorn drenched in butter and then have a huge bowl of ice cream, then more cookies, all of this along with whatever else she ate…on a regular basis…she weighed in at 100 pounds…). The idea of “diet” to them was incomprehensible. They seemed to believe that everyone could shovel food down their throats and obviously anyone who was fat must have been doing something seriously wrong.

In 9th grade when I went on homeschool to get out of the bullying (so I thought) and the drama-filled friendships, I pretty much lost my sanity. My depression came out into full swing for the first time, after having held it back for two years with just…life. I was so busy I hadn’t had time to consider how unhappy I was. Then suddenly all I had was time. So much of it. I had to attend classes still, but most of them were done at home. With those few classes, there was ample opportunity for people to fuck with my head. I had thought that being fat was the only thing I had had to worry about, but in highschool the taunting reached entirely new heights. Even though I had gotten “skinny” like everyone had wanted, there was always something about me to hate. I must just be easy to despise.

Being thin hadn’t fixed anything. There are so many things that happened that I don’t even want to remember anymore. It culminated…then it blended into the darker corners of me, where it stays, driving me on with a relentless whip. All the heavy chains that I will forever bear….

My eating habits are worse than ever. I know now that my stupid hormone levels are affecting my weight, along with the typical slow metabolism. I’ve been obsessed with my weight lately, I guess because I have nothing else to focus on. My controlling nature has finally entered center stage with this issue. Like I’ve said, I always diet, but generally not to much avail, so I decided to change tactics. Instead of eating about 1500 calories (which ideally should make the average person lose weight slowly and without risking health, but of course doesn’t work for me), the past month I’ve been eating around 800 calories a day. I combine this with walking 3 or 4 miles, since I’ve been too lazy to start a more rigorous exercise regime. I’m actually losing weight, which is a nice change. The fact that it might be primarily muscle mass has me worried, but honestly I really just don’t give a shit at this point. I’m trying to make sure what I do eat is rich in protein and calcium, but given the perameters, options are strictly limited anyway. Not a healthy way to lose weight, obviously, so don’t try it at home. Yes, losing weight will never make others happy…but it makes me feel better. At this point, that is all that is behind my reasoning: me.

I don’t know why, but it hasn’t been half a difficult as I thought it would be. In fact, I went into the grocery store yesterday, into the bakery section and almost vomited from the smell of bread and confections. None of it looked good (though it was the same as ever), and I wasn’t even tempted. That’s pretty much the first time ever. All I wanted was out of the store.

With life there are supposed to be things that you enjoy, things that take your mind off of things that have gone wrong. It seems like all of my “enjoyable” activities focus on pain and personal humiliation. I feel sometimes like that is all that keeps me breathing. I think it is because those are the only situations where I can pull a semblance of normality (by normality I mean emotion) out of myself. It’s in those moments that I’m not the emotionless monster, but just another self-centered human being who is drowning in their own pain, their own downfall.

My other habits…are unspeakable. My habits, and mine alone. Even this supposed “anonymity” can’t drag it out of me. I tell you only what I feel you should know, while everything else…. We all have our secrets, the things we lock into our souls to keep. I’ll always have mine.

Numb to everything.

It’s strange to me that feeling nothing is so much more difficult than feeling something. On occasion it can become torturous to be in such a state, to the point where I do or think of unpleasant things purposely to attempt to get myself to react. I get a bit put off by the numbness; it forces me to think of myself more as a machine than a living, breathing being. I’m so tightly, painfully controlled, that I forget sometimes that I do it to myself when the situation calls for it. The rest of the time it is out of my control, untouchable, but then when something goes wrong…suddenly I choose to hit the switch. I talk about this constantly because I can’t get it off my mind, and because there is no one but me to wonder over the ‘why’ behind it all.

On average it takes ten minutes for me to get angry over something. Unless it is a direct threat, my reactions are terribly sluggish and short-lived. Yes, my anger, my only friend, abandons me constantly. I don’t know if I’m going to feel it when I should, or not feel it altogether. I loathe the realization that my actions/reactions are as unpredictable as a a coin tossed into the air; my mood does as it pleases, and it can go one of two ways, but I never know which. It makes me feel reckless, out of control…even a little crazy. How can you not know how you’ll respond? I’ve been me for long enough now, I should know by now, yet I don’t. But I did, I used to know. But like everything else, the shift in me rendered it all useless information.

It’s only recently that I discovered that I can control the numbness to an extent, how I can use it as a weapon or a shield if I just gather enough anger to pull it all off. And that’s the problem, the getting angry enough part. Even when I do manage to get myself into a state of mind capable of switching me over, it can only be done for a very short time. It’s not long before that voiceless thought says to me, You think you can control this, you think you are good enough, strong enough?  Flashes of bad memories. Flashes of people I don’t want to remember. Flashes of me at points of humiliation. Self hate. All-consuming. And sometimes it’s so strong that I back down because I’m so mentally exhausted from fending it all off, of repeatedly shouting at myself to shut the fuck up. I break down and let it win, let it make me suffer, all because I’m too weak to fight it. Let it play the memories for hours on end, let it deprive me of sleep, because sometimes that’s better than having to summon enough feeling to care that I’m hurting myself. I fight everyday, I get better, yet at the same time I feel something inside progressively withering away, weakening from the constant pressure. It wants to snap, fold, give way to a power better than itself because it is sickened from all the fighting.

I seek a peace I will never have. I know that there will always be a stuggle until I pick a side. I’ve always been the type to stick to middle ground rather than facing a decision head on. I feel like I lose options if I make a choice. The one thing I do like: open options. Let it beat me into submission, let it tear me apart…maybe I deserve it for all those times I was an idiot and helped others instead of helping myself. I deserve it for being so stupid and caring, allowing the world to decide how I think about myself, concerning myself over their every whim. All the while it said I made a mistake…and that I’d pay dearly for it…forever.

Suffer an eternity below me,
Spread your legs like the world’s whore
Do what they say, forget what you think
You are your own worst memory
It’s too bad you’re alive
But it’s not too bad that you have to die
Accept me, or take a dark fate
These wounds I inflict will never heal

I think that was the fastest I’ve ever written a poem. It’s almost shocking that I knew so well what I wanted to say…. I always felt like in every friendship, I’ve always given so much but never gotten even a small amount of it back. Unwaveringly loyal, that is me. But most of all…I am completely and totally unforgiving, even of myself.

P.S. I found some post cards on the table this morning, which apparently my mom has been sending since the beginning of her trip, but I never read since my dad never told me about them. When I picked them up I felt a twinge of something…maybe caring? But it disappeared instantaneously. She’s been gone almost 2 months, yet I can’t bring myself to care. I can’t bring myself to care about anything. It hurts to be like this…. I can’t love, I can’t care. I can’t be anything but a hollow, lifeless thing. And the worst part is…I doesn’t matter to me.

How about never?

Just when I think I’ve buried all of my screwed up emotional problems under layers of masks…someone always has to go and ruin it. Then comes the stark reality that no, I’m not any better, I’m just more adjusted, just better at concealing that which poisons me. I guess I sometimes lie to myself…I say that I’m perfectly okay in social situations, that my feigned arrogance will always be there to save the day, but when it comes down to it, like I said, I am no better than I ever was.

As is traditional, my godparents (mainly godmother), has pushed me into a corner that I can’t get out of. Not to say I don’t enjoy myself when I go to the city to stay for awhile…it’s just extraordinarily stressful. It’s like taking a tiger that has been loose in the forest its entire life, living in utter solitude, then dropping it into a bustling metropolis and expecting it to adjust overnight. Hell, that’s exactly what it is. It doesn’t work, obviously. I end up high-strung, almost manic, to the point where my nights are restless or full of strange dreams. The sounds of sirens, the whir of engines late into the night, the far off barks of dogs…it puts me on edge. I can’t sleep, I can’t think. My brain is in overdrive, assessing, processing…too many people, too many sounds, a strange house that creaks with every step, a dog that barks incessantly at squirrels, weird food, people who think they know me but are so far away, fake smiles, fake happiness, complete terror. And it doesn’t stop. Everything floods in and floods in, overwhelming a body and mind that are used to experiencing a very limited spectrum of events.

When I lay down to rest in their house my chest aches, burns for anything familiar…just something, anything…. Music doesn’t help, sending emails doesn’t help, because I’m not at home, I’m not where I am supposed to be, the place where I am permitted just a few precious moments to be myself…. Writing is done in secret there, words scratched into my journal in near blackness, frustration building. Nothing penetrates that mood…the uncertainty, the fear, the anger at being forced into a situation I do not wish to be in…. My stupidity for allowing it to happen,willingly putting myself in a situation I view as torturous. Yet nothing can be done, as my sense of loyalty would not permit it. That voice whispers to me: Some things must be done. Life is pain, birth is pain, death is pain. This is but one event of many that you will just have to endure.

I made the mistake of saying “okay” to one of her questions while I was off somewhere in my head…. I don’t know what she said, something about her house, and when I finally realized what she had asked me, I cursed myself for being a moron and not paying attention. However, I did redeem myself partially in my own eyes, as I built up enough anger inside to tell her that I wouldn’t be coming over for awhile because I needed some time alone after school let out and all. Hmmm. It’s a shame I just can’t say, “How about never?”. I don’t want to be rude, considering they’ve done a lot for me, so I am severely limited in what I can say to them. And knowing them, they would take offense if I told them I didn’t want to go over…ever. They don’t get such things. I don’t even think my parents understand it all that well either. I guess it does seem very odd to others. I’m just used to it because I’ve dealt with it my entire life.

I feel as though I let it control me, and I don’t like that feeling. At the same time, I know that my personality fits well with the social anxiety: I’m a loner. People say they are ‘loners’, but rarely mean it. I am one, in all senses of the word. I am naturally inclined to shy away from others. The anxiety just makes that inclination all the more stronger because even in situations that should be enjoyable, I feel extremely uncomfortable (because of the anxiety), not only with myself but the people I interact with. There is almost no case where the social situation is pleasant, and that’s the scary part. It’s always looming over me.

More difficulties…to be expected, I guess.

I didn’t sleep incredibly well, but I did get rest, which is the most important part. My stomach is no better, and my thoughts are still on things they shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t expect things to suddenly be better overnight. It will take time, and I am just going to have to be patient and accept that, even if I hate it.

My godmother is taking me shopping today. We’ll have to see how I do. I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday, so needless to say that hasn’t really helped me feel less sick. Even the thought or smell of food makes me want to stand over a garbage can. I’m just glad I managed to force something down yesterday, even if it was almost nothing. That is some accomplishment. I’m still breathing, right? I’m glad that I can write all of this out, it lifts a huge weight off of my shoulders.

I forget sometimes how much emotion (or lack of) can affect me physically. I’m so used to burying it all under layers of lies that it is strange to me when the layers come off and leave me vulnerable. I feel so dead inside.

The annoying dog.

I’m pretty fed up with him. It’s getting to the point where I hate the fact that he’s still breathing. I’m a bit strange about animals, and though I said I wanted to be a vet when I was a child, I know now although I care for animals, there are some—just like certain people—that the world would be a better place…without.

Dogs are a species that I can barely tolerate. Animal racism if you will. The sniffing of asses, crotches, shit, and every other imaginable thing—not for me. My cat may use his tongue for toilet paper, but at least he doesn’t try to share his siliva with my mouth. I think that’s what I hate most about dogs, the accursed licking. My cat licks me, sure, his little attempt to groom me, but he refrains from licking my face unless he is trying to seek revenge by licking and then biting my chin for some minor indesgression (such as giving him too tight a hug). That I can handle, but Malcolm, the dog, goes STRAIGHT for the mouth. This is after he was just outside, his nose all over the nice present some random dog left in the yard, or after he finished grooming his undercarriage for five minutes. No thanks. No really, no thanks.

I don’t care if he’s cute, I don’t care if he has big eyes and a misproportioned head…cuteness does not buy my affection. Actually, pretty much nothing but evilness does, but that’s beside the point. The fact that everyone LOVES him on sight is…well…disgusting. It’s like how people treat other people: according to their looks. Just because it’s cute doesn’t mean that it is sweet or loving.

What problems do I have? The fact that he’s stupid. I honestly am beginning to question whether or not he even knows what his name is. I won’t judge an animal for being a little dim-witted, there’s nothing wrong with that, but this dog…. I say Malcolm ten times and he continues to lay on the floor. The only way he’ll come to me is if I’m near the door. What’s strange about this is that he is like a shadow, won’t leave your side for hardly anything, yet he doesn’t come when you call him…hmmm…. He’s not deaf either, he can hear just fine. My cat comes running to me if I call him any assortment of nicknames (i.e. Fatboy, Fatso, Say-Say, Kitty, Cat, Bastard), yet that damn dog won’t come for “Mal” or “Malcolm”. I just don’t get it. Salem (the cat) even knows what “stop stalking the dog” means. And then the other thing. Potty trained? No, more like “mills around outside”. The mosquitoes are terrible, yet Dad takes the dog out every night, sometimes with NO result. He won’t even pee sometimes. And the other day after we took him out, he got flustered by the ferret (who by the way, officially refuses to take shit from the dog anymore) and pissed on the floor. He’s a wuss. Can’t take anything. I’m used to the excessively mean, don’t-take-shit-from-anybody chihuahuas I had when I was young. They didn’t like, you they bit.

The lino in the bathroom is slowly being destroyed as well. He rips it up again and again in a bid for freedom. He stays in there until I get up to let him out, he has food, water, toys, and bedding, yet does nothing but sit by the door digging at the lino and WHINING. He doesn’t eat until AFTER I let him out. The tape we keep applying to the doorway to keep the lino down he tears up into tiny pieces, even after we attempted to foil him by coating it with hot sauce (yes we really did, because we got sick of fixing it, and it getting worse and worse). Then when I DO let him out, all he does is sit on the rug by the door for hours on end. How exactly that is different from being in the bathroom is beyond me.

He’s not that bad of a dog (believe me, we’ve had some terrors…I don’t even want to think about it…), but I am already sick to death of taking care of him. He’s useless, dumb, and too clingly. He climbs all over me like I’m a moutain, and has to be in contact with your body if you’re sitting on the couch or lying down. I get that I’m supposed to like that he likes people, but I don’t. I’m an incredibly unaffectionate person…I don’t like being touched or hugged or kissed by any animals (human beings included). My wonderful hangups…but anyway, it’s like my mom in dog form (probably why he’s HER dog). I payed for him. Bought him for her because I knew she was lonely. I’m not exactly pleasant company all of the time, I know, so I figured the dog would help, but all of the problems he causes, especially with the cat (he tried to bully the cat in his first weeks here, and now Salem HATES him, and attacks on sight) make me regret my choice sometimes.

Yes, I realize that I whine and bitch about stupid things. And I don’t have problems and blah blah blah, but I have to vent it, or else it will just keep irritating me to an extreme. I have no respect for tiny little dogs who think they’re rottweilers, yet won’t even stand up to a cat. I guess that’s what I hate about him; he reflects weakness. And I despise weakness. He’s like all of those people I hate: submissive and codependent. It’s highly unfortunate that I’m stuck as sole caretaker for the next few weeks, if not month. *grumble*

No country for old men? No, there isn’t.

It’s sort of funny how I often find myself relating to the previous generations rather than my own. I’ve noticed that when I sit down in class—if I’m forced to pick a seat next to someone that is—I gravitate toward the people who are more my parents age than my own. They feel…less threatening. I understand them better, where they’re coming from. When I sit next to a 20 year old I feel like I have little to nothing in common with them. They’re almost alien to me. Perhaps this is just a byproduct of being an only child who lives with her 45 year old parents. I don’t have siblings or friends, so naturally the people I’ve learned the best and relate to the most, aren’t the same age as me.

It’s strange to think, but I have the feeling that were I born of a different time, I would have had an easier time of it. What I see now, it is of little interest to me. Technology is fun, to be sure, but honestly I think I would have been much more pleased without it. The texting, the constant gabbing on the cell phones, it grates on my nerves, irritates me to no end. I’d miss videogames though, but I guess if I didn’t know that they had ever existed there wouldn’t be a problem. This stupid way of living life as though it’s some game show to find the best companion as fast as possible…. Don’t get me wrong even the older generations are full of complete idiots who did the same thing. Humans have been and will always be stupid, far more than any other animal. But the fact is, with each passing decade what they are brainwashed to believe in is altered ever-so-slightly. I just like what they used to be brainwashed to believe. Like dying when it comes. Not struggling. Accepting fate. Not getting Chemo because you’ve already lived a long enough life, that sort of mentality. That is something I find…almost…endearing.  

What was, is no longer. There is no going anywhere without someone knowing about it. Sort of like that entry I deleted a few weeks ago yet recently discovered on a website, picture and all, somehow pulled from the grave of electronic deletion, a deletion…that is never complete. It’s a sorry state, to say the least, for someone as paranoid about it all as I am. I want no fences, no leash. Let me free of this virus….

My brain is stuck in the past. Hell, even the way I do things is old fashioned, the way I think, all of it. I’m not stuck in “go, go, go” mode, instead I just watch lazily from my anarchist armchair waiting for The Fall of Man. Maybe that is what keeps me breathing sometimes—that desire to watch everyone I’ve ever hated, everyone I’ve ever cared for, get their heads handed back to them on a glistening silver platter. I want to watch them fail. They always thought that they were so superior to me, yet I am the one who is at least attempting to make some sort of life, while they whore themselves out to their array of boyfriends. I win. And it’ll just keep getting better. They’ll degrade even more as time wears on. It’s a great thing, time. It will wear on me too, but I won’t fight it, I’ll revel in it. The older you get the more you learn. If I make it long enough maybe I won’t turn out to be a complete idiot after all.

Wouldn’t that be something?

Imagine that, it almost sounds like optimism, doesn’t it?

Almost…

Waiting.

My whole life I’ve always been constantly waiting, never doing. I waited to finish grade school, I waited to finish junior high, all so I could get to highschool. When I finished that it wasn’t near over; now I wait to finish college, then move on to a job, and whatever comes after that. We are only given so many years, yet each of us wastes them, loses them without even a slight fight. I wonder how that feels to people who enjoy their lives. Do they regret never doing what they want, or are they stupid and accept their fate? Maybe to them it is all part of the journey…to me it is just another reminder that this life was not for me.

Some people enjoy schooling because they get to be with their friends. Perhaps that is what it is, I don’t enjoy the journey because I don’t enjoy the people. Every single day is like a war, and for some reason I’ve been on a winning streak. You’ll know when I lose, because I’ll be dead. I’ll have waved the white flag of surrender and drenched it in red. Then I’ll crumple and fall. The earth will take what’s left, the ground will satiate its thirst. At least then I will do some good, serve purpose: feed what is still living.

I’m frustrated more than anything, angry that I can stomach up the drive to do what needs to be done. I wait for the feeling to rise in my chest, that familiar ache, that lets me know I’ve tortured myself too far by suffering through life. I want just a shred of feeling. Anything. Give me pain, give me agony, give me rage, sorrow, happiness, hate, just anything. Kill the nothing. Murder it. Rip it out and eat it. Make it feel what I feel.

I want my beliefs back. I’m tired of waiting, of living life as others tell me. I don’t want to waste another 3 years of my life doing something that I hate. Getting up on school days and hoping that we’ll crash on the way there so that I won’t have to go, or so that I’ll just fucking die and not have to worry about getting the drive to do it myself. 

Fuck it, I’m going to go ride my quad for a few hours and stop droning on about how much I hate my life. I’m sick of my own bitching. There better be gas.

Hate never stops; it lives forever in dark souls

I’m just going to say it, I don’t care.

I try not to be pessimistic, I really do. Yes, if some daring person went back and read my older entries it would be quite the condradiction, but that is my secret. This place is the purging ground. This is the place where bad, harmful thoughts come to rest…or at least the ones I’m willing to discuss publicly (even the anonymity isn’t enough to “breach” the brain, so to speak). This is a small ripple on the surface of a deep, cool pond. Sometimes I don’t even know what’s at the bottom. But it doesn’t matter; those are things that cannot be fought, they come with time, not rage. In life I view myself as a realist. I see what is, not some petty painted picture designed to keep the pill-popping wives and their executive husbands sane. I don’t need sanity to justify my existence, I simply am. But here…here there is nothing but anger.

Sanity and insanity have no place in my head. Life has become my carefully constructed lie. I feign what I don’t feel. I build up personas, I wear my masks. And for what? For acceptance? Or is it my defence mechanism? My shield that protects me from some unknown horror? Am I scared of being what I am here in real life?

I hate pretending to care. I hate getting up every morning when there is no reason to back the action even slightly. I hate that I don’t have the smallest inclination to finish my homework that’s due tomorrow. I hate the fact that it’s 11:40 and if I don’t go to bed soon I’ll be groggy all day tomorrow…I hate that my fucking life is bullshit, and that it never seems to want to end. I hate that when I close my eyes the horrors are sometimes worse than when I’m awake. I hate that I can’t do what I want to do…that I always hold back. I hate that all I think about is death, sex, and consuming large quanitities of chocolate (which by the way is NEVER in the cupboard..instead I just long for chocolate and grab it by the handful on the rare occasions I am actually in a store). What I hate the most is that I can’t stop being numb, I can’t make it go away. I haven’t had a day without some problem in my head in so long that I’m beginning to wonder if I ever really did feel normal.

Perhaps it was all a dream, a fantasy that somehow managed to crawl out of my decayed mind and into a pleasant daydream.  

Confession..at least partially.

Yesterday my dad left for business and my mom woke me up early to see if I wanted to go out shopping. It started out alright, as I did want to get out for awhile (I had asked her the day before if we could go somewhere), but when I finished my shower and got dressed things took…an unexpected turn. It was a stupid argument, first off. And really, it wasn’t my fault—I did nothing wrong. She yelled at me because I was wearing a pair of boots she doesn’t like. She told me something to the effect of, “I won’t be seen in public with you”. This coming from the person who needs help getting dressed, wears a neckbrace a lot of the time, and has me braid her hair regularly. The person I help my dad take care of. 

I don’t understand her sometimes. Well…that’s not exactly true, how about, sometimes I think she’s stupid. I absolutely understand her. Yeah, not a kind thing to say about one’s mother, but it’s true. She gets ideas in her head about things, all of which conflict with her whole persona of “I’m an accepting mother”. And let’s just get a few things straight here: I wasn’t upset so much about the boots, but the fact that this argument mirrors my entire life. That’s actually what set me off.

I walk away, leaving her to wallow, then come back a few minutes later after having decided how I’m going to deal with the problem. My strong, cool resolve fades quickly into complete rage, and I lose control of the tears I was holding back. All those emotions I thought were gone were back in an instant.

I explain it to her, finally. All those times of me trying to discuss my problems with college with her where she ignored me…well, when I’m crying and screaming, apparently that’s the only time she’ll truly listen. I told her that my entire life has been decisions made by her and Dad. College…I never wanted it. Every little thing…. Hell, I think the only choice I made was to go on homeschool. I told her that I feel like a burden to the family, and I feel worthless because I’m taking so few classes. And finally she listened. She told me that the whole thing was up to me at this point…. The timing couldn’t have been worse. I’m already nearly done with a year of college, it’s too late to stop now. My dad would never let me drop out anyway. You see what I mean? It’s all a trap, there’s no escaping. It doesn’t matter if she says I can do what I want because the honest truth is that I can’t. It’s too late. It’s always too late.

Then she went into this whole spill about how she knows I’m unhappy (what else is new) and I should do what makes me happy (only, guess what? I CAN’T). She starts saying she knows because I’ve been locking my door more and fighting with her more and so on and so forth. She assumes all of these things. Want to know why I lock my door? So I can have FIVE FUCKING MINUTES OF PEACE. She constantly comes into my room especially at night (which is when I write and don’t want to be disturbed even if there’s a fire or an axe murderer), and it’s godamned irritating. It actually has nothing to do with my current moods. She doesn’t know that I’m this suicidal mess that has no outlet, she just thinks I’m unhappy or depressed or something. And why do I fight? Because I’m pissed, because my moods are so off the wall I never know what to expect. And she’s with me ALL DAY long. What the hell does she think is going to happen? She thinks she knows me, but the truth is that I’m so much worse off than she assumes. And I think, deep down, I don’t want her to know and start pitying me.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually have a bad relationship with my mom the in mother/daughter way. We have always had conflicting personalities and beliefs, which is what causes most of the problems, but we generally just try to accept each other and our differences. And I have to say, she’s the only person that has been there for me sometimes when the anxiety gets bad, during those times where it was hard for me to walk out the front door or buy something in a store because of my social problems. But at the same time, she heavily overrestimates her “acceptance” factor. She’s not half as open-minded as she thinks she is, which is what gets me angry. She’s the type of person that wants no conflict, and instead allows it to build and fester until finally the flies mature and there’s no where to go but out. That’s why it is so difficult to talk to her about certain things, because she has her stance and she doesn’t want to listen to any argument because it might cause conflict. In the end it just makes her look ignorant.

When we finished talking she told me I should just wear the boots. Ha. We went shopping, bought some crap, went all over town….blah blah blah. We stopped at the bookstore, and like it always does, some force decided I needed a talking to. I opened a book on religion, flipped to the ’s’ section (gee…I wonder what I was looking up) to find a quote that said something like do what you want, what pleases you, even if it means wearing those spiked boots. It also mentioned doing a few other things, but it was the boot part that got me. I just laughed.