Every Day

Even when I was golden and riding high last week, I had bad moments. I can look back and see how it was a false positive. A lot was going well for me. I was getting actual positive reinforcement from people (one person I have to pay to talk to, and the other person *SHOCK* doesn't live in the area) and yeah, I probably also fed into the general good mood that goes with the Christmas season. I didn't bite on the commercialism of it all for the first time in my life, and I am really proud of that. It almost made me feel numb to "Christ"mas, but, it's better than letting the frustration of the greed that devours folks this time of year affect me.

Those bad moments, when the mind races, when the dark, irrational thoughts come in are the times that are really hard to make other people understand. It shatters me to have this indescribable pain that can't be seen by others. And on top of it, a lot of time when you talk about it you're only making the pain worse. People put up such false facades when I talk about it. You don't even want to know how many people I've gone in-depth with that I don't even talk to any more. The turnaround isn't that long either -- a couple weeks at best. Does it scare them because they see my fears inside themselves, or do they think I'm fucked up? Regardless, I am so tired of reaching out and finding nobody making the same effort and reaching for me. There is one person on the Earth who I know gets it, and who I know genuinely cares in their soul. And I left that. Talking to that person and being around that person is the only time in my life when I feel the grace of unconditional love.

I envision what it would be like to not have a tomorrow a lot. And I feel nothing. It doesn't make me sad or horrified. It doesn't scare me to think of darkness, or loved ones being hurt by my exit. See, in the mind of the depressive, we can't grasp that people genuinely care enough about us that anyone would REALLY care. Read that again please, and let it sink in. Try to step outside of your head and grasp how profoundly hopeless that has to feel -- irrational as it may be -- that's the how we think and feel. The thought of living in pain every day for another 40 years scares me so much more than not having a tomorrow.

Why sit through 40 years of pain, and hurt, and self-hatred? It's been long enough that those things should be gone, but they persist every day, and I've worked hard as hell to get over that hump. They're less frequent, but more intense - what is that??????

I keep finding that my initial instinct to like people when I meet them is far from a positive attribute...I only set myself up to get burned. More and more I see that nobody really cares about their friends and acquaintances on a real human level. For real, "how's work? how are the kids?" Nobody CARES. Everything is an act. I do nice things for people, like I go over and above, and I hear people's surprised reaction and it makes me profoundly sad. How -- Why live in a world where people jump and judge you when you do bad AND when you do good?

I was gone for a year and saw people I care about more in the six weeks being home during that time than I have seen them in the 15 weeks since I've been "home." That says everything right there. People feel obligated to come see you so they can show you their insincerity when you're living out of town -- but their insincerity is just a secret understanding that you have when you know you don't have to make an effort to see someone. "Tell ya what, you live ten minutes away now, so really, it's not as special to see you anymore...let's just save the hour or two of pretense, OK?"

It's too much work to maintain (or God forbid grow) a friendship or a relationship, so it's just easier to do your own stale shit and never expand your mind apparently. Do you know how many times I've heard people complain about their lives since I've been home? It's atrocious, only because the same people have been doing the same thing, expecting different results. When that doesn't happen they rant and rave. People are perceptive enough to acknowledge the things about themselves that make them unhappy -- but they don't have the will to go ahead and change those things. I should talk right? At the very least I've taken the leap and gotten out. I followed that pull that was always in me to leave Buffalo, but I came back...I came back for everybody but me. I came back because I saw the insincere love that I was getting while I was away and thought it was genuine.