I feel so light that it's as if I'm floating. My whole body is tingling. My mouth is agape in awe. Allow me to explain. This entire week, I've been physically and emotionally numb, like I've been disconnected from the world around me. It feels like something isn't quite right or that my sensory experience is missing something, like some information is getting lost in processing or isn't integrated properly. It's hard to really explain. It's like I'm here but I'm not. I haven't been feeling anything except incompleteness. My entire central nervous system feels slowed down, sluggish. It's strange, isn't it? One moment my emotions are that intense that I am out of control and the next, I have none whatsoever. I've been holding back certain impulses for a while now and tonight, I decided that I didn't care and to follow through in an effort to feel something. So when I got home from work, I got undressed, went to the bathroom, used some peroxide to sanitize my skin, then proceeded to cut my shoulder with a razor. Yes, yes I know, totally teenage, angsty, emo stuff. I'm beyond caring about that. I locked eyes with myself in the mirror and slid it across my skin slowly. It hurt, I winced in pain, but adrenaline and cortisol began to course through my veins. I used a bit more pressure than I have been in previous sessions and it definitely hurt more. The cuts were deeper. Instead of blood just welling to the surface and more or less sitting there in little beads, I drew enough blood for it to start flowing down my skin. I hate the sight of blood and it was hard to see my own flowing like that, but it was strangely fascinating. Even now, I look to my shoulder every couple of minutes to revel in its appearance. It's some sort of sick pleasure. But I got my desired result. I feel good, light and airy, cathartic. My fingers and toes can hardly move from the endorphin rush, even typing is somewhat challenging. Pain is starting to kick back in, my shoulder stings but I don't mind. It's filthy and disgusting and one of the worst things a person can do, but that hardly matters at this point. Sure, I hate myself for it but I see it as a necessary evil. What's another bad habit, anyway? It's not like I'm doing any serious damage. Alcoholics and smokers are far worse to their bodies than I am. They're causing irreparable organ damage and I'm just causing superficial tissue damage. It'll heal up over the next week like it always does. It's not like it's in any visible areas, either. I choose to do this, it's my body, and no one has to see so really, who am I hurting? I don't even know why I'm trying to rationalize this, I have nothing to prove or defend. Regardless, I should be good for the next month or so anyway. It's been about a month and half since the last time so I was about due.
Some recent discussion has brought me to an interesting topic of thought: mental illness and loneliness. It's an interesting conundrum to consider. The top contributor to a positive prognosis of a mentally ill person is a strong social support system but over half of all mentally ill people rate themselves as feeling lonely often or constantly compared to less than 10% of the normal population. Many mentally ill people have no close friends and families that avoid having to put up with them. Whether that's due to the stigma surrounding mental illness or the inability for others to handle the mentally ill remains to be seen, but it's probably a combination. A likely scenario is that the public view, or stigma, of mental illness fills normal people with preconceived notions of what to expect, which in turn may alter their perception of behaviour and traits that may or may not be as alarming and disgusting as they actually are. As I stated in a previous entry, this is likely due to normal people being unable to take the perspective of someone who is mentally ill; there's that disconnect in inferring mental states due to ignorance. A normal person can read up all they want on a mental illness, read every article ever published in every psychiatric journal and they still won't really know what it feels like or what thoughts go through the mind of someone who is profoundly disturbed. There's simply no way to share that unique experience with another person unless they are also suffering from that affliction. So normal people and society at large shut us out, labels us as monsters and demons, and we get swept under the rug. This perpetuates because no one wants to deal with us, put up with our unpleasant thoughts and self-destructive behaviour, our abnormal and indecipherable thoughts. As a result, we become more hated and the cycle repeats. Hell, in the US, a good portion of medical insurance carriers flat out refuse to provide coverage for the treatment of borderline personality disorder because they literally believe that borderlines do not get better so they would just be wasting money that could be better spent elsewhere. And we're completely aware of this. We know we're ridiculed, stigmatized, hated. We retreat inwards so that no one can hurt us any more. The stronger of us pretend to be happy on the outside, praying no one finds out the truth. Social support and companionship is elusive and we begin to hate ourselves for it. Because we're avoided, something must be wrong with us. We're bad people.
Me, I'm a bad person. I've come to that conclusion over years of gathering evidence. Every single one of my friends throughout my life has abandoned me at some point or another. One of the few consistencies in my life. I'm such a drag to be around that I'm always left out of everything. Friends have invited others to go out, have fun, do things but never me. I'm always an afterthought. Even with Tiffany, I always felt like I was nothing more than an afterthought to her. She would go out and chill with people she didn't even know and never thought to invite me out. She would go on to justify this behaviour by stating that she could never predict how I was going to react or feel in any given situation. I was too stressful to be around was what she was basically saying. I guess I can understand where she was coming from; I can hardly even predict what I'm going to do next. That is probably what everyone else in my life has thought as well. I don't have a support system because I'm too unpredictable, too chaotic, too depressing. I'm no fun, I ruin everyone's good time. They avoid me. It really reinforces the idea that there really is something fundamentally wrong with me. I really am a ghost, aren't I? A mere shell of a human. Humans are predictable, they have patterns in their behaviour. Not me, I'm all over the place all the time. But it's all I know. I consequently alienate those around me. Things get tough and they leave. We drift apart, my entire life is basically a story of drifting apart from others. No one ever calls me up to do something, I barely get asked how I'm feeling today. And whenever I am asked, I have to lie or at the very least keep information back because I don't have anything to say that they want to hear. Not once has the question "How are you doing?" ever asked earnestly with genuine concern. All that they want to hear is "I'm pretty good, how about you?" If you're feeling bad, the best answer you'll get is "Oh, that sucks. I hope you feel better soon!" or "Cheer up, it's not that bad!" I want to strangle those people. Complete lack of concern, no empathy or compassion. Everyone is all so selfish and unsympathetic. When faced with real, tangible pain in another person, they run away to preserve their own happiness. They post inspirational messages and pictures on Facebook, thinking they're making a positive difference in the world. They share then move on to the next thing on their news feed. It's sickening. Sometimes I wonder who the real monsters are here.
But I suppose it's not like I really deserve any compassion. Allow me to elaborate. The world can more or less be broken down into good and bad. Life strives to achieve good and avoid bad. Pleasure is good and pain is bad. It's biological. Something that causes pain is inherently bad. Organisms learn to avoid that which is perceived as bad. People have a tendency to avoid me, ignore me, ostracise me, but only after they see who I really am. When I'm hiding behind a veil of pseudo-happiness or just not telling them how I really feel, I am talked to and fairly well tolerated. But once someone gets to know me, learns of my self-destructive habits, uncontrollable depression and anxiety, erratic behaviour, and inconsistent thought patterns, they keep their distance, sometimes pitying me, sometimes just hating me. Therefore, I can safely conclude that based on these premises and evidence that I am inherently bad at my core. People avoid what is bad and they avoid me once the real me become apparent. Therefore, I must be bad. It's simple logic. And why wouldn't they? Who would willingly subject themselves to the pain and frustration that I cause them? It would make no sense if they did. It's hard to blame them, I even scare myself. It's their job when pushing comes to shove. You ultimately have to look out for yourself and no one wants to waste their time or risk their happiness on someone like me. You really can't trust anyone. You put yourself out there and you're met with rejection for being you. So you need to be a fake you, a you that people can like. For me, however, that takes too much effort. I'd rather hated and real than liked and fake. I'm terrible at feigning happiness anyway, I'm not the one in control here. Despite all of this knowledge, these conclusions, I still desire companionship more than anything. I want someone in my life who actually accepts me for who I am without running away. I want someone compassionate, understanding, truly empathetic, and patient. Am I even right to ask this of the world? Is it really that an unobtainable and outlandish thing to want? It must be. I feel so greedy and selfish for even wanting this. I feel like a terrible person. Many people live their lives every day without anyone in their lives and they get along fine. They don't need people, they don't need anyone. They work, come home, watch sitcoms and eat supper, then go to bed, then wake up the next morning and do the same thing without a second thought. Why can't I be one of those people? I suppose a person must be really grounded for that sort of thing. Something I most certainly am not. No one should have to put up with me, anyway.
Until next time.
- K
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