I've been having trouble figuring out how exactly to put the rest of this into words lately, as every time I try, I feel like I only vaguely capture what it is I'm really feeling, and only through the extremities or what could be seen if anyone were actually looking. Like I can only describe my symptoms rather than the cause of them. Perhaps this is just the only straightforward way to go about it. Words can only go so far in describing an emotion anyway.
Other friends have noted my tendency to avoid actually describing my emotions, which is more or less on point. It's not that I'm unaware of my emotions; I just don't trust them anymore (as mentioned in the previous post). I am incredibly fickle these days: in one moment I can go from experiencing pure bliss, to jealousy, to self-pity, to paranoia, to paralyzed fear because by this point I have no idea how to function in front of people anymore, only to have to try and remind myself of what was giving me joy hours earlier. In a social function I can happily respond to a query from a friend and then put on a brief smile for a picture, only to start mulling over what went on in the immediate aftermath because all I could see in my own face was an emotionally impoverished individual about to collapse under the weight of having to be "on" two days in a row. (And also frustration because the photographer couldn't get the lighting right on my phone's camera after three tries. -_-)
And then it takes me a full day to recover, a day I promised parents over the phone I would spend studying because they're worried about my health and my future. If I were still working right now, I would be somewhere in a quiet room whiling the time away till the day ended-- except oh wait there weren't many truly private spaces in the new building anyway.
I can't focus on much else right now except revising my music playlists to reflect my current mood because a couple of the guys told me they'd been trying to channel my music taste for this event and it hit my pride in the right spot (although I noted to them that if you really want to get people on the dance floor, you need to use more widely recognized songs; people don't usually get up to dance for songs they don't know.). I don't have many friends who share the same taste as me, and of the ones that do, I rarely see them because my closer social circles evolved out of other circumstances anyway. And I'm not sure if I'd even fit in with the demographic of people who do share my interests. I find it a multiple-year-long struggle to fit in with most groups of people anyway, and some of those connections still feel tenuous or seasonal at best.
A few months ago, one of my friends had the foresight to tell me that I should ask for help more often, because I'm often stubborn and hate asking people for help even though I have no problem when others do the same of me. In light of more recent events, I would say that half the time, I don't know that I need to ask for help until it's too late. The other half, I'm just tired of having people worry about me all the time... even though I often behave in such a way as to invite worry anyway, because that seems to be the only way I know how to ask people for help these days: out of desperation and pity, so that my own self-pity can feel justified by others' responses.
If I were to expound on why I personally don't feel like an adult (as opposed to my parents' opinion), I would say that I feel ill-equipped to deal with or respond to the complexities of an adult life. Or at least, relative to my own view of what that means, because I am aware that many "adults" probably don't meet that standard either.
I question my ability to function in a 9-5 weekday work environment when I frequently have days like today where I can't even focus on anything (oh, so much moreso when I was still working) and struggle to fall asleep at a normal hour, for no real reason other than my mind being unable to "turn" off despite not actually thinking about anything. I am easily overwhelmed these days by deceptively simple situations like shopping or the prospect of having to interact with people more than one day in a row. I don't trust myself being alone away from home for extended periods of time (more than a day), out of fear of having a breakdown in public or even in front of friends, even though I have wanted to be able to travel independently in the future for a long time now.
Sometimes I wish I could just disappear from the view of people for a long, extended while, just long-enough to get my bearings-- but then I fear for what will become of me when I come back after so long, if I will find it even more difficult to deal with people because of my absence and being out of touch with conventional social situations or whatever they've evolved into in the future. I wish more relationships were as easy as just showing up as if you both had never left in the first place.
And it's hard for me to plan for how much rest I would really need anyway-- ugh the notion of even planning for rest turns me off; rest should not be "structured" around. I might only be able to afford a day while I have work when what I really want is a month or semester, like I do now. In that respect, my current situation is really a blessing here. But it makes me worry for what might've happened now or in the future if/when I find myself stuck in a job I no longer want but unable to muster the fortitude or tenacity to just quit and figure out how to continue living from there.
In the times I've been able to get by recently, it's only been by temporarily shutting off the part of my mind that worries about all of the above until I can barely handle ignoring it anymore. Pressure to perform in front of other people? Just do it, you'll be fine. And I actually do perform fairly well under
some level of pressure in the spur of the moment, when I know what I have to do. I think my performance at work even improved significantly when I actually felt that there was pressure to finish by a certain deadline. I have trouble just making things happen on my own otherwise, even though part of me so earnestly desires to be able to do that.
And then I find myself a couple of hours later just sitting there, not knowing what else to do with myself now that I've finished my work. I have nothing pressing waiting for me at home, so I just wait and linger, not inclined to say anything but not inclined to leave just yet either, while little moments I am thankful for later still occur. And when I finally do manage to leave (because everyone else has has had their time), I just wait in my car, trying to allow my uncertain emotional state to settle before driving, because my awareness of my own fragility in these moments just makes me even more prone to falling into shambles. Why am I even crying right now? Oh right, because I feel spent and overused like a ragged doll that's been around for too long even though I still long to be needed by someone more than I already am. Because I can still see places in which I could've been available had I known, and had I been asked, but can't actually conceive being able to perform now that I'm wrestling with the doubts and insecurities that emerged from the newfound knowledge that neither happened in the first place (and this is not the first time nor the first group of people I've experienced this with).
I wish I could be more present for other people and not so consumed with my own internal affairs all the time. Perspective helps in providing a corrective to my insecurities, but at the end of the day, I'm still overly introspective, self-contained, and then self-conscious, particularly of the ways in which I'll never match up in the same terms. I know I've received a lot of advice from other people about needing to focus on improving my own circumstances rather than comparing them with others, because everyone has their own shit they're dealing with on their own terms. I've even given said advice.
But it still hits me hard sometimes. How long it takes me to deal with long-term problems that others around me have surpassed given the same opportunity in much less time, because I am easily distracted and preoccupied with every little detail along the way and otherwise purposefully ignorant of the reality of my own situation until I can ill-afford to remain so. How lacking I am in initiative, because a good percentage of the times I do initiate something, I end up killing myself internally with self-doubt and knee-jerk stress responses and actual physical cramping in the face of uncertainty that has yet to materialize into anything meaningful, even when it's for something I do actually want. How often I screw up and make simple mistakes, wasting money in unnecessary situations (like just now with the tux rental I wound up not using), and then receive remarks from other people no longer surprised at my capacity for clutter in all aspects of my life. How even more frequently I'm just not in the "mood" to do work, errands, and things that just need to be done when I actually have the time to do them. How emotionally ill-equipped I feel to deal with all of these unexpected moments as they come swinging at me head on, forcing me to try and hide my emerging sense of helplessness because most social functions (that I've had to be present for) are not the time nor place for those feelings to come out.
How even my happiest moments are tinged on the underside with thoughts I do not want to be having, but cannot help but have, and so have to live with the reality of being self-aware, of knowing that I am capable of wishing ill on even my closest friends, in order to make myself feel "better." And that I cannot voice it in front of them, because the last words I ever want to hear from a friend again are, "Why are you telling me this?"
I am a nervous wreck of a person, overwhelmed by the burden of the adult responsibilities I already have, wrestling with insecurities that have been eating away at me for years, telling myself I can't keep internally shutting down like this every time another life event happens. And I know I can't keep living the rest of my life like I have thus far, forced to carve out space and time I've had difficulty finding out of a pre-defined "schedule" for my life in order to actually deal with my mental health issues.
Enough is enough. I don't know what the future holds yet, but I'm only looking up from here.
---
I'm writing this now because I do not want to forget what I have felt in the past days, no, weeks and months-- semi-frequently trapped in states of utter, seemingly inescapable emotional despair, until I finally had spent enough time for them to feel distant, as periods of isolation coupled with (some amount of) sleep are apt to do for me these days. Unfortunately, this leaves me with little to process afterwards when I get around to it, because trying to conceive of those moments in retrospect often feels like trying to decipher the mind of another person who only shows up in your dreams. It all feels so foreign after the fact.
That, and I know I will likely experience all of these feelings again in the future, quite possibly at a time when someone else is actually paying attention for once. And I want to be ready for them then.
As an aside, because of this weekend I've unwittingly spent some time fantasizing what my future wedding playlist would be like if I ever were to have one. At this point I imagine it covering musicals, Disney, ambient IDM, jazz and swing, indie rock and pop, hip hop and R&B, oldies, video games, anime, and classically orchestrated, remixed, and normal versions of danceable guilty pleasures... because I have unrealistically crazy daydream ideas like that. (Okay, I know I tend to hate on popular songs, but sometimes if I like the main melody enough, there's a chance that I won't get sick of it as easily. though that may be in part from seeing such songs paired with inspiring dancers, as in these videos.
Also props to last year's Cal students for this. and shout out to my favorite Cal a capella group of all time, which I was reminded of today at lunch when I heard a speaker playing this.)
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