Dead to Life

Currently Listening: The National - About Today

So you don't have a problem with solitude. But rejection hurts.

I finished cleaning most of what I set out to clean in my place that isn't papers (add at least a month for all the papers...) or in the garage (ugh) last week, with the help of some Chinese house cleaners who probably got more out of me than I could've haggled for, but whatever.

And then I sat down on my couch. And sighed. And thought to myself,

I don't know what it is I'm living for anymore.

(Usual disclaimer: I'm not suicidal. I still like living. But this is about emotional living.)

For the past while, perhaps for as long as I can remember since my depression period over a year ago, I've been feeling a deadening in my life. Like I can't seem to fully appreciate being alive as much as I used to, back when I was more optimistic about friends and relationships and other things. Like I couldn't just settle down and be... in the moment anymore. And know that I'm here.

Even now, this month, we've been doing this meditation challenge for work-- it comes with its own app (10% Happier, to which a friend said, "What, only 10%?"), with video lessons and guided meditations you can sit through, which is really helpful for someone like me who feels the need for a sense of "progression" whenever I'm doing something. But in the times where I sit down and try to pay attention to my own breathing, thoughts, and emotions for 15 minutes at a time now... I don't feel like I'm really all there even as I'm doing it.

Even when I manage to notice my background feelings and emotions and recognize that these things aren't who I am, that they don't define me, and that I can control how I respond to them in the moment, I somehow end up feeling a bit deader inside after. Like this isn't really what I signed up for, and I'm only doing this out of necessity to survive these days. I mean, sure, this'll help me manage during those ever-increasing span of days in which I find myself trapped alone in my flooded emotional world, but I don't particularly enjoy or appreciate having to do these things. I feel in some ways like I'm forcefully killing a part of my mind in this process, the part that was used to experiencing life in all its good and bad moments this way. Or maybe I'm just doing this wrong. (Or maybe I just haven't hit the lessons where they address these things yet lol.)

And then I have a moment like this past weekend, which was a brief breath of fresh air-- a moment of connection with a good friend, whose presence I hadn't been able to enjoy in a while. I mean we technically still met up for lunch once in a while, but that was always in a rushed between-work context and not so much like the older days of just being. There was always something else going on in the background preventing us from doing much else. Or perhaps preventing me more specifically.

And it suddenly reminded me of what it was I'd been missing lately. What I had felt like I'd forgotten-- what it was I used to live for back in the day. Those moments that I had assumed were no longer feasible anymore, because people in all parts of my life had started fading away for real this time. Moments where I could fully be myself in all the ways I didn't feel like I was allowed to be normally.

Because eventually I had to start respecting people's time and be less extreme and be more aware of boundaries and all the little things I hate about trying to maintain connections with people when they're no longer conveniently within reach anymore... which became even more difficult after I'd starting sinking into the sinkhole of depression and felt incapable of managing myself any longer, let alone managing connections with other people.

And then that was what started to take over my life. Assuming most of the people I wanted to see would just be busy all the time or just weren't as interested anymore. Or that I personally just didn't have the energy to engage with them again with all the emotional baggage I was carrying. And then having to rebuild new relationships from scratch after all this time had passed.

So I'd take matters into my own hands. I'd spend whole days and weekends and weeks to myself, doing the things I'd usually do when I was alone and had nothing better to do, because I always had a never-ending list of things I could be doing when no one was around: walking; catching Pokemon; museum exhibits; shows; concerts; eating out; working; cleaning; studying; games; books; other media; window shopping; looking up things to collect; planning future trips; and so on and so on. Things that had started as ways to occupy time in-between life events eventually became the event in themselves, because I had no other real end to look forward to anymore. I often felt like I was just doing these things as a way of trying to rekindle old feelings from experiences where I did feel something special in the past.

Sure, I'd still keep in touch with some friends and catch up with them in the interim, but compared to the regular flow of my life, these were just one-off moments. I'd always come away after the fact feeling at least a little disappointed, because something wouldn't work out the way I wished it would or I'd feel distant because of some pre-existing circumstance or things would end before they could even begin. And moreover, these didn't satisfy what my therapist calls a "daily shared living experience." Or you know, what most of my friends these days relegate to having with a significant other.

Which I always struggled with, because I never felt like that specifically was the mold that I was aiming for with my life. Especially not now, not with my own emotional volatility and instability stemming from my own pre-existing relationships already. People would talk to me as if a significant other would solve my issues and I'd scoff, because really, the risks that could come with an unhealthy relationship (given what I'd seen happen in my own circles), and the notion of having to be fully present for another person when I already struggled so much with myself, would just make my problems even more worse. I already feel broken inside from all of my personal issues and then on top of that my interpersonal ones, not to mention the more specific problems I've been having even more recently with some of my closest friends. But sure, just add one more fucking relationship to that equation and surely my life'll fix itself.

Add in a summer of extreme interpersonal distress in a place really close to my heart. I remembered Sarah asking me last year if I'd been exhausted from the feeling of continually being disappointed by people, and thinking I'd already hit the worst of that feeling. But of course, as with all of my past problems, it just got even worse from there. Worse than I was willing to imagine.

I don't bother asking how low my expectations can go anymore. I just don't expect anything. It's easier that way.

Days, nights of living in a daze.
Being unable to fall asleep or waking up in the middle of the night and suddenly being trapped with these thoughts again for hours until I'm dead tired again at work.
Restlessness, constantly getting up and away from my desk and people and just thinking, "I don't want to be here right now."
Tears at times when no one else could see, because I didn't feel like I could do this in public or even in front of my friends who I did see, even while at the same time wondering when someone else would finally see through my facade for once. (I apparently have a reputation for being stoic.)
Eventually debriefing with some friends and then still crying over it overnight and then the next day and then the next night, because forcing myself to be openly vulnerable and explain what I've been going through is like repeatedly taking a knife and stabbing myself in the same places again, just so people can see what kind of hell I'd been having to live with, the things that I've been wanting to forget, just so that they can finally understand for once why I've been distant for so long. If they even can understand.
But really, I can't forget if I'm still re-experiencing the impact somewhere in the back of my head continuously to this day.

And on top of that, worrying if what I'm feeling is even reasonable, only to reassured by my therapist and others that given the specific circumstances I'd experienced, my feelings are actually reasonable... but that still sucks.

Because right now, the only solution I have to avoid deadening further is to try again with a process that's already seemingly failed me multiple times. To rely again with establishing relationships when I feel like I have plenty of reasons not to. And I'll be honest, there's a part of me that fundamentally just doesn't want to trust people anymore, because that is the naturally human thing to do when forced into circumstances where people close to you break your trust.
And not just one time, but over. and over. and over again.

But the conclusion I came to in the midst of last weekend was, I don't want to live a life where I've given up on living itself, on the little things that used to inspire me and get me excited. And more specifically, the times where I felt like I could actually be more empathetic in spite of the limitations I felt that I was having in that area personally. Now that I know for sure that I'm still capable of experiencing these things just yet.

I feel like I'm on the edge of a new season of my life, starting now. Of learning to still have hope even in the midst of my greatest disappointments, and whatever I still have yet to overcome. Of not just making do with who or what I can still see, but somehow making something more out of it, even though I don't quite know what that is yet.

But maybe, for me, right now, that means learning to have patience with those who are still in my life, even when they aren't quite ready to meet me in the places where I wish I could meet them. And knowing that even if a loss does occur (as far as these things do still happen from time to time), that it's not the end for me yet either.

Maybe I'm just trying to make the most of what ultimately feels like a bittersweet feeling for me right now. I can never have exactly what I want, but at the same time it feels like this is what I need right now. Because even though I wouldn't say I'm happy currently... I think I finally know what it means to still be content.

I'm still hurting, but I'm still standing. I'm still alive. And I can finally feel it now.

And that's the best thing I could have asked for in this moment.