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Another months old post. But in light of mentally sick days like today, it still feels relevant.

The last five years have probably been the most emotionally difficult times of my life.

I think back to that time in college (...10 years ago) when I had a mental breakdown over my academic failings in sophomore year. I thought I was going to fail a class and not make it into the major I'd been working towards getting into, and at some point I started behaving erratically-- but that's another story documented in much older (though less comprehensible) posts on this blog.

But anyway, the point being: back then, that felt like the worst I could get. Even several years into working at my last job, I remembered recounting that time period to Kuai as it still felt like an old wound that ached sometimes, and he had more of a "that's it?" kind of reaction to it. All that over grades?

Yes, it was the first time in my adult life that I had let others see me cry in public... which hasn't happened since (although a couple of incidents have come close).

Yes, it was the first time I had seriously felt challenged in my identity-- which up until that point had been focused on academics-- to the point where it quite literally broke me mentally.
(I mean, I fucking hallucinated a lion in the streets of Berkeley. Or at least Ryan says I did.)

But still, anxiety inducing as it is, school is school. In retrospect now, that time period feels like a bygone era, and it feels weird to even try to remember what it felt like anymore. Or why something like that could feel as traumatic as it did.

Though actually, when I think about it now, it wasn't really the grade situation that hurt me so much. I mean it did at the time for sure, but that's not why I still felt a wound from it years after the fact.

It was really more the experience of knowing that I could be broken. That I was capable of behaving erratically and doing things that no one, including myself, could really understand. That some part of me was, and still is to this day, dysfunctional.

Because ever since that time, I've always felt a little... unhinged, for lack of a better term.

I don’t know how exactly to explain it, except that it sometimes lingers in the back of my mind in my interactions with people— particularly the negative or otherwise ambiguously neutral ones, resulting in hypothetical make-up conversations that tend to reverberate in my mind for days, in some cases years after the fact, to the point where I have days where I'm basically not functional because I can't take my mind off of it.

It recurs in the dreams I have with people who I haven’t talked to in years; imaginary people really, because I know nothing about the kind of person they are now, and in retrospect barely knew the person that they used to be. And then I get irritated because I hardly think about these people ever except in my dreams, because I thought I had gotten over them.

It emerges in my tendency to arbitrarily isolate myself the moment I notice someone I might accidentally run into. If you happen to see me approaching and notice that I abruptly turn in a different direction (as much as I try not to be noticed), opposite of conventional wisdom, just know that it’s because of me— not you. Considering that I even do this to my friends sometimes.

It returns in the moments where I’m reminded of my own inability to fully fit in. The awkwardness of running into friends and old acquaintances who wonder where I’ve been all of these years. The events and message threads that I find out about accidentally after the fact (which feels even more offputting when they try to hide it). The group dynamics where I end up observing rather than participating, because I don't really have anything meaningful to say to these people other than to express whatever amusement I get from simply being in their presence. But most people are looking for more than just simple amusement in their relationships.

It doesn't help when I think about the past 5 years. A series of 5 (more or less; faith, work, social, family, identity) different but simultaneous quarter-life-crises at the same time, in the midst of a period of unemployment coupled with crippling depression. A season of antidepressants that dulled what feelings and emotions I had. Another year of on-and-off again frequent mood swings that killed my desire to initiate or maintain consistent social connections, with aftereffects that I still feel today. And then last year, the experience of which still makes me feel bitter sometimes.

It feels difficult trying to connect with people these days, because I always feel like there's something hidden underneath the present moment that's being left unsaid, and I'm the type of person who prefers being open and upfront about things, or at least whenever I feel comfortable enough to do so.

Maybe I'm being too self-conscious of my own history and the weight that I still feel like I carry around even now, and I don't want to make things awkward for people. Maybe I just don't want to come off as being too negative or pessimistic even though my personality just is that way sometimes. Maybe it's just certain moments, particularly those when I'm being too self-absorbed in my thoughts at the same time to really keep paying attention, which still happens a lot these days.

That said, I wish I could talk more openly about the experiences I've gone through, because they've become a part of me and helped shape me into the person that I am today... the person writing this here right now.

But I don't always feel capable of doing so. It feels like a lot to ask or expect people who I don't know as well to be willing enough to listen. Most of the time I get the sense that the people who I wish I could be closer to just aren't interested enough. Or even with those who could or I know would be interested, it just doesn't feel like the right moment for it, but I don't know when the right moment is or if that day will ever come. Maybe some things are just better left unsaid... even with your closest friends.

At what point do you just message someone out of the blue, ask them to talk about something important to you just because, even though there's nothing specific or even particular with this person that's really pressing for you to do so? At what point do you stop caring about propriety and just do it because if not now, then when, ever?

I'm tired of having to be strategic about social things. I miss being spontaneous and not having to worry about giving a damn of being honest about how I feel.

I wish I could just be myself sometimes, even in my disappointments.