so I owe you guys an explanation - please read this if you have the time and energy to do so <3
”When I was young... rather than thinking ‘I want to be a celebrity’, I thought more along the lines of ‘I want people to be cheerful because of me.’” -- Seungri
Hi friends ♥ I spent most of this morning crying over the lovely comments some of you left me on the meme I posted last entry. I just. I put an extraordinary amount of effort into forgetting that people like me, and when I see reminders like those, it never ceases to take me by surprise and fill me with amazement.
I will be replying to those comments later, but for now I wanted to address some of them here, and also to explain myself, because I am a very strange person and oftentimes my actions are taken one way, when they were meant to be taken another way entirely.
First, I will start by talking about the main goal I set for myself when I was a kid. When I was little, I was a shy little thing (sort of like I am now...) and I took anything anyone told me or expected of me very, very seriously. When my parents said, "You have to get A's in school," I immediately programmed it into my brain that anything lower than an A was failure. When the other kids at school made fun of me, I immediately programmed it into my brain that I was worth ridiculing. When I saw the smiles light up on the faces of the few friends I had, in addition to my parents, I immediately programmed it into my brain that I absolutely HAD to make other people happy, more than anything else in the world.
At a very young age, I decided something about myself that I continue to believe 100%: "The only reason I am here on earth is to make people happy. As a person, I don't matter. I must be selfless and help people, I must be hard on myself and expect unreasonable things from myself, and all of these things must involve making other people (my parents, friends, and even complete strangers) happy."
Now, I realize that sounds very strange and unreasonable of me, but I am a strange and unreasonable person, as you probably know by now.
Anyway, I have this weird system of remembering things. (You are probably wondering why I am rambling about all these random things right now, but hopefully it will make sense in the end... hopefully.) It started out based on my grades. I only ever remember the bad grades I get, and immediately dismiss the good ones. Sometimes people are dumbfounded by how quickly I forget about the A's I get in school, the semester I get them, and how adamant I am to tell you about the C's and D's I got five, ten years ago. That's just the way I am. I take positive feedback, smile at it, and promptly forget it ever happened, because in my weird little robot mind I believe that only negative feedback can ever help me improve myself, and that positive feedback, while it is nice, should not be taken seriously. Beyond forgetting that I get A's, I also forget that I have friends and family who love me, I forget the nice things that my teachers say, I forget that anyone has ever felt even the teeniest tiniest bit of love for me, because remembering those things will make me think good things about myself, god forbid, and that will get in the way of my selfless duty to make only OTHER people happy.
Yes, believe it or not, that is EXACTLY how I think. Now do you believe me when I say that I'm strange? :(
So yeah, numerous friends have expressed frustration to me over how they feel like I don't value their opinions and their friendship, including in that anon meme from last entry. Well, here's the deal: I love ALL of my friends (and family) more than anything else in the world, because they are the reason I am alive, to make them (YOU!) happy. So please, don't ever feel like I don't value your friendship, because I DO, I DO, more than you might ever know. The thing is -- I also believe that the people who love me can and WILL only ever say nice things about me, and if I have flaws, they won't tell me them, because they're just nice people who want me to be happy. But my fundamental rule for myself says that I can't be happy, therefore these things that they're saying, well, I can't let them cheer me up or make me feel better about myself, because I don't deserve that. It's not that I don't believe you -- it's just that I have accepted, from a young age, that when someone says something nice about me, they are doing so because they are biased, because they are blinded by their love for me, because they are too good for me. On the other hand, when someone says something bad about me, this is the ULTIMATE good they can do for me, because I NEED to feel bad about myself in order to improve myself and help others.
Yeah, I know, that's fucked up.
Now, going back to my goal in life: to make other people happy. The problem with this goal, right now, is that in making other people happy, I am making myself unbearably sad, and in making myself unbearably sad, I am making other people sad too. So in the end, my stupid little goal in life isn't working out at all, no matter how much I try, because I have this INEXCUSABLE problem where I feel sad about things (note the sarcasm), which is to me a sign of weakness that is hindering in my accomplishing this goal in life.
And THIS is why I am stuck in this cycle of hating myself, hating myself more, and reconsidering why I am here on earth in the first place. It's because I've fucked myself over, really badly, in my logic. There's just no winning. I'm not a robot cyborg, nor am I a saint, and therefore I am incapable of doing what I have always felt I NEEDED to do.
Um. This is where I lose my composure and say to you that I honestly don't know what's going on with me right now, and I'm sorry for making you feel unhappy because of my own unhappiness, because that wasn't ever supposed to happen, and I was only ever supposed to put smiles on people's faces wherever and whenever I went.
Yeah. Thank you for listening. ♥
Hi friends ♥ I spent most of this morning crying over the lovely comments some of you left me on the meme I posted last entry. I just. I put an extraordinary amount of effort into forgetting that people like me, and when I see reminders like those, it never ceases to take me by surprise and fill me with amazement.
I will be replying to those comments later, but for now I wanted to address some of them here, and also to explain myself, because I am a very strange person and oftentimes my actions are taken one way, when they were meant to be taken another way entirely.
First, I will start by talking about the main goal I set for myself when I was a kid. When I was little, I was a shy little thing (sort of like I am now...) and I took anything anyone told me or expected of me very, very seriously. When my parents said, "You have to get A's in school," I immediately programmed it into my brain that anything lower than an A was failure. When the other kids at school made fun of me, I immediately programmed it into my brain that I was worth ridiculing. When I saw the smiles light up on the faces of the few friends I had, in addition to my parents, I immediately programmed it into my brain that I absolutely HAD to make other people happy, more than anything else in the world.
At a very young age, I decided something about myself that I continue to believe 100%: "The only reason I am here on earth is to make people happy. As a person, I don't matter. I must be selfless and help people, I must be hard on myself and expect unreasonable things from myself, and all of these things must involve making other people (my parents, friends, and even complete strangers) happy."
Now, I realize that sounds very strange and unreasonable of me, but I am a strange and unreasonable person, as you probably know by now.
Anyway, I have this weird system of remembering things. (You are probably wondering why I am rambling about all these random things right now, but hopefully it will make sense in the end... hopefully.) It started out based on my grades. I only ever remember the bad grades I get, and immediately dismiss the good ones. Sometimes people are dumbfounded by how quickly I forget about the A's I get in school, the semester I get them, and how adamant I am to tell you about the C's and D's I got five, ten years ago. That's just the way I am. I take positive feedback, smile at it, and promptly forget it ever happened, because in my weird little robot mind I believe that only negative feedback can ever help me improve myself, and that positive feedback, while it is nice, should not be taken seriously. Beyond forgetting that I get A's, I also forget that I have friends and family who love me, I forget the nice things that my teachers say, I forget that anyone has ever felt even the teeniest tiniest bit of love for me, because remembering those things will make me think good things about myself, god forbid, and that will get in the way of my selfless duty to make only OTHER people happy.
Yes, believe it or not, that is EXACTLY how I think. Now do you believe me when I say that I'm strange? :(
So yeah, numerous friends have expressed frustration to me over how they feel like I don't value their opinions and their friendship, including in that anon meme from last entry. Well, here's the deal: I love ALL of my friends (and family) more than anything else in the world, because they are the reason I am alive, to make them (YOU!) happy. So please, don't ever feel like I don't value your friendship, because I DO, I DO, more than you might ever know. The thing is -- I also believe that the people who love me can and WILL only ever say nice things about me, and if I have flaws, they won't tell me them, because they're just nice people who want me to be happy. But my fundamental rule for myself says that I can't be happy, therefore these things that they're saying, well, I can't let them cheer me up or make me feel better about myself, because I don't deserve that. It's not that I don't believe you -- it's just that I have accepted, from a young age, that when someone says something nice about me, they are doing so because they are biased, because they are blinded by their love for me, because they are too good for me. On the other hand, when someone says something bad about me, this is the ULTIMATE good they can do for me, because I NEED to feel bad about myself in order to improve myself and help others.
Yeah, I know, that's fucked up.
Now, going back to my goal in life: to make other people happy. The problem with this goal, right now, is that in making other people happy, I am making myself unbearably sad, and in making myself unbearably sad, I am making other people sad too. So in the end, my stupid little goal in life isn't working out at all, no matter how much I try, because I have this INEXCUSABLE problem where I feel sad about things (note the sarcasm), which is to me a sign of weakness that is hindering in my accomplishing this goal in life.
And THIS is why I am stuck in this cycle of hating myself, hating myself more, and reconsidering why I am here on earth in the first place. It's because I've fucked myself over, really badly, in my logic. There's just no winning. I'm not a robot cyborg, nor am I a saint, and therefore I am incapable of doing what I have always felt I NEEDED to do.
Um. This is where I lose my composure and say to you that I honestly don't know what's going on with me right now, and I'm sorry for making you feel unhappy because of my own unhappiness, because that wasn't ever supposed to happen, and I was only ever supposed to put smiles on people's faces wherever and whenever I went.
Yeah. Thank you for listening. ♥