Addressing old posts.
I just spent a few precious minutes perusing my public LJ entries. Since I have been occasionally posting here privately I suppose it was simply a matter of time before I went back to those. While most entries are vague or playful, there are a few that are certainly not. After reading, I felt compelled to address some personal issues, specifically my repeat statements of loneliness.
I have written publicly multiple times about not talking to people or having limited interactions. At times I am quite lonely. This is because over the years I have developed Anthropophobia.
I am living with an irrational fear of people, the consequence from years of abuse. I could ramble on about all the typical ponderings of why it happened, and the obvious inevitable, as I wildly opened my heart to people. After several relationships where I was manipulated, lied to, and even abused, in friendships and romantically, I eventually broke down. I can no longer trust anyone, to an extreme level. I am no longer comfortable around others to the point of feeling my life is in danger. It is debilitating.
There are still people I am fond of, admire, enjoy being with, and love, but I have developed a constant sense of threat and caution when around others. Sometimes it even bleeds into other forms of communication and I need to withdraw. Naturally it leads me to miss quite a bit.
I never feared anyone before. Certainly I often felt uncomfortable in some situations but I was never afraid of people. I never overwhelmingly felt like I was surrounded by snarling wolves waiting to tear me to shreds just because they felt like it, unlike now.
Perhaps my previous lack of fear was in a way due to having Asperger's, in that I did not care about the bizarre opinions people fabricated about me. As far as I was concerned, that was their own unrealistic issues. So few people look past their own nose and see what is happening. Including their own behavior.
I always stood up for myself and fought back against bullies instead of cowering, and in my life there were many from the very beginning. On a smaller scale, if someone was too blind to see me directly in front of them, I was not about to spend my time and energy working to show them otherwise.
I am well aware of my struggle to understand people. Often subtle social signals seem like games to my mind. I prefer outright truth. Directness. Depth. Genuine connections have always been of the highest value to me.
I have always openly been my strange self for all to see. I have always been someone who expresses themselves creatively and prefers facts. While aesthetically I am drawn to images of fantasy, my feet remain firmly planted on the ground. Although I have had thousands of dreams of a utopian existence, I fully understand humans prevent it on mass levels with destruction, selfishness, and greed. I know there is no justice, no karma, that good is rarely rewarded and evil often goes unpunished. Facts over Fiction, every time.
I have often imagined myself as if standing somewhere in between, where I can see reality on one side, and on the other see possibilities of a greater world. While I love a good mad tea party, I am no flighty lunatic. Facades, endless small talk, a public versus private persona, all confuse and irritate me. Drama, lies, manipulation, I could never tolerate. Those things always seemed wasteful, illogical, and mundane.
I have been in the company of some individuals who bewildered me firsthand with their phony public portrayals of themselves. Often these were the very people insisting how they are living a most wonderful, happy, life, while ignoring all the manipulation and drama they created. Another facade I detest. I will never grasp why it is so difficult for people to simply be real. The reality filters people create to keep themselves feeling safe are astounding.
Within the past decade I have spent several years happily creating art and costumes for theaters while homeschooling my children, which was enriching as well as great fun. I particularly enjoyed painting those 20 foot high walls, and I would do it again right now if it felt right. If it felt safe.
I no longer make art for theaters and it was a shame how it fell apart. I was pushed beyond my physical means of production. A verbal agreement for a full month time frame was cut down to 1.5 weeks. It was stressful. Instead of stepping up and helping, the director publicly shouted at me for it. I was offended and angered for being blamed and held responsible for a situation I did not create. In an instant, keeping accordance with my new habit of not tolerating anyone's bullshit, I literally put down my brush right then and there, and quit. While I stood up for myself being taken advantage of, leaving was bittersweet as I found a lot of joy in working on such a large artistic scale. I have received other offers since but due to my anxiety, decline.
Since then I have been mostly keeping to myself. Even exploring of nature, parks, museums, and other pursuits of pleasure that involve physically encountering society have all been brought to a minimum. I feel constantly threatened and unable to openly be myself, even at events and festivals surrounded by good people I have become acquainted with over the past 8 years.
I avoid people. I joke that I am an "almost" hermit. All because of the overbearing damage forced upon me from multiple toxic relationships. I am only starting to be angry for the abuse that some people inflicted upon me. I am probably not as angry as I should be but I am as angry as I am capable of whenever the issue comes to the forefront of my thoughts.
I am not ashamed of any of this, the Anthropophobia, nor am I ashamed of having Asperger's and PTSD. Knowing about having Aspergers has helped clarify why I struggled to tolerate the many lies I encountered and why I would constantly speak the truth unaware and oblivious of consequences. Indeed, my speaking up caused the downfall of a few so-called friendships, but to me the loss was always relief.
I have never lost an actual friend over communicating honestly. I have however gratefully lost a few phony and abusive ones. I am thankful I have eradicated those toxic people from my life. I never regret outing liars and manipulators for who they are. Logically I know the world is not full of such cruel people but I have had more than my share and my mind has reacted accordingly.
There are a small handful of others where our friendship just fizzled out, soured, or ended for other reasons. By no means am I implying those few people were ever harmful. Often physical distance simply got in the way or we mentally went in different directions. Those I look back on fondly and wish them well.
It is the negative people that intentionally hurt me, told lies and spread rumors about me, acted ridiculously fake toward me, manipulated me, used me for money and material things, or worse, those that have verbally or physically attacked me, stalked me, and harassed me. Those dozen or so individuals who hurt me for months, and sometimes years, are responsible. Over time what they have done has taken its toll upon me, resulting in my stress, anxiety, and following loneliness that endures because I no longer trust.
Now you know.
I felt that I had to explain what got me to this point. It goes back for quite a few years, my journal entries mentioning loneliness. I am doing what I can to heal and eradicate this fear of great mistrust but in the meantime, whenever you come across me sharing that I am lonely, it is because of the imprisonment around myself thanks to some truly awful people. Some of whom that, disgustingly but not surprisingly, relish in the harm they inflicted against me to this day and continue to lie about it.
I have written publicly multiple times about not talking to people or having limited interactions. At times I am quite lonely. This is because over the years I have developed Anthropophobia.
I am living with an irrational fear of people, the consequence from years of abuse. I could ramble on about all the typical ponderings of why it happened, and the obvious inevitable, as I wildly opened my heart to people. After several relationships where I was manipulated, lied to, and even abused, in friendships and romantically, I eventually broke down. I can no longer trust anyone, to an extreme level. I am no longer comfortable around others to the point of feeling my life is in danger. It is debilitating.
There are still people I am fond of, admire, enjoy being with, and love, but I have developed a constant sense of threat and caution when around others. Sometimes it even bleeds into other forms of communication and I need to withdraw. Naturally it leads me to miss quite a bit.
I never feared anyone before. Certainly I often felt uncomfortable in some situations but I was never afraid of people. I never overwhelmingly felt like I was surrounded by snarling wolves waiting to tear me to shreds just because they felt like it, unlike now.
Perhaps my previous lack of fear was in a way due to having Asperger's, in that I did not care about the bizarre opinions people fabricated about me. As far as I was concerned, that was their own unrealistic issues. So few people look past their own nose and see what is happening. Including their own behavior.
I always stood up for myself and fought back against bullies instead of cowering, and in my life there were many from the very beginning. On a smaller scale, if someone was too blind to see me directly in front of them, I was not about to spend my time and energy working to show them otherwise.
I am well aware of my struggle to understand people. Often subtle social signals seem like games to my mind. I prefer outright truth. Directness. Depth. Genuine connections have always been of the highest value to me.
I have always openly been my strange self for all to see. I have always been someone who expresses themselves creatively and prefers facts. While aesthetically I am drawn to images of fantasy, my feet remain firmly planted on the ground. Although I have had thousands of dreams of a utopian existence, I fully understand humans prevent it on mass levels with destruction, selfishness, and greed. I know there is no justice, no karma, that good is rarely rewarded and evil often goes unpunished. Facts over Fiction, every time.
I have often imagined myself as if standing somewhere in between, where I can see reality on one side, and on the other see possibilities of a greater world. While I love a good mad tea party, I am no flighty lunatic. Facades, endless small talk, a public versus private persona, all confuse and irritate me. Drama, lies, manipulation, I could never tolerate. Those things always seemed wasteful, illogical, and mundane.
I have been in the company of some individuals who bewildered me firsthand with their phony public portrayals of themselves. Often these were the very people insisting how they are living a most wonderful, happy, life, while ignoring all the manipulation and drama they created. Another facade I detest. I will never grasp why it is so difficult for people to simply be real. The reality filters people create to keep themselves feeling safe are astounding.
Within the past decade I have spent several years happily creating art and costumes for theaters while homeschooling my children, which was enriching as well as great fun. I particularly enjoyed painting those 20 foot high walls, and I would do it again right now if it felt right. If it felt safe.
I no longer make art for theaters and it was a shame how it fell apart. I was pushed beyond my physical means of production. A verbal agreement for a full month time frame was cut down to 1.5 weeks. It was stressful. Instead of stepping up and helping, the director publicly shouted at me for it. I was offended and angered for being blamed and held responsible for a situation I did not create. In an instant, keeping accordance with my new habit of not tolerating anyone's bullshit, I literally put down my brush right then and there, and quit. While I stood up for myself being taken advantage of, leaving was bittersweet as I found a lot of joy in working on such a large artistic scale. I have received other offers since but due to my anxiety, decline.
Since then I have been mostly keeping to myself. Even exploring of nature, parks, museums, and other pursuits of pleasure that involve physically encountering society have all been brought to a minimum. I feel constantly threatened and unable to openly be myself, even at events and festivals surrounded by good people I have become acquainted with over the past 8 years.
I avoid people. I joke that I am an "almost" hermit. All because of the overbearing damage forced upon me from multiple toxic relationships. I am only starting to be angry for the abuse that some people inflicted upon me. I am probably not as angry as I should be but I am as angry as I am capable of whenever the issue comes to the forefront of my thoughts.
I am not ashamed of any of this, the Anthropophobia, nor am I ashamed of having Asperger's and PTSD. Knowing about having Aspergers has helped clarify why I struggled to tolerate the many lies I encountered and why I would constantly speak the truth unaware and oblivious of consequences. Indeed, my speaking up caused the downfall of a few so-called friendships, but to me the loss was always relief.
I have never lost an actual friend over communicating honestly. I have however gratefully lost a few phony and abusive ones. I am thankful I have eradicated those toxic people from my life. I never regret outing liars and manipulators for who they are. Logically I know the world is not full of such cruel people but I have had more than my share and my mind has reacted accordingly.
There are a small handful of others where our friendship just fizzled out, soured, or ended for other reasons. By no means am I implying those few people were ever harmful. Often physical distance simply got in the way or we mentally went in different directions. Those I look back on fondly and wish them well.
It is the negative people that intentionally hurt me, told lies and spread rumors about me, acted ridiculously fake toward me, manipulated me, used me for money and material things, or worse, those that have verbally or physically attacked me, stalked me, and harassed me. Those dozen or so individuals who hurt me for months, and sometimes years, are responsible. Over time what they have done has taken its toll upon me, resulting in my stress, anxiety, and following loneliness that endures because I no longer trust.
Now you know.
I felt that I had to explain what got me to this point. It goes back for quite a few years, my journal entries mentioning loneliness. I am doing what I can to heal and eradicate this fear of great mistrust but in the meantime, whenever you come across me sharing that I am lonely, it is because of the imprisonment around myself thanks to some truly awful people. Some of whom that, disgustingly but not surprisingly, relish in the harm they inflicted against me to this day and continue to lie about it.