LJ Idol Week 12: Throw Back (I don't care about apathy)
LJ Idol Week 12: Throw Back (I don't care about apathy)
I don't have a lot of fancy excuses for not caring about things. I just don't like stuff.
Sometimes I wish I did care, could care. There's a few loose wires, some poor connections you know?. I just don't feel life and the things and people around me the way it seems like I should. Low affect, they say. Inability to form social bonds and connections. I can look at the humans around me and I can see them clearly, I can see their thoughts, I can identify their emotions and their motivations, and I have a pretty good idea of what they're going to do next.
And that's how I used to fake my own life. I could show the world what they would expect based on my audience, I could fake the emotions they would expect me to be feeling. Knowing what I'm going to do, I could make my actions fit into those patterns. I can still do that, when I have to, but now I have to work at it where it used to come easy. I don't know why I bother, most of the world doesn't care, most of the world doesn't notice one way or the other if I'm moving around like an automaton or a human. Seeing people and playing their game was easier when I was younger. I don't know what's changed, if it's physically harder or if I'm just too goddamn tired.
Or if it's just because I've got other priorities, now. Better priorities.
I don't have to fake it for my son. For him I feel, I live, I have emotions, both good and bad. Genuine emotions are draining, you know? They're exhausting even when they're wonderful. He wipes me out and exhausts me whether he's being wonderful or troublesome. I just don't always have the reserves to keep up. Atrophied emotions desperately trying to flex and stretch, but they can only keep up for so long. When he goes to bed at night a part of me collapses in relief, even as I want to lay in bed giggling with him for hours.
I feel like I'm a human when I'm with him. He genuinely makes me want to be a better person. He makes me want to engage with others and not cripple him with my own distance from the world.
But the world can blow. I just don't have the energy for both. I'll just have to explain, somehow, that I'm not the kind of dad that should be treated as a role model for this kind of stuff.
And maybe start a therapy fund.
I don't have a lot of fancy excuses for not caring about things. I just don't like stuff.
Sometimes I wish I did care, could care. There's a few loose wires, some poor connections you know?. I just don't feel life and the things and people around me the way it seems like I should. Low affect, they say. Inability to form social bonds and connections. I can look at the humans around me and I can see them clearly, I can see their thoughts, I can identify their emotions and their motivations, and I have a pretty good idea of what they're going to do next.
And that's how I used to fake my own life. I could show the world what they would expect based on my audience, I could fake the emotions they would expect me to be feeling. Knowing what I'm going to do, I could make my actions fit into those patterns. I can still do that, when I have to, but now I have to work at it where it used to come easy. I don't know why I bother, most of the world doesn't care, most of the world doesn't notice one way or the other if I'm moving around like an automaton or a human. Seeing people and playing their game was easier when I was younger. I don't know what's changed, if it's physically harder or if I'm just too goddamn tired.
Or if it's just because I've got other priorities, now. Better priorities.
I don't have to fake it for my son. For him I feel, I live, I have emotions, both good and bad. Genuine emotions are draining, you know? They're exhausting even when they're wonderful. He wipes me out and exhausts me whether he's being wonderful or troublesome. I just don't always have the reserves to keep up. Atrophied emotions desperately trying to flex and stretch, but they can only keep up for so long. When he goes to bed at night a part of me collapses in relief, even as I want to lay in bed giggling with him for hours.
I feel like I'm a human when I'm with him. He genuinely makes me want to be a better person. He makes me want to engage with others and not cripple him with my own distance from the world.
But the world can blow. I just don't have the energy for both. I'll just have to explain, somehow, that I'm not the kind of dad that should be treated as a role model for this kind of stuff.
And maybe start a therapy fund.