*Alert*EMO ENTRY AHEAD *Alert*
I know I haven't updated in forever... and now, in the wee hours of the morning, here I sit, filled up with thoughts, detached from emotions, and needing some place to sort them all out. And so I turn to LJ, hoping to make sense of what I feel: fear, and the need to hide.
But where do I start?
More and more as of late I feel like I am falling away from the person I was, the person I was proud to be. Now I hide, now I can no longer think clearly--always it seems I am surrounded in fog--and I don't feel as strong as I was starting to be. I am regressing to my early twenties without my ability to hold the same amount of alcohol without the massive hangover.
My therapist (before she told me not to come back until I could open up) always asked me questions to which my answers were constantly changing, where I didn't know the right answers, only the ones I should give. I avoided emotions, getting deeper than the surface, treading the shallow like I do when I'm swimming. Staying where I have control. Now, it kind of seems that that is all there is of me, and I cannot go any deeper, cannot look into people deeper in case it reflects into myself, cannot connect deeper with people, cannot think beyond the surface. And I am suffering for it.
Since my grandmother died in March I have only really cried once, letting everything I kept bottled in out. And I was really really drunk then. Other than that, the lid has been kept tight and I feel like the way I react to things and people and stress is now as restricted as trying to breath in a corset that is sinched far too tight. I run. I hibernate. I hide. I go blank inside.
And more and more, I cannot let myself go enough to cry. And I really cannot say why. At least not beyond the fact that I am really, really afraid. And not the afraid that I can pick out... not the scared that has a name. But the scared that pulls at you, that nags and swallows you whole. The kind of scared a five year old is when they don't know what they are being punished, being spanked, for.
I know things I worry about: not being good enough for grad school, taking the first steps, being hated, being loved, loving, hurting... and I know that hiding is only a surface symptom of the larger feelings--lonliness and fear--that lays beneath it. But I am too terrified to reach down and meet it, to look it in the eye, and deal. And I am too lost on the surface, in the blankness, to know why.
I know that my relationships and my school work are suffering because of it. I can't emote my feelings, what bothers me, what I need or want or don't want, I just swallow them and push on. I can't talk to others about what it is I think or feel, I just shut down to think it over later when it is safe enough to come out of my shell. When did I become a turtle stuck in its shell?
I'm starting to see more and more all the things I've been avoiding to not be called 'emo' and all the behaviours I am reverting back to to prevent people from looking too close--or at least seeing when they look that there isn't anyone home although the lights and coffee-timer are still going.
...And still, this post, is still just the surface...
I still like him. A lot. I know him and I fear him and I feel sorry for him. Because he is like me. No matter how much I dislike the fact, we are, indeed, the same. But because it was easier I have shoved him away. Because I wanted to avoid the issue, believing that out of sight meant out of heart, I went out of my way not to have him around. But it didn't work. And now I am left where I started: do I do the easy thing and hope it will work this time? Or do I think to do the right thing, and accept the situation as it is, build up a callus, and let my heart be broken in hopes that it heals?
He called me damaged goods. And I am. And right now, if I met a man like me, I wouldn't want to date him. Damaged goods: commitment issues, fear of communication, fear of being helpless, trust issues, fear of being hurt...hell, I don't even trust myself.
Getting fixed is hard and it hurts. It involves being broken down into pieces that are raw and exposed and fragile and starting new, trying to put all the broken and rusty bits together again in some resemblance of a person. I'm afraid to be put down into that state, to be that vulnerable. What if I can't get back up again? What if at the end of all of it, all of the work and struggle, I find that I'm not any better?
I guess school is the same... I'm so afraid of failure that I don't even try.
But where do I start?
More and more as of late I feel like I am falling away from the person I was, the person I was proud to be. Now I hide, now I can no longer think clearly--always it seems I am surrounded in fog--and I don't feel as strong as I was starting to be. I am regressing to my early twenties without my ability to hold the same amount of alcohol without the massive hangover.
My therapist (before she told me not to come back until I could open up) always asked me questions to which my answers were constantly changing, where I didn't know the right answers, only the ones I should give. I avoided emotions, getting deeper than the surface, treading the shallow like I do when I'm swimming. Staying where I have control. Now, it kind of seems that that is all there is of me, and I cannot go any deeper, cannot look into people deeper in case it reflects into myself, cannot connect deeper with people, cannot think beyond the surface. And I am suffering for it.
Since my grandmother died in March I have only really cried once, letting everything I kept bottled in out. And I was really really drunk then. Other than that, the lid has been kept tight and I feel like the way I react to things and people and stress is now as restricted as trying to breath in a corset that is sinched far too tight. I run. I hibernate. I hide. I go blank inside.
And more and more, I cannot let myself go enough to cry. And I really cannot say why. At least not beyond the fact that I am really, really afraid. And not the afraid that I can pick out... not the scared that has a name. But the scared that pulls at you, that nags and swallows you whole. The kind of scared a five year old is when they don't know what they are being punished, being spanked, for.
I know things I worry about: not being good enough for grad school, taking the first steps, being hated, being loved, loving, hurting... and I know that hiding is only a surface symptom of the larger feelings--lonliness and fear--that lays beneath it. But I am too terrified to reach down and meet it, to look it in the eye, and deal. And I am too lost on the surface, in the blankness, to know why.
I know that my relationships and my school work are suffering because of it. I can't emote my feelings, what bothers me, what I need or want or don't want, I just swallow them and push on. I can't talk to others about what it is I think or feel, I just shut down to think it over later when it is safe enough to come out of my shell. When did I become a turtle stuck in its shell?
I'm starting to see more and more all the things I've been avoiding to not be called 'emo' and all the behaviours I am reverting back to to prevent people from looking too close--or at least seeing when they look that there isn't anyone home although the lights and coffee-timer are still going.
...And still, this post, is still just the surface...
I still like him. A lot. I know him and I fear him and I feel sorry for him. Because he is like me. No matter how much I dislike the fact, we are, indeed, the same. But because it was easier I have shoved him away. Because I wanted to avoid the issue, believing that out of sight meant out of heart, I went out of my way not to have him around. But it didn't work. And now I am left where I started: do I do the easy thing and hope it will work this time? Or do I think to do the right thing, and accept the situation as it is, build up a callus, and let my heart be broken in hopes that it heals?
He called me damaged goods. And I am. And right now, if I met a man like me, I wouldn't want to date him. Damaged goods: commitment issues, fear of communication, fear of being helpless, trust issues, fear of being hurt...hell, I don't even trust myself.
Getting fixed is hard and it hurts. It involves being broken down into pieces that are raw and exposed and fragile and starting new, trying to put all the broken and rusty bits together again in some resemblance of a person. I'm afraid to be put down into that state, to be that vulnerable. What if I can't get back up again? What if at the end of all of it, all of the work and struggle, I find that I'm not any better?
I guess school is the same... I'm so afraid of failure that I don't even try.