Dear God, it's long... I'm sorry...
NOTICE: This is an important entry, so make sure you read it at some point in the near future, if you're busy right now. I know it's long and I'm being a pain in the ass ;)
Well, I have had an interesting week or so now... Not quite sure how much to say in public, but things have happened that are major enough in my life to have some sort of changing affect on me, my behavior, my thoughts, and/or my mood, so I'd better say something...
First of all, I'd like to explain that I've been dealing with a LOT of issues lately, trying to manage a higher number of them at a single time (as opposed to focusing on a few of them and repressing the rest because I feel overwhelmed) than I've tried to do in A Very Long Time. I feel this is a very big and hard step for me to take, but a necessary one for me to go through before I go try to successfully complete Phlebotomy training and get a job and generally being more sociable. But suffice to say, it's driven me temporarily insane, where I have kind of lost the control I usually have over myself, as far as basic stuff like being able to fully comprehend what people are telling me, being able to stop myself from saying certain things out loud that I really probably shouldn't be saying in mixed company, or in that way, or at that time and that sort of thing. I've been extremely touchy and needy and ... just weird. Very bipolar, I guess, where I am either obsessed with something or hating it, I either want you making full physical contact with me or I can't stand to be touched. I've been feeling the NEED to travel or go camping, which means I've fully hit a transitional period in my life. And I've been feeling the NEED to live in a large group of my "chosen family" (you can call them "friends" if you want, but let's be honest here...) so that I am never alone if I don't want to be and I always have someone there that I can talk to and hang out with, which I haven't fully analyzed, but I know that it means I am scaring myself and am worrying that I'm taking on too much at once. Basically, all the beliefs I had about myself and who I have become have been shook up and I'm unstable. I'm re-analyzing why I do or think things and attempting to stop behavior patterns and patterns of thought that have become habit for me - the ones I'm realizing I've just repetitively done or thought all my life because of false judgements I made in childhood, basically. Learning that I fit right into Borderline Personality Disorder, a disorder I'd looked at very briefly in the past and decided definitely was NOT me (I'd misinterpreted it or read bad information on it previously), has really shook me up and made me feel like who I am and how I interact with people I care deeply about has spun out of my control. Whereas disorders like depression and anxiety can have a certain romanticism to them, in that they tend to cause things like being highly creative and artistic and good in survival situations, being Borderline only seems to bring about negatives. Like, I can piss someone off or hurt someone I'm really close to, simply by trying to be true to my emotions at any given time. I guess basically, I tend to think I'm a complex person, and someone's sat me down and fit everything about me into a little simplified box, or definition, and so my mind (or whatever) is trying it's hardest to rebel and say "no, you just don't understand me" but intellectually, I know that in reality I'm being understood for maybe the first time in my life, and I don't know how to deal with that. I'm paranoid and secretive and like to be mysterious. I don't honestly WANT most people to understand me. It feels like I've never really known or understood how to interact with other people, so in early childhood I learned certain "tricks", like an attempt at copying the actions of other people because I had no comprehension of how to do things like make friends or avoid being "too" honest with others and hurting their feelings, so I guess what I did was learn to manipulate people into feeling emotions that I felt I could understand and deal with, and thus gain an advantage by being able to sympathize or advise or help people out and I was told my ability to do that made me a good friend. And now, I'm basically admitting that to people, and realizing myself that I am kind of a really shitty friend or person to be in a relationship with, when that's something I always kind of prided myself on and felt some self-worth from, and I guess I'm scared that people are going to feel I do these things on purpose or they're going to be too concerned with getting hurt by me to really be my friend. And now I've lost my train of thought. This is REALLY hard for me to explain without coming across in a totally wrong way. But I know I've been acting really weird lately and I don't want everyone to think I hate them or I'm going to attack them or something because I say or do a certain thing that isn't generally socially acceptable. And I want to make it clear that it is highly unlikely I am going to be this way permanently. I am just doing spring cleaning in here that's been neglected for about a decade, if not longer, so there's gonna be a huge mess for a while until I get things reorganized.
Whew. So yeah... please try to be a little more patient with me than you normally would be. (And some of you are already doing this and I cannot thank you enough or tell you how much it means to me that you are able to understand this without me needing to exhaust myself by trying to put it all in words.) It is very hard for me to talk to people right now because I feel like I am going to do or say something that will cause you to form a false judgement on me and you will withdraw from me because of it. At the same time, I am feeling like I really NEED to talk to people about certain things right now, mainly things I have been trying to stop or ignore and have realized that my attempts at that have been unsuccessful. So, if I try to talk to you and I say something really extreme, please try not to freak out over it. I don't really know what I'm doing with a lot right now, so the things that I DO know I want are becoming extremely important to my life. It doesn't mean I'm expecting you to put up with me if I'm doing things that really bother you, but try not to attack me because of it. Talk to me about it carefully and gently and preferably when you're not in the middle of feeling angry or whatever because of it, and I will adjust myself as necessary. Or I will tell you if it's something about myself I'm not willing to control, but I really don't think there's many aspects of myself that shouldn't be controlled to one degree or another, so bring it up anyway. Know that I am not TRYING to be a bitch or use or manipulate anyone right now, I just need to honestly assess myself with all my restraints off for a while in order to get myself back in order and I am a complete social/relational retard. Oh, and if I go try to kill somebody or something, you definitely should stand up and stop me and remove me from the situation if I seem unable to do that for myself. Because right now, I am going through several periods of time where I am completely unable to control myself like that. I guess at the same time, I am learning control, but I don't think I could live with myself if I slipped up and found myself having done something major out of my control the next time I come back into my right mind... if that makes sense...
Okay, I have to stop talking like that now. I've mentally overexerted myself. So, we'll get into some of the stuff that has actually been happening in my life...
I've started fighting people. Before, when someone would start up an argument or something with me I would just get hurt and accept it and back down and basically go hide in a corner until it wasn't really an issue anymore. Now, if someone does something that bothers me, they KNOW.
Case in point #1:
I had a Halloween "party". Brandon, Adrian, Koli, and I were sitting around, basically just "bonding" and goofing off, and I was a bit drunk on rum. Koli starts poking me in the arm, really hard (I'd imagine he didn't realize how hard he was doing it). It hurts really bad (I still have four bruises on my arm from it). I tell him to stop. He continues doing it. I continue telling him to stop, increasingly less friendly each time and he keeps on doing it for whatever reason. My control had already slipped enough for me to be punching him in response, which I thought should have been obvious to him that I wasn't playing anymore, as I don't do that. So yeah, eventually I snapped and stood up and got in his face and was so totally in "I'm going to kill you" mode that I couldn't even really see my surroundings and thankfully, he jokingly cowered before me, which was the visual I needed in order to snap myself back out of that completely primal side of myself, wether or not he was joking around, so I kind of shook myself out of it and was kind of surprised to find myself standing above him prepared to beat his ass, became really ashamed of myself, and sat back down. Which was when he poked me yet again, I guess to get me back for hitting him in front of "the boys", but suffice to say I had to leave or else I don't know what I would have done to him. I am very ashamed of my reaction to him, but at the same time, I feel it was justified. I look at this animalistically, which I realize he probably does not but this is what was going on in my mind... You're in my territory. I invited you here to be among "my" people. You are blatantly disrespecting me in front of them, in my own territory. Maybe you don't understand how this works, but you do not try to out-dominate someone in their own territory if you are hoping to get along with them in any way, at any time, whatsoever. I have a certain social structure with these people and you are trying to destroy it. You are trying to make me look weak and incompetent and lower-than-you in front of them. I have recognized that you are a dominant type of person before (regardless of wether or not you consciously recognize that aspect of yourself) so I have allowed you a somewhat equal or secondary position when you're here and now you are outright challenging me and trying to take over my territory. You cannot act like that with me. My animal/primal side is a large part of who I am and you cannot tap into that and play around. It triggers things in me that will cause me to completely lose control of myself and tear you apart in any way I can. If you are going to be like that with me, I'm not going to be able to have you over here anymore, because I value your friendship and I love you and I want to get along with you and you are basically forcing me into a position where I have to look at you as an enemy. I am refusing to look at you that way anymore. You are my friend and you need to act like it and have some respect for me. If any of you therianthrope-types can translate this for me and make it not sound so cold and scientific, I'd appreciate it, because I tend to either be all animal in nature or all human in nature and I'm not used to having to blend the two together like this with people.
Case in point #2 (which I'm not going to go into in as much detail):
Brandon pissed me off before work the day before yesterday. It wasn't anything major, but on top of the stuff I was already trying to deal with, it pissed me off good. Then, he tried to just leave for work anyway, which kind of made me realize that that had become a very common trend lately and I wasn't going to put up with it anymore. He would do or say things to me in the morning that he knew pissed me off and then just leave as if he had made some point or won a fight that hadn't really actually occurred and not get home until around 3 a.m., when I would either be asleep or in a completely different state of mind and he'd act like everything was normal. So anyway, he went to leave like normal and I reacted with whatever idea I came up with the quickest to try to break the cycle, which was to tell him if he left, not to come back. Heh. This was also the "morning" after that night I was hallucinating and stuff and I still wasn't able to think clearly. So, he took that as me kicking him out of my house instantly and permanently, when what I was really intending was for him to spend some time away from the house, other than at work, to realize what he has at home, instead of just going through the motions and patterns and ignoring it all. Anyway, he started packing up his stuff and I had Adrian come "rescue" me for a while. We drove around until I was able to realize what the hell was going on and kind of panicked and decided I needed to go back home and explain some things before such a major decision was carried out or else I would end up obsessing over my actions and probably regretting things for the next several years like I did with ros, because I knew they weren't played out to the best of my ability. And let him know I didn't really want him to actually leave, I was just trying to get some sort of reaction out of him that didn't fit into his pre-patterned behavior and anyway, we talked for several hours and worked out a lot of stuff, which was actually a very good thing, but I very nearly destroyed everything before I could be in the right frame of mind to handle the situation intelligently and honestly instead of just emotionally reacting to the things he was doing or saying to me without thinking. But he admitted that he's been a real dick to me for quite some time now, so this response wasn't really unjustified either, just executed very poorly and chaotically.
So, basically what I'm saying is that I'm noticing a pattern here in my reactions to people. You need to tread lightly until I figure out what's up with that. I need to figure it out completely and alter it or else I will just repress it again and end up even crazier and less pleasant to be around than I have been already. Fun times, no? I really kind of hate myself for having to do this to people. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't feel it was vitally necessary to become a better person, I promise you.
I'd also like to point out that because I have such a hard time communicating myself effectively, I come across on here and in conversation sometimes as waaaay crazier than I really am. I know I'm really not as bad as I think I am, but it's like I have to think that way in order to really analyze myself.
Well, I have had an interesting week or so now... Not quite sure how much to say in public, but things have happened that are major enough in my life to have some sort of changing affect on me, my behavior, my thoughts, and/or my mood, so I'd better say something...
First of all, I'd like to explain that I've been dealing with a LOT of issues lately, trying to manage a higher number of them at a single time (as opposed to focusing on a few of them and repressing the rest because I feel overwhelmed) than I've tried to do in A Very Long Time. I feel this is a very big and hard step for me to take, but a necessary one for me to go through before I go try to successfully complete Phlebotomy training and get a job and generally being more sociable. But suffice to say, it's driven me temporarily insane, where I have kind of lost the control I usually have over myself, as far as basic stuff like being able to fully comprehend what people are telling me, being able to stop myself from saying certain things out loud that I really probably shouldn't be saying in mixed company, or in that way, or at that time and that sort of thing. I've been extremely touchy and needy and ... just weird. Very bipolar, I guess, where I am either obsessed with something or hating it, I either want you making full physical contact with me or I can't stand to be touched. I've been feeling the NEED to travel or go camping, which means I've fully hit a transitional period in my life. And I've been feeling the NEED to live in a large group of my "chosen family" (you can call them "friends" if you want, but let's be honest here...) so that I am never alone if I don't want to be and I always have someone there that I can talk to and hang out with, which I haven't fully analyzed, but I know that it means I am scaring myself and am worrying that I'm taking on too much at once. Basically, all the beliefs I had about myself and who I have become have been shook up and I'm unstable. I'm re-analyzing why I do or think things and attempting to stop behavior patterns and patterns of thought that have become habit for me - the ones I'm realizing I've just repetitively done or thought all my life because of false judgements I made in childhood, basically. Learning that I fit right into Borderline Personality Disorder, a disorder I'd looked at very briefly in the past and decided definitely was NOT me (I'd misinterpreted it or read bad information on it previously), has really shook me up and made me feel like who I am and how I interact with people I care deeply about has spun out of my control. Whereas disorders like depression and anxiety can have a certain romanticism to them, in that they tend to cause things like being highly creative and artistic and good in survival situations, being Borderline only seems to bring about negatives. Like, I can piss someone off or hurt someone I'm really close to, simply by trying to be true to my emotions at any given time. I guess basically, I tend to think I'm a complex person, and someone's sat me down and fit everything about me into a little simplified box, or definition, and so my mind (or whatever) is trying it's hardest to rebel and say "no, you just don't understand me" but intellectually, I know that in reality I'm being understood for maybe the first time in my life, and I don't know how to deal with that. I'm paranoid and secretive and like to be mysterious. I don't honestly WANT most people to understand me. It feels like I've never really known or understood how to interact with other people, so in early childhood I learned certain "tricks", like an attempt at copying the actions of other people because I had no comprehension of how to do things like make friends or avoid being "too" honest with others and hurting their feelings, so I guess what I did was learn to manipulate people into feeling emotions that I felt I could understand and deal with, and thus gain an advantage by being able to sympathize or advise or help people out and I was told my ability to do that made me a good friend. And now, I'm basically admitting that to people, and realizing myself that I am kind of a really shitty friend or person to be in a relationship with, when that's something I always kind of prided myself on and felt some self-worth from, and I guess I'm scared that people are going to feel I do these things on purpose or they're going to be too concerned with getting hurt by me to really be my friend. And now I've lost my train of thought. This is REALLY hard for me to explain without coming across in a totally wrong way. But I know I've been acting really weird lately and I don't want everyone to think I hate them or I'm going to attack them or something because I say or do a certain thing that isn't generally socially acceptable. And I want to make it clear that it is highly unlikely I am going to be this way permanently. I am just doing spring cleaning in here that's been neglected for about a decade, if not longer, so there's gonna be a huge mess for a while until I get things reorganized.
Whew. So yeah... please try to be a little more patient with me than you normally would be. (And some of you are already doing this and I cannot thank you enough or tell you how much it means to me that you are able to understand this without me needing to exhaust myself by trying to put it all in words.) It is very hard for me to talk to people right now because I feel like I am going to do or say something that will cause you to form a false judgement on me and you will withdraw from me because of it. At the same time, I am feeling like I really NEED to talk to people about certain things right now, mainly things I have been trying to stop or ignore and have realized that my attempts at that have been unsuccessful. So, if I try to talk to you and I say something really extreme, please try not to freak out over it. I don't really know what I'm doing with a lot right now, so the things that I DO know I want are becoming extremely important to my life. It doesn't mean I'm expecting you to put up with me if I'm doing things that really bother you, but try not to attack me because of it. Talk to me about it carefully and gently and preferably when you're not in the middle of feeling angry or whatever because of it, and I will adjust myself as necessary. Or I will tell you if it's something about myself I'm not willing to control, but I really don't think there's many aspects of myself that shouldn't be controlled to one degree or another, so bring it up anyway. Know that I am not TRYING to be a bitch or use or manipulate anyone right now, I just need to honestly assess myself with all my restraints off for a while in order to get myself back in order and I am a complete social/relational retard. Oh, and if I go try to kill somebody or something, you definitely should stand up and stop me and remove me from the situation if I seem unable to do that for myself. Because right now, I am going through several periods of time where I am completely unable to control myself like that. I guess at the same time, I am learning control, but I don't think I could live with myself if I slipped up and found myself having done something major out of my control the next time I come back into my right mind... if that makes sense...
Okay, I have to stop talking like that now. I've mentally overexerted myself. So, we'll get into some of the stuff that has actually been happening in my life...
I've started fighting people. Before, when someone would start up an argument or something with me I would just get hurt and accept it and back down and basically go hide in a corner until it wasn't really an issue anymore. Now, if someone does something that bothers me, they KNOW.
Case in point #1:
I had a Halloween "party". Brandon, Adrian, Koli, and I were sitting around, basically just "bonding" and goofing off, and I was a bit drunk on rum. Koli starts poking me in the arm, really hard (I'd imagine he didn't realize how hard he was doing it). It hurts really bad (I still have four bruises on my arm from it). I tell him to stop. He continues doing it. I continue telling him to stop, increasingly less friendly each time and he keeps on doing it for whatever reason. My control had already slipped enough for me to be punching him in response, which I thought should have been obvious to him that I wasn't playing anymore, as I don't do that. So yeah, eventually I snapped and stood up and got in his face and was so totally in "I'm going to kill you" mode that I couldn't even really see my surroundings and thankfully, he jokingly cowered before me, which was the visual I needed in order to snap myself back out of that completely primal side of myself, wether or not he was joking around, so I kind of shook myself out of it and was kind of surprised to find myself standing above him prepared to beat his ass, became really ashamed of myself, and sat back down. Which was when he poked me yet again, I guess to get me back for hitting him in front of "the boys", but suffice to say I had to leave or else I don't know what I would have done to him. I am very ashamed of my reaction to him, but at the same time, I feel it was justified. I look at this animalistically, which I realize he probably does not but this is what was going on in my mind... You're in my territory. I invited you here to be among "my" people. You are blatantly disrespecting me in front of them, in my own territory. Maybe you don't understand how this works, but you do not try to out-dominate someone in their own territory if you are hoping to get along with them in any way, at any time, whatsoever. I have a certain social structure with these people and you are trying to destroy it. You are trying to make me look weak and incompetent and lower-than-you in front of them. I have recognized that you are a dominant type of person before (regardless of wether or not you consciously recognize that aspect of yourself) so I have allowed you a somewhat equal or secondary position when you're here and now you are outright challenging me and trying to take over my territory. You cannot act like that with me. My animal/primal side is a large part of who I am and you cannot tap into that and play around. It triggers things in me that will cause me to completely lose control of myself and tear you apart in any way I can. If you are going to be like that with me, I'm not going to be able to have you over here anymore, because I value your friendship and I love you and I want to get along with you and you are basically forcing me into a position where I have to look at you as an enemy. I am refusing to look at you that way anymore. You are my friend and you need to act like it and have some respect for me. If any of you therianthrope-types can translate this for me and make it not sound so cold and scientific, I'd appreciate it, because I tend to either be all animal in nature or all human in nature and I'm not used to having to blend the two together like this with people.
Case in point #2 (which I'm not going to go into in as much detail):
Brandon pissed me off before work the day before yesterday. It wasn't anything major, but on top of the stuff I was already trying to deal with, it pissed me off good. Then, he tried to just leave for work anyway, which kind of made me realize that that had become a very common trend lately and I wasn't going to put up with it anymore. He would do or say things to me in the morning that he knew pissed me off and then just leave as if he had made some point or won a fight that hadn't really actually occurred and not get home until around 3 a.m., when I would either be asleep or in a completely different state of mind and he'd act like everything was normal. So anyway, he went to leave like normal and I reacted with whatever idea I came up with the quickest to try to break the cycle, which was to tell him if he left, not to come back. Heh. This was also the "morning" after that night I was hallucinating and stuff and I still wasn't able to think clearly. So, he took that as me kicking him out of my house instantly and permanently, when what I was really intending was for him to spend some time away from the house, other than at work, to realize what he has at home, instead of just going through the motions and patterns and ignoring it all. Anyway, he started packing up his stuff and I had Adrian come "rescue" me for a while. We drove around until I was able to realize what the hell was going on and kind of panicked and decided I needed to go back home and explain some things before such a major decision was carried out or else I would end up obsessing over my actions and probably regretting things for the next several years like I did with ros, because I knew they weren't played out to the best of my ability. And let him know I didn't really want him to actually leave, I was just trying to get some sort of reaction out of him that didn't fit into his pre-patterned behavior and anyway, we talked for several hours and worked out a lot of stuff, which was actually a very good thing, but I very nearly destroyed everything before I could be in the right frame of mind to handle the situation intelligently and honestly instead of just emotionally reacting to the things he was doing or saying to me without thinking. But he admitted that he's been a real dick to me for quite some time now, so this response wasn't really unjustified either, just executed very poorly and chaotically.
So, basically what I'm saying is that I'm noticing a pattern here in my reactions to people. You need to tread lightly until I figure out what's up with that. I need to figure it out completely and alter it or else I will just repress it again and end up even crazier and less pleasant to be around than I have been already. Fun times, no? I really kind of hate myself for having to do this to people. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't feel it was vitally necessary to become a better person, I promise you.
I'd also like to point out that because I have such a hard time communicating myself effectively, I come across on here and in conversation sometimes as waaaay crazier than I really am. I know I'm really not as bad as I think I am, but it's like I have to think that way in order to really analyze myself.