Spilling my heart
This is really out of character for me, especially on Facebook, but I really needed to get some things out and try at least to explain why I've been so vagrant from everyday life for the past week or so. I don't want to upset anyone, and the very last thing I want to be is a burden. I've spent my entire life being so paranoid of being a weight on the shoulders of anyone I meet that I don't think I've ever really spilled my thoughts fully for fear of upsetting someone. But I think I'm finally breaking down and realizing that life isn't something I can carry on my own anymore.
Most people probably don't know this about me, but for the last two years of my life, I've struggled with anxiety and severe depression. I think of these things as the affective disorders of the industrialized world - generally, when you're worrying about your own survival, you don't have time to fret over your place in the universe or why you feel so generally useless. This all started, I think, because of my tendency to beat myself up over not flying fast enough or wanting something badly enough to achieve it, which in turn is all a consequence of my perfectionism. But this is all beyond the point. The point is, I've spent the last two years questioning every move I've ever made and wondering what the purpose of everything is. That is, why do I exist?
Religion is one of those things that people use to rationalize their own existences, but I can't really say I've ever tricked myself into thinking it was something I could rely on. It's vain to think that there's a plan and a reason for everything, regardless of who or what entity instituted these divine machinations. But not having religion to fall back on, it leaves a person vulnerable to the eventual conclusion that there IS no point. This was a realization I came to over a year ago, and my solution to the situation was to acquire something that relied on me for its own health and livelihood so as to give myself some meaning in the world. I'm not going to suffer any of my own false pretences on this part - this was basically a strategy to keep myself living and breathing while my own thoughts tried to kill me. Thus, I bought Pandora. I've always had a weakness for the 'little puppy nobody wanted' archetype, and so I tried to open my heart, my home and my wallet to this little animal as a way of ensuring her safety as well as my own. It worked for a while, too - I was happy and healthy enough to sustain myself until I achieved a lasting relationship. That was when Tyler entered my little universe.
He's really been more help to me than I think even I know, but as always, I fear burdening him with my troubles. In the last week, I think I've cried every day and he's been there throughout it all. I never wanted him to have to go through this sort of thing - it goes far beyond the call of duty for a boyfriend, regardless of how long we've been together. And I know it hurts him more than he admirs to see me suffering like I am, and for that I can only apologize infinitely (and it would never be enough). The point in introducing him to my life was never to use him as a shield against all the world's troubles. Maybe an occasional sanctuary, but I never thought I'd be the sort of girl to need a knight in shining armor to protect me from the world. And how the Hell is he supposed to protect me from me?
But I've digressed. My depression was actually bearable over the summer, notwithstanding the loss of that little dog I opened my heart to (although we did eventually find her again). I honestly thought I was on the mend from this broken little person I was for such a long time. And that's how it truly feels, by the way - being depressed feels like you've alienated yourself from the person you used to be. Before this thing, I was egotistical and self-centred. While I'm grateful for the humility that being this way has afforded me, but I was really hoping that the change to my entire personality was a temporary thing. And even then, I can't be sure who I am anymore - is the medication making me the person I want to be or holding me back from who I really am?
I've always maintained that people with my personality type aren't really long for this world of ours. We're too self-destructive to last. There isn't a day where I don't turn to myself and scold me for not being a better person, for not resisting the everyday squabbles of life, for not being a stronger person for those who need me. And that's really what's been holding me back from everything and anything I want in this life: I don't want to be a burden to anyone or to make anyone's life harder by even the tiniest increment. To do so feels like a deep, personal failure on my part.
Maybe illustration by example is the best way to try to make the outside world understand this. My mom was diagnosed with cancer of the breast and kidney over the fall, and she told us on December 17th, 2008. I'm not really supposed to tell anyone this, but I can't hold it back any longer, and I'm so sorry to my mom for not being strong enough to bear this secret longer than I have. This news just felt like another blow that sent me from bad to worse, but since that time I haven't spoken a word to anyone in my family about how depressed or upset I am. It wouldn't be fair - I couldn't possibly add to the burden in their hearts with my own petty troubles at a time like this. If that makes me some sort of martyr, so be it. I just can't bring myself to tell her all of the things that have been going through my head as of late, not when she needs me to be strong for her. I've assumed the role of a source of information regarding this cancer, being in a biological major as I am, and I can't bring myself to tell her that getting out of bed every day is becoming the hardest struggle I've faced since her heart attack.
I'm not trying to siphon pity out of anyone, and I hope no one reading this mistakes it for that. If you're related to me and are reading this, please oversee my indiscretion and keep the information I've given here to yourselves. The last thing I need is someone calling my mom concernedly when they're not even supposed to know about her condition. Another personal failure on my part to add to the growing list.
What this note is, if anything, is a plea for your understanding, and possibly a little kindness. I just need the world to be gentle with me for a while until I manage to resolve this rut I'm in, one way or another. I'm not going to say I haven't considered the Ultimate Out, as it were, because that would be a lie. I think about it every day. But how selfish of me would it be to add the burden of losing a child to my mom's already heavy load? I could never forgive myself, living or dead, for attempting something like that. And in a nutshell, that's why I'm still here. Because I could never hurt someone so deeply. Nevertheless, I needed to talk this out, and vent on someone or something other than Tyler for once. He's done so much for me already that I can't ask any more from him. It would be selfish and unfair.
I'm so afraid that this is going to change people's opinions of me that I'm considering making it private. I'd love to cry out for help and actually tell people who I truly am, but I can't. I can't make anyone worry about me that intensely, especially considering I have random acquaintances on Facebook that don't know me from Adam. I think, in the end, I'm going to publish this on my Livejournal. There's too much at stake in this place, and I can't make anyone bear knowing this willingly.
I am so relentlessly, hopelessly, invariably doomed.