Porn

Am I the only one who struggles with forgiving porn? Am I the only one left amongst maybe a small handful of people who have not yet sought it out? Because it feels so lonely from where I stand. It feels so angering.

As a woman, I do not want a man who has sought out porn. But where will I find one? Can you honestly tell me that I will find one? Can you? Do you think that that’s how it should have ever been? Should I be understanding?

I take the issue of porn personally.

How can I not take it personally when I am a woman, and women are consumed?

How can I feel comfortable around a man who looks at women in pictures and videos in the manner that he does—objectifying women simply because they are women?

I am a woman.

How am I exempt from those men’s fantasies?

How can I make myself exempt unless I make myself anything but desirable? And is that even possible? I guess not. I am a woman, and I guess that is enough to make me sexual according to our culture and these fantasizers. Apparently who I am or am not as a person has nothing to do with it.

“Oh, she’s struggling. Oh he’s fallen into porn.” The words I hear so often from people. Those words are a slap in the face. How can anyone see this as just a “struggle”? Is it simply just “a struggle” to be fighting not to purchase human beings for the sake of pleasure? Or worse, pass them around and use them for free? Is it just a simple struggle to rape someone? Is it a simple struggle to feed money to slave drivers? Sure, let’s just talk about it as if someone just tripped, fell, and scraped their knee. All of us are “just struggling” with something right? Please, save your belittling clichés.

This is not about simply "forgiving" a “lust” issue. Or about "forgiving" someone for being attracted to or liking sex. There is nothing to forgive when it comes to liking sex. This is about forgiving someone for acting in a way that dehumanizes people, and declares, by their very actions, that humans are simply to be consumed and that that is okay.

I am a human.

A porn viewer must have the same dehumanizing view of me.

That woman that you are consuming, that could have been me. I am not excluded from those perverse fantasies.

I take it personally. How can I not?

How can I not think differently of people after knowing what little that so many people seem to think of this issue, of others, of me? All the dismissals of this as an issue--you might as well tell me that it’s okay if somebody buys me.

So what that I am not in that video. I take you watching it personally!

So what that you would never treat me that way. Do you think that little of me that I would only be angry for the exploitation of myself and not care about others? I take it personally as if it were myself. I take it personally even if they were pushed to a place in their life where they didn’t have the strength to take it personally anymore. I will stand for those who won’t or cannot stand for themselves. I take it personally.

I have every right to step in and say, “You should not be allowed to do that.” I have the responsibility to say, “Why are you doing such a cold-hearted thing? Why?” I must encourage and push others and demand that others free themselves from their share in their slaveholding position, and the addictive grip that it has on them.

Don’t tell me to stop being a prude. Don’t tell me that I don’t know what I am talking about. Don’t tell me not to be angry.

I am angry.

I am disgusted.

I am lonely while taking a stand.

I have every reason, every right, and every responsibility to feel these things. I feel trapped at my lack of freedom. I am not free to be innocent in this world. Attacks to my dignity and yours smite me at every turn. I have known, overtly or not, since age 4, what it is like to know that someone viewed me sexually. I was told by a gross human, older than myself, exposed to far too much for his age, what sex was at least in a general sense. I knew that this boy looked at porn, though I didn’t even know the word porn. I’ve learned to be on guard and pick up on cues of what a porn viewer thinks and acts like. I can tell certain characteristics of these people. I am not a mind-reader, but sometimes, my developed intuition tells me who to stay away from. There is a certain level of apathy that I can detect. I know because I've known porn viewers since age 4.

They were my age.

They were older than me.

They were everywhere when and whether I knew it overtly about them or not, and the number of viewers have drastially grown with the help of the internet.

And I still walk around fearing that I will miss cues that might tell me that a person is not safe.

Porn is not even a choice anymore. Even if I don’t choose to seek it out, it imposes itself upon me. I cannot unsee the things that I didn’t choose to see. I cannot reclaim what I never had—innocence. I was never allowed to have innocence. No amount of attempts to shield me allowed me safety from the world around me.

And yes, I am a person.

I take it personally.

You are a person too.

You should take it personally.

I may be one of those people who is “out of the loop” or unaware of many things. I may not know words or terms, and I may sometimes misuse terms, much to my great embarrassment. I may lack a large amount of chosen experience that most others don’t seem to lack. But I don’t know innocent unless innocent is carrying debilitating shame my entire life that I never chose to carry. Shame was not an occasional feeling. Shame was at the core of my being.  I have never known what it was like to live without it. Like many, I had no choice. Shame was all I knew.

But I refuse to cling any longer to the shame that should never have been mine. And I refuse to enter into unconditional mercy for those who lack the shame that they should have felt. I refuse to allow people who don't deserve it to be close to me and be “on my level”. I will not make excuses for them. I am done accepting less than what I deserve.

Regardless of how others’ porn addictions have come about, regardless of the hope that maybe they will emerge from their prison, I will not act like it isn’t a big deal.

I will not pretend like they simply just fell and scraped their knees.

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: When Crazy Is Normal

So much to say. So much to connect. How will I do it? Bits at a time I guess. Some now, some later.

For a long time, for years, I had been struggling to get help and treatment for my ADD symptoms. I was trying to find someone who would help me. Finally, I have. Before moving about ten months ago I had gone to a therapist for about 1 ½ years. She was wonderful, but sometimes I felt I couldn’t trust her. I’m pretty sure this has less to do with her and more to do with my actual diagnosis. After moving, I didn’t see her and I tried to figure out my life on my own. I tried to find help for my ADD.

I was referred to a Psychiatrist who should not have been one. He told me, “Congratulations you have stumped a psychiatrist.” The man had talked to me for 45 minutes. He had never met me before that. He sighed and talked as if he were irritated with me, pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes with his thumb and index finger. Asking me to give an explanation about a traumatic, personal experience that I had said I would avoid talking about as it felt irrelevant, and then when I decided to trust him and try and summarize, he cut me off mid-sentence and didn’t let me finish, speaking and motioning with his hands that he clearly thought I was just about the craziest person that he had ever met.

I walked out of there planning to return to see him again, thinking that maybe I really was crazy after all. I felt I might be crazy. I had abusers before who told me that I was psychotic. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps this was proof that I was. After signing up to get a free piece of pie at Shari's, and eating it along with a juicy burger and fries, sitting alone, I decided that I wasn’t going back to that man. That he was a jerk who I wasn't going to talk to again. I wasn’t going to trust a man to diagnose me that couldn’t even emotionally regulate himself. I ended up getting in touch with some friends who I hadn’t seen in years, before a lot of my “crazy”.  These friends happened to be trained counselors themselves. They made me feel better about my choice to not go back to see that guy. I will not call him a Psychiatrist—he was really just an irritable man who gained more access to my personal information than I would have liked.

After a conversation with these friends, I ended up emailing my therapist who I hadn’t talked to in half a year to ask her what she personally would have diagnosed me with were she to have given me one. Sometimes it is best not to tell patients what their diagnosis is. Sometimes it’s best just to treat the symptoms. This is why she hadn’t told me before. Now, I had the courage to ask her.

Prior to emailing her, I had happened to just finish reading a book called Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I hadn’t agreed with everything in that book, but I didn’t feel that I needed to. The book was written by a psychiatrist that was a concentration camp survivor of World War II. He talked about finding a meaning for life in order to get through terrible situations. He talked about how he had decided during captivity that he would focus on perceiving and analyzing the minds of the prisoners around him, and himself, in order to be able to write about it in future. And I read what he wrote in future. That was inspiring to me.

As I read this book, there were parts that I really related to. He talked about the feelings of paralysis that many prisoners faced. In several previous blog posts, I had tried explaining these feelings of paralysis that I had had. This was before reading this book. As I read Frankl’s description of that feeling of paralysis—of not wanting or knowing how to take initiative for one’s own life or whether one should live or not, whether if presented with the opportunity to escape one would feel free to take it, etc…, I felt that I was reading a description of the paralysis that I currently felt myself. I could not have described it better, though I had tried. Yet, I wasn’t literally imprisoned, and I had never been in a concentration camp.

About a week or so after reading the book, I received an email back from my therapist saying that the diagnosis for me was Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). She told me that this diagnosis was not in current diagnostic manuals though it was a recognised disorder and some people were hoping to add it to the next edition. She advised me to be careful and discerning with looking elsewhere for a diagnosis and help, because likely, I would not get a diagnosis that would fully encapsulate and describe the complexity of what was really going on for me as many psychiatrists are not properly trained in trauma, and they may not be helpful for me.

I googled CPTSD and immediately felt a connection to the symptoms described. I also saw one symptom labeled as “paralyzed initiative” and on a different site, saw that on a list of things that could cause this type of disorder to develop, at the top of this list was “Concentration Camps”. In connection to the book I had just finished reading, I found this significant. Since then, I have started medication for my ADD symptoms thanks to a referral to a psychiatric professional from my counselor friends, and have begun skyping my previous therapist, and am very thankful to have found someone as helpful as she. It took years and several counselors (one of which participated in a full-blown yelling fight with me) prior to her to find her. I also decided to move back into my parents’ house for now (something that is challenging), I had a job interview with a local library, have been hanging out and reconnecting with a friend from high school, have begun learning about recycling opportunities and limitations in the area, have been trying to get myself organized…and avoiding, and freaking out, and calming down, and having epiphanies…and freaking out and avoiding and calming down some more.

One very frustrating thing about my diagnosis is my constant doubt of it. There is this nagging in the back of my mind that tells me that I cannot trust it because I shouldn’t trust myself. I was not in a concentration camp. I was not so severely abused in any other long-term situations that I would develop this disorder…right? I still don’t have an answer to this question. I have been told by someone that I am fragile and that that is why I have been effected so deeply. I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is. I’m just starting to accept what is, which is important for the recovery process.

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I emailed my therapist about a week ago in fear, and shame, and in need of comfort. I had found an old post of mine on Facebook from 7 years ago. It freaked me out. I thought I had been being super depressed and manipulative at first sight of it again, and then I thought back to the mental-emotional place that I really was at that time in my life. I was depressed, but not that depressed yet. What made more sense was that I must have been mocking my own feelings in the form of hyperbole. Don’t get me wrong, hyperbole can be really hilarious. Have you ever read the book Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh? I love it. Thanks to my older brother for buying it for me for Christmas a couple of years ago. It made me laugh out loud when I felt like crap. Few books actually make me laugh out loud. And it had wonderful illustrations. Anyway, the hyperbole that I was expressing in my post was in no way hilarious to me now and I was horrified. It was complete self-mocker, though I recognize now that it must not have been interpreted that way at all. What I was saying was very serious, and I didn’t know how to take myself seriously. Even interpreted the way that I had meant it, it looked off, and I began internally freaking out and viewing my old self and myself now as a crazy person. I must have been crazy all along.

I contacted my therapist, sending her a screenshot of the post, and analyzing myself in a massively long email. My email was extremely complicated and I told her that I felt I had completely ruined my reputation and that I must be a psycho. Her response was different than I had expected. I was expecting her to tell me that perhaps I really was nuts. Instead she told me that she was seeing signs of Complex Post-Traumatic Disorder both in my old post, and in the current email that I had sent her. She reminded me to practice my breathing exercises, etc.

She told me to remember that even though my reactions to things might feel crazy, that they are actually very normal given what I have been through. That CPTSD is different than most other disorders in that it is by definition actually a normal adaption to life experiences, and that it would actually be abnormal for me not to have these reactions. 

My fight to accept my disorder and validate myself has been rough. Mental illness is not something that should be shamed to begin with, but it’s particularly frustrating to not feel that I can trust myself because I have been viewed as crazy…and unfortunately I internalized that message.

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I emailed my therapist again a couple of days later. She’s been getting lots from me recently…I had a moment of epiphany earlier this week after I had been messaging a friend who now lives far away from me after I moved. He was saying some things that understandably upset me. He was listing the things he thought were wrong with me before reading the list of symptoms from the diagnosis I had been given. He was interpreting my behavior in ways that were inaccurate, and not believing me as I told him why I had done what I had done.

That alone made me upset, but the particular instance he had recalled (a “small”, insignificant incident [to me anyway] about a McDonald’s Mcflurry cup), or rather the fact that he was bringing it up as something that either hurt or annoyed him, triggered intense feelings in me. At the time, I didn’t realize that the volcano now rumbling inside of my chest that threatened to erupt, was the result of the past, but I knew that I was about to blow. Instead of blowing up, I sent a prayer to God, took some long deep breaths, and I made a choice. I remembered to use communication techniques that I had learnd like not using “you” statements, and instead saying things like “I have perceived”. As I felt threatened, I remembered not to threaten. I had to step back several times while talking to my friend, but I managed it. I calmed the volcano.

I told him that what he was saying was really just his interpretation, and that the outside world remained unchanged despite his interpretation. My friend ended up saying that I had made a great point, acknowledging that I might be right. And right after talking to him, I put my phone aside and closed my eyes to sleep. I hugged myself. I remembered to do my exercise of “talking to myself”, validating myself, being comfortable with myself—comfortable with being alone. This time, I actually looked into my own eyes. I imagined that a clone of myself was looking into my eyes and telling me I was proud of myself. (To read more about my clone selves, read this previous blog post.) And for the first time, I felt like I really truly looked into my own eyes without fear. I could look myself in the eyes now for some reason. Not because of what I had just done, but something small had just clicked.

I couldn’t stop thinking about my conversation that I had just had with my friend. Why was I triggered so much by what he had said? What had I needed from him in the situation? I had managed to acknowledge to myself and express to him, after he had asked, how he had made me feel. I had felt like he was all too eager to fix things that he perceived as wrong with me rather than to help me cope with my CPTSD. And as I thought about that, I thought about that particular instance that he had referenced. And it occurred to me: what if what he was complaining about really was just his interpretation just as I had said to him it was? What if I believed that 100% to my core without a shameful self-doubt that I always experienced in every moment of every day? What if it really wasn’t something about me that needed to be fixed at all? And suddenly I saw the connected theme between what I felt and a traumatic memory I had twelve years prior as it popped into my head. I suddenly felt all that I had felt in that traumatic, unfair moment. The moment that was really only one of many, but a moment that really struck a chord with me, and shaped part of who I came to be. I realized that what I had felt in that moment, I had been reliving again as I spoke with my friend.

I began to think of what I had needed in that moment instead of what I had gotten. What if instead of anger, I had been treated with respect and kindness and understanding? What if the small thing that had been turned into a big thing, had still been treated as a big thing, but in a totally different way? What if it had been respected, empathised with, and responded to acceptingly rather than with impulsive displaced rage toward me? What if my "small" preferences were worth paying attention to and respecting?

I imagined in my head for a moment, to the best of my ability, that someone loved me and treated my individual preferences as just a part of me and didn’t take them offensively or as annoying. I realized that that was what I needed. All of a sudden, for once in my life, the shame that I felt 24/7 disappeared and I felt free. I told myself that someone treating me with that kind of acceptance was wrong because it was enabling me—that is what I had been taught to think—that my preferences didn’t matter. I recognized before that I had treated others in the same way, but I still didn’t know how to be more accepting of others without distancing myself from them. And shutting down is what I have done, particularly in adulthood and my teens.

Now, I challenged the push-back against this unfamiliar self-acceptance, and I told myself that it was okay for someone to respect my wishes--even the tiniest, smallest of preferences. It was as if for once I glimpsed, through an imaginary interaction in my head, what it might be like to have a loving, stable relationship. In that moment, I realized that my therapist was right about my diagnosis. That for whatever reason, for whatever cause, I was traumatized. I had never had a relationship where I had felt that safety. I tried on, like a new outfit, what it felt to give myself the freedom to have quirks and supposedly demanding preferences (I’m still challenging my beliefs about supposedly being demanding about wanting someone to not lick my personal chocolate pudding, and for them to be straightforward and honest with me about whether they had. Yes…seriously…that’s not something I should have to feel guilty about…I shouldn’t have to be afraid that someone is going to flip out at me for having preferences about honesty when it comes to chocolate pudding…That is not the sort of thing that should warrant an attack.).

It was as if something clicked in my head. I was surrounded by freedom that I wasn’t sure what to do with. I emailed my therapist. I soaked in the safe, confident, loving feeling I felt. I wondered what it would be like to learn how to allow others the same freedom I was trying to allow myself. I wondered what it would be like to have a relationship where I could trust someone to take care of me in that way. I wondered if I had had those people in my life before, and if I had not felt safe enough to get closer to them because of past experiences. I wondered what it would be like to shed old wounds. My heart filled with hope and understanding for a moment. I understood. There is a difference between knowing something, and understanding it in your heart. I knew that the next morning I might wake up chronically anxious again, but I felt I had glimpsed the beginning of true freedom. As I told my counselor, “I am tired of being mocked and mocking myself.”

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A couple nights ago, I actually freaked out to myself more than I had in years. I had found a book at Goodwill called Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw. I sat down in a local coffee shop and noticed that there was Christian music playing in the background. I read the Preface to this book that I had asked my therapist about. She said that it was one that she recommended to clients. I expected good things as I began to read…only to find myself being turned off by blatant Biblical references.

Perhaps it is a good book. Perhaps it would be helpful for some. Perhaps it will be helpful for me in future. I don’t know. But I reacted in my head by imagining a personified God standing before me next to Jesus, and me throwing the book at God’s face, because I didn’t want to throw it at Jesus. I began to say (in my head), “How dare you? Just let me die. I would rather die. Please, just let me die.” I left the coffee shop and drove to a park. The volcano that rumbled in my chest this time was huge, MASSIVE, and it steadily grew the more that I raged about God and Christianity. I said that I piss on God's "grace". That God was at fault for anything because wih greater power comes greater responsibility. I was tired of being told to take responsibility for myself when I had had no control over being perfect in the first place.

I emailed my counselor at least 5 times, though I did not get responses (sometimes me venting to her is good because then she can see what I’m going through when my situations are the most intense and we can talk about them in session). I felt that I had no control over the volcano inside this time. It felt like the volcanos I had felt a couple years ago when I would scream at the top of my lungs while driving or sitting in my car, waiting for a noisy train to pass. The screams of the deepest darkest agony I had ever experienced in my life emerged once more.

The volcano erupted, and I let out two screams as I drove to a gas station to put gas in my car. Two, blood-curdling, shrieking screams from the very top of my lungs, as I maintained control of my vehicle. I took deep breaths. I reached the gas station, a scowl on my face. I paid for my gas inside the building, put the gas in my car, and drove home, stressed as hell for my job interview the next day that I had avoided practicing for out of anxiety, and telling myself that I did not have to be a Christian.

In my last email, I told my counselor that I was going to trust myself that that book and religion were not what I needed right now. That they were doing more psychological damage than good at this point. I had fought against saying that for so long. I had been taught since birth that Christianity was right. That Jesus was my friend and had sacrificed himself for me. How could I turn my back? Even when I had doubted the existence of God, I had been unable to say, “I am not a Christian.”

I remembered something that I had said once to a person with a Mormon background who still attended the Mormon church, but expressed that he no longer believed in God. I had asked him if he found it harder to stop believing in God, or harder to leave the Mormon community. He had said it was harder to leave the community. I felt that that was a sign of brainwashing, considering that the Mormon church claims that its primary purpose is to point others to God. I haven’t attended church in years except for Christmas Eve with my family. I don’t read the Bible. I still pray, but that is it. Illogically, I still pray to “Jesus”. I am so indoctrinated that I have a hard time seeing God as anything but Jesus, though I try. Remembering what I had said to this Mormon person, I realized that I was just the same. That I had wanted to completely leave Christianity for the longest time and that I had not felt the freedom to. That night, emailing my therapist, I claimed that freedom for myself. I am not a Christian…

But I still pray to God. I still believe in God. I said to him/her/it, whoever God is, that I'm sorry if I'm a fool who doesn't understand, but that I am not a Christian. I believe that there is a God there. I believe this because of different times when God must have shown Godself. Earlier this week, days before the volcanic eruption, I was peeing on the toilet. I have no idea why, but a person I know who I’m not really close to anymore, who I knew from forever ago, popped into my head and I thought I should message her. It could have been intuition. Some sort of connection between all things in the universe. It could have been God. I don’t know what. But I messaged this lovely woman who I knew was in a rough spot, and I asked her how she was doing and told her about something that I had remembered from long ago about her that I thought was wonderful. Turns out this person really needed help. Though I couldn’t provide it, I sent a prayer to the Lord of the Universe, the Good of all Things, whoever God is, and messaged the woman that I had prayed. That day, someone provided the help that this special woman needed when she felt that she had been abandoned.

Over Skype, I told this story to a different lovely Christian friend of mine who lives far away. I also told her that I wasn't a Christian. I was afraid that she would judge me, but she told me that all she wants is for me to be happy, and that she loves me whether I am a Christian or not. She accepted me. She didn’t accuse me of listening to the devil’s lies. She didn’t tell me that I was an illogical idiot. She didn’t mock me. She didn’t tell me that I was “full of crap”. She didn’t quote some shallow Christian cliché. She didn’t tell me that she would pray for my faith to be restored. She didn't shame me for my lack of joy. She actually acknowledged that everyone goes through hard times and happy times. She didn’t tell me that I just didn’t understand Christianity properly. I didn’t feel like she was trying to manipulate me or save my soul. She was just being my friend, and told me that she would always be my friend. I have met many a Christian person throughout my life, and I was surprised at her response, and it felt special that she acted the way that she did. I was thankful to her. I am so blessed to have her as a friend, though she lives so far away, and I am blessed to know her better.

I don’t know what's really out there, but there is something more than we understand. There is some force at the very least. There is something that connects us all. There is something that will make me think of a person who needs me at random when I am peeing on the toilet. There is something there. And with the acknowledgment of the true feelings in my heart, I now feel freer than I ever have been to discover it. And I hope to become freer still.

No Wings

“Existential frustration is in itself neither pathological nor pathogenic. A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is a spiritual distress but by no means a mental disease. It may well be that interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient’s existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. It is his task, rather, to pilot the patient through his existential crises of growth and development.” ~Viktor Frankl

The quote above is an important statement for someone to consider before diving into this blog post. And the following is a philosophical vent intended to get my thoughts out in a coherent manner so that I can see them and think about them further. They are not what I hope will rule my life going forward. I am looking for a way to be propelled forward. Don’t call an ambulance, I am not suicidal. But I am in need of help.

Because, you see, I can’t move. How many times have I said this as if speaking it to the wind? And what will the wind do? It is a helpless statement, though others don’t see it as one. They see it as an excuse. As a mindset. As a poor attitude.

Well, I can tell you that I don’t like excuses. But I like explanations. I have always been one to push myself. How is it that people who have known me practically my whole life can look back on my life and see a determined person in the past, bent on self-improvement, and they think my problem currently is laziness and a poor attitude? Do they not know me? Do they not know me well enough to think that maybe I need help? To those who wish to help me but don’t know what to do, I am sorry that I don’t have a clear answer. It’s not an easy thing for me to understand or express my needs. So how can you help me? But then again, how can I help myself either since that is the case? Either way, I appreciate your efforts! Please don’t give up on me.

I can’t move for many reasons, some of which I have tried to express, many of which I have yet to discover, though I am trying to express them very desperately right now. There is one reason that has occurred to me right now that I am trying to put into words for myself so that I can understand in a practical sense why it makes me paralyzed. I can’t move because I don’t see a purpose to my life. I just googled “prove to me that my life is worth living” just to see what would turn up seeing as I know I’m not the only one to have had an existential crisis. (Though it really felt weird googling it.) A stupid song came up from that search that was annoying as crap. Don’t listen to it. I won’t even post a link to it. After that, I googled, “prove that we are better off than if we had never existed”. From that, I came across a Yahoo post here. 

Someone asked the question, “I know a similar question has been asked asking, "What would earth be without humans?" The answer that was given that was labeled “Best Answer” was...

You've got some kind of Walt Disney disease in how you think about nature. How could the earth be better off? Its a big ball of rock, dirt and water. It has no feelings. It is only better or worse because humans attach those values to it. 

Animals would eat each other as often as they could. Forest fires would kill them off by the millions. Ice ages would come and go. Who would care if aliens landed, Bambi and Thumper?

Blunt. Straightforward. It made me think. True. Oh, Yahoo answers. So then, is my purpose to find meaning in the world and tell it that it is worth it? But if without us, it didn’t matter if the earth was “good” or not, wouldn’t that mean that we are just doomed creatures? Forced to either lie to be happy or accept reality and hurt? Aren’t our feelings irrelevant then? If I can really just choose to be happy or sad, don’t those emotions lose their validity? So what’s the point of feeling either at all? Or caring about what I feel? Suddenly I understand the lack of self-awareness and empathy in some other deep thinkers that I know. I don’t wish to be that way, so my thoughts can’t end here.

I feel pushed to move forward and embrace life. I am told I have to keep going. I can’t die. I am told that would be a loss. A loss of what, may I ask? I fill no place that another can’t fill. There is not a single thing I can do that another cannot do. There is no purpose for me. There is no need. There is no place. Why should I continue living? Why should I care? If I am not needed, why should I care?

What others want from me is really nothing. They want me out of their hair. They want me on my own. They want me enjoying life. They are telling me to enjoy something on my own, that they say is worth it. I kinda feel that those are just words sometimes. That people feel some sort of obligation toward life, though they can't say why life is worth living. I feel this obligation too, and it pisses me off; it just makes me angry, so I try and ignore it.

People tell me to create or find joy on my own depending on where they think this joy comes from. They are not showing me the world, and showing me what there is to love about life. They are not grabbing me by the hand and sharing it with me. People aren't willing to do that. I’m sick of our culture claiming that no one should “need” another person to be happy. I need community. I need a companion. For me, there is nothing in this world that is good enough. Nothing. I am not materialistic. I am not driven to money or worldly success, but my value in this culture is judged by my worldly “harvest” or lack thereof.

I am told to stand on my own two feet. People want me to “be an adult”, which to them means being able to survive on my own. The truth is, I don’t want to stand on my own two feet all alone. I mean, I don’t want to “mooch” off of people either. I hate that. It causes deep distress to me and anxiety attacks. But I do not have a reason to stand on my own two feet except to get out of peoples’ hair. I don’t have a reason for myself. I have never really wanted anything. My whole life, really. I’ve only wanted someone. I’ve only wanted companionship. For me, that is of the utmost importance. And I have been lonely.

I am alive out of duty, not because I want it. I don’t want to die, but I sure don’t like living. I’m living because others want me to live. And yet they don’t want me taking their money. Explain to me why I should continue on? I have nothing to offer them. What I have, they don’t want or they want something that I can’t offer them. When they say they see good things in me, I don’t think they are seeing me. They are seeing someone that they want me to be. It is not actually me.

I don’t know how to make someone enjoy life. I don’t know how to make someone happy. How can I try to help someone enjoy something that I don’t enjoy myself? Why choose one thing over another? Perhaps if I had feelings of like or dislike of something, I would know what to pursue. But those seem dead to me in my paralysis.

Do you know what I wish? I wish I were an engineer or a mathematician or a scientist or a politician. I wish I could invent. Because then I could change the world. But I am not an inventor. And I do not have the ability. And I do not have the brains of many I know. I want to change things. I want to be smart. My gifts do not match my values. But why should I want to make the world better? Why do I constantly seek to make the world better? That’s a good question. Why do I pick up garbage on the side of the road? Why do I care about the way that parents treat their children? Why do I fight for these things if I just don’t care?

Part of me ignores the tornado-like feelings I express right now. And I think that’s the part of me that picks up garbage on the side of the road (literally). It’s the part that has faith in nothing as if it were something. I think I pick up garbage because it makes me feel like I’m doing something that’s positive. Maybe I’m proving to myself that I’m worth something, anything at all. Though sometimes, when I pick up garbage, I feel like a terrible person. Like just a despicable person. I think part of it makes me feel like others will hate me for it because in the past, people have not liked it when I have picked up after them or corrected their errors. Part of me feels like I have no right to alter the world around me. But why shouldn’t I have a right? It’s my world as much as anyone else’s! But somewhere along the way, I was taught to feel that way.

I'm pretty sure another reason that I feel crappy sometimes when picking up garbage, is that it feels like I’m focusing on things that don’t matter (according to many others) because I’m not getting at the root of the issue, I’m just touching the surface of it. Like putting a band aid on an infected wound without cleaning it out first. Maybe I’m just a surface person sometimes. But I don’t want to be a surface person. I want to be a person that digs out the roots because that’s what others want.

Actually, correction: that’s what others want in certain areas. But not areas like relationships and community like I do.

I see roots. I just don’t know how to change them. I don’t have the knowledge, I don’t have the skills, and even if I did, I couldn’t change anything alone. And I can’t make people care.

Back to that care part. Why should I care? And how can I make other people care? And why do I care when I don’t really care? Or is the real question why I should continue existing in a world where I feel that others don’t care. And back to my thought on the roots. Maybe I’m not a root person. At least not in every aspect. I mean, you damn well won’t find me brushing crap within relationships under the rug! I like to get to the root of the problem, no matter how difficult and no matter how long it takes me contemplating. But maybe sometimes my role is just to do things like pick up trash. It’s okay to pick up trash. It’s frustrating that I have to keep telling myself that. I know people that would find that a waste of time and pointless because the trash just keeps reappearing. But unlike those people, it doesn’t frustrate me. I don’t know why, but I like picking up trash. There’s a small part of me that would be disappointed if it were gone. Which is ironic considering my purpose in picking it up.

I feel like there is something wrong with me for that reason. Or maybe, I just like doing simple things like that rather than going to school because I’m not smart or something, and people that know me just don’t want that to be true or believe that. But if I could get paid for picking up trash, I would do it. I like it. I freaking like it. Even when I don’t like it, I like it. Even when it makes me feel kinda crappy and anxious when someone drives by, I like it. If anyone was to ask me what my calling was and what makes me feel good, I’d say picking up trash. Does that make me money? No. And in our culture that values self-sufficiency, not making money just makes me look like a terrible person, doesn’t it? 

Funny how our culture could value self-sufficiency so much and then go and take advantage of less economically privileged people around the world; the hypocrisy is shameful. I’m supposed to be self-sufficient and contribute to a culture like that? And only do what I can to change things when and if I have the money and the power to do so? I’m telling you, I can’t work the system. And again, I can’t change people. I can’t work the system because I really feel that I don’t have the skills. And because I feel like I would be required to lie.

I try and think about my skills. What are my skills? My skills seem to be things like making things that are beautiful. This is in some ways okay with me. I also have always liked the idea of making something that was once beautiful, and is now ugly, beautiful again. That’s probably why I like picking up trash. That being said, I’m pretty naturally good at the things that a woman in the Victorian era was expected to do...besides shutting my mouth and allowing people to order me around. She should be able to paint, play piano, sing, etc in order to entertain. Well, I can do all those things, but entertaining scares the crap out of me. And I despise it.

Because for whatever reason, entertaining people, manipulating them to feeling of any kind by doing something that they request of me, embarrasses the poop out of me. And whenever someone tries to influence me in the same way, I’m embarrassed as well. You can see why I suck at relationships. This exchange of making each other happy is not comfortable for me. I never wish to “move someone to tears” at their request by a beautiful song or make them laugh upon their request. By my own ideas and free will I love to make people laugh. But the minute it is requested or expected, I can no longer perform.

To get anywhere in the business world, I have to be able to please people. When it comes to very straight forward tasks like algorithms (I was learning about algorithms at khanacademy.org today and then from my mathematician of a brother), I can do that for people. Without the subjectivity of personal preference I am much more comfortable and much more in my element. But very few things are strictly algorithm. Life is just too complex. And also very lonely and scary as a result when you are me.

I feel like I will never move forward until someone who understands me holds my hand and guides me. Throughout writing this, I’m realizing that I’m very scared. That the problem doesn’t seem to be the world itself for me, but the people within it. I’m stuck with this paradox that I am absolutely lonely and feel no purpose without people, but I cannot trust people and I cannot bring myself to make them happy. I feel that I cannot make them happy, and I’m not sure that I want to. I mean, I don’t want to make them sad, but I also don’t necessarily want to make them happy. This isn’t meanness, just…I don’t even know what it is. If I knew, I probably would have fixed it.

And when it comes to finding a purpose, where I must put my own meaning into the world as there doesn’t seem to be an objective purpose for me that no one else can fill, I am lost. Because I hate the subjective in this sense. I hate it. I hate it.

I.HATE.IT.  

It’s funny that I fight structure so damn much, because I want it so badly. But I don’t want us to have the same structure. Because we were not all built the same. We may all be purposeless, but we aren’t all built the same.

Right now I feel a sense of relief getting this off of my chest. A sense of power. Maybe even freedom. I feel sorry that I have let the world down. People look at me thinking I am rebellious, and lazy, and self-entitled, and immature, and out of touch with reality. Believe me that thinking those things about me only crushes my being and humiliates me and paralyzes me further. I am not out of touch with reality. I think the problem is that I am far too in touch with reality in some ways. A reality that others don’t want to see. So I am alone.

I feel scared asking for help from people, even when they have told me to. I have been trying to push myself out there as of late, even when I feel like I am imposing. I have a hard time believing that people want to be my friend and remain my friend after interactions with me. I believe that their opinion of me and their willingness to help is bound to change at any moment.

And addressed to many people, sorry that I’m almost 25 and a failure. I don’t wish to taint your reputation by walking into your life and reflecting badly on some image you’ve worked on creating and upholding. To be honest, I don’t have a lot of empathy for you in that regard, but it makes me feel real shitty to know your thoughts. If I could move forward, I would. I would! And maybe instead of a lot of people telling me that I can and that I have no excuse not to, perhaps if they got off of their damn high horse and legalistic trips and helped me out as an individual I’d get somewhere. Maybe.

It’s hard to help move someone toward a path that may be what is beneficial for them when it wasn’t what you hoped for them. It’s hard to guide someone toward a life that is different from yours. Why help someone toward their own aims? I feel that it is me against many in that way. I am required to find a way, though I don’t feel capable, on my own toward the things that I and a few others value and are willing to sacrifice for. Or I am required, somehow, though I don’t feel capable, to work toward a specific way of living that the majority of others want. And I just don’t know how to go about my day feeling anything but just plain shitty, which doesn’t exactly help me move forward.

I’m not blaming anyone. I think blame is something that is hard for people to let go of. I have a hard time not blaming myself. And others seem to find it very easy to blame me. Life is complex. And as far as finding me a proper algorithm to move me forward…that hasn’t proven to be a very easy task. What do you do when you feel as if you were surrounded by a crowd of people, some with fire pokers and others with their backs to you, telling you that if you’d just get out on your own you’d be acceptable, but you can’t get through the crowds of people, and you haven’t grown the wings to fly away?

My Journey Vaguely Linearized

Non-linear, time inept Jessica tries to put her life into a very brief, vaguely time-framed perspective in terms of personal growth. I am Jessica. To summarize my summary, I could say that I went from innocent arrogance and lack of empathy-->questioning existence and background-->increased self-awareness and understanding of self and others with increased empathy-->seeing my issues as connected to culture-->seeking a new journey oriented toward action.

Childhood Through Teensish: 

• Defend mostly my parents’ beliefs about religion and morality as well as impose them on others with insensitive judgement, believing I am doing what is right. 

• Action-oriented.
• Feel injustice but still indoctrinated into certain belief systems. Sometimes challenge them without positive responses from others.
• Occasionally have moments of awe and curiosity and a feeling of strangeness at the very fact that I am alive.
• Sure of what I think I know.
• Always a desire to improve myself.
• Love of beauty.

Late Teensish:

• One day intentionally deciding to “be philosophical” and stretch my mind by writing my own personal character sketch of whom I think God is abstractly and who we are as humans in relation to him/her/it. Realize that it comes much more naturally to me than I expected.
• Begin a journey of discovering my existential importance.
• Begin a journey to be less critical of others’ behavior and moral beliefs.
• Begin to be interested in psychology.

20sish:

• Begin a deeper journey of self-awareness, realizing just how self-aware I am not.
• Start to question the "rightness" of the things that had happened to me.
• Learning to validate and empathize with myself.
• Seek help from therapists.
• Increased self-awareness and sustained desire to not be hypocritical and to improve self leads to increased awareness and understanding of others.
• The journey begins for improved communication and to control destructive learned behaviors.

22ish: 

• Begin to “fight” for issues and relate my issues to the world. Begin to see myself as partially a product of society.
• Gain courage to start speaking out about issues like Feminism and other issues like how children should be treated, and to read more and more information relevant to these topics of interest to me.
• Challenge myself to implement ideals relating to these issues in my own life in personal ways as a personal challenge and example and a chance to decide not to let others dictate what I should and should not do excluding a certain small given necessary morality.
• Begin to set personal boundaries. Working on personal regulation, communication, and self-awareness is intensified and challenging.
• Love for the natural world and beauty is maintained.

Now (almost 25): 

• Existential, psychological, interpersonal journeys/challenges still in operation.
• Love of beauty still embraced.
• Calculating next move.
• Journey of calculated action shouts for attention.

Now and Never

I operate in two modes: now and later.

For years, I have been trying to get a diagnosis of ADD, but people often don’t listen to women about their mental health issues it seems. All I know is, lack of time management is one very huge sign of Attention Deficit Disorder. I have no concept of forever, never again, or “be there at 5:00”. I don’t understand time as a flowing constantly moving thing. That doesn’t make sense to me.

This also means that if I knew you when I was 7 years old, and I haven’t seen you since then, and you were important enough to me that I remember you, I will likely still think we are friends, and I’ll probably make you feel awkward by acting like we are.

It means that I miscalculate how long something will take me constantly. I almost always underestimate how long something will take me.

It means that little setbacks are huge setbacks to me. I spent so much effort getting up the motivation (seeing as I feel I have all the time in the world) to finally request an appointment to see a psychiatrist about my ADD. It took them a month (I’m estimating; actually, it was probably longer, but I can’t guarantee that) to get me an appointment. I had waited around doing nothing for a month, because I needed the appointment, and the appointment was not now. The psychiatrist ended up being an ass-hole, so I had to request another one. So I wait again. I don’t know how long it has been. I’m waiting for later, if you can call it waiting because it’s not hard for me to put it out of my mind. Not now? Out of mind. Unless it’s a concoction of my imagination, or I’m trying to understand a concept through past events.

It means that when I think about the future, all I know is that it is not now, so it feels so far away, and I don’t understand the concept of the future being a result of present actions. It means I think that I can all of a sudden be married with a good job and potentially children and a good “home” wherever that would be and whatever that would look like, at age 30. I am now nearing 25. It means that one day, I will be thirty and think, “Oh crap, I am 30, and I have nothing to show for it. Crap. Where is my life?” It means I am thinking similar things now at almost 25, because I don’t understand how to make my life into a steady flow rather than a choppy now or later.

It means that dating really intimidates me, and meeting people really intimidates me because I don’t understand the concept of gradual development in relationships, and the idea that a relationship takes a long time to form makes me internally squirm so frustratedly that I want to scream at someone. I know that I will get it wrong. I know that I don’t know how to engage in the process of getting to know someone, which takes time. I don’t know how to “partially-commit” so I don’t commit at all. The thought of investing a ton of time and starting all over with a different relationship because the first didn’t work sounds like hell. It means that I don’t know how vulnerable to be. It means that I finally get so fed up, that I throw in the towel and be whatever the heck I want to be anyway and scare people away.

It means that if I leave my house at the time I am supposed to be there, and it usually takes me 20 minutes to get there, I think that I might get there 5 minutes late and hopefully be forgiven. I am 20 minutes late. Actually sometimes 15 or less…because I speed. I was asked by a psychiatrist I saw once if I sped. I at first said “no”. Recently, I started actually paying attention. I speed. Yep. There’s this little “town” I have to drive through sometimes with literally, like, two houses and a grain elevator or something and that’s it. The sign says go 25 miles per hour. It kills me. I go 35 at least. Okay more like 40. That’s as much as they can usually get me to slow down. I mean, it’s a ridiculous speed limit. There’s nothing there. The houses aren’t even right next to the road.

It means that if I start doing something that I am currently motivated to do, and I’m on a roll, I don’t dare stop. I will go for 15 hours straight if I have to, like when I brushed out my dreads. If I stopped, who knows when I would have started again. If I had stopped, I would have likely gone to a hair salon in a week and come back with a buzz cut, because I wouldn’t have had the patience to brush them out. My fingers were sore for a week, and the next day, I felt feverish, I was exhausted, and my back and neck hurt…but I had/have hair. Thank goodness I didn’t stop.

And speaking of my dreads, I had them for two months. I was told before I started that they would take a year to be dreads. A year, to me sometimes, sounds like not very long. I don’t understand that a year is a long time until I’m stuck in it. And consequently, I wasn’t capable of realizing that dreads were a terrible choice for someone who can’t do long-term commitments, like myself. So I tried dreading my hair and it was constant work. I eventually gave that up.

And speaking of long-term commitments, school always sounds like a great idea. I always think I’m going to like it. But I don’t make long-term commitments like that anymore. Because I’m always so wrong. School is hell. I can’t read my textbooks. I can’t be on time to class. I can’t pay attention when I’m in class. I can’t plan my schedule to get my projects done. I can’t keep to a schedule even if it’s made. I can’t do something that takes time. I can’t concentrate on tests. Tests always take me longer than I’m allowed. And none of this is for lack of trying. Being forced into a schedule leaves me depressed.

Every Time.

And every time I think it will be different. I always think I can do stuff like school, or continuously being on time for a job, and so consequently, I always think of myself as a terrible person for doing nothing as if I’m lazy or something. But I can’t. I’m always wrong about myself. It never works. I finally just stopped.

It means that when it comes to things like saving money, I have two modes: save and don’t save. So I usually save. To say I budget is ridiculous. But I don’t spend. Because I’m scared of what would happen if I went into that mode. I guess that’s not so terrible of me, really.

It means that I am terrible at making decisions because most adult decisions result in some sort of long-term commitment, or some set of consequences that I wasn’t aware of or that I’m not sure I can accept. I never know if I’ll like something until I try it. But some things you just can’t “try”. Like kids, for example. Kids are not an experiment. I’m afraid I will have kids and it will be a terrible mistake. My mind doesn’t usually comprehend the fact that once they are there, they’re always there.

I live in fear of accidental consequences I didn’t think about, and the world is not that full of grace. I stay away from debt, though I feel indebted to the merciful people who let me stay with them.

And I hate that.

I stay away from jobs. I stay away from school. I stay away from people.
It means that I’m stuck. And people think that I will move eventually so they leave me alone. But I’m not moving. And I won’t.

I don’t know how.

It’s now or later, and later could mean never. I can’t have now, so I have never…
And confusion, and frustration, and shame, and fear, and loneliness too.

And it’s all my fault, of course. In a world of consequences, it’s all my fault. I am just irresponsible and immature, right?

I see a lot of “failure to adult” jokes everywhere. I’m not offended by them. It’s just not funny to me. It’s very real and very paralyzing. And unlike most people, when I’m tired, caffeine makes me even more tired. I can’t drink my daily coffee to keep me going.

But how dare I not keep going?

Yet, how can I keep going when I feel like I never started in the first place? How can I get to a point where things feel right when I’ve never been there?

What am I even shooting for?

Talking to My Clones

A counselor that I went to see when I lived in Canada taught me an exercise that I was supposed to do when I thought of an experience from when I was younger. I would imagine myself at that age and how that experience felt. Then she told me to imagine that as the age I am now, I met that girl (myself) at that age, as if there were two of me. I was supposed to converse with the old me and comfort her, giving her the empathy that I had needed at the time that I didn’t receive, because only I could give it to her, because only I was truly capable of completely understanding.

This is an exercise I have done since, when I have remembered, but often, I apply it to current scenarios in my life so that it’s like a modern me talking to a modern me as if I have a wiser clone of myself when myself breaks down. It sounds a little nuts, but believe me, sometimes it prevents me from going nuts. It reminds me to have self-compassion and puts it in a way that I can understand it. It reminds me that I am a human and keeps me in touch with the world.

Tonight, I was having a moment. In this moment, I felt like I was falling behind and broken and worthless. That nobody wanted me or needed me. That nobody understood me. That I just didn’t meet the necessary requirements. These thoughts were triggered by something that broke my heart. At these thoughts, Myself cried. My Wise Self didn’t know what to say, because I think she didn’t know if what Myself said was true or not. But then My Wise Self remembered what had happened right before these thoughts came (not the thing that broke my heart, just what I had done just prior to my thoughts).

I have this weird thing where my mind just longs to empty itself, and it just gets immersed in current action. Usually it’s something small, and something others would perceive as strange. One that I’m pretty sure has happened before, and that happened tonight, is drinking water strangely. It’s like I freeze my body and my face. I look into the distance as if in an unmoving trance, lift my arm which I have made rigid as if I were a robot, and dump the water from my water bottle into my mouth. Usually what happens is that most of the water doesn’t really make it into my mouth, unsurprisingly. It makes it onto my pants and wherever I am sitting. For whatever reason unbeknownst to me, I like the spill. I don’t like my pants being wet, but I like the spill. But as soon as it spills, there is something in me that freaks out as if I just did something wrong to be ashamed of, and then I turn around and tell myself, “Does it really matter? It’s just water. No harm done.”

After spilling the water in that weird fashion this time, I actually stopped to think about the fact that I had actually done what I did. I sometimes don’t even know that I do these things. I tried to come up with a good reason why I liked the spill. I felt like anyone watching me would say I shouldn’t. I mean, I just spilled water that was intended to go into my mouth, and I was acting like a weirdo for seemingly no good reason. It was a mistake. I shouldn’t be happy about it. Honestly, I can’t come up with a reason why I liked it.

Anyway, as My Wise Self was comforting My Crying Self, she struggled for something to say and just rubbed Myself’s back. Then she said the words, “You’re just like that water spill. You make no sense to people. By all accounts you could very well be pointless, but there’s just something about you, and I like you. People think that water spill was flawed because it didn’t make it into somebody’s mouth, but it was likeable, they just didn’t see it. There is no reason you are not likeable just because you didn’t make it into someone’s mouth for consumption. Thank God you didn’t!"

My Wise Self made Myself feel rather peaceful with that. She’s really nice.