And now there's another hole in my closet door.

The first time I punched a hole into my closet, I decided it was time to start taking advantage of the counceling center. I woke up in the morning, still seething over a conversation I'd had the last night. Not becuase the other party did anything to upset me, but because I was so mad at myself I couldn't stand it. I couldn't say what I wanted to, and frankly, I couldn't even tell you what it was I'd wanted to say. Back then, I mean; I was completely confused as to what I wanted, couldn't express myself, and hated myself for it so much that I punched a hole in the wall and then went and got counceling.

And so, I've been in therapy since early in the semester. Many of you know this already; I haven't kept it a secret... except from my parents. This'll be the first they hear about this. I don't like to keep secrets from my parents, it's troublesome and causes more stress than it saves. Certainly I don't tell them every detail of my life, but there's a difference between not talking about things and purposefully not talking about things. Unconcious omission and straight-up keeping a secret and why? Why keep it a secret at all?

Because I don't want them to realize just how screwed up I am. They're wonderful people, I love them, and they did their best. They really did, they tried to raise a functional human being, but they got me. A fucked-up failure thereof. A disappointment: unemployed, without any sort of direction in life, never going to be a lawyer or a doctor or any of those things people can be proud of. A sow's ear which all of their effort would never turn into a silk purse, however hard they may have tried. I suppose I wanted to save them this revelation. I suppose I just wanted to save them from feeling bad, like they raised me wrong. Because they did the best they could with what they got.

I'm hypsersenitive to being a burden on others. Whether it's a physical burdening, by asking them to help me with some task or another, or an emotional burdening, by talking about what problems are on my mind, I just tell myself I should be able to cowboy up and take it. Do what I need to do, even if it starts to kill me, because I shouldn't make others take up my slack. Bottle in my feelings; they are trite and tiny and I make too big a deal out of these tiny things and other people's problems are so much more severe that I should be embarassed for feeling bad about my own. I've gotten better, slowly, but even still, it's so hard for me to ask for help. It's so amazingly hard for me to talk about what's going on in my life in an honest and plain manner, without trying to laugh my way through it, pretending everything is all right. So, most of the time, I don't. I just deal... I cowboy up until I crack.

Why do I do this? Why can't I stand being a burden? It's probably rooted with my being terrified of being a disappointment. I don't know where it comes from, and I don't know why, but I have this impossible standard I hold myself to. This great, perfect ideal of how someone SHOULD be... an ideal I could never hope to conform to, so I spend much of my time hating myself for failing to conform to it. Anorexics see a fat person in the mirror, I see a disappointment.

Now, I'm smart enough to acknowledge my neuroses as neuroses; I'm capable of stepping outside myself and seeing that what I think isn't really true... but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect me. I know it's silly, but I feel like I have to meet this ideal. And part of this ideal is to always, ALWAYS, be there when needed. Because goodness knows, if a second goes by where I'm not there when needed, I will be a hopeless disapointment and eternal failure. To that end, enter the pregnant girl and the depressed girl. The names will remain secret to protect... somebody, I don't know... I happen to know one of them reads this weblog. Both friends... neither best friends. One distinctly second-tier, and the other on the first tier, but well down the friendship gradient. Both have taken me as their confidant and emotional support, but neither would I feel comfortable as my emotional support. Pregnant girl has gone from scarcely acknowledging my existance to expecting my constant attention, jerking me around and making me feel tremendously emotionally confused. Depressed girl is moaning to me about the problems which are her own damn fault for doing, literally, one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of a person doing, and relying on me to halp get her life back together. Both are receiving my care and attention, and neither is aware of how thuroughly they are stressing me out. I've developed a twitch in my right eye. It's starting to freak me out.

How I would love to tell them both to leave me alone. I would love to be able to relax this winter break... sleep the night away and party all the day. Or even just... deal with my own personal problems. But no. I can't do that. I can't be a Disappointment. I can't put the Burden back on them, even if it's their own damn burden that they earned by being capital-S Stupid. Because if they need me and I'm not there... well, that's when the whole world comes crashing down, doesn't it?

Today I had an intervention of sorts. My friends... real friends, who don't use me as a crutch, offered to take one of them off my hands, effectively, and to assist me in ignoring the other. Later, I'm talking to Amber, the friend who I'd listen to above all the rest, and she agrees with everything the intervention says; lose depressed girl and ignore pregnant girl and live my own life.

And then pregnant girl calls me. The call waiting goes off and what do I do? I tell Amber I'm going to deal with pregnant girl. Her response is to get angry and hang up, and I can't blame her. Because I'm angry. I'm angry at her for telling me what to do, and I'm angry at pregnant girl for taking up my time, and I'm angry at my friends for not leaving me alone, and I'm angry at depressed girl for not leaving me alone, but those are all brief and fleeting. No, when I punch a second hole into that closet door, I'm angry at myself. I'm angry at myself for being a disappointment, for not being able to hold back, for giving in, for making my friend mad. I'm angry at myself for going to see her, and I'm angry for not wanting to go and see her. I'm mad for holding to this stupid bullshit ideal, and I'm just as mad for thinking the ideal is bullshit, in little compartmentalized areas of anger in my brain. I'm mad at myself for so much I don't even have the words to express it, and just thinking about it I feel like throwing my mouse into the wall and breaking this keyboard over my knee. It's an all-consuiming and violent rage, all directed at myself because, honestly, no matter what I do right now, I'm a disappointment. To my friends, or to the ladies in distress and the bullshit ideal.

I don't know why I'm like this. I don't know why I feel like a disappointment and a burden; I don't know why every time I show a hint of vulnerability, I feel like the world's biggest failure. I don't know whether I was traumatized or I just have fucked-up genetics. I don't know where my bullshit ideal comes from. I don't know how to make it go away. I don't know if I'll ever be normal, and I don't know what normal even means, although I know it's not me.

And right now, I'm sorely tempted to just delete this; turn it into nothing. The emotional catharsis may remain, it may not, but I know for a fact that if I delete it, the bullshit ideal would be happy. But I'm not going to do that. Because I know the ideal is bullshit. And the more I follow it, it easier it is to forget that. So fuck cowboying up: I have an emotional problem, so I'm describing it in great detail. This is me, as naked as I get: sad, stressed, and sorry. So sorry, for all my failures. The ones that made you mad, and the ones you never even noticed. I hope you all can forgive me, but goodness knows, even if you do, I'll find some way to beleive your forgiveness doesn't apply to me. Some way to convince myself that I remain ever a disappointment.

That sort of self-sabotage is the neurotic's bread-and-butter. A conspiracy theorist can see aliens in every headline, I can see the patronisation in every compliment. Doesn't matter if it's there or not, once you see it, it's burned into your brain forever. I'm afraid of being a disappointment and I'm constantly aware that I am a disappointment and I disregard anything that implies I might not be a disappointment, and of course, being depressed about these things is well outside of my stupid ideal that I've already got no hope of maintaining, so I just spiral on down.

I'm going to bed.