My Life As A Farce

Posted By Cassandra Disque on April 10, 2009

I’ve finally reached that point where I actually FEEL overwhelmed by everything that’s happened in the past few weeks and in the past year. Just in this past hour it’s hit me, leaving me feeling exhausted and physically ill. My glands are even tender and my throat is sore.

I think of tears, of crying, because I want to have a good weep and let it out, but I can’t. It’s just not there. I think it’s the medication — it’s allowed me to maintain my sanity and to even stay relatively happy through all the extra stress, but I’m worried about how healthy that is — the artificial balance, I mean. Because even now, when I feel like sobbing, I can’t, and that feels wrong.

I’m dreadfully lonely and I miss my grandfather.

I feel like all the progress in the past year has been artifice designed to fool myself and those around me, but it really hasn’t taken me anywhere I want to be.

I climb on top only to not like what I see when I get there.

I desperately want one of the jobs at the animal shelters that I’ve applied at, but that appears to be going nowhere. I want something meaningful; I feel like I’m just living hand to mouth, both financially and emotionally/spiritually.

I miss myself. I guess that’s normal — when you get older you miss how it was when you were young and you felt calm, or interesting to others, or full of hope, or whatever it was you feel that you lost over the years.

What’s really been killing me on the inside of late is the realization that I miss all these times in my life when I thought I was truly miserable.

For example, coming out of middle school I was seriously depressed and up until about five years ago I thought those two years were the most troubling times I had every experienced. Now, I miss how happy I was during that time — all the friends I had, how challenged I was in school (and how I loved the challenge), the drive of being around a group of one hundred equally interesting, talented, and intelligent people (er, kids). But I wasn’t all that happy then, in fact I tried to kill myself twice during those years. And now I regard it as the happiest and most satisfied I’ve ever been.

What does this mean?! I realize I can’t see the time as black and white — it’s not just good or bad, but both. But just the fact that I now consider those years to have been the best of my life so far — what does that say about me?

That was 15 years ago, for a start; has truly nothing been better? And if I was trying to kill myself during the best time of my life, am I some sort of truly sick masochist?

What’s perhaps more troubling is the question of why haven’t I considered myself to be that happy since then?

What’s been wrong with me, or my life, that I’ve been unhappy? What’s been missing with now compared to then? Easy — consistent stimulation/challenge shared with a large group of very tight friends. Friends, a group of friends. Learning and producing. Hell, no wonder my life feels empty, meaningless in comparison.

I’ve been helping a friend deal with his love interest’s psychological problems. It’s starting to get to me a little bit, because it’s dredging up old issues within myself that I had previously managed to get over or forget about to the point of making them moot.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to tell him that I have to take a break and not talk about it for a few weeks because it’s starting to drag me back into my old head space. He mentions how she is and asks how to handle it, then I remember the similar ways I was and how things were or weren’t handled. The more we talk, the more I remember, and the more the old thought processes come back.

It’s a shame because he has told me I’ve been really helpful, and god knows I love being of service.

Self-preservation is telling me that I have to step back, but the desire to help others is pushing me to stay the course and learn to suck it up. Teeter-totter. If I run, I’ll feel like a (self-preserved) asshole. If I stick it out, my mental health could keep deteriorating (or it might not).

Was I happier when I was with Dr Maude or is it just that life was that less complicated then, thus making retrospect seem easier and therefore less stressed? I know I shouldn’t compare but every day I’m overwhelmed with the idea that I made a huge and terrible mistake. I don’t know how to let go of that idea, how to move on and just let the past be what it was without it having to be something to regret (or not). I know it’s easier to let go when there is something else to focus on, but nothing is catching my focus these days like I need it to.

The next time my phone rings, please let it be good news.

Categories: Identity
Tags: