Sara

Bit of a cut for the RL stuffs

( And now for something a little more serious )

For some inane reason I have started doing something I affectionately term cookiepalooza wherein I bake an incredibly stupidly large amount of cookies and then take them to work as Christmas gifts for people. I did it last year, and I'm going it this year as well. It's one of those things that sort of wears me down, especially right now. For reasons unknown to me I am entirely more emotionally and physically run down this holiday season than last year, though I think part of that might have to be attributed to the weather. The winter weather has already been worse this year than previous years, and it makes me paranoid and worry prone and just tired. Not to mention that the bad weather makes me even more prone to stay home and away from people. All in all I find myself a little more depressed than last year. It's not even the jagging crying all the time depression, either. It's the heavy, weight "I don't want to do anything or see anyone or go anywhere. And all these things I usually adore don't matter much at all." Work has a lot to do with it. Work and some developments with a few of my personal friendships. People seem to be passing me by in leaps and bounds, and it's disheartening and painful so I retreat into being numb. Unfortunately I have a tendency to get myself completely locked in the numb state with no real way to claw my way out. It's one of those terribly viscous cycles.

I was originally planning to make batches of nine different cookies (pumpkin chocolate chip, chocolate chip, eggnog dark chocolate chip, lemon poppyseed, snickerdoodles, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, gingerbread and peppermint shortbread), but I'm not sure I can do it. I've got the lemon poppyseed, snickdoodle, eggnog and pumpkin dough already made and proofing. I'm going to make the oatmeal raisin dough before I go to bed tonight. The peanut butter dough does not proof well. I learned that the hard way when I did it last year and the peanut oil started separating from the dough and getting everywhere. It was a terrible mess so I'll make and bake that one. I like to give most of the cookies at least overnight in the fridge because it does mature the taste, esp. on chocolate chip variants. I'm also supposed to make pies for a work party, but I might just cave and buy those if I go to the work party because tonight I cannot face the idea of baking all of this without just shattering into a million tiny pieces.

Work was terrible this week, and I'm probably being overly sensitive. They're cookies. No one is going to be terribly upset if I leave some of them out, but it makes me feel like I'm a failure and a disappointment before I even start. The holidays are stressful, but I mostly do this to myself.

I have broken myself into so many pieces that when the glue comes undone, they rip me to shreds.

I've been having one of those "Why am I not good enough days?" where any little thing that's said whether it be praise or complaint hurts. Kindness almost upsets me more than cruelty. Kindness always makes me wary of what I'm going to do wrong, of how much I am going to disappoint when I prove how utterly worthless and meaningless and flawed and broken I am. I'm sure no one means kindness to be taken in such a way. I am sure. But it hurts and tears away inside me anyway.

My throat has been tight all day. The tears have been right there all day.

Then I watched "Vincent and the Doctor" and just started crying. It's crazy, but I've always felt a weird sort of kinship with Vincent van Gogh. His paintings have always meant a lot to me and moved me and spoke to me. I think I hope that we would be able to understand each other a little bit. I so want to be extraordinary like him. I know what it is to be lost.

And now I'm just crying. My chest feels caved in and hollow as though someone took an ice cream scoop to it.

I want to be so much more than I am. I want to be something.

I'm sorry.

I'm always failing.

I am emotionally wrecked right now. Just tossed about on a bloody sea of confusion and indecision and hurt. Which really just makes me want to hide and cut my hair, dye it, do something. I act out. Things get too heavy, and I act out by finding something physical I can change. A number of my hair decisions have been caused by something big and emotional in my life that I simply couldn't figure out how to deal with so I changed myself, thinking that somehow, someway I could make myself better by changing something physical. Or perhaps I simply wanted the distraction.

The older I get, the more I recognize that I don't process things the way I ought to. I'm not even sure if that's true. It just seems true. I know other people have a hard time with things. I know that out there, walking around, probably everyone is hurting and feeling empty and worthless in some fashion. Surely everyone feels out of place and unseen and unknown and lost.

What do they do with it all? What does anyone do with all of this hurt?

My family is quiet quiet. I think I've said that before. No one talked about what was wrong. I never learned how to open my mouth and speak about those sorts of things without being almost petrified. Honestly. There are times I go to speak, and I can't. My throat closes up, and my mind rebels. The words stick. I can't look at people when I talk about important things. I tend to laugh or smile when things aren't funny at all. My best friend who lives here knows I typically can't tell him what's wrong unless I've had a drink and even then the conversation will be halting and forced and I'll spend the entire time looking at anything other than him. My supervisor has seen me break down into tears simply because he's asked me what's wrong.

I'm still scared. I am still so scared of this great, big world and everything it wants to take from me. I am still scared of all its people and their intentions, which I can never seem to suss out. And I hold it all inside until it almost breaks me down.

I can't seem to get myself to call the doctor. I've been considering buying herbal supplements for mental health. I know I saw one for emotional balance. I hate the idea of drugs. I hate the idea of doctors. I hate the idea of bearing my torn up, broken down soul to strangers even if they're there to help me. I don't like walking around in the world worried that everyone is judging me and deciding that I'm nothing.

I've back fallen so much since college. I don't understand.

From my Buddhist Wisdom Inspiration Cards:





This life is like a dream
from which we awake
at death.
The next life is like
another dream, which ends
when we awake.
This awakening is called enlightenment.

That would be from an Enlightenment card if you couldn't tell. I know enough about Buddhism and the cycle of reincarnation to understand the point of this card. I really do. Knowing something and prescribing to something are two completely different things, however. I am not Buddhist. I cannot stomach most of the goals on the road to enlightenment. I think I've talked about this before. I cannot give up extremes of emotion. I will love and love completely. It will break me apart like it always does, but I refuse to let that go. It's not a great feeling when a friend can turn your whole world upside down with a word or you feel guilty for days for saying the wrong thing and hurting someone's feelings, but it's me. That's simply the way I do things. That's the way my heart works. I do not want to train it to work another way, to be something else.

I need some changes in my life. There are things that need to go because they're not working. There are ways that I react that are not healthy. I acknowledge this. Now all I have to do is actually get the ball rolling: doctor, referral, therapy, possibly medication. I don't want medication. I do not prescribe to the idea of the Prozac Nation, either. Medication does not cure everywhere. Maybe all my hangups are tied into wonky brain chemicals. I'm not saying it's not possible. In all honesty, I likely suffer from a few chemical imbalances that need to be addressed, but that does not mean I want my emotional well-being to be dependent on drugs. I have a high propensity to either acclimate or being allergic to medicine. It's why the list of antibiotics I can consume it steadily shrinking. I take one for a while and then the next time it's given to me, it causes an allergic reaction. It's never anything that serious, mind, but I'm not looking for it to happen with everything. I limit myself to as little medication as possible.

I'm not saying that enlightenment is a bad thing to try to achieve. I'm not trying to come down on Buddhism or anything like that. I think it's a perfectly acceptable path, and people have every right to follow it if it suits them. I'm just saying it's not me. Enlightenment might be, but my idea of enlightenment is a little different. I don't think we're meant to know all the secrets and follies of the universe. I'm not sure we'd be able to understand the meaning or point of it all even with the little piece of divinity resting inside all of us. I think enlightenment has to start within yourself. Once you know yourself, love yourself and are at peace with yourself then I think you can start working outward and applying that love and knowledge to the rest of the world.

From my Buddhist Wisdom Inspiration Cards:





Not in outer space,
not in the middle of the ocean,
not in a crack in the remotest
mountains--there is nowhere
to go where karma will
not find you.


That would be one of the Teaching Tales cards.

Well I'm not quite sure what to tell you, Buddha Box. This one is a little obvious. Karma is one of those soul energy, cerebral, ethereal things. Of course you can't outrun it, and of course it can find you anywhere. It's not so much a thing that exists outside yourself as it is something you carry around inside of you like Divinity. It's probably part of the Divine that gets lodged in us all. No matter how hard you try, you really can't escape yourself. You can cover it over with masks and force it down and dress it up to go out dancing, but it's under all of that somewhere, Cocky accent and dirty nails and everything. It remains the way it was under all the trappings.

I'm not saying that chance is impossible. Change is. People change. I think that people change a little each and every day based on what happens and who they meet and the choices they make, but they're not those drastic changes. Not typically. They're usually the smaller changes, the river eventually wearing through the stone sort of changes. Little alterations that you maybe don't notice until a few years later when you look back at something and you don't recognize the you that was then anymore. It's strange to explain. I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of it, either.

What are you trying to get through to me now, Buddha Box? I'm getting a little tired of you preaching to me about karma. I'm starting to feel as guilty as Hitler, as marked as Cain. I think I live a good life. Good enough. I try to go through helping others rather than harming, though I know my words and my wit can be caustic. I try to let people know I don't actually mean it. Unless you're chiding me for being mean to myself, which I suppose doesn't make my karma any better, either. That's hard to let go, Buddha Box. I am not Catholic, but some of the Catholic ideals have been passed down to me through nurture and blood. I blame myself. I guilt myself. I punish myself. I don't pass out forgiveness to myself as much as to others.

I can see your point there. Why punish the one person I can never ever escape? Why be so mean? Why never forgive faults or weakness? I am too hard on myself, and it doesn't motivate me. It's not a positive sort of tough love. It's the demoralizing sort. It's likely that battle between the depression and myself. The trouble is I can't see where the one ends and the other begins.

I guess that's as good a place to begin the journey as any. I just don't know, after all these years, where to begin filtering. Still, Buddha Box, words to take to heart as always.

From my Buddhist Wisdom Inspiration Cards:





What is,
is the same as what is not.
What is not,
is the same as what is.

When you realize this,
being perfect, is already.


This is a Practice card, which I'm gathering means that this is something I'm supposed to try and incorporate into my life. And I get it, I do. I understand the purpose of this line of thinking, Buddha Box, but I'm not the sort of person who can put this into practice. At least, I don't think I am. I focus too much on what is not. I linger on what I am not and what I should be and what I have not managed to become. The hardest part is that all of that, all of that thinking about what I'm not is so staggering that I don't really try to change. Not in any major ways. Not purposefully. I change because everything changes. Even though they say that people never change, it's not true. It's just that typically the changes are so small that a lot of people would miss them, pass them right over and go straight on to the other side. As a general rule, people do not notice other people. Not for what they are anyway. They see the outsides, the masks that we have deemed it's okay to show the world or this person or that person. Mask upon mask upon mask. If you kept digging, it you kept taking them off, one after another, would there be anything at the core? Or would it be an empty box? Do we build all these walls around our cores to protect who we are from being torn apart by the inherent harshness of the world or are these facades there to convince ourselves that we really aren't nothing? I'd like to believe that it's the former, but I'm not sure that I've scraped myself raw enough to know.

I never wanted perfection. I have always believed that perfection is unattainable. If we were perfect, we would stop being human. Humanity seems to be all about accepting yourself despite the imperfections. It's embracing your flaws whether they be physical or mental or emotional or social. Perfection was never a goal of mine. Not failing, however, was a goal. As was learning to be content, being special. Not being mundane. I hate the idea of being mundane, yet I fear that I have fallen into the trap. There's a line that jumps into my mind at times, and I don't know if it's the depression, since we've talked about the fact that depression is supposed to be a separate thing, a sort of monster in your brain that your higher facilities go to war with yet depression typically wins because it feeds off your weariness and it plays dirty, or if it is me. Whichever the case, the line I have for myself is: "Replaceable, unlovable, forgetable, ignorable me." I use that for myself. I use that to describe myself.

So, no, perfection was never a goal. Being special was. I seem to have shattered that goal a million times over because I lack something. Energy, ambition, drive. I want things. I get excited over things. And then it fades back to the low level of emotion I usually maintain, the deadened "I have to get through this. I have to keep going."

I don't understand, Buddha Box. It comes down to that. I do not understand. What is, is. I am alone, tired, frightened, lost, yearning, broken, falling, isolated, withdrawn. I am not vibrant, energetic, confidant, open, fulfilled, whole, pretty, found, saved. I am not saved. (I would like to take a moment that I do not saved in a religious context. I do not believe in organized religion, especially the various trappings of Christianity. I believe that god is inside everything living, and that we interrupt him in any way that we need to, which makes all religions and belief systems valid. I believe you create your own hell. When you have a crisis of faith, you have lost the path to find the god inside. No one else can save you or show you your path.) No one has saved me. I am not sure that anyone outside the existence in my head can save me. Perhaps people can only offer signposts.

I don't know what you mean, Buddha Box. It is possible I am not ready for this revelation. For now, I may simply have to simply view it in the same way that I believe in parallel universes. Somewhere, some when there is a me who took a different path. Our roads diverged at some point in time such that she is what I am not. That I can live with. That I can understand. Yet I'm fairly convinced that this is not the truth you are trying to tell me; it will have to do for now.

I hate commercials for anti-depressants because they typically read like a snapshot of my life.

Lack of energy? Check
Loss of interest in activities you used to enjoy? Check
Feelings of apathy and disinterest? Check
Having to "wind yourself up" throughout the day to perform simple tasks? Check
Not wanting to go anywhere or see anyone? Check
Feelings of sadness? Check

I'm trying to be more proactive, but I don't want to talk about them because that almost always seems to make things backfire on me. I have not yet called any doctors or made any appointments, which is likely due not only to the depression and my total avoidance of doctors but also because of the weather. I hate winter weather. I do not want to drive in ice or snow or any sort of "wintry mix." It's really hard to make myself do anything when it's cold. It's hard to care that I'm not doing anything.

Sometimes I wonder if I feel like other people feel. Most of the time, I don't actually seem to feel anything. I'm not happy or sad or excited or anxious. I'm just there. It doesn't seem like contentment or apathy. It feels like empty, hollow, autopilot. I don't know if that's normal. I don't even know how to broach that sort of topic to ask someone. I could. I have friends I could ask. I have multiple friends I could ask, and I can already gauge in my head how they would react. Not what they would say but what their faces would look like.

One of the things that kills me, one of the things that can make the carefully held together broken pieces fall all over the place is compassion. I don't understand it. It makes no sense. Show me an inch of kindness, give me the sort of hurt and astonished look that tells me how deeply you care, ask me what's wrong, give me the time of day and I fall apart. I can't help it. It's a trigger. I have stopped communicating by and large. I talk, I sass, I quip and jest. I make astute comments. I come up with intellectual ideas. I offer up very little of myself.

Until someone who knows me stops me and looks at me just so. And then my world is open.

It's scary and disarming.

I don't understand. I don't know if it's me that doesn't work right or if everyone feels this way and they're all just better at hiding it than I am.

I don't do resolutions. I don't believe in them. I'm not a big fan of change to begin with and most resolutions seem to simply be made because then people can break them since people seem to be fond of the chance to break things.

I am, however, in favor of getting my money's worth out of things and not being ripped off, which is why I spent a good amount of my morning sitting here at work prior to when I start working debating about whether or not I need to be spending the $30 to up my paid LJ time and extra user icons. (I get into the same debate with myself over my X-Box Live Gold subscription as well, but I so do love watching Netflix Instant on my big new TV that I decided the $30 year card from Wal-Mart was a steal and totally worth it. Also I might play something online with someone someday. Or, if not, then at least it lets me spend more money downloading songs for Rock Band and Rock Band: Beatles. I am that sort of gamer.)

Eventually I did cave and put in my new debit card information into Livejournal so it can automatically bill me on the first of February (I do wish there was a way to stop so many of my bills from coming at the same time but alas I end up doing what I can to spread them out between my two paychecks). I made myself a caveat, though. I have to use the LJ more. I have to somehow manage to drive up some more interest in actively posting, adding icons, changing the style, etc. I have a year. If I haven't mustered more interest in the internet world in a year then I will drop something, likely the extra user pics.

I mean, at this point I have the LJ, the GJ, which I have a permanent account for because it was, like, $40 or something stupidly low and I couldn't say no, and the DW account. I barely post to anything (including the RP game that I'm supposed to be posting to because I begged and begged to see it come back and then promptly got sucked right back into my giant, swirling depression that pretty much keeps me from doing a lot of things I used to enjoy) so it's doesn't make much sense to keep tossing the money away. Anyway this got a lot longer than I had anticipated because once I stop writing, as always, I seem to not be able to stop. It's just making myself start that's so hard.

This is me once again stating my intention to be better.