I think I'm beginning to remember.
What I was like when I was in high school.

Through recent reading and watching ventures, it's starting to come back to me.

I would call myself pretty emotionally stable, but even so, I used to feel things all over the place when I was younger.  Emotions felt so big and overwhelming and so, so heavy. 
But this is the thing: they weren't emotions caused by me.  That is to say, they were not directly linked from me and how I felt.

I get caught up so easily with other people.  Not drama or gossip, nothing like that.  Just...how do I put this?
If people are feeling things...actually...if people are going through things, I feel like I'm right there with them.  The burdens they carry, the heaviness they feel...I subconsciously take it upon myself to be there, right alongside with them, to carry those burdens with them, to feel the heaviness of their emotions, just the same as them.

And it's not healthy.

Maybe that's one (of the many) of the reasons why I have become more isolated over the years.  Not because I dislike people (although we know all too well that as a whole, I greatly dislike humans), but as a mode of self preservation.  I didn't know how to NOT take on these burdens, how to NOT feel what others feel.  So...I stopped being around people so much.  I already had issues with my own mental health, and that took a huge toll on me as well.

And now, here I am, back to reading books or watching shows on netflix, and these characters - these people who are NOT REAL - are affecting me.

I can feel it.
I see the change happening in my mood and my mentality.
I start to relate to them, and it changes me.
I may be having a good day, but then I watch a show with a character who struggles with crippling depression, and I start to feel that way, too.
I read a book, and can relate to the main character in some way, and while I'm reading the book and for a short duration after, I take on some of their personality traits (in a subtle manner) and it changes who I am.


Is this how it is for everyone?
Or is this just yet another example of how fucked up I am?  How broken I am?

I used to think that I couldn't feel.  That I was an emotionless being, and I was okay with that.  But I think it's the opposite.  I think I feel deeply, and I think I feel largely.  To the point that the struggles and emotions of those around me are things I take upon myself.  And I guess I just finally shut down, because it became too much for me, and I couldn't handle it anymore.


But I have met the love of my life.  And in meeting him, I began to feel again.  Which is good.  Mostly.  Because he deserves to have someone who isn't a heartless bastard. 
But at the same time, it's bringing up old ways I thought I had gotten away from.

Am I too emotional?
Am I too sensitive?
Is that what it is?  What's causing me to relate and take on burdens and emotions and traits of people, both fictional and real?

Or is it something else?
Just one more psychological problem I have, knowing I have it, but having no idea how to live with it or overcome it or heal from it.



I'm tired of feeling.
The weight I carry suffocates me more every day.  I don't need weight from others on top of that.  I don't need to feel even more, and feel like I'm going mad, because I don't know how to handle any of what I'm feeling.


I'm just...I don't know.

I don't know.

"I owe it to myself."

Those are words I don't think I've ever uttered sincerely - or seriously  - in relation to myself.

Ignoring the bulging bag of issues I have with phrases like that aside, it's not anything that I would ever say in application to me.  To people in my life whom I love?  Yes, absolutely.  But to myself?  As if.

In the past several months, I have realised a lot of things about myself, about my childhood, about who I am and why I am the way that I am today because of my past.  And one thing I have realised (and being in a committed relationship kind of brought this to light), is that I completely ignore myself in pretty much all aspects.  My wants and my needs and my opinions hold no value.  To me, so most certainly to those around me, too...right?

I tried to figure out why my mentality is like this.  Why I have become an expert in the field of ignoring myself.  And I realised it was because of my childhood.
I had a really strong sense of justice growing up (I still do).  But I also lied a lot because I did things I wasn't supposed to do.  So the result of my lying all the time, was people not believing me when I was telling the truth.  (The boy who cried wolf, anyone?)  But I was also the youngest.  This meant in a big family in a too-small home, that I was easily overlooked and forgotten about.  So I guess my child brain made the connection "hey, do things - bad things - to get noticed!"  Which meant that when I was noticed, it was for negative things, which resulted in me getting in trouble all the time. 

(This is most likely the reason why I hate absolutely any kind of attention on me.  Attention = bad things in my childhood, which makes it feel bad now, even as an adult.)

Off point, though.  I ended up being ignored a lot, because "fair" wasn't applicable when you had older brothers who had bigger stomachs and could therefore eat more than you, so they got more food and you didn't.  It wasn't applicable when you made dessert for the whole family, but wanted everyone to have equal portions.  It wasn't applicable when you actually were telling the truth, but your older brother was treated specially because of his mental retardation issues, so he was believed due to parental guilt and favoritism.

In time, I learned that, hey, if everyone else is ignoring me, I may as well ignore myself, too.

And so I did.

Which brings me here.
Where when it comes to getting things done, I can't.
Well, let me rephrase that.
If I have to do things, or get things done, or have responsibilities that should be taken care of, but I am the only one affected by if these things are done or no, I have absolutely no motivation or drive to accomplish them.
Because I do not matter.
But if you throw other people into the mix: colleagues at a job, friends, fellow classmates, whatever...then I am so there.  I get that shit done, and I get it done in a timely manner.  Because if anyone or anything else is affected by my lack of completing tasks, then that drives me to get it done.  Because they matter.  But I do not.


And now I'm back in school.
You think the fucking cost alone would motivate me to do well, but money has never been a motivator for me.
And no one else is really benefiting from my return to school. 
Just me.
Which means there's nothing to drive me to complete weighty assignments in a timely manner.
Everything is turned in almost last minute (that bad habit depression drilled into me all those years ago in high school and junior college stuck around...then again...so did depression...).
But I can't bring myself to think 'I owe this to myself.  I deserve to excel in my courses and to work hard and to learn the ins and outs of these topics.'

But that's another thing, too.
I don't deserve anything.
No one does.
And to have the audacity to think 'I deserve this!' is just...egotistical and presumptuous.
I need to earn everything.
My grades.  My wages (when I have a job).
...My salvation.

Nothing in this life is freely given, and I have to be perfect, I can't mess up or make mistakes, and I have to earn what's handed to me.
I can't just accept things without having to pay them back in some way.
(Huh, maybe that's why I don't like getting presents...)

Welcome to the complicated world that is known as my life.
Well-meaning parents who unintentionally royally fucked me over real good because of how my brain is wired.
Fuck me, right?


Well, this has been a completely depressing post for me, and now the day is more of a struggle than it already was.


If only I could die and just get it over with.

I have come to realise that sometime dreams we have are not realistic.  Wants, desires, hopes...they are all well and good, but that doesn't mean they'll happen.  And when your life involves more than just you, well...who knows what the chances are for your secret dreams to actually happen.

And...I guess that's okay.
But as with any secret hope we grasp tightly within our metaphorical fists, sometimes thing are hard to let go of.
There's a grieving process.
And, like most cases with grief, only time can truly [mostly] heal the wounds created from said grief.

I realised some things today.
In thinking, and processing, about life.
Realising that some things are not likely to happen.  For one reason or another.
Maybe even shouldn't happen.

And I cried.
Because in that moment of clarity, my heart broke.
And dreams I was secretly harbouring, were finally found, and imprisoned in the land of "unrealistic."



I don't like days like today.