PERSONAL

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3,395

Struggling

8 years ago1,021 words

I'm currently sitting staring into space, on the verge of tears; moving any muscles feels like a monumental effort. My mind is filled with thoughts of hopelessness, failure and death. In short, I'm struggling. Perhaps writing out my thoughts here will help, difficult though it is to muster the energy to do anything at all.

I discover - again and again and again - that the best remedy for this far-too-common state is to get to work, to be productive, to listen to music that fuels me... But overcoming the inertia is the hard part. It's so much easier to just continue sitting there, doing nothing, than to take that step, that transition, even though I know full well that it'll help.

Well, sometimes. Sometimes it's too difficult to do anything, and nothing helps. I try to draw, but feel weighed down as if by clothes made of lead. I try to listen to music, but it drains me instead of energising me. I play around with ideas, possibilities, but all I can see are the barriers in the way of realising them.

My depression is - according to my mind, at least - entirely because I lack love. Don't have a partner. But it seems as if everyone else does. Everywhere I look, everyone has someone. Or if they don't, it's because they don't want someone, or they're in a brief transition stage that is unlikely to last more than a few weeks, if that.

It wouldn't be so bad if there was any hope of remedying my situation any time soon... Anywhere I could go to meet people I might click with. But there isn't. Maybe at university next September (or will it be October?), but even then I don't know what hope I have. I'd love to meet someone through my psychology course (especially since it's mostly girls), but I look around in lectures and the most appealing person I see is sitting right next to me; right there, definitely a part of my life, but someone else's, forever out of reach.

I am glad of her, and had a wonderful time with her on Wednesday. We spent the whole day together, as it might be the last time we'll see each other in a long time, and we're close enough that I'm sure we'd look like a couple to any passersby. I deeply appreciate that; even if it's not romantic love, I get many of the benefits I'd want from that anyway and as such am able to experience some kind of happiness as a result of experiences like that.

But then I think of how that day was special to me because it's so rare that I have nice ones... but she must have days like that all the time, or better. Most people do, probably. Being with their loved ones, expressing and receiving deep and intimate affection many levels higher than what I can get from friendship. I feel so deeply, hopelessly, maddeningly empty without it. Without someone to devote myself to. Like a pilot without a plane, as I'm sure I've said before.

I know I go on about this again and again... Both in too-public posts like this (where I probably just embarrass myself for speaking in this way), and in my head. The same thoughts, going around and around, pointlessly.

I've been trying to draw recently to distract myself... I draw women, since I wish I had one in my life. But I do this instead of actually seeking out real people... And instead of focusing on things that might lead to the development of some kind of career or proper income. Drawing will get me nowhere, but it's so easy to get absorbed in it because it feels almost as if I'm having some kind of contact with the opposite sex. It's profoundly pathetic, and - like the most intense starvation - so hard to resist.

I'm hoping that starting a video or audio blog - and talking aloud about my thoughts in order to separate them from myself and scrutinise their ridiculousness - will help me to feel better, both by escaping the silence and by feeling as if I might be connecting with others in some one-sided, artificial kind of way. It might compel me to come out of my shell a bit, to explore the world and forge new bonds instead of just sulking about how I don't have any. Talking about my many debilitating fears might allow me to shed them. At least that's the hope.

For now, I'm waiting for my housemates to move out. I think a couple already have? But I never actually interact with them, so I'm not sure. A shame, that; I wish I wasn't so socially inept, that I hadn't made such a terrible first impression, that I didn't hide away for fears of incompatibility. Anyway, I want them to leave so then I can have this place to myself... though I wonder if that'll just make me feel even lonelier. I want to be able to talk to myself without the fear of being overheard (as if it even matters if they overhear me... but, well, that's how the mind gets irrationally in the way), and I want to be able to experiment with cooking without worrying about someone who feels awkward around me walking into the kitchen (as much because I don't want them to feel awkward as because of my own social anxieties)... But... well. What am I even talking about?

I don't know. I think that writing out these train-of-thought posts can help, though; maybe this did, at least a bit. Better than just doing nothing. Just getting the hands typing spurs the body and mind to shift into a different state.

I need to work on a game over the summer, but I don't know which of my ideas to focus on. I should probably spend the rest of the day focusing on that... though none of them gives me any joy. All I want is to be hugged... Such a simple pleasure, so elusive. Sigh.