It just feels better.

It just feels better. That's the only way I can explain it. I just feel better when I'm done. I feel human again.

People have all sorts of reasons why they self-harm. I have mine. Rather, I've had mine, as they've changed a couple of times. The first time, I was aiming for death. I was too young, too confused to be able to process and live through what was going on in my life (or so I thought). That's the first self-inflicted scar I have, and it's the one that's most faded. But it's still there. It reminds me every day of how far I've come.

After that first try, it took several years for my habit to manifest. I became aware of the dark and dangerous alley in which self-mutilation resides. I learned about how some people used it as an escape, a plea for help or attention, a way to feel their mental or emotional pain in a physical way. I learned about cutting, scratching, and burning.

The first time I ever did it myself I don't even remember what I used. But I remember where I was. In fact, I remember such great detail, what I used is the only blank. I was sitting on the tile floor of my bedroom, leaning against a frameless mattress that had a white-with-tiny-red-roses sheet. My right ankle was crossed over my left thigh and I was cutting across my ankle, from the shin to the tendon. I was wearing pajama pants so that if I felt footsteps I could cover myself quickly. I had been cleaning my room. I watched as my blood seeped from my skin. I scratched a little more, and a little more. Gently, always very gently. Eventually I had a beautiful straight red line across my ankle, and a paper towel dabbed bright red. I took a deep breath and smiled. I felt better.

Shortly after that first try, I tripped and fell or something, twisted my ankle and my mother had taken me to the hospital. After removing my clothes and socks, the doctor examined my legs. Raising an eyebrow he asked, "What's this?" Of course, I said it was a cat scratch. He nodded slightly and left the exam room. My mother looked at me disappointed, "He knows that's not a cat scratch." I didn't know what to say. I didn't hear anything about it thereafter.

I have since come up with other ways to explain away my injuries. I am quite accident-prone by nature, it's not a far cry for me to have tripped over something at any given moment. I have worked at places where it is very easy to get bumps, cuts, and bruises.

A week ago I hurt myself, alone, for the first time in a very long time. Did it without thinking. I took a pocketknife and was just scratching at my skin. Not cutting, just scratching over and over and over. It's taken a few days for me to be able to peel it again; it's not a scab I'm used to. But after a while, here I am looking at this wide gouge in the side of my arm. This will not heal pretty. But it felt so much better afterwards. I took a breath and just felt better.

Meds Haven't Been Working.

I know that the Bupropion is making my head case worse. Sunday night I cried myself to sleep, wishing not to wake up Monday morning. Tonight I cried looking at the clock at 10:57, realizing that I needed sleep because I have a long, clandestinely painful day tomorrow and I need the rest, and damnit I already want the day to be over so I can crawl back into bed and forget the day ever happened. (You know, the one that hasn’t happened yet.) Every time I try to sleep I start sobbing and my brain feels like it’s about to implode. So I play mindless games on my phone, scroll through Facebook and Pinterest and Wanelo to take my mind off of my life. I put my phone down and start crying again. I don’t know how to handle this. I can’t abandon my work for my health. I am in a position where I am the only person in the office that does what I do. I need to be there. But I feel like I should be somewhere else, somewhere safe. I need to be fixed.

People keep trying to help by saying they know great doctors. I’d love to go to these places but I won’t be able to. As it is, these two ER trips are going to cost at least $1500, plus a hundred in office visit copays, plus ER doctor and radiography bills, plus the hundred dollar premium every month for this awesome insurance. I’m going to have a hard enough time paying for what’s already happened, let alone out of pocket for some great doctor that’s not going to be in network. Add to that the debt of student loans I haven’t even started paying, the car payment that keeps slipping more and more behind every month, and the fact that I’m turning 25 in a week and can’t support myself. I know that I’m not the only person in the world with money problems. But I am drowning and every time I think about things I need, I think about their cost and how, if I take time off of work like I should, like I need to, there is no hope. I know I’m not the only person in the world with health and mental problems, either. But I don’t know how to ask for help. I don’t know how to take interest in myself.

It used to be that I’d spend a moment or two every day thinking about death. I haven’t been suicidal for several years, but I’d just think about death a lot. I’m just not a happy person. I don’t know what made it change. But now, I just want tomorrow to be over. And the next day, and the next until I have a day where I’m not obligated to do anything and I can just lay in bed and leave the world out of my head. I don’t care about work. I don’t care about projects I’ve started for myself or other people. I don’t care about keeping my room clean or the furniture moving I’ve had planned in my head. I don’t care about anything. Now, I find myself thinking it might not be such bad luck to get hit by some driver not paying attention, or thinking about all of those pills sitting in my bag, then realizing I don’t even know if it’d be enough. I hurt myself again the other day without even thinking about it. Completely absentmindedly. What now?

Not to mention I find myself feeling like I’ve let down Mr. Fantastic and my family. My parents looked at me like I was an alien when I told them what the Bupropion was for. They looked at me like I was a different person, a stranger. When I start crying for no apparent reason, Mr. Fantastic desperately asks if there’s anything he can do or say to help. I don’t know what to tell him because I don’t want him to tell him how I feel. I almost don’t want him to know how fucked up my brain feels. I don’t want him to think that I don’t love him, that he doesn’t mean the world to me. People in relationships with those that try to kill themselves tend to get a little offended that the suicidal person didn’t think about anyone else. But it’s not like that. He’s the reason I know I wouldn’t. It would kill him.  But I can’t bring myself to tell him that I have zero feeling for the rest of the world. That if I could just go to sleep and not wake up for a while, it’d make me unbelievably happy. I can’t bring myself to say that that’s what makes me cry, the desperate longing for a black void, the hopelessness that it’s not a wish able to be granted. That somehow, somewhere I will have to find the ability to get out of bed in three hours (from now) to go to work, plaster a smile on my face for twelve hours, before finally being able to be done with it. For one day. Just to start it all over again.

My Love, I love you. You are my whole world. You’re the one puzzle piece that connects them all together: the good ones, the bad ones, the edges and the insides. I want to be able to tell you everything all the time but I just can’t. I need you to understand that when I start crying for no apparent reason, it’s enough for you to just be there. You don’t ever need to say anything. There’s nothing you’re obligated to do. If I can tell you what’s going on, I will. Don’t stop trying to make me smile. Every time I do, it makes me forget everything else for a little while, even if only for a moment. I know it’s hard to understand when I can’t put anything into words. Just know that when it feels like the whole world is crushing me like an ant, you hold my hand or hold my shoulders and I know that I want to feel that for a really long time.

7/29/14

Death of a Person

We are all dying. Our days are numbered. Yours, mine. There will come a time when we will cease to exist.

My body will stop working; the cells and tissue that make up my being will give up. Blood will stop pumping, pores and sweat glands will run dry. Every single muscle that lies beneath my skin will come to rest, never to flex again. Marrow will seep from my bones, leaving them desolate and fragile. Joints will separate, tendons will go limp. The muscle that pumps in my chest will slow to a stop, like a battery running out of acid. My lungs can finally rest after a lifetime of ceaselessly drawing in and pushing out air. Organs will shrivel into pruny, useless masses. The electrical and chemical impulses that dominate brain functions will sizzle away into nothingness, the soft squishy tissue calcifying, no longer bothering to tell the rest of my body what to do in order to survive.

All of my scars and calluses, the titles of the chapters of my life, will mean nothing. My voice will be locked away, into a treasure chest that has no key. My dreams will sink into a deep abyss, never to be wakened or realized again. Every step I’ve taken on this planet will be forgotten, every whisper that has escaped my lips will only drift on the winds of both summer rains and hurricanes.

My body will go somewhere, I suppose, something people will call an “eternal resting place.” But there is no such thing, really. Graveyards are torn up all the time to make new space for new dead, the plots of members of families long gone not as important as that of the daughter a middle-aged mother must bury. Even urns might get passed around a family, until the last family member has a vast collection of them, and then they die, too. So, where will my body wind up? Where will this empty bag of bones, this floppy sack of dead weight, this collection of useless body parts finally settle?

We are all dying. Every day could very well be our last.

Usually, there is still so much to accomplish, so much to see. There are more experiences to ensnare in the weak and flimsy grip that human memory provides. There is always more to suffer through and learn from. There is still so much World left to discover. But when it comes down to it, none of that will matter. At the end, nothing matters.

Sometimes I welcome the reprieve with open arms. 

..........

There is a heavy lump that has settled into my chest. It is always suspended there, no matter how many times I cough to try and release it. Sometimes it chills me to the bone; other times it burns hotter than the fires of hell. For the most part, it hides. But very subtly, it shows itself. It manifests. It is every beautiful scar I’ve given myself. It is all the brutal looking ones that started as paper cuts or animal scratches (the ones I always make worse). It is the pair of bags under my eyes I see when I catch my reflection. It is the somber, brooding mood I always find myself in. It is the fact that living alone has become difficult.

I am so tired of saying “I’m fine.” I’m on the verge of mental breakdown all the time, but the wonderful thing about people is (for the most part) they’re not obligated to care. What’s more, anyone not capable of controlling their emotions at work (aka “acting normal”) is considered weak, sometimes even a spectacle, something to stare at. I desperately need a shoulder to cry on, both figuratively and literally. Someone who will listen without judging me or my feelings. As I write that, I realize how pathetically lonely it makes me sound. How can I be so lonely? That in itself is hard enough to wrap my head around, let alone naming justifications. I mean, it’s not for lack of company. I suppose there are two kinds of loneliness, those being of the physical and mental sorts (of course, this is probably not news to philosophers, mental doctors, and the like, but it’s news to me). Like I say, physically, I’m not in need of company. There are always people around. I work with people around at any one given time. There’s always someone home. Even my car rides! I only drive myself to and from work once or twice a week. But in my head, I am constantly feeling pressured to just keep my thoughts to myself, to shut up, because no one wants to hear my problems. I suppose my parents would listen, because they are my parents and they love me. However I find it harder and harder to relate with them as time goes on, and that makes it more difficult in turn to “confide” in them, as it were. I’m at a loss for ways to keep from losing my mind.


Note: This was written months ago on paper, and only just now typed and uploaded.

The Children I Don't Want

I decided at 17 that I didn’t want to have kids. I was so sure that I even discussed it with my parents, asking them not to share the knowledge with my younger sister for fear of pressuring her into having lots of children to make up for my lacking.

The way I saw it was that at the time I was working two small part-time jobs and going to school. I loved being busy and running around to stay on top of it. Loved it all. I knew that if I wanted to maintain that lifestyle, I would never be capable of raising a child properly; the way that I was raised, the way that I’d expect myself to raise a child. I wouldn’t be able to stand putting my kid in and out of daycares and babysitters because I was always working. It’s not fair to the child. Is that so wrong?

I’m so tired of being told, “Not even one? Sure, you don’t want kids now, but you’re still young, that’ll change.”  There’s always a smug, knowing grin that accompanies this statement. It irritates me. Who are you, hypothetical person, to tell me how and when my opinions on such a personal matter will change? Who are you to predict how I will choose to live my life? Do you think that you’re going to win some sort of prize if I ever do change my mind? Will something catastrophic happen if I don’t?

“But you’d make a great mom!” Yes, I’m sure I would. I was raised by good parents. I have learned valuable lessons through things they’ve taught me and by mistakes I’ve made. I have no doubt in my mothering potential. (Potential. Important word, here.) But that’s not a path that I want to take. Not only is this totally irrelevant to what is ultimately MY decision, when someone says that to me, all it ever sounds like is empty flattery. How would you, hypothetical person, know, anyway? You don’t know me that well at all. You don’t know my home life. You don’t know much about me at all. How can you possibly validate that statement?

The cherry on top at this point? Not only is it impossible to fit a child into my lifestyle, but living paycheck to paycheck making barely more than minimum wage is not the kind of financial situation a child should be born into. Not in my eyes. So if you, hypothetical person, would like to pick up the bills and put food on our table, then sure, why not. But I doubt that.

So, my most basic questions are: Why is it so clearly socially acceptable to pose rude questions about someone else’s very personal lifestyle choice? Why does it make me less of a woman because I choose not to bear children? Why am I deemed selfish for not expressing the desire to bring another life into this already overpopulated world? And finally, why is it any of anyone else’s damn business?

Trapped

I want to set up my own Christmas tree. Or not. I want to have to do the dishes, and be able to put them away wherever and however I see fit.  I want to have to go into a different room to pick a movie. I want to be able to buy artwork for the walls.  I want an entertainment center that can hold all of our gaming systems, controllers, games, and other accessories. I want to be able to stock my own refrigerator. I want a room where I can leave all my scrapbook supplies and projects out, guilt-free. I want a closet where I have spare sheets and pillowcases, a stack of towels and washcloths, and rows of candles. I want a washer and dryer.

I want to have to call my mother and ask how many pounds of beef she used to use to make meatloaf, and what was that secret ingredient?  I want to walk around in a big Tshirt and not be judged. I want a sofa. I want a basement that is not moldy and dirt-ridden. I want a dog. I want to have to mow the lawn or weed the garden.  I want a good sound system and a place to store the collection of music that I don’t have in an aesthetically pleasing way. I want a place where both of our cars can have a roof over their heads. I want to be able to clean the shower, and know that it will stay clean because I’ll do it again tomorrow. I want to have a place to put my clean clothes.  I want to be able to come home and know what to expect, and to be pleased with what I find.

I want to open my mailbox and see our names, and only ours, on everything we receive. I want to call Dad for help fixing my brakes or changing the motor oil. I want to be able to stay up until I’m ready for bed and not have to be worried about waking others because I tripped over something they left on the floor in the kitchen. I want to rest assured that the food in the cabinets is neither expired nor something I know we’ll never eat. I want to have a five-gallon glass penny-jug. I want to be able to eat at the kitchen table. I want to scrub the floors and vacuum the carpet. I want to host Thanksgiving dinner, and do all the work for a change, instead of my aging grandmother. I want a room full of books. I want him to have a room all to himself, just as I want a room all for me. 

In short, I’ve lived in the same room, in the same house, for my entire life. But priorities win out, all the time. 

Questions. Concerns. Wonders.

Have you ever questioned your state of mental health? Not your sanity, but your mental health.  There are plenty of mental illnesses that don't quite qualify their victims as "insane." We’re all different, that’s one of the greatest things about humanity.  People’s minds work in different ways.  But what if there is a reason for the way I see the world, the way I see it that is so different from the people around me? What if there is something abnormal about the way my brain is wired? What if there was a solution to the problems I’ve had for as long as I can remember?

I'm afraid to approach my family, my fear of being dismissed as "silly" or "melodramatic" overrules my yearning for answers. I don’t have a collection of friends that I can turn to, not even a small one. I’m even afraid to ask my husband for help. I’m paranoid that he won’t take me seriously, or that he’ll try to convince me of otherwise. I’m not close enough with my coworkers to ask for help, and they don’t know me well enough, either.  They don’t know my past.  It would explain so much if I could only get some answers. If I could explain why I am the way I am, why I say something the way I say it, or that I say it at all. Why I usually find a way of doing things that are different from the norm. Why I have trouble with eye contact during casual conversations. Why I’m always moving. If I could just have a reason, it’d be so much easier to understand.

It’s interesting how my love of reading caused me to come across all of these thought processes. I’ve always loved to read.  It was, and still is, a doorway to a place where I could tune out everything around me, and enter someone else’s world for an hour or two, or maybe even a whole day.  I still have most of the books I’ve ever owned, and even now it pains me to think of parting with them. 

I’ve always loved words.  They are beautiful things, each individual grouping of letters meaning something different, or in some cases, the same. Words are powerful. They can change the world, when spoken in the right context to the right people, and when coming from the right voice. They provide a window to people’s innermost workings, the cogs and gears, the hinges and sockets of their minds, hearts, and souls. But when they go unuttered, they are worthless. Hopefully, words will help me understand.

I’ve never had a problem with speech. I developed at the right age, from what I’m told. But I was always very shy as a young girl. But even though I developed my speech properly, I regularly say things differently than ordinary people would. I also trip over my words, I always have.  Very clearly I remember constantly trying to say something, my mind seeing the words I want to say like on a page in a book, and my tongue not getting itself around them as quickly.

I have excellent hearing. I used to attribute this to the years of music classes that I put in during school. Music was my life. Every musician says that, it’s a cliché that all of us believe in. Once a musician, always a musician. Even though I haven’t picked up my instrument in three and half years (at time of writing), I can still read music, I can still appreciate everything I’ve ever known about it.  But after I discovered the small amount of talent I had, I felt it like it was in my blood. It was in my cells. It was my very nervous system. I understood my instrument, there was no limit to what it could do at my command.

I started orchestra in elementary school. Our lessons were structured in such a way that our respective sections (violin, viola, cello/bass) met for part of our school day and learned about the most basic rules of music. The following Saturday, we’d come meet at the junior high for a group rehearsal including the entire orchestra. This went on all year, and by the summer we would scratch out a few short tunes, our parents smiling in the audience, so proud that their little boy or girl was more cultured now.  This could be their future. This could be something that changed their lives. As that summer passed and all of those tiny little fifth graders progressed into Junior High (how exciting!), we got to have orchestra class.  We then practiced daily with the entire orchestra, and our collective talent grew. Some of us developed passion. Some of us found a natural talent for creating melody, harmony, and rhythm. By the end of junior high, I knew that I loved my art. I was decent at it, for someone my age and with my level of learning.

Going into high school, I was told that due to my courseload, the classes I was taking at their scheduled times would not allow me to enroll in the entry level orchestra. I was upset, but there wasn’t much I could do about it as a freshman. By this time, my sister was also in the junior high orchestra, and it was at one of her concerts that I realized, I needed this as part of my life.  Watching her perform with her own orchestra, I didn’t realize there were tears streaming down my face until after they were finished.  I missed it so much, I couldn’t not go back as soon as I could.  I was being deprived of something I truly enjoyed. I wouldn’t stand for it. I spent the next three years of my life immersed in music. I played quartet and quintet gigs wherever I could find them: weddings, awards parties, some weddings, formal township meetings, and more weddings.  I was a part of the pit orchestra for the school’s productions of Guys and Dolls and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. I learned about musicals and how much I loved them all. Everything from Phantom of the Opera to Wicked, from Rent to Cats, from The Fiddler on the Roof to all sorts of rock operas, I love them all. I haven’t found a musical I don’t like. There is something about telling a story with music that just sets everything else aside, puts the world on hold for a while, and changes the way we see it all. But what was more important was not only the fact that music changed the way I see the world and the music in it, but it honed my hearing.

At the peak of my music experience, my musically trained ear could pick up on different layers of a piece, and something would happen in my head that I still can’t explain adequately. What I experienced when I heard a piece of music was something I treasured and enjoyed, but most of my peers couldn’t understand, so I didn’t talk much about it.  Music has layers. Different voices in different ranges create a complex weave of sound that exists all at the same tempo, if not the same rhythm. I could see all of this, without having the music in front of me.  I couldn’t just picture the sheet music as I was listening, I wasn’t some child prodigy.  But what I could see were the colors and textures of the piece, moving and flowing with the melody, then on the bottom or in the background the low, deep powerful strokes of the bass and drums, or other lower voices. I could watch the harmony dance and meld with the melody, giving it a solid support structure. Complex, high-tempo pieces were my favorite for this. Anything with fast notes dancing all over the staff created an elaborate artwork that only I could see, but reflected the music in such a way that overwhelmed me. This vision, for lack of a better word, happened with all types of music. Classical, rock, a capella, metal, pop, alternative, new age, electronic, anything.

Some of my favorite pieces/songs visually:

• Evan Rachel Wood’s Blackbird
• Demons & Wizards’ Fiddler on the Green
• Rammstein’s Das Modell
• Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade
• Mumford & Sons’ Little Lion Man and Thistle and Weeds and the rest of Sigh No More
• Nickelback’s If Everyone Cared
• Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee as performed by The Five Browns
• AC/DC’s Back in Black
• Mikhail Glinka’s Russlan and Ludmilla
• Graham Colton’s Best Days
• Gustav Holst’s Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity along with the rest of The Planets
• Imogen Heap’s Hide and Seek
• Simon & Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair
• Yanni’s Santorini
• La Vie Boheme from Rent
• Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24) and Mad Russian’s Christmas
• Yo-Yo Mah’s Meyer : 1B
• The entirety of Hans Zimmer’s Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack
• The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus’ Your Guardian Angel
• Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture
• Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody
• Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture
• …and tons more.

I can hear certain sounds at certain times that either no one, or only a select few people around me pick up on. But sometimes I have trouble hearing normal speech. It’s easier if I can focus on a stationary object while listening, but I’ve been reprimanded for this “avoiding eye contact” so many times throughout the years. Oftentimes, after a conversation, I can recall the words that were exchanged very clearly for a brief amount of time, generally anywhere from a few hours up to a day. But then parts of the conversation that was had begin to trickle away, and all that are left in my memory are a few power words here and there. Mostly what I’m left with are memories of whatever emotions I felt during that conversation. I often feel pressured to ask people to repeat what they’ve said multiple times because I don’t catch it the first time.  It takes some time for me to be comfortable talking with people, even as an adult. But after being at ease with interacting with new coworkers for a while I feel like they get very frustrated with me, so I resort back to distancing myself from them in an effort to not have “huh?” be my most commonly uttered word of the day all the time. I’m also told I mumble, constantly, which is ironic, I suppose. The one that is constantly having a hard time hearing others cannot make herself heard, either.

I’ve also had very self-destructive habits. I spent several years as what society calls a “cutter.” I say this about society because I believe I did it for different reasons than others “like me.”  I loved watching my blood seep out of my tissue. It’s a beautiful thing. The same blood that makes our veins blue and our cheeks pink pours out of skin in a way that is its own dance.  I became obsessed with my scars and still love them, even today. I love how they feel under my fingertips. I loved peeling away the skin that was trying to heal, to watch the blood spill out of me all over again. But nothing compared to the cold steel of the razor blade against my skin. Nothing. Even now, after so long having not cut myself intentionally, if I get hurt the people around me are constantly telling me to "stop picking." I can't leave things alone. Blisters, scabs, scrapes, dead skin.  I peel it all, constantly.  My fingertips hardly have fingerprints because I am constantly peeling off my flesh. 

Something that I can’t suppress is constant motion. Walking, running, skating, taking a shower, and cleaning, all of these things are fine. But I can’t just sit in a car. I can’t just lay in bed. I can’t just watch a movie. Standing in one place is impossible. Some part of me is always moving. I’m constantly annoying the people around me with my leg jiggling or foot waving. This has been the case for as long as I can remember. I pivot my heel when I sit in the car. I pace or walk around in circles while I wait for the start-of-shift meeting at work. I used to do laps around the house when I was younger and had nothing to do. When I’m at home alone with no one to witness it, as I’m sitting on my bed writing or playing video games, I rock back and forth. I tap my fingers. And when someone, as they always do, glares at me, or grabs my knee or finger, or tells me to “quit shaking!” I resort to tapping my big toe inside my shoe. I don’t know why, and I don’t know where it comes from. All I know is that when I stop moving completely, my muscles get all tense and they start to hurt. Sometimes they start to spasm. It’s very uncomfortable, being reprimanded for an almost involuntary motion. Sometimes I just want to yell back, “How would you like it if I told you to stop breathing?”

Which takes me back to the most important thing of all, and that is the difficulties I have with talking to people in general. I’ve already mentioned that it takes a while to warm up to others. Generally, the timeline is as such:

·         The initial meeting that includes a smile, some names, and maybe a handshake.

·         [Time period where I tend to ignore others around me.]

·         Awkward stage where others try and ask me questions about myself. In order to give the answer justice, I tend to go overboard on details and a simple question ends up taking minutes to answer instead of a few seconds.

·         I avoid conversation for fear of the above happening again.

·         Gradually, very slowly, I get to know them and they get to know me.

·         For one reason or another we separate, either because of loss of employment, relocation, death, etc. The strange thing about this part of the cycle is this: usually I don’t really miss them. That sounds horrible, because while I worked with those people, or while I went to school with them (or whatever the case may have been), I might have honestly enjoyed their company, but most of the time I feel disconnected to them after the fact. They become a name and a face, little else. Does that make me a bad person?

 Now, what got all this started is a compilation of several things. I tend to express myself differently than my peers. I have a lot of trouble making and keeping eye contact during conversation, tending to look over their shoulder at a fixed point in the background, or something similar. I’ve been told this is rude and impolite, and so I try to look into their eyes, I really do. But it makes me uncomfortable (much like being still), so I always wind up looking away again.  I’ve had to learn to keep things to myself which, in turn, forces me to remain quiet a lot of the time. When there is news of death and destruction all over the globe, I see the faces around me contort into what I know is called sympathy. Much of the time, however, I just can’t bring myself to feel it. Does this make me evil?

I don’t like crowds, I will actively avoid having to be amid a large amount of people. I loathe carnivals and other celebratory events. I’ve never been to a “house party” in my life (You know the kind. Loud music, young people that shouldn’t be drinking but are anyway, no parents, etc.) I can’t stand watching a movie in a crowded theatre, I’d much prefer either waiting to watch it at home or waiting until it is no longer a new release and there will be less people around. I don’t like the pressure to conform to whatever the crowd is doing, I’d much rather just sit back and watch. I’m often terrified that partaking in some of these activities only opens myself up for criticism or ridicule. Supposedly, most people feel the same way, but they “grow out of it.” So why do I still feel these things so strongly?

Everything considered, there’s either something wrong with me mentally or I’m just really, really, REALLY weird and maybe a hypochondriac. But which is it? And how long do I have to go brooding about this before I finally summon up the courage to ask for help? What do I do?

7/2/11