At Night

More feelings like I’m going to puke my guts out.

Things About Which I’m Embarrassed

–My body.  It seems like when people see me, I must look scrawny or fat or ugly or something…

–Making any kind of strong stand.  As soon as I latch onto any one solid thing, an opinion, a physical stance, a preference, a belief, I imagine all the ways in which it could be wrong.  Even if it’s something silly, trivial, small, or stupid, it undermines everything.

 

People, in my mind, have way too much power over me.  It’s no wonder that I would feel waves of intense anger and wanting to dominate everyone around me by hurting them and putting them down, making them feel worthless.   I’ve currently set up that structure in my view of the world, and I put myself at the bottom of it.  I don’t seem to place any value on my happiness…. and I don’t require a lot to be happy, so it’s not like it would be some kind of huge, spoiled indulgence to feel okay. 

–My sanity.  I’m embarrassed by the fact that I get so deeply bothered by things, that I can’t seem to deal with life… I just stand in awe of my intense emotions and the exchanges of humans and all the layers within them.  I feel like I have to deal with each layer and each component within the layers one by one, and I just get overwhelmed.  There’s too much.  Everything is going too fast. 

I get embarrassed because guys will call me one of those crazy girls, and I’ll go down in history as one of those faceless nuts where they just shake their head and say, “She was crazy.  I’m so glad you’re not…”

I’m embarrassed because for a long time I was so stable, so independent, so capable when I was young and actually it didn’t even MATTER that much, the world ran along smoothly without me, but now I feel like someone has removed my bones and I’m still trying to stand, and now it does matter because I’m supposed to be an adult.  I want to explain to people, “You don’t understand.  I wasn’t one of those girls.  I knew who I was.  I didn’t follow trends.  I didn’t go in for all that drama bullshit.  I wasn’t like this!  Please don’t write me off!”

 

And I suppose I’m writing these things, because I desperately want someone to know them.  I’ll be a little less misunderstood, even if it’s by someone whom I’ll never meet.  But really, if I understand myself, then the opinions of other people don’t matter… I guess I just wonder sometimes, I wonder if my true self is getting across at all.

I got accepted to Texas Women’s University today.  Surprise! Well, no, but mildly relieving affirmation of my Autumn plans.  Not much else to say.  I ate Chipotle for the first time today… it was remarkably flavorful.  I visited Annie and Lisa at like 11 at night.  I felt like I mostly stared at them from a cocoon.  At least it’s nice to be around people and let it tug at the binding threads, similar to my self-social-acclamation in 4th grade.

 

That brings to mind people saying, “Shouldn’t you be acting older than that by nowww?”  But then what kind of fool would I be to forget my past?

 

It seems like everything in my life has fallen prey to this horrible thing inside me, and I don’t know how to explain to people that it’s not me… or maybe it is me, with ill coping…

Bleh

Then again, I take things too personally.

 

I might be bored right now.  That’s not a good sign.  But I wouldn’t like entertainment, I’d like a purpose. 

Jeez, this is depressing.

Alien

Thinking about the power of words. and the importance of silence.

 

“My roommate”.  I’m not even a “friend”.  Thanks a lot.  Then again, I haven’t been acting like a friend.  Then again, I’m torn between wanting to hang out and MAIM.  Turning in circles to hide everything.

When he talks on the phone to his friends, he sounds SO ARROGANT.  What a tool.  What a tool!  But maybe not.

 

Must I swing drastically back and forth between favor and hatred?  The truth (about people) is actually: them sitting in a room at a table with light falling across their features: there are dark caves and furrows and light brows and bright planes of skin hair teeth eyes and a soul inside, which animates this collection of oddly very real, tangible… parts.  You poke them and your finger doesn’t pass through.  People are mixtures, good and bad.  Yaaaay and ohmygodSHUTUP.

 

I’ve recognized patterns in the world, but I feel different from other people in my perception of things.  Like I look at my own body in the mirror and I feel like I know every pore, freckle, and angle because I’ve seen my body my entire life, but at the same time I feel removed and distant, foreign.  I think the situation is “unaccepting”.  “Denial”.  In seventh grade, I went through a similar dilemma… and I guess I feel a little retarded to be passing through it again.

 

I did, however, have a realization last night that I am experiencing distress and unsettlement, but that they are very normal conditions of the human experience.  This made me feel a smidgen more within life rather than an outsider.  In other words, it would be like my brain said to me, “Hey, who hasn’t felt that way?”

 

I still feel a little like an alien.  Somehow the magnitude of all my experiences of the past few years hits me way too hard.  I can’t process it.  Is this the hang-up in my life and decision-making right now?

The Breakfast Dilemma

Ever since my late teenage years, I’ve faced the breakfast dilemma.  I’m really hungry right now, but what do I eat?  What to eat?  I can’t think of anything that doesn’t seem exhausted by previous years of munchin’.  I guess that’s why I like blended nutritious things.  Easy to make without thinking and easy to shovel down your throat before you can think.  No regrets, usually.

 

Hopefully, I’ll go to a ballet class tonight, if I can solve this breakfast dilemma so my body will stop feeling drained and sunken and I can really start the day… instead of compacting myself into a neutron star typing at a computer.

 

Okay.  If I eat, then I’ll have energy to think clearly and play piano.  I don’t have to launch into crazy purging exercise as is often the threat in my mind barring me from eating a good meal. 

What a threat!  Of course exercise doesn’t sound good right now!  LOW BLOOD SUGAR.

 

I know!  There has been a new entry in my breakfast life: breakfast tacos.  I started eating them when I worked at the dog place, because that was the main staple of the employees there, it seemed.  I guess this was because they were sold at the nearest foodplace, a gas station.  Why am I going into this history?  So hungry.  Anyway, I’d never given them a chance, but then I tried one and it was WONNNDERFUL!

 

I’m ending the post now, not for dramatic punch, but for hunger pangs.  Pang sounds like something ricocheting.  Pa-a-a-a-a-anG.

 

END!

Crazy

I can’t seem to think or feel.

It’s a bad place.

I’m hiding everything, basically my entire person.

Demons are roaring inside of me.  I want to cry.  This sounds so cliche.

I’ve just gotten locked up inside my head.  I can’t tell the person about whom I’m supposed to care anything, because I don’t want to sound like a fool.

Too little honesty.  Too much stifling.

No future.

But I want a future.  I can’t just lay down and die now.  How did I arrive at a point where that would be the only good and fitting conclusion? 

Oh my god, I’m going to look like a crazy.  I just can’t stop it.  I want to be creative again and think freely, take chances, be challenged, but I lack the essential body to do that.  Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god

 

I have to take some action that is authentic…

INFPs struggle with the issue of their ethical perfection

I got myself fired today.  Well, I got myself fired Friday, but for some reason they decided not to tell me until I came into work today for the first time after Friday.  Sammi, the secretary nucleus of the business, talked about my “little episode” on Friday.  I hate that term.  I hate the entire business of it.  She said, “After that, frankly, we’re shocked that you came back.” I just blinked and said, “I’m really sorry”, because I am sorry if someone was hurt, but that’s all I would be sorry for, but I’m pretty sure no one was. 

It was all over a stupid bucket that I dropped into the garbage thing out back, and I couldn’t reach it to get it out, so I decided that I would just find a replacement for it later.  They bought some new ones and wrote “DO NOT THROW AWAY!” on them.  For some reason, this inordinately pissed me off last Friday, maybe because it was crazily busy or at least I felt crazily exhausted.  I hadn’t thrown it away.  I didn’t need reminding of that, like “Guh!  Wha!  Should I throw this away? Oh, I see, no.”  I felt really insulted.  And also, if anyone has noticed it radiating from me, hatred for the job had developed.  I didn’t really like anyone that I worked with, except my manager Bob, kind of.  He was pretty understanding.  That’s probably what I feel worst about, because now he has no one to help him.  And I didn’t want to let Kind Bob down. 

Well, anyway, I grabbed a red sharpie on Friday and wrote “I didn’t throw it away, I dropped it, you fucking idiot” on the lid of the new bucket.  Overreacting?  Probably.  Was I in a stable state?  No.  

Was I thinking, “I probably won’t have this job anymore, and that’s fine”?  Well…. yes. 

 

This makes me realize that I should just quit when I want to quit instead of pushing myself so that, in turn, I push people to get rid of me.  I would rather shoulder the disappointed look on someone’s face when I quit than burn the bridges entirely.

 

I have done that twice now this semester, pissed someone off so I could be free of them.  First with Justin and now with BB&B. 

 

I know that Sammi definitely thinks badly of me, probably she thinks that I’m an immature little kid who needs to grow up, possibly that’s true…  Bob is probably disappointed… Melissa will continue to live in her own oblivious bubble… Danny, the owner, didn’t even give a hint of it when he called me last Saturday, though.  I can’t believe it… what a wussy.  You could have saved yourself some money and me some time if you had just told me over the phone not to come back! 

Shocked that I came back?!  As convenient as it would be for you if I were a one-dimensional Bad Person, I’m not.

I’m a twenty year old girl coming off antidepressants who is stuck against herself and can’t figure out how to get back on her side.  The bell jar has descended.  I’ve felt it slowly lowering throughout this semester.  There are things that I want outside of it, but I will never be able to reach them until I reanimate myself and break the glass. 

So frustrating. 

 

Once I had a dream that I had a heart condition that could only be cured by playing piano.  And now I think that it was one of the most significant dreams I’ve ever been given.  I remember once in the midst of all my high school depression, Lottie came over with her guitar and we just played together for the joy of it.  And I actually felt like myself again for one evening.  I ran up to my mom and hugged her.  Somehow my absent heart had returned, and I felt so full again. 

And today I was contemplating again how the shell of me wants to just lash out and hurt and maim.  But the actual me doesn’t.

Will anything be enough of a jolt to get me out of this?

 

I decided to consult personalitypage.com, because I remember once reading the INFP weaknesses there, and what has happened seems like an exact product of the weaknesses I read:

Most of the weaker characteristics that are found in INFPs are due to their dominant Feeling function overshadowing the rest of their personality. When the dominant function of Introverted Feeling overshadows everything else, the INFP can’t use Extraverted iNtuition to take in information in a truly objective fashion. In such cases, an INFP may show some or all of the following weaknesses in varying degrees:

• May be extremely sensitive to any kind of criticism
• May perceive criticism where none was intended
• May have skewed or unrealistic ideas about reality
• May be unable to acknowledge or hear anything that goes against their personal ideas and opinions
• May blame their problems on other people, seeing themselves as victims who are treated unfairly
• May have great anger, and show this anger with rash outpourings of bad temper
• May be unaware of appropriate social behavior
• May be oblivious to their personal appearance, or to appropriate dress
• May come across as eccentric, or perhaps even generally strange to others, without being aware of it
• May be unable to see or understand anyone else’s point of view
• May value their own opinions and feelings far above others
• May be unaware of how their behavior affects others
• May be oblivious to other people’s need
• May feel overwhelmed with tension and stress when someone expresses disagreement with the INFP, or disapproval of the INFP
• May develop strong judgments that are difficult to unseed against people who they perceive have been oppressive or suppressive to them
• Under great stress, may obsess about details that are unimportant to the big picture of things
• Under stress, may obsessively brood over a problem repeatedly
• May have unreasonable expectations of others
• May have difficulty maintaining close relationships, due to unreasonable expectations

Explanation of Problems

Nearly all of the problematic characteristics described above can be attributed in various degrees to the common INFP problem of only taking in data that justifies their personal opinions. INFPs are usually very intense and sensitive people, and feel seriously threatened by criticism. They are likely to treat any point of view other than their own as criticism of their own perspective. If the INFP does not learn how to deal with this perceived criticism, the INFP will begin to shut out the incoming information that causes them pain. This is a natural survivalistic technique for the INFP personality. The main driver to the INFP personality is Introverted Feeling, whose purpose is to maintain and honor an intensely personal system of values and morals. If an INFP’s personal value system is threatened by external influences, the INFP shuts out the threatening data in order to preserve and honor their value system. This is totally natural, and works well to protect the individual psyche from getting hurt. However, the INFP who exercises this type of self-protection regularly will become more and more unaware of other people’s perspectives, and thus more and more isolated from a real understanding of the world that they live in. They will always find justification for their own inappropriate behaviors, and will always find fault with the external world for problems that they have in their lives. It will be difficult for them to maintain close personal relationships because they will have unreasonable expectations, and will be unable to accept blame.

Its not an uncommon tendency for the INFP to look to the external world primarily for information that will support their ideas and values. However, if this tendency is given free reign, the resulting INFP personality is too self-centered to be happy or successful. Since the INFP’s dominant function to their personality is Introverted Feeling, they must balance this with an auxiliary Extraverted iNtuitive function. The INFP takes in information via Extraverted iNtuition. This is also the INFP’s primary way of dealing with the external world. If the INFP uses Extraverted iNtuition only to serve the purposes of Introverted Feeling, then the INFP is not using Extraversion effectively at all. As a result, the INFP does not take in enough information about the external world to have a good sense of what’s going on. They see nothing but their own perspective, and deal with the world only so far as they need to in order to support their perspective. These individuals usually come across as selfish and unrealistic. Depending on how serious the problem is, they may appear to be anything from “a bit eccentric” to “way out there”. Many times other people are unable to understand or relate to these people.

I can’t believe that I’m such a flawed piece of shit.  Why do I exist.  How on earth could I have made it through natural selection.  I wish Steven were here.  He would have something to say that would put things in perspective about how I’m actually not that bad of a person.  He would talk to me from his rational, grounded point of view that I completely lack.

I got this song stuck in my head from work, and it’s a sort of old folk-pop thing… I like it.  It’s catchy.  I’m trying to find it by listening to samples of possible artists on Amazon.  I think it might be Neil Diamond.  That made me a little ashamed at first, but, then again, my reputable metal-fan brother likes Neil Diamond, so it’s not even much of a stretch for me.

It’s just a little hokey. 

But it’s still in my head…

Eleven Songs

So I think I’m going to puke right now.

 

Because I’m pretty sure Justin’s already in love again.  Or not in love, but fascinated by some girl in East Texas and, you know, drawn to her and thinking that she’s all special and maybe she is

and I FEEL LIKE I SHOULDN’T EXIST.  I have no right to know anything about him or feel anything about him.  I’m out of the picture. 

I shouldn’t have felt like my stomach was caving in when I read something vague he wrote and saw her online greeting.  Such small things.  And yet the pieces all come crashing together.  And. I. Know.

 

And I can see far ahead of me to a time when this won’t matter, but what do I do with my emotions right now?  Because I can’t deny the sort of sledgehammer effect it had on me.  BAM.  YOU ARE FORGOTTEN.  HE’S FLOATED ON.

 

I guess it’s just changeshock.

 

I just heard my housemate’s door open and close.  I really hope she’s not coming over here to ask me to turn down Liz Pappademas.  Please no.  Please don’t take that away from me right now.  Oh wait.  Headphones.  Right.

 

I actually recorded a lot of demos today.  And had never contemplated this whole “demo” thing before yesterday, when my friend Matt said that he had recorded some demos. 

“Whoa, wait, you can do that with your time?  Record skeletons and ideas of songs? …Of course!” 

It’s great.  I went through five today, and I don’t have to worry about trying to keep them all separate and organized in my head anymore.  They’re out.  I even have one where I did some layering that I think sounds beautiful already.  I want to share it with people.  I’m excited.

 

Someone said that when a romantic relationship ends, it’s like mourning a death, because you are mourning that possibility of the future that has died.  I think it’s true.  That is what I’m doing, putting to rest with thoughts and talking and art all that had flowered in my head during the brief time of togetherness. 

 

A guy who possessed the same spiritual beliefs as me–R.I.P.

A guy who had the same sense of humor as me–R.I.P.

A guy who was affectionate because I can’t initiate that until he does.  SHY!–R.I.P.

A guy who was kind to me–R.I.P.

A future that could’ve been spent together in peace and laughter, as idyllic as that sounds… that’s how we coexisted–R.I.P., R.I.P., R.I.P.

rip rip rip rip rip rip

fuck

fuck fuck fuck