Old Habits. in Phoenix

I’m recognizing some behaviors that I’m not certain I should maintain. They feel… trained. Like, I was taught to be this way, to feel this way, and maybe I shouldn’t…

I get bad feelings sometimes. Like, more than just a bad feeling… it’s so bad that it’s like every single awful thing that has ever happened to me is happening all over again at the exact same moment. I can’t breathe and I feel like I’m being crushed under the weight of the absolute certainty that something really terrible (or something that is going to make me feel really terrible) is going to happen.

Or already has.

It feels a bit like walking into a room, into a conversation in progress, and you have no idea what everyone is talking about, but it’s clear they all know something you don’t and so you stand there feeling stupid and looking a fool.

I’m aware that the particular emotion (is it an emotion?) that I feel when this happens, when I’m overcome with this horrible, crushing sadness, is paranoia. Or… it feels like paranoia? I mean, that’s what I’ve always been told it was. “Oh, you’re just being paranoid.” And, I mean, paranoia is a symptom of more than one of the mental illnesses I’ve been diagnosed with and is most definitely a thing I’ve struggled with pretty much all my life - I mean, when you’ve been gaslighted by just about every person who was ever supposed to love and care for you since the day you were born, you get… paranoid. Trust is hard. Believing in good things is hard.

So this thing used to happen with Wanker. I would get myself in this state, you see. I’d work myself up over days, sometimes weeks, noticing small things, subtle changes in his behavior, and I’d basically convince myself that something had changed between us. (I mean, let’s be real, nothing was ever “real” between us, anyway, so of course it would seem as if they’d changed - they had.) I would finally work up the courage to express my feelings to him only to be told I was imagining things, that it was only in my mind. And 7 years of that after 12 years of Sperm Donor doing exactly the same thing, well…

And so now, when these feelings have been creeping up on me again, I find myself wondering: Is it all in my head? Is it just paranoia? Low self-esteem and the inability to fully trust… well, anyone at all… because it’s not just romantically that I experience this feeling. Sometimes I become overwhelmed with the idea that nothing is real. Nothing and no one. And then I loop back around at myself and… gaslight myself? Because I just tell myself the same things I’ve always been told. This is just mental illness. It’s all in my head. I’m imagining things. Nothing has changed, my feelings aren’t valid, I should ignore them.

Except how do you ignore the thoughts in your own head? The thoughts that come no matter how you counter them? The thoughts that always have a counter to your counter?

I’m also starting to feel like “too much.” Too much to deal with, too much baggage, too much emotion, too much. Like a burden. A drain.

And so, I be quiet. Say nothing for hours, no matter how much I want to. I retreat and I put up walls and I isolate and… I berate myself. For everything. Every little thing, every mistake, every bad choice, every shitty emotion, not being able to control it, not feeling capable of… Yes, yes, I know, I’m capable. Gosh, just look at me, still going. Always making my way through everything, figuring everything out, making things happen, finding ways to win at life.

I’m sad and I’m lonely. I don’t know how to not be those things right now. I don’t know how to look at whatever is left of my life laid out before me and not be afraid that I will always be this.

Sure, the depression will pass, (at least temporarily), right? It always does. Sometimes, though, depression feels a bit like alcohol. Makes me feel more honest with myself, even if it hurts. Or am I just gaslighting myself? Am I even capable of believing someone if they tell me, “No, no, that’s not it at all, everything is fine, you have no reason to feel this way”? Like, really believing? Because it’s never been anything but a lie before, so… I’m not sure.

And, at the end of the day, are these not just old “habits” (translation: self-destructive tendencies), or were those old habits just valid intuitive feelings that I was talked out of listening to?

(sigh)