Note to ReadersWell, I decided, 'What the heck; I'll do it.' Little did I know how much it would cause me to reflect on some core issues of mine, bringing more awareness. Awareness, however, is a double-edged sword, or so I've found. Awareness can turn into hyper-awareness, which can then turn into anxiety and dwelling. I'm hoping I don't stab myself with the knowledge, as I'm so proficient at doing.
If you are emotionally sensitive, please consider taking my survey about understanding loneliness. I appreciate your time and your contribution to better understanding emotional sensitivity.
The questionnaire asked various questions about loneliness and emptiness. When writing anonymously through a machine, I suppose I'm better at reflecting. I answered a question about what I fear about being alone by saying that I fear I think everything is futile and essentially give up on life when I'm alone, whereas the right person in the right circumstance can give me the motivation I need to progress in life. Without the right people, I'm at a dead end. That may be relying too much on another person who isn't even in my life at the moment, but that's just how I am. I need to be in a relationship or have a deep and active friendship in order to get even a grain of motivation. Otherwise, futility sticks in my head. I currently have neither.
I've known for a long time, now, that I'm not a risk taker, and rather avoid risks at all costs (inadvertently and ironically a risk in and of itself.) This leads to anxieties, which leads to avoidance, which takes everything good in life away. I virtually have no friends, no social life, and have been leaping and bounding toward agoraphobia. Many days I find myself worrying about the smallest things in the outside world, especially hypothetical job-related situations. For instance, if I got a job at a store at the mall (I've wanted to work at Atmosphere at the mall in the past), but I made even a miniscule mistake with a customer, I would probably go into panic mode, especially since I almost panic just thinking about the hypothetical situation! Another fear is being bad at the job. Then there's forgetting things while working (which would be inevitable), not working well with other employees, my lack of dependability, getting fired, and even more. Pretty much every aspect of working frightens me, makes my heart skip beats or flutter, and makes me uncomfortable.
Now, a lot of this can be applied to interpersonal relationships. In the past, essentially everyone I've ever been friends with has moved out of my life for one reason or another. This has led to an immense, somewhat debilitating fear that such would be inevitable if I tried to get new friends, so I avoid the possibility of losing a new friend altogether by simply not getting new friends! I also have constant, pestering worries about what others think of me, and so I avoid social interactions as much as possible. I also can get very bitter - a kind of long lasting bitterness that sometimes seems to never go away, and so I burn bridges with some people. In many ways, I'm anti-social, yet I crave social interactions. My fears hold me back from exactly what I desire.
Disappointments, high hopes being crushed, feelings of betrayal and abandonment, and disillusionment have all led to a deep-seated cynicism and seemingly endless cluster of fears that hold me back. Progressing in life isn't just a matter of simply 'thinking differently' or 'getting over' these problems. They're engrained in my very nature. My essential being needs to be retrained, rewritten. I've been trained (and/or inadvertently trained myself) to avoid everything that makes life great, and instead block out the world. It'll be harder to break this wall down than the Berlin wall. After nearly a decade of constant retrogression, it'll be drastically more difficult to reverse the damage and get me back on track. On an emotional and interpersonal level, I'm little better than a small child (which emotional and psychological immaturity are also classic signs of borderline, which I still theorise I have, but have yet to be diagnosed with.) And, as I sank deeper and deeper, that bubble got compressed more and more, and there's nothing I need more than to just rise back up to the surface and expand that bubble once again. Ironically, before I was on meds, I was much more socially active and had many fewer anxieties. My other mood and hallucinatory issues took precedence and covered up those anxieties and insecurities.
Imagine if the U.S. post office decided to just shut down for a few months. Imagine the amount of mail that would build up! Now, replace the mail with insecurities and other psychological issues and replace the U.S. post office with my mind. So many issues have piled up that it's no wonder it's daunting and confounding as to how to deal with it. Every time I go to deal with one problem, my mind wanders to another, and another, and another, and so on, until eventually I'm so overwhelmed that I just stop for awhile and then restart all over again. I've tried so long, it seems, to work on these problems on my own (mainly out of necessity) that it seems to have backfired. I've never been good at doing things by myself, and yet that's often my preferred method. I've never learned a second language fluently, or many other knowledges, because I haven't had enough instructors. Life has proven that I cannot do anything long term without the constant guidance of someone else. Reading a book, finishing all of a video game (including the little things), finishing school assignments, writing a story, and so on... I'm essentially a symbiotic creature by nature and require another person around the clock to get things done over a long period of time. Very small things that only take a little devotion, time, and mental fortitude I can do on my own, though.
I just hope that parts of my psyche haven't undergone necrosis and permanently died off, or fallen off, and that it's more resilient. And to call my situation 'complicated' is a gross understatement. If I were to name all of the possibilities that have been brought up as to what my problems may be, it would look overwhelming; for instance: bipolar type schizoaffective, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactive disorder), OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), BPD (borderline personality disorder), GAD (generalised anxiety disorder), and SAD (seasonal affective disorder) are the main highlights of what I may have. Generally, what's addressed most is bipolar, which I've never really had truly clarified. It's more like 'affectivity on the bipolar spectrum.' Now, that's not even mentioning the possible physical issues I could have.
Anyhow, I think this is plenty for this post. It's also been all negative, so no need perpetuating it further.
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