random stuff from age 47

I wrote this some time in the year I was 47, and here I am, life worse than before because I don't even have my disney job anymore. But I don't feel so hopeless today as I did then, for a number of reasons. The main one is having a terrific new therapist.

This is totally random thoughts about where I am right now. I want to start by saying I don’t think I am depressed. I’ve been depressed and when I am, I am unafraid and just want to do nothing. I don’t fear killing myself, I feel resigned to it. Right now I am afraid of those feelings. I fear my future. I hate the way living off my mom makes me feel. I don’t know what the fuck I want from my future. I do want to teach, but getting through the credential program, even just getting into it scares me. I love working at Disneyland, but I need to make more money. I finally wrote a resume. I need to get it to the job guy from rehab. I need to take chances and that scares me, I want to have a safe life hiding here in my home. I want to write and do my job at Disneyland and just be. I can’t just be because I torture myself with guilt. I live in so much guilt over everything. I know every relationship I have ever had, lovers, family friends, have all been fucked up by me and my insecurities and other weirdnesses.
I’ve been accused of crying wolf about the suicidal feelings. I am sorry it seems that way. The feelings are real and I don’t understand them. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to really be dead, I am just afraid of the life I am living. I don’t know how to change. I hear the advice of others and it all seems so simple and it isn’t. I feel like I have an impossible task ahead of me to overcome the fears, the pain, and the guilt. I hurt all of the time. I am in emotional pain and physical pain all of the time. I don’t know what to do about either one. Therapy doesn’t seem to help. Something that does help is trying to see those things I am good at, those things that are good about me. My past sucks. My family of origin was screwed up and it’s only as an adult that I have truly felt love from my parents. I thought they hated me when I was young. I thought I was the reason for every problem in my family, the truth is I still feel like I am the reason form all of the conflict in my family. And why, why do I cause the conflict? Why is it I stay in the bad feelings? Why do I seem to want to feel awful all of the time? I know my physical pain is wearing on me. It’s been 7 years since I hurt my back and it never gets any better. It’s so draining trying to function everyday when no matter what I do I hurt. I try to act like I don’t, but I do.
I never know what to talk about or how to act around other people. I say the wrong things, do the wrong things. I then replay all of the stupid shit I do over and over again hurting over it, embarrassed by it. I can’t let go of anything.
I’ve been waiting for some epiphany that will lift the fog and make everything clear. Looking for that shining moment when it all becomes clear and I change because I see the way it can be. That moment is not going to happen. I want a life changing defining moment. I want a light to go on and be able to see the path to change.
I keep looking to people outside of me to help me. I reach out because living in my head, in my pain, in my fear, I am immobilized. I see nothing but more of the same kind of failure that I have been so far in my life. I hate that I am 47 years old and have failed at making a living, failed at having a family, failed at so many things. I want support but I don’t think I know how to take it when it’s offered. I don’t see what some people do as support.
I am not writing. I just don’t sit down and make myself write something everyday. I sit at the computer a lot and stare at the keys and the blank screen looking for words to appear in my head.
I’m not depressed. I want to do something to change, when I’m depressed I don’t care. If I didn’t care I would not be reaching out for help. If I didn’t care I wouldn’t be so scared.
One of the things I am tired of is beating me up for smoking. I smoke. I am not ready to quit. I know all of the risks and given all that I need to do to fix all of my other troubles I think smoking is the least of my worries. I need to get a handle on my insecurities, fears and guilts and not worry about the smoking. I’m also going to stop worrying about my weight. I’ve lost a lot of weight. I feel better, look better, this is all I need right now. I don’t need to be perfect.
I want to be better, get better. I’m tired of feeling like and acting like I am fucked up. I have accomplished some of the things I have set out to do, like getting my degree. I can finish what I start.
Where is my moment of clarity? When will it all become clear? Maybe it is already. I know where I go wrong. I have been told again and again how to change. I try for a little while and then I go right back to my old ways. I don’t know what happy feels like or how to hold on to it when I have it. I try too hard or not all. I know how to feel bad and I don’t know how to feel good. I’m always looking for outside things to make me feel good, love, sex, shopping, and I don’t look inside myself for the things I can feel good about or be proud of.
Just writing all of this is making me anxious. I feel like I am exposing myself. Maybe I want to feel bad and I want people to pity me. Why? I’ve known this for a long time and I don’t change it. I’m drowning in my own shit and I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve tried thinking positively, but then I take that to an extreme and start hoping for things that aren’t going to happen. I take everything to an extreme. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why do I need so much attention? Why do I need so much validation?
Where do I belong? I want to belong.
I’ve been waiting, waiting for something to happen, but what? I think that the people things happen for go out and make them happen. I think I want some movie or story moment when all is set right.
I’m afraid. I afraid all of the time. I think people only say they like me. I feel like a fraud. I’m smart, I know how smart I am, but then I don’t. I think maybe I’m not as smart as people give me credit for. I learn easily when it comes to facts and certain ideas, if only life came with step by step instructions. I think that’s what I want therapy to be, step by step instructions. Tiny steps, things that build on other things.
I’m writing and writing and hoping that this writing will help me stir into some sort of action. Sometimes I wish I could just hide away in my house. I feel so frozen. I can’t explain all of the stupid fears I have. I want to be part of the world, and I don’t because the world I grew up in, and have lived in as an adult has been unkind to me in so many ways that are so hard to get over.
I want to be able to feel love from other people and I don’t even know if I know what that really feels like.
What does anything I have written here mean anyway? All I still know is I fear letting go because then I won’t care if I die. I fear being alone. I want something to stir me to change and I don’t know what that could be. I am afraid all of the time. I am tired of being afraid. I don’t know how not to be afraid. I’m afraid. I’m afraid to be well and afraid to be sick.
I don’t know what else to write. I sit here and the same damn things come into my head.
My friends make suggestions and I argue because I am afraid. I’m afraid to try to do the things they suggest. I’ve tried so many things and failed that it’s just easier sometimes to find reasons why nothing will work before I try anything. I want the suggestions again. I want to make a list and try, really try to do things that will work.
I feel so alone and yet I know that there are people out there who care about me. I get discouraged because it seems I am always the one to reach out, to try to keep a connection to the people who say they care. They don’t call me, write me, text me. I always seem to be reaching for them and then I think I must be inconveniencing them by interrupting their lives. They all seem so happy in their lives and have no need of me. I want to be needed I want someone to need me, need to talk to me the way I need others. I know my friends cant’ solve my problems I don’t want them to. I just want to know they are interested in me and in seeing me solve them myself. I want my friends to listen as I talk through the stuff. I know they aren’t therapists, but they all have life experience to share with me. I want to be a better listener.