old mistakes

I never felt any pressure when I was doing what I loved. I was busy, stressed, scatterbrained and desperately trying to hold myself together, but there was a pure vein of joy running through everything I did. I would put it off until the last minute, vacillating until with the sheer weight on my shoulders it was all I could do to feed myself and occasionally get a good night’s sleep. Going outside was quite a victory.

All the stress and pressure I heaped on myself, I managed to convince myself it was from outside myself, it was the expectations from myself, it was my upbringing, problems from the past, expectations from the future. I was experiencing this all so vividly, it never occurred I was fabricating it all for myself. I convinced myself it would be worth it (whilst secretly fearing the reverse), and I convinced myself there was a finite supply, that I was working my way through it all and that there would be an end to it (whilst secretly knowing the opposite).

I could feel this down to every pore, cringing and curled in on myself – holding myself alone because I felt so repugnant and horrible, being with other people who could see this terrified me. Some could, some couldn’t, but it influenced all my social interactions – my mission was to leave this all, to enjoy myself. I’ll always feel blessed that my very best friends gave me this freedom, even though it would be short lived – I’d return home on a high, make plans, maybe even do some of them the next day, but then the rot would set in again, and before too long I’d find myself hunched over, recriminating with myself for being so fucking useless, unable to lift a finger to help myself, to do any of the tasks I could easily see infront of me, easily within my capabilities.

Days, weeks and slow years – brilliant times in them, relationships, friends and accomplishments, but all coming back to myself, alone, trying to escape myself and feeling the anguish and all the torment I was capable of. Back time and time again, convincing myself this was as bad as it would get, that plumbing this extreme would eventually yield me the other.

What a load of bullshit. There was no purpose to it, to hard-won victory, nothing gained and the loss? If I catalogued all the opportunities sundered I’d be back where I was. Best not to think about until I’m firmly somewhere else and all my neurons are kicking ass for me again.