Happy endings feel so bad

I watched a heartwarming film on Thursday. It was a wonderful story about love that started out as just a random meeting at school. It ended with two of the protagonists ending up together.

I enjoyed this film greatly. Following the usual path of meeting, discovery, awkwardness, and resolution, it was still satisfying.

But the happy ending ended up feeling quite sad for me, personally. I always wanted some companionship, but have grown up in a place where I'm far removed from the kind of scenario shown in that film. Even now, far removed from school, I find myself isolated and quite lonely for the companionship of another.

I'm a little jealous, if I'm honest, of the people that got to experience some kind of young love, or dating, while still in school. I experienced little more than being either in trouble, or being a laughingstock.

I'm older now, my school days are behind me. I can't go back, but then again, if going back meant having to go through all the stuff I went through again, being laughed at and punished for seeking companionship, I wouldn't choose to go back. That is, if it were even an option.

I'm frustrated by my circumstances, but I'm also sure that people would say that if it bothers me that much, I should be doing more to change them. As if it is that simple. Or maybe it is, and it hasn't been enough of a priority yet. Either way it still hurts.

The worst pain I can imagine is the pain felt when my body and soul both hurt and there's nothing that can be done. I'm not exactly there, but these feelings are so strong and so difficult, it figuratively hurts to the point of feeling it physically. Worst of all is that no matter how it hurts, I still find it nearly impossible to cry. Not because I don't want to, but because of the emotional, spiritual, and verbal abuse I experienced in my youth, I can only cry in times of similar levels of torment.

The tears don't come, and so the pain stays where it is, building up, nowhere to escape it. So maybe I should stop reading and watching things with happy endings. After all, not everyone gets one.

More, again

I just want to take a moment to vent.

I am sad. Disappointed, and angry at myself. I never seem to fall for guys I have any chance of being with.

Another crush, probably the most powerful one I've had in a decade has resulted in the truth of the futility of my feelings being made plain again.

Why am I even trying?

My actions proving pointless endeavors, accomplishing not my goals, but yet more cruel torture.

I am having a hard time coping with these feelings. I dare not allow myself to feel them, doing so would thus crush me, destroy me as I would lose what little good I have somehow stockpiled. My endeavors of freedom from debt would vanish as I would become unable to move, much less work.

I dare not numb these feelings, either. To do so will again slay the connection to my emotions. Something hard fought to forge after so many years of practiced avoidance of them.

I desire to scream "please, someone save me", but it would serve no purpose. I desire to yell at the world "someone love me!", but again nothing would be gained.

How am I able to function at all, as broken as I've become? I am less than human. I am less than alive, yet not dead.

My survival rote and I nothing more than a recording, playing back what I have practiced.

This darkness slices through my chest, and all the love, the light, the joy, all the good in my life disappears.

Even telling my family makes no difference. Telling my friends is no more than selfishly burdening them with my problems. They are powerless to help. So why share this pain with them when they hold not the cure?

I want to cry. I want to be held in a warm embrace and be told how desirable I am. I want to be reassured that love is not a pipe dream.

Instead, I lie in the darkness of my room, in a bed that is cold and empty except for myself. In the darkness, all alone, I bask in the emptiness in my heart. The place I so desperately want to fill with love for someone else, festering in my heart. My soul cries out agony in a small whimper. Too damaged to even yell any longer.

I just want someone to look at me. Nobody ever looks at me.
Why can't people see me?
Why have I become invisible?
Have I ever existed?

I will just shut up. Nobody cares about these problems anymore and even if they did, the people who care can do nothing to help. And the people who could help have no reason to do so. They do not see me, and those who see what they think of as me do not see me as desirable.

There is no point. Love is a hopeless endeavor. Should I be fortunate enough one day to be proven wrong I shall rejoice. For now, I've naught but to languish in this festering pain of disconnection and worthlessness.

I hope this pain I endure makes someone happy, as happiness is something I dare not expect to feel again.

The new year

So it's 2015 now. I suppose you could say this is the start of a new year, and in many ways it is. I could also say that this is a year of new things, new phone, new car, new interests for my love life. I suppose I should be pretty excited about all this, but when I think about it, all of these new things bring a lot of risks for me personally.

I now have to deal with car payments for the first time, have to be careful about my phone, certainly don't want it to break, and have to be careful with my heart... I'm worried that's going to break more than anything else.

So I have an interest in somebody, I haven't said anything to this person yet... Except for trying to get to know him, that is. I have no idea if he's going to have any interest in me, or if I have any chance. My biggest concern is that perhaps I may think I have a chance, only to find out I was mistaken (as usual).

I seem to have a bad habit of falling for people that are so totally beyond me. For one reason or another, these people will never be able to return my affections. Sometimes it has to do with a difference in what they are interested in, sometimes our personalities just don't click, and other times there's just no spark between the two of us. If I'm being totally honest, it's probably mostly that first one.

Given my poor luck in trying to find someone to spend my life with, I cannot help but feel nervous. And of course, knowing my history in this area, well, I haven't done the best in the past.

I have pretty big concerns about my emotional state coming up this year. Somehow I've managed to remain relatively stable, somewhat positive, even. I think a big concern is that potentially I could end up going into another bout of depression, one made even worse by another failed, miserably failed attempt to find love.

I have frequently been told that I'm so young I shouldn't be worried about these types of issues. I know that might be the logical thing to think, but the problem is the heart wants what it wants. It may make more sense for me to remain single, just think of all the money I could save, all the freedom I get to have... Admittedly life probably is a lot simpler single. But that's not what I want. I want to have that connection with somebody, that sense of being truly desired by someone else. I understand I might not be the nicest thing to look at, and sure sometimes my personality can get on the nerves of the people around me. Still, I would rather think that if I were to be in a relationship I would have a pretty decent idea how to handle myself in one. Of course my track record, given my previous relationship, do I want to count both of them(?), is not exactly something that people would consider to be in favor of my belief that I can handle a relationship. Minor disasters, surprised I didn't make more enemies actually. One of them resulted in a death, though not exactly while we were still dating. Sigh... But that's a whole separate story.

I don't know what this is going to bring. I certainly hope it ends up being something good, but hope does not typically end up resulting in what I actually experience.

Heard from my biological father for the first time recently. Not actually certain how to handle that relationship yet.

Given that it's been roughly 26 years since I last saw him in person, and since I don't really remember him from that far back, I don't really know how familiar or formal our relationship should be. Only time will tell perhaps. I'm honestly not even certain where I should start with him. How do you say hello to someone that's part of your life, but has never been in your life... Technically speaking I wouldn't be around without him, but I've been around, without him, for 25 years.

I haven't determined how I want to speak to him, no idea what to say first. It is almost as if I I'm afraid to talk to him, as there is the potential that I could really mess things up. Not to mention I have no idea what his beliefs are in relative to important parts of my life, not certain what type of discussion I might need to have with him.

So here is to 2015, I think my new years resolution seems pretty straightforward, and relatively achievable. For 2015, my goal is to not die. That seems reasonable, right? Maybe it's a little bit dramatic, or perhaps a bit too low key? Either way, it's a reasonable goal, and if I fail,  I won't have any ability to complain at that point.

Not quite sure how my life ended up here, but it has been an interesting ride. Can't wait to see what's coming next. Probably best not to look at the end of the track those surprises are best left unknown.

The unreality engine

Steve sighed as he looked upon the folly of his ways. Creating the world's first unreality engine was a mistake. A rainbow drifted lazily past, slicing the flying chocolate tree in half, causing it to regenerate into two separate trees and drop a short of exploding chocolates on the village below.

Truly, the unreality engine was a marvel. Things not normally permitted by the laws of physics become possible, and the limits of the known universe suddenly don't apply.

Steve never realized what a mistake it would be to open up possibilities like those until it was too late. His goal has been noble: solve the energy crisis. This close to the so called end of the world, the famous heat death of the universe hypothesized by top scientific minds, people were desperate to figure out a way for life to go on. Technically, that problem was solved. Steve's solution, however, had the unfortunate side effect of chaos and unbound entropy. His giant ears sagged in disappointment before disappearing entirely.

His aide, Gitzferald, rushed into the room, which had just become a hippopotamus. "Doctor Fawl! I have great news!" He exclaimed. "I think we've come up with a way to stabilize the unreality engine optimization and mitigate the entropy it's causing."

Steve looked up in excitement. The aide then became marshmallows. Steve despaired. Of course it wouldn't be that simple. He attempted to head to his lab. Every step he took made a different sound. He turned the corner, and found himself in his lab. It also appeared that he was now in Tahiti. He asked the assistants what they had discovered, and listened intently as they explained the concept of the entropic vacuum. One even explained that it could potentially randomly become a thing that exists just by the nature of the unreality drive.

The possibilities this would present would be huge. Steve inquired if they had a way to increase the likelihood the entropic vacuum could exist.


"The plan is to build the basic exoskeletal structure of the vacuum, then connect fireworks goblet, meow." The assistant looked surprised as his words suddenly made no sense.

"I suppose even this is possible now." Steve stated, admiring with discontent the way words could not change as they exited the mouths of the speaker.

As he began directing the assistants what to do, the lab began to fill with stilettos. This made coordinating their efforts more challenging. One of the monitors tracing the increase in entropy indicated that the level of danger was rising significantly. The entropic levels had reached high enough to begin affecting other parallel worlds. It was unclear if it may start changing timelines.

As Steve rushed to build their vacuum, the new York city and then we started to see you. This message and the other use of a bit more information contained in this email address, or not sure if we started.

The world seemed unstable, Steve's grip on reality was going on the way of the other day. Something unnerving to see, even though the new solution of the entropic vacuum was nearing completion, he was the way you are.

Out of control, the situation became dire consequences for a lot of the purple. This was how the world ended. Not with an explosion, but with a small, quiet simple dough.

Not OK

After an especially difficult day, where I repeatedly felt as if I was a disappointment to everyone whom I had interacted, I composed this song.

Please excuse the poor quality of the audio in places, I do no have a professional microphone, and it was difficult to get it to record anything, much less be able to get the audio clear enough to be heard over the music I composed to go with it.

I present: Not OK

That said, if you don't have the ability to make out words of the song, that's why I have this handy lyric sheet located below:

No, it’s not gonna be alright, but who says it has to be? And is that so?
And oh, that’s not me tonight, how am I supposed to be ok… when I’m falling behind~
I’ve been tryin’ oh so hard, but still I fall.
Once again I try to think of it all.
But still my head keeps swimmin, no matter what I do I just can’t seem to win,
And so I stand alone.
Oh, why does li-ife seem this way?
Caught up in all the things I do every day.
But nothing that I try, ever heals that pain inside
Can someone save me, save my soul, I don’t know; so I’m
Trying to get by, but I cannot seem to quell my
Fears that I shall stay this way, just keep on going
So, please someone won’t you tell me,
Just what I’m supposed to be?
Cause here I stand,
Please take my hand!
Cause I don’t know
Cause I can’t see
Cause I can’t feel
What am I to do, and is this real?
Oh, so, no. I’m not ok, who says I have to be?
Maybe it’s just better this way.
And no, maybe I’m not alone, or maybe it is the truth
That when I’m here, I can’t be seen by you.
I sit on the edge of this empty ledge,
Looking over into the deep, won’t someone stay with me?

Projections on the screens of others

So, a guy I know online just finished telling me "fuck my dad".

He was angry at his dad for being condescending.
He stated that his dad was obsessing about him finding a job.
His dad had taken away his home internet, and was disconnecting his phone wifi also.

He stated that his dad wanted him to get a job and find school, and that it was all his dad wanted him to do.

According to this guy, the condescending attitude of his father was the only thing keeping him from getting a job. He stated that he had found his first job on his own, and he would have a job if not for his dad and the attitude said parent had.


What an amusing statement.
Now, mind you, I know how tedious it can be when parents are strict, and add pressure where pressure alone does not provide any benefit. Heck, for that matter, it was not terribly long ago when I felt almost the exact same pressure to get a job from my parents.

Jobs are not hard to find. Jobs worth keeping, actual careers, are very difficult to locate. I consider myself among the fortunate few who have a really good job.

But what made his statements amusing was the sentiment that his dad's attitude was the sole reason he remained unemployed. If this were the case, I would expect it would mean that his dad was scaring off potential employers.

Now, mind you, it's entirely possible that this could have been the case.
Perhaps his dad had been yelling at employers that called at the house.
Perhaps when employers called about the job, his dad told his potential employer terrible (possibly untrue) things about him to them, causing them to select a different candidate.

However, if those scenarios were true, then when I asked in what way his dad's attitude was the sole reason why he was unemployed, I'd have expected he would have been more willing than anything else to share the injustices of his dad's misconduct.

Instead, he said that my question made him mad, and he logged off.
I find it interesting that regardless of what this guy says, it appears that he is projecting his own failings upon his father. After all, what reason does he have to be mad if it is legitimately his dad's fault? None, except for any indignation he has for his dad's behaviour.

No, instead, I suspect that this guy probably has been avoiding finding a job to this point, or finding school. When confronted by his dad about it, he probably tries to avoid the issue. When his dad pushes the issue and no response is gained, I think the dad probably decided that grounding his son (the guy doesn't call having privileges taken away 'grounding', it would seem) would be one of the only ways left for him to motivate his son.

While the methods may not be the most effective, and may even seem unfair, I have no reason to believe that a parent's bad attitude alone can prevent someone from getting a job for which they are well-qualified and willing to work, short of doing the activities I described above. (And even then, I would imagine some employers would give the guy the benefit of the doubt, and not simply trust the word of one person about who this guy is.)

Yet, rather than take responsibility for his own inaction, he would rather project how he should feel about himself onto his dad. Admittedly, we all do this. We see ourselves in others, we try to find ways to not see ourselves in ourselves, and we see others in ourselves.

Often we, as humans, try to find no fault in ourselves, and try to place blame for everything bad that happens upon others. We try to find what is good, and suggest that we are that good thing, or that we are capable of the same good things as someone else. We try our best to ignore when others have the same kind of faults as we do, because seeing them makes it difficult to judge anyone else for having them, because we know that deep down that we have the same faults.

I would like to think that all the negative experiences I have had in my past have led me to be less biased to do these things. At the end of the day, though, I realize that I am not the best judge of my own character. It may even be that nobody can be a proper judge of anyone's character because we all have our own ways of being these imperfect, messy, and glorious human beings.

We may not be perfect, but the imperfections mean we always have something to strive for, and sometimes some of the greatest beauties the world can offer come from the imperfection that is life.

We may see ourselves, projections on the screens of others, the people around us the very looking glass we use to judge who we are, but sometimes to find the truth of our identities, we need look no further than inward. Honest self-evaluation, including willingness to admit imperfection and flaws, is our best tool for self-improvement.

Hopefully, if that tool does not work, we will have close friends and family around us that can help us see who we are. Best of luck to that guy, by no means is his situation 'easy' because it is not mine. Our struggles are our own, and our pains as significant as they can be, to us.

The nightmare that came true

So, in stories, sometimes on TV or in a movie, there comes a time when a character is having a terrible nightmare. The nightmare is symbolic of the stresses of life that they are feeling. One of these common trope-like nightmares is the one where someone is going through some change, and the person having the nightmare is not certain how to handle it. So they dream that the person that's changing turns their back and starts walking away. Typically what follows next is that the character having the nightmare dreams that they are running as fast as they can to catch the person who, despite their efforts to catch up, only end up getting further away. Somewhere near the end of the nightmare, the person disappears completely, and the dreamer tends to find themselves alone and faced with a situation (sometimes being engulfed by darkness, sometimes attacked by a monster, it varies) before they wake up.

I know that I have seen this idea of a nightmare several times represented in a variety of media. I had not really given much thought to this nightmare, or the feeling associated with it. For whatever reason, it never seemed more important to me than a simple plot point meant to indicate the amount of stress and uncertainty that the character experiencing the nightmare was feeling.

Recently, however, I have started to realize how much this is a nightmare that I would have had, were I only a literary character in some tale. Growing up, I have had many acquaintances, and a few friends. The connections I built with people, however, often did not stand the test of time.

Geographical changes, or simple divergence of personalities tend to have lent the relationships built something of an expiration date. Life events that I was partially, or even sometimes completely, unaware of in another's life have contributed to many of my so-called friends moving on. And while this is probably to be expected (let us face it, nobody stays the same forever)... this has also led to something of an issue for me.

As it has been, my life has been a rather surrounded-by-people-still-alone kind of story. I spent much of my youth feeling unliked by my peers. (I was picked upon rather mercilessly for most of my early primary education.) Sometimes, I became friends with someone, and the meaning of those relationships to me was greater than usual because of how isolated I felt. Ultimately, most of these friendships were limited, and expired before I had even understood why they were special to me.

In my teenage and early adolescent years, I struggled to live this double life, as feelings that I developed were frequently rejected by the ones I trusted and cared about most deeply. I was often reminded that the feelings I had were not valid, and because of this I had a hard time connecting to others, and even some of my closest relationships began to feel hollow and meaningless. Around this time, I also began to attempt to end the double-life I was being forced to live (by circumstance), but every attempt made seemed to be of little worth, or landed me in big trouble. It was most likely not helpful that I spent a large swath of this time as a rather gullible, naïve guy who trusted people more than he should have. (Honestly, the trust I had for people was mainly because of my desperate attempt to connect with someone when I knew, and did not want to accept, that trusting people could hurt me. What can I say, I was highly idealistic.) As time went by, I was frequently challenged to question if the feelings I had were valid, just because if they weren't, my life would have been so much easier.

As I entered my mid-adolescence, I faced quite the opposite problem. I had managed to end the double-life I had been dealing with before, but had come to distrust pretty much everyone. (Hurt me once, shame on you, hurt me twice shame on me.) I did not give up on trying to form bonds with others, but I faced the grim truth that the bonds I formed were not these great pillars of strength to endure the ages. Yet, even with this truth staring me in the eyes, I found myself desperately seeking to form bonds, which for some reason seemed to become easier. My guess is that these bonds came easier because I expected practically nothing from them.

Now, entering my early adulthood, I am faced with something else entirely. The same nightmare that has graced so many forms of storytelling has barreled into the forefront of my mind. The past several years have been a very difficult time full of firsts, and new transitions. It has been exciting, and difficult. Wonderful, and filled with some of my greatest sorrows.

So, now I have once again felt the deep pressure of the sense of loss and loneliness that has become a companion to me. Strangely, this loss is one anticipated, and not yet fully realized. For that very reason, it is practically as if the anticipation of it is the nightmare itself. The nightmare that comes before the waking to the truth, which is often the same as the nightmare, but far less figurative.

Not that long ago, I made a friend. When I first met him, I found him quite attractive. I spent a long time telling him how much I did find him attractive, at first. He had insisted that he was not like me, in that his interests, romantically at least, lie elsewhere (hetero, not gay). As I had learned to do in my adolescence, I took it hard, but eventually let it go. Then it came to light that he was actually not being honest... and not just to me, but to himself. He had lied to himself because of the fears he had about what the truth may mean. Just like I had when I was younger, and found myself being assaulted verbally for expressing the confusing feelings I had. So, I showed some support to this friend. I told him that the important thing is for him to be himself, regardless of what others may think. I asked him to do something totally absurd: to question his own beliefs, to think critically about where he was, where he was going, what he wanted, and why. Eventually, he realized that all the time he had spent trying to hide his truth from everyone, even himself, had been time where he could have been learning about himself more. It had not been "wasted", only a learning experience that he wished he had not taken so long to complete. This friend and I became very close, and one day I confided to him one of my deepest darkest secrets: I was scared. Scared of being alone. So often I had lost the people I called friends, and I was now so close to him, I was worried we would also drift apart. At that time, he promised to be by my side. So, with eagerness and hope, I named him my "best friend". Even more recently, things changed for this friend. Something, and someone, wonderful came into his life. And though his time and relationship with me had not lost any value, it was finally his time to move on. So, with a heavy heart, I watched as he turned around and left. It was not as if he wanted to end our friendship, no, nothing of the sort. Instead, he had found something very valuable, and our friendship was not so important as to let me keep him from taking this valuable thing away. In a cruel twist of emotions, though, I felt somewhat betrayed. I felt jealous, envious, and angry. All the time I had spent hoping to have a strong bond like the one he had found, and I was left empty-handed... but when he seemed the least interested to find a bond like that, one had seemingly fallen into his lap. It wasn't fair, I said. But in truth, my negativity about it was the unfair thing. I had no right to deny his happiness, and I had no right to complain. So, I pulled myself together, told him how I felt, and apologized. And although it was not necessary for me to do so, I had done so because I felt wrong about how I had felt toward him. In the end, he still moved on.

Fairly recently, I made another friend. When I first met her, it was due to some unusual circumstances. A mutual acquaintance had introduced us to each other. The primary reason we met was because we were going to work on a project. The project, it ended up, was doomed from the beginning to failure. There were too many things that the project wanted to do, and not enough ideas about how to make the project accomplish them. The regular meetings for the project, however, gave me plenty of exposure to this person. It became clear rather quickly that she and I were similar. Our personalities were quite on par with each other's. So when the project came to an end, we ended up finding ourselves friends. She and I shared our heartbreaks, and our pasts. Mine was told with a dramatic flair, most of which was because of the seeming absurdity of the ludicrous myriad experiences I had, growing up. Hers was less dramatic, but had its own underlying theme. I was like a melody, and she was a perfect harmony. We each deeply understood how the other felt about things in life. In far less time than I expected, I confessed to her the same deep and dark secret I had shared with the other friend (who, at the time, was still around). I admitted that my fear was that I would end up alone. I explained that with each successful time I had deemed someone to be a "best friend", they had without doubt left me. I begged her to tell me if she would stay. I was too nervous that she may take that title, and that once again it may result in someone leaving my life. She and I came to a 'blood oath' that neither of us would move on from the other without saying something. We solemnly swore that we would not let our relationship drift apart, and that should we need to move on, we would give the other fair warning it was happening, and a reason why. No more questions, no more doubts. It came, therefore, by no surprise that when the other friend left the spot of "best friend" vacant, I was devastated. My other 'best friend' gone had hurt, but with time I grew closer to my new friend. After the "oath" was made, I triumphantly named her my best friend.

Now, I find myself living that nightmare. The precursor to the reality, but this time it is not just a dream. Like the "best friend" before, a strong bond like we have been seeking, has potentially revealed itself to her. There is the chance, although not the guarantee, that the process could happen once again. Once again, I could find that my best friend is having to move on because something so valuable came to be that I, while not irrelevant, have become a smaller consideration (thinking of time as a limited resource). So, it is now a dire situation for me. I feel as though I am in a dark tunnel, and at the end of it is a light so brilliant, I cannot see what is inside it. I have met two other travellers in the tunnel, and they have agreed to accompany me. One of them is doing it because I asked him to. The other because she is headed the same direction as I am. Then someone came along, and the person along only because I asked (otherwise, he would have been content to sit and relax) took his hand, and started walking toward the light at the other end. I tried to catch up, but it was no use. Now, it is as if the one who walked with me, because we were both headed to the light, has also come across another person and started walking with them. I find myself running as fast as I can to reach the light, and to catch up to the ever-retreating backs of my friends... and yet the speed with which I sprint has no meaning, because I travel no distance. Yet the figures in front of me still grow smaller and more obscured by the very light I seek.

I am finding myself... left alone again. Not abandoned, merely surpassed. I don't want any of my friends who may read this to think that I am angry at them. I don't want any of them thinking that I would rather they forgo the happiness they may be able to grasp, for my sake. Those ideas could not be farther from the truth, but naturally I do feel concern that it may sound as if this is what I want.

On the contrary, what I desire is that I may come to experience the happiness that they have (and may have) found. Yet I am still here in the darkness of the tunnel. As I said before, the true events that play out after the nightmare have yet to begin... but the anticipation itself may as well be the events should they occur, for the amount of distress I find myself in.

I often find myself wondering if there has been something I have done wrong. Some reason I have been stuck in the darkness of this tunnel. I have asked myself if perhaps one day when I was not paying attention, I signed a waiver of happiness. Something like "I, Zack, hereby relinquish all rights to my happiness, both present and future, and reserve no right to reclaim said happiness at any time."

I have this great weight that sits inside my chest. A deep longing and sadness, that seems to fill my lungs with each breath I take. My heart feels like stone, unmoving, and heavy. Not stone naturally, but scarred from the hurts of my past and my present. Each scar healing over a wound which caused it to bleed and hurt. Each scar made of stone, yet leaving my heart still just as vulnerable. Until the weight of the heaviness becomes all-consuming, I cannot relieve it. I seek desperately to cry, and cry aloud. To let out tears of anguish and feel the rush of endorphins that comes with it. To finally remove the stress from my shoulders, if only for a moment. Yet, this too, I cannot do. The tears refuse to come for me, no matter how I beckon them, until at last I am crushed beneath the weight of my own sadness, loneliness, and fear. Then, and only then, in that moment, the tears I cry revitalize me, and lift just enough weight that I can once again stand. And then, for a time, I can continue my desperate pleas that the darkness engulfing me would dissipate. But the weight returns, and it does so frequently.

The thoughts that come to mind are surely unhealthy. They are surely all lies. But these lies, when reinforced by my experiences, feel as if they are unwaveringly true. "I am not good enough. I am not worthy of being loved. I am a terrible person. Nobody will love me, and nobody should. I am disgusting, and my body is something of which I should be ashamed. Nobody will ever be able to see past my physical body to see me. I will be alone forever, never knowing romance, never knowing love. The people who say they love me only do so because they have to or because they pity me. My worth is negligible. It would not matter greatly whether I am alive or dead. If I were to die, it would ultimately have no impact upon the world. If I were dead, the only people who would show up at my funeral would be those obligated to do so. Life is not terribly important. Life is so painful, it makes little sense to cling to it. There is no chance that things will improve. I must be the best at everything I do to make up for the fact that I am a failure anyway. The only reason anyone wants to be around me is because I can do something for them. I only have value living if someone is using me for something. Nothing I think or feels matters to anyone else. I may never experience any joy or happiness beyond meaningless transient pleasures that come and go. If I were to lose my usefulness to the people around me, it would be better if I were dead instead of a burden to them."

These are the thoughts that consume my waking moments. I try to ignore that these thoughts arise. By pretending they do not exist, I am able to live a relatively normal life. For all accounts, some would even say that the life I live is supremely blessed. I am on track to be debt free only a few years out of college, I have a job with wonderful benefits, and I have all my needs met (physically) and even some of my wants (like entertainment).

But in truth, all of the darkness lies beneath the surface. I am a pool of water, seeming to be clear and glistening and shallow. Filled with light, and calm. But I am actually a cave just beneath the pool, completely obscured from the light reflecting off my surface, and torn apart inside by turbulent torrents, as currents swirl about, breaking me apart, gradually.

So, what I am trying to say here, is that I am once again scared. I do not want to be alone. I want to be desired, loved, important. Sadly, this is not how I feel. I am so happy for my friends, I want them to be happy. I want them to experience joy.

I just don't want to miss out on happiness myself, even though I feel that is my only option.