May 23, 2003 - 9:57 am
Last night, Stacey and I wound up our conversation about child molesters and bad parents, and considering the latter topic it's no surprise that my mother came up.
What is a surprise is that after Stacey left the room, I had to seriously fight an urge to cry.
Little secret about Megan: I'm not to big on crying anymore. I used to be pretty damned in touch with my emotions, say, two or three years ago, but at some point in time my nerves just went kinda dead. I don't know. Not only do I not LIKE the whole crying process, but usually I just plain CAN'T.
So anyhow, the idea of my mom bringing me to tears was a little frustrating. Add that to my list of shit with which I need to learn to cope.
At times like this, I really wish all that "therapy" business did any good for my brainmeats. But alas...even whiskey and Elton John have lost their combined potency. Just as well, it was a cheap fix anyhow.
At times like this I really wish I'd taken up some sort of violent hobby so long ago. If 80's cinema has taught me anything, it's that the best thing you can do to ease a tortured spirit is to hit things, alone, in a room with some sort of pan-asian atmostphere. *winks @ Jean Claude VanDamme, who then kicks a short Korean crimelord and adjusts his spandex shorts*
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I was reading They Might Be Giants interview where the two Johns questioned each other. It was good times. But what's important about all this is that I acquired a new term: "un-selfaware", which I believe should have two hyphens...but then again, maybe not.
Anyhow, all of my discomfort and anxiety lately has been bothering me not only because of...well, the discomfort and the anxiety, but because I was having a fuckova time describing it and its cause.
So there we go: "un-selfawareness."
If there's one thing that's come to my attention in the last week, it's how little I REALLY understand how others perceive me and my actions. I mean, I know what I think of myself, and why I do the things I do (most of the time). But what I find troublesome is when I realize that I had HAD an idea of how I was coming off in this or that situation, and find out that I was wrong. I'm sure most people have that happen, at least every once in a great while, right? Where you make a comment, think it's a joke, and find out later that someone took it as hostility or meanness or some shit like that, I mean, that happens all the time.
But to me, it's happening entirely too much, too often.
I just happened to encounter situations where someone just DIDN'T get my intentions incredibly too much in the span of a week. More importantly, the different areas of my life that it was coming from made me feel really surrounded by it. I mean, shit, a few strangers is one thing, but doesn't ANYONE really know me?
I found myself worrying about how I was coming off every time I interacted with someone. I'd either realize I was censoring myself, or checking my behavior. The end result was this extreme distrust of pretty much ANYONE, because I felt like anyone I interacted with could and would judge me, and chances are they would misunderstand everything I said and did. After a day or two this anxiety became subconscious, but also worse. The less aware I was of WHY I was feeling like this, the worse I got.
I mean, shit, it took me like 10 minutes to walk out my door Saturday. 10 damned minutes. Who the fuck am I?
At least it's been getting better. Not entirely, but a little bit. I had to hop a ride home with Jeff yesterday, and I found myself talking instead of wanting to flee to some quiet, alone space. I am supposed to have lunch w/Tabi today. We'll see how that goes. $5 says I break into a cold sweat at least once. Any takers?
One more thing that makes no sense about me: Overall, not feeling so valuable lately. Go figure. For various reasons, I've been feeling kinda disposable lately. Now, generic advice-giver, right about now is when you suggest I talk to someone, right? Yeah, but I can't. Scratch that, that's untrue. I won't. Subconsciously, I think I *heart* making situations impossible. You see, when I'm feeling less-than-confident about things, I don't want to hear people tell me how great I am (which is, of course, standard protocol) because I assume that, true or not, they're saying it BECAUSE I feel shitty, not because they felt a random urge to tell me how appreciated I am. And of course, there are those friends of mine that just aren't the most pick-me-up sorts. I'm sure most people have at least a few friends like that. The kind that give you shit because that's just who/how they are? Yeah, at times like this I just can't take it. I mean, I KNOW they're just kidding, even now, but I STILL don't have the armor to shrug it off. So I basically isolate myself from most everyone. (With the exception of Stacey Jane, who has somehow acquired the most beautiful ability to just not comment when the situation calls for silence. Kudos to her.)
Of course, I'm sure "self-conscious" could just as easily sum up how I feel, but somehow this "un-selfaware" construction seems ever-so-slightly better tuned to what I'm trying to say.
Then again, maybe not.
