it won't be long

new york state of mind - billy joel

another moment in a bookstore

it's amazing how in even the briefest of moments deep emotional pain can strike. i had stopped by my  local bookstore on my way home from picking up some take out tex mex. as i was perusing the titles in the graphic novels section (yes, if you had not already discerned this fact by now, i am a geek), i heard the voices of a man and a woman in animated conversation coming closer. they seemed to be talking about some kind of project, maybe for work or school. they were about to pass by the aisle i was in when i heard the woman exclaim, "oooo, manga." i turned to see them enter into the space, the woman reaching for the title that caught her eye.

they were young, no older than mid-20's. i couldn't tell if they were just friends or something more but i could tell they were enjoying an evening of companionship. the man pointed to another title and commented that he thought the woman would enjoy with her being a fan of another writer. "if you like his stuff," the man said, "then you'll really like this."

i looked at them, as they were smiling and laughing, and i thought about the nice time they seemed to be having enjoying one another's company on a quiet friday night. i thought about the fact that it had been many, many months since i had enjoyed a similar moment and that i had no one here in my local life with whom to enjoy such a moment now. and in an instant the familiar feeling of that psychic knife stabbing into my heart and renting it in two, releasing what feels like a lifetime of emotional hurt came over me. i stepped out of the aisle and my eyes threatened to overflow.

it's a shame really. i'd been having a pretty decent day up until then.

lost in the land of my insecurities

last week i wrote of having this experience of falling through an emotional hole, a ride every bit as disorienting and unsettling as that experienced by the literary heroine alice. last night i realized what is on the other end of that hole and it certainly isn't wonderland.

sean and i had the opportunity to have a brief and good chat. through the course of it i recognized that while i truly believe we are friends, the time of separation had allowed me to think and react based on insecurities i have about myself with respect to my relationship with men. those thoughts without any countervailing opinions from sean soon became so prominent that i became lost in them.

i was reminded of those same insecurities during my psychiatric assessment yesterday as i was bringing the doctor up to speed on what i had been experiencing emotionally over the last several months. in that discussion he commented that while medication would provide some assistance, the significant work leading to changing this dysfunctional thinking would be accomplished in therapy. in the meantime though, he provided me with a new prescription and an additional encouragement to follow through on my vacation plans (time it looks like that won't have to be spent in a psychiatric facility -- much to my relief).

and so while the talk with sean was helpful, i can't say that i'm completely at ease. though the depression and insecurities play some part in that feeling, i also recognize that, when all is said and done, i'm still struggling with managing my disappointment that i don't get to connect with him as much as or in all the ways that i would like. i know that's part of life (well certainly my life) but i'm not sure that recognition makes any of it easier.

it all seems so very complicated and when you throw in the emotional impairments that have resulted from both nature and nurture as well as the fatigue wrought from way too many long hours of decision making and directing, all of the issues can (and most definitely do) feel pretty overwhelming.

yes, a vacation is most definitely in order. i just hope the time off helps to move me farther from the land of my insecurities rather than deeper into them.

feeling defeated

i think i've shared before that when i sit down to write a blog entry, sometimes i have the title in mind and other times the title comes to me as i am writing the entry. more often than not, i find myself in the former situation as the title often speaks to the subject i know i'm going to write about. today a few titles went through my mind before i settled on this one -- "raising the white flag," "it's time to concede," "what's it all about, the epilogue." and then i just thought what is this entry really going to be about? and voila, title determined.

yesterday, i wrote about the painful struggle regarding my friendship with sean. and today i'm sad to admit the struggle is over and i've lost. after many more hours of thought following the writing of yesterday's blog, a brief late in the day text exchange in which i attempted to confirm that he is still alive (he is), and another quiet night with more time to think, i awoke this morning feeling that i no longer have the mental strength or the resolve to keep attempting to have a place in sean's life. i believe i've tried and the effort feels to some degree like i've revealed my heart and been found unworthy of serious engagement.

i understand being busy and working very hard (my life certainly has resembled that characterization over the past several months). i also believe that in life, we tend to find time for those things that are a priority to us. and that does then beg the question, "should i be a priority to sean?" and the answer that first comes to my weary soul is perhaps not. then again, i had hoped "priority" was a part of the definition of the type of friendship we were building. not top priority. not even top ten. but a place on that list would have been nice. he certainly has been on mine.

i find the need for a friend to be all the more acute at this time. today i'm going for my psychiatric assessment. part of the purpose will be to diagnose my mental condition and determine the appropriate medication for treatment. i suspect another part will be to determine if my primary care doctor's perspective that i may require inpatient psychiatric treatment is valid. the prospect of what may result from the psychiatrist visit scares me and the sense of feeling defeated grows even more palpable with the potential of my having a more serious mental illness that will require more intensive treatment than taking a pill every day. and i face all of this pretty much alone.

i fear telling my mother because of the judgements her religious worldview will compel her to share with me (and somehow i suspect all of them will come down to god abandoning me because of my sexual orientation). i have suffered in silence here at work as i feel that sharing what i am experiencing will derail not just what i have accomplished but also what i hope someday to achieve. i have no friends here and few in the extended world, and fairly or unfairly, i fear my experience with sean will make it unlikely that i will seek out additional ones in the foreseeable future primarily because that experience has me feeling like i'm just not what people are looking for when "friend" comes to mind. from that comment i'm guessing you can discern what my thoughts on finding love someday are.

what's it all about?

as i go through this struggle with mental illness, i am finding one of the most difficult and painful aspects to be processing my perceptions of my friend sean's engagement in our relationship. this is not to say that this is a problem with sean (at least i don't think it is). my guess is i would be experiencing this with any friend who would be exhibiting similar behavior. and what behavior is that you ask?

well, over the course of the past several weeks, i've felt an increasing distancing on sean's part from me. while i recognize that even under the best of circumstances i'm likely not the easiest person to be friends with (at least when it comes to my friendships with men) and certainly during this period of mental imbalance i have proven even more of a challenge, i kind of thought sean understood and accepted that as the price of admission for our friendship. but now i find myself dealing with trying to discern what it means that it has been weeks since we had a real substantive online chat (down from on average a couple a week), that when he has indicated plans to engage in such conversation, they've not materialized nor has there been an unsolicited explanation as to why; that texts wishing him a good day go without a reply (when at one time i could have counted on a response within the hour), and that blog entries that are shared with him are not acknowledged let alone commented upon (i'm not even sure he's still reading this thing).

i have asked him directly about what is going on and to the extent that he does reply, i receive brief messages that he is working a lot and is tired, both of which i certainly recognize and understand, but i'm also struggling to believe that's really all that's going on. when i have shared the sense that he is pulling away, he tells me that i am being silly and insists that he is not. the unstated implication of much of his statements is that this perception is all in my head without any bearing in reality. and therein lies the problem.

when the mind is a flawed instrument, as mine is at this time, attempting to process through these kind of situations is as painful an exercise as anyone could imagine. i losing the ability to tell what's real and what's imagined, what's founded in facts and what's just resulting from my own insecurities. and my ability to not think about this situation and not to internalize the perceived slights and rejections as being evidence that there is something wrong with me is pretty much nil at this point (plus isn't it pretty clear that when mental illness exists and is only getting worse than yes there is something intrinsically wrong with you for which people will reject you). and the more i ponder it all, the sicker i feel.

to that point, it was a very scary weekend. i found myself thinking that if this kind of pain continues, if my mind keeps breaking down in the way it has, i fear it will not be long before i am either institutionalized or dead. it seems cruel that the desire for a friend could be a contributing factor for something like that happening. maybe sean is right to get out of this relationship with me now. i certainly wish i could leave me behind as well.

because my own words are failing me

all that i'm living for - evanescence