With friends like these
I'm coming off a depressive couple of days, and it's been a deep enough dip to where I've decided that there are people in my life who should not be that I've allowed to remain out of decency and a some fucked up codependent reasoning about 'keeping peace in the circle of friends.' I've allowed myself to cultivate and embrace a lifestyle under which emotional cruelty is accepted as a norm, and the rich interplay of relationships is reduced to basic transactions.
My personality pretty much guarantees that I'll fuck up at something 1,000 times before I realize it's a problem, but I think I might be ready to absorb and understand that friends are not those that take sincere, heartfelt pleas as a cue to gleefully lay on bad behavior in even thicker layers. I've left myself emotionally vulnerable, and I've allowed those vulnerabilities to be exploited over and over.
I've confessed feelings in confidence, only to have them converted to grist; I've been reduced to quivering tears by those who know exactly what buttons to push and who then call the tears the problem. I've had my very own confusion used against me to the point where I've doubted my entire existance. And it was all bullshit. I've become somebody I'm not - isolated, untrusting of contact, and feeling desperate for some kind of safe emotional haven, because for the better part of a decade I've been in a B-story, slow burning, psychosarajevo.
I've allowed it to happen, and encouraged it with my own actions, cuz it's felt as though it's all I had. And what bullshit that is. It's not okay to be okay with the kind of hurt that goes on. Dangerous Liaisons (or more appropriately Cruel Intentions) is a cautionary tale, not a social prototype.
If I remain a part of it, I'll become unable to get myself out. I'm at a point right now where there's still some of who I once was left in who I've become, and he's worth more than the fleeting jocular ego-boosts that fuel the fucking and the table-turning and deep-issue itch scratching that make up the dogeared, tattered, worn out script I've been following for god knows how long. I am still alive and will not crash for anybody.
I'm tired of fear and loathing, and I've run out of tact. If this all seems like so much adolescent drama that I'm choosing to not "let go", well then fuck you. And you too.
My personality pretty much guarantees that I'll fuck up at something 1,000 times before I realize it's a problem, but I think I might be ready to absorb and understand that friends are not those that take sincere, heartfelt pleas as a cue to gleefully lay on bad behavior in even thicker layers. I've left myself emotionally vulnerable, and I've allowed those vulnerabilities to be exploited over and over.
I've confessed feelings in confidence, only to have them converted to grist; I've been reduced to quivering tears by those who know exactly what buttons to push and who then call the tears the problem. I've had my very own confusion used against me to the point where I've doubted my entire existance. And it was all bullshit. I've become somebody I'm not - isolated, untrusting of contact, and feeling desperate for some kind of safe emotional haven, because for the better part of a decade I've been in a B-story, slow burning, psychosarajevo.
I've allowed it to happen, and encouraged it with my own actions, cuz it's felt as though it's all I had. And what bullshit that is. It's not okay to be okay with the kind of hurt that goes on. Dangerous Liaisons (or more appropriately Cruel Intentions) is a cautionary tale, not a social prototype.
If I remain a part of it, I'll become unable to get myself out. I'm at a point right now where there's still some of who I once was left in who I've become, and he's worth more than the fleeting jocular ego-boosts that fuel the fucking and the table-turning and deep-issue itch scratching that make up the dogeared, tattered, worn out script I've been following for god knows how long. I am still alive and will not crash for anybody.
I'm tired of fear and loathing, and I've run out of tact. If this all seems like so much adolescent drama that I'm choosing to not "let go", well then fuck you. And you too.
Mr. Bentley sir,
If you pardon me I'd like to make a request, please get off the cross we need the wood. We tend to be alone and self pitying because we have the image of ourselves as being that way. As if in a cruel joke we were created as beings whose subconscious can't differentiate between the good, bad, right, wrong. It sees all images as the comfort zone and will work to keep you in that place you expect to be in.
If you see yourself as trampled upon then you will be trampled and you will have caused it yourself. There are people who care for you. I know this because of the way their love is reflected in your eyes back to me. In these moment of self loathing your a blinded by the tragedy more than Oedipus was. Agreement number one: "Don't take things personally"1 Your sense of self does not need to come from outside but from inside. Neither praise nor degredation from others is necessary to be considered in the estimation of who is JB by JB.
You know, one of the side effects of vitamin T is that when you stop taking it all kinds of morose self pitying blather tends to eminate forth from any open mouth or through ones fingers onto the keyboard. Perhaps this is the case here?
ref 1: Ruiz, Don Miguel. The Four Agreements,
Mr Anonymous:
While I can appreciate the Dr. Phil-style tough love platitudes and high-minded lit class backwash, I will not pardon you for these reasons:
1. My weblog is an uncensored place where at any time I excercise my right to perform my little personal exorcisms at any time. I don't have a special "friends only" version. I am multi-faceted and my output reflects that. If I come off as gratingly self-pitying, so be it. The snapshot of my state of mind that morning, especially in light of a year's worth of previous posts that reflect several different, most often positive states of mind, affords no stranger the context by which to make such broad, simplistic generalizations about my own sense of self.
2. I don't know who the fuck you are - and for you to suggest, brazenly and publicly, that my feelings at the time, because they feel outside some kind of happy medium spec, were drug related is the smug effrontery the kind of which even *I* would understand to be off the mark, undercooked, and below the belt. To do so anonymnously is beyond the pale.
I make no bones about my history with addiction; I struggle every day knowing that it's always out there. I've never made light of it, and I know the effect its had on my friends and family. And for you to blithely throw open that door in a public forum - as an "ooh, that's gotta hurt" stinger of a closer, no less - shows that, despite your meandering allegorical sanctimony, you're woefully immature, and that your goal is less an offering of straight up good advice, and more the orchestrated shit stirring of someone for whom drama is some kind of fascinating food.
You speak the language of pop psychology (and user-dealer linguacode) really well: referring to "we" througout the first paragraph is an especially dainty touch, but there is no "we" here. I expressed, openly, honest emotion in a public way that enabled me to deal with it and get back to work - and I did it without calling out anybody's name or personal details.
You - hidden behind an anoymous login - recycle old Henry Rollins monologues and Daria episodes for a thesis that predicates that in times of anger or frustration and self-pity, that I should - what? Listen to the calm voice within? Search deeper? Anything but sully your RSS feed? I can't tell, cuz you say nothing beyond "dude, it's all what's inside of you, man. You just gotta believe in that still, small voice inside...except, if it's, missing it's "vitamin T."
Users of said vitamins also exhibit irrational gradiosity, misplaced self-assuredness without context, bizarre leaps of logic, can be inordanitely vicious toward their friends, and exert their control from the shadows...and well, shit, that sounds a lot like you.
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