Hi. I’ve been reading a lot and living my life and it’s great, miraculous, beautiful. It’s also full of pain, disconnection, grief.
Instead of reviewing a book or sharing a poem, today I’d rather check in with my thoughts realtime. These aren’t true or false or good or bad – they are simply real.
I have some thoughts.
I’m not here for your entertainment. Do you ever wish people would just stop? The small talk, the performative facade, the asking about your life.
This might be partly paranoia, but I doubt most people want to connect with me. Me. What could I offer, apart from fleeting interest before they flit to the next human?
I’ve wanted to say this for a while.
Just stop using the word selfish. Okay? There is no selfish, just like there is no true multi-tasking. Everyone is juggling living and living with others. Isolation isn’t selfish. Wanting more from people isn’t selfish.
Everything is so horrible.
It’s horrible to be caught in a loop. It’s absolutely terrifying that human connection and hope can bleed out until life is parched and hollow.
What could be worse than reality being lush while perception of reality crumbles to dust? My husband once wisely described depression as a tunnel through which one can see regular life but it’s beyond reach. I’ve paraphrased, but the image is effective.
Too many questions crash like relentless waves. What is the best thing to do? What can a doctor do? What words work? How much pain can I relieve by self-care? How should I speak? What if I trust the wrong person? What if I’m stuck?
Belonging isn’t real.
All I know for certain is I can’t trust what I feel. I feel truly alone, stuck with ongoing illness, burdensome and unlikely to become less so.
All I know is that I can’t be who I wanted to be. I had hoped I’d be able to build trust, become a supportive member in a community, find spiritual fulfillment.
I tried.
I had had faith in my ability to adjust. When people think you’re odd, adjust. People love to ask you to adjust, to their humor and their opinions and their comfort level. I adjusted. I did try, before I realized it was pointless.
You can’t earn belonging by hard work. Belonging is earned by successful interaction within social expectations. Sorry if you thought acceptance was free or that love was unconditional. You can’t just ask to mean something to someone.
I think this makes sense.
Back to my original thought, I am not here for your entertainment. I think I might be done speaking to unlistening ears.
Years of effort and tears boil down to this: I’m a dysfunctional person. The world has already decided what I deserve, based on my societal value and my level of health.
Most people I know have never asked me about my history: What matters to me, where I come from, where I wish I could go. So they don’t get to ask me: why depression, why anxiety, why illness? I’ve decided to be a whole person from now on, all or nothing.
What I think is the important thing.
I’ve decided not be palatable. See me, or don’t. My identity isn’t a performance or a payment or a sacrifice to the altar of belonging.
⭐️
Voice of Reason 
I know I’m super late responding to this – I’ve put blogging slightly on the backburner this month because I wanted more time to focus on myself and all the chaotic changes I’ve decided to inflict on my life by switching from teaching back to university 🙃 – but I just wanted to reach out and tell you how much this post resonated with me. I love how you put into words what I think so many of us – even if we don’t struggle with anxiety and depression – are experiencing, and how you’re advocating staying true to yourself, even when things get hard. In hindsight, I’ve always been a huge people pleaser, I guess, because I simply hate conflict and will always adjust to try and avoid it… But especially in the last two years, it’s been so noticeable how I was always putting myself second and caging my personality in because of it and how it was stressing me out way more than helping anyone. So I’m working on it!
But anyway – even if I don’t know if your own experiences that lead to writing it match up with mine, I just wanted to say thank you for putting these words out there! I hope you’re doing okay and unapologetically living the life you want! 💙
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So true, the people-pleasing runs deep in some of us. Sincerely, thank you for reaching out to say how you relate to my post. I hope, despite your chaotic new schedule, you’ll be aiming for authentic, too! Take care! 💙
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