#some day ill delete this stupid journal because my mental health wont be such an asshole

[physicsfox7]

Okay. Same rules as always apply: you can interact if you want to, or ignore this if you don't. As always, I know I'm a lot to handle.

I've had good mental health for over a week. Things were going great, I felt good, was sleeping, kind of eating (still struggling there, but usually 1+ meal a day, even if the + was an uncrustie), didn't have any intrusive thoughts. Then last night I could feel the spiral coming on, and for the dumbest trigger imaginable. For a totally irrational and juvenile and stupid reason. Which makes it even worse really.

It doesn't help that I may be getting sick, or I may already be sick. Not sure, and not sure where that might be going, but I know its not helping.

I mentioned recently that my friends are everything, my heart and soul. But probably 3 or 4 times a week I think to myself: "Wouldnt it be easier, safer, less hurtful if you just...didn't? Let your friends go, they were probably at least as happy when you weren't around. You can drift away from them, let the distance get wider, and you dont have to hurt anymore."

I dont mean friends like we talk once every few weeks or exchange letters or whatever. I mean the friends I can barely go a day without talking to them, the ones that I seek out to say hello to. If I leave, they wont notice for long, and I wont lay awake at night wondering if I said something wrong, if they havent said hi because they're mad at me, if this is all a colossal fuck up and they're screwing with me. Because it has happened. To me. Multiple times.

I guess I didn't realize just how much I let certain people in. Which is stupid, right? Because how can someone be so out of touch they didnt see the 6 foot layer of bullshit come down?

So, what if I didn't? What if I went back to just me and my partner, and my thoughts? How long before I crack in half? How long before I decide I cant handle it, I cant be that alone. I was able to do it once, when I was so much stronger. But I lay awake at night, after the first wave has passed, in a cold sweat. And my mind says you could stop the anxiety if you just get cold again.

I spent 10 years working. I know, I know. Everyone has had a job, has dedicated themselves to it. It was nearly all I had. In my family, you get up and you do your chores, then you go to work. When you get home, you make sure nobody else needs help with their stuff. If you're lucky, after exhausting yourself in manual labor for 12 or 14 hours a day, you can watch tv until your eyelids feel like iron. I cant tell you how many nights I fell asleep on the couch. The last time I went on "vacation", I had to help put a new roof on my parents house. When I was a teen and wed go visit family in NY, there were always chores. Mow the lawn, repaint the fence, redrywall your aunts house, put new decking down. Work was all I knew. Much to my surprise, people didnt do all of this all the time. They had downtime, they had reasonable hours, they had the ability to say no.

Thats another one. Saying no. Seems easy, right? I can type it to myself all day long. If I told my parents no about work, or side work, or any chore that fell into my lap because my sister said she didnt want to, I was punished. In a backwards and manipulative way. Suddenly none of my favorite foods were in the house, my room was never clean enough, I had to do all the dishes from dinner because it just didnt make sense to run the dishwasher.

So when I say I could just flip the switch and become cold again, my whole body goes into panic mode. My heart is racing right now because somewhere, someone is going to read this and know what is going on inside my head.

The only thing more terrifying to me than making an ass out of myself in front of my friends, more terrifying than them getting mad at me; is not having them. I honestly think it might kill me.

I let them in too far, and now what if they leave?

I guess I can't let them go after all. I hope that they don't want to be let go of.

This was only slightly more convoluted than usual. If you're insane enough to read this, I'm sorry to subject you to what is essentially word vomit. I need to get this out, or it will eat me alive. Never really understood what people meant by that until now, that holding certain things in can kill you, can devour you.

I'm afraid of getting hurt, and I'm too afraid to be alone. I just need to not push people away, even though that is my immediate response. Just take a step back for a day or two, its no big deal. Then suddenly four months have gone by, and they're either tired of trying or didn't care enough to in the first place. Hard to say which of those is worse.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, except everything is lined with razor blades to make it more interesting.