Get it Out!

I'm not really planning on posting this anywhere, and I'm not really sure who's going to read it. All I know is that I'm having a really hard time right now and I know that sometimes typing helps me work through things in my head.

As it seems right now, I don't have anyone to talk to. Granted, I am in that state of being where I have put up a barrier to keep people away from me. This barrier is some weird ritual I seem to do. Anytime someone gets too close, up come the walls.

A lot of people have asked me about that idea. They wonder if I have such a hard time letting people in, why am I sometimes so incredibly vocal on the internet? Well, I know it can seem like a paradox. I have to admit that I enjoy stirring the pot, poking fun at tradition, or just reading the sound of my own voice after I type stuff (like I'm doing right now). But honestly, it's much easier for me to open up to strangers than it is to open up to those close to me.

Just follow me for a second: what's the worst a stranger could do if I opened up to them? Probably raise their eyebrows and tell me I'm crazy (which my friends do anyway so it's not like a shock to my system) and walk away. I can handle that! What I can't handle, and what's happened to me many times in the past, is when I open up to someone I'm close to, and the next thing I know, they are condemning me and walking away. It hurts. It really does.

So here I am, stuck with all these thoughts that I'm trying to sort through and I don't have someone to talk it through with. In my mind, the people I usually talk to have heard it all before, and now they don't care. But, I'll try and get these thoughts out here.

I have never had the awful misfortune of losing an entire support group. Sure I've lost friends and acquaintances, but losing an entire system of love and comfort would be terrible. Well, I should be honest and say that I hadn't lost one until recently.

I identify a lot of my cultural upbringing as being a Mormon. What I thought was a very good one too. And now, I don't have that. I have "chosen" to be gay and live a different lifestyle (like anyone would choose to have all this crap happen to them...), and as such, I am no longer welcome in my religion.

It's an incredibly bizarre feeling. Sure I have my own beliefs, but no one who shares them. I no longer have Mormon doctrine being drilled into my head every week. I don't have people who come visit me once a month, or who care if I come to FHE. There is no bishop who asks me how I'm doing, with a genuine interest in my well-being. Not only have I lost people to support me, I have lost my theological background.

I was overcome the other day with a terrifying feeling of death. Not exactly the process of dying, but what happens after. While I was still practicing, I had an idea of what's going to happen after I die. And I do still now as well. But at the same time, nobody *actually* knows. No one. People have ideas, but there is no absolute knowledge of exactly what is going to happen. That thought was incredibly intrusive, and I feel like I have moved on from that moment of terror, but it might come back and send me for a loop again.

Not only that, but I have come to the realization that I am alone. I am completely alone. There is no one out there who completely understands me, who can pick me up, and who can help me. That is one of the toughest things I have faced.

And I am so incredibly tired. This is not the tired where I want to take a nap. This is a tired that feels like my soul is aching. It's as if I have carried around a terrible weight all these years and I've collapsed and can't get up. I hurt so much at times, that I can barely stand it. I don't want to push to be happy, I don't want to fight this depression, I don't want to overcome the downright awful things say to me and about me, and I don't want to get back up again. I'm tired! And there is seemingly no rest for me...

So I've been facing quite a few existential issues lately. I seem to have lost a lot of purpose in my life. I've lost my support group, and I seem to be losing my identity as well. I don't know what to do, honestly.

Yes I've thought about going back to therapy (there's a conflict with me being a patient in the same place I will be practicing therapy next year), and I have been reaching out to others. Which brings up another painful realization for me. People don't call me. I call them. If I want to do something, I invite lots of people. I can't even recall the last time someone called or texted to ask if I wanted to go out somewhere and do something. Am I really that terrible of a person that people can't stand to be around me? What did I do? My boyfriend gets calls pretty much every day to go do something. I sit at home alone.

I guess the overall message I'm trying to get across (and here come those blasted tears), I want to feel valued. I want to feel loved. I want to feel support. Most importantly, I want to feel happy. I don't think people understand how hard I fight to be happy. I want it SO badly that I can just feel myself screaming on the inside. But it just seems to be forever out of my reach.