Inappropriately guilty (guilty guilty)

(Named thus because I was writing this while listening to Diamanda's Guilty Guilty Guilty.)

I didn't like the Emberdays session this time. I have to confess it was really hard for me to run. I just don't have much confidence in it, I guess? But I did get it done.

I get frustrated with my anxiety problems though. Seriously, with games, I get all these great ideas that look awesome when I think them up and write them out, but I totally *freak out* when I run stuff. Every time I have to go through a difficult panic attack before or during running a game, or have to force myself into running despite apprehension or weariness, I end up thinking to myself: why am I even doing this?

The answer is simple: because I love creating... I love thinking up stories and building worlds and playing NPCs and bringing people into the worlds I imagine.

But why it has to be such a drain... well that's a different thing altogether.

You could say I'm a perfectionist.
You could say I'm a masochist.
You could say I'm too hard on myself.
You could say I just can't take the pressure.
You could say that I care too much what other people think.
You could say that I can't define my worth except by what other people think of me.
You could say I don't know how to live without expectations to force me into action.

I'm going to be 30 next year, and I'm still like this. I'm just... unable to live like normal people do. I sit here and I build worlds from the comfort of my chair in front of my computer screen. I mean, what do I DO with my time? I don't work and I don't have any significant responsibilities. I just have things like games to give me the illusion of responsibility, which I then take too seriously.

I don't really have much hope I will ever be different, right now. I know I've got maybe 3 weeks before I move, but now that I've settled back down here it doesn't feel real again. Like I'll just be sitting here forever.

I don't even see myself applying for college. I mean I haven't even visited the bank yet. I FORGOT about it until now, needing to get a loan and all. It's like my brain just wants to not think about those things. Shut out everything but the unreal world I live in, where I wake up to games and sleep after games and go outside maybe once or twice a week.

I don't know how I'm going to deal with anything in real life when I can't even handle how to balance the time I put into writing and working on things for other people, versus the time I give to myself. I seriously don't see myself getting a job if the best I can do is push myself REALLY hard for a week or two and then crash and be unable to do ANYTHING for another week. And then... I regain my strength, but I'm so restless that I pile on things for myself to do alllll over again.

You'd think that I'd get more out of life if I just evened that out so I never have these crash times, but... yeah. I don't know how to DO that. I just push and push myself until I reach this point where I'm just like "Well, I don't want to do it, but I HAVE to, so come on, DO IT!" even though my chest is literally aching from stress and I'm crying or snapping in resentment at my husband because he doesn't have to deal with what I do. Even though I'm the one who gave myself the responsibility to DO it.

It's not like I have anyone looking over my shoulder now. It's like I'm just *programmed* like this. Like I have to drive myself into the ground to feel my life has even an ounce of worth, and if I don't live up to what I say I can do, I just feel like hurting myself. Except I was taught not to show that I was hurt, so I just kept it completely mental, and I ended up with rape and abuse fantasies instead.

I have to say that they were never so vivid before I moved away from my parents'. I never needed them as much before I moved. It's not because Jon's hurting me, but because mentally, I think I'm actually programmed to believe that I NEED that abuse, I NEED that punishment to save face or to make up for my failings. I'm ashamed I did something wrong, or fell below expectations, and I'm *afraid* that people will point it out. I'm afraid they'll confirm all these horrible things I think about myself, and so I have to beat people to it.

It's my way of proving to myself that there's no one in the world that hates me more than myself. That is how I defended myself all those years, by taking pride in the fact that I could silently take abuse and learn to enjoy it.

The more I think about it -- the more I write these words, repeating myself, expanding on thoughts from previous posts -- the more I realize how horrible that seems. No decent human being should have to go through life feeling something like that. I didn't even realize it was bad until I got away from it, got some perspective to understand how much that was killing me inside, little by little, every day. I didn't realize I was doing it, and I just don't really know how to stop.

But until I can, I will suffer like this whenever I feel I've disappointed people's expectations, or failed to meet an obligation -- even ones that are imagined, even ones that I give to myself. It's like I'm a prisoner in my own mind. It's like I'm broken inside, like I missed out on some sort of critical realization when I was younger. Something that might have taught me that making mistakes is okay, that nobody is perfect and that sometimes people's expectations are just unrealistic.

Even if I can sit here, rationally understanding my reactions, I can't not feel that way when it arises. That old way of life, that damaging way of thinking is still killing me. I've given it a name: depression, with a side of anxiety. "Inappropriate guilt" as stated in the description of that disorder is something I feel at least once every single day. I have weight problems and I have anxiety issues and my memory blanks out on things that ought to be important because I'm unable to handle the stress. And a part of me hopes that I will die from it, because I'm not even sure I can be cured.

I want more than anything to be normal -- I don't want to glorify my abuse or my agony. I want to have a job and be able to support myself. I want to be able to go out to a store alone again, and I want to be able to lose weight and like my body again. I don't want to give up my online life, but I do want to have something beyond it I can be proud of, too.

But how does that start to happen? I just feel so lost. My entire youth has been squandered, and I'll enter my middle age having never felt true, lasting happiness in my entire life. I don't even know if I have lasting friendships, sometimes, because I just disappear into nowhere so often. I can't be there for anyone, or dependable for anyone. I'm afraid people will call me out on my faults and weaknesses, and so I hide away.

If I disappeared, if I was just gone forever, I'm sure people would miss me. But I'm also sure they'd eventually move on, because that's what people do when they grieve. Eventually, you accept they're gone. No one would remember why I disappeared, or what I wrote when I was around... and even if they did, the earth would eventually turn to dust and wipe that out, too.

Is today the day I'll disappear for good? I doubt it. But every day I disappear, my importance in the eyes of others dwindles. Someday... it'll be as if I never lived at all.