9:00 p.m. - 10/28/02
where is my hope now? all my heroes have gone*
the further you are from something, the less real it seems. right now, recovery is the mirage; safety, family, peace- they don't seem real. I wish I could believe that what I remember about being at RED and what I remember about my better moments since discharge are something I'm meant to sustain, but I don't. I don't believe that, and I don't know how I can make it a reality. I remember the nights I've felt purposeful, felt strong, and peaceful and at ease, but I don't understand why they come or why they leave. why do I still feel like shit so much of the time? how will I ever not feel this way?
I've been thinking about my tendency to flip out over other people's problems, the caretaking urges I'm so constantly battling. I don't think it's simply a compulsion; I think it's also in part my personality. I think there is something semi-good in me that really does want to save the world, and if that's true, why can't it be possible? Why am I designed to want to be a superhero but am incapable of acting as one? I want so so much to be able to heal everything, and since I can't even begin to do so, I feel completely hollow; I feel wretched. I mean, if this is who I am, it's not something I can change; it's not something I'd necessarily want to. But how am I ever going to be ok in a world where it's impossible to experience more good than bad? How am I ever going to feel safe putting myself in a helping position when I'm likely to see as much pain as progress? I just can't take the pain anymore. Fuck it all. I don't want to be alone, and I don't want to be anywhere near "people like me." I don't want to feel like the only one in the world who is sick, and I don't want to be continually hurt by the sickness of the world. I can't keep watching people self-destruct. I can't even watch them pull out of it, it seems. I think my own pain is too much right now. I think I'm on the verge of self-destructing, and the idea of how thoroughly that keeps me from helping others just pushes me over the edge. I'm scared that I don't have a purpose in this world, other than to be in pain. I only know two things that I want- to be with my red people and to help heal the pain, and the latter one involves so much pain, I'm not sure I can take it. What good can I possibly do? I used to have all this faith- this idea that I was meant to be in the world, this idea that I was one personality of a vastly important sole, here with my own mission, and my own responsibility to learn and help my soul in its growth process. I used to believe that no matter what I was doing, it was necessary, because it was teaching this soul something new. Now I feel like my days will be whittled away with nothing. Or perhaps I'll be a playwright, which honestly feels the same to me. I love theater, I love writing for it, but it doesn't make me feel like I'm someone. It's kind of a cheap expressional thrill. It's not a method of life. For me.
I know I look at the world as something that could be/ should be perfect. And I guess, knowing now that no matter what I do, I can't make it so, I feel like there's no hope at all. I lost the ability to make the world perfect when I lost Tracy; no matter what turns my life take, I cannot be in her physical presence again. I just feel like there's no way to fix the world completely, and there's no way to even do it in small doses, without hurting myself too thoroughly to stand.
I don't know how to make myself feel better, or even how to make myself feel better about how I'm feeling now. No matter how many times I reach out, no matter how many people leave me the kindest words, I still feel so. fucking. alone. And hopeless, which is something I've so rarely been. I think, outside of my depression, I've almost never felt that life was hopeless. And granted "outside of my depression" may have been equivalent to one day every three years in recent history, but all the same, it says something. There's more clarity in the thought now; I can't write it off as a symptom of my chemical malaise. I mean, what if it really is hopeless? What if I can't feel well, have family, find home, and do good in the world?
What if this is all, and I don't know how to be happy about it?
I guess it's good that I'm being forced to focus on the present moment. Too scared to plan for the future, incapable of believing the far-off future will be wonderful- the way I always did. I guess it's good that I will have to learn how to survive the unsurvivable: life alone with my parents in D!@#$%^. Still. It would be really nice if Sara's phone weren't busy, if RED had answered Wednesday night, and if Dr. R had returned my message like he said he would.
I don't want to believe there's nothing to believe in. I've never been able to survive that.
chord
p.s. I just reread this and it has me crying. I think maybe my pain over struggling alone (in terms of my real-time world) and how crazy my parents are is more than I'm admitting. I think maybe my pain in general is leaving me disarmed. I need to ask for help, for something more, but he didn't even call me back, and what the fuck is that? There has to be a way out of here.
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