I have really neglected this blog.
When I first opened it, I was encouraged by the wonderful blogs of people like Jenny Trout, or my friends Eliott and Mouse, who write screamingly funny and photocopier-paper warm entries about all the utterly lovely things they are doing and all the utterly lovely people they are meeting . That was about 6, 8 months ago. A few embarrassingly pitiful posts on a film I saw, something I wrote into the dead cells of my computer when I was mildly pissed and pissed off, and really contrived pieces where I try to force my personality out of the screen like Samira from The Ring, but more uncomfortable gawkiness than terrifying greasy hair. I guess I gave up because whenever I try to write I leave the building embarrassed that I even tried.
The reason why I feel so inadequate, oh stranger-who-is-probably-up-at-2am, is that my writing always comes across as so much more dull. I love reading the blogs I've mentioned because they have a real zestyness about them. Put simply, these people are doing things, and then reporting the done things. They are having the time of their lives, talking, meeting, they take photos of their intrepid fun-having, and they post it online. Their unbelievably good looking expressions make a trip to the supermarket seem like the most hilarious thing us ugly fat kids could never get in on. And if you think I sound bitter, well, fucking of course I'm bitter!! Looking at their photos makes me suspect that all that enjoyment and socialising was natural for them. They didn't fake their smiles, not once. They didn't have to wait to see how the other people spoke to know which words to use. They never came away from social gatherings shamefaced for reasons they couldn't explain, but which boil down to the thick sludge of revulsion they have for the world, their peers, and themselves.
And yes, this is the blog of someone with recurrent mental health issues. I won't specify what's wrong, or not right with me, because tbh it doesn't really matter and if you've had any experience with that unrightness in your brain or anybody else's brain, you'll understand.
It's getting better as I get older, but I am in my mid-twenties now, and I have hit the granite block of reality, and that is I never will fully get over it. I will never be 100% ok with who I am. There will never be a time when I will forget to be nervous around the happy, light-hearted people, the sort of people who fill their blogs with photos of waving children and unusual food. I have had so many social engagements where I try to reorganise my mind to be fun, to forcibly, consciously pump in happy hormones from my pertuity gland, just so I can relax and stop my brain, the treacherous little shit, convincing me I am a soul sucking black hole of stupid remarks then awkward silence. The cold blue area on the infrared camera. No wonder really, why my blogs seem so down, when I'm so internally focussed. While the others look out at the world, at each other, I am looking desperately inward, scrambling to push these shitty feelings inside, keeping an eye on the others' behaviours so I can mimic them and pass as a real person.
And from time to time, there is a mathematical certainty that I will want to kill myself. Not from the tragedy of it. No Opheliac scene with a willow and river. Just a moment of clarity and the sudden understanding that it probably would be better to die. I don't know if anyone who's also experienced these feelings before also felt it like this, but whenever I've wanted to die, it comes to me so rationally. Like a business someone deciding to withdraw shares from one company and invest in another, because it makes sense long-term, because the time is right, because your gut tells you that of your dwindling choices, this one's best. Like I said before, it's not the poignant tragedy of "I shall break like a bough," and it's not an emotional frenzy (although in the past the calm decision of suicide has followed a breakdown or two.) It's a decision I'm making with a plus and a minus column, with no particular feelings on either side.
