Becoming A Burden

Thursday, June 01, 2023

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I’m making more active choices to push through the dark patches. They aren’t as difficult as they have been recently. It’s getting easier for me to stop and see the option to say yes to joy, or even just satisfaction. Happiness is, maybe, a habit that I need to actively cultivate.

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I continue to think about these ideas of self image. Who do I see myself as? What are my unspoken expectations for myself, the ones so deeply programmed into me that I usually don’t even know they exist.

I have the image of who I want to be. Stoic, capable, strong. Able to express myself clearly and accurately. Able to weather hardships without cracking under outside or internal forces.

I have the image of who I am. An intelligent man who nonetheless has little to show for decades of struggle. A person who has lost much of their physical and mental resilience. A type one diabetic who carries on, day to day, with the very real specter of potential catastrophe hovering on the other side of one incorrect meal or injection. I am a person who has let the struggle with my own mental health erode who I am and what I am capable of.

The other day I came home from work in a bad mood. Sometimes this happens every day. Sometimes only once a week, or month. But I know enough to see that when I get home I won’t be able to enjoy the companionship of my partner or my friends.

But I have expectations of myself. And my inability to engage meaningfully with those around me ran up against those things that I and others thought I needed to be able to do. Things I think I should be able to do consistently. And when I can’t, that subtle cognitive dissonance hits me, lost in all the noise I’m already dealing with in my negative headspace. And there are the external expectations placed on me, as well, causing similar discomfort every time I fail to live up to the needs and wants of those who count on me.

I think that’s that hardest part, the idea that I CAN’T be counted on. For the longest time I did my best to be reliable, dependable. It was part of how I saw myself. And now I hear people say they can’t rely on me to be there when they need it.

I’ve identified the problem. I’m doing what I can to increase my reliability, and that itself improves my disposition. It’s not perfect, and I’m terrified that one catastrophe, one medical emergency, will send me spiraling again.

And a loose thought that I don’t know if I’m ready to tackle is the fact that I am okay with OTHER people being a burden. I take it on gladly. I see it as a privilege to be with them. Why, then, do I refuse to give myself permission to be a burden to others? Why won’t I let them take care of me when I’m broken?

Still working on that one.

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What are my qualifications? None, except for my own experience and a desire to help. Going back to Doctor Who, “I am an idiot … passing through, helping out.” I hope my own struggle with my darkness can help you with yours, or understand the struggle of someone you love.

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Life before death

Strength before weakness

Journey before destination

Clashing Self

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

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The days are a fog, rolling past me, but I think I’m getting better. I just have very little motive force. I know what needs to be done, but I can’t make myself do it. But the horrible black mood has moved off for now.

I will see it again. I hope it will be on better terms, next time.

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Who I am as a person has changed drastically over the past few years. On top of that, my sense of self identity - who I perceive myself to be - has changed just as much. They don’t match what they were, and they don’t match each other.

Cognitive dissonance is when a person holds conflicting ideas about a thing - including the person themselves. And this clash of incompatible ideas can cause significant discomfort, or even pain.

I used to think of myself as reliable, hard working, tough. Compassionate. Patient. I can look back at a time when I worked two jobs and trained hard at the dojo, while being there for my family and friends and taking care of my share of the work at home. I remember a time when it would take monumental, concerted effort from someone to make me angry. I remember being helpful and considerate, extending respect to everyone, whether they showed it to me or not. And under it all I always, ALWAYS, wanted to get it right, to do it right, to be right for people.

Now I feel like I am unreliable, because of my failing mental and physical health. I feel like I can’t be hard working, at least not by ordinary standards, because my body and soul can’t take it. I am no longer physically or mentally tough. I am frail, slow, and inflexible. Lethargic, even on my best days, with short bursts of energy that leave me winded. I fail to be there for the people I care about, even when I want to. Birthdays, important events. Chores. Daily minimum. And I am so very tired of being patient, of having people treat me like garbage to be abused without consequence or regard for my humanity. I still try to show respect, but it doesn’t take much anymore to make me drop the gesture if it’s not reciprocated. And whether something is right or not, I find myself wishing I didn’t care.

It wouldn’t take a psychologist to see the markers. People pleasing. Savior complex. Overwhelm. Burnout. Hell, even ADHD markers are in there. But again, this isn’t even the real me. This is the concept of myself that I have. How much of it is true is hard to grasp. Plato’s cave and all that.

I have moments where I can see through the image, as if it were an overlay on the real world. I am hard working, but I have too many things to work on, so I fail. I am compassionate, but I get overwhelmed with all the things I want to be part of, to support, to help, and I feel myself breaking from the strain, and then I snap back into myself like an elastic. As a defense mechanism. To prevent me from tearing into pieces emotionally, which ironically lends itself to tearing apart anyway. I am tough, to have been through all the physical, mental, and emotional problems that have come my way, and I’m only seeing the outward cracks, not everything that’s still being kept together. I go to work or accomplish things at home even when I should be bedridden, or checked into a hospital. 

And I care. No matter how much I sometimes don’t want to, I care.

This last one is the thing I keep coming back to. Because when I go dark it becomes one of my intrusive thoughts. “I don’t care. I just don’t care.” But it’s not true. It’s a part of me trying hard to make me not care, because caring hurts too much. It’s self protection. And no matter how many times I tell myself to believe it, my actions and my feelings belie the truth.

The cognitive dissonance - the horrible action of these different conceptions of myself grinding themselves to pieces on each other - is painful. But when I see that for what it is, I can step back a little and let them be what they really are - ideas. And ideas can be entertained or left alone. They can be proven or disproven. Forgotten. Remembered.

I chose to remember who I enjoyed being. Who I am at my core. 

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What are my qualifications? None, except for my own experience and a desire to help. Going back to Doctor Who, “I am an idiot … passing through, helping out.” I hope my own struggle with my darkness can help you with yours, or understand the struggle of someone you love.

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Life before death

Strength before weakness

Journey before destination