pain and betrayal (Patreon)

[This post is intended purely for self-expression]

We interrupt the panic-laced daily routine of thinking I should be doing something more important for our regular dose of emotional distress triggered by something I wish I'd never scratched the surface of but here we are. 

A deep loneliness.

It's been with me for as long as I've been alive. 

Am I the only being on Earth who feels this? A loneliness that leaves me emotionally raw and I can't figure out how to soothe it. All night and day I've been consumed, ruminating and restless and feeling like I should do something for myself to help me move on but I failed to come up with anything. 

I lost my desire to eat or drink or so much as be alive. It's irksome because I want to be motivated and lively but instead I am frozen, torn apart by emotion. Lingering emotion that is but an old unresolved wound and it's puzzling how something that no longer applies can overpower every atom in my body. I have a deep longing to return home but I feel that home is not a place I can get to in a physical body. And right now the only way I can conceive of it is this vague feeling weighing down on me like a snowy blanket over a dormant Earth and waiting to be remembered. But instead, I feel alien and like I might not have a place here. Am I worth a shit to anyone? Or is the feeling of being wanted a sorrowful illusion I create for myself and con innocent people into? The question echoes beneath the barrier of my paper thin skin along with the doubt that I'm worth even writing these words. I feel worthless, hopeless - and the summer air makes it all feel real again. If I had to pin down a cause, I would rationalize that it's because the unavoidable summer vacations in Russia with family were the prime environment of this type of feeling and I must have formed an association. A certain smell in the air, prevalent at this time of year brings back feelings of deep worthlessness, rejection and alienation. Accompanied by the painful longing to return home.

I find it harder to trust now than I did before, scarred by betrayal and my own misjudgement of who I put my trust in. I do not know whom to trust and don't trust myself to know whom to trust, so I'm best off not trusting anyone with the truth of who I am, even though it's not a choice I want to make. Maybe the longing to return home is as much of a ghost as I - simply emotion running in a loop because I've entertained it for so long without a resolution. Maybe it's a blurred imprint of said vacations in Russia where I wished to return home to a slightly lesser evil - neglect aside, it was easier to meet a few basic needs with a bedroom to hide in and not thousands of miles away from anyone who spoke the same language as me. But I no longer wish to return to anyone, in retrospect, for I have always feared that I'm best off alone. Loneliness hurts, but it's a pain I can count on. People are too fickle and unpredictable and the ways they can hurt you, you never see coming. I've come to trust my loneliness for it was all I had for as long as I've been alive. 

Is it worth it, inviting people into my world anymore? Is there anyone capable of understanding anything I say? Or is everyone just too nonconfrontational to tell me what a freak I must be? Faced with disapproval for anything I could say or do, it is tempting to turn to complete isolation like the hermit I used to be, drowning in books, shutting everyone out - I was criticized for that, too, you see, you really can't ever please everyone. But I liked it because it gave me a feeling of power. Contained inside myself, no one could ever know me and no one could ever hurt me. I wouldn't let them because I pushed everyone away. I didn't have to care. I have deep regrets about ever letting anyone in. 

It's sad, but it's a sadness I can count on. People are too cruel and vindictive and the ways they can sadden you, you never see coming. 

So what if I am insane? Sanity is but a social norm and for a society to decide what is sane is insanity. If I weren't so attached to my freedom, I wouldn't bother acting sane and suppressing every impulse to be me. Maybe also if I weren't so weak against criticism. But it's so exhausting to pretend to be normal. Just to try and pass as one of them, fool everyone into thinking I'm one of their own so I won't be rejected. I have no doubt, if they could see me when I'm not scraping together all my, sometimes, scattered willpower to keep my shit together and act like a normal person, as mother dearest used to threaten of me, they would try to burn me at the stake as a look of disgust and confusion washes over their socially acceptable faces at the abomination that is my unfiltered mind. I hear people try to kill what they fear, fear what they don't understand and, frankly, I quite seldom feel understood. And even when I do, I fear I'm often wrong. 

I'm just stuck feeling worthless for it, for who I am and everything I can't help. I don't feel worthy of consuming food or of anyone's time or even of the air I breathe. I would hold my breath so many times lying in my adolescent bed because I just didn't feel worthy of breath. With every breath I felt excruciating guilt for being such a let-down to everyone in existence, convinced that everyone secretly wished I never existed. I still feel this way today even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Is there anyone capable of understanding this feeling? 

It's an isolating one and one that makes me want to disappear. 

I have a habit of disappearing and I put it down to this exact feeling. 

Since I was quite young, every couple of years, I got this overwhelming urge to leave everything I knew behind and start over. I stopped talking to anyone I knew and just vanished into thin air to start again with a clean slate. Pretty frequently and for no discernable reason, I just wanted to get away. For as long as I've had [Esc] reality, I've suppresed this urge. I can only attempt to describe the feeling as I've never done so in detail - it's like, in one instant, letting go of everything that's dragging you down and causing you heartache, freeing yourself up to put your energy into something new. Start from scratch without any strings attached (yet.) I miss that feeling. That breath of fresh air when all possibilities were open to me, contained inside myself, feeling lonely and content at the same time. Because I tend to assume that no one will miss me because no one wants me in the first place, I don't feel bad about leaving anyone behind. I realize now that's probably wrong, but I never really knew that before. Sometimes I would wonder if anyone would come looking for me, and if they did, that would make me feel wanted - but only until I felt taken for granted once more, or until the overwhelming loneliness returned. And whenever I start something new, over time I grow dissatisfied with it, as I'm sure you've noticed how I've grown dissatisfied with my own videos. And it's oh so tempting to delete everything and start over yet again, with the promise being a higher baseline quality - maybe just close enough to perfection that even I could love it! But I know the cycle pretty well by now and I know this only lasts for a couple of years at a time before I grow tired of it. It's funny because every other artist is out there celebrating milestones and their fans' loyalty in the form of anniversaries and arbitrary subscriber count - and here I am, audaciously giving myself credit for my own loyalty to my own channel. I believe something rather fundamental separates us, as my goal was never to be a YouTuber or have a successful channel. My goal is just to not hate my life. I found a place where people want something I have to give and that's a fulfilling feeling and the novelty of this very feeling has motivated me to keep going for as long as I have. Essentially, I'm still here for you. I've managed not to ghost you for many years and I do my best to keep that up. And yet at the same time, the energy I put into this is weighing on me and dragging me down and I just want my passion back. So far I've only known passion as a byproduct of the freedom of starting over. I'm sure it hasn't escaped you, the many ways in which I've worked to preserve as much freedom as possible in my video creation. Somehow, talking about this in itself feels freeing, as I don't have to carry this burden alone. But I'm afraid, oh so afraid, of judgement and criticism for my obvious lack of dependability and organization. So I've never said anything and never started over and it's been eating away at me. Forgive me for this is the first time I've committed to anything for this long and I don't know how to get over my own dissatisfaction with myself. But I try. 

I hope this wasn't terribly unsettling. It's just that I've been stuck and frozen in this pain for two days now and writing about it was my last straw for trying to help myself heal. I don't know what will come of it but I really hope it'll be any semblance of positive emotion so I can get back to work. 

Thank you for reading this.