How I Am (The Honest Version)

Here's how I am (the honest version):

Things have been okay. I have not been okay.

I'm functioning, which I resent. It makes me feel like I'm making everything else up. I got two bachelor's degrees in four years and I graduated cum laude and I've held down jobs and I have a 4.0 working on my master's degree. If I can manage all that, why can't I manage myself?

Probably 75% of the last few years have been either Down Days or Dark Days.

On Down Days, I make things work. I wake up tired and shuffle through homework or lunches with friends even though I sort of feel like I'm going to cry. I get easily overwhelmed by bright lights or loud talkers or big crowds. I can put one foot in front of the other, but nothing is enjoyable. Nothing is fun. I count down the hours until I can go to bed. I just go through the motions on Down Days.

But on Dark Days, I don't feel alive at all. Everything is gray and the world is still spinning, but I am somehow apart from it. I don't participate in the world on those days; I don't participate in my own life. Sometimes I don't even get out of bed. I have let dishes pile up in the sink for months, I have watched dozens of Netflix episodes in a row without moving an inch. I sometimes don't shower or change clothes or eat meals. Sometimes I stare at the ceiling for hours, feeling sorry for myself or feeling angry at the world or feeling nothing at all. Sometimes the numbness is the most crushing.

Down Days feel exhausting, but Dark Days feel impossible.

I feel chronically empty, and I try to fill myself up with tons of stuff that never really works. I used cutting for a long time, then sleeping, then alcohol, then cigarettes, then Benadryl and alcohol (more sleeping), then alcohol and pot, then pot and food. I consider it a miracle that I'm not hooked on hard drugs.

I blame my parents for a lot of stuff, and sometimes I can't decide if they deserve that or not. They did a lot of things right, but I feel a lot of pain and anger toward them and I don't always know where it's coming from. Being with them feels simultaneously chaotic and stifled. We have weird boundaries that don't work for me. I spend a lot of energy seeking them out, I spend a lot of energy wishing they were different.

There are so many things I don't remember about the past ten years, especially surrounding being at home or with my family. It's frustrating and confusing and it makes me doubt my own recollection of my own life.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I feel like I was born a little bit broken. It feels like everyone else has so many layers between their heart and the world, but I'm sort of raw and exposed and grating gracelessly against a life that's tearing me to shreds.