You tell me I'm never too far gone, it's difficult to be so strong

In getting engaged, I'm faced with parts of myself that I'm not entirely sure I'm comfortable with sharing. My weird idiosyncrasies and quirks have all been kept fairly under wraps because I've been able to. When you're not accountable to someone else, it's easy to become the kind of person who you don't want to be accountable for. For instance, I became the kind of person who prefers to be not spend a lot of time around other people. It makes me feel like I'm a bad person sometimes. Not that I hate people or anything like that, mind you, but more that I seem to want to be alone more than most people I know. As a consequence of this, I've forgotten how to be around people for periods of time longer than class time. I'm having to relearn how to interact with people and it scares me to death. What if people start to see through my exterior and realize that I'm really just an overgrown manchild who can't think of anyone but himself? What will I do when someone else catches on that I'm a big phony? In inviting someone else into my life on that level, I am giving her power to see that part of me. Terror.

Another thing about myself that I'm learning is that I have a really really really hard time accepting the selfishness of my existence. I've always been a fairly selfish person (aren't we all?), but in controlling how much I was around people, I could control my selfishness and then let it out when I was by myself. I would do whatever it was that other people would want to do, and then I would go and be by myself and do what I want to do. I couldn't (and still can't) seem to allow that I am allowed to have an opinion if someone else is present, and it's really not anything anyone else is doing, either. I just feel guilty. For no reason. No. Reason. I'm getting better at asking for what I want and need, but I'm not getting better at not feeling incredibly guilty for wanting to do my own thing.

I am finding that fear is one of the ruling forces in my life and that it has been for a long time. I could control this fear and everything attached to it very easily when I was alone. I am afraid of being out of control (probably one of my biggest fears), and I am afraid that taking control of situations makes me a jerk. I've written several times about my bands that I was in. Everson in particular means a lot to me, which I think is very obvious from what I've written. What I haven't written about is how I felt like a huge jerk when I would push and pull. Jon used to always tell me that I was the one everyone looked to for direction, and whether that was true or not, I started to believe it, and so I started to act like a leader. In doing so I would manage to separate myself from my friends and remove the enjoyment from the situation. The terrible dichotomy of wanting to be in control and hating myself for having opinions began to take its toll on me. There were many times that I felt uncomfortable with how I would do things during practice, telling people what to focus on, making comments and suggestions about songs, all of that. I came to resent myself for doing it and I never apologized to the men of that band for doing that to them. The tie-in to the rest of this post comes from the realization that I've come to that I feel that level of personal dissatisfaction if I start to take control of a situation. I am noticing that I have been teaching myself to shut down my brain if I feel like what it wants (what I want, let's own this) is contrary at all to what other people want. I don't want any conflict. Strangely enough, this in and of itself can breed conflict, and even then my brain (me) doesn't stop pushing for what it wants, which makes me feel like a big ol' douche when what I want is mentioned anyway.

The biggest crazy realization I'm having lately is that life isn't a fairy tale. There isn't going to be some fairy with a magic wand who is going to swoop down and make it so that I can live the rest of my life traveling and writing or playing music or just doing whatever it is I would do if I didn't have to do anything else. I have to work for my place in the world. The world works against me making my place because my place might displace someone else's place.

Long story short, my brain is full, and bulimia sounded like a good option. In case you couldn't already tell by the crazy pile of half digested mush you just read. Also, I am more messed up than I want to admit, and I hate that other people have to deal with my crazy. Hate. It makes me feel vulnerable in some truly horrifying ways.

I need to do my homework.