there's no rock bottom, only more black hole.

i just went out to cornucopia to get food i needed from there before it closed at 9pm. also needed to get a file from acme surplus. ducked thru as many back alleys as possible but couldn't help encountering hoards of happy talking people on my way. i had to avoid them kind of like how you play frogger. and that's when i realized that i know how i can describe this mental state i've been stuck in for months but now with increasingly few moments of respite and increasingly dark thoughts, darker places than i've ever known.

it's like this: imagine the worst acid trip ever. it's a supremely paranoid acid trip revolving around a dark force that is trying to convince you to jump off a really tall building (but somehow you know you should fight this force and you wish you had some motivation, like something to look forward to should you conquer it, but there's nothing) and an intuitive knowledge that none of your friends want anything to do with you in your current state. the only people who want to see you are the ones who don't know you're in the middle of a really bad acid trip. you can't talk to anybody. and you're thrown outside amongst hoards of happy people and you don't know for sure if they can see you or not because you're extremely aware that they are in an entirely different reality. physically, your autonomic nervous system is on red alert, causing a deep feeling of panic and dread at all times. your heart is racing, you find you're gritting your teeth, and you're poised for flight at all times. everywhere you go you're checking for escape routes.

now realize this is not an acid trip at all, this is your life. it stays this way.

so that's how my mental state is and that's why i can't be around people no matter how much i love them or they think they love me. i feel extremely guilty at all times, when confronted with anything from outside myself (i.e. people, life, money, receipts, things to do, etc.) because i know everyone is thinking i just need to pull myself up by my bootstraps & snap out of it. everyone is having a hard time, these are tough times, is what people think. what do i have to complain about?

i have not much to complain about and that's not the problem and that's why nobody can understand unless they're going through it themselves. i am writing this now because i don't think anybody actually reads this blog & this is the stuff nobody wants to hear because then they feel like they're supposed to do something about it, and it's a burden. in general, being a downer is a burden. i don't want to burden people. i hate burdening people. but these last few months, almost for the last year, i feel like the message i'm getting from the universe is completely consistent and persistent: if you have problems, you are on your own and do not even dare to think you could ever be worthy of love. generally speaking.

specifically i've just been experiencing over & over that i am too much, too "intense", for people to take. even the people i thought were my closest friends have told me either explicitly or in a roundabout way that dark jenna is not welcome here. only happier happyish funny smart jenna is wanted. dark sad terrified needy freaked-out jenna is not worthy of anyone's attention, except unwanted attention from creeps, who don't care what jenna's mental state is because that's why creeps are creepy, because they don't read cues and don't see a woman as a person, so her thoughts are irrelevant.

but creeps are not my problem. my problem is that i've had to isolate myself more & more & more, the worse things get for me. and the worse things get the more i alienate the very people who were giving the most meaning to my life. black hole energy is contagious and i don't want to suck anyone into it... but it just becomes a bummer when it goes on & on & on & never ever ever ever ends. i try to hang out with people when i'm feeling relatively optimistic but it's excruciatingly painful. even the best interactions cause me enormous anxiety... even "happy" interactions. after even the best interaction with even just one person i love, once i'm alone i dissociate and return hours later to find i've really fucked something up. this is one way i continue to injure myself, although my physical injuries are also one of my big problems. and that's because i am a wimp about pain and after a while when i'm overwhelmed enough and everything just hurts inside & out, i cry. i cry in public, walking down the street. i cry in class. i do not want to cry around any of the friends i may have left. this crying shit is pathetic and it alienates people.

i don't want anyone to do anything for me... i don't wish someone would come to rescue me from myself... i just wish i didn't have to be alone in this. but i do. it's my own personal trauma and it's no one else's problem. and that's all there is to it. i am doing everything i possibly can to get help for myself (seriously - i've got a psychiatrist, a therapist, i finally got a doctor after years w/out one, and i'm seeing a PT and an OT and i work hard to get sleep, though i often fail at that as well as at getting proper nutrition. i've learned a lot about "alternative healing modalities" too and i do whatever i can manage. and i practice movement and meditation.) i don't expect anyone to help me... i just wish i could be around people without having to lie about how i am. i mean, in a crowd of strangers it's not lying, no one cares & nothing matters. but to be with friends i have to be not the way i am. and because i really can't control it, i can't be how i should be and so i have to stay alone.

i really hate it. the worst part is just that there's nothing to even pretend to look forward to. i would be happier if i were just wishing the "right person" would come along and we'd be in love. and it's not that i don't believe in love or believe i can be loved. i believe that this winter i was truly seen for who i am and truly loved for who i am, and then informed that in spite of that love i'm really not good enough for anyone's company. my emotions are too intense. i get triggered too easily. i trigger others. sometimes i find that i'm collaborating with someone on an art thing and that gives true meaning to my life, it really does. it's all i need, to have a reason to live. but my collaborations are gone, all fucked up because i'm fucked up, and my mind is a blank when it comes to risking this again. it's just full-on panic.

anyway i have no escape, no delusional idea that everything is other people's fault & if i just meet the right people or go to the right places etc. everything will be better. it's like i've already gotten the spoiler to my life's movie. there's no suspense. i already know, because i've experienced it so many times, that it is a waste of my time and anyone else's time for someone to try & woo me or whatnot. they might not believe me, and they may not see what the big deal is about just giving it a shot. but i am so fucking sick and tired of having to wait & watch the process unfold time & time again - first fascination & lust, a bit of putting me on a pedestal, and then continued lust but a growing discomfort, and then the final realization that i am a basket case & not the person they'd projected on to me... i know this could be a self-fulfilling prophecy but it's just how it is. i know what happens.

this is PTSD. and i have spent my entire adult life trying to exist without confronting my worst trauma, all the while totally unaware that the worst trauma wasn't the only thing that could completely undo me. turns out there are layers and layers and layers of things i always thought i had no emotion about, but actually it was just repressed or dissociated and it's still here in my body. it's repeatedly relived in the present, because i haven't dealt with it and put it in its proper place in history, which is what needs to be done. and it's all gotten triggered at once all by accident & much has come as a total shock and i never ever ever would have purposely thrown myself into this horrible mess but it's more like a piano that fell on me when i wasn't looking. so here i am.

"bullet in the brainpan, squish!"