Friday, September 2, 2011

Some Things You Should Know

Why the confession?

Because it makes me feel better?

I don't know.

Sometimes these days I feel like I've reached an end of some sort. But here's what's been weighing on my mind, aside all the joviality:

  • I was born with a devastating neurological condition. It left my social cognition unimpaired while gutting my logical comprehension, thus leaving me longing for companionship at the same time that my inability to understand basic concepts made me fodder for endless mocking.
  • I will never tell you what this condition is. I'm so ashamed.
  • My parents, rather than getting me the help I so desperately needed, criticized the manifestations of my symptoms as if they were some personal fault.
  • I can still remember being made fun of by the two people who were supposed to protect me because of a condition that I couldn't help. Mommy and Daddy have been my enemies for a long time.
  • I struggle constantly with feelings of worthlessness, due in large part to my parents' angry or demeaning reactions to my illness.
  • I have relied disproportionately on social relationships given that socializing is one of the few things at which I am naturally adept, one of the few things that my accursed developmental condition did not steal from me.
  • To this day, I will stand in front of a dirty room, stare at it for ten minutes straight, and not comprehend the first step I need to take to clean it.
  • My neurological condition accounts for many of my seeming shortcomings, but I will not publicly acknowledge it for fear of appearing handicapped. I'd rather have people think I'm an inconsiderate ingrate, which they surely do. They've told me so. It kills me, particularly when I try so hard. It makes my cry.
  • I am intelligent enough to mask my symptoms.
  • I run for the track team because I want to feel attractive. I want to feel attractive because I want to feel wanted. I never feel wanted. I expend an enormous amount of time and energy on something I will likely never have.
  • I had developed trauma-induced obsessive compulsive disorder by the time I was in my mid teens. My OCD can be directly attributed to the abuse I experienced as a child and adolescent.
  • I hate my parents for what they did.
  • I still have nightmares about my father's violence.
  • I still have nightmares about my mother's cruelty. It still makes me cry. I am crying now. I can't understand why someone who loved me could treat me so horribly.
  • I have never understood why I was made the way I was, why I was constructed as a piece unable to fit into the world's puzzle.
  • I feel tremendous anger at the fact that I was born with a brain that didn't function correctly. It's like I was shot in the leg at the start of life's race.
  • Sometimes, more often than I would care to admit, I want to fall asleep and never wake up.
  • I am confused much of the time. Basic tasks intimidate me in a way that others would find laughable.
  • Many people with my condition are never able to live independent lives. I would rather die than be one of them. Through uncommon intelligence I have done more than my early physicians ever thought would be possible.
  • One of my best friends offered to help me if I felt disoriented. I told her she would never know. I will never tell her. The first time I make an exception for myself, I'm admitting I'm disabled.
  • I hate it so much. I can't even say how much I hate it. It kills me every day. Sometimes I wonder if I did something in a past life to deserve this. It would have had to have been really bad.
  • Sometimes I start crying and can't stop. Like now.
  • I'm a little boy inside. I'm as hurt as I ever was.
  • I lost my virginity this summer and remain humiliated at how it happened.
  • Between my neurological condition, obsessive compulsive disorder, and warped self-image, I have been fighting all my days to lead a normal life. I don't want to anymore. I've been fighting for 23 years. I'm so tired.
  • I've debated telling my parents that they need to be okay with me dying young.
  • I believe in God. I ask Him why this happened to me. When I want to die, I ask Him to forgive me.
  • What did I do? Why?
  • I hate this so much. I'm an exceptionally gifted writer, and even I can't properly express how much I hate this.
  • It's unfair. I don't care if I'm complaining. I don't care if I'm weak. Damn it, it's not fair. What did I do?
  • A part of me secretly suspects that everyone who's ever hated me has been right. There have been so many.
  • Sometimes I drink as much as I can so that I'll forget.
  • It never works.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Things like this made me sure there is no God. There isn't. What kind of God would do shit like this to someone?

Anonymously Me said...

I think you are amazing, no matter what is wrong with you.

I also often want to fall asleep and never wake up. But then I always wake up. And so we just have to keep going.

laura b. said...

Speaking as someone who thinks of you as a friend, the only advice I would offer is that you create (or continue to create) a network of people you can trust. Confide in them about ways in which you may from time to time need help. I know it sounds corny, but for reals, that's what friends are for.

naturgesetz said...

Dear BB, you write, "I will never tell you what this condition is. I'm so ashamed," and you also won't tell anybody you deal with, despite the difficulties it causes you.

I think you are wrong to be ashamed. Shame is what we should feel when we have done something wrong. You have done nothing to be ashamed of.

Look at it this way. You are trying to pretend to people that you don't have this condition, and it's causing problems that you don't need to have.

It seems to me that you'll be happier if you tell people whose good opinion of you is in some way important and who will think ill of you if you don't explain.

People make apologies all the time. Sometimes they acknowledge that they did something wrong; other times they explain that what happened is not really their fault. Your explanation would in effect be the second type of apology.

What's wrong with "appearing handicapped" or "admitting that you're disabled?"

I think it's remarkable that you've done all you've done, and, like a wheelchair marathoner, you should be proud of what you've done despite your condition, rather than trying to pretend you're playing on a level field with everybody else (to switch metaphors).

BTW, there was no previous life, and you're not being punished. This world isn't heaven, and so bad things can happen. It always stinks when they do. We don't understand why God permits them, but through it all we do believe that he loves us.

jo(e) said...

(o)

Josh said...

(((BB)))

1. I treasure your vulnerability.
2. I admire your perseverence.
3. I honor your struggles.
4. I hope you'll find ways to bring these characteristics into the offline world... perhaps you could pick three people and let just a piece of your difficulty with a particular task be known to each, and let them be there with you - maybe to help, maybe not; but, at least, to know that you struggled in a particular moment.

You didn't earn your difficulties; I wish the world were fairer, because the world needs good-hearted people - and I wish you (and all the others) could have an easy life that would let you share your goodness freely with the world.

BrightenedBoy said...

Anonymous 1: That's a question I wrestle with a lot.

Naturgesetz: I try not to think of myself as a wheelchair marathoner. I will live a full life or none at all.

Anonymous 2: Everyone has something to offer. That means you, too.

Josh: Yeah. That would be nice.