Into My Life - A Journal

07/17/2016 - Life is Hell

A lot has happened since I last wrote, both personally and in the world. Shootings and violence are getting worse, which makes it a pretty scary world. I can't imagine I ever thought I would say that. When I was younger everyone around me loved living here. We felt free and happy and we felt so much hope for the world (we were children, keep in mind), but now we're seeing all the faults and all the problems in the world getting worse and getting magnified. It's terrifying because we want to see change, but the government is so corrupt that it's hard to make it happen.

On a personal level, my grandpa was just diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. I've dealt with family members and friends getting cancer before. Last year being the most recent. So I know how the disease goes, but that only makes it harder. The doctors try to be positive and you try to be positive when other people are around, but when you get alone you fall apart. You fall apart because you don't want to see them get worse. You fall apart because you don't want to see them die. You fall apart because you know they don't deserve to go through all that. All those thoughts have been running through my mind since I got the news. 

I want to be there for them. My dad and I go over often. My dad plays cards with him and we hang around to cheer him up and keep him positive. The sad part is that it's not his dad, it's mom's, but for some reason she avoids family members at all costs. Her dad is sick and she made a false excuse not to visit him today. I don't understand that. They told me when I visited that she's always avoided family. They said that when she went away to college she avoided calling or visiting as much as possible. Don't get me wrong, if I had a vehicle I would do the same thing to avoid her, but she's abusive to me. She's been abusive my entire life so it makes sense why I would want to get away with it, but her parents were not abusive. At all. They're amazing. I mean they do everything possible to help their family anytime they ask. When mom's having an episode and gets more abusive, they're the first people I go to for a place to stay. I don't know what my mom's childhood was like, but they don't deserve to have their daughter treating them like shit. 

It's horrible to see all of this happening, and on top of that figuring out that she's cheating again. There is no proof obviously, but my entire family is about 99% sure she is cheating again and she's showing all the signs she showed last time. I guess I'm disappointed. I keep hoping that she's getting better, but how can she get better if she never got help in the first place? She's just as bad as she's always been, except now she's probably worse. She's still lying to people to try to convince them that we're the ones treating her badly. She goes to a doctor that's more than willing to give her a prescription, all she has to do is ask. She goes shopping after work and never comes home before 8 or 9 o'clock even though she gets out at 5 or 6. She drives an hour or two to a doctor's appointment but doesn't come back until the middle of the night. 

I still wish I could get out of here. It's a nightmare. It's like my own personal Hell that I can't escape from, but it makes me feel terrible to think that. I may be running away from abuse, but avoiding family (even though it's only her I'd be avoiding) makes me feel like I'd be doing something similar to what she's doing because for some reason she never wants to talk to them on the phone or answer their text messages or go to any type of family event. She even causes a huge scene during every single holiday. I don't get any of it. 

I keep telling myself that I'm not like her. I keep telling myself that getting away from abuse is completely different than what she's doing. I also keep telling myself that the reason I feel so lonely isn't because I miss my old friends, but because I want to have new friends. My old friends bullied me, even if they didn't realize it was bullying, and I have no idea who they are now just like they don't know who I am. It's not even that I miss the memories; I miss having a group of friends. The need and want to runaway isn't because I don't want to have good family relationships, it's because it's physically and mentally unhealthy for me to continue living in this environment. I'm planning my life around with my best friend not because we both want to run away from our lives here, but because she's the first real friendship I've ever had. I was manipulated and abused growing up and every friendship choice I made after that revolved around keeping people that treated me the way I was treated at home, which wasn't good. I realize that now, but the friend I have now is a real and good relationship. Wanting to get out of here is all about wanting to find more of those good relationships. It's about wanting a good career where I can make good friends and good connections so I can live in a good place that will make me a better person. The place I'm at now only reminds me of all the bad things.

I have to keep reminding myself of these things because it's easy for me to forget. It's easy for me to believe my mom when she tells me I'm a terrible person or when she tells me that I ruined her life. It's for me to believe that I don't have friends because I'm a terrible person and it's for me to believe that I've never dated anyone because I'm too ugly or too terrible for anyone to want to date me. It takes a hell of a lot more energy to remember what my aunt jan said when she told me that she realized that my mom treats me like she does because she's jealous of me. She's jealous of the person I became and she's jealous of the way I look because I constantly eat healthy, exercise, and work hard to feel better about myself. I hadn't realized that until recently (somewhat recently). It also takes a lot of energy to realize that no relationship I have ever had, familial, friendship, or romantic, was ever healthy or good by any means. My life used to revolved around emotional abuse and I was taught that that was okay. Until a few years ago I had no idea what a real, good relationship was about. I had to learn the hard way. Of course I lost a few friends and it's taking me a while to make new ones. I made a shit load of mistakes trying to figure all that out, but I know now. And obviously I've never been in a relationship. The previous reason is one reason, but another reason is because I was always terrified of letting people in and I kept up way too many walls. On top of that I was silent all the time, which isn't very approachable. The last, and the main reason above the others, is because no one has ever liked me in a romantic way before. If they have, they never mentioned anything. I can't force someone I like to like me back or force them to approach me and ask me out. All I can do is be myself and try to befriend the people I have feelings for, which is hard for me because I've never done it before. Like it was with me making friends, I have to learn the hard way. It's a learning process.

I'm completely aware of why I have the problems that I do. I'm aware of why I act the way I do and how I ended up where I am today. I'm also aware that I've made a ton of mistakes that I wish I could apologize for, but the ones I need to apologize to are nowhere to be found in my life anymore. I get depressed a lot and I have to constantly remind myself about all of these things, but it's a learning process. I think that I won't start seeing significant progress until I have a place that I can come home to at night that feels safe. Having a safe haven will at least make me feel like there is one place in my life that's safe. That would raise my confidence significantly, or so I'm thinking.

This post has been all over the place, but so has my thinking lately. Too many thoughts running through my head all at once with no idea how to get them out on paper, or in this instance a computer.