Mental disconnection: Thinking on paper (or digitally as it were)
I am, by nature, a relatively unpleasant and very angry person.
I know this about myself because I have to deal with me on a daily basis and get to hear all the terrible thoughts that don't quite make it out of my mouth. My mouth is ever moving, but I assure you, there's still a lot that goes on in my head that doesn't see the light of day.
I have spent a lifetime cultivating a social personality that allows me to interact with the outside world.
I am functional in the workplace and in social settings, regardless of my distaste for both those settings.
Lately, however, the line between my innate personality and the version of me that sees the light of day has been blurring. Perhaps dangerously so. To keep living in this world, which is something that's not optional (kind of is, but let's no go there because it ain't gonna happen), I need to be seen as calm, reliable person who is at least tolerably polite and nice. This is an unspoken rule of living in a society such as mine. But that line is blurring a lot lately.
Maybe "line" and "blurring" isn't the right way say this. Let's say much of my unpleasantness is, and has been, held back by a great big metaphorical wall. That wall is breaking down right now. I'm having a lot of trouble keeping the way I feel about a situation or person edited and I'm blurting out what I really think. Since what I think is often cruel and confrontational and almost exclusively negative, I think I'm kind of driving people away. It's not my intention to alienate people and make the workplace uncomfortable but that is what is happening.
Since the only way for me to shut myself up regularly is music, I've been working with ear phones in and taking breaks at different times as my colleagues. This has created a whole other problem of them realizing something is wrong and brewing in me. There's one individual in particular that I'm avoiding, as his constant criticism and insults push me right to the edge and I'm just about to yell at him. Again solved by the ear phones.
But the worst part, the absolute worst thing is that I'm switching back and forth between polite me and angry introverted me so often that sometimes I can't tell which one is a) showing to the world and b) the actual me. Under pressure at work, I default to the polite, dealing with people personality, but the second I walk away I'm becoming swept over by deadening, white hot anger towards something (often probably undeserved). This division is causing all kinds of problems with my brain. I'm misremembering and having a hell of a time keeping shit straight in my chaotic mess of a mind. I think my mind is so preoccupied trying to figure out how to behave at any given time that it's stopping me from accessing things properly. This is why I can remember things with great clarity after the fact because when I'm not in the moment I can be my own unpleasant self and don't have to hold back, giving my mind the room it needs to get organized.
Nothing here is new. I've kept the real me repressed all my life and the times that it slipped out I've been told by good friends that my whole face changes and I become scary. One friend actually saw that change once and refused to speak with me for days because in that moment, she was convinced I was going to hit her. For the record, I've hit one person in my life, and he deserved it for being really fucking annoying. But I only hit him once in the face and not that hard because I was making a point, not trying to hurt him.
Why this historically separated dichotomy is falling apart right now, I don't know.
Stress at work? Internal struggles? Mind just sick of fighting itself?
In time, it will probably pass but I'm kinda fucked if it doesn't.
I'll probably freak out at someone at work, end up getting fired or quitting and having to start all over again if anyone will hire me. Maybe if that happens I can claim mental illness and then they can't punish me. Fuck knows I have enough of a history with mental illness to claim as much.
Man, fuck life sometimes, y'know?
J.R.
I am, by nature, a relatively unpleasant and very angry person.
I know this about myself because I have to deal with me on a daily basis and get to hear all the terrible thoughts that don't quite make it out of my mouth. My mouth is ever moving, but I assure you, there's still a lot that goes on in my head that doesn't see the light of day.
I have spent a lifetime cultivating a social personality that allows me to interact with the outside world.
I am functional in the workplace and in social settings, regardless of my distaste for both those settings.
Lately, however, the line between my innate personality and the version of me that sees the light of day has been blurring. Perhaps dangerously so. To keep living in this world, which is something that's not optional (kind of is, but let's no go there because it ain't gonna happen), I need to be seen as calm, reliable person who is at least tolerably polite and nice. This is an unspoken rule of living in a society such as mine. But that line is blurring a lot lately.
Maybe "line" and "blurring" isn't the right way say this. Let's say much of my unpleasantness is, and has been, held back by a great big metaphorical wall. That wall is breaking down right now. I'm having a lot of trouble keeping the way I feel about a situation or person edited and I'm blurting out what I really think. Since what I think is often cruel and confrontational and almost exclusively negative, I think I'm kind of driving people away. It's not my intention to alienate people and make the workplace uncomfortable but that is what is happening.
Since the only way for me to shut myself up regularly is music, I've been working with ear phones in and taking breaks at different times as my colleagues. This has created a whole other problem of them realizing something is wrong and brewing in me. There's one individual in particular that I'm avoiding, as his constant criticism and insults push me right to the edge and I'm just about to yell at him. Again solved by the ear phones.
But the worst part, the absolute worst thing is that I'm switching back and forth between polite me and angry introverted me so often that sometimes I can't tell which one is a) showing to the world and b) the actual me. Under pressure at work, I default to the polite, dealing with people personality, but the second I walk away I'm becoming swept over by deadening, white hot anger towards something (often probably undeserved). This division is causing all kinds of problems with my brain. I'm misremembering and having a hell of a time keeping shit straight in my chaotic mess of a mind. I think my mind is so preoccupied trying to figure out how to behave at any given time that it's stopping me from accessing things properly. This is why I can remember things with great clarity after the fact because when I'm not in the moment I can be my own unpleasant self and don't have to hold back, giving my mind the room it needs to get organized.
Nothing here is new. I've kept the real me repressed all my life and the times that it slipped out I've been told by good friends that my whole face changes and I become scary. One friend actually saw that change once and refused to speak with me for days because in that moment, she was convinced I was going to hit her. For the record, I've hit one person in my life, and he deserved it for being really fucking annoying. But I only hit him once in the face and not that hard because I was making a point, not trying to hurt him.
Why this historically separated dichotomy is falling apart right now, I don't know.
Stress at work? Internal struggles? Mind just sick of fighting itself?
In time, it will probably pass but I'm kinda fucked if it doesn't.
I'll probably freak out at someone at work, end up getting fired or quitting and having to start all over again if anyone will hire me. Maybe if that happens I can claim mental illness and then they can't punish me. Fuck knows I have enough of a history with mental illness to claim as much.
Man, fuck life sometimes, y'know?
J.R.