Monday, 11 December 2017

Functionally Alone desu


I'm lonely.

What can I say beyond that?

I have a job. It's a good job. I'm good at it.

However, if you see me doing the job I may not immediately give the impression I have a problem.

When I'm working I will appear to be quite functional. I will do the job, I will laugh I will talk to others about the work and help others and get things done.

However, that's it.

My job.

When my job is finished I go home. I turn off.

Everything becomes the four walls around me. There is nothing outside. I have no purpose, I have no external communication.

"You're on the internet, that's communicating though"

Is it? My communication to the outside world over the internet has never seemed like communication. Communication to me is synchronous. Not this... post now, respond later. My psyche expects immediately satisfaction. My depression, my loneliness requires immediately and constant satisfaction. The internet to me is not communication as I don't now who or what I am talking to. I really don't know if the other end of this is really another person reading or what? A machine? 'something'. Meh? I don't know. This is just words on a page in a system somewhere.

No. Communication to me requires actual physical presence. My loneliness requires presence.

Being stuck inside my own four walls, that have been constructed by and for me, has led me to being alone and unable to communicate with others.

I have asked for help, but I think my job is in the way of ever receiving help. My ability to appear functional and capable, gives the impression that I don't need help. This is from both the professional establishment and those people around me. I give the impression because I am able to communicate when it is laid out in front of me as to what is needed.

However, I am unable to determine what is needed.

A lot of people look for a metaphorical path as they walk down life. I don't see a path, I just see a field. There is no path. I start walking in one direction, doing one thing, but nothing is constraining me down that direction. Eventually some part of me, generally one of my illnesses, will get bored and decide to change direction. Without any control I am unable to continue in life properly. Because it is one of my illnesses, the old adage of "stick with it" won't work. It isn't something I consciously decide to do, not even subconsciously, it's almost as if the will to do it leaks away or is forgotten. It's not something I have any control over or have any ability to steer, it is always steering me...

... until ...

I have an external influence. This is why I am able to do a job. The job gives me focus and it gives me the constraints upon which I can guide myself for a few hours a day.

Being alone all this time, it has become a severely ingrained flaw in my personality. Being unable to talk to anyone, being unable to converse or find that reason to exist, it has left me lonely and unwilling to start looking for the motivation. I have been in such a state of mind for so long that all the reasons to exist have been argued against. All the internal reasons to survive have had their meaning called into question.

The only way for my existence to mean anything now is external. It is why I grasp to every little fragment of attention. Why I draw attention to myself whilst being the person most likely to try and run away and hide when possible. Why, when I am on a high, I put myself in situations I am unable to flee, or start things in motion that I am unable to run from, when those dark times come, as a way of forcing attention onto myself, even if it is embarrassing or difficult.

But I am still unable to find purpose from these fleeting moments.

At some point my constant, daily, thoughts of ending it, will culminate in it happening. All the pondering of methods and slow deliberations of timing and planning will lead to a point in the field that has no escape. No way out. The situation I will eventually put myself in will be one of finality. But whilst being so alone, there will only be my own internal voice re-enforcing the reasoning for doing it.