Wednesday, September 18, 2013

An Adult Step & Sleep Barking

If outing myself to a man from a dating website who knew my first name, phone number, and what I look like was a baby step, I suppose outing myself to my high school friend (who is gay) counts as an adult step.  At first, I didn't really feel any different, and then it kind of set in... I have a supporter.  Someone knows... and they're ok with me.  He might tell his husband, too, so I think I am out to two people.  While I'm really happy about that... it obviously didn't solve all of my problems.  I still have this constant conversation in the back of my head every time I talk to a family member or friend.  "Should I tell them?"  "What would they think?"  "What if they react badly?"  "Do they already know?"  It's pretty distracting.  This isn't terribly unnatural to me though, I am a pretty anxiety-ridden person, but this conversation is particularly loud and keeps making its presence known, whereas most of my constant worrying is just dull background murmurings.  Anyway, I'm really quite proud of myself for finally being strong enough to admit it to one person, but I know there's a tough row to hoe yet.

Well, I went to church on Sunday.  Lo and behold, a general authority was there.  In priesthood, after he took over the lesson, the subject veered to dating.  I have never felt so incredibly disinterested in a block of meetings, or the words of a GA. There were so, so many generalizations that just didn't apply to me.  Eventually, I just kept looking at my phone, waiting for the time to run out.  It was a really long Sunday.  It started my week off on weird footing.

I have been so damn depressed.  Like, even to the point that my dog's sleep barking right this second doesn't cheer me up.  I usually love when he does that.

(In case you're only mildly depressed, or at any more positive stage of the sadness to happiness spectrum: )

I feel like there are four major triggers for my more serious bouts of depression:  loneliness, gayness, unfulfill-ed-ness from my career, and religion-ness.  (Had to keep the -ness train rolling!) I could probably also add ugliness... I keep trying to work out and eat right, but because I get depressed I keep eating garbage.  I just got home from exercising and then eating donuts.  Not a great plan for weight loss.  It ties back into gayness, though.  I feel like I'm not nearly attractive enough to be gay.  So many of us gays seem to be pretty damn beautiful.  Which ties into loneliness... I have never felt true romantic love.  I want that.  Kinda.  Kinda... a lot.  

And then we come to my career.  I have tried to get my foot into a few different fields, and have never found success or been able to stick with anything.  I think I might just be self-destructive.  
UGH--- I'm hating this blog post.  It's really stupid.  I just want to end it now.  

Oh, well... I am going to tell you about today.  I went to a job interview today.  It was quite disappointing.  I was sitting across a desk from two guys that seemed like they were my age.  And they had their own flourishing companies.  They each had started one that was growing and doing quite well.  I have some fairly impressive things on my resume... but I can never seem to turn it into anything so valuable (I'm still the brokest person I know).  I just got so frustrated that I was applying to be the absolute low end on the totem pole in one of these gentlemen's companies. Why haven't I done anything with my life??!!  I could have done something great by now!  It sucks when you've been given all the tools to carve out a very successful career, but you lack whatever it takes to just focus long enough to pick them up and use them all for a prolonged enough time to do the worthwhile things you daydream about doing.

I really hate this post.  I should have just written enigmatic poems so I didn't have to drag you all into my worthless depression.  It is worthless.  It does me NO good, and I KNOW that.  But it comes back time and again, and it feels like I feed it.  I just want someone to sweep me off my stupid feet and take me away from everything.  Damsel in distress, I guess.


LOOK!  A pony!


4 comments:

  1. I don't know how applicable you'll find it, but this line from a Joan Didion essay changed my life: "Character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source from which self-respect springs."

    You might also enjoy this and it's response, this, both from a fellow moho's Facebook wall today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think the fact that I had to think kind of hard about that essay line probably means that I'm pretty far from grasping the concept of accepting responsibility for my life. Does that mean I just blame others for everything? Or blame my problems? Or that I'm just a lazy ass about my life?

      As for the first link, I started out kind of defensive (thinking that, no, my problems are laziness and depression), but then I started to laugh as I recognized myself and others of my generation. It's very applicable to me, but I must say that my parents (and maybe I could generalize to other Mormon parents) did not tell me it was going to be easy. My mom kept me firmly aware of how hard I'd have to work. And I don't remember feeling very special too often. I still had inflated expectations nonetheless. So I think I ended up where everyone else is that the article describes, as far as thinking their narrative will be special, but it took me a while to come to that after probably years of movies, tv, and Facebook telling me to think that. Long story short, I think that was great advice to me at this moment, but I can't really blame my parents in particular. Just everyone else! (There's that blame again! ;-) )

      As for the second link, the Utah Mormon author doesn't really take into account that I think they're actually just a bit too old and that things are different for this generation in Utah. I went to some grad school back east and a professor asked our class who worked while they were in undergrad. Who raised their hands but the three Mormons, everyone else from Utah, and only a couple others. (There were about 70 people in the class.) We're raised a bit different in general here. But I agree with some of the sentiments there.

      Anyway, super long response, but thanks!

      Delete
  2. Way to take the adult step! :) I've been outing myself to more friends and family lately, and I have to say - My depression and anxiety has actually gone DOWN for the first time in my life since then! So...consider telling more people...it's not for everyone, but it has helped me a lot.

    And I SO get you with the whole GA thing. I went to institute the other night, and that's ALL they talked about. I almost got up and walked out because I was so bored and sick of them talking about dating being a one-size-fits-all-cure-all. Yuck.

    Anywho...be happy. If you ever need to chat - I'm willing to listen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Nathan! Thanks for your comment. I found your blog and must admit that your coming out post from a couple weeks ago (CONGRATS on being so brave!) has a lot of elements that I might use when I come out. My testimony just really isn't that strong anymore though (if it even exists). I haven't spent much time working on that because I've been spending so much time trying to figure out exactly what my orientation is. Anyway, I appreciate your example, and I certainly hope that I can find that my depression begins diminishing as I come out to friends and family.

      I appreciate you stopping by, and I appreciate you offering up yourself as a resource to me and others.

      Delete

Say whatever you want.