My mind said "I don't know... Sounds harsh, this word 'traumatised', it's too heavy.. Nah, I'm making a big deal out of this".
But maybe I am traumatised.
I'm not sure.
We're wrapping up seven months of 2015, and I'm still as depressed as six months ago. By 'depressed' I mean 'Can't find the joy in anything, not even my so-called hobbies, which I wonder whether I can call hobbies anymore since I don't do them cause I can't stand them for some reason I can't comprehend rationally'. Yes, the lack of commas is correct. I speak fast and forget to breathe, ask my boyfriend, he'll confirm my speaking patterns.
The things that used to light me up and make this tedious life worthwhile don't interest me anymore. And after trying a few new hobbies this year, I dropped them all, bored to death.
As a lot of you know (or not?), I made a resolution at the end of 2013 that the following year I'd do a bold experiment that would require everything I had inside of me: Go out into the world full-force and build a different life. A life where I was more outgoing, pursued every interest that scared me, dated people (I had never gone on a date in my entire life and had been single for 29 years), tried new things, said yes to adventures that scared yet excited me, said yes to random adventures that didn't call to me just for the sake of trying something new and testing what I'm made of... and the list is endless.
The experiment was not about becoming a different person, it was about being fully myself and being seen. As a hardcore introvert and carrying a bonus of shyness, I can go a whole year -or three- without interacting with a single human being. I am usually invisible and I tend to love it this way. But since my life felt boring at that point, I thought that becoming visible was one thing that would spice things up. And I also hoped that it wouldn't stop at the end of 2014; my hopes were that I'd gather momentum and enter 2015 as a stronger version of my 2014 self, and then be stronger in 2016, and so on, until the end of my life (or at least the end of my 30s xD).
I had been told for years by life coaches, spiritual gurus, social scientists (or however they're called), self-help books, family, and regular people, that if I met a hundred people, the probabilities of me forging a friendship could NOT be 0%. And it made sense to me, rationally. The more people you know, the higher the chances of finding someone special, right? The more things you try out, the higher the chances of discovering new interests you didn't know you could have. Makes sense, rationally.
So I went out into the world and gave my all to 2014.
I met up with a hundred strangers or more, joined clubs, joined workshops, accepted invitations to meet new people through acquaintances, dated a lot (first dates, that is. Only with one man -and no, it wasn't C- did I go on a second date), I traveled and met new people at the destinations, applied to hundreds of jobs... And experienced heartbreak after heartbreak, endless disappointments.
The end of 2014 found me still friendless (except my wonderful love) and still jobless.
I kept going at the experiment even in January 2015, when I had begun to feel a strange loss of hope in life. It was a very broad, existential thing that had sparked in me, or rather that feeling was what was left after all the experiences had chipped away at and removed my faith in a wonderful life/world -'wonderful' being a subjective word. I decided to ignore my thoughts and feelings & continue living life to the fullest. Until there came a point where I suddenly knew I had to stop because I was hurting severily. The realisation that I had to stop or something really bad would happen to my soul fell on me like cold water. It happened after socializing + trying a potential new hobby for the upteenth time. That was the tipping point and I closed the door to the world with a loud bang. I had an undeniable need to retreat into a cave and lick my wounds. But first I had to check where the wounds were located and what their origin was.
When I began to self-reflect and analyze the last year of my life, I unknowingly began to walk into a dark tunnel, and I guess I'm still in it, trying to find the way out.
I find that I'm a person who is deeply incompatible with other human beings, and incompatible with life in general. People and I operate SO differently. I'm not talking about trivial differences but about core values. I find that other humans are very strange creatures, and they sure find me odd as well. I find society unappealing, the rules of life sound like alien language to me, and I know I'm one of those who had I been born as a wild creature, nature would have annihilated me for not being tough enough or fast enough or resourceful enough.
Since I was a child, I've lived in perpetual survivor mode in my brain, and I've always seen life as this burden that my parents gave me. I've spent thirty years trying to teach myself to think of it as a gift instead. Still trying. Mission not yet accomplished. All I can do is use my natural talents, such as 'detail-oriented person', to stop and smell & talk to the flowers on my way to soul-sucking work or a brain-frying get-together with random people.
Where would I be without details, microscopic vision & imagination?
I'm scared of admitting to myself that I am indeed traumatised, why? Because I know from personal experience how much time and energy and money it takes to get your soul & health back. I don't want to go through that costly -at all levels- process again, mainly because I know I don't have the money nor the time. I can't afford to spend (my mind says) another five years trying to figure things out. I demand that I have perfect health and a steady income RIGHT NOW. (I know certain people would call this dominating part of my brain The Bully, yeah yeah whatever).
It is the lack of time that scares me. My main concern is getting out of being broke, and all my time must be employed into this one thing, and that's why my so-called Bully Mind says "we can't afford to use chunks of time for mental health". It's so complicated. Or so it seems.