09/01/03
a few years ago, one of my brothers sent me a birthday greeting or something in which he jokingly referred to how i don't acknowledge birthdays. i couldn't figure out what he meant. for a few years, i'd sort of hidden out during my birthday, not wanting to answer the phone or have to talk to anyone, because it usually seemed to make me feel worse to have contact with my family on my birthday. otherwise, i actually sort of liked my birthday. so maybe he was referring to my hiding out? or to how i don't call others on their birthdays? i wrote back asking about that, and explaining a bit about my depression, because i felt it would help him to understand me better. he didn't write anything in return, and i realized later what he was probably referring to..
almost 7 years ago now, i went through a period where i saw my family somewhat regularly, at least some of the members. we socialized together. at this time, i had gathered my energy to try to find what i felt i really wanted: a suicidal mate. i had no idea about how to find one of those, and the only social contacts i had were my family. i had this idea that maybe they might have friends who were suicidal or who would have a family member somewhat like me. and so i started going everywhere i could. i was living with jamie at the time, and everyone still considered us a couple - but jamie was very much aware of what i wanted, and of what i was trying to do.
one night, i was invited to go dancing with my brothers' girlfriends and some of their friends. i was reluctant to go and felt bad about myself at the time, but i threw on a short, tight outfit and thought what the hell. i got extremely drunk, and i think it's highly possible that someone slipped something like ecstacy into one of my drinks. i had the best time i'd remembered having for years. i actually felt happy. everything felt good, and it all blurred together smoothly. i felt like a different, freer person. everyone on the dance floor seemed to be touching everyone else. i touched men and women, and i unzipped one girl's top. a lot of males seemed to find me attractive. one in particular was very persistent with me. when he asked me my age, i said i was 24. i didn't think i was fooling anyone. (i was 30). in the state i was in, it just seemed natural. i wasn't really thinking. it seemed fun to get out of myself and pretend i was someone else, or even to pretend i was who i wish i had been able to be when i was that age. i didn't think i'd ever see these people again.
what i didn't know was that the girls i was with already sort of knew some of these guys. one of my brother's girlfriends was actually attracted to one of these guys, and eventually ended up pregnant by him and married to him. in the next few months, we went out dancing as a group many times (a few of the girls), and i think in large part it was so that my brother's (not the one who sent the birthday greeting) girlfriend could see this particular guy. as we continued to see these guys (bumping into them when we were out - i kept suggesting we go to new clubs, but everyone always sort of wanted to go to where we were likely to see these particular guys. i often disappeared on my own for a while, to see what i could find on my own - guys with heroin connections, guns, etc), i continued to keep up the charade about my age.. but i didn't take it very seriously. it was sort of funny to me. next time i was asked my age, i just sort of went along with '26'. i also told various people i was a writer. haha. it was my way of 'protecting' myself from all of these regular people with jobs and more conventional lives than me. i did feel very bad about myself, and i did want to kill myself, and i was looking for someone to kill myself with, for crying out loud. i realized i was in a pathetic state, and since i had this opportunity to get out into the world, i intended to use it to get myself out of the pathetic state in the only way i could see. anything i had to do to make myself comfortable around 'normal people' was ok, because it wasn't going to last for long, i would soon be dead.
i think what happened was that my brothers and others in my family heard about me lying about my age, factored that in with my behaviour on my birthday, and somehow jumped to the conclusion that i habitually lied about my age or that i was in denial or something, or possibly that i was just a liar, period. communication is so very poor in my family. when i wrote that email trying to explain a bit about my depression, i hadn't yet figured out about the above, and my brother had not written back to try to explain what he had originally meant. i said he could ask whatever he wanted, but he never asked me any questions at all.
i tried to explain a bit about myself to some of the girls, but i knew there was just no way to do it. i don't think they really believed that i told jamie everything, and i don't think they could have understood my motivations even if i explained them. there was this one guy i developed a crush on.. the same persistent one i mentioned above.. i got the impression the other girls had told him my age. i was waiting.. to find out more about him, to know for sure that he wasn't the one i'd kill myself with. one day, one girl noticed me looking depressed, and asked if i had hoped i could have more than just fun with him.. and i had said yes, not realizing in the moment that she had no idea i meant that i had been hoping he was suicidal and wanted to kill himself with me. i honestly could not see any kind of real life relationship with this person (i didn't want any kind of real life relationship, with anyone), and was trapped in a kind of fantasy world because i couldn't communicate well with him. he kept telling me to call him, but then would never take the phone, etc, and then would make up excuses and tell me to try again.. and so i was able to go on fantasizing for a while. he seemed at least somewhat depressed or conflicted to me. i think the main reason i became interested in him was that he originally showed interest in me, and was persistent. it just felt so good to have someone attracted to me. it didn't seem to me likely that he was the person i was looking for, but as is often the case when i develop a crush on someone, it takes a while for reality to truly sink in. these things just seem to need to play themselves out in slow motion, even if i feel reasonably sure of where they're headed.
i was inevitably rejected by this guy, and also by the girls i had been going out with, and i think the latter rejection was actually more difficult than the former. i was older than them, plus i think there was this weirdness about me.. it was probably related to my depression and suicidalness, and it probably came across as a kind of embarrassing desperateness and over-drunkenness. i still think that i had a lot of fun during those couple of months that i was invited to go out with those particular girls, but it seems reasonable to me that it just couldn't last.
it's weird, my family has probably strange ideas about me. i lied about my age during unusual circumstances that didn't last for long, and i had never lied about it before, and i never lied about it again, and a few years later, i am sort of kidded about it, and it's like it's taken for granted that it's part of who i am and how i habitually behave. i know that that is a reasonably trivial issue and that because of my brother's lack of response i could very well be misinterpreting, but i feel like the bigger issues are all misunderstood as well, or at the very least that communicating styles are exceptionally incompatible, and that there is just no way to improve communication. *i* have tried in ways the others have not. and i just can't deal with the fact that the horrendous pain i have suffered over the years is trivialized and misunderstood, or seems to be.
after my nightclubbing days, i searched for suicidal men in a seemingly more realistic place: ash. heh. what i thought i was looking for in a relationship was something like this:
two people with compatible ideals making the ultimate commitment to their ideals. there are all kinds of people in the world. some people think it's ok to commit to a relationship that lasts years and years and you're tied to things like mortgages and cars, sprogs and tvs, neighbours and xmas dinners, and watching the person you love rot and die, and watching yourself fall out of love and trying to pretend it's not happening.. i think it's ok to say, no, i don't want that kind of life, and i am not stable enough, creative enough or just plain strong enough to create some other kind of longterm life situation that i actually would like. who i am is best represented in intense moments, in highs.. and what i want is to die while i feel infatuated, alive, etc, with someone who wants to die in the same circumstances.. well, that's just what i personally want. it's not better or worse, and it doesn't make more or less sense than anything else, imo. it's just a personal preference, a prejudice, set by my experiences, my makeup and the jumble of my thoughts and my knowledge of my own behaviour patterns and limitations and strengths, and everything else until it's become like a fetish situation, my own personal ultimate fetish situation. i think that people can live side by side for years and years and still not really understand each other. quantity of time is not what i value. the highest in myself, the parts of myself that i like most, that i think represent what i think of as most truly myself are not going to come out in daily drudgery and slavery to a kind of life i have no control over.. they can only come out in the moments when i gather my strength to fight against all of what i don't admire and accept for myself, in the way most suited to my personality.
i'm aware that *my* so-called suicidalness is ridiculous after all this time. maybe i can't really see myself, maybe none of us can. maybe i haven't understood what i 'really' wanted. i know i've suffered a lot, and that death still seems to be the only answer for me: not just to stop the suffering, but considering my ideals, death seems an exciting solution. i feel grateful for what i've got out of ash over the years, and i've had some really interesting relationships through ash, but a few months ago, i felt that i wanted to withdraw from ash. i finished up with things i felt a need to respond to, i waited a while for responses, and then i stopped posting and lurking. i am not sure what i'm looking for now, or if i'm looking for anything.
at present, the idea of dying with someone i'm in love with doesn't seem important to me. it could be that i've outgrown it, or i wanted it for too long and now i just don't have the energy to want it, or it just doesn't seem realistic enough. it's like maybe i've now been through enough that i can let the idea go. i didn't ever think it was 'necessary', but it was hard letting go of that particular dream for so long, and now it's just not hard. i can imagine killing myself alone, and it seems ok to me. when i try to think of having another relationship, i just think my anxieties and insecurities would be too great at this point, and that there's no way i'd feel much of anything like what i originally imagined. who knows, maybe the dream isn't completely dead, but i know i don't have the energy or wish to actively seek it any more.