28/04/03
i tried painting this image over and over, and could just not get it any way that would please me. i painted it on one of the panels that used to make up the sliding doors for the closet in my room. i used old house paints that gk had lying around, plus some of the leftover paint from painting my room. i'd paint the image, then realize it wasn't right, and wash off all the paint. i lost count of how many times i redid it. in the end i decided that it wasn't so important to have a painted version. it was just a step in an overall process to help me find better ways to express things. to me, the sketches and paintings i did at this time represented that i was getting close to putting in some kind of effort to prepare myself to dance, and also to travel and have a kind of independence i'd never really had before. to me, it symbolized putting in that final effort, and that some part of me seemed to think it was possible to attain the kind of liberation and fulfillment i was looking for. there was a kind of peace and self-confidence, as well as boldness, that i could see in some of the sketches. i sometimes see all that's happened and happening to me as contributing to this, as helping me or moving me in this direction. at the same time, i am not attached to the idea that it's literally about dancing and seeing the world, or that anything is really happening at all.
is it foolish to have feelings that are not returned? why should it be? is it something to do with competition, struggle for dominance? something about showing weakness? you're a loser if you're not loved?
when it comes to those i've 'rejected', i can see qualities in them that are unusual and i can't help wanting them to find someone who can appreciate those qualities more fully than i can, someone who has more specific needs for those qualities. i don't think of them as losers nobody could 'love'. i know that some people appeal to a less broad spectrum of people, but i usually still find them more interesting than most people. it's just that i'm complicated in ways that make me need unusual combinations of qualities, and it's very difficult to find someone who matches up to me.
when someone 'rejects' me, i realize that they might actually see interesting qualities in me, but that they know i'm just not what they're looking for in an overall sense, or that i will probably need more than they can give, or something they can't give.
when obsession hits, i guess i'm never ready for it, and then i'm caught up in the whirlwind. there is a uniqueness to each obsession, in the details, in the essence of the person who is the object of my obsession and in what results from combining our essences. but there are definite patterns, and the feelings and behaviours are very similar. i project what i want and need onto another person and even if i understand from the outset that it won't go where i want or need it to, i can't always just let go of the feelings and behaviours immediately. i don't resent this too much. i think i get something out of it that gives me a hint of what i might be capable of feeling and experiencing if i was with someone who felt like a good 'match', and so even while i'm in the midst of an obsession with a particular person, i am sort of projecting into the future. while this may be an illusion, the idea that i might ever be able to attract what i want, i suppose it's one of the only things that gives me a feeling of genuine pleasure in life. i'm currently at a stage where i find it hard to believe that i will ever live anything like this out in reality, and i'm not sure that i even want it any more, but i guess it's like an old record that can still touch me.
i think that in striving to find the way of looking at it that is 'truest' to myself, i might give a misleading impression. it might seem that any pain i feel is insignificant, or easily dealt with by reasoning things out. this is not true. i'll admit though that i think there's some element of 'pride' involved. it's like i may feel devastated, but i have some need to not appear that way. i *do* feel a need to try to focus on what i think i want, and 'let go' and hope for the best for the other person. sometimes there may be some crossover from one obsession to the next, or with older ones, or some confusion, depending on what stimuli is currently present in my life. what little things trigger old feelings.
when i don't think there's any possible way that someone can return my feelings, i'm not sure what makes me cling on to the hope that they can. it's like my imagination goes to extreme lengths to provide possibilities, scenarios, etc, in which all facts and details can be interpreted such that the other person could be as obsessed as i am. this doesn't really ever happen, but it can take time for it to sink in completely, and i don't seem to have much control over it. sometimes my interest seems to spark *some* interest in the other person or intensify a bit of interest that was present, though, and i sort of end up getting to live things out, to some extent. even when i think the person is 'wrong' for me and i think it might be better to try to avoid acting on any of my feelings.
and when i see who they're interested in, i can always see what there is to see in that person/those persons, and i will think that there's just nothing i can offer that's similar. this isn't completely about lack of self-worth or whatever. it's about realistically assessing what i think people are looking for. and i still have this bizarre hope that somehow there is someone somewhere who might develop an obsessive fixation on me, that there is something particular to me that makes the person choose me. and i guess this thought helps me to deal with any obsessions i can't figure out how to let go, until i'm able to let go.
when i was younger, males seemed to develop strong fixations regarding me. i guess i was more attached to life in those days and had more potential and now i'm just old and have shown that i'm not really going anywhere. it does hurt. realizing that no one would really choose me in a crowd of others at this point, whether that's online, in real life or whatever. i guess i miss that. the feeling that i am interesting enough that someone would be completely fixated on me.
i know what the excitement of a new relationship is like, and i wouldn't want to deny that to anyone. and i try to think that maybe i'll have that excitement again, even though i fear i won't.
i guess it just makes me sad. the idea that i may not ever have anything like that again. that the reason i had those things in the past was because people misunderstood who i was, thought i was something that i wasn't, and that now that who i am is more clearly established, no one is intensely interested. i guess that's hard to deal with. at the same time, i wouldn't go back. i was uncomfortable with how things were in the past, and there was a driving need to get to this point, to get closer to the truth of who i am. and if no one can feel as i want them to feel, then i guess that's just the way things are. (fuck, i'm so repetitive.)
i can definitely handle colder temperatures now. i can remember at certain times when it was 20-21 C here and gk was away, i was wearing 3 layers of tops, thick bottoms and long thick socks and i was still uncomfortable, and when i went to sleep i had all sorts of things piled on the bed, including a couple of wool blankets, and i remember shivering and finding it difficult to get to sleep because i was so cold. it's lately often about 22 C, and i can handle that fine just wearing long sleeves, and i don't even really need socks.
i've been eating healthily and working on my body. i'm still extremely depressed.
i am afraid to speak too soon, but i think my hair loss has finally slowed down. since i started losing a lot of hair, i kept all of it that i could. i keep it in envelopes. and last week's envelope seems to have only about a 'normal' (pre-rapid hair loss days) amount of hair in it. the previous week also seemed to have a bit less. not that it matters now. i guess i'm thinking more of my creative life than real life. for filming, there are all sorts of ways around having thin hair, i guess. i don't think i care much about real life anyway.
something's definitely going on inside. life is so much better when you're psychotic. not. at least not this time. i seem to be getting 'messages' again. some are hitting me on a deeply emotional level and i just start weeping. and sometimes i'm just feeling so much pain. i have always understood that it was probably related to some protective function of my psyche, something to make me feel better because what i was feeling was unbearable. but maybe it was also about creativity, a way of getting me to channel my energies creatively. talking to jamie seemed to make the messages go away, and this time i am talking to gk all the time and i'm still getting messages. it makes life slightly more interesting, but it's painful, because in the past i couldn't get rid of the hope that maybe the messages were leading to something. and now i know that i could get messages for years without that something ever happening. i thought that maybe i had reached a level of deprivation and pain that maybe brought up information from my subconscious that might be helpful to me, that might help lead me in the right direction, to help me find some solutions in my life. and i guess i have found some solutions in my life, but i can't seem to get past the depression, and the feeling of powerlessness. i don't think it's anything except a kind of consolation. a trick to make me feel better. and i resent it. but i don't think i want the messages to stop. maybe this is the way i get closest to what 'love' is to me, and i should just go with it.
is there some kind of 'love' that holds on, that you can't make go away no matter how you try to analyze it and look at it rationally and know that it's all wrong? after i got over the first one i never thought i'd get over i could never believe in that sort of thing again.
i dreamed two nights ago that my mother had set something up, a kind of opportunity for me to dance at some opera hall type of place. there wasn't very much time left before the performance, but i was surprisingly unconcerned even though i hadn't worked on the choreography or anything yet all that much. it was like i had this idea i would be able to wing it, and i actually sort of felt like i would seem natural, like i wouldn't be out of place even though the whole idea of it was sort of scary, and it was potentially a more significant or life-altering occasion than i'd ever faced before.
and then it became more complicated, and it was like it was an audition. there would be lots of others auditioning, including a lot of young girls. and the judges had this list of specifics they were looking for, right down to body dimensions, angles regarding body dimensions, and lots of other very precise particulars. i started to feel that there was just no way i could handle it, although there was still this little thought in the back of my mind that maybe somehow i would just happen to be what they were looking for. to top it off, i didn't even feel like i was in shape, and i was sitting there eating some unappealing spaghetti with sausages in it (this is not something i would normally eat) about an hour before the performance.
when i woke up, i thought 'i'm not ready for this', and it reminded me that i looked up the song a poster on a.s.h took her name from, because i was curious. and i think it was about not being ready to fall in love, but by the end of the song it's too late, it's already happened. i didn't spend time analyzing the song, and i'm just roughly remembering the rough interpretation i threw on it at the time.
am i heading in that direction again? it seems so impossible. i think i'd resist it all the way.
maybe it's just insecurity about dancing, about filming. i still feel so clumsy, so huge. i feel old, and ugly. boring. maybe the insecurity is more serious than i'm allowing myself to dwell on right now. but if i start to judge myself by the standards i can imagine others hold, i probably wouldn't be able to do anything. i'm trying to think that there's no real pressure. i'll just see what emerges, what feels natural for me to do. if i can do anything at all. i'm just babbling to calm myself.
it's like i want to withdraw into my own little world with my messages, but at the same time i'm scared of that. but maybe it's about channeling it all into creativity, all the feelings that would normally be repressed.
i first remember getting messages when i came crawling home after living away from home for about 6 months at the age of 21. i had really given it my best shot, and i felt that i had died when i gave up. and sometime after that the messages started. and then after my little sensory deprivation experiment, i had messages every day, many every day.
ok, i feel drained now and think i'll stop for today.
i have this weird feeling that something is about to happen. no, i can't really be more specific than that. i don't know what the hell i mean. it's just that most of the time life is relatively predictable, but it's almost like i think something might happen that i don't expect. i have this sort of excited, nauseated feeling, and i don't know what it's in relation to. i can't pinpoint it.