i clung to the thought of drowning alone

From 5th grade through 8th grade, once a week, everyone in class had to memorize an assigned poem and recite it, we received a grade then on our performance; memorization, intonation, cadence, etc. I aced every single one for 4 years straight. Teachers complimented me. I would ignore the poem until Thursday night (we recited on Friday) and learn it all in like 10 minutes and be done, razor sharp memory making it a breeze. I knew every Friday I could count on a 100% on a class assignment and there were even some poems I liked.

My sophomore year of high school in Honors English our final involved writing an essay drawing a thematic arch through the books we had read (mine ended up being about the decline of America represented by the path of literature from early romance to late post-modernism, and everything in between). I knew that would be easy because essays were easy, and as my friend Eli and I discussed in class (we got to work in groups to bounce ideas) I could hear the essay coming together in my head, the ideas coming, specific quotes from books I wanted to use.

The 2nd part of the final would be to recite a Walt Whitman poem of our choosing. I knew that would be easy because it always was. My poem was 12 lines long. I had learned poems three times that before. I had learned sprawling parts from Romeo & Juliet and A Christmas Carol and more. I knew band class before English (the last class of the day) was free, because it was the end of the year and nothing left was going to happen, so while some friends played card games using the covered timpani drums as tables I took out my Walt Whitman book and went to work. About 15 minutes later, I could recite it perfectly. My friends asked me to for them. I did so. The poem was fittingly about death and rotting in the ground and cow manure.

I got to English class ready to basically ace the fuck out of everything. I was third to recite. I had been saying it under my breath. I was going to nail it. I got up in front of the class.

I forgot everything.

I forgot the first word. The teacher gave it to me. I got a few words in then. She queued me again.

Every. Single. Line.

I finally sat down, having completely and utterly fucked up the poetry recitation, and the teacher stood up and gave me a sympathetic look and said it is very hard to do, in front of everyone, and she gets how difficult it can be.

It never had been. Now it was. And as I sat there as she explained the difficulties of anxiety I realized then that I was getting worse. Everyone was getting better as they aged but I wasn't. My grades were worse. My friendships were worse. My anxiety was worse. My depression was worse.

A few years later I read the essay I wrote for the English final. I was aghast at how horrific it was, poorly paced, lacking detail, unclear, over-dramatic. It even ended on an ellipses. I deleted it from the computer and tried to never think about it again. English was my sweet-spot but it was clear even my sweet-spot was devoid of actual quality and achievement, just good enough to dangerously convince myself briefly I could do something, like write, that I never really could. Maybe I always knew that if nothing else. Maybe...

The other day I was so anxious about a phone interview for a new job that I spent the leadup pacing around in the basement telling myself it'd be ok. My partner texted me to tell me I'd nail it. I think I did. the phone interview went well. It's easy to be courteous and professional and I never paused or hesitated in my answer. The interviewer told me they'd call back early to mid week next week. It's now two weeks later. They never called. I am back in English class again.

Every single thought I have is manipulative. The other day The Onion ran an article "Woman All Geared Up To Complain About Work Sidelined By Friend With Marital Problems" and I feel that is how I view everything and then I hurt people for it. Last night I fucked up profusely and then was cold and distant and aloof like this dude at work once said I was, or I don't push through like my best friend said I never do when they need me to, and then I hurt people because of it, which is the last thing I want to do. I fuck up and then someone at work berates me on the phone or a friend distances themselves or a partner and I have conflict and it fits because I fuck up everything, but I can't say that because then it sounds like I am fishing for compliments and trying to get them to apologize and play soft and feel guilty but that's not the intent. I just fuck up everything. It's that simple. It's the one and only thing I know at this point. I think I already said that in another paragraph. I'm not keeping count. Everyone I have ever known could do better than me. Could find someone more communicative, better looking, smarter, more caring, better at making decisions, at overcoming fear or apathy. I bring down everyone I know and then by saying all of this they reach out to help in way I don't know how and then it all becomes about me. My best friend has an inoperable heart defect that increases her chance of dying in pregnancy substantially - in a country that already paces the wealthy world grotesquely in that regard - is on 7 pills a day for unrelated health issues, is being tested for carotid artery disease, and is now pregnant. Her post partum depression last time, when she survived the birth and all, was so bad she is scared horribly about the possibility again. She asked me how I was doing and I said ok and that was a bit of a lie but I had to because she needed me right then, and I hate lying and strive to never ever do it but she was at panic attack level and needed to rant more than anything and I wanted and want to be there for her. I am the 2nd person after her husband who knows. I still don't know if saying I was ok was right. I suppose I am always "ok." I'm here, aren't I? The last time I said I wasn't ok I freaked people out, so what do I know.

I could try to sit in the car and explain to my partner how someone as smart and caring and compassionate and funny as her could do so much better than me, because I am broken and I always will be, and now that we've fought twice in like 5 days I fear I am going to keep giving her these anxieties and she could have someone better. But then that's manipulative and cruel and removes her agency and sounds like I want to leave for her sake and that's not the intention nor the truth. And now with her worrying about class and work and conflict and her mom and her mom's manipulativeness I could just hoist all this on her plate and then she could be so overwhelmed, beyond what she might already be. I have been battling suicide now for 15 years. I have hated myself for over 20. She has walked into the life of someone fucked up so badly that when she needs someone I freeze up and become a distant structure and then they're stuck doing emotional labor when they just want to be held, and then if I tell them everything I am saying here they're stuck with someone as deeply flawed and emotionally exhausting as me, worried about me like my mom is worried about me for the rest of her life. I suppose my partner probably said some things that hurt me but I told her later on the sofa I couldn't remember much of anything she said that was bad, or in general, which is horrifying but true, because anxiety fucks with my memory like Xanax does, unable to remember anyone's name when we first meet and not on Xanax because I am so nervous, unable to remember anyone's name when we first meet and I am on Xanax because I am so drug-addled. So maybe she didn't for all I know. Maybe she really was great. She pretty much always is. I have just forgotten what I shouldn't forget. I am back in English class again.

I know I probably did the most damage, like I did two weekends ago when I admitted to my friend I blacked out on Xanax and alcohol, like I drunk texted my partner, like I admitted to my travel buddy what had happened and he thought I was better and I had to tell him that I think since mid December I've been kind of down again. I feel the desire to run away and isolate myself so that I can hurt nobody but myself and if I do that and nobody knows me then I can't hurt them, but the irony is that will hurt people too. I know at times my depression has been better, for periods that have made it seem like it was entirely gone, and the 24/7 desire to end it all is gone, and this May is 4 years free of self-harm, which I genuinely feel good about and cite it as a success, but I know it flares up chronically and I look over my shoulder at my shadow constantly and I know even if at times the depression is sort of distant like I often am, the self-hate will not be. And now everybody has to worry if I could go off, if they aren't nice enough, etc., because I have no spine and no assertiveness and have to be coddled or I will overreact and that will be that, I can't give out criticism or take it, I can't name desires or wants, subverted them for so long I am unfamiliar and scared with saying them to the point that I find the thought impossible, which again just hurts other people and chases them away, going back to high school when Kathryn rolled her eyes at me because I just kept saying I don't care when she asked where a group of us should have dinner. And clearly I haven't learned because it's 11 years later. At some point I have to be better. People have every right to expect it. I know that expectation will never be met.

I remember how years ago after cutting myself with scissors I painstakingly researched the sharpest razorblades I could buy online, edges so terse and fine that they removed any need for pressure. Because like all things my instinctive reaction to fucking up is to try to get better, but since I never seem to, I just punish and hurt myself instead since I deserve it.

This morning people commented on my eyes. They were red and bloodshot from not getting enough sleep. I made the decision not to and it was the right decision because I was hungry and wanted to be with my partner but I suppose repercussions are a facet of existence. I was yelled in the general direction of on the phone by someone this morning and then so anxious about the conflict last night that I reached into my pocket to take Xanax only to realize I didn't have it on me. So then I reached for chapstick and pulled out a Tide-To-Go stain remove tube that I must have thought in the dark this morning was chapstick on my nightstand and grabbed without thinking, which is amazing because I often overthink to the point of paralysis but apparently when I underthink I just mess up too. My partner and I texted and I was doing better and then I learned my best friend is pregnant and freaking out and now I have 8 months of extra worrying until birth (I say extra because I already have a lot going around, as per usual) and a few months after that of additional worrying about her mental health, which I guess I was already worried about because she's been in a bad place lately. I've lost enough people now though that I guess I can say I am a bit more experienced now, just unable still to process it like anything really. I suppose we all have been in a bad place lately. Maybe it's contagious, deaths of despair skyrocketing, drug epidemic out of control, life expectancy declining year after year, anger at anyone and everyone boiling over and vented via racism and sexism as per usual I suppose.

I don't know how to talk well nor write well and I can't succeed at anything I try and even the things I like I am no good at, and I can't get my thoughts across and I focus so much on being right and perfect that I go off in my head when I need to be present. I write this with the full intention of sharing it but I know it will be painful and ugly and scary and I guess I have the 2nd one of those on lockdown already so why not try to do parts one and three.

I've had distance permanently intervene so often lately that the few people I have to talk to are my only lifeline and I feel that pressure on them could build one day until it becomes manipulative on my part because like I said, every thought I have is and every paragraph of this entry is.

There is no home I will feel comfy in, no body size I will feel comfy in, no social situation I will feel comfy in, no number of friends I will feel comfy with. I will perpetually wonder if I just need a Xanax IV bag pumping benzos into my system to get through existence, praying to a God I don't believe in that somehow, tolerance is a myth. And I won't remember anything but maybe that would be for the best, because I dwell on the bad way more than the good anyways. I wonder if I still have growing up to do but I also wonder how long it will take and I am almost 30 and can't really use that excuse anymore.

Now that this and the other 4 auto-biographical blog posts exist I suppose I have said everything I need to say since my fiction writing is long done and exhausted and my ideas emptied, and I want to apologize for it to everyone it will hurt but I don't know what to say. The Sunday after I blacked out my first Tweet read "I am a fuck up in every way" and that's the one and only thing I am right about. Everyone in my life I have loved in some way and some have loved me but they had no reason to and given what I do to myself and them why should they? There's only so many times you can expect someone to put up with your exhausting foibles and struggles and breakdowns before they have to look out for themselves first and foremost. I cried at work a few times today, I've done it before and I am sure a lot of people have. My anxiety has been so bad I've sweat to the point I probably smell like shit, luckily I shower twice a day in an effort to try to corral any sense of normalcy from my body.

I no longer have the money to travel and I suppose it takes more than 7 job applications to make much progress but it's funny to me in a way that I am simultaneously overqualified, perhaps, for fast food when a manager sees my application, but underqualified, without any degree, for everything else, caught in between with skills that have atrophied like they did starting back in high school and knowing my parents know deep down I will never make as much as they do or afford myself the luxuries they can or buy anything but 10 year old used cars until they fall apart on me suddenly and without warning like always. Like my relationships of any kind have lately, although I have to assume it was my fault at this point, that I said or did something wrong, like usual, or that I became too much for people because I am simultaneously too much pain and too little human and only hurt and self-destruct to all who I know. And I probably damaged my car too by being cheap and not fixing things right away, which is fitting I guess because there's a metaphor in there. I used to think I should never date because nobody should put up with me, my mental health, my looks, my lack of intelligence. I guess maybe it was a mistake to push that aside.

My senior year of high school opened with the same English teacher I had in the sophomore year when I failed to recite the Walt Whitman poem. I loved English classes more than any others. I once told that teacher I enjoyed life when we were talking about existentialism and I said I didn't believe in destiny or a higher being and Addison said in response that was depressing. I said it was freeing and empowering and I derived said life enjoyment from that. It was all true. Fifteen minutes later I was walking down the hall to my next class and it hit me that maybe I was wrong. Did I really enjoy life? I didn't know that I did. I didn't mean to lie or be dishonest, I just blurted out what came, and it felt right, but now I had doubts. A few months later, I started self-harming for the first time in my life. I guess it was just one more thing I didn't know. Today I write this personal essay if for nothing else but to try to clear my head. It is not an assignment to turn in, but I suppose it's vaguely English-y in the sense it is written and contains words and a loose fitting narrative.

On a whim this morning I logged into Amazon and went to my order history. I typed in the word "razor." I learned that I bought the blades I used to self-harm in July 2014, which was more recent than I thought, which means that all the times I said I will soon be 4 years clean, including earlier in this post, were wrong. Because I used the razors to self-harm. Multiple times. So now I don't know. Maybe it's 3 years. I guess I'll never know for sure. Just like I said 9 days ago on this blog I'll never know anything. I guess it's just one more thing I didn't know. I thought I did. I looked at the Amazon page for the product. Their price had increased by about a dollar - 10 Feather brand double-edged stainless steel razor blades - from $4.30 to $5.34. I placed them in my cart and paid the extra couple bucks for one day shipping. I am back in English class again.