Explanation of Benefits

"Never make someone your priority, when they only make you an option."
     - Mark Twain

I guess something I've never explained to anyone is what it means to have anxiety disorder, at least what it means to me.  I'm sure I've made vague statements and said a few things here and there, but I've never actually said "This is what having this means for me."  Sometimes, I have a hard time understanding it myself.  I know where it comes from.  I know why I have it.  I also know why I can't just wave a magic wand and make everything better and make it go away.  It's a hard thing for me to explain, the how, the why, the ways I deal with it. 

The easiest thing to make people understand is the why.  My whole life I've been held to a standard by my parents that no one else in the family was expected to achieve.  A 99 on a test was never good enough because it wasn't a 100.  You may say and my parents may say that when they said things like that, they were joking, but to a seven year old child, it becomes the truth.  Hear something enough, in jest or not, you begin to think that it is true.  Think about all the women who say about themselves "I'm fat," not because they are, but because they've heard and seen it from enough sources (magazines, TV, movies, etc.) that they are.  It's the same concept.  Hear that a 99 isn't as good as a 100 enough, you begin to believe that there is this standard of perfection that you have to reach.  My biggest fears in life are disappointment and failure and not necessarily in that order.  I don't think I rank on higher than the other because in a way they go hand in hand.  So back to they why.  After a while of hearing "Why didn't you get a perfect score, that one extra point or those three extra points or whatever," I began to believe that if I didn't get the scores "expected" of me, than I would never make my parents proud.  It's also part of the reason I don't know or believe that my father is proud of me because I've always been told that whatever score, ribbon, grade, whatever wasn't good enough. 

I don't know if anyone can comprehend what it's like.  This isn't something that you get over easy.  I remember when I left Ole Miss and knew I wouldn't be back, my father almost broke the windshield in my car, not because I had bad grades (they weren't great, but they were passing) but because they weren't the grades he expected me to get.  They weren't the grades that I needed to keep my scholarship.  Never once did he bother to ask me what happened, why I didn't do my best.  He was more worried about what I was going to do next than the possibility that there might be something wrong.  When I flunked out of LSU, I went to the mall to "look for a job" because if I was going to live in there house and not be a college student, I have to have a job.  I ran into a girl that I been pretty good friends with in high school.  When she found out that I was flunking out, she commented "You aren't freaking out about this.  What's the matter with you?  This isn't typical Jessica behavior."  Of course, the reason she said that was because I told her I really didn't care that I had flunked out of LSU.  I really didn't care what happened to me.  It wasn't a typical response for me.  It wasn't the Jessica that everyone loved to hate for getting the best grade and blowing the curve.  It was only later, when I started therapy that I realized that I was severely depressed and had major issues besides the depression.  That was when I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder.

Unlike most people who have anxiety disorder, mine doesn't manifest itself in social situations, unless I am uncomfortable to begin with.  However, I don't like being alone, so I don't often do things that require interaction with people, unless I have someone else with me.  That is part of the reason why it is so hard for me to make friends.  It is also part of the reason, I only have a handful of friends, and I keep them very close to me.  I don't trust people easily and those I do, I tend to keep.  My anxieties are more about how people will perceive me.  I have walls to keep people out.  I have defence mechanisms that make me seem cold or bitchy or a know it all because I have this anxiety about getting to know people, about them turning out to be judgmental and harsh like my parents.  Have you ever noticed that even though I do have friends who aren't like that, I still don't see or talk to them as often as I should?  I haven't spoken to Angela since June.  Candace and I hadn't really spoken for six, eight, ten months...I'm not really even sure how long it had been.  Anjeana and I talk every couple of months.  Jen and I the same.  Hell, I think Jen sees my mother more than she actually sees me, which is sad considering she doesn't go to Clearview that often.  Basically what I'm trying to say and not articulating very well is that I am afraid of people knowing that I am not perfect, that I will never be perfect.  The sad part is that I know I am not perfect, that I make mistakes.  I will own up to my mistakes, past and present, but I don't want anyone else to know that I'm not good enough for their friendship, their love, their respect.  I would rather be alone than spend the rest of my life disappointing someone and failing at whatever relationship I'm trying to have.

Is it strange that I find solace in cemetaries?  I drove past Metairie Cemetary today, and I thought, I just want to stop in there and walk around for a bit, so of course I did.  I walked around for a few hours.  I find the headstones and the masoleums and the momuments very comforting.  I could spend hours, days, weeks in a cemetary and lose myself.  I love the peace and the sanctuary that are offered in silence there.  I guess a lot of people feel the same way about church, but for me, church is not a sanctuary, a cemetary is.  I guess having spent a lot of time playing as a child in Odd Fellow's Rest has led me to this conculsion.  I know a lot of people would probably think that I'm creepy because of this, but I don't care.  I don't go to the places where my family members are buried, although I could because they are in the area, but for some reason, I have a better connection with people who are unknown to me than those who are related to me by blood.  Remember going to the cemetary in Savannah.  I could have walked it from side to side, from one end to the other and never see everything I wanted to see.

The past couple of weeks have been good for reconnecting with friends.  I wrote earlier about connecting with Anjeana and Nate and Candace.  Last night I went out with Stephen and Jen.  Yes, I did tell them that we broke up.  I kind of glossed over as to why it happened, but I placed blame on both of us.  The exact line I used was "We were making each other crazy, and it seemed like we couldn't have a day where we weren't fighting, so we broke up."  I never once told them about the screaming, or the "stalker" or anything that would put either one of us in a bad light.  Jen of course had to play devil's advocate and tell me that it's hurting you as much as it's hurting me.  We had a good time.  We would up at Harrah's until 2 am.  I'm really going to kill Stephen the next time I see him.  He was drunker than I have ever seen him.  Jen and I spent almost two hours trying to get him out of there.  At first he was only playing slots ($1 and $.05), but then he moved on to roulette.  Jen and I are of the same mindset...we're glad he had fun.  We don't understand anything about why you would blow money at roulette because the odds are stacked against you.  And Stephen should have taken the money he gambled away and put it towards the Professional Serirs KitcheAid mixer he wants to get.  I can't stay out that late anymore.  I'm getting to old for it.  I got home at 3am and was up at 7:30am.  I was so tired, I had to take a nap when we got home from lunch.

I want you to know, I'm not looking for answers from you, I'm trying to find them within myself.  If I ever have hopes of having a functional relationship with anyone, I have to know what I need, what I want, what I'm willing to put up with.  You need to find those answers out for yourself.  We may or may not come up with the same things.  I don't know if it matters if we do or don't.  Right now, I've reached the blaise, fuck it all attitude I've always found you to have.  What will be, will be.  If we are meant to be together, we will find a way to make it work.  If we aren't, then so be it.

It seems like while I am finding friends, you are lamenting the loss of your best friend.  I have to laugh because you never lost her.  She was always there.  You chose to push her away, to keep her at a arm's length.  Unlike you, I never pushed.  I never poked, prodded.  I always let you be, tell me in your own good time.  I let you have your moments of madness, of insanity, your rants.  I was perfectly happy with that.  I was perfectly happy just listening and absorbing, which I did.  Yes there are going to be times, when I won't hear everything, when I will get worked up about something, but for the most part, I listen.  I absorb.  I give everything of myself that I can without giving away it all.

I keep hoping that the memories of you and I will fade.  That I won't think about you as much as I do.  That I will be able to move on and not hold you so close to my heart.  It seems like the more I try to forget, the more I remember.  Especially when I'm in the middle of a hundred people, when I'm hanging out with my friends.  It's like I can stand there and smile and have a conversation, but the thought "I wish he was here to share this with me" is in the forefront.  It's all I can think about.  It makes me incredibly sad to know that I cannot share these moments with you, except to write about them after the fact.  And you hear about my moments and get to process whether or not you would have wanted to be there, but I've lost that connection with you.  I'm not as lucky as you.  You are still able to be a part of my life, where as I feel completely cut off from you.  Oh well.  That's the way it is.  C'est la vie?  Everyday this gets a little bit easier and every night it gets a little harder.  You are still the number one thing that I dream about.  The only thing that brings me comfort.  Another thing that brings me pain.

It's been weird staying in at night.  I'm used to going out and being social.  What sucks the most is that I wish I could show up at the bar on a Wednesday or a Saturday night and hang out with you like we used to do.  I know that we're not ready for that right now, but it doesn't stop me from wanting it.  I miss the man who used to bring me flowers for no reason.  I miss the man who would smile at me just because I showed up and would tell me that I am beautiful, the man who would actually ask me to do things, not just assume that I understood that I was invited and welcome.  I miss the man I fell in love with.  I don't want to be with the person you've become.  I don't want to be the person I've become when I'm with you.  I think that getting back to who we were in the beginning is one of the things we need to do so that we can have a healthy relationship.  Maybe we should start over.  Pretend like we never knew each other.  Begin a new, where we both make an effort to be part of a relationship.  But I think there's too much work for us to do alone to be able to do that.

I've decided to start trying more crafty things.  Since I already knit and crochet, I would really like to get into hand spinning and dyeing.  I would also like to try quilting.  I think that the visual aspect of figuring out color combinations and patterns would be good for me.  Get my brain thinking about something other than the crap that is going on in my life.  I've already decided that I'm going to order some glass beads from Oriental Trading and start making stitch markers to put in my swap packages.  I know that most people that do yarn crafts love to have them, especially when they are unique and made by the person who is sending them yarn and handmade items.  For less than one hundred dollars, almost less than fifty, I can make about twenty-five sets of stitch markers.  I can't wait until I get paid in a week so that I can place the order and get started.

I always feel like when I write these things, I write too much.  I a much more prolific writer than most people.  I'm not sure if that's because I'm better at expressing things in writing than I am vocally or what.  I look at my blogs compared to yours and other friends, and I write novels.  Y'all write blurbs.  I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing.  I just think I put more of myself into what I write than most people.  It could as be because of my English degree.  I'm used to bullshitting my way through incredibly long papers that have to be filled with fluff just to get them to the required length.  Or maybe I'm trying to reach a certain word count.  I don't know.  I'm going to keep writing because otherwise, I will just go crazy.  I've started writing outlines of what I want to write about because even though I am constantly thinking about what needs to be said, I sometimes forget what it is I want to say.  That's just part of how the writing process works.  That's just part of the way my mind works.  And I guess it gives me an outlet without burdening anyone with my issues.