i've felt dry

[jaketk]

i've felt dry as of late. indeed, i've felt that way as long as i can remember. i feel distant, like i'm but without reason, without purpose. i merely exist, that's all. like all i've done is pointless and futile. i've thought about that. how short all this is. how little it truly matters in the long run. how long has this place existed? the planet itself? the galaxy? the universe? and how long will i live? sixty, maybe seventy years? compared to eons? it's so large, it's unfathomable. i can't imagine such a length of time. and yet here i am, trying to weigh my small life to that of things ancient beyond my understanding.

i can't figure out why i'm here. i just move from day to day. i get up in the mornings, regretting that i have to, but i do, and i go to school, then to work, then i come home, and i do whatever projects that need to be done, then i read, or lie down, and think of how nice it would be to sleep, then i get up again, and repeat the cycle. why? i get nothing out of it. i'm doing because i was taught to do it. i'm supposed to go to school because no uneducated people are allowed in my family. i don't live with them, they don't force me to go, i merely do. and i feel nothing.

absolutely nothing.

i don't want to be here. i have no goals in life. i have no real desires or wishes. i'm the walking dead, just taking up space, trying to use this snippet of time that i've been given. like it matters. it's so small, so insignificant. does anyone notice their cells splitting?

and it's a pity that at one point, i begged for this. i could have merely let it go, whatever it is that makes me move and think, it was there, and stupidly i held to it, and begged for life. i guess that's what being a child will do. they ask for things they don't understand, nor really want.

i don't want this. yet i'm not in the least suicidal. i have no desire to take my life at all. yet if it were going, i'd let it go. i wouldn't struggle now.

i'm beginning to think the things i hold "dear' are merely ideals that i cling to in an effort to have something to base my actions on. otherwise, i'm no more than i machine.

i despair. it's been said that no one can really despair because it implies that one already knows what the future holds, and it is not known because it is not set in stone. but i feel as if i do. i'm pleased by things, people, experiences, but i don't desire them. i've come to the realization that i want nothing in life. whatever that is inside of me is already dead or dying. only my body is next, and given what it's been thru, i think it's just as ready as the rest of me.

i can't even define myself. i just am. but why?

perhaps my father had it right and i'm here because he wanted a child for myself. and now that i have left him, my reason for being is also gone. it's too late to go back. i'm no longer a child, and though he's interested in me still, it's only filial piety that attaches me to him. he is my father, and therefore, i endure him. of my family, i endure those i can, but that is it.

i wonder how much longer i can remain like this? i wonder how old i can grow before even this wears away and i do the irreversible?

perhaps i shouldn't have shared these thoughts.

 

[RJD]

Jaketk you sound like someone who has experienced a major trauma and is in a devastated state of shock. Your emotions sound numbed in a way that sounds protective. With your experience and the experiences we share here, it is no wonder to me that we experience this numbness sometimes. You bring the gift that we all bring here and it is a rare gift . It is the gift of who we are in all our rawness. I'm sorry for those traumas that incised such a deep wound to your soul. I know the feeling of what it is like to be a walking zombie devoid of joy and filled with a profound sadness that never seem to end. The irreversible sounded like relief to me. I made some serious steps toward the irreversible and consider myself lucky to have survived though at the time I was furious that I did. For several years I wondered every day, if this would be the day I was going to "check out." It took a couple of years but I managed to hang on long enough to realize I was raging and I had learned to take it all out on myself. I also realized that I was protecting my perpetrators because who else did I have in this world.

I don't know if my story holds true to you jaketk, but I would like to hear how it comes to pass from you on the other side of this fog. You have touched our hearts with the immensity of the pain you have shared. We can only admire your skills to have survived such unthinkable experiences that no one deserves to have happen to them. There is a saying in the 12-steps programs for survivors of incest that,"If any one of us can survive this then so can we all." I welcome your heart to this sacred circle of men. You deserve to survive.

------ be gentle with yourself

 

[zadok1]

jaketk, i can relate to everything you have said, and have felt that way too often to count. i look back at all i have done, and should take some sort of pride in them, but i dont. when i started dealing with the abuse it took all meaning away from everything i have done. now the semi-pro cycling, the marathoning, my faith have all come into question. are any of those things me, or are they all part of the mask i wear to hide how screwed up i am? i dont feel genuine most of the time, and i question life just as you are. i read of people's anger toward their perp and almost envy them. i feel nothing. when mom and church taught me to forgive, i guess i took it to heart. i forgive everyone but myself. oh, i know i should, i know all the talk and what science says i need to feel, but like you i struggle to feel right inside. i guess all i can offer is to hang in there, and keep looking for answers. they have to be out there somewhere. God bless.
jeff

 

[Wuamei]

You bring the gift that we all bring here and it is a rare gift. It is the gift of who we are in all our rawness. I'm sorry for those traumas that incised such a deep wound to your soul. I know the feeling of what it is like to be a walking zombie devoid of joy and filled with a profound sadness that never seem to end...

You have touched our hearts with the immensity of the pain you have shared. We can only admire your skills to have survived such unthinkable experiences that no one deserves to have happen to them...I welcome your heart to this sacred circle of men. You deserve to survive.

------ be gentle with yourself

Jake I can't say it any better than RJD just did so I won't try; I just affirm it, and affirm you.

Take it easy & take care of you.

That goes for you too RJD & Jeff.

Victor

 

[The Dean]

Hi Jake,

I am glad you have posted again, it seems like it has been a little while.

You sound like you are very much connected to the horrific things that happened to you as a child. Several have mentioned numbing out. We all do that--but we do get through it in time.

I am an alcoholic. In AA we tell people to fake it till they make it. We mean for them to fake feeling good, happy, safe, etc etc until one day we come to realise we aren't faking it--it is real.

Another thing is to live each day as it is. Thinking about NEVER EVER taking a drink again would cause many of us to say "to hell with that." Just today, live today. Try to enjoy the classes as you learn things, try to enjoy your classmates and the people you work with. You do have an impact on them you know. You are not completely powerless at all.

Take good care of yourself Jake--you are important to all of us. At times like this it is no good being alone. If you do not have friends where you are, come here where we are all good friends for you.

Bob

 

[Little_E]

WOW! Dude, i feel the same way. I'm at skool too, and i just dont feel like it either. I drift like you do, living for the day, endless cycles. Hoping that something, anything will happen to make me stop and think, yes that is good. To give me back my smile, that i'v lost in time itself. I know that the stress of my course, and my Jobs (all 3 of them) and wiv end of term exam coming up this week and next, that the stress of everything is more powerfull, and that this is where all the unwated pain comes back, and it hurts, its like my shilds have droped and.........going of track here. But m8, i can see where you are coming from, cause i'm walking that same path you are right now.

Take care dude!!

 

[jaketk]

thank you guys for responding.

what you've all said comes close to what it's like, but i truly feel nothing inside. no sadness, really. the despair is more that it'll always be like this, and i realize that this isn't the way people feel. i'm devoid of any emotion inside. and i've come to the conclusion that i don't know how to feel.

i don't recall any period of having elation or intense happiness. or any or hatred, or sadness. fear came merely because i didn't like the way things physically felt, and i didn't like others feeling empty like me. but for myself, there's nothing there. no ember to blow on and rekindle. no speck of light to pierce the darkness. it's very much like a gravity well, black hole. one would never know it was there if it didn't block the light here and there.

certainly there must be something there. even a black hole isn't a hole per se. it's just a star small collapsed by it's gravity that the light it gives off can't escape, and so it appears black. i suppose like them, i'm a necessary force. something like me must exist in order for things to change. for things to move. otherwise, none of this could be here. without the hole our own galaxy, we'd have lost our sun long ago.

i feel out of place. old and tired. completely out of my element. and if i were alone, totally, with no other living person, it still would not feel right. i don't belong. i don't feel human at all. i'm so disconnected, and all my efforts to try to connect have failed miserably.

and oddly i'm not afraid of death. i'm not certain what happens, and i haven't a wish for what i would hope to be there when i do go. dying frightens me. more because i wonder if it'll hurt, if i'll really feel cold, or just numb. and that potential passing from one existence to the next. or into nothing. the shock of going from a sensory overload to stone deaf.

this is one reason i think maybe i shouldn't post these thoughts. it sounds like madness, but i don't at all feel like i'm human. not the same, at least. what i am, i haven't a single clue, but emotions mean so little to me. as much as i can empathize with a person, and can easily not. the reasons why i haven't harmed anyone has less to do with morals and more because i have no interest in them. i can say for a certainty that the reasons i haven't abused my neighbor's son, he's three, and he's been hanging around me often since last month, is because i have no interest in doing it. i like him, very much for sure, but i haven't taken that step merely out of virtual indifference. this can't be the way a human feels. not harming someone out of indifference?

i've been living day by day for my whole life. it feels like a cheat. almost like i'm wandering around in a store because i have two hours to kill before i go to work. i have no intention of buying anything, no real reason to be there, i'm just there to have somewhere to be. and for a few hours, that's fine. for a lifetime, however short, that can't be right.

others placing value on me is fine. but i place no value on myself.

and the experiences. it's possible they were bad, but they cannot be undone. i don't want to attach every problem i have to them, as if those were all that could have made them. i find myself saying "so what' more and more. they happened and now it's over. what more is there to me than these? i've nothing to offer. so why talk as if i'm asking for help?

there's something wrong with me. something very wrong with me. very wrong.

 

[Lloydy]

Jake
I don't believe there's any more wrong with you than there is with the rest of us, I really don't.

You express so many emotions when you write, and you write long detailed posts about how you feel - that's emotion Jake you DO feel it, somehow you have to recognize it and enjoy it.

Next time you're sad cry and enjoy it, laugh when you're happy and enjoy that. It took a bit of practice, but even I got the hang of it in the end

Dave