Stuff to think about.

Here's a convo with me and a friend the other day:

---

Tiger: "Well, yeah. But that's not new, y'know? And as for education, I'm going back to school in September, so. Right now I have plenty of time for myself and for more or less anything I want that doesn't involve money."
Tiger: means time for anything she wants, not things she wants.

Chessie: "When did yoou decide to go back to school?"

Tiger: "That was the decision when I decided that I would take this semester off. So, months ago. January? Something like that."

Chessie:"Has going back been in your mind a lot lately?"

Tiger: "A little bit, yeah. And you know that my version of a little bit is still a lot compared to a lot of people and a lot of things. In comparison to other things on my mind, no, not a lot, but in actual amount, yeah."

Chessie: "Do you want to go back?"

Tiger: "Yes, and no. I want to go back because I feel like I need to be doing something, and because I miss things like band, and even some of the people. I'm sort of anxious for it to get going, I would like to get it over with, if that makes sense. But at the same time, it's stressful, I don't think I'm ready, and I don't really enjoy most of it. That and I'm graduating a year late so I'll be in classes with people a year or two younger than me."
Tiger: "Overall, I feel... I dunno. Stressed but not. Either with things to be stressed about but not feeling it, or feeling stressed with nothing to be stressed over. I'm not sure which."

Chessie:"Nothing really that I can say is likely to help.  Your evaluation is accurate.  I find it unlikely you'll manage the entire year unless something drastic happens.  You'll be able to go for a few months before the monotany starts to wear.  Once you're trapped in your own mind for protracted periods by dull classes where you're expected to pay attention to only the teacher and surrounded by people of violent emotional states (pubescent teenagers), I think it's likely you'll stop talking again."
Chessie: "You may have time to graduate. You may not.  I can't say there.  You sound like you're slowly sliding into numb-disassociation from your body, mind, and world.  That tends to come when stress factors (in your case, probably anxiety over the future both close and far) start to close in on overwhelming."

Tiger: "Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right."
Tiger:"I think I may be doing that thing where I completely stonewall things that bother me. Since the more I think about it the more things I can come up with."
Tiger: is either doing that or psyching herself out.

mandolintailstalker: notes that's what she calls disassociation.  "Your brain is like an organizing list where you're allowed to deal with stuff in any order...so you take the big stuff you REALLY don't want to deal with and put that far away.  The smaller stuff you put a little bit farther away.  Then as smaller and smaller stuff appears, you push the big stuff just a little bit farther and the stuff right in front of it farther and so one.  Since everyday life contains a lot of minor stress, eventually your not consciously moving towards the big things anymore and the only stress you can even work on is the super super immediate...because everything else has been pushed miles away."

Tiger: notes that's different than what she considers dissociation, but finds that to be accurate.
Tiger: *disassociation 

Chessie: "The only way that is generally undone is A, if you have no future plans or expectations which you are not in control of (which you have in spades right now) and B, something massive upsets your life and erases all of those expectations.  You engineered (unconsciously) a situation where you could temporarily wipe out all of those expectations by not talking anymore.  You recognized those expectations (societal, familial, social) would never lead you to happiness and instead would slowly destroy your wellbeing, so you wiped them out...for a while.  Now they're settling back as you attempt to normalize again." 

Tiger: "...yeah, pretty much. But I don't know that it was so much wiping them out as avoiding them. But, yeah."

Chessie: "At the time when it was possible you might not speak to anyone, you were in control of whose expectations could be pushed on you.  If you saw some expectation that was toxic to you or someone you didn't trust, you didn't talk to them.  That meant all of the teachers, your mother, and your brother."

Tiger: nods a little bit.

Chessie:"You were in control of both when and how people put their needs and demands on you.  Now that you're starting to talk and people expect you to talk to everyone instead of just select persons, you're losing all of that control.  All those expectations they put on hold start to crowd in again.  That feeling of being 'pressed on' resumes.  Eventually, you're expected to talk to everyone...and to accept EVERYTHING."

Tiger: "Mm, yeah. I'm feeling the urge to keyboard smash now, so...yes. I don't know how to deal with that, though."

Chessie:"Now, keep in mind, I am a responsible adult.  I have a large bank account, friends, sex partners, a working car, retirement plans, and employment.  Would you say all of those things qualify me to make a reccomendation on your future maturity?"

Tiger: 's mom is calling her and will be back in a moment.
Tiger: is back. "Hmm, yes. Depending on what it is I may or may not be able - or want - to take it, but, yes."

Chessie:  "You may not want to, but I think it's your eventual solution and the one you'll likely take if you face total collapse and loss of personhood again.""
Chessie: "No school.  No future.  Erase it all and make your own way.  You'll have to burn bridges temporarily, but you are capable of getting forgiveness from literally anyone.  Your brother won't understand for a while (he believes very strongly that he knows what's right) but your mother eventually will.  You'll end up very alone, temporarily, minus a tiny selection of people."
Chessie:"Your alternative is slow derrangement.  Self-abuse, comfort behaviors, depression, frustration, and in the end a repeating cycle of collapse.  I have no doubt you'll blame yourself for that, cursing yourself for being unable to be like everyone else and do the things that seem to come naturally to them, though in truth it isn't your fault."

Tiger: "What's your recommendation?"
Tiger: means more specifically.

Chessie: "It'll make you feel GODAWFUL guilty."

Chessie: takes a deep breath.  "Okay, here's my solution.  It's kinda piece-meal right now."
Chessie: "Wait a few weeks, then go back to not talking to people.  Make it sudden.  The more sudden, the better.  Lots of people will be disappointed but it needs to be clear that you're not going to just slide back to normality if people are patient.  If they push or put you back in the situation you were in, you will close down.  Everyone needs to know that's going to happen and no amount of psychologist idiocy will stop it.  It places you in control again of what happens in your life...and from there, you should start working on an escape plan that includes a place to live, friends, and money."

Tiger: "Certain people I'd still talk to more or less no matter what, but they don't put any expectations on me anyways. I'm not sure how to make an escape plan like that when I don't even have the commitment to get a job, and I can't do anything without money."

Tiger: isn't finding the disappointing people aspect to be appealing but understands why you say that.

Chessie: "What is worse?  The disappointment people will feel when you suddenly revert to mute-ism or the disappointment they'll feel when you start feeling the urge to hide your report cards because you can't concentrate on your work?  Or the disappointment when you end up in the hospital because you cut yourself too deep?  Or your binge eating affects your health?"

Tiger: "The latter are worse, but what if that doesn't happen? [Denial? Hmm.]
Tiger: "And talking DOES make communication easier for me in a lot of ways, even if not talking can be beneficial. And, more importantly, what if I end up with both? What if I stop talking and those last things still happen? THat's what happened last year. I don't want to be stuck in that."

Chessie: smacks you for denial.

Tiger: accepts that.
Tiger: sighs. "Okay, here it is..."

Chessie: "You're in a shit situation.  Keep in mind, I was THERE.  My behaviors were different but not by much...and I was getting to not talking to anyone.  I was CLOSE."
Chessie: "I got lucky.  I got expelled for something I didn't do, because I lived in a paranoid as shit time in a paranoid as shit place."

Tiger: "A lot of what you're saying really hits home. I can't see myself getting through school, getting better, all of that. I can't see myself managing to do the normal-thing, not for any length of time. But despite knowing there are other options, they don't feel like real options. Do you know what I mean? I can't really see them, either. I'm not ready for a job really, I don't know enough about to make a life like that, not to mention the whole idea involves going against my mother and basically my entire family, and disappointing everyone, even if only for a few years. So I feel stuck. I... don't know."

Chessie: "Lets put it this way.  You'll slowly slide into depression and self destruction.  You could start by telling some of the people in your life that this is how things are.  I can only unwind your brain and give you the reasons it works.  You have to make life-style choices to fix it."

Tiger: doesn't know how to make choices like that. "Not to mention you KNOW how I am with discussing things with people. That's fucking terrifying."
Tiger: hopes you realize she isn't trying to argue or anything.

Chessie: realizes and understands.  "I'm asking you to climb a mountain it too me 4 years to get to the base of."

Tiger: szrioupfhrsdfiohfsroi;hjsrfoi;hsdfioh;.
Tiger: feels this is an acceptable response.

Chessie: "HOWEVER...you do have the benefit of one thing.  I didn't know there was a way.  Any way whatsoever.  I was going at it with no maps of any sort."

Tiger: hopes you realize this entire idea is going against everything she's been taught her whole life.

Chessie: "Very much so.  Hey, I was taught to be a responsible Christian boy.  My family wanted me to be a big fan of Nascar.  My dad wanted me to be a karate master or maybe go into the military.  My mom wanted me to have one girlfriend I'd love my whole life.  I was supposed to graduate college and go straight into a life-long career."

Tiger: finds that sort of ridiculous. "In a lot of ways I'm better off. My expectations are/were basically to get into university or at least college, get a good paying job that occupies my mind, so that I can afford things I want, be happy, and...other than that, that's about it."

Chessie: "I was supposed to be a journalist who could write page after page every day.  Or an actor on broadway.  Or a great guitar player.  I was supposed to be all of those things and when I really confronted the realities of being those things and pleasing everyone, some part of me shut off.  I knew, somewhere under all of those expectations, that I could do something better.  I'm a better psychologist than people who've gone to 8 years worth of college."

Tiger: usually finds herself shutting off at the thought, but for different reasons. "I don't see myself capable of doing that, and that scares me. Failure is terrifying. Maybe that's why this whole idea is so scary. It feels like failure, somehow."

Chessie: nods.  "You'd never be good enough for yourself if you tried those things.  Good enough for other people, but never good enough for you."

Tiger: will give it thought. "It's something I need time to wrap my head around, I think."

Chessie: "Keep this in mind.  I'm wrong sometimes or not 100% right.  I tend to get close, but hitting things straight on the head is difficult.  That doesn't mean the stuff I say is entirely incorrect.  Just not perfectly accurate.  Where the brain is concerned, close enough tends to be...well, close enough."

---

I don't know what to do.
I've been raised to get good grades, go to university, and get a good paying job. that's my job in life and I've known that from day one.
Everything that she says there really resonates with me strongly. Despite denial-esque thoughts, I know what she's saying to be true. And yet it goes against something I've had engrained in me my entire life. It's essentially become one of my values for myself.
I have a paralyzing fear of failure. One could call it a phobia. Doing anything other than that, what I've been told, feels like failure. But I know that trying to do that is going to end in failure.
I'm a very future-based person. I picture things in the future. My brain, in a way, sits in the future, just like some people live in the past or the present. When I try to imagine my future, I see...nothing. Blackness.
IT'S FUCKING TERRIFYING.
I've always been able to see multiple variations of my future, but for the past few years...nothing.
I feel like I have no options. It makes me feel STUCK. It's something that's been buried in me for years, that's never been brought to the surface until now.
These two feelings are major things that have contributed to feeling suicidal. I mean, if I have no other options...? And I feel like I'm just waiting for that nothingness to catch up with me. How does one wait for nothing? I don't understand. But, at the same time...
Most anything else I could say about this was discussed in the conversation.
I'm very dependant on outside approval, as much as I hate to say it. And if I were to say fuck everything - stop talking again, drop out of school, get a job, move out - I would get disapproval from just about everyone, including people I care about, and disappoint all my family. I hate disappointment. And there's the whole failure thing, too...
I don't know what to do.
Opinions, anyone? If you know me from outside my blog, feel free to contact me through alternate means to discuss this.
My brain is all confused after this. So torn. It's like two of my huge values conflicting.
MAH BRAINMEATS AREN'T MIXING PROPERLY.
HALP.
xD
But no, seriously.... asdijsaofijsrdfpjsfoksdopfksefopjkserfpoksdf[okwd[oweqkdoewkfwef.