...

Sometimes I wonder whether the state I'm currently in has more to do with the things around me that I can't control, or with who I am as a person...and whether who I am as a person was influenced by the things around me, or it was just an innate force that stirred me in the direction I'm headed to. The thought process carries on in this spiral that can keep going for hours, and is only interrupted by daily conversations and engagements that are a temporary distraction from this headache-inducing slide. I guess this is what anxiety is; some kind of incarceration in one's own mind, because I'd rather not question my actions, words, appearance, choices, and relationships at every waking moment without a clear trigger. I'd rather not revisit past mistakes -for which I paid time and time again- and force myself to acknowledge how weak and unwise I was to have made such poor choices. I'd much rather live, unburdened by the weight of my psyche that's constantly reminding me of how little control I have over what goes on.

I pretend to have my shit together on a daily basis, to laugh off my awkwardness and smile through the grating moments when I truly fail to communicate despite my best efforts. But on the inside, I can't fight off this constant, nagging feeling of inadequacy. It segways into self-blame for my loneliness that gets too hard to hide and desperation leaks out from the corners of my sincere attempts to connect with people, and makes little sense when I avoid those reaching out to me when I need it most. As a matter of fact, I hate this need and what it makes me do, and the fact that there's no resolution to this struggle. It'll always hang around like an unfinished sentence I can't contextualize the meaning of.