I am so upset

I am so upset right now. I had a fight with my friend. I am sick of people telling me who I am and what I feel, and then patronizing and insulting me when I try to explain who I really am and what I really feel, and why.

The fight was, of course, about the usual: faith. Yes, I am suffering. And yes, I don't believe. And yes, I have heard more times than I can count, how faith helps to ease people's suffering, and pain. I have heard.

Yet, faith, so far, makes no sense to me. I know he is talking from his own experiences, after having found such faith, and for him, it helps. However, that is not a sales pitch. It does not make faith make any more sense to me, than it already does (not).

He thinks it's a choice. That I have a choice, whether or not to "accept God". That is not a choice. I simply can't believe in things I can't understand. I can't force myself to believe in something that makes no sense to me, whether I want to or not.

Then, he blames my supposed "hard heart", as if I don't want to believe. As if I am deliberately keeping myself from opening my heart to God. That is so wrong. Let me tell you, if what he says is the truth, if there is a God, and he is everything his followers say he is, then I would be the first one to admit how wrong I was and repent. Others may prefer to live a lie, as he claims, but I am not one of them. If he hadn't noticed, I have never, ever, claimed that my faith, or lack thereof, is right, or the truth.

And for all of the above misconceptions, he then accuses me of wanting things to be this way. He claims I prefer to be miserable, rather than open myself to God, and all the magical pink unicorns that faith brings.

I do not prefer to suffer! I do not prefer to be miserable! I do not prefer this unimaginable pain! Where do people come off with such accusations? Who in their right mind, would prefer this, if they had a much better, happier option? If they had a choice?

But that is the point. Like I said, it is not my "choice". As long as faith makes no sense to me, there is no way I can believe. It's not that I don't want to. But I can never truly believe something, whose attributes, explanations, and so-called "rationalization" brings me nothing but doubt.

Just for clarification - I would, most definitely, like to know the truth. The one, only truth. Whatever this truth may be.

Then, to top it off, my friend goes out and announces, in a mocking tone, that I choose to be in pain because "oh, I am so miserable, someone touched me inappropriately when I was a kid, poor me!"

I was literally, screaming at the top of my lungs after this idiotic, insulting statement. I have told him, hundreds of times, that the molestation in the past has nothing to do with anything! It has nothing to do with the way I feel, or behave, or what have you! This is exactly why I hate telling people about having been abused and molested.

And the most disturbing thing is, that he knows exactly what I am going through right now. He knows I am dying, and he knows I am out of options. He doesn't know I am trying to have a "fundraiser" on the internet, asking strangers for help, but it doesn't matter anyway. I have no illusions. This little "internet fundraiser" thing is never going to work.

I was screaming at him. I was screaming to hard, telling him to shut the heck up already about this molestation issue! It does not affect me! It does not affect the way I feel, or anything!

"Sure it does", he responded in a patronizing, mocking tone. "That's why you're so upset and screaming right now!"

That was beyond infuriating. Some people are so stuck in their ways, with their heads against the wall, and you just can't explain them anything rationally without them twisting it out of context and out of proportion, and then turning it back on you as an opposite argument in their favor, which makes the least sense of all.

That is not why I'm angry. That is not why I'm upset. It's not the molestation issue that had set me off. It's what he had decided to make of it, and his utter disregard for the truth.

"No, it does not affect me at all! Not anymore," I replied. "The only thing it affects, is your judgment."

Yes, I had been molested several times. Deal with it. I just wish, that people would let it go already! Because I certainly have.

Then again, his argument about "hard heart", and the supposed "choice" of whether or not to believe the "truth"? Look who's talking. Now, when I speak about the past molestations, and my feelings about it, and the effects, or rather lack thereof, of this on me, I speak from experience. I speak the truth. And I know it is the truth, because I am the one living it, every moment.

Yet, he has a choice, of whether to believe what he had made up his mind I should be like, what he had made up his mind should be a collective stereotype of molestation victims... or the truth. But, he hardens his heart, afraid to let the truth in. When he rationalizes his faith, and tries to explain it to me, I listen. I ask a lot of questions, because I try to understand, not to dispute him. But when I try to explain myself to him, he never listens. He shoots me down, and fills the void with his own unsubstantiated theories. He would "rather believe a lie", which he so often accuses me of. He "rejects the truth", which he so often accuses me of.

So I am upset.

-void

Thank you

My friend is all right. Thank goodness. He is doing well.

I would also like to offer my sincere gratitude to my first, and probably only, donor. I am speechless and humbled by your kindness. Thank you.

-void

Please pray for my friend

And the bad news just keep on pouring. Everything in my life, and around me, has a habit of going wrong. Every life I touch, ends up falling apart. My bad luck is contagious.

The man who owned the place the food bank operates from, had just passed away. He was relatively young, and it was sudden. I didn't know him very well, but he and my friend had been good friends for many years.

My friend went to the hospital with chest pains this morning, after hearing the shocking news. I haven't heard from him since. I am so scared right now. I hope he pulls through. I know how hard it is for him, and how chaotic everything is now that his friend is gone. I hope he pulls through. Please pray for my friend's health and well-being.

To top it off, the future of the food bank, and all of my friend's hard work, is in limbo. The family of his late friend's wife, having heard the news, have begun trying to manipulate the wife into shutting it down.

Just another day in my disastrous existence. A good man is gone. My friend is in the hospital. And I am sitting here, worried sick about my friend, and not knowing where my next meal will come from.

Please keep my friend in your prayers.

-void

Think positive

I am not a happy person. In fact, I am very bitter, cynical. I am in constant pain, and constant despair. I am miserable. I have one friend who patronizes me, no family, and I am at a point where my only options are:

1. Wait helplessly for my death
2. Ask strangers on the internet for help, that obviously will not come, and basically end up at option #1
3. Jump off the roof and spare myself further pain and misery, as without help things are only going to get worse.

So no, I am definitely not a happy person.

I can't be happy, when I'm stuck in this situation, powerless to do anything, when a miracle is just outside my reach. I can't be happy, when I try, and try, and give it all I've got, and sacrifice everything, and fail, and end up at square one, or rather, square zero, with nowhere to go. I can't be happy, when my so-called friends think they know better than me what I really need, and think the "magic cure" for my woes is simply, "positive thinking".

Spare me the pseudo-self help crap.

You know what works better than telling me to "be positive", and then treating me like a piece of scum because they dislike "negativity"? People who actually stick around when a friend is in pain and need. Hello?

I suppose this is something that is really difficult for people who have caught so many breaks in life to understand. Unlike them, I haven't caught any breaks in life. I escaped one terrible situation, and landed in another. Every opportunity I ever had, or should have had, was either taken away from me, or I have sacrificed in order to try to fix my situation, and have failed miserably. I have no family, no one, and I am a loser and a failure. I have been hurt too many times, and have lost my ability to trust anyone. For me to trust in "positive" would be completely irrational, as there is nothing "positive" in my life.

You want me to think positive? Then give me something positive to hang on to. Because I have none. But people who call themselves my friends, treating me like garbage because I'm suffering? Totally defeating the purpose. It only serves to reinforce my insecurities, my inability to trust, and my pain. Don't you get it? This is why I can't be "positive". Because I am proven over and over again, that I have nothing to be positive about.

And the fact that my reality is grim, and I am fully aware of it, and know what to expect, does not make me a negative person, contrary to popular belief among my happy-happy-joy-joy-new-age-zen-with-rainbows-and-unicorns so-called friends. Unfortunately, I am merely being realistic.

-void

A "Happy Mother"

There is this woman I know, who has been coming here every couple of years or so, since the late nineties. Every time she visits, she stays for the better part of a year. She drinks, she parties, she sleeps around.

It is not my place to judge her behavior. However, I have just come across her blog and realized that, she has three children. I never would have guessed. I have never seen her with children before. All I have seen is the careless party-girl that she is, when she's here.

She describes herself as a "happy mother".

Of course she's happy. She gets to come here, and do whatever she wants, with no children, responsibilities, or liabilities in sight, for months on end.

That's not to say, that motherhood is a liability that sucks all happiness out of one's life. I have never been a mother, and I never will be, so I wouldn't pretend to know what it really is.

Although, I doubt a "happy mother", as in, someone who receives happiness from being a mother, with all the responsibilities it brings with it, would leave her children to come here, and party and be irresponsible for eight, nine, ten months.

Where are your children now? Who is raising your children when you are away for months on end, busy partying, getting drunk, having sex with strangers, and being "happy"?

-void

Exhaustion...

Wow, I am so tired. I was going to write an actual post, but I am so exhausted I can't think. It's amazing how my boss keeps finding new and excising ways to exploit and mistreat me. I have probably racked up hundreds of overtime hours by now, although I have been paid for none, not to mention my regular hours. What a waste of time and energy. And therefore, I am exhausted.

It is ironic, though, how I am too exhausted to think now, but at work that is all I do. My job is purely mechanical, very little thought involved, and so, my mind tends to drift to other subjects. Everything I should be typing in this space right now, streams so fluently through my mind when I am away from a computer and busy doing other things.

People complain, that I am not a very "friendly" worker. It's not that, really. But I bet I do look quite grim and bitter while I do my job. That's because my mind is somewhere else, rather than "at work" with me. Sure, it is hard at work all the time, but "work" is the last thing it is thinking about. There is nothing to think about. And what I do think about - my situation, my circumstances, my impending doom - those are not very nice things. To think about, or experience. Also, being exploited at work is not a whole lot of fun, either. So I doubt I look like a happy camper.

But people don't know that. They don't know that my mind is elsewhere. They don't know what I think about, and what I go through. It doesn't stop them from judging me and assuming my world has to revolve around them, though.

Anyway. There is no real point to this post. I am just rambling because I am exhausted, and my brain feels like mush.

-void

Mother's Day

I hate this day. It is so painful for me, it breaks my heart. Any holiday, really. It makes me wish I could shut myself out from the whole world, so I wouldn't hear everyone wishing their mothers "Happy Mother's Day". I wish it would have just passed and gone without me knowing it was Mother's Day. But it is impossible to ignore. Part of it, I guess, is because of how commercialized it has become. Anyway, some blissful ignorance on my part would have been handy today.

I feel like the most horrible person in the world, for not partaking in this holiday. On other holidays, I feel horrible because I have no family to celebrate it with. But Mother's Day, and Father's Day for that matter, is not about my own celebration, it's about someone else's. Someone I don't celebrate. Someone who has hurt me.

I don't love my mother. I don't even know how to love. But I feel horrible, because I'm a bleeding heart. Because I care, about everyone and everything, even fictional things I read in a book. Even people I hate. I hurt for everyone who's hurting, and I hurt for everyone who isn't hurting, and when I get the slightest feeling that I might be hurting someone, I hurt even more. Maybe it's because pain is the only thing I know how to feel. I don't even know how my mother is feeling. I doubt she even cares, that I haven't wished her a happy Mother's Day. We haven't spoken in years.

And I have to keep reminding myself, that not all mothers were created equal. Not all mothers deserve to be celebrated. Being a mother is more than just giving birth to a child. It's more than providing them with material things like food, clothes, and a roof over their head.

I don't love my mother. I don't even like her. I certainly don't miss her. I don't feel any kind of connection to her. But I still hurt for her... even though she doesn't. I don't even think about her, except on this day, when the whole world pushes this on me. And the entire concept of Mother's Day, and all the people around me wishing their mothers a happy Mother's Day... it pains me. It makes me wish I had someone to wish a happy Mother's Day to. Someone to celebrate.

I wish a happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there, who at least try to do a decent job at it.

-void

This makes me so sad

I overheard a conversation between three twenty-something year old girls. They were talking about love. One of them said something like, "I left him because he said he was going to love me forever. I don't want to be with someone like that, this is really stupid! You can't love someone forever! Unless forever is, like, five minutes. I'm not looking for 'forever', I'm just looking for something for the moment."

The other two agreed.

It makes me so sad, just hearing this. It pains me even more that this is such a widespread perception of love and relationships in modern society. To me, it's beyond inconceivable. I don't know what love is. I don't know what it feels like to love, or be loved. So I apologize in advance if what I say is completely off base.

But I find it incomprehensible. "For the moment"? Please forgive my inexperienced, uneducated self when I say, there is no such thing as "love" for the moment. Love is not sex, and sex is not love. You can have sex for five minutes. You can't love someone for five minutes. You can't have this deep, meaningful connection with someone for five minutes. I am not saying that it has to be "forever". But you can't love "for the moment". You just can't. There is no such thing.

What is the point? When you really think about it, what is the point of "for the moment"? Of course, not many people actually dare to think about it. I do, and it pains me to no end. What is the point?! Having sex with someone you don't care about, and have no connection with, who will be forgotten just as quickly as they came along, and will bear absolutely no meaning in the long run? What the heck is the point?!?!

There is no point. There is no meaning.

And it pains me, that people who have everything going for them, who have all their lives ahead of them, waste it on pointless, meaningless things like that. It's beyond incomprehensible. I'd give anything for something meaningful. For something worth living for. I'd give anything, to find out what it feels like to love, and be loved. But I know I'm never going to have that chance.

The irony.

-void

Too much

I used to frequent an online community, where I had met a lot of great people. I live in a place where people exploit me and treat me badly for being "different", and I have no family and only one friend, who spends most of our time together putting me down because I don't share his faith. The internet is, sadly, my only way to really talk to people. My only outlet for things I have to say.

But I don't visit that site anymore.

There was a thread, where people would vent about things that bothered them, angered them, anything they wanted to complain about. I would post there a lot. I have a lot to complain about, and sadly, there is nothing else I can do about it but complain. So I'd go there to vent about my problems. My health, my job, my parents, my so-called friends... my entire existence.

And at first, they would try to give advice. Maybe you should try this. Maybe you should try that. I had explained them, what I had tried and what I couldn't try because of lack of means, etc. I do try. All the time, with all I've got. But I always fail. I have no one to help me, and I fail. So I vent, because it's the only thing left for me to do.

I had noticed they were starting to ignore my posts, which was fine. I didn't go there for attention. I just wanted to get things out of my system, and I had no outlet to do so in real life.

Others would complain too, about things big and small, from relatives passing away, to someone stealing their parking spots, etc. No one has ever stopped supporting and/or consoling them. I did notice. But as I said, I was only venting. So I didn't care.

Until one day, someone I used to enjoy talking to there replied to my post. A harsh reply. In case I hadn't noticed, she said, people had been ignoring my posts for quite some time. They were sick of reading about my problems, because such big problems were too much for others to worry about, and they didn't need that kind of stress that caring about me would cause. She then went on to tell me that instead of complaining, I should get off my ass and do something, reciting past useless suggestions and advice that I had explained them several times, had failed time and time again, or were out of reach for me.

I am sick of this. I am sick of always being judged by the results, or rather, lack thereof, instead of by my efforts. My constant, unyielding efforts. And it just makes me want to pull what's left of my hair out. Are they senile, or just really stupid?! How many times have I explained them that, yes, I have tried! Yes, I have done anything and everything within my means, and I have failed! And the fact that I complain, does not mean I have given up!

And to top it off with "your problems are just too much for us to care about"? Nobody asked you to care. I was perfectly fine being ignored. And yes, I did notice, because I am not as oblivious as people tend to think I am. I vent, because that's all I have left to do, and because that's what the thread is there for, for people to vent about their problems. Nobody's life is perfect, and everyone has something to complain about. I am truly sorry you find it too hard to care about anyone whose problems are bigger than someone's favorite TV character sleeping with a character said poster does not approve of.

So don't care. Ignore me. Send each other private messages about me behind my back, about what a lazy, dumb, whiny person I am. I don't care. But when you talk to me, get your facts straight before you start throwing accusations and criticism. I don't mind being criticized, as long as I deserve it. But "you have the wrong problems and we know what you're doing and/or not doing about it better than you" is not criticism. It's an insult.

I really used to enjoy posting there, and talking to the great people. I stopped.

I know it's important to many people to be a "caring" person. To be considered a "caring" person by themselves and by others around them. Some sort of "validation". I guess telling themselves they care makes them feel like better people. They want to care. But sometimes they just don't. Sometimes someone like me comes along, someone who's so unlucky with more and much bigger problems than the average person, and a situation that never improves and only gets worse.

And sometimes, when it's too hard to care, or even pretend to care, they convince themselves that they still are the good, caring person they want to be. The other person, or situation - they are the ones not worthy of their care. Their problems are too heavy, their circumstances are too grim, their lives are too depressing. That way, when the blame is on the other person, they still get to be the good, caring person. They still get to feel better about themselves. Validated.

I have never claimed to be worthy of anyone's care. I have never asked anyone to care. And I appreciate honesty. If you don't care, then just don't. But your feelings and reactions are your own. If they don't measure up to your own standards, it means you have to either put greater efforts into becoming the person you want to be, or look in the mirror and adjust your self image accordingly. Don't lay the blame for not caring on me and my situation. I'm just a person with problems, like everyone else.

Yes, I know. I should have said it to those people in the message board, instead of ranting about it here. But I am too shy, submissive, and non-confrontational, and it wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

-void

God loves you

I find it odd that, in an attempt to "prove" me I am supposedly not unlovable, people would tell me that "God loves me". That, even though everyone has abandoned me, God would be there no matter what, if only I believed in him.

I used to believe. I had lost my faith many years ago. But whether God exists or not is not the issue here, and I am not going to pretend I have all the answers. I find it odd, because of the very nature of this statement - God loves you, but you don't know it because you don't believe in him. If you believe in God, you won't feel lonely and unlovable anymore.

So, what, am I supposed to make myself "believe" in something that so far, makes no sense to me, just for the sake of feeling something that so far, has never been there? It's kind of like telling someone to make up imaginary friends in order to have someone to play with. I'm all for imagination, don't get me wrong, but it still doesn't change the fact that they are playing by themselves.

Not saying that God is imaginary, only that I have to know something is there in order to believe it exists, and not the other way around. And so far, I don't know God is there. I don't know he isn't, either. Believing God is there just for the sake of not feeling lonely and unlovable feels like a cop-out to me and makes no sense to me at all.

But there is a rather painful realization of how worthless and truly undeserving of love I am, that comes when someone tells me that "God loves me" no matter how everyone else treats me. It's kind of like winning a sucky consolation prize. Not that God or his love is a "sucky" thing to have, but it's kind of like being told:

Us normal people, we have our friends and families who love us, and whom we love. You freakazoid... well, you have God. He won't take a walk in the park with you. He won't help you with your homework. He won't watch silly movies with you and make fun of them. He won't give you a place to crash when you run away from home. But what do you expect? Just be grateful and don't push it, because that's all a freak like you will ever get.

I guess people who do have love in their lives don't understand what it feels like to be completely lonely and deprived of love. But if it's supposed to make me feel better, it doesn't work. And if it's supposed to bring me to God, it doesn't work.

I don't know what "being loved", by anyone, is supposed to feel like. But I seriously doubt it's supposed to feel like, well, this.

-void