Premonitions

So we're watching Stargate: Atlantis.

Apparently, a seven or eight year break is enough to at least make it interesting enough, but not nearly enough to actually forget the show. I remember every episode and I really hate it sometimes. I would just like to be surprised again - not remember everything that's going on.

Back to point, I'm sitting here watching "The Storm" and "The Eye" and remembering some of the first fanfictions I ever read. Sitting here, bored, I looked up one.

Oh, young, innocent, thirteen year old self who barely understood tags and looked up a story about cutting and utterly missed the point of the story.

I mean, all I remembered of the story was McKay had a bad reaction to dealing with a pathetic attempt at torture in one episode (like, seriously. The cut was maybe three inches long and barely a gash: it was pathetic. He only suffered pain - no other side effects.) and basically suffered PTSD. A fun hurt/comfort story for a main character, right? Nothing too demanding, right? Normal story for fanfiction, and actually surprisingly clean. a good story to read to finish up the loose ends of the episode arc that was actually well done.

And then I read it and find out it's actually about a severely depressed character who cuts more and more - first as punishment and then as a desperate attempt to cope. Suddenly, it's an incredibly deep story, and an utterly different story than what I read when i was thirteen.

Thirteen year old me: how did you miss that? How could you have been so innocent to completely miss that McKay was cutting himself? How did you miss that he was scarring himself so much that he covered his arms and legs and stomach? How did you miss that? How did you miss that it wasn't PTSD - how did you think that it was just that night, and the original canonical injury was still bleeding all over the place when Sheppherd found him? How did you miss....everything.

Thirteen year old me: when did you change? When did you lose your innocence? When did you grow up? Where did you go - how did I lose you?

Now I have scars of my own. Now I intimately understand the dark nights alone when no one is there to hold you or help you know what is real. Now I know the feeling of not feeling the pain. Now I know what it is to know full well every fault you have - to deserve the pain and anger others direct at you.

"I'm a failure and far too arrogant to have friends. It was only a matter of time before you all realized it." He seemed so resigned to the fact that this was all going to happen eventually.

Oh, how true that is. I am so arrogant - so messed up. I am destroying every relationship I am in. I am a whiny brat - I am a monster. I am.....I am all I tell my friends they are not. I am cruel, I am broken. I desperately just want to rest - I just want a chance.....

I cannot ask for it. No one will give it to me.

What is someone supposed to say in this situation? I'm sorry? Why would you do this? Was it really so bad that you had to resort to hurting yourself?

I just....I don't want words. I don't want answers. I have answers. I want help. I want support.

I don't want to hurt anyone. Every time I open up to someone, I hurt them.

I am sorry. I am so sorry. I am sorry for everything - for every hurt, for every tear. I just want to make things right. I just want to fix everything. I want to shove everyone away until I can't hurt anyone. I don't really matter - I am not that important. I can deal with the pain I have - I can live with it. No one else should have to. It is not right that I ask anyone else to. I should be left alone - I deserve to be. No one should feel guilty about hurting me, about leaving me. I deserve it.

Thirteen year old self, you're in for hell; and you're going to visit it on others just as much as you bring it on yourself. Enjoy your fanfiction - some day you'll realise what you became.

Just Regain Your Sensitivity!

I got a new laptop! Well, old laptop that finally got fixed. No Windows on it - I've got Ubuntu on it. It works well. New operating system to learn though - and good grief was Chrome hard to install!

But it's working, and so far I'm liking it as much if not better than Windows. Problems: I can't play my PC games!! *Sighs* Always a catch....

Someone asked me recently why I don't retrain myself. We were talking about my taste in movies, how I was corrupted from a very young age (read: two) and really don't have the best taste in movies. My standards are really low on content, as long as the plot is really good. It makes it hard to recommend films and shows to others since usually it means that most of my friends can't watch the stuff I do. Irritating.

But a friend and I were talking, and she asked why I don't just....stop watching bad content. Why don't I regain my sensitivity.

My immediate answer was that I still want to watch something, and there is a serious lack of quality content in the world; but I was thinking about it. It's really not that at all. I probably will go through my tastes again at some point and correct them, but right now? The reason I don't correct myself there is because I have too many other things to fix. I can't do everything, so i focus on what is important first. Right now, I need to stop cutting, and I need to deal with and heal from my abuse. I need to learn to not be abusive myself. I need to learn how to have healthy relationships.

After that? Movies isn't that important. I can work on that later. I can't fix everything at once - I'm not perfect, and that would be counterproductive anyway as the failure to be perfect and fixed would send me into severe depression again. Well, more severe at least.

I don't know  how to explain it. There is so much wrong with me, so much that I need to fix. I know my own flaws, and I probably invent even more of them to worry about them. I can see nothing good in myself, and recently I found out that the few good things I knew were actually little better than poison. So I focus on what I can. Little pieces. Baby steps. One step at a time, and I can get over the mountain. If I look at the mountain itself? I will have a panic attack. Again.

My depression itself is mountain enough. I don't know if or how I will ever scale it. It has always been there with me - I don't even know what I would be without it. I can't fix everything - I can't even look at everything.

And I don't want to bother anyone. *smiles* At least we've got that down pat.

I did have some help with learning myself the other day. I do like helping people - I love it. I love children. I love learning.

The question of course then is: how can I use those for life besides motherhood?

I found something out this morning. Apparently, a simplistic definition of depression is 'anger turned inwards on oneself'. Simple, but true. Even if the cause of anger is the depression in the first place, usually depression leads to be angry with oneself.

Or at least in all of the cases I know.

How do you deal with it? It's easy to recognise the suicidal depression - that's obvious. When you're suicidal, you know you're depressed. If you're just depressed? Then you don't want to bother anyone - you don't want to be weak. You know you shouldn't be so weak. You have to be better - you have to take care of yourself. You don't have a reason to be feeling bad, to be lonely or guilty. You are sitting there in yourself and you hate that you are doing this, but....

It's a vicious cycle and it's so hard to even see it when you're stuck in it.

and then when you finally learn to take time for yourself? Then you're wallowing and having a pity party and you're a terrible person and how dare you do what it takes to keep yourself somewhat sane?

How does one explain it? How does one heal but not hurt everyone around you that cares about you?