There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid.1
"Sounds like you," she'd laugh, "everything's gotta be so difficult." I laughed, too — I thought she meant my hair.
Plenty more adjectives have fallen into low orbit since then, but most are still just variations on a theme. Complicated is what people say when they're kindly disposed and still full of patience and sunshine. Challenging is what they say when I have used up a great deal of that patience and most of the sunshine but they're still feeling generous. When patience is just a memory, impossible rides in on a pale horse. But the one that spins around me like Mercury does the Sun is difficult.
Under the hood it's really just ADHD + RSD and a squealy belt that, I think, is supposed to be an analog for anxiety. Bipolar II, too, is lurking somewhere in the engine bay like a shitty wrench, doing nothing until it's not.2 But the biggest problem is probably that the brakes suck.
Some things are best left unsaid and ignorance is a luxury. Fortunately, most people have the courtesy to lie to us about what they really think. But when it comes to ourselves, we're condemned to know the truth. No one's great at nonchalantly shrugging off their own conclusions, and we can't lie to ourselves without knowing exactly what we're doing. And the second we figure out our own game it gets exponentially harder to manufacture the self-indulgence necessary to keep it up.
The bitch of it is that some days I don't have to lie, I just believe. It's like my brain is playing chess with my mind and I'm almost as involved in the game as the board is.3 My thoughts are the most relentless of players. They are certainly the most cruel. They know all my secrets, exactly what haunts me, and they serve it in cocktails with paper umbrellas and plastic monkeys made of all the ambiguous intentions and dubious choices I can't forget. Some days, there's no one I fight harder or hate more than myself.
Look, I know it makes no sense, but it feels so real that sometimes I can't breathe. It doesn't really matter either way, though. I still can't stop the car and self-awareness adds nothing but narration to the crash. How do you make it make sense that you totally see the wall you're about to slam right the fuck into, but the wheel slips through your fingers like it's made of water every time you try to swerve? What would I say if I tried?
That's a serious question, by the way, because I have tried. It's a disaster almost every time and I'm pretty sure it's almost always my fault. What I want to say is, "I'm scared," but what comes out is usually, well, not that. I'm not really sure why that's the play.
Just kidding. I know exactly why that's the play. It's because vulnerability scares me more than all the rest of the shit in my head combined and I never don't wonder if it really just means I'm more trouble than I'm worth. But that's the kind of secret you're not supposed to tell. Luckily, the benefit of faking it like a champ is that no one ever notices and life goes on.
Attrition is a shitty game. I imagine it's hard for anyone who cares about me to stand around and watch me play, but it's single-player so there's really nothing anyone can do. I know no one likes feeling helpless, but some people just hate to lose. I do come with cheat codes, but they're unreliable, and it doesn't surprise me when someone ragequits about it. I can't take comfort on command, no matter how often someone explains to me that, unless I want to be stubborn, the only difference between inability and refusal is the spelling.
The show I'm really sick of watching, though, is the one where the guy takes it so fucking personally that he's bothered and it's my fault, like I decided to have a shitty day just so I could also ruin his. There are a lot of episodes:
The One Where I Just Want to Fight. — I'm not trying to be difficult. No. No, I don't (ok, sometimes I do), but I have a very impressive threat display.
The One Where it Doesn't Matter What He Says. — I'm not trying to be difficult. Yes it does. But a crucible is not a crypt. I don't need to be saved. I don't need to be fixed. I need to feel safe when I'm broken.
The One Where I'm Too Much. — I'm not trying to be difficult. Maybe you're just not enough.
The One Where I Won't Let Him Apologize. — I'm not trying to be difficult. False. The disconnect here is that an annotated list of reasons why it's my fault that you are an asshole is not an apology just because it starts with I'm sorry.
The One Where He Didn't Fuck Me Up. — I'm not trying to be difficult. I know that, genius. But maybe you shouldn't say I can tell you anything if you don't like it when I tell you the truth.
The One Where I Just Want to Show Him How it Feels. — I'm not trying to be difficult. No, sweetheart, I don't... Actually… Yeah, I kinda do, you got me there.
The One Where I'd Hate Him if I Knew, parts I & II. — I'm not trying to be difficult. I always knew. But somebody broke your glasses and you'd rather fork out your own eyes than have to see again. I'm not trying to be difficult. You fucking idiot. Stop trying so hard to fail tests that don't exist.
Sartre says that Hell is other people. That tracks. Humans are anxious little weirdos. It's not just how we feel about someone that makes them compelling, it's how they make us feel about ourselves. When we think about who we are, we constantly juxtapose our own self with others' selves. The way we imagine they perceive us is a kind of barometer because, well, we're individuals trying to exist as members of a social species and knowledge and awareness of other people are necessary conditions of our own existence. In other words, we aren't just who we think we are, we are who we think other people think we are, and if we think that they think we suck, it's gonna be a bad time.4
No problem. There's a mask for that.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the bitchiest of them all?
Was that convincing? It shouldn't be.
I thought I was safe. And I kept using that word. A lot. But I don't think it means what I thought it meant. Turns out, never letting anyone get close enough to see behind the curtain isn't actually a great plan. You don't end up safe, you end up alone. Safe doesn't mean never getting hurt, and it definitely doesn't mean hiding. It doesn't mean pushing away choices, it means making better ones.
In the end I was an utter fucking failure, anyway. It's embarrassing. Every god damned time there's a bright side somewhere around to be found, eventually, I'll walk right the fuck into it. Worse, I'll Jekyll-and-Hyde into Little Miss Sunshine whenever I get the chance whether I like it or not. And the truly revolting thing is that I think I do like it. Sometimes. Fuck.
It's not easy to love me. It's not easy to be my friend. It's not even easy to like me. Except for when it is. But you know what? I'm ok with that. And if you're not? Yeah, I'm ok with that, too.
1 Mother Goose? Longfellow? A very shallow google gives the impression that a lot of people have an opinion but nobody really knows. I also don't really remember and I don't feel like checking.
2 Full disclosure, I don't totally get this analogy but I've been assured that it's a thing.
3 On the question of the mind/body problem and monism vs. dualism and all that, the answer is both. Get used to that, it usually is. Humans are complicated, blah blah blah, self-contained universes full of contradiction and paradox, etc.
4 Who's on First?, right? (And if you don't know what that is, ffs look it up because you should.)