Perhaps it’s a broken record to anyone who’s read this once or twice, but I always feel the need to preface these posts with the declaration that the idea behind this blog is not to grab attention, be emo, or anything like that. As someone who’s historically struggled with emotional openness and vulnerability while also being an avid writer, a blog seemed like a good way for me to articulate my feelings in a way that puts them outside of my head and extends an olive branch of sorts to humanity over subjects I wouldn’t share otherwise.

So there’s that.

This year, I feel like I’ve made some pretty good strides as a person when it comes to being open, showing vulnerability, and the like. I could stand to involve my family more in that effort, but one step at a time.

Tonight, I had what was, to me, a very  traumatic experience. In the grand scheme, it amounts to first world problems but it was rather draining emotionally.

It’s nearly 2am. I’m just hanging out, looking at random stuff on the internet as latent insomnia and a perennially running mind take hold. Low lights. Jazz music, as I am one to do.

I go to pee, think nothing of it, go back to the couch. About fifteen minutes later I hear the toilet still running. I go to look, and take the top off and it’s just still filling up. Like, past the point it’s supposed to.

I panic.

For one, I know not a damn thing about how a toilet works. Two, it’s 2 in the morning. Who exactly could I call? If I call my landlords, what do they do at this hour? Call someone? Inefficient. If I call the condominium emergency line (which I would have to find), the track record I have with them generally not seeming to give a damn about having a quick turnaround time suggests to me they might send someone out around Tuesday afternoon. Inefficient.

If I call a service directly, I’d have to Google search to find someone, cold call them with zero rapport, and urge them to come over to a stranger’s house at the middle of a night to perform a service. That would be their job, but damn if it’s not a little awkward and who knows how long it would take for them to get over there.

I don’t even know how to stop water from running to a toilet, so while my mind is racing through all of this, I’m trying to turn the knob in the back to turn this thing off. It won’t turn. I wouldn’t know whether to turn it left or right anyway. So I open the top of this thing and in the span of 5 minutes I got to have a pretty familiar understanding of how basic plumbing works.

It felt like I was disarming a damn bomb. Only on a handful of occasions have I felt so powerless, vulnerable, isolated, alone, and ill-equipped to handle a challenge before me. My mind wandered to what would happen if this thing overflowed with water at a rate faster than I could try to scoop out with a cup or bowl or something? What if I can only scoop  water out just fast enough to break even. I sit there like someone trying to keep a boat afloat until someone shows up, potentially not until the morning?

What kind of water damage would the unit be looking at? I’m supposed to be flying to friggin’ California this week on a trip that means quite a damn bit to me as far as leaving home, branching out, and experiencing life goes. How much enjoyment could I have if it’s underscored by the idea that I failed to stop water damage from happening to the condo I rent and all this stuff has to happen to fix what basically amounts to my failure to act. I would be in California, the whole time, crestfallen over my own shortcomings. The perfectionist in me would demand. Something I’ve waited a half a year for would be poisoned by my failure.

And even if I could stall it, what then? Where would I even begin to investigate? And how long could I Google search and look for answers in a situation that would require consistent attention.

So I decided it’d just be me trying to figure it out, on the fly.

And I did.

At the end of it all, at least I can say that I met the challenge as best I could and I’m not swimming in my condo right now. No damage. Things are stable enough now that I can contact my landlord this morning and see if they’d have someone come take a look.

Yay.

Usually, this would be an experience that I’d keep to myself. For one, it exposes vulnerability. That’s generally a non-starter as far as sharing goes. Two, it’s a pretty weird progression of events overall, so that makes it all the more embarrassing.

But I’ve tried to really make a point to open up, attempt to rely on people, and not just let feelings and stress roll around in my head and cause me emotional stress.

Someone I’m really  close to seemed interested at first, resorted to jokes, then introduced a completely unrelated topic that was more focused on them, then stopped responding.

Well, then.

I tried to venture out and do something more social and play a game. I struggle with the idea of joining the voice chat, but ultimately I do. I bite the bullet, and tell this awkward story that has left me feeling emotionally frayed. Silence. And then they all return to talking about the game, as though I literally never even showed up.

I decided to just shut everything off.

Rabidly hypothesizing about failure feels just as burdensome as failure itself to me. And then I am left with objective and clear evidence that I have a grossly misunderstood understanding of my social rapport with people I would genuinely list as people I would risk showing vulnerability towards.

And the response made my lack of comprehension clear. I’ve assumed too much. I’ve tried to run before I could walk. I put the cart before the horse. I shouldn’t have bothered.

And it hurts.

One of the few times I ever really just reach out to people and I’m like, “Hey. I could use some social inclusion and empathy” and be met with responses I did runs counter to what I had hoped I was establishing for myself.

In the past, I would blame those people. I would close up. I wouldn’t share anything else. I’d as clammed up as I could be to never show vulnerability to them, or anyone, again. Dutifully so.

But I can’t blame them. Not anymore.

I’m responsible for my actions. I stuck my neck out there. I chose to run the risk. I chose to open up. I chose to be vulnerable. Those are actions that can net positive or negative consequences. It just so turned out that the consequences netted this time were negative. But I put myself out there to receive those consequences.

I didn’t look enough before I took the leap. That’s on me. That’s not on them. I took the leap, landed flat on my face, felt even more vulnerable, but I can’t regret trying. Trying to be more in touch with my humanity. Even six months ago I would have just off, but I don’t want to be that kind of person anymore.

I just have to be more selective.

Life and the universe threw a lot my way tonight. And while I would say I came away with a kicked ass, wounded pride, and a bruised ego I feel that by the end of it I will be a stronger, more resilient, and more educated person.

And that’s pretty neat.

I guess the rub is, what’s emotionally harder to deal with. Shutting down, blaming other people, or taking responsibility? The last of the 3 is the kind of person I want to be, but at least for now it feels like the most emotionally damaging because on top of all of the stress I’ve felt tonight, I ultimately only have myself to blame.

There’s no external focus. It’s all on me. I guess the hardest lessons have to be learned to make the most improvement. I don’t want to learn lessons like this for a long time to come.

Here’s to hoping.

I’ve written in this blog enough now to where I wonder if any cyclical patterns have emerged. Having your unabashed thoughts out there offers much in the way of retrospection and analysis. I read back through some of my posts from time to time. I can see, at least, that I’ve made progress and that’s something I feel good about.

I’ve been reading more books about introspection and emotional exploration. I think I’m on my fourth one now. The concepts detailed are all pretty straightforward, if not obvious, but having them conveyed from an outside and impartial perspective has been insightful. They’re like road maps, showing me how to get out of my own head quicker. So that’s neat.

I was on the way home from work today, and I was thinking about what defines me. Where my values and characteristics come from. I was a bit dismayed at my findings.

This blog has always been about me trying to find ways to break through personal walls that have historically barred me from emotional expression; to find a way to mature and develop more towards the person I aspire to be. It hasn’t been particularly easy, but what I’m about to write now is particularly scary.

One of my defining traits, I feel, is that I can be something of a perfectionist. The best example I can always think of is one flag football game where I threw for six touchdowns and after the game when people were congratulating me I was too busy being bent out of shape for the two passes I feel I should have thrown better.

That’s not exactly something to be proud of, but I always felt that was a good indicator of how I can look at things sometimes.

I’m that way because of a fear of rejection born in me back when I was a teenager. A leap, for sure. But it’s true. As sad as it is to admit, it’s true.

For too long in my life I have empowered what I assumed to be the world’s general view of me. Depression can do more than just skew my inner monologue. Every misstep and shortcoming has this component where I think something to the tune of, “You’re going to be made fun of. You shouldn’t have tried this. What were you thinking? You can’t do that. Why look like a failure in front of people? You’re going to be looked at differently because of this.”

And, when looked at objectively, there’s literally no sense to really be had out of something like this.

But it’s defined so much of me in my formative years that it’s really stifled my growth. At least I can see that now.

I can’t be made fun of if I don’t try for something. If I don’t try to ask that girl out. If I don’t try to become a caster. If I don’t continue pursuing music. If I don’t try to learn web development. If I put myself out there in any real way. If I made any notable step towards anything that I think would make me happy. I can’t fail if I don’t try. So I will just remain neutral. That was the plan, and has been the plan for a long time.

I know there are plenty of times where I can come off as quiet and/or standoffish; like a dick, for lack of better phrasing. And ultimately it’s because I fear rejection. If I shun people, or if I reject them or that notion first I can’t in turn be rejected so I’m spared the emotional strain. I valued my preservation of an assumed quantity of rejection over the potential upside to expressing myself as I naturally would.

There have been times in my life where I have been quick to write people off. In an instance where someone legitimately made some kind of mistake that wronged me or rubbed me the wrong way I would just be done with them. I wasn’t really ‘wrong’ for some of these instances, but it was a cruel and binary metric that wasn’t really fair to anyone who’s less than perfect (everyone).

I would look for holes. Reasons to cut people out. To spare myself potential rejection down the road. To withhold vulnerability. Lock it away from anything and anyone that might do it harm or expose any flaw or weakness I feel I have.

I can go for long periods of time where I don’t go out and socialize. I don’t try to meet new people. I just vanish, because if I stay home I won’t run the risk of feeling socially rejected or have it be made apparent to me that I am well on the fringe of whatever social circle I’d be around.

I have a real aversion to asking people for help or asking them to do things with me. Struggles with self worth have made me question why someone would think I’m worth the time or effort to help, and my being on the social fringe means there are probably far better ways for someone to spend their time. So why spent it with or on me?

I strongly dislike being on the receiving end of a joke, no matter how lighthearted or humorous it might be. It feels very alienating, and brings about an avalanche of hypothetical thoughts of what permanent conclusions are made about me where I ultimately will be rejected. Again, it makes absolutely no sense and yet this is how I’ve operated for a very long time.

I’d walk this tight rope so tentatively so as not to fall, to protect what? A likely false notion of my perception of what people might think? The true paradox is that I don’t generally care what people think about me. Not specific people, anyway. It’s the general world that’s had such a grip on me and how I’ve looked at things. Maybe that’s just a subconscious attempt to salvage some form of protection. An attempt to mask an instance where I was ‘wrong’. I don’t know.

But I came to a conclusion that for large portions of my life I haven’t really lived for me. Not completely. I’ve done things I wanted to do, sure. But there was always this part of me that was concerned with my perception of how the world would see me. About what would happen if I tried and failed. A shadow looming over me, reminding me not to feel too comfortable or relaxed. Don’t be too open. Don’t do anything that will lead to you getting hurt.

That’s the wall. That’s the reason why this blog exists. To document my progression toward identifying how to break that wall. As much as I’ve relied on it, there has been little I’ve wanted more out of life than to be done with this feeling of being emotionally disconnected from myself.

I don’t know. A lot of this probably sounds crazy, but it’s a profound revelation for me. Even now, part of me is worried what the world might think of me admitting this. “Oh wow. Albert’s a nutjob. He has fears and social anxiety issues. He’s different. I think less of him now. What a weirdo. I’m going to laugh about this and tell my friends and we’ll laugh about it and then forget it because who is he to think about for too long past a fading chuckle anyway wait why is this such a run-on sentence I should probably get back to my life now.”

I’ve been in an abusive relationship with an emotionally irrational hypothetical that’s robbed me of a lot of social growth and prevented a lot of instances where I could have let people in or be more receptive to them wanting to let me in for most of my adult life.

Like I’ve said before, I am likely to struggle with this sort of feeling for the rest of my time on this planet. But being able to identify it gives me tools to work towards neutralizing it. Towards venturing down a different path.

And hopefully, towards me not needing this blog anymore.

This year, I’ve made some pretty big strides towards amending some of these ideologies. At the very least I can see them for what they are; constructs in my mind and my mind alone. Most of this is just me thinking on my life through my twenties. About everything that lead up to me trying to make these changes.

I don’t want to value rejection over honest expression anymore. It’s probably going to be difficult as Hell to truly conquer, but every step is a big one for me. No matter how small or insignificant they might seem to someone else.