I'm A Hypocrite

When people tell me their problems - which they always do, even strangers - it's a burden. Sometimes. When they can tell me calmly and without being overly dramatic, I can take it easily.

YES:
I missed my sculpting lesson because my dad had to work and I couldn't go. What if I fall behind? What if I lose my edge and become worse and worse? What if this affects my future? I'm worried.

NO:
My dad had to work and couldn't take me to my sculpting lesson. He doesn't care about me! I hate him and I hate everyone! I'll never be good enough! No one cares what I want! I might as well kill myself!

The overly dramatic types make me sick. Not as in I'm disgusted by them, but as in physically sick. They stress me out and make me tense, and their negativity makes me feel negative. And then comes my depression. And, lately, anxiety. (I'm just a bundle of fucked up shit, aren't I? No, that was rhetorical. Stop nodding.)

In my group sessions, I was told as an empath (and INFJ), people will open up to me because I'm easy to talk to. It's just how I feel. I put people at ease and make them feel like they can tell me anything. And I actually listen. They see that. I give good advice. They feel that. So I find myself attracting all kinds of people. (Lucky me.) Substitute teachers would talk to me about their kids or divorces or what have you during lunch or recess or break. Strangers would gravitate toward me and open up about their whole lives. Even my own father once confessed to me that he was so stressed about the future that he thought about killing himself. (Great parenting, that. But I never expected much from him.) Even my own mother told me things that I really could have gone my whole life without knowing, things that were negative and have been a burden on my life ever since. Things that I carry with me to this day.

So in my group sessions, I was told to stop taking the negative as much as possible. This was triggering my stress, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. I was told that to minimize it, I would have to discuss with my friends and family the impact it was having on me and ask them to find other outlets for their problems and negativity. I told my friends in the kindest possible manner to fuck off with their problems and ranting, and just pair up with each other. (Because I'm sweet like that, giving them solutions.)

I tried to make them understand what I lived by my whole life:

1. You're not a special snowflake; everyone has problems.
2. Have something negative to say? Keep your mouth SHUT, even if it's about yourself. Negativity begets negativity. What you put out is what you get back.
3. If it's a burden on you, then it's a burden on others. Say nothing. Better to suffer alone than force others to suffer with you.

So now we come to the hypocrisy of it all. I had an anxiety attack this morning, which made me a bit vulnerable, so I spouted a problem that's been on my mind to a dear friend. She says it doesn't bother her and that she feels like it's her purpose in life to be there for people and help ease their burden.

I think to myself, "This girl is not an empath. She's not an INFJ. I'm really shitty at this, then, because she's better than me."

I can't even take it when people simply say "I'm having a bad day." (YOU'RE having a bad day!? So is Syria! Think about THAT!)

Once upon a time, I felt like that too. I felt my purpose was helping others and protecting them, standing up for what was right even when no one else was, listening to anyone who had something to say... But here I am, a fucked up meatbag, and this person is consoling me? On top of that, I - who's sworn never to burden others (and hasn't 98% of the time through my life), who tells others to talk to someone else - I am blathering my problems and burdening someone else!? Even if she says she doesn't mind, I'm a hypocrite for talking to her about my problems. I just turned around and threw my issues in someone else's lap. How is that right? It isn't. And even though I don't think she'd ever use it against me, I've been very wrong before. That's how I started hating people in the first place. One too many wounds. And I've put myself in the position to be stabbed again.

What is wrong with me!?

But... I'll admit, it was nice having someone to talk to for once. Even if it was wrong to burden them and put out negativity. Even if now they can take that little white flag of surrender and impale me with it.

Death and Depression Part 3: Anti-human Virus

I became infected with a virus that spread through my veins; it made me resent company in any form. Made me hate people even more than my usual jaded, misanthropic philosophy (for lack of a better word than philosophy). I was an HSP by nature, very in tune with my surroundings and the emotions of others. It's like wearing clothing that isn't mine. I started feeling emotions that didn't belong to me. I couldn't block them out anymore, I had long since forgotten how. It had served me well in the past, using these insights to tweak things to my advantage, to influence others' actions, or to just gain the upper hand by knowing when someone was lying. I was a master of manipulation, though I mostly used it for the benefit of others - as long as it didn't effect me. Now? Now it was a constant source of raw emotion: judgement, pity, sorrow...

I became even more cynical than I had been before everything had happened. I had even more hatred for other humans - though I had stopped defining myself as human long ago and I was even less human now. What good did it do anyone to help someone else? They were all going to die, so what did it matter what happened to them before their time was up? And who were they to judge me? That wasn't how it worked! I judged them! I was angry that anyone would judge or pity me. I was not to be pitied.

My coldness became colder. I had removed the remnants of my heart. I turned the pain into darkness and hate, distrust and disgust.

Before... As an INFJ, I had always felt that I should council others. My sociopathic side said that it fell in my moral code and that was what good humans did. So I did. The INFJ in me said that I should protect people, to stand up for them when no one else would. The sociopath in me rolled its eyes - people should learn to stand on their own two feet and not expect everyone to help them - but still it went along with it. The INFJ said that I had the power in me to make a difference in the world, to change it and save it. The sociopath fought tooth and nail on that one. Why should I? People aren't worth it. Humans are inherently evil and selfish creatures. Let them destroy themselves and be done with it. This belief was so overpowering that it led me to join VHEMT, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Though VHEMT had their reason to refuse to reproduce because it would harm the earth, I decided to refuse because humans were pathetic, cruel, evil, beings that I loathed - and nothing would make me happier than to have humanity wiped out by their own stupidity.

After... With four deaths under my belt in three weeks, the sociopath side silenced the INFJ. I reasoned that if I hated everything, I wouldn't have to care about anything. Besides that, what point was there in caring? Everything died, everything faded. It's just the way things are. Waste no tears on humans, I thought. Waste no effort in saving those who - by their very nature - shouldn't be saved. The anti-human virus had done it's job; it spread through my system, poisoning my mind until - by pure reason - I gave up on the world and embraced whatever else was left when you stripped a person of humanity and compassion.

The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No."
- Watchmen by Alan Moore

Death and Depression Part 2: Build. Destroy. Repeat.

It was the week after my grand-uncle's funeral when I got a message from a close friend that his cousin (who for privacy reasons, we will call J) passed away in a car crash and that our other friend (K) was in critical condition; they weren't sure he was going to make it.

I just watched myself sink to the floor and sit there for the longest time, as if detached from my body. I stared at me, staring at the wall, and wondered when the pain would stop so I could get up again. I came back to myself after a couple of hours. I made myself go through the motions, but there was something off about my routine.

I washed my face for an hour, I painstakingly made the prefect cup of tea and poured it down the sink without tasting it. I opened the fridge to look for a meal and stared at the contents for over twenty minutes. I wanted the company of people, but I now live in a bit of a remote area, so I turned to Facebook to contact my friends.

But as soon as they messaged me, I wanted to get away. I couldn't stand being alone, but I couldn't stomach company. I grew increasingly agitated with everyone and everything, withdrawing into myself and picking fights just to feel something that could - for a moment - overshadow my agony. I started questioning myself and my life... Did I have a right to be here? Did I have a right to sit here, eat, sleep, and breathe while people I loved were dying? Did I have a right to be upset when others were having to cope with the loss of their fathers, their children? Who was I to sit here and think about my pain?

And then I questioned who I was. If I could feel this pain, was I really an HFS like my psych profile said? If not, what was I? What was wrong with me, if not that?

The agitation grew. The walls I built up to keep me from - well, everything - broke. I lost part of my sanity, I lost part of my identity, and all of my reason. I would sit for hours and rebuild myself, only to have one stray thought that crumbled them me into dust. Within a week, K passed away, rejoining J. I longed to go with them; I was destroyed. I tried to remember that we are energy and by physical laws, energy cannot be created nor destroyed; I was rebuilt. The cycle continued. Tragedy struck again.

An underclassman that I went to high school with, that I had classes with and befriended, died. It was all over Facebook, the newspaper, the whole damn town. My emotions were all over the place, unreasonable and confusing. At times I would feel blissfully numb, then I would feel angry and confused, then the crushing anguish all over again.

I lashed out at anyone and everyone only to apologize and fall to pieces immediately. I didn't think I cared about my classmate so much, and in truth I probably didn't; it was simply latching onto the residual loss and hopelessness, magnifying it tenfold. In my entire life of caring about almost nothing, I suddenly cared about everything.

The days blurred together and I no longer cared to control it. I simply embraced it. I did whatever came naturally and didn't attempt to regret it. I decided that if it happened, it happened. I wasn't going to add to the blackness by feeling sorry for hurting other people.

The cycle ended. I remained destroyed.