Various Points

What the fuck am I? And that’s a question that has nothing to do with my gender identity whatsoever. My friend pointed something out to me last night that I probably already knew, but it’s quite different when someone else can say it, has noticed it, and hasn’t been fooled by your trying to hide it. Graduation didn’t alleviate any of my stress or solve my problems. It only magnified them because it terrified me. No longer subject to strict deadlines or specific goals, I’m floundering out here in what most people would consider the “real world”. Not having something around which my life can be structured is really getting me down, and it’s making me much less productive than I’m comfortable admitting. I’ve been looking for external sources to provide me with enough stability to manage my life and the issues associated with it, but he is right in that I really should have an internal source. But I’ve just gone without so many of the things I am used to and “need” that I’m not sure how to get back to the point of having an internal reserve. I’m always fighting to keep my tank above empty, and I do indeed remember times when that wasn’t the case, and it makes me feel like crap to know that I have let myself get to this point. I have let myself become dependent and have sought out relationships in which that is an acceptable form of behavior. I know that I need to be able to survive on my own, but perhaps that isn’t enough. I need to be able to thrive on my own, and that isn’t happening. That’s far from happening. I know I need help, but I am never able to express myself this way when I have to speak to another person, so I feel like I’m never really getting the message across when I talk to my therapist. I want her to know everything, and I know that isn’t possible, and the things that I do pick sometimes aren’t the right ones.
Learning the difference between being aggressive and assertive…
This is tough for me. I used to be a much more aggressive person, and I was very proud of the fact that I believed I was right, would say so in less than tactful ways, and it didn’t matter how anyone else felt about something because as long as I knew I was right, that was all that mattered. Truth was valued above all else, even the people with whom I was closest. I still value the truth. I still value the right thing and doing the best that I can, but I have a different appreciation and respect for the feelings of other human beings these days. But I think that when I realized how my aggressive behavior was affecting the people around me, I shot so far in the other direction—became so passive—that I almost never said what I needed to say. And people began to take advantage of that, and I let them because I thought I was being a nice person. I was irritated when no one listened to me, but why would they? I didn’t have enough confidence in myself to get others to have confidence in me. And I let that go on and on. Over the past two years, I’ve gotten much better at being assertive when I need to be, but I haven’t been perfect, and I know there have been really important times when I have failed, and I have let myself and others down. And people find it hard to trust me because of these mistakes, I assume. I know that I’m getting there. But it’s slow, and it’s painful, and I could use a little feedback every once in a while. But I don’t have that. I don’t have that other person, and it all goes back to the dependency thing now that I think about it. I need not to need that.
It’s hard to drag myself out of bed when I don’t technically have to be anywhere. That seems like it fits more with what I was talking about originally, but I don’t feel like moving it. This is just how things happened, and my writing is going to stay true to that.
I want to write letters. But it’s hard to write them by hand. But I don’t want people to feel bad because I’ve typed them out. I’m not saying that I would do that all the time, but I feel like I can be much more personal this way, paradoxically. I spend less time thinking about the writing of the words when they come out so quickly, and my thoughts just flow better. And it might be easier on the eyes anyway. My handwriting does deteriorate pretty rapidly when I get so far into a letter.
I wonder if my parents are disappointed in me for not going to school any longer. I mean, I probably will do more in the future, but I don’t think that has to be right now, but it seems like everyone else thinks that. I don’t know what my life is going to be. I know I’m going to be letting a lot of people down. What am I now? I’m a stage performer. And I’m broke. I have two degrees in ridiculous disciplines, and I have not been able to use those skills at all in a way that employers would find marketable. I’m not in med school, grad school, or working some snooty academic job.
Should I be?