If you ever got inside my head, you would probably think I
was insane.
Let me explain.
One of the weirdest things I do is go to two extremes when I
feel like life is too tough for me. The first is that I think, okay, I’m going to act so totally miserable
that everyone around me is going to feel sorry for me and realize how awful my
life is. I plan on ignoring all texts (even though I don’t get too many other
than from Erik), e-mails, or any other form of communication. I vow to stay off
of Facebook and Twitter, become sullen and boring, and go to bed early all the
time.
I’ve actually done the early-to-bed thing – and made a point
of texting Erik at 8:30pm saying I was going to bed – but that’s the extent of
it.
The opposite is that I decide I’m going to be so incredibly
chipper and completely fake that it'll be obvious my life is in shambles. I picture friends asking me how’s life, how’s your job, and my answer being such a buoyant “EVERYTHING’S
FABULOUS” that they’ll just know I’m
faking it and that I’m actually miserable.
As you can see, I place a ton of importance on how people react to me. It’s the worst because
I know, deep down in my brain and heart, that I need to make myself happy and
do what’s best for me.
The problem, I believe, stems mainly from my parents for
a myriad of reasons. Mainly, they always try to push me into things they think are best (when they’re not)
and whenever I’m not up to snuff, I get shit for it. In retaliation, therefore, when I’m really unhappy, I want
them to see and recognize it. They never do and probably never will, especially
because they have an attitude of life’s
supposed to be miserable, suck it up.
This post is kind of all over the place, but I’ve recently
been in this mindset a lot with my new job. I’ve hatched grand plans to come home, eat dinner, and go straight to bed every night, to ignore Erik’s texts all day
because I really shouldn’t be on my phone, and to cancel all weekend plans
because it’s my only ‘me’ time. Or, oppositely, I want to do ALL OF THE THINGS
and act super fake-happy and burn myself out so everyone will see how wrong it
is for me.
That last sentence is really messed up; I shouldn’t have to
prove to anyone that this isn’t right for me. And yet, I feel that I have to. I feel like if I don’t do one of those things and just quit my job out of blue…
even though I would know it was the right thing, my family (and
most likely my boyfriend) would think it was laziness and that I’m a quitter. They've already expressed a sentiment of 'why can't you just tough it out?' or 'stick with it for a year then quit.' A year is too long for me to stay where I am.
It's really awful to feel like I have no authority in my life, or at least that my decisions are always going to be questioned and scrutinized. When my boyfriend and parents can't just trust me when I say I'm unhappy here, I want to quit, I need to quit, it makes me sad.
