Made the mistake of peering in on people who I used to know. It's a weird feeling, downgrading people that you would have happily called friends to 'people that I used to know,' and knowing that they're more or less just strangers with a distant, shared history, now. It feels sort of gutting, a hollow in the pit of my stomach.
I've noticed that as I've progressively withdrawn from my life, and obliterated traces of that existence being recorded materially: nothing much has really changed. It was all sort of meaningless. It's weird, to realize how little presence you have in others' lives.
I had a bit of a crisis episode a few days ago, and I've been wallowing in the aftermath: burnt out enough that I took the week (and will take this weekend off.) I taught myself something I've wanted to learn for years in the immediate aftermath. I'm supposed to talk to my therapist about New Years Resolutions in the new year.
I don't really have much by the way in terms of 'community.' Most days I feel like I barely exist, or have much reason to. Still, I have a best friend. I have some dream items that in theory, lay the foundation for years and years of hobby upkeep to come: why would someone who was suicidal switch over to a sustainable, refillable system? I told myself a year ago that using stickers would help. I own a pack of stickers, now.
I think I need to find a sense of purpose. I've been drifting, aimless. My creative pursuits have been much quashed. Still, I've been sitting here, crocheting a scarf: something warm to wear, something for myself, first and foremost. It's even in my favourite colour. Even as I sit here, bleak and unsure of what's on the horizon, still grappling with despair- I'm still living like someone who anticipates having a future. It's weird. It's a contradictory mess. I guess this is just what the non-linear nature of recovery looks like.
I'm very tired. My brother hasn't spoken to me in months. I know that he's alive, and doing okay, through word through our friends, but I don't know why he's chosen to do this to me. (It feels selfish to phrase it that way, but that's how I feel about the matter.) It feels like trying to put your foot down on a step that isn't there: the same jolt of pain and shock at stumbling.
A professor told me that if I wasn't already a writer, I should be. I didn't know how to tell him that I haven't written anything substantial in nearly two years, or the scrapped projects I keep trying to claw at, or the thready pulse of my journalling and writing silly stuff with my best friend. It's felt like such a loss of an integral part of my identity.
I just try to keep busy, mostly. I keep my hands occupied. But the gnawing emptiness is really getting to me.