I think I am completely screwed up right now. Maybe it's stress or lack of purpose or existential angst or even simple restlessness, but right now I just don't feel like myself AT ALL. I can't focus on anything; I can't sit still; I just feel very out of sorts and seem unable to participate in normal, healthy relationships the way I usually would. Like I've spent some time with friends and they will say things to me about their lives, and I know what I should say to be supportive, but mostly I just don't give a crap, so I just tune out or turn the subject back to myself.

I outgrew this many, many years ago, and it's very frustrating to be reverting back to childhood behaviors. I've been making a real effort to try to be "interpersonally effective," as old T would say, and engage in real conversations and be a friend to others instead of just focussing on myself, but I'm having a lot of trouble sustaining that for long periods of time. It just gets overwhelming to engage in conversations with other people.

Mostly I've been reverting back to some self-loathing/guilt/self-doubt that I haven't felt in a long time, with no apparent trigger. Suddenly I just really hate myself and feel like a useless idiot who is incompetent at everything, especially friendship. The only person who seems to like me these days is my brother (he's the only person I can put all my own emotional needs aside for and support without expectation); I just feel really disconnected from everyone else and like I'm not treating them right, no matter how hard I try. I just don't have the energy.

I saw T today. She thinks we need to go deeper into emotional stuff/memory stuff/family stuff. Boo. I know she's right, but I really just want to talk myself in circles about how much I hate myself, etc. and hear her tell me I'm being too hard on myself. Part of me has come to enjoy that, although I know it's an epic waste of her time and my money.

But I am 100% sure she's right. I know this because today I felt like punishing myself by going back on my computer and reading some stories I wrote six or seven years ago when I was twelve or thirteen that always make me feel so ashamed to read now; about kids who were abused by their parents who inevitably were loved and cared for and taken in by ideal mother-figures and were completely healed and blah-blah-blah...I used to write those stories obsessively, and I have about two hundred or so on my hard drive between ages twelve and seventeen. They make me feel so weak, but I think they gave me comfort, once, to imagine that for myself.

I'm nineteen now. I'm not a small, adorable little kid anymore, and there will be no good enough mother. Even though that hurts, I just have to accept that and be grateful for what I have. Still, it's a tough pill to swallow. I guess growing up always is.