I had dinner with a friend last night that I used to spend a lot more time with but we drifted apart. After a while we got on the topic of why I seem to have lost all my friends and I was basically told I need to shut up and smile more. That I am always a downer to people and just cannot seem to be happy about anything.

For the past year I have been working really hard on not expressing negative emotions toward people in my life. That is why I tried online counseling and post places like this, so I don't start talking about it with people in person. It is just that I spend all day at work and out in the world trying to act like everything is perfect and I am happy that when I am around people I am comfortable with stuff comes out of my mouth that isn't happy.

People say stuff like, try talking about the good things going on in your life. Sometimes I can do that but for a while, especially before my chronic pain was managed, I just didn't have good days. When I would explain something that was an achievement of the day for me it would be something like actually doing my hair and it is so lame people think that is be complaining.

I don't have the energy in me for my personal life to be full of people who. I have to keep putting the show on for. People give me the most awful examples of how they can 'relate' and how they 'overcame' the issue. Sure there are people out there who can relate but they are not these people. Constantly hearing voices that sound like someone on the other side of the door talking about you and being unable to differentiate reality from things I just imagined to the point that when I actually do something important I have to leave myself a note explaining it really happened is not the same as sometimes you think you see a bug on your arm that isn't really there and just up and swat it away.