Swelltide.

I miss feeling competent, powerful. I miss confidence. I miss having a small circle of friends that I could tell anything. My personal relationships as an adult, beyond the wonderful depth and closeness that I experience with my girlfriend, have been shallow and unfulfilling. I have been questioning whether or not friendships like this can even exist as an adult. 

When I entered the 'real world' I knew intuitively to keep distance between me and my co-workers. They would not have been the kind of people that I would have been close to, anyway. I do joke around with them, and make small talk but I do not disclose anything about my private life. I am unsure of how friendships are even made anymore. I don't trust others to with information about myself. I don't know anyone that is like me, and as I grow older and gradually lose touch with those people that I used to be close to, I find that people around me are increasingly interested in things that I am not. 

I do not have television. Well, I receive local channels via an antenna. While I watch PBS on occasion, other people are busy talking about reality shows. The older I get, the more men my age seem to enjoy football and seasonal sports. I don't. It bores me and seems to be the only thing that the guys at work talk about with any depth at all. 

Distance, always. Separation. A constant reminder that I am not like them at all. I thought school may expose me to others with similar interests, but how can I relate to eighteen year-olds? I have a deep interest and love of science, and I have been disappointed by the superficial knowledge and interest that others seem to show in it-- and these kids are science majors. Welcome to the bible belt, where exists the ever-present distrust of science-- and very bizarre melding of a new kind of conservatism in young people. Maybe, I should have been an arts major. English major. I even gave some thought to accounting. 

No one challenges themselves anymore. No one actually thinks about the things they thing about. No one questions anything. 

I don't understand people. I do not have a desire to display my every movement and thought to the world on a 'social networking' site. I don't believe that most thoughts are even deserving of being spoken. There is no filter anymore. All meaningful conversation has been watered down. Public discourse now only involves the use of three-word slogans. Everyone thinks they are right. 

I was sitting in physics class a few nights ago, and in front of me was a girl who continually checked her cellphone and refreshed her Facebook page. Why? She looked at photos, and wrote monosyllabic little words with a lot of exclamation points after them. It apparently, was worth missing a lecture for. 

I have become the obnoxious elitist that secretly, and openly, scorns almost everyone around them. I am smarter than most people. I do actually read about something before forming an opinion on the topic. I think about things beyond what everyone else seems to be talking about. No one seems to anymore. I can't help but to wonder if American I.Q. scores are dropping like our education scores. I would be willing to bet that they are. 

If you couldn't tell, I am feeling melancholy tonight. I am missing being a creature of self-discovery. I am missing things being new. I am missing being an extrovert who didn't question people's motives who was willing to carry on a conversation with anyone. I am like this when I am feeling manic, or hypomanic but it isn't the same. I miss people. I miss the time before the internet when people actually talked, and shared. When things weren't instantaneous. There was depth and irony and humor. Of course, I was happy then. And always the question-- was it that way because I wasn't unhappy and bipolar, or was really that way? Do I feel disconnected, or am I disconnected?

Swelltide.

My life is exceedingly lonely, at times. It is easy to feel like people don't care, or don't bother to show that they care. It is easy to feel like the only person on earth going through what I go through. It isn't true, I know, but it feels that way at times.

Here it is, after two in the morning and I am scanning Facebook, inevitably coming across people that I once considered close friends. I search for people that I haven't talked to in years. People that I have had a falling-out with. Everything seems so distant and permanent.

My girlfriend and I were sitting around, talking about my family. I speak now about them in the past-tense. I feel like an outsider everywhere. At work. Here, living so close to my parents. When I am around my siblings. Around 'friends'. I have never been one of those people who have this need or drive to fit in. I have never understood conformist thinking. Not that I have dyed my hair blue and pierced my nose or anything. I am not much of a nonconformist either.

It would be nice to have more than a just one or two close friends around me, that I knew intimately. It is so hard to have an honest conversation with people now. Especially men. And I work in an industry full of bravado and ego. Blegh. How do you make friends, as an adult?

Swelltide.

Friday! Hello, weekend.

Sunday, I am meeting up with some guys at work.

We talked about my need to open up to people in therapy. I have shut myself off from others, because I feel like not everyone is deserving of my friendship-- which roughly translates into nobody is really deserving of my friendship. My girlfriend, who I met almost ten years ago, is the last person I think that I've opened up to. That I've let some walls down for.

Coping mechanisms are a big thing with bipolar. I hadn't realized how my inability to cope with life-stress had been affecting me. I've lived for two years with all of the things that were important to me, painting supplies-- books-- journals-- movies, packed away in boxes. I've had no way of unwinding. Life had become enjoyable and bland, because I hadn't allowed myself to enjoy anything.

Everyone in the last few years that I've met, has seemed either unapproachable or unworthy for friendship. I would find something not to like in people. I would find some reason not to get close to anyone. I will still struggle with this. I will probably always struggle with this. But, for now and for the sake of making some kind of progress-- I've decided to go ahead and meet up. Sunday. With some people I am not sure that I like.

I don't know if this comes from being bullied as a kid or being a depressed teenager and feeling like I didn't want to rely on anyone. Maybe both. Maybe there was something in my upbringing that kept me feeling like I couldn't get close to people. I really wish that this had been one of the things that I've been more analytical about throughout my life. I could have started working on this years ago. Why is letting go of bad habits or attitudes so hard?

I really hope that this does not come back to bite me. The people I work with have a tendency to talk.. about people. Which, is one of my biggest turn-offs in others. I haven't said anything about my bipolar diagnosis to anyone but a few at work that I feel like I can trust with the information. We'll see.