"Only the moment you reject all help are you freed." ~Prince Gautama Siddharta

A million years ago, there came a time when I could no longer deal with the pain that had no name, but hurt dreadfully. As a result, I stopped connecting with people because they were unpredictable and scary. I stopped waiting to be loved and safe and resigned myself to the knowledge that I would live my life without those two things. And I stopped caring...about most everything. I did this, not because I wanted to, but because I didn't know what else to do.

I can no longer explain what's happening to me now. I know I'm not the person I was last year. Everyone changes; I am not exempt. Unfortunately, the changes taking place in my life now have hurled me into a place I have avoided my whole adult life, and I'm not dealing with it well. At all.

I spent the weekend with my extended family. Darrin says I was warm, friendly, very social. Inside I felt dead and exhausted. My sisters asked me how I was. I lied. I went to the grocery store with Lila. An old friend recognized us and told me I look beautiful--life must be treating me well. It is. Of course, it is.

I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. last night, crying while Darrin looked bewildered. I tried to explain that I hate being with people. It makes me scared, mostly because I feel nothing when I am with them. He suggested that going to the family reunion was a mistake, but it wasn't. He had a wonderful time, as did Tabitha, DJ and Adam. And I'm trying to keep living. I'm trying...

Darrin asked me what was bothering me the most. I told him it was the imaginary things--the things that feel real, but are not. He asked me to list them. The list was ridiculous.

1. I feel absolutely alone. Darrin asked me about the support people I've asked to help me through this time. I had to confess that last week I told them all to not concern themselves with me. He asked why. I told him I don't want support people. It makes me feel weak. It also makes me feel, if they contact me, that they're doing so only because I've somehow obligated them to do so and we're no longer friends. We're just we're acquaintances who have awkward conversations because Samantha is a freak show. So--I eliminated the obligation, real or imaginary. Darrin asked if anyone had contacted me since I did that. I told him one had. He indicated that my feeling of "alone" might be my own fault since people generally don't like to talk to friends who tell them there's no need. I already knew that.

2. I don't think I can do this--which is inane, since I have no idea what "this" is. But that, in and of itself, is the problem. Up until now, I've been able to make a plan, prepare somehow, for each step, identify what came next. Now I'm simply immobile. At some point I have to figure out how to move. I don't know how.

3. I have been feeling like I've failed for awhile now--but at this point it's become personalized. I feel that I've failed Darrin and my kids, my parents, my siblings, my friends, my blog readers, the pharmacist, the Walmart Collective, the interstate repairmen, the local news anchors...basically everyone in the world. And it doesn't matter if they know me or not; it doesn't matter that everything I'm doing is completely irrelevant to their lives; it doesn't matter that I'm no one in the large scheme of things--somehow I let them down. Darrin said he thinks this is probably a feeling that will pass. No doubt he's right, which only serves to prove to me that I'm completely irrational and my life truly is meaningless. Isn't it lovely how I can become so melodramatic about something completely imaginary?

4. I have no place. Darrin said I have a place with him and with the kids. Of course, I know that. It's where I've been comfortably residing for most of my adult life, avoiding prolonged contact with anyone, ending relationships that seem to be close, hiding behind my husband and children because it's easy and I don't have to worry about interpersonal interaction with other people more than once or twice before they disappear from my life. But he's correct--I do have a place. Why did I try to step beyond that four years ago? And now that I have, what do I do now? A couple of people I trust have intimated that I should be staying home with my husband and children--content with that. I am not discontent--I just wanted to add to the whole, beautiful relationships I enjoy with my husband and kids. I wanted to connect, for the first time since I was twelve, with other people. Not just connect, but form bonds, love, enjoy each other, find delight as I add other people to those I love. I don't know why. And now, I'm too tired to carry that on my own. And in the confusion I now feel, I wonder why it all happened and that sense of overwhelming failure and doom slides throughout my body, immobilizing me.

5. I am at the end. I no longer know where to turn. I don't trust Therapist, or Darrin, or me. God seems to have put me on hold for awhile. If He's talking, I have no idea what He's saying. Underneath that thought is the surety that I've let Him down, as well, which ticks me off because I still think it was rotten of Him to just stand by and allow the things that happened to me. Who failed whom? I don't know anymore.

6. I think it's time for me to stop talking--which is really a moot point since I don't talk to anyone anymore. I see Therapist on Thursday. I'm supposed to attend a class reunion on Saturday. I don't know why I'm doing anything anymore.

I completely understand I'm being unreasonable. I completely understand I'm seeing a distorted view of reality. I completely understand I don't have any idea how anyone else perceives me. Last week, before I told everyone I'm just doing so delightfully well, and there's no need to check up on me anymore, I was talking to Tolkien Boy, and I mentioned some unkind things I was sure he was thinking about me. He said this: Samantha, I know you know that I don't think those things. It sometimes seems, though, as if it is important in some way for me to think those things about you. Is it?

The truth is, no. It's not important in some way. But the way my head is working now, I don't know how else to think about how I might be perceived. My self-worth is gone. I feel trapped and abandoned. I don't know, anymore, how to accept love from anyone. And in that vein, I see no solution except to retreat. Obviously, I'm hurting or confusing people without meaning to, I no longer know how to express myself, and it's so absolutely lame for me to keep saying, "Help me--I don't know why you're in my life. I know I love you. I know I want you here. I don't know what to do next. Please, help me."

I'm hoping with all my heart that the rest of my life is not like this. I don't want to lose people I love, which seems the ultimate inevitability. I don't want to keep going to functions with people who say they love me, while I wonder who they are and why I'm there. I don't want to die in thirty years, completely dependent on Darrin emotionally, and feeling that I am incapable of establishing healthy, safe relationships with people I will love forever. I suppose, though, there are worse things. Darrin is pretty wonderful. I'm lucky to have him.