I am an alien on this Earth. I am humanoid. Everything about me would suggest a complete Earthling. That isn’t so, however. I tick differently than others. Upon growing up, I didn’t feel comfortable in my skin. I saw myself as a regular human and thus tried to be one. I acted upon logic rather than my heart. I was miserable.
Later in life I was able to live how I believe is my true nature. There no longer was the need of calculating, observing and need to try to like everyone else. I was free. I was happy and comfortable with myself finally.

Not many people seem to get that, particularly my head doctor. She sees me as human as her and perhaps would consider my feelings about myself to be negative, hindering and so forth. In all reality, when she encourages me to expand my horizons, search my potentials and the like… she sends me right back to how I was before. I will go along with it. It is my rational side that allows such. I fall back to putting the feelings of others over mine.
I can convince myself with thoughts that there is a positive possibility. Change is necessary for growth and discoveries. I know not the future or what can wait for me there and by staying still, I might never find a happiness greater than the one I posses now.
The problem is, my heart holds no interest in that. My heart only allows these mental arguments to persuade because my heart wishes to please others. It doesn’t overcome my true feelings though.

When younger I thought I was quite a logical, philosophical individual. I hated my emotions and ignored them. I didn’t like to think myself as sensitive or fragile in that aspect. If I allowed such, I’d never make it. Not in this world.
I know better now that it wasn’t hate, however. It was fear and desperation. If I had given into my emotions, allowed them to be truly expressed… I would cause troubles. I’d be crying all the time, worrying or bothering. I would be weak because I just couldn’t handle what everyone else were able to do so easily. My feelings can be hurt as easily as a bubble can pop by seemingly nothing due to its utter fragility.
I am different. I realize this and embrace it. I am at peace when able to live how my emotions wish to. When unable to… I feel trapped.
When I step out of my natural state and try to be like the people about me… it is like before. Breaking down, crying, suddenly disappearing to hide is not acceptable behavior. I must cope. I must endure. I cannot fall into myself or rescue myself. I can only shield and try to make it inch by inch.

First there is pain. I do not allow myself to cry though. No one else about me would cry and feel devastated by such a little thing. Since feelings will only lead to that, I become logical. My mind becomes persuasive and I struggle desperately against a raging tidal wave of emotions. I try to listen to my mind as it controls everything. Most people can control their emotions if they really try. I’ve always tried my damnedest.
Despite such a desperate obstacle, I continue on. The rest of me shuts down. I close off enough so I will not weep. I become rigid and silent. I put all my effort to keep the flood from engulfing me completely. I shut off my heart a bit to keep what control I have in me.
Once I’ve managed to dwindle the flood to a stream, I’ll become mechanical. I am guarded suddenly, because if I am not, the flood can resurface quite quickly. So I carry on, talking to myself, rationalizing with all my might to keep calm. In that I become detached as well, because if I do not do that pain will take a sudden spike again.
And thus, in such a state, a simple doll… I walk among the normal. It is the only way I can survive otherwise. Unlike all the other fish who require water to live… Water simply makes me drown.
That is what it is. I am not dramatizing, I am not fantasizing. It is simply how things are. It is not fear of what could happen that keeps me at distance. It is experience time and time again. No matter how much I can convince myself otherwise with my mind… My heart knows the truth. Inside I know the truth.

For me, pain is the most likely scenario. I don’t expect it every time. I know better. I just know with how I am wired I have a higher chance of that over joy. I know because like how my senses can be rather sensitive on a physical level, my emotions are more so.
To go against my emotions, to sway myself with logic for others… I am that fish who cannot live in water submerging herself to please others. I’ll choke and gasp, but I have managed to hold my breath and find few precious air bubbles often enough so I do not die.
But to do such relentlessly again like how I did in my past… I don’t think I’d be able to survive living like that again. I really don’t.

It isn’t only that, however. To continue such a thing, I would lose myself. I’ve lost myself before. I know that to do as my head doctor asks of me will lead to such a devastating place again. To live like others, I lose myself. I lose my true feelings. I am merely a doll trying to be like all the real boys and girls around me. She doesn’t realize this. If to hear these thoughts, she’d likely think it preposterous. I know myself quite well though. I do not care what one might say about not knowing everything due to the inability to see from the outside. I know enough.
I suppose what I am getting at here is… I do I believe I will die. My soul will die. It was near death once before. I almost lost it completely, but it cried out with its last breath. after all this time it is now revived to its fullest. I don’t want my soul to go through that again. I don’t want parts of it ripped away piece by piece. I don’t want my heart to be stabbed slowly over and over to the point that I fear to be myself and lose my soul.

So yes… a part of me will always fight this… subtly. I don’t fight it with full force… I have not reached such a strength yet. It is stronger than before, though, because before I never would have made a peep to the doctor or my mother. I fight it because in a sense it is a matter of life and death. Because what I wish to keep alive is my true self… my identity, my feelings, my wants, my desires.
Once upon a time I would never consider such. That was because I feared it would make me selfish, putting my wants before those I loved. Now though… now… I think it is okay to. It is okay to because I am protecting a life. I am protecting my life for once. Now that I have found a better world… a world I never saw possible in my bleak youth… I want to keep it.
I’m not strong enough to demand, to truly fight the wants of others… but I have hope… I have hope that one day they will see. They will see this is just me. It will always be me… and they will accept it. They will finally accept it.

Like Van Gogh is quoted, “I wish they would only take me as I am.”

Ah… Wynne… if only you realized your wish to see my potentials only hurt me more than help. Each time I undergo such trials, it makes me take a step back rather than a step forward. You just don’t seem to understand that.

Today I experienced a familiar feeling and from that I learned a new thing about something that has always been me. I saw my head doctor back in January on the twenty-eighth. In the end she and my mother spoke of potential and eventually it was decided that I should try to get out more. Despite my always leery feelings about the matter, I decided to appease them as usual. Most of me knows that if it does have a negative effect, the matter will be put away for a long while.  Then, there is the vague positive, perhaps hopeful side – despite it is mainly run by logic as well – that maybe something positive will come of it. It was the former as usual.
The feeling I experienced was of being in school again. The thing I learned was that I am emotionally sensitive to words and actions of others as I am physically sensitive to various stimuli. I am mentally, physically and emotionally intense. It doesn’t matter the age or gender. It doesn’t matter if I can rationalize the situation, tell myself the likely true scenario… the emotions are there and despite my great efforts, they cannot be ignored.
I almost cried in class. I wanted to get up and leave. I didn’t though. I did that back in school, but that was after going through this process over and over again to the point of a break. By habit I kept myself strong. I would carry out what I came to do. I would not cry, I would not run, I would finish the class and then I would go home. I fulfilled that.
It reminded me of my youth though. In the past I would have been irritable and possibly lash out. Back then I didn’t know how to cry. Well, I know how to now. I kept my tears back, though. Thinking on that, I am sure that is how it all started… my inability to cry back then. I had to be strong. I had to be able to handle what was going around me like everyone else. In the end, I broke substantially.
This is why I avoid such situations… I am sure I will always wind up in the same situation in the end. Why? Because it is how I am wired. I will always be sensitive. In order to not make a fuss, a ruckus, a scene… I keep it all in. I try to act normal. In the end though, the very things I want to do at the time do come out, but by then they are like the genie in the bottle. They come out in an overflowing burst. They are like an erupting volcano and very bad things happen.
Today I saw the beginning of that small build up. It was over a little thing. I could see it was a little thing. For my mind and my heart however, the pain, humiliation, indignation, frustration and anger could not be soothed by rational thoughts, logic and explanations.
When working against something that is difficult, I tend to berate myself and the work. It is a habit I’ve possessed since little and still possess now. I suppose in my case it is a sort of reverse psychology. If I say such things, I won’t truly be disappointed if it doesn’t work out as hoped. Then there is the concept of how drill sergeants yell and berate their cadets.
The teacher didn’t know me and thus wouldn’t understand me. I know that. I’d only see her for one day. I know that. This wasn’t a class that was being graded. I know that. I just work my own way.
She teased me about expecting to suddenly be a master artist from that simple beginner’s class. That affronted me greatly. I never expected such a thing. She made a comment about my having to yet learn that valuable lesson more or less. This being said to the other four women taking the class her were pretty much as old as the teacher or older. They had kids and possible even grandkids.
That angered, hurt and humiliated me. I wanted to know what gave her the right to judge me so. Yes, I was well younger than half their age, but that didn’t mean I was so naïve, so ignorant, so immature…
Then after something regarding my comments over my progress she teased again and told me to “dwell on it” as though I were a troublesome child who had a valuable lesson to learn about art.
Perhaps one would say I am naïve, ignorant or immature. I likely am that quite a bit. However, I think she could have had the decency not to insult me to offhandedly. I would have appreciated it greatly if she didn’t make it a lighthearted joke that amused the others.
By the end of that, my emotions were in turmoil. Tears prickled in my eyes and truthfully I fought over just standing and leaving right there without a word to get a hold of myself. One might say I was being immature right then. Well, whatever…
I stayed though. The class cost a decent amount of my monthly paycheck, my mom bought the supplies for me and I was going to finish what I started. So, after working and getting a handle on myself, I reduced myself to the occasionally sniffles and just focused on getting the assignments over with. I wondered if any of them noticed a change in mood about the air that surrounded me. I doubted it with how they acted.
Before that I made comments, rambled things… but by then… I figured, “Why bother?” I wasn’t an equal in their eyes. I was only going to see them that one class. Thus, I was silent, no nonsense and merely did things rather mechanically by then.
I eased up near the end of the class. I would try again, but on a more distant level. I made vague conversation with one lady. I found she was a fellow “hermit”. She didn’t seem to care for the watercolor medium either. Small chat was fine.
After that I asked the teacher to do a repeat example on the lesson I was muttering the most about as it was difficult or very displeasing to me. Then I stayed to hear the women talk for a while before departing. I felt I did enough for the rest of the session despite the poor results of the middle part. I decided I had no intentions to ever do another painting class under her again, however.
In all of that, I learned… It doesn’t matter who the person is. The age, the gender, the ethnicity, whatever… it doesn’t matter. I’ll always be sensitive. I am sure there are ways of therapy for coping… but I do my own coping. Coping only eases. It doesn’t get rid of.
I have another class in March. My mother says I don’t have to go. I’m sure I could get my money back too if I were to withdraw. I’ll go though. It was decided. I’ll stick to it. It is a different class and will have a different teacher. I doubt I’ll be working with any one near my age, though. I’ll see how I do. Perhaps I’ll enjoy it to some extent. If it turns out like today’s… well, I’ll survive it and know I tried. I always try and will continue to even if there is pain… because pain is always inevitable… just as happiness is.