Monday, April 1, 2019

It's Me, Captain Identity Crisis

• How old are you? What's your gender? Give us a general description of yourself.

I'm 23 years old, male. My family considers me a giant contradiction. I love talking a lot, giving long, vocal responses to questions, or just rambling, but I want everyone to be direct and to the point with me. If I catch someone being repetitive... like I usually am... I will get so irritated that I fight the desire to walk away or tell them "yeah, I got it." 99.9% of the time I will bear it, but makes me feel like I am going to explode. Music is nice, but after listening to one playlist too much I desperately need to find new music that gives me a new sense of relief and satisfaction. I hate working towards a career goal, it's terrifying. I started this grad program, loved it, now it is so hard that I just want to give up because I don't think I can succeed. The people here are very different from me, they hold beliefs that rub me the wrong way, and they want me to adhere to those same beliefs and pass them onto others. It feels wrong. I just want to get away from them. The way I get stress off of me is by just dumping my problems on others. Sometimes it is me just writing a lot in a discord chat. When No one responds to it or says anything I get a little let down, feeling as if I was neglected. Yes, I am aware that it's probably a problem. This questionnaire is long, I'm moving on.

• Is there a medical diagnosis that may impact your mental stability somehow?

Never been diagnosed with anything, but everything thinks something is wrong with me. I saw a counselor once. I hated it because it made me too anxious that I would lose my job over saying, "I deal with stress by hoping I die to avoid it."

• Describe your upbringing. Did it have any kind of religious or structured influence? How did you respond to it?

The Christian God was very central to our family.... but we didn't go to church, except on holidays, and he was just a vague concept that ruled over the way I ought to behave. When I was a little boy I would scare myself thinking that if God knew everything, like that I would put a cup underwater in my bath, I would always have done that. Then I tried to trick God by doing unexpected things. Then I would say in my kid brain, "Dangit, he knew that would happen too... Oh no, he know I thought that. And that.... I can't escape his knowledge." It was a thing. Then I was atheistic, and agnostic, then I wasn't, then I was, and now I am just eternally conflicted because everything and nothing feels true.

• What do you do as a job or as a career (if you have one)? Do you like it? Why or why not?

I am a graduate teaching assistant. I like teaching, but I like to just talk and be the center of attention (even though it feels as if that motivation should be hidden because it is bad). I hate the studying, writing, and trying to be a researcher.

• If you had to spend an entire weekend by yourself, how would you feel? Would you feel lonely or refreshed?

I would feel paranoid as hell that someone was in the house or watching the house. I would probably stay inside all weekend and wait for everyone to return so I could relax.

• What kinds of activities do you prefer? Do you like, and are you good at sports? Do you enjoy any other outdoor or indoor activities?

I do enjoy video games. I like just shooting the bull (chatting aimlessly, face-to-face). Memes are great, I want to share them and get them so I can laugh until I hurt and wheeze. Funny YouTube channels are the best. If not funny, sometimes it is video essays on movies, or watching people do dumb myth-testing (or just stat-testing) in a game.

• How curious are you? Do you have more ideas then you can execute? What are your curiosities about? What are your ideas about - is it environmental or conceptual, and can you please elaborate?

Ideas just happen. I wish I could keep up. They just end up giving me anxiety. This question gives me anxiety. Idk anything about me. I am just curious about what is going to happen to me.

• Would you enjoy taking on a leadership position? Do you think you would be good at it? What would your leadership style be?

I tend to like leading, but I hate responsibility. I am a bad worker, and bosses have so much garbage to wade through. I think I could be good at it. My style of leadership tends to be that I want to identify with the workers, be seen as "just another one of us." If I am over hard laborers, I would want to be seen as "He may be white-collar, but he gets us. He wants the best for us." Now, I would struggle to be over other white-collar guys. They are too serious, go after "the bottom line" of profit margins and boring crap. I will get stuff done, but we better be having a good time.

• Are you coordinated? Why do you feel as if you are or are not? Do you enjoy working with your hands in some form? Describe your activity?

I can't catch anything. When my sister throws me a water or a yogurt, I will try to catch, but it just becomes me projecting my vitals. Working with my hands can feel good, and I used to love running obstacle courses. But even when I was good at climbing walls, balancing, and working with my body, I was always bad at basketball, baseball, soccer. If I am having to control something outside of my body, I suck at it. My sense of physical control begins and end within myself.

• Are you artistic? If yes, describe your art? If you are not particular artistic but can appreciate art please likewise describe what forums of art you enjoy. Please explain your answer.

I suck at art. I wish I was an artist. I end up just sketching creepy, scary doodles and smudging them a lot to cover my mistakes and make them look creepy.

• What's your opinion about the past, present, and future? How do you deal with them?

The past is haunting. A lot happened, and I was very dumb. The childhood memories are nice, and I want to return to them.
The present is happening, but I am not in it.
The future is terrifying. A lot can happen, and I can see it going very bad, very quickly, and very easily.
I just get anxious and yearn for better days.

• How do you act when others request your help to do something (anything)? If you would decide to help them, why would you do so?

I will groan if I like that person, because I don't want to do anything, but I will for them. If it is a stranger I will probably just do it and be as cheerful as possible to try and make them feel like everything is okay. I have bent over backwards for strangers, sometimes doing incredibly dumb things (like spending 60+ bucks to fix their tires).

• Do you need logical consistency in your life?

That would be nice. Without it I can get really uncomfortable. And if I can't find it, I want something transcendent to keep my brain occupied in the face of an illogical existence.

• How important is efficiency and productivity to you?

I generally never partake in either. I just slap stuff together last second and hope it works. I wish this wasn't me, but I can't help it.

• Do you control others, even if indirectly? How and why do you do that?

Sometimes I phrase questions certain ways to get certain answers, and I am always vying for pity when I am complaining. I need everyone to have their positive attention on me. But later I will feel guilty and as though no one cares, and at that point I hate myself and want to die.

• What are your hobbies? Why do you like them?

It used to be games. I liked them because they helped me feel accomplished and that I was bigger and better than I was. When I did poorly at them I was crushed. Now I do personality tests so I can feel as if I know who I am and am not floating in a terrifying ether of nonexistence.

• What is your learning style? What kind of learning environments do you struggle with most? Why do you like/struggle with these learning styles? Do you prefer classes involving memorization, logic, creativity, or your physical senses?

I can be a really bad listening, but I can listen very well if it is a video. Podcasts can be cool, but I get distracted and will miss a lot of it. Charts can be cool, but if they look boring I just skip them for being too focused on the numbers. I want to be entertained.

• How good are you at strategizing? Do you easily break up projects into manageable tasks? Or do you have a tendency to wing projects and improvise as you go?

I will look at the stares and say, "Wow, cool." But if I lay down to look, I will sleep. I am bad at managing anything. I just wait until the stress is too much and my anxiety forces me to make something.

• What are your aspirations in life, professionally and personally?

I want to know who I am. I want to feel stable. I want to be a professional speaker. I just like talking to a room full of people that are coming to me to get something. That's why I am not a teacher. I am not a doer, but I like to make people into doers.

• What are your fears? What makes you uncomfortable? What do you hate? Why?

I fear never having a solid grasp on who I am. I am uncomfortable with the way in which our existence seems absurd and even meaningless. I hate having to focus on anything for more than 5 minutes. Because it becomes exceptionally boring.

• What do the "highs" in your life look like?

The highs look like me surrounded by my high school Raider team (mock military, JROTC). We are in the woods, just ran a hard competition. We weren't looking to win. We were a terrible team when it came to competition; however, sometimes we did really well. We liked winning, but we were just a band of brothers having a good time. We were telling horrible jokes, body humor, fighting in tents, telling the A team (the team that won a lot and our Sergeant liked more) that they were stuck-up assholes, and bonding over late-night chats. That was when I felt alive. I was a leader and a comedian. I kept the team together, made sure our worst runner ran beside me to motivate him. God, it was the best of times. I miss it dearly. I wish I had just gone into the military.

The other highs are of mom taking care of me. She's listening to Shania Twain's "I Feel Like a Woman" and I am playing with Bug's Life and Toy Story toys, making up my own little stories for the characters to live out. I'm just living in my head with some fun stories. I lived in the middle of nowhere, only raised around cousins that were all girls. I liked staying at home with mom, but visiting grandma was great. The grandparents just made everything seem fun. We would all play in the yard, pick dandelions, blow bubbles, eat cookies, watching my dad and grandpa set a tree on fire while trying to kill hornets, begging them to let me help castrate pigs. It was crazy, super rural, old fashioned. We were a tight-knit family. As we have all grown up and gone our own ways I feel that an essential part of my identity is gone, lost to history.

• What do the "lows" in your life look like?

Me trying to figure out what I am supposed to do. College was rough. Then I graduated and got talked into a masters degree. I hate all of it. I just go to school and come home. School is hell, home is heaven. Please God, lemme go home and stay home.

• How attached are you to reality? Do you daydream often, or do you pay attention to what's around you? If you do daydream, are you aware of your surroundings while you do so?

I love day dreaming. My head is more attractive than reality. I can be very alert, but mostly I am spaced out.

• Imagine you are alone in a blank, empty room. There is nothing for you to do and no one to talk to. What do you think about?

I am probably screaming in terror. I am probably thinking how this is somehow worse than the reality I was facing. I am probably longing to go back to life as it is now.

• How long do you take to make an important decision? And do you change your mind once you've made it?

I will change my mind constantly, and it can change daily. I feel like I have never made the decision because I never stick with one. But I will usually make these multiple decisions quickly.

• How long do you take to process your emotions? How important are emotions in your life?

I am so many emotions, and I feel like I can never nail them down. They rule my life, and that is probably why it feels as if some incomprehensible mystery being is controlling me.

• Do you ever catch yourself agreeing with others just to appease them and keep the conversation going? How often? Why?

All the time. That is why I feel like I don't have an opinion. Once I get an opinion, I will play along and ignore the biting sensation that I am doing something terribly wrong. I feel like a little yes man with no will of my own. It is terrifying and I hate it.

• Do you break rules often? Do you think authority should be challenged, or that they know better? If you do break rules, why?

I wish I broke more rules. I feel like I know better, and I will do what I can to do right and abide by their rules.... But I will probably snap the little tiny, useless rules in half when I know my students won't complain to the administration.



Submitted April 01, 2019 at 05:58PM by cisconic https://ift.tt/2HOX4ER

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