Poker Face

I’ve little to no interest in the things I once had interest in, and such interest was lost in a time frame of a little over a year. A year – even two years – is a short amount of time in my life to lose something considering I’ve been on this planet for almost 22 years. Still, the journey to the end of this great depression is pure hell, and getting out of it is something I don’t know how to do.

People keep telling me only I can do it myself and that I’m dwelling in the past – that I need to “put this behind [me] and move on”. To be honest, I don’t think it’s about moving on and putting it behind me and whatnot – that’s similar to putting it in the past. No matter how determined I am, I’m so vulnerable that anything and everything can knock me down the stairs about eight or more steps.

In the midst of all of this mess, I have gotten to know myself more than I ever knew me before. I’ve learned exactly how dark I can be – I’ve always been dark, but I never knew I could be this dark. I’m not talking about the mischievous and murderous dark; I’m talking about the darkness that holds me together. This darkness is the glue I’ve had my entire life. It’s the secrets that I’ve had to keep, and some keep unfolding. Some are so surreal that I try my hardest to ignore and push away, even though they continue to come back. So maybe I just have a dark personality. I like to think, however, that I can have a dark personality without continuously having to fight depression all of the time and wanting to absquatulate from the planet all of the time.

“Sometimes I think I was born backwards… you know, come out of my mum the wrong way. I hear words go past me backwards. The people I should love, I hate, and the people I hate…” – Effy Stonem, Skins

I was looking for the full version of the quote above, and I stumbled across the Wiki page. After reading it, I realized something I hadn’t noticed before. I consider myself a person who wears a poker face for many reasons. The biggest reason is that I dislike showing my cards – emotions, feelings, hurt, anger, disgust, etc. – because I hate being weak. I hate being buried down so low that I’ve no other choice but to feel weak. Effy’s mom mentions to JJ of Effy that “showing her cards, scares her to death”, in reference of Effy’s behavior. If I’d shown my cards all my life, I’d be dead. If I had done more trying to get out of living with my mom and stepfather, I’d be dead. I wouldn’t be here because I would have developed such a risky lifestyle in doing so that I wouldn’t care what happened to. Because I didn’t see a way out no matter where we lived.

Faking and pretending to be happy is neither a sign of strength nor weakness; I think that it’s just something we as humans do to avoid kibitzing people. People who do kibitz anyway expect a response, be it an action, via words or even an action performing of their advice/conversation no matter who they are. For me, they often include that they “want” ____. I want to not have to live up to anyone’s expectations anymore. I want to not be expected to do things and to just be able to focus on me. Whether people who kibitz are just trying to be helpful, it often doesn’t make situations any easier.

I think I’m the same in relationships as well. My exes – all of them – have the Sagittarius astrological sign. I didn’t realize this until earlier this year. Anyway, I’m an Aries. The best matches are Leos and Sagittariuses… I’m not into the astrological sign stuff and dating and whatnot, but I find it fun. -.- I always looked forward to opening the back cover of Seventeen Magazine and reading my horoscope. Although the guys were not all that brilliant (okay, let’s face it: the guys I’ve dated were very… complicated, untrustworthy/lying, sweet/tangy[1. It’s complicated, but I’m not gonna talk bad about him when he was actually not as bad as the other guys I’ve dated.], druggy, obsessed/clingy, guy who dated me for a rebound), I still couldn’t stop myself from pulling away, either. I’ve written about what kind of guy I want and hope to have someday, and unfortunately some responses to another post (I can’t seem to find the post) were from a commentator a bit annoyed at me for having such “strict needs”. But letting people get to know me and all of me makes me vulnerable, and I don’t trust easily.

That’s just who I am.

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Comments on this post

I don’t like it when people say to get over it and move on, because at best, they have no idea what you’ve gone through and can’t judge how you react to it and how long it’ll stay with you. It’s hard to let a lot of things go.

I agree with you, faking isn’t strength or weakness. It’s just something someone does, whether it’s to avoid something or not. I agree when people kibitz they may have good intentions but it really doesn’t make things easier.

I hate star signs. I don’t think any of that astrological stuff is really worth thinking about, it’s silly. It’s funny to see if any of the horoscopes apply to you or what you think. A lot of boys I liked were Leos (who Geminis like myself apparently go well with) or Virgos (who Geminis don’t go well with, pft). It’s funny about the compatibility thing though. xD

I always felt that hiding your weaknesses was a sign of strength growing up (which is wrong) and found that the more that I tried to hide my tears, the more I cried. You’ve done nothing wrong, and you are a very courageous girl. There is a quote that says “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.” I think that that reflects your life very well, and the fact that you are alive now shows that you are indeed very courageous.

I firmly believe, after our email exchange, that the only difference between the people you’re living with now and me is that I know more about mental illnesses than they do and have worked with them before. They seem to think that one can just “snap out of” a mental illness when that’s not true at all. Let’s hope that you can get help soon, and let’s hope that whatever psychologist you see will go tell your family how mental illnesses work.

You are a beautiful person, and there is a lot more to you than your depression. It might not feel like that right now, but all of us on the Internet think that it’s true.

It’s always easy for other people to tell you to move on or stop “dwelling in the past”. They aren’t the ones who went through your situation. They don’t have to live with the effects.