I need to feel right. I don't know how people just do things. Like go into work completely straight and just...do that, for hours. And go to lunch and sit and talk to their significant others like nothing's strange or horribly wrong at all. Or how they eat without their stomachs seizing up on them, how they don't worry about it. How they don't worry about much of anything. They don't base their self-worth on how they look, if they exercised too much that day, or not enough, or if they ate too much, or just not enough. They don't pretend to listen to the person they're talking to, because they are listening; they're not worried about how to effectively stave off a panic attack during the conversation, how to hide the dilation of their eyes or the blood rushing from their face or their breathing coming too fast and shallow like their heart; they don't worry about how to most casually excuse themselves from a conversation so that they can pop a Xanax in the bathroom and remember that, yes, there are other places to be besides their pulsing, panicking slurry of a brain. They don't memorize mental scripts for small-talk, disingenuous and awkward for the small hope that something more intimate could come from it. But intimacy's just a fucking concept. They don't deconstruct, critique, and criticize every little bit of the last social interaction they had with someone, even if it was just making eye contact with a stranger. They don't go out with friends just to maintain appearances, just to maintain some sense of normalcy, even though being around most people feels like anything but. They don't secretly long for something greater, something closer and perfect and uninhibited with another human being, but shirk away the very moment it starts to seem possible. They don't have to plan out every last detail of their next outing, even if it's just to the grocery store; they can be impulsive, and they can adapt. They don't wonder how it's possible to need something or someone so badly and then somehow not be able to stand them at the same time. They don't believe just because someone's being nice, they must have some kind of agenda. They can spend a night out doing whatever, smoking whatever, fucking whomever, being whomever, and not worry about the panic; not worry about the unease of unfamiliarity, the need to go home and hide under the sheets. They don't dread what they know will be another failed attempt at sleep, waking up in a panic for no reason at all; waking up screaming from nightmares they don't even remember. They don't crave self-mutilation to release some of the pressure inside their head; to distract.
Because living just comes naturally to most people. And I am so tired of trying to do all these normal things, these things that just come so effortless to most other people. I try to imitate. I really do. I try to live like them, do the things I'm not doing right or stop doing the things I'm doing wrong to keep me from being normal. But I have never quite been there. And I feel further from that than ever. It's scaring the living shit out of me, especially this not-knowing.
Or maybe I'm completely wrong, and everyone's just doing a damn good job at faking. Thing is, I can't anymore.
