Hi. It's Me. I'm The Problem. It's Me.

A self-indulgent rant

“God May Love  Me But Everyone Else Hates Me (And Let’s be Honest, God Probably Hates Me Too) “

Is the title of the nonexistent spiritual memoir that I will probably never write because I am not disciplined enough to write a book and honestly, most people won’t care about what I have to say. And I don’t blame them.  If I had a dollar for every time someone said they liked my writing or that I write well, I would be wealthy. But here’s the thing being a good writer, doesn’t actually matter. Many people can write well and most won’t make any type of career writing. 

 I keep hoping that my story will be different perhaps people will find my writing and my story worthwhile. But like most things in my life the idea of love, the idea of a stable career, the idea that I would find a place to really belong-making a career out of writing has gone the way of hopeless fantasies. I have always prided myself on being realistic and even pessimistic, but the reality is that I am stuck in a delusion.  

What else would explain my naïve belief that perhaps what I write and say matters? Or the idea, that hey perhaps this job will work out, that perhaps I finally found someplace where I belonged and my quirks were accepted even though past experience has demonstrated that I will never belong.

 We lie and tell kids they can be anything they want, but most kids are quickly disabused of that notion (and of course a lucky few achieve their wildest dreams). The real tragedy are the adults like me, who held onto that fantasy too long and who believed the teachers and professors who said, I had so much potential. But here’s the thing I didn’t realize until too late, talent and potential aren’t as important as being likable and the reality is, that I’m just not likable. 

Oh, ok, well for the short term, I am. Taylor Swift wrote this in a tongue and cheek way, but apparently, this is my reality: “Find out what you want 
Be that girl for a month 
Wait, the worst is yet to come, oh, no” 

People are always happy when they first meet me or interview me: apparently, I am their dream job candidate, their dream friend. But then I get comfortable and I can’t be “on” all the time. I show my ‘true” self. I come across as cold and aloof because I don’t say hi every time I see people, not because I’m trying to be rude, but because I am probably stressed out about the next task or trying to find ways to desperately do a million things on my list. Or because I may be experiencing sensory overstimulation and I am trying my best to compensate for that. But those excuses don’t matter because, at the end of the day, I come off as rude and unlikeable.  

I can do the social cues and niceties for a short time: but after a while it becomes difficult. Apparently, it is easy for everyone else, but for me, asking the same questions day after day and being asked the same question is exhausting “How was your day? What did you do today?” But the most confusing part, even when I take time to engage in these conversations, I somehow get the answer wrong. I’m either too detailed or I answer too quickly. If I am too detailed I come off as self-involved and selfish-if I answer too quickly, I am cold and aloof.  

I do everything wrong. If I ask too many questions about how to do something: I am too much: too needy, too annoying. But if I take the initiative and do it on my own: I mess up. Plus, that’s not being a team player Apparently there is this magical number that is the perfect level of reaching out to others and asking questions, anything more is annoying and unprofessional, anything less is aloof, and not a team player. I have yet to figure out what this number is and whether the number resets every hour, day, week or month. 

I think one of the things I struggle with the most is how just by being myself: what I say and do is twisted and interpreted as being cruel and mean. Multiple times I have been sat down either at work or at school and essentially told that who I am was wrong: annoying, unprofessional, cold, and aloof. And the people who I thought were on my side, who I thought liked me, cared about me, apparently were in agreement. So then I’m left wondering: wait, what exactly did I do wrong? Apparently, what is wrong is who I am.  

And I would love to say: hey it’s because I’m neurodivergent, or it’s because of childhood trauma, or it’s because I’m overwhelmed by all the frequent changes and overstimulation, but when I bring that up, I am told those are as just excuses. If I wanted to get better, I would. 

And the reality is that even if my neurodivergence or my childhood trauma impacts how I act and perceive the world: no one cares. I have to adapt or get left behind. Survival of the fittest and apparently, I’m not fit.  My two friends and my family tell me not to give up, to keep trying but keep trying how? If something is defective within the deepest parts of me, how do I fix that?  I mean, after a while, if a kid said they wanted to be a basketball player and they kept practicing and they never made a shot, someone needs to sit them down and say, “hey this isn’t working.” 

Well, nothing I do is working. From my career to my education to my personal life. There is something incredibly defective and wrong with me. I try the therapies; I try the medication (when I can afford them) and still I am the way I am. Perhaps I need to sit myself down and have an honest conversation: “you aren’t a good person. No one particularly enjoys being around you. You can’t hold down a stable job. You can’t particularly hold onto friendships. This isn’t working. Who you are isn’t working.”

People tell me, “This is just a setback.” But there is no way forward. The job I had was supposed to be the job I was good at. A dream job. And I failed at it.  Not the first time. Remember my time in academia?

 The therapies to make me a better person aren’t working and I can’t currently afford them anyway. And I try not to complain too much to God or anyone else because there are so many horrible things going on in the world: and to people who have done nothing wrong. Scroll through the NYT front page and you will get a list of atrocities being done to people who have done nothing wrong. In the grand scheme of things in the face of mass genocide and war crimes, my life and its woes are very insignificant.  

So I know it is a bit self-indulgent to complain about my woes, when the source of the problem is me. And I recognize that. And yet, I can’t help but ask about God’s cruel sense of humor. I’m confused that if I am so clearly unlikeable, and unstable, and people’s lives are worse for me being in it, then why am I here? What’s my purpose on earth, to let people know, oh thank God I’m not as annoying? I mean, that’s certainly one purpose I guess. I was hoping for something with a bit more job security.  

Some of ya’ll may be, “ugh I don’t like this post. Go back to your sermony-type posts. Plus there’s no hope in this post. Go back to talking about how God loves us.” And here’s the thing, I’m beginning to think that the reason I have held on so hard to wanting to preach God’s love to others, is because God quite frankly seems to be the only one who loves me or at least tolerates me on a regular basis. But now I’m beginning to question even that.  

I’m sure tomorrow or in a few days I will go back to posting the sermony type posts that talk about hope, faith, love etc. But perhaps maybe I should stop. Like the kid with professional basketball dreams who can’t make a shot, maybe I need to reevaluate my goals in life. The reality is that most people don’t like me. I can’t hold on to a job. And whatever potential I had is moot and insignificant. And at a certain point I need to acknowledge that I am the problem: regardless of whether the root cause is trauma, neurodivergence, or even just my personality. And maybe I need to accept that whatever potential I had as a kid, no longer exists. And that my hopes for the future: stability and acceptance are just a pipe dream.

Image: Orange talk bubble with the words: It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem it’s me.