They're less functional, but succeeding more?

I suppose it's all relative.

They seem both less functional and more functional.

Also, I measure success by survival, period/full stop.

I don't care about money or power as most know it; I care about knowledge, and having what I need to have what I need.

I have a lovely blend of problems that happen to stick me like a dagger in key, crucial areas. Those are, social functioning, and extreme difficulty following through with school (I wear down day by day) and getting let alone holding a job. Maybe it's related to why I sometimes don't leave the house for days; but I get this feeling there's even more to it than that.

I see people who are absolute messes in more obvious ways. They self-harm, make suicide attempts/gestures constantly, can get relationships and a social life but they go through relationships and friends as if they're going out of style. I can't help but think "Well at least you have them for a little while." Sure it hurts losing,.. but 'tis better to have loved and lost...

Without going into much more detail: these people are absolute wrecks but they manage well enough --if not fully-- to perform up to their level in both school as well as work and it's incredibly annoying. It's as if they can suspend or halt their issues just long enough in a space of their life, and times of the day in their life to perform these vital things.

Then, they go home and scream at their partners, throw $#%^ around, harm themselves, make a suicide attempt, spend a night in emergency and then the next day go to school or work. Ho-hum. That was hyperbole and a dramatization, surely you get my point. I'm sorry, but it really infuriates me. Jealousy? No, not jealousy. I understand they're suffering the same as me, and anyway by nature and principle I tend not to be jealous. It's more a combination of bewilderment and frustration. I want to pull my hair out at it.

I've examined the whole thing and these people aren't stronger than me somehow; partly evidenced by what they can't do that I can, what they can't fight off and keep themselves from doing that I can, and what they can't tolerate and suffer that I can.

No, while these people are socially dysfunctional (dyssocial) they aren't socially paralyzed, and for some reason they can manage work/school well enough and perform up to their level. These people also don't seem to enter the same type of depressions I do; while I enter both their type and mine sometimes simultaneously.

That is, a nasty Major Depression depression and a more BPD-like depression. These people also don't seem to dissociate as badly, or as often as I do. I can't say, but that's how it looks. This is by no means a "I have it worse than everyone else wah wah", in fact, I know, and have known people who suffer the same way. These people are just... different somehow. I'm trying to work it out.

What happens to me at work/school that is the biggest factor, I might ask myself for brevity? I'd have to say dissociation. Day after day I sink deeper and deeper. I watch myself fall from the top of the class to being days behind everyone else. While teachers have noticed my work is sporadic even when taking part-time, online classes --I go through life zoning in and out-- I always complete the courses with full marks.

I completed 2 1/2 out of 4 certificates on the course I am working on at the moment, and was working on my third. See, my third I absolutely had to be on-campus for, there were things you need to be there psychically to learn. The higher up teacher had a private discussion with the teachers and actually told me I should switch to web since that was part time and it can be done online. I might add that before all this, they had no idea I was any different to them or any other student.

I got offended, swallowed my pride and saw the disability liaison officer there (I hadn't wanted anyone to know I was different) and a meeting was set up between her, the teacher who tried to nudge me out of class, and me. The higher level teacher said she felt I was being unrealistic in trying to complete the 3rd and on-campus class, and that their concern was that "day after day" would slowly wear me down (very astute, lady, very astute). I was adamant though and got back into class. Anyway, to make a long story short, my marriage broke up during it all and if I wasn't going to go down as the teachers suspected, I was sure going down then.

So, what did I do? Did I harm, make a suicide gesture, go off the rails, end up in a hospital? No, I fought through that sh-t and began to formulate my next move, or series of moves. Also, I think much of it occurs inside rather than manifests itself outside. I could have done the latter three, but I didn't. Now, I'm thinking forward as to what to do next and what order will get me there best.

I am pretty tired of seeing these people who are wrecks yet manage to struggle all the way through a course with stunning marks, and somehow manage to get to work each day, get through it and pull in high 5 digit and even 6 digit incomes. Something I am fully capable of doing, yet somehow I am not.

On top of that, they manage to fake being okay to their employers, employees and co-workers -- if only just enough. They're all chuckles, grins and talk when they have to be, when regardless of where I am, or what I'm doing, I sometimes can't muster up the slightest of smiles -- unless, of course, I'm drunk. I can generally muster a half-smile on the left corner. I've had people comment that I don't look very happy when I actually felt in a pretty good mood.

I'm sorry, but it's kind of hard for me to feel sorry for these people and impossible for me to fell any affinity with them.

Maybe that's why they call it disabled...

I've come to remember of late that I did once have great goals and ambitions, which I then toned down a bit to make them more realistic and achievable, and then at one point in my life I dropped them entirely due to hopelessness as the feelings of frustration were driving me mad. Well I've long since not had the option of leaving them on the floor.

I apologize for this ridiculously short reply, even though I just read through your entire and thorough post.

Are you afraid to succeed? I am afraid to both succeed AND fail. It has something to do with what I expect out of myself, and the fear that if I DO succeed, then I will only be expected to do more, but if I FAIL, that means that I cannot do anything right at all.

Do you feel that way?

I'm also sorry that your marriage fell apart and it made that teacher think that she was right. What a b*tch. I'm sorry about that, but I'm glad you went to the liasion. I'm quite proud of that for you, really.

*hugs*

AMP

Actually, thanks for reply and thoughts Ali, I really appreciated it.

No, I'm not afraid to succeed actually; I'd love nothing more than to live out even a quarter of my potential. I wouldn't at all care if it ended up being very difficult to hang onto, either, the fact that I'd be doing it would be more than enough to overpower any feelings of hardship.

And actually, your reply got me thinking. I was on my way until things went wrong. For the first time in my life things were truly under way. It would've been quite simple; I was going to finish my course and then go job hunting. I was under no delusion that it would be, or will be easy and I'm aware that I'll have to fight off/through disappointment and try not to take things too personally.

If it proved difficult I'd not have been deterred. If I lost my first or even second job I'd have not been deterred. As long as you can hang on to one long enough it shows employers that you're serious, and you can give them some BS line "I learned a lot and it was a great experience but I screwed it up in the end" which both sounds positive as well as puts on a show of false humility that can work to ones advantage. Even failed jobs after my schooling are things I could've stuck on my CV.

When in school I also began to meet people and was well liked in general. It wasn't a front they were liking either; as by nature I don't put on fronts -- I have too much of an attitude, and am offended at the notion of having to put anything on for anyone (I get it from my fathers side). Point being, they liked me and not the presumed BPD 'fronts' which borderlines supposedly put on.

Anyway, speaking of fear of failure, I'm reminded of:

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” -- Theodore Roosevelt

Of course there's also:

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -- Thomas Edison

I'm quite accustomed to, as well as comfortable with life being about one step back, two steps forward no matter how hard you're moving forward. I'm also fully comfortable with the idea that I'll at times get knocked flat on my face; in which case it's solely a matter of getting back up. This has been my experience in life; it's what I'm used to and have come to accept as well as learnt to handle.

I also believe I've fallen back into the mindset I was in when there truly was little opportunity for me; those days are behind me. I now recall fretting about getting back into school as hurriedly as possible, to which the liaison officer wisely stated "Just focus on getting well, school will still be here once you have." I now have more opportunity afforded to me than I have had at any other point in my life -- as much as anyone could expect, in fact. For a time, I had virtually none.

I hardly just gave up, even after I knew I'd have to leave campus and that course I went to her a second time --again, swallowing my pride-- to arrange getting into a stream that complimented the one I was in as to attempt to salvage my education. It was a part-time online course. Alas, I hate web, it isn't my thing, it isn't what I went there to do, I'll never excel at it, and I'm in no position to force myself through study that I hate in order to reach a desirable end.

At least, I certainly wasn't then. I have to like what I'm doing or it's impossible for me to be motivated. I would have been easier to simply walk away from it -- but I went out kicking and screaming which while prolonging the agony it shows me to this day that I was, and am, serious.

As far as my difficulties: It's not really something you can explain to someone or put into words so I wont bother trying. How do you explain falling into states of mental paralysis? People will only get it if they themselves experience it on a regular basis, as even if they'd experienced it once in the past we have the tendency to quickly forget things like that.

Anyway, if anything more is ever expected of me and I can deliver it I have no issue with that; if I can't or feel nothing more should be expected of me at said time my attitude is "###$ you."

And yes, you got it in one. For various reasons --never mind that is was very personal-- I couldn't disclose straight away that the main reason I was falling behind. So, the teachers had this very apparent heir of "Ha ha, you see, we were right." I thought said teachers were cool; it's funny the things that bring out people's truer nature. One thing I re-learnt from it all is that teachers for the most part are bitter people.

They often don't like their jobs and teaching can turn people very nasty. They have to pretend to be otherwise though as they couldn't very well teach showing such an attitude. I've run across my fair share of ex-teachers who ended up on disability for alcoholism; a state in which some of them remained until they drank themselves to death. Their career choice is not my fault. I'll never trust in one again and instead see them as something to be utilized.

Anyway, this is what my post was all about. Venting + trying to work at all out and make sense of it all. My clarity has been restored: I am on a path at the moment, I simply mustn't lose sight of the fact that it is a path I'm on. I'd lost sight and began to think --as opposed to believe-- that I was dead in the water.

I've had a late start on things and there are very good reasons behind it. The important factor is I'm aware that the reasons were beyond my control rather than erroneously blaming myself which is foolish and self-defeating; but I did something about it as soon as the opportunity presented itself and since I'm aware of all that, I'm fine with myself.

The frustration and annoyance I expressed in my original post still stands, though. I know it's frustration others share as well -- some people aren't as quick to voice things as they fear losing popularity due to it. Some are very concerned about possibly making some people unhappy. I said what I felt I needed to say. It was not personal nor directed at anyone, but some will take it that way... oh well.

I feel your frustration, my friend...

I was a star student until about high school... then I hated being there... harder classes helped, because it gave me a challenge, but I hated being there... hated homework... it was a minor miracle that I graduated. Mom made go to college, which I graduated from, but that was also really hard to do... I just hated being there... I would start every semester trying SO HARD, just to stop functioning for no reason... I couldn't explain it... it was so hard to get up, to do anything.... But at night I could crawl all over town and get 60 different errands done (illegal errands, but errands)...

If it had been solely up to me, I would be homeless or dead by now. I got really lucky that someone held my hand and pushed me through life this far. I'm not stupid, quite smart, actually. I just lost drive and want to do anything... I get bursts of motivation, but that's it... It's really, very frustrating.

It's better now, and I'm looking to take some classes on my own at a community college, though I'm not sure that they'll add up to another degree, just yet. I just want to take something. I miss learning. I like doing things, now. Slowly, but it's better.

You have to focus on breathing and getting well again. Life happens around you, and sometimes you fall out of it and you're unsure why. That happened to me, but I couldn't have told you why or when it really happened... it just did. I lost will to do things... Now that I'm more stable, I have lesser goals, but I have a real goal... that's mine, not my mother's... and that's exciting. ^_^

Baby steps. Some people function differently.

Rock on!!! I totally get what you're saying.

I'm glad that you're back on the good path you were traveling prior. And yeah, quit getting so down on yourself!!! It's not always YOU! :0) Just teasing, but seriously, I am happy that you're good with you.

I know what you mean about people being afraid of losing popularity. Sometimes I myself feel like I'm being overly happy, but I realize that I'm being supportive for others that need it, and will also hopefully return it one day when I need it as well. And then other times, I've posted some really mean sh*t, and I hope that I don't make someone jump off the ledge. Doesn't really bother me so much if they don't like me much though. A lot of people in my life already don't like me. I'm used to that.

Oh well. Keep on, keepin' on!

I'm proud of you!

AMP

MissAli wrote:Sometimes I myself feel like I'm being overly happy, but I realize that I'm being supportive for others that need it, and will also hopefully return it one day when I need it as well.

You're totally overly happy... >_>
JK... <3