I can't remember when I was this depressed last.

My poor state of mind is compounded by the fact that I'm sick with flu. I rarely ever get sick. It's been years before I went down with smallpox this January. When I'm sick, I'm out of comission for a while.

It has, however, been a transformative experience. I guess, being sick reminded me that I'm not immortal. It forced me to take a good hard look at the way I am and the way I do things.

I used to think myself a lot of good things, but what it comes down to is that I've been trying hard to preserve a good image of myself, because without it, I'm a terrible person - and it terrifies the shit out of me. AnSionnachRua once remarked that manipulative people sometimes seek support to maintain the image that their consciousness has a hard time accepting. I'm afraid I am such a person.

I thought myself sage. Turned out, I was just a smart-ass pain in the ass who can't stop preaching his "truths" because he can't reconcile living with them himself.

I thought myself a caring and kind person. Turned out, all this time I was mostly in love with the idea of helping someone, of leaving a mark in somebody's life.

I thought myself mature and sophisticated. Turned out, I was more infantile than people I accused of being so, fully of petty issues that don't get resolved because I have such a hard time facing my flaws.

I yearn for female attention, yet I can't start treating a girl like a person. In my head, it's always one-sided. I can imagine thousand ways of how she can take care of me, and I can imagine a thousand ways of how I help her go through something. It's never us spending time together to any meaningful degree.

I keep dreaming of people coming to my side and staying there as friends, lovers or mentors. I never gave a thought of why that would even happen. I was always alone, with no skills to support a conversation and a huge barrier before opening up. The only girl to ever push through it, I treated like shit a lot of the time - a lot more than she deserved. Why the fuck would people stay in my life if this is as much as I can give them?

Yeah, I'm plenty clever. People remark about it all the time as if it, by itself, is a gift. What good does it do me to be clever if there's fuck all I can apply it to? Sure, I can study shit. I can study like crazy. I once learned Latin grammar in an evening and the whole of ancient culture in three hours before the exam. I can do all this crazy shit... for what? I can't even do basic shit life requires of me. I can barely take care of myself, for fuck's sake!

Best I can do is remark at how wrong people are about something and easy it is to fix it. I have the solution a lot of the times. What use is there for it when people aren't even going to lend an ear for a minute because they think I'm a loon? I've managed to push away everybody because I'm so terribly uncomfortable being sincere and honest with someone face to face. No fucking wonder I'm alone.

I'm struggling to come up with feeling anything remotely human. Most days, I have to engage memory to produce meaningful emotional response. Shit, it's no wonder people can't trust me: I look like a fucking Terminator on the outside: emotionless hunk of flesh that sometimes can reproduce superficial human traits. The days I can engage in anything resembling meaningful human contact are few and far between. Most of the time, I'm being my smart-ass self and can't keep my mouth shut for people I care about.

Worst yet, I'm probably reciting some of the most common human problems and anxieties thinking I'm so special that only I ever have it. Because other people can't possibly go through the same shit and not fall apart, right? Or is it me that's so fucking fragile and sensitive that even the slightest breeze make me fall off my legs?

But, here it is. I'm flowing through the most alien world. It's bizarre, batshit-crazy. People are mean, selfish and self-centered. Doing things takes so much effort... "Welcome to the world, kid", huh.

But there's so much more to that... So much more. I can't even begin to tell you.

Fuck.

I don't have money for therapy. I live off the money my parents send me, barely making 2k a month on my own. I can't talk to them about any problems that I have. I'd rather shoot myself than talk to them about anything personal again. Hell, I'd rather shoot them than talk to them - that's how bad it is. But they're your parents and-- Fuck you. You don't know what I've been through. You don't know the kind of mental acrobatics I had to perform not to jump off a fucking roof.

Matter of fact, I don't have therapy. I've come to distrust anything Russian, especially when it comes to interacting with the inner world. I can't be open with people who have done nothing but hurt me so far.

So, I'm digging my own roads, building my own housing, hunting my own food. All by myself. 'Cause there's no one else around to even try to take the weight off my shoulders for a while.

I'm so hung up on looking for approval that it's unlikely I will ever be a good person, a good friend... or, shit, a good parent. I'm a useless human being of no positive product to the world or any particular person. There's no reason for me to stick around.

But the first thing I'm going to be doing tomorrow is checking Hubski, to see if someone has replied to this. I'm not even sure why I'm posting this. Maybe this bitching is my way of getting approval, because I can't get it the normal way. Maybe I just wanted share the fucknado that's whirling in my head all the time. Maybe there's shit I don't know about. But I'll be checking.

And I'll be moving on, like a good soldier that I am, even if I don't know why or what for.