What’s worse than knowing your life is broken and won’t be fixed? I’ll tell you.
Today I was at D’s and ran into a friend who just got out of an involuntary 72-hour hold at a mental hospital due to a suicide attempt, and who needs to restart her entire life over under appalling conditions.
And then I ran into a friend I have a useless crush on. And for the rest of the day all I could think about was how unfortunate I was in my desperately impossible desires for unreachable partners, and how pathetic a creature I was, and how I would never be happy. Etc., etc., poor little me.
God knows my life problems aren’t small, and I have a right to some self pity, especially considering the near-perfect failure right of any attempt I’ve had to find a woman who likes me.
BUT FOR CHRISSAKES how could I be so self-absorbed to make that so important in the face of someone else’s disastrous miserable mess?
If there was a “What Shakespeare character are you?” quiz I think I would be Bottom. Certainly not worthy of Hamlet status.
Be My Blog 
the fact that you wrote all this is admirable…you didn’t have to realize the situation at all. most people wouldn’t. most people (including myself) would not think to put their own misfortunes into perspective that way. i commend you!
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Mmf.
At the risk of sounding narcissistic, yeah… Know that feeling. Dealing with unrequited love and being all absorbed with the glorious angst of it and then blinking and thinking, ‘You know, one of my friends is in a psychiatric institution right now on massive quantities of thorazine and paxil and she sends me notes saying, ‘hey, wnat to trade problems?’
It’s sobering and humbling. And stuff.
And the difficult thing is that it DOESN’T CHANGE the angstiness. Geh.
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There’s plenty of suffering for everyone. You are not negating her experience by feeling bad about your own. And emotions, as I’m sure you know, do what they damn well please — you can’t control how you feel, just what you do about how you feel.
Cut yourself some slack, huh?
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Very well said Eyeteeth….
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agreed.
(sorry,
in addition, everyone’s pain is the worst: meaning, you can only measure your pain according to your own experience, and therefore everyone’s pain is essentially equal (to them).
and besides that, how crappy would you feel if you were the one that got your friend “involuntarily” put there in the first place?
bitlot of guilt there–k thx overreaction).LikeLike
sometimes we get stuck in our own suffering, and it becomes hard to notice what is going on with those around us. then, when we notice, we observe those we care about going through something much more difficult, taxing, debilitating, whathaveyou, and we feel worse about ourselves that we did before.
you know what? it isn’t a competition. you don’t arbitrarily lose the right to feel upset about something that your life is lacking just because you think someone else has it worse than you do. the fact that you even bother to consider something that that shows what a good person you are.
remember….one person’s disastrous mess is another person’s walk in the park. we all deal with our personal inadequacies, shortcomings, and tribulations in different ways. don’t belittle your own simply because you think them lesser than someone elses. they are yours, and deserve whatever modicum of respect and attention you see fit to grant them.
you are entirely too good of a person to be this hard on yourself. it’s true.
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If only someone were here to mark me down as Dogberry
Sometimes I avoid my D’s simply so I don’t see certain people. Tonight I swung by and got to see someone I once a useless crush on, someone who’s changed homes and cars and jobs, but not the guy that treated her like crap and was unfaithful when she was on vacation.
You’re not self-absorbed. You’re just human, and a pretty damn’ fine one at that.
I tell myself I don’t want anyone now because I don’t plan to stick around for long and I want a few complications in moving as possible. It doesn’t make me feel any better.
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Oh no!
You cant be all sad and rejected and hurt! You just can’t.
I don’t mean because you’re not ALLOWED to because there are other people with worse problems. If you take that idea too far then no human being on earth would ever feel entitled to feeling hurt.
I mean you CAN’T be all sad and rejected and such because I’ve never met you but you can still make me happy with your pictures and links and things and the walking mouse icon who makes me hear whistling in my head when I see it. Like a really really old Itchy and Scratchy cartoon.
Plus I liked Midsummer Night’s Dream way more than Hamlet and Bottom is awesome. He’s just misundstood, that’s all. Hamlet’s a tool.
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Subjectivity is a bitch
Hey, just because you’ve got feelings doesn’t mean they aren’t real.
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I gotta agree with burningskyz. If you’ve grown up with a certain amount of bad things happening in your life, you get used to it, to a degree. And everyone has things that make them feel worse than other people.
You have a lot to deal with all at once right now. Compound fractures are worse than straight breaks. Honk honk.
I know you’re the kind of person who has had high expectations slapped on him from a young age, and that you have had some problems slipping from that. Try not to tie yourself up in the same knots, mr. iggy.
*smooch*
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I don’t think I can add much to what’s already been said. So I’ll just leave a pile of good wishes and hugs over here in the corner if you can use ’em.
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