Making Sense of Feelings of Inadequacy

I felt empty. Very suddenly.....I just felt an overwhelming sadness. I sat and watched and listened to things going on around me and I just wanted to cry. Maybe crying would have made me feel better but I'm not sure because my body wouldn't let me. I just felt cold and distant and very awkward.

(..............)

I hate the feeling of not knowing what to say or do with myself and often times that just leads to me doing stupid shit. I followed Seth around like a love-sick puppy. Why couldn't I just leave? I hated myself last night. I couldn't even put anything into proper words because it was just this big wave of emotion to me. And I.......I acted like a child. I hugged him over and over again to the point of awkwardness and told him I loved him. I also said I'm sorry and he asked why and I couldn't find the words. What I meant was that I was sorry for loving him and subsequently sorry for acting the way I did. Why do I get like that? I can remember being like this years ago and thinking that when I wasn't a child anymore it wouldn't be the same but it still is. I asked him childish questions in a small voice and he would start to answer and then thankfully someone would interrupt and it would go on as long as possible but I was still there. I couldn't walk away. That last hug.....I just want to cry thinking about it. He was so warm and soft and comfortable. I looked up at him and sheepishly asked if I could give him a kiss. He said no. I felt stupid and broken-hearted and just really.......like, that core part of me is still a child. I love like a child.

I realized that it was past 2 and I slowly walked to my car. I hung my head in shame. I hated myself for being the way that I am. "Why can't I be normal?" I asked myself that over and over again. I got to my car which was parked in front of a party happening around someone's door stoop. A fellow said things to me in drunken French and I stopped him and made him start again in English. I told him I wasn't drunk and that I was going to bed. In my car. He still thought I was drunk which was fine because that would have given me justification to sleep in the car. Someone circled the car in a bike once and peeped in and I stared back. I heard the merry voices in French right outside my car....I mean directly next to my car.....and I was glad they were there. I thought, "You know, this'll make a really great story even though I feel like shit. In a few weeks, I'm going to read it and think I'm pretty damn awesome." That's probably true. As for right now.....well, I still hate myself.

-June 10th, 2007

I felt exactly like that today. I'm sure if I felt the need to, I could conjure up examples in the same vein from more than ten years ago. I know why this happens now, though. This thing is not love; this thing is wanting to be something perceived as better than what I am. I am desperately looking at someone else's culture and wanting to be a valid part of it. By valid, I mean I want my relationship with this person to be equal and more than just an afterthought. I never wanted to be just a fan of music; I wanted to be a friend. I never wanted to be just a student; I wanted to be a friend. I never wanted to be some person in a sea of many. I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings with this person. I wanted us to a be part of each others' lives. I looked up to him but I wanted to tear down that hierarchical structure so I could stop being a kid and we could be equals.

I can read that story and take pride in the fact that I have progressed; I still act somewhat like a child when I don't feel adequate but thankfully it's not nearly that extreme. Today I tried to go to an academic conference littered with PhD candidates that are sadly my superiors in a very real sense. I don't know what I was thinking but I clearly didn't belong there in the sense that I wanted to. I was only there for an hour or so but slowly I started to feel completely self-conscious. I looked at all of these attractive and intelligent young professionals and thought about the way they perceived me. I happily spoke to one of my former professors and as he dished out advice I was incredibly conscious of the things he said and the way he said them. He was being very helpful and polite but I realized that he was speaking to me as my professor and not as a friend. Though it was the logical way of speaking to me based on previous interactions, it made me feel terrible. We're not too far apart in age but because of place-in-life circumstances, I am perceived a certain way and treated accordingly.

When I become self-conscious in this manner, I start to feel more and more child-like by the second which quite obviously doesn't help my cause. Today I felt suddenly awkward and out-of-place like I just needed to flee the situation immediately but at the very same time I felt really needy like I wanted there to be someone to talk it out with.

Everything that came out of my mouth was the wrong thing. The same as before. Word vomit. Inside my head I was going, "Oh, God! What am I saying?! Why did I say that?! Don't say another word. You have absolutely nothing valuable to say to these particular people to begin with but now you're just making yourself look like an ass."

I tried to say good-bye and explain how I was feeling to Z but I think it came across as nervous whining. My self-hatred increased as I realized the words coming out of his mouth enraged me and yet I longed for nothing more than to leap into his arms and close my eyes and pretend to feel love just like I did in Montreal. I don't understand this! Why was that my mental response?! That doesn't make any sense.

Z's response to my feelings of inadequacy was to tell me to have a drink after which he says he's going to a bar. When I ask if that's an invitation, he says no. I wanted to punch him in the face and scream at him while simultaneously wanting him to hold me.

I wanted Z......or anyone really......to hug me and say, "It's alright. Sometimes we all feel inadequate. Just because you don't have any fancy degrees doesn't make you any less of a person in my eyes. I still think you're smart and I value you as a person. Just because you're not a part of this doesn't mean I don't want to be your friend."

That's ridiculous, though. I desperately want to be seen as valid; as an equal. That's not only unrealistic but it's also counterproductive. I want to be baby'ed in order to feel more like an adult.

When I try to pick this apart, I think of my good friend Ben Masters who is in Minnesota now. Ben hugged me all the time when I was having these weird feelings. He also frequently gave me encouraging words. I never felt like he was babying me and hopefully he didn't feel that way either. I never felt like I was less of a person around him and though we were two completely different people I never felt inequality of any sort. Is this because of the person he is? Is this because we met as people in the same stage of life (undergraduate level college)? I suspect a little of both is true.

I wanted to punch Z in the face because his advice was inconsiderate and irresponsible. It was inconsiderate because I spoke of feelings of inadequacy and not fitting in and his response was to mention something else that excluded me. What I heard was, "You should go do this thing alone while I go do this same thing socially." I could attribute the exclusion to a lot of things but why would he bother to point it out?

His advice was irresponsible because telling someone to drink because of anxiety or feeling inadequate is just not a good idea. Some people might be able to handle that but why would you take the chance? Z knows that I don't drink alcohol. I don't know; maybe he doesn't know that it scares me or that it's something I don't joke about. Telling me to go drink alone when I'm upset is like telling me to go find out if I'm an alcoholic. That terrifies me and it makes me want to cry because someone I care about and want to call a friend told me to do it.

I left and walked home in the rain after about an hour of being there. I felt miserable; like I had been defeated. I was mad at myself for thinking I should go in the first place. I was mad at myself for all the time I invested in getting to know people like Z, M, or R because no matter what I can't change the way we met. Ben told me a few weeks ago that I became his friend by "invading his life" and I thought about it and realized that's kind of how I make all of my friends since it doesn't really seem to happen organically. The problem with invading lives is that some people don't want their lives to be invaded and that invasion won't work if there are hierarchical structures in place which we all constantly reinforce.

I've been trying to think ahead to when I graduate; we're going to do xyz when I graduate. I used to tell Matt Bruno that we'd have brunch together someday. Will we really, though? I'm scared we won't. I'm not Matt Bruno's job anymore so he doesn't care about me. Graduating doesn't mean I will automatically fit in with educated people. It also doesn't mean my relationships with people will change just like that. It's not impossible but it's just not likely. Should I give up then? Should I just lose touch with these people and move on? I don't want to because I find value in my relationships with them. I feel like I have to invade lives in order to get people to understand that I am worthy of friendship; I'm pretty sure that this is how Ben and I eventually became so close. If I were not so persistent I just wouldn't have friends at all.

I was so upset that I came home and slept all day. I woke up at 9:30PM and the wheels in my brain were turning; desperate to make sense of all these feelings. Again; sitting here and writing everything out while trying to rationalize it is a throw back to ten years ago which makes me feel like maybe I haven't changed. The less time I spend thinking about something, the better off I am probably. Wasn't that Z's logic in telling me to drink? He was telling me to relax and stop thinking. Well, sorry. This is just sincerely how I am.