Haven’t been going much of anywhere for the last several days.  Anymore I am fine with just staying home, chatting with friends online or over the phone, reading online articles, and sleeping.  I sleep more than I probably should.  But I actually enjoy sleep anymore, as strange as it sounds.  In the early years of my mental illness, I used to have really bad nightmares several nights a week.  Sometimes I’d wake up in a panic and drenched in sweat.  Sometimes I’d wake up to muscle cramps.  A few times I was so scared by my dreams I would just cry.  I haven’t cried over anything for almost fifteen years now, not even my grandparents’ funerals.  It’s almost like the horrors and terrors of the early years of mental illness killed a small part of my humanity.

I admit to having a hard time dealing with strong emotions.  I don’t show much sadness anymore even when I wish I could break down sobbing.  I know, it’s not manly to sob or feel much of anything.  I do feel a lot of frustration and even anger toward stupidity, rudeness, hypocrisy, and people who have no empathy or compassion.  As strange as it sounds to most people, I don’t even know when someone loves me unless they flat out say they do.  I know how to feel love toward others and I attempt to send it out the best way I know how usually to have it rejected.  But I really don’t know how to tell that someone loves me.  Of course this lack of basic ability to read emotions murdered my romantic prospects before they had a chance to get rolling.  I haven’t been on a date in well over ten years.  I accept the fact that I probably never will be able to date or have a romantic interest grow into anything besides a silent interest and secret admiration simply because I am unable to read other’s emotions.  It was a very tough truth that took me until I was almost thirty to accept about myself.  I know what it like to feel love towards others, I just don’t know how to tell when others love me back.