There is a written record of my life for at least the last ten years.  Whether it be paper notebooks, emails, websites, or saved Word files most of the events are documented.  I’ve always enjoyed going back and reading about times that have faded a bit in memory.  Seeing who I was then and how I thought.  Realizing how much I have (and haven’t) changed. 

Tonight I stumbled on the record of a strange time of my life in the form of very old emails that I am amazed are still in my Outlook files.  I’ve been sitting here for over an hour clicking through the emails.  I am shocked at how happy most of them are, full of the short little quips I’m known for now, but didn’t realize then I was capable of.  I’m pleased that we still had happy emails, even when things were changing and we sometimes had to discuss delicate issues in between what we should eat for dinner and what time I woke up.  Tonight was the first time I was nostalgic for that time in my life almost three years ago.  I was happy in the weirdest of places, I had a plan and was comfortable.

Not many clicks later I stumbled upon a more recent email from a time that I am still not comfortable remembering.  One line stopped me dead in my tracks.  “I want to yell and scream and call you names because you are hurting me.”  To this day it shocks me that I actually opened up and told someone what I was feeling, that single line smacked me in the chest and I burst into tears.  Six years after my best friend warned this boy that I would never open up.  But some how I did, I’d let someone in.  I’d defeated all the people who thought I could never trust someone, and now it was backfiring.

I don’t know when discussing my mental health and path in life became the “thing” to do again.  Maybe when I didn’t hide the fact that my employer told me to go to counseling.  I try to keep an open dialogue about things like this, it’s not something I should be ashamed of, and it generally doesn’t hurt to have the opinions of my loved ones.  But when people talk about me behind my back, diagnose me by putting too fine a point on past issues, and ignore my rebuttals it all just seems fruitless.  I may not be able to articulate exactly what is wrong with me, but I know what it’s not.  It’s not about one boy, one situation, one change in my life.  It won’t be solved in six sessions or by trying to explain it to people who are content to think they already know the answers.

I’m not against discussions, but I won’t be diagnosed by people who refuse to listen to my side of the story.  I’m struck with the urge to throw up the walls, fill the moat, and camp out alone since no one understands me.  It’s too bad my knee jerk response to this pressure is the very reason that no one understands me.  Almost a year now since I started complaining in emails that I didn’t have a friend to talk to, and I still don’t know how to be limitless.