April 14

I had a bad anxiety stint today over architecture work and went on a rant about it to a friend, and we both realized how stressed I sound. It's made me seriously face the fact that, though I can see myself going down this route, I have very little real love or enjoyment of architecture or buildings; very little connection to this field. And architecture is a field where you have to like or you won't last. Long hours and little pay. 

I know I can attribute some of my present disillusionment with architecture to the absolute stress, anxiety, depression, disillusionment I have felt as of late. I had a breakdown over the weekend and realized that I have been in denial about how hard life has been wearing on me, and about my fear and uncertainty for the future. Everything that has happened since I move, the abuse, and the isolation have warped me and made me a creature who hides from pain instead of living. I dissociate a lot, almost constantly nowadays and I don't have much appetite. A lot of the times eating food actually makes me gag. I feel stressed every day about schoolwork. I have repeatedly tried to break my stress habits with varying levels of success, but I always seem to return to the stresshole with the inclination to neglect taking care of myself. Maybe it's necessary for that to happen some more for me to finally climb out. 

In the meantime, it's painful and I don't know what I'm doing or why anymore. College feels like a faraway thing narrowly connected to me through a computer screen, something that I avoid whenever I feel it's right and possible to. 

I don't know. I've developed a worsening phone addiction, my isolation is growing and spreading and I don't know how to break it. I have so many expectations of myself and no clear path to fulfill them, and I'm undergoing an identity crisis about the personalities I harbor. I feel confused and disoriented about everything. What I want, who I am. When I feel like I have a foothold it disappears before a larger problem. 

What's really at stake here? My future is at stake. My career, mainly, because of college. But also my mental health future, my social future. And looking further down the line, what my future might be; a relationship? a family? what hobbies would I have? What, if anything would my future be? 

I feel profoundly disconnected about it but also feel that it's all of utmost importance. When I think about it that way, absolutely everything is at stake right now and for the next couple years, and I hate the thought of that. I feel I've finally started thinking a bit more of who I am and want to be but this brings a new wave of dissociation and anxiety. I've realized I must have some actual memory loss issue because I forget resolutions I made so fast - as if rhey never happened. And things in the past that were so important to me- gone. It's like my brain is working against me. I feel so confused and filled with dread - I hate morning studio, waking up to that makes me feel so awful in the mornings. These last couple days anyway, ever since thursday or friday ish. 

God, what am I even going to do in the future? Can I even work a job like this? Do I even want to? I can't rely on my parents forever, I resolved that I want to be independent. But independence feels so daunting... 

I take this too seriously. I know I'm overthinking it severely compared to others my age. My daily reality is filled with anxiety nowadays, I feel I have schoolwork I can never catch up on (in reality anxiety makes it so unpleasant to work I end up having low productivity) and art I must make (I'm going through a late bloomer phase of social media anxiety and existential questioninn of my content as I become more serious about having a presence online) and just general INSECURITY about my life and ME and who I am and who I can be and what I can do. I'm confronted hugely by my awful social anxiety. I was taking more steps to talk to people at the beginning of quarantine up until recently, but perhaps some of it was a pretense (and it was largely through texting too which I'm realizing doesn't mean much) and I've now dropped it. I don't feel like talking to anyone except a few close people, and other than that I just want to curl up into a ball and think alone. I've lost tough with other people, most people, I feel like I can't connect to them. I feel like a weirdo, an alien, I can only fit in if I act, I don't know how to connect who I am to the social landscape and who other people are. I feel embarrassed in who I am and insecure always. 

I'm learning to accept that some things are beyond my control and to not worry myself over those things.