jd yates

I HATE PEOPLE! ESPECIALLY THE ONES THAT CAUSE MY PROBLEMS! I JUST HOPE I SLEEP TONIGHT! THANKS BRETT!

I think I’m going to have another nervous breakdown!

I’ve got so much going on in my life, I think its taking my attention away from more important things, but my mind is so oriented to trying to help others its hard for me to concentrate on anything else when my attention is consumed by those others that need my help for whatever reason.

I think I’m feeling this way because I haven’t really set up a strong support system for myself. I haven’t because I habitually internalize all my own problems and have never had so much that I needed someone else to help me through them (if I did, I wouldn’t let them help me for the sake of my own pride. I would just have ANOTHER nervous breakdown).

I am writing this diary entry, not for the purposes of drawing sympathy from anyone that reads it (pride, again!), but to try to get my feelings out in the open in the hopes of feeling the least bit better or able to handle the things that plague my life currently.

Just to clarify, my previous comments regarding lack of support system do not currently apply. I have one person, whom I know is there for me 150%, but I find it hard to make my feelings or hardships known to them because of my previous lack of support, I don’t know how to open myself up that freely.

I am going to write about my problems and try to explain them in the most organized fashion possible, and without disclosing any names for privacy purposes. Here goes:

Someone I consider to be one of my closest girlfriends might be very sick. When she and I met over a year ago, we clicked perfectly, and ever since we have been huge parts of each other’s lives (even though, since I’ve been out of school we’ve drifted apart, I still love her to pieces). She is a wonderful, sweet, and caring person who has always tried her best to be there for me, even when I really didn’t let her in as much as she would liked to have been. Right now nothing is for sure, but according to the doctors, she is in the 99th percentile of having cervical cancer. This is horrible for her because if any operation has to occur there is a very good chance it would take away her ability to have children. She is beyond emotionally distraught, and it’s very hard for me to be there for her because as a guy (and a person who never really plans on having children) I can relate to those specific issues. I try to be there for her as best I can, but its hard and I feel like I should be doing a better job, but just don’t have the time because everything bad seems to be happening at the same time.

Next comes someone who I have worked with for a year and a half and think of as the sister I never had. Prior to that I only knew her as a name and picture in the yearbook, but after I met her she permanently imprinted herself in my life. We’ve had our good times and our bad, but she’s always been a great source of energy and fun. I’m having trouble relating to her problems for the same reasons I cant relate to the previous ones…they are just girl things! She has an ovarian cyst and she has to live with it for at least 2 more weeks before she can get the biopsy done, then wait some more to find out if its benign or malignant. She’s scared and doesn’t know how to cope, couple that with her family history of cancers and she’s got good reason to be scared. On top of that, she is having a very hard time letting go of a previous relationship that is over in every sense except sexually, but she refuses to see it because she cant bear to let go of it. It wasn’t the greatest relationship I’ve seen in my life, but she really had feelings for this guy, and now he’s effectively keeping her at arms length so that he can still use her for what he wants, sex. He strings her along, playing this act of “I still love you, I don’t know what I want, we might still get back together” which causes her to harbor a hope for the relationship and is the reason that she cant let go of him. She complains that everything she sees reminds her of him…this is only because she cant get rid of the sexual side of the relationship and therefore will never lose the emotional attachment that came with the rest of it. Regarding that issue, there is nothing that I can say to her that will make her realize that this guy is a loser…she is slowly coming to terms with the fact that he only wants her for sex, but still wont get rid of him because she is so sex driven herself she cant see how she could live without it! How can I turn this girl away from the man she loves, and will continue to love until they stop having sex if she wont stop having sex with him? This is me, continuing to feel helpless to solve others problems.

On to the next one…

I have another girlfriend whom I have grown FAR apart from because of stories too numerous and ugly to tell, but really through no fault of hers or mine. She’s due to have what was supposed to be my godson (yet another long and ugly story) any day now. That in and of itself is too much for me to handle. I’ve never personally known anyone my age that has a kid before, much less one that I would see all the time and hopefully be a part of its life. I say hopefully because I haven’t been able to get her to return my phone calls, and as a mentioned before, I’m pretty sure that I’m no longer the godfather. I guess I will just have to wait and see how that turns out, but suffice to say; I’m sufficiently freaked about it.

Another thing that had troubled me until very recently was that two of my closest friend (both members of the crew) were mad at each other because of some stupid high school bullshit about a girl. While the issue itself wasn’t that big, it got blown out of proportion by some very immature girls and was escalated into something that could have caused problems for a very long time. Fortunately, I can quit worrying about it because the two guys came to their senses and realized how juvenile and gossipy the whole thing was and just made up. This means that I can look forward to a semi-peaceful weekend, as opposed to the turmoil that I had to look forward to before.

The next problem facing me, and one that is frankly more tangible than any of the others is the fact that I am just about out of money. Where I work, I make almost twice as much as any of my friends, but I depend on logging at least 20 hours a week. Lately, due to new management, we have been closing an hour early every day, which for me is effectively a 20% pay cut. I am having trouble dealing with this AND pay an exorbitant amount for the ability to drive because my current vehicle sucks gas, and has a lien against it, and requires hella maintenance. I don’t know what to do about this other than go get a second job, which I’m hesitant to do because of the possibility of a promotion with my current company. I’m stuck and have already shown my lack of ability to help others, but how could I have expected to help them if I cant even help myself. At least I can still show off my prowess at self-diagnosis, but it obviously does me no good since I cant fix any of the problems.

Now onto the biggest trouble I am currently experiencing. This is the thing that has happened most recently and seems to be the ANVIL that broke the camels back. At half past nine last night I received a call on my cell phone. It was a close friend of mine whom I knew was experiencing great hardship with his parents. Little did I know at the time how far it had gone. When I picked up the phone I was greeted by his voice but sounding almost frantic. He informed me that his parents had taken him to a mental hospital because they said that’s where he belonged, not at their house, and left him there with nothing and that he needed me to come pick him up. I had no idea how to react. I couldn’t possibly be the one that left him there, but I couldn’t exactly open up my house to him either because of the plethora of actions that opens up to his parents to take against me. After consulting
m
y family, they told me that I should at least go out there so he wouldn’t be by himself and that we would figure something out.

A conversation between my parents and his revealed their reasoning for taking him to a mental institution. Basically it boils down to: 1) they think he is on drugs (I’ve never seen the kid do a drug in my life). 2) They think he is going to businesses and having them charge his debit card and taking the cash and using it to buy drugs (once again, not to my knowledge). 3) After they told him they were taking him out of their will, he wrote on his to do list to check the will to see if they had. They found his to do list and suddenly feared for their lives. They took copies of it to the police like it was some kind of threat, and took copies of it to the mental hospital like that made it definitive that he was insane. 4) He had lots of ingrown hairs on his arms, which showed them that he was OBVIOUSLY on drugs (I think his parents need counseling, to say the very least).

After that conversation with my parents, his parents proceeded to call me and inform me that if I took him anywhere but that hospital (where he belonged) that they would hold me personally responsible. I don’t know exactly what they would have the power to do, but since he is a minor, and I’m not, the possibilities scare me tremendously. In another conversation with my parents they also made it obvious that he couldn’t come home (a comment something to the effect of “If he comes home we will shoot him”, these are scary people).

Once it became obvious that he had nowhere to go, it became mine and another friend’s jobs to convince him to stay there, even if it was only for a short time. After two hours of telling him how much better it would be to be away from his parents, and that the doctors and counselors would help him work things out with them so that he could go back home in no time at all he finally gave in. The hardest thing for him to give up was contact with his friends. To get him to do this, I had to promise him that we would all come to see him all the time, and we would bring him things, and keep him company so that he never felt like he was just left somewhere without any contact to the outside world.

Today was the first full day that he spent in the hospital. He hates it, he’s bored, has to sit through group therapy sessions, has been prescribed some pills, hasn’t even seen a doctor yet, and hasn’t heard from or seen his parents. I can’t imagine it, the only thing I can equate it to be is jail, without the ass rapings, and instead surrounded by a bunch of absolute loons! The friend that helped me convince him to stay and I both drove up there to see him during visiting hours. Other friends of his were supposed to come with us, but flaked out at the last second, so it looks to the patient like no one cares about him, like everybody is going on with their lives without him and not able to tell the difference. I feel horrible, I should have put more pressure on them to come. I should have done something. If I had to drag them by the hair to get them there then so be it, but I should have done whatever it took because I’m sure that it would have made him feel so much better to know that people were truly concerned about his well being. No such luck!

I stressed about these facts for an inordinate amount of time, and now feel much better that I’ve gotten them off my chest. I find a prevailing theme in relating all of these things to whomever may read them, and that is that I am most frustrated by my lack of ability to do anything about them, and they may not bother me so much if they weren’t so ongoing. If they were smaller things that I couldn’t help with I might not be so bothered, but instead they are life altering in their proportions and I feel paralyzed to do anything to help them. These are some of the most important people to me, and I cant seem to manage to do whatever it takes to take their burden, or even ease it for that matter. What am I doing wrong, I’ve never encountered problems that there wasn’t something enlightening or provocative that I could say or do to immediately put that persons mind at ease.

I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of problems. Someone, pull me out! My helplessness in fixing others problems is only augmented by my helplessness to fix my own problems. I’m stuck in a rut that I can’t seem to get out of. Am I letting these things affect me too much? That’s a stupid question, of course I am, they aren’t my problems, but it’s in my nature to concern myself with others woes, and to do everything in my power to help, it always has been. I internalize things because I can’t stand feeling like I’m a burden on someone else, but in doing so; I let other become a burden on me. It’s a vicious cycle of nervous breakdown after nervous breakdown. You can set your watch by it. If I didn’t see this cycle apparent in my mom’s life (she’s exactly the same way I am, that’s where I get it from) then I should have seen the pattern two or three breakdowns ago. I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment like that, but like I said, it’s in my nature.

Well, I think I’ve managed to relax a little bit (and without prescription assistance! Woo hoo) so I will try to get some sleep before work in the morning. To all my faithful readers, consider yourself my support system. By giving you the address to this diary, I have given you a special window into my thoughts that I can’t seem to verbalize. Congratulations, you’re my only form of emotional solace, even if it is as simple as pouring my soul out into a computer. Good night!