Yeah, I don't have a title for this.

It should be getting easier, but it's not.  It's actually kind of getting harder because I know it should be getting easier.

Feeling okay, I mean.  Or at least pretending to feel okay.

It's been a rough semester.  I wanted to raise my GPA after what I did to it over the summer, but there's a good chance I've just made it worse.  I'm making a C right now in a subject I've only gotten straight A's in before.  I lost count of how many lectures I've skipped.  Everything is slipping again, and I feel like I should be able to stop it, but I can't bring myself to really try, because would I even be able to stop it?  Would it matter?  I don't know anymore.  I don't know if I ever knew.  I don't know if I care.  And thinking about it is just fucking overwhelming.  It's all too much pressure.  There are too many expectations to live up to.  Part of me keeps thinking about dropping out altogether and just getting a job so I don't have to think about it anymore, but the thought of dropping out, especially when I'm getting so close to graduating, also scares the shit out of me.  

Doesn't help that I think my body may have gotten too used to the Bupropion.  I might need to either ask about a higher dose or a supplemental or something.  It just feels not as effective now as it used to be, and on top of that, I've started gaining weight rather than losing it/keeping it off like I was for a while there.  And getting chubbier again just makes me more sad.  Call me shallow if you want, but it is what it is.  

My anxiety's gotten worse, too.  I never used to think of myself as being someone who has anxiety.  Sure, everyone gets anxious sometimes, but there's a difference between being anxious and Having Anxiety.  Maybe I was like this before, but I was just too drunk all the time to notice or care.  But now, it sets off at damn near everything.  I've always hated disappointing people, or feeling like I've disappointed people, which for me may as well be the same thing, since even if you tell me I didn't disappoint you, I'll probably just think you're trying to placate me so I'll shut up about it already.  But now if I feel like I've disappointed someone or upset someone, I can't deal with it.  I have few enough friends as it is; I don't think I can afford to actively make people dislike me.  

And men?  For-fucking-get about it.  I've always been mostly oblivious when it comes to guys, and I still kind of am, I guess.  But when it's been made explicitly clear to me (or at least clear enough that I'm suspicious of it) that a guy is interested in me, I've always been pretty awkward about it, and it's always made me kind of uncomfortable.  But now?  Hell, I'm starting to get anxious just thinking about it.  That ought to give you an idea right there where I stand when it comes to men:  I have to take an Ativan just from thinking about some guy expressing interest in me.

At the same time, though, in the back of my mind...in the very back...I still kind of long for it.  I know I've said I'm done with the whole dating/relationship thing.  And I am.  But it's not easy, getting that bullshit out of your head, after its been fed to you for over 20 years, through fairy tales and Disney movies and novels and RomComs.  You can't help but  feel like the saddest fucking failure when practically everyone you know is happy-in-love in some way or other, and have been doing the normal dating thing since middle or high school, and all you've managed in your life is to get two guys to be mostly genuinely interested in you.  One of whom lost interest after like six months, and the other lasted not quite a year.  And anyway, they might not have even cared as much for you as they let on; maybe they were just better at pretending than the others.

I keep trying to remind myself that relationships, marriage, monogamy...these are all illusions, anyway.  Social constructs that have no inherent meaning.  In modern Western society, the only real potential benefits to marriage are financial, but they aren't such that it's impossible to get by without getting a spouse.  The institution's been a fucking joke from the beginning, anyway.  Infedelity, divorce... And even if two people can manage not to separate and not to cheat on each other, the odds are probably pretty good that most of those couples still end up either bored with or resentful of each other. 

And speaking of marriage...you know, I love my cousins.  I really do.  I never had any sisters, but they come pretty close to being that for me.  But they're both married, one with a baby, and they're all so fucking happy.  *Britney and her husband *Bruce still live in the neighborhood, and lately they keep inviting me to hang out with them.  And of course Thanksgiving just past not long ago, and I'm sure everyone is starting to think I'm rude or fucked up since I keep making excuses not to go.  School is a convenient excuse, because of course there really is always an exam to study for or a paper to write.  But we all know that if I really wanted to, it wouldn't be impossible to make it to family functions or to hang out with my cousin and her husband.

The real reason I keep turning them down and not showing up is that I am too ashamed of myself to be there.  I hate myself too much to go and see how fucking happy and in love and successful everyone is, when I am none of those things.  I don't want to be the odd one out, the only single person people insensitively half-joke with about "so when are YOU getting married? You're the last one left, you know!"  I don't want people to ask me whatever happened with that guy.  Because even though it's been such a long time now, I still can't fucking deal with that.  Sure, I'm on medication, but anti-depressants aren't miracle pills that magically make everything fine again.  But everyone seems to want to think that after time and therapy and pills, I should be okay and fine and normal and functioning.  

And I can't bring myself to let them all see that I'm not okay, and it's not fine, and that I've never been normal and probably never will be normal, and that when it comes to functioning, I'm actually still struggling more than anything.