"And I've tried and I've tried, but I haven't yet"

I fall to pieces,
Each time I see you again.
I fall to pieces.
How can I be just your friend?

I fall to pieces,
Each time someone speaks your name.
I fall to pieces.
Time only adds to the flame.

You walk by and I fall to pieces.

Sometimes I Just Wanna Break Down And Cry

There is something that I call a "burnt the bagel" day.

Have you ever been stressed out and it's the stupidest little thing that makes you break down and cry, making you look like a total pansy? What people fail to remember is that sometimes when we have days like this, the littlest thing that makes us break down is actually the straw that breaks the camels back.

I feel like I have been holding myself together now for several months, and now I am slowly unraveling and I am having these breakdowns everyday. The stress of not having a job for months has been a major factor in my stress level. What happened at my last job and the manner in which it ended has made me feel imcompetent at my job, lowered my confidence in my job performance and made me generally feel below the standards of minimum wage jobs. The fact that it took over six months to finally obtain a new job has further decreased my confidence and my self-esteem, even in other areas of my life that are not related to my professional life. It has strained the relationship I have with my father because I now have to depend on him for all of my financial needs. I have become boderline depressed, sometimes waking up feeling productive and hopeful, but majority of the time I am jolted back to reality and the stress is overwhelming.

I now have a new job, and although I have only been there two weeks I am once again feeling inferior and imcompetent at my job level. It is a new establishment that just opened, so business is slow. I think that sometimes I take things too personal at work, yet I never used feel this way before the catastrophe of my last job. Why am I the one who is always sent home early? Is it because my services are so worthless that they can constantly afford to pick me as the one to leave? Why does everyone, including managers and co-workers alike, ignore me when I speak to them, even if it is important and urgent? Is everyone just stressed out, or are they personally singling me out? Is it just my imagination? In the past, I would have just blamed them - but now, my confidence in myself is so low that I take it as a personal insult.

My employment situations have seriously affected my life and thinking process, but it was only the beginning of what else has contributed so my decline. The men in my life have been denying me, playing me, ditching me, etc. Am I going about this the wrong way? I have no problem with my lifestyle of choosing not to be in a relationship at this point in time. Still, this doesn't mean that I still don't deserve respect from men. Sure, I like to have sex with no long-term commitment, but it doesn't mean that I go around sleeping with whoever comes my way. I practice safe sex and I usually sleep with the same people, people who I can trust and people who I am comfortable with. I am not meeting guys at bars and taking them home, or having midnight orgies with strangers. I don't treat my body with disrespect, so why do men think it's okay to disrespect me?

This has seriously made me question my actions. If I don't feel bad about how I live my sex and romantic life, why are these men treating me like I should feel bad about it? Obviously they don't respect it, but this is what I want. No, I don't sleep with men in a No Strings Attached situation because I want attention or to feel liked. I do it because I simply just don't want a relationship. So then tell me, why am I being punished for it?

I have since decided to conduct my own social experiement and made temporary "rules" to see if I am treated differently when I act differently. From now on, everytime I want to have sex I make the guy take me out on a date first, everytime. Recently, I have been seeing one specific person on the regular. I have noticed that he gives me a more attention and respect than a regular booty call or fuck buddy relationship. Yet, I find this situation more stressful because it feels like a temporary, mini-relationship. I am constantly worrying what he thinks, if he will call, etc. Do I have to be unhappy just to be treated with respect?

All of these things and more have contributed to my present mental state of mind. I am constantly on the verge of breaking down and in a frustrating tangle between attempting to stay optimistic and hopeful, and then feeling stressed and hopeless. Nowadays, the littlest things can set me into a fit of tears:

-Getting pet hair on all my clothes, no matter how hard I try to keep it off. Everyone else manages to look clean and hair-free, so why can't I?

-When my dog tears up the house regardless of my futile attempts to prevent it from happening. It makes me feel like I would be a bad parent one day if I can't even control and properly discipline a dog.

-The fact that I can't even drive to my best friends house because I won't have enough gas to get to work the next day. I feel like a failure to society if I can't even afford five dollars for gas or even just one pack of cigarettes. I keep getting in trouble at work because I don't even have enough money to buy the correct clothes for my work attire. It's embarassing when I get advice to go to a store that is selling shirts for $5 and I can't even afford that.... because I keep getting cut early from work. Are we starting to see a pattern here?

-When my cousin never calls me, unless she has something exciting to tell me about her life. Then she gets mad at me for feeling aggravated and tells me I treat her like shit and calls me a bitch. It makes me wonder, am I being irrational? Yet I can't help but think that no one wants anything to do with me on top of feeling like a crazy, whiney, needy bitch who no one wants to talk to because I am mean nothing to their life.

-My piece of shit car is constantly on the verge of breaking down. It shuts off at stoplights, I have to use a portable CD player that rests on my lap and skips everytime I move, the tires squeak everytime the wheel turns (imagine how often that is), and countless other embarassing problems. It's humiliating. Sometimes I will see a guy checking me out, and then my car will shut off at a stoplight or I will start driving and my wheel squeaks. Then he suddenly looks disgusted and disappointed and moves on. I'm sure I look like a total loser who can't even survive in the world enough to figure out how to afford a decent car. It makes me feel like absolute shit.

On top of all these little things adding to my stress, it is the big things. My family is falling apart. I don't feel like explaining the entire situation, but my little brother is a drug addict who just got out of jail. While I am in New York going to college, staying out of trouble, and working, he is somehow getting all the support in the world. He lies to everyone in the family, uses us, steals and does drugs; everything he does it just disapointment after disapointment. Yet, I am the one who is treated like shit because he finally pushed me over the edge and I now refuse to have anything to do with him. Somehow, that makes me the bad guy and him the poor, innocent little baby who needs to be cradled and loved. Just thinking about it fills me with anger, rage, and hurt.

This constant stress is taking over my life. I feel as though I am no longer in control of my feelings and I am lashing out at people. I have angered several family members, friends, and even people I work with. I don't feel bad for telling people how I truly feel because I have let people walk over me for way too long and now I exploding. I refuse to take anymore bullshit from people. I finally stand up for myself, and now I am left miserable and lonely. I feel like I am in a lose lose situation, because no matter what I take to confront these people, I am not happy in the end.

I need to break this stress cycle. I am stuck in a dark place right now, in a balance between optimism and bodering the fine line of depression.

Manic

I Don't Wanna Give A Fuck

Breakdown