The Destruction of a Self

I'm fairly sure something similar, though not nearly at the same time, has happened to other people, so I figured I'd post this here to see if anyone understands.. 

I've been a writer all my life, I never realized it til now as profoundly as I now do... (I'm tired, give me a break :P)

Writers are supposed to be a little eccentric, a little crazy, in order to be able to write.  Everyone has their own way of doing things.. And mine led to me destroying myself in hopes of finding sanity.


I started creating my inner world back in 9th grade.. I read a lot when I was younger and so I had an intensely rich imagination. I KNEW that that was what I wanted to do with my life.. I wanted to write stories people could lose themselves in, about characters that had real personalities.. And it led to a very interesting path indeed.  Through the acceptance and destruction of a whole belief system, the creation of my own and the systematic attempt to destroy THAT, through feeling like I was crazy because I had multiple personalities to doing my best to turn them off and find "me"... Through all of it, I was strangely happy.  I finally had an interesting life.  And then I had a friend who was very into science and psychology and I started feeling like I was crazy because of her.  Because SHE believed she was, I believed I was. I mean, we both had multiples right? Except for one thing I realized yesterday.. Hers were self destructive. Mine were creative and helpful and loving for the most part.

I created mine. Hers created themselves.  Mine came out of characters in stories I had come up with, and the world in my mind was lush and rich and expansive. Hers was dark, cold, hateful and cruel even to herself..  But I didn't see that then. I was afraid that I was crazy, that I was hiding from my real self, that I was going to lose myself soon. I did, but for the wrong reasons..

For the last few years I've been withdrawing into myself because all my life I've had difficulty connecting. When I try, friends stabbed me in the back, blaming the friendship problems solely on me, and me being selfcentered. I didn't mean to be, even if I was.. I was trying to fix myself and my problems to be a better person, a better friend, a more stable person.  However, in doing so I lost myself and all my friends because I was losing myself. I can't explain it to those who haven't felt it before.. You do things you feel slightly sorry for and everything seems to go out of control, your friends tell you you're more angry, you've changed, you're not the same person, you're a bad friend, and you cry out that you're trying, you're working on it, but you're lost.. confused, scared. Alone.

You withdraw into yourself because you find yourself so fascinating and terrifying, amazing and exhilirating, and you can sense a danger coming on the horizon that you have to try to fix before it shatters.  You pull deeper and deeper in, and you call out to your friends because to your logic you were there for them and they haven't really been there for you, all you want is someone to listen, someone to care, someone to understand that you arent yourself and you don't want to lose them.  Instead they turn their back on you, believing you to be like the boy who cried wolf.  You get steadily more depressed and lonely and your heart aches and you feel betrayed by everyone.  You yearn for that one person to understand you, to care, to listen, and want to help.  Instead because of your actions, which you don't even understand, you push them away without intending to, thinking of the things you do as tests and trials to see if they're worthy.

Then, when the hour is darkest, you realize why.  Why you created the characters, why they became you, that you are not the most fucked up person on the planet.. That it actually makes sense because your characters are part of you and you are part of them, and to kill them is to kill yourself.

Now to start rebuilding...