Full Length Mirrors

Recently, I've learned the difference between feeling alone and actually being alone. Because of my disassociation with people and emotions, I've felt alone all of my life... whether or not people are in my life or my home. I could have someone in the very next room, yet I would feel all alone... like there was no one to care or even feign their compassion. As most of my readers know, I've been having difficulties with the people that I live with for several years now... constant stress, betrayal, and theft. Recent events led to the removal of these people from my home... the tension had grown so immense due to the constant discovery or more thefts, that I finally snapped and a physical altercation arose. I've been living in this house completely alone for almost two weeks now... well not completely alone, because my companion animal is still here. These people had been in my life for the past 12 years and their removal has been both good and bad. In their absence, my stress and the tension have been significantly reduced and the comfort in knowing the thefts have finally stopped has been like a weight lifted from my shoulders. For the past 12 years, these people have been family, and even though they held that title, I still felt alone... unwanted, unloved, unappreciated. Over the course of those years they would attempt to tell me otherwise, but the nature of my feelings never changed. Despite their efforts and my own, I felt alone. Now that I am living here all by myself, things feel different.... I'm starting to notice the difference between the feeling of being alone and, in fact, being alone. Now that the "family" has parted ways, the feigned affection has also disappeared. At the beginning, several people including other family members, "friends", and my doctors, expressed concern and compassion... telling me such things as, "we care about you..." and "we are here for you...". Despite their words, no one has taken the time to check in on me or return my efforts to communicate with them. I find this strange because everyone expressed great concern for a number of years, on whether I would be able to live on my own... the concern was that I would get lost in my delusional world and the hallucinations and neglect would ultimately end in my death. Surprise, surprise... even with my recent return to drug addiction, I am still very much alive. Now that the basis of such "promises" and concerns" walked out of the front door with the people that once lived here, I am experiencing what it truly means to be all alone. I spend my days still locked away in this room, even thought the entire house is empty. For years, I've expressed that this room was much like a prison cell, and it appears more so than ever before, that it in fact is one. I'm not experiencing any increased sorrow due to the lack of warm flesh within these walls, nor do I feel lonely. But there is a difference, to be sure. For all of those years, I felt alone, but it was accompanied with words assuring me that I wasn't, despite my feelings on the matter. Now that those "assurances" have disappeared, even though I never believed them, things feel completely different. Now I understand the difference between feeling alone and being alone.I'll admit, even though I never believed those words being expressed to me or the "feigned affections", it does sting a little to know they were only words all along. Conformation can be a bitter and cruel mistress, indeed. I guess the most discouraging thing I'm experiencing, is the realization that all of those people may have been right about my inability to survive alone. My hallucinations have increased significantly as has my drug consumption and the neglect to my bodily needs has also increased. Even though I spend most of my time in bed, I'm not really sleeping all that well... it's more of a drug induced incapacitation. I've always forgotten to eat on a regular basis, but now even when I am reminded by hunger and distress that I need to eat something, I won't because it involves a lengthy and stressful ordeal of counting and verifying that the refrigerator is closed and properly sealed. I do eat eventually, usually when my stress is low enough to handle the series of checks and verifications or when I am too fucking high to care to count. It is a problem. It's things such as this, which has me wondering if they were right all along. Either way, there is nothing I can really do about it. This realization of the difference between being and feeling alone, has been enlightening. My emotional stability is about the same as before and quite honestly, I'm not struggling with the change and this realization. I'm not writing about it because I feel sorrow or even confusion, I'm writing about it because I recognize the difference now. In a lot of ways, the two feel very much the same... yet at the same time, there are some differences. I guess the biggest one being conformation. However, after several years of wanting to be free and having the opportunity to live alone, I do believe the good out weighs the different. Change has never been something I've felt comfortable with, but this change is welcomed and long awaited. It can seem a bit daunting at times, but the peace of knowing I shall not be subject to more betrayal is comforting, to say the least. I can only hope they're all wrong and that this is something I can do... that I can survive on my own. As much as I crave death and departure of this world, I need to make this work... I just have to.