“if you loved me you would have killed yourself by now “
In the four or so months we’ve lived together, my roommate has seen me express three distinct emotional states.
To say “cry” feels like a bit of an exaggeration, they saw a tear roll down the side of my face the day my sister sent me the jesus rant letter telling me I’d die from gender affirming treatments etc. and I realized she was too far gone for me to be able to have a relationship with her. There was no noise, no whimpering, no heavy breathing, not expression really. I laid there silently and some tears streamed out of my eyes and fell into my ears.
Silly and goofy
Nothing. When I’m upset with him, there’s nothing to interact with. I don’t speak I don’t make eye contact, I don’t react or respond. A frozen gray slab. I sincerely don’t do it on purpose, it’s the only option I have it seems. Angry outbursts are no longer my speed as they were in my adolescence, and hey, I look like a tall fairly athletic black man, we’re not allowed to express anger, the punishments for doing so are far too severe. Crying? It’s useless and will give me a headache afterwards. Besides too much ego for that.Just nothing. Ironically, it seems much more effective a weapon than any sort of plea or outburst.
For years I was convinced I didn’t actually truly have emotions, but now I understand that I was just numb as a response to all the trauma and loss. It took a significant relationship to bring me out of that and it all came spilling out I suppose. Now, I’m returning to form, in a different way. These days it’s as though I’m watching a video of a fire or a waterfall. I can see the thing, I can hear it, I can imagine what it smells like, I recognize what it is, but I’m not feeling any warmth or the coolness of water splashing on to me. Much the same way with feelings. I can recognize and imagine what it’s like, but that’s about it.
I’ve been thinking tonight about whether I experience joy, happiness beyond temporal splashes of dopamine earned from eating, sex, or other extreme stimuli.
I’m not sure I do.
In fact, I think I don’t.
Is it off putting? If you knew someone who can’t truly experience joy would you want to be around them?
I’m plenty of fun, I’m told I’m quite humorous, and I’m good for longer, more involved “deep” conversations, I’m a great cook, an excellent bedmate. I play the role of “friend” to the best of my abilities.
I think I do a decent job at pretending to be a person, and people seem to want to be around me but I don’t know.
I was a man of extremes for a while there, I needed insane, intense and excessive things to be able to plug in and feel at all but now, I think I want normal things like everyone else.
A nice life, cool apartment, fun job, someone to watch movies with.
post script
[“”] redacted by someone with some god damn sense
