Not too long ago I discovered a book. It's written by Tommy Hellsten and its name translates to "You get what you let go of". (Apparently there's an English version titled "Courage to surrender".) It talks about exactly the stuff I've been struggling with and writing about. Exactly. All the pictures I posted months ago - every one of them demonstrates problems that this book helps understand and deal with. Here's a bit of what has hit me most: If you haven't been taken proper, loving care of, you start seeking security from trying to control life. There are plenty of strategies for this. Mine has been "chronic niceness". Here's a bit of a slap-in-the-face wake up call straight from the book: "Niceness is actually manipulating others. I'm buying the acceptance of other people, not by being myself but by offering a harmless package of myslef, the kind who does exactly what everyone expects. Niceness...doesn't give other people the opportunity to create an opinion of a person based on who they are, but the other's reaction is being manipulated by being a way that forces them to react in a certain way: by accepting." Here's something I wrote in January: "I knew people wouldn't like me if I was my gloomy self so I kept it all to myself and put on a smile. What I didn't realize was that by pretending to be fine I shut everyone out." And here's something from the book: "Lack of love leads to it not being safe to be weak. This is the very reason for having to build a shell." "The price of [convincing everyone there's no weakness in you] is lonliness. Loneliness originates from never being able to experience real closeness with anyone. Because closeness can never come from where there's no truthfulness." I really wanted to share this, the book is something to me.

This friday at school I saw a guy who was my classmate a long time ago. We were never really "pals". I had talked to him probably 2 or 3 times in my life. Anyway, I remembered that he was nice and I knew who he was and I was happy to see him. When he wasn't talking to anyone, I walked up to him and just said "Hi. I was in your class three years ago." He was delighted. He told me he sort of recognized me, asked what my name was again and started reminiscing on that year at shcool. I've never done that before. But it wasn't that scary after saying hello. I thought about this afterwards. When I went to talk to him, he didn't know if I knew him or why I wanted to make conversation but he was friendly and polite. I was really excited about this - even if I hadn't had a specific reason to talk to him, he would have been friendly and polite. For some reason I have always thought people would be rude if I tried to talk to them.

At school I was sitting alone in the lobby. I didn't read anything. I didn't listen to music. And I didn't pretend to be texting. I just sat there, observed and tried not to cross my arms. A boy smiled at me and complemented on my shoes. There would have been no way for him to do so if I'd pretended to be busy! When I do that, it's usually because I feel uncomfortable being an outsider and I want to seem like I'm too busy to even notice. But doing just that makes it impossible for anyone to ease my outsiderness... I have seriously been shutting everyone out. Even if it was never my intention.

A few days ago I was feeling veeery down. I wrote a note on facebook about how bad it feels to be lonely, how I don't fit in when I'm with people and how I hate my life when I'm alone. I didn't post it because I didn't want people to think of me as an attention seeking, self-pitying teenager. But I did save it as a draft. The next night I got depressed again. I decided to post the draft for a few people to see because I just wanted to reveal to these people that actually I'm not at all what I pretend to be. I'm not normal. I'm not happy. I have always hidden my loneliness so revealing the truth even for a few people was a big deal for me. I published the draft and closed the computer. The following day I woke up late in the afternoon and went to the computer to see what people had responded. I was shaking nervous when I opened facebook. I had no comments. I didn't have any responses from anyone. At first I was disappointed and ashamed of myself, thinking it was a waste of time writing anything. But after spending the day thiking about the stuff I had "revealed" I realized that pretending to be okay might have been my worst idea ever. Obviously I know one should always be oneself, but I never believed it. I'm an intelligent person — I know for a fact that people don't like depressed people. I knew people wouldn't like me if I was my gloomy self so I kept it all to myself and put on a smile. What I didn't realize was that by pretending to be fine I shut everyone out. No wonder I ended up this lonely! So I decided to start a project. From now on I will try to be real. I'll try to stop being scared of everyone. I'll try to stop pleasing everyone. I can't possibly make myself more alone than I am right now, so what the hell. This is bloody scary for me but I think it's really important that I commit to this. Now how about some rules: 1. I will not hide the fact that I'm lonely. 2. I will not stop myself from saying something because I'm scared of how it might be taken. 3. I will not care if someone is wrong about me. 4. I will be more selfish when it comes to 'peopleships'. 5. I will forgive myself after I break these rules. This journal will be the place where I write how this project is going. If you want to ask me something or just say hi, here's my formspring. http://www.formspring.me/evia (No one has posted anything. Not even after I advertised it on facebook. That's how my life works.)

I feel like this journal is the only place for me to be myself in. I have 2 blogs that I run for entertaining others, 1 blog for criticizing things and a livejournal for keeping up with some friends. Facebook is like real life online (you know what I mean?) so there I have to keep acting as if I'm like everyone else. This journal doesn't have a purpose and I doubt people read this so I end up being ME. (Not playing a role is very rare for me.) Anyway. I ended up finding this blog tonight: thereshopeforallofus.blogspot.com I feel like every quote and picture there relates 100% to my life. I wanted to post them somewhere of my own and realized this is the only proper place for me to do that. So here you go. My life exactly - in picture format: