An attempt at perspective

I am losing my way.

For several days now, I have been becoming more and more overwhelmed, fearful and miserable.

I am constantly trying to square a circle and the process runs as follows:

I know that I'm not stupid, I'm 'intelligent' and 'educated.' And yet, I don't know what I want to do as career. So far, so pedestrian, except that this is coupled with near-paralysing fear of failure. I learned a long, long while ago that avoidance was the way to escape pain. I could not bear the pain of being reminded that I was a failure. A disappointment to my mother and a failure at school, bad at being part of my religious/ethnic community... afraid to open up to others because I would become vulnerable again. I have just realised that twice in my childhood, the person I considered 'best friend' abandoned me in favour of someone else. So, that probably figures somehow.

I know that what I feel is not logical. It is the result of overly-high expectations, a 'grim' parenting style and a feeling of being never quite right, or right enough, through various experiences. I know that avoiding pain cannot be prolonged forever and that it has to end somewhere. Part of my current predicament is as a result of all of this; missed connections, failure to pursue things which could have pointed me in a direction or taken me directly somewhere...

Still, like a child, I feel the pain rise up inside when I try to get over these fears and 'just do it.' 'Feel the fear and do it anyway,' I repeat mentally, with increasing desperation. The result seems to be a lot of time wasted in a sort of inertia, a paralysing combination of fears which seeks to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I don't try, then I can't fail.

I have begun to realise that I gave up on myself at a much earlier age than previously thought - I believed that it was in my late teens that I had envisaged no real future or ambition for myself beyond the age of 21. Talking to a friend recently, I realise how unhappy I was even at primary school. Even then, I felt myself a failure if I didn't get something instantly and so failed to apply myself as much as I could have. See also: GCSE years.

What I need is to somehow un-learn all these painful and crippling habits. I have been denying just how bad the problem is to myself by conveniently failing to see how I effectively imprison myself within the house when I am becoming very depressed and become even more socially isolated than I am already.

Deep down, I think my birth was a mistake and fundamentally, I want to correct that. I lack the courage to commit suicide, and have never mustered it sufficiently. This keeps me alive, but it's hardly living.