I think I need to be a more open person. I’ve always tended toward keeping my thoughts and problems and worries to myself. I mean, sure, I have a blog, but when do I ever write about my innermost fears and feelings? All of this is very ironic since I’m a strong advocate of openness in software and government and other things. I’m just not very open about my own life.
I think the “Who the heck are you?” section has grown a little bit recently. But the main change is that the yellow circle has grown considerably at the expense of the green circle. Some of the bogus reasons I give yellow-circlers when I’m down:
- “I was tired”
- “I just felt really irritable all day.”
Some of the real reasons that I rarely discuss are:
- plain old depression with no apparent cause
- “doubt traps” in which I obsess over reconciling some particular church doctrine with some seemingly-irreconcilable observation ((In spite of my firm belief in the following theorem: there exist no two contradictory propositions that cannot be wholly reconciled by a previously-unconsidered third proposition.))
- panic attacks (much less common these days, thankfully, but still occasionally rearing their ugly, irrational head)
- loneliness
- lack of pizza [ha ha, it’s a joke]
I almost never talk about Mom’s suicide, or about my shorter-than-usual mission experience. It’s all rather silly, given the amazing family and friends I have who would be thrilled to support me should I ever give them the chance. Surely this also deprives others struggling in similar ways (especially the pizza-deprived, who need as much support as they can get) from the realization that they’re not alone in their frustrations.
I wonder how I can open up and stop acting like I have to hide my past and my present, at the expense of my future.