If You Are Sincerely Seeking My Company ... Please Don't Judge Me. [Migrated Post]

If I know the person who’s reading this blog is decidedly nonjudgmental and cared enough to sift through my every word, stripped of his/her layers of pretension and pride we’re so used to putting on,  this would’ve been the meeting point where we find common grounds, enjoy our time, and leave the rest of the world behind.

It’s positive.

I want positive vibes, because I’m scared of people complaining, “Why do you have to be so negative all the time?”

Each time I have to have a human interaction, I have to summon up this courage and confidence I never have, to be perfect first, this mask, so that others can live in harmony and leave me alone.

But that’s the thing. You can’t be left alone if it’s authentic positivity.

The moment someone gets close to me, I immediately hold my guards up just in case I get disappointed once they find something they don’t like, or just something different for them to judge about. And this air of negativity stems from the deep-cut memories I’ve shared with my family. My family is my whole world, they don’t know just how much all of them, together, means to me. I love them so much I fantasized so many times about never being born just so I wouldn’t have to go through all this pain and suffering. It’s clear that they love me the most as I’m the youngest and the only daughter of the bunch, but how can they say they love me if they act the way they’ve always acted with each other?

How can I reach out to the world when I don’t have the love of my life together, safe and securely fastened?

Thing is, real relationships don’t grow when you’re not being real. Whether it’s not being real with yourself or with others. I hate the idea of needing people to go out their way and peel through the layers of my onion. I hate that so much, I pushed myself to be the one reaching out during my year of depression. So much so that other areas of my life collapsed.

And now, married and 26, I’m still recovering from the suicidal thoughts and chronic bouts of depression … and nobody knows about it, imagine how much worse it feels when even your own family doesn’t acknowledge the fact that you’re mentally ill. 

I have to pretend like I’m “normal” all the time, where I come from, a normal girl of my background and status is a happy-go-lucky girl with a simple mind, a happy heart, plus a certain level of social standing. 

I couldn’t list enough reasons for me to feel blessed for just being alive today. I even know people who are worse off than me in the eyes of the general society, and that has been used as an attack for me to stop “complaining”. Yes, I can just keep lying to myself and just “buck up” and keep minimizing my problems like they don’t matter so much they don’t need to be resolved. It has been going on for at least seven years now, but it must stop. Because the one who has been complaining all my life is not me, but someone else in my family, a group of people who are individually unheard, unappreciated, unloved.

Judging acquaintances think I don’t want to have kids now for shallow reasons, but again, that’s because shallow relationships aren’t uncommon today. I keep a barrier to distance myself from them because I know they would talk the moment I spill my negative beans. This burden is something that my husband has to carry every single day, and I’m scared that my depression gene has to get passed down to our smart and lovely kids. I know they will be good kids, but they don’t deserve my burden.

This is the moment in my life when I couldn’t bear the pain alone anymore. I have been pondering seeking professional help for years since my first bout of depression. But they come at a high cost, and I didn’t have insurance back then. Now that I’m married, I’m blessed to have such an understanding husband that would support my healing so that we can move on with our lives and simply get unstuck.