Weakness

I never learned to show weakness in front of others, except for my mother, who taught me from a young age never to expect sympathy from others for some reason that probably stemmed from her own experiences in life.

The defining moment probably came while I was being bullied at school as a child. After over a year of keeping it a secret to my mother, I finally cracked and told her what was happening. That day, she turned into a lion ready to die to protect her cub, it seems. She said: "Aliska, no matter what they say, no matter what they do - never let them see that they hurt you, even if they have. Never show them, never give them that pleasure."

I listened to her advice, and developed all manners of cutting and hurtful comebacks as I tried hard never to show my 'aggressors' that I was hurt. I became so good at it that I wouldn't be surprised to have come across as some sort of heartless monster that just couldn't be put down by the age of 10. But inside, if they could only have seen the bleeding... inside.

In the midst of my worst mental woes, at a time when I was actually truly considering ending my own life, I never looked 'happier', apparently. I remember starting a part-time job when I was 20 over the Christmas period at some bookstore, where I met a 17 year-old boy, or young man rather, who for some crazy reason fancied me so much that he kept following me around all the time. I remember not wanting to hurt his feelings, so I kept bringing up the age gap, jokingly calling him 'kid'.

Even then, he would keep following me around, finding stupid excuses to be around me... We became sort of friends, and he'd take the bus with me all the way to the tube station after each shift even though he lived on the other side of town. Once, as we were sitting right at the back of the bus, I laughingly confessed that I was depressed and actually on medication. He stared at me for a moment and then burst into laughter. "You? Depressed? No way, stop lying. You're always smiling and looking so happy." I replied quietly that appearances could be deceptive, but he simply shrugged it off.

Then came our last day at work, since we were only supposed to work there over the holiday period. He asked if he could take me out to a restaurant and spend one last day with me. I agreed, and in insight I can honestly say that this boy - this young man - was the first and only one to ever treat me in a loving manner despite my inability to reciprocate more often than not. It was all so very simple... and then he gave me a present, a little silver bracelet I've since lost by accident. We had this meal, he told me again how much he loved me, I reminded him gently that he was a 'kid', and that was the last time we ever saw or heard from each other.

I never really thought back on this until fairly recently. I'd been trying to retrieve some memories of my early 20s, you see. The depth of my depression was so great that it had felt like a coma during that time... I sporadically wrote diary entries here and there, but reading them back feels so much like reading a stranger's mind... But it was me. I was this person writing these entries, even if I could no longer remember.

It was never that I really wanted to die... it was the tiredness and the refusal to become an 'adult' in that 'adult' world I saw and which made no sense to me that drove me to despair.

Nothing in my environment has changed much. It still feels very much as though I've been thrown to the lions for a long time. But somewhere down the line I must have found the strength to keep going. Perhaps it was the realisation that no one was ever going to uncover the fact that I'm so weak within, so easily breakable away from the eyes of others, and that no one would ever dismiss me as simply insane, at least not just yet.

In this world, I can use no excuse. Everything I do has to come from me, and I can get no 'helping hand' along the way, for some reason. This strikes me based on my current experience of work. I work with people who constantly use excuses - literally any excuse under the sun - and people respect them for it. I never realised until now how much social interaction rests on the ability to draw pity onto oneself. I mean, really. This strikes me because the few times I tried, people showed no care in the world for my woes, so there has to be an 'art' to make people feel sorry for you, so much so that always let you get away with it, so to speak.

The more pity you're able to draw onto you, the more people like you. It's the equivalent of being the funny guy in the group, really. I think it may appeal to people's need to see that others are worse than them, in a way. It not only relieves them, but also makes them feel stronger or bigger than they actually are.

I personally have no skills whatsoever in showing or pretending to be weak. Sometimes people ask me what's wrong when I'm not smiling at work for some reason, but whatever I say, I feel as though I'm lying. Complaining or drawing sympathy out of others feels so alien to me that it really makes me behave as though I was a liar. It's different on here of course, simply because... hey, I'm Aliska on here.