Boulder in the road

Let me tell you a story.

I'm reading a manga: The Summer You Were There. It's tough stuff, and judging by the tags for the story, it's going to gradually become more of a downer. There is a lot of talk of deep guilt, the kind that is not lessened with the passage of time. The main character thought earlier in their school days that their trait of honesty was a great asset, well-regarded by classmates. She eventually comes to learn that people find her a bully instead.

I think of earlier in my life, and with someone who I was very close to, about this characteristic. Brutal honesty, having no filter, is a tool. It can be very important in certain situations. It is not an inherent good. Honesty can be mean, it can be pointless. Pesticides and chemical weapons differ in their target, not their composition.

Since the beginning of November, when I started reading graphic novels and manga in large quantity, I gradually have figured out what I enjoy. I like slice-of-life settings with very few supernatural elements. I tend to prefer stories with at least a bit of queer romance- or in the case of Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon, an interrogation of romance and sexuality from characters who feel at a distance from these ideas. I like older characters, usually finishing college or in the workplace. And I'm mostly down for things that have the nebulous tag "psychological."

This tends to mean stories that address mental illness or alienation from society. In Crescent Moon, one main character does not feel joy or attachment at the outset, the things they do are to play along and please other people. I identified a lot with her through my experience with anhedonia. The two main characters sharing an estrangement from heteronormative society, also aren't 'fixed' at the conclusion. They find a way to move forward together, whatever that ultimately will mean.

These days I say "I'm empty inside and that's okay." Treatment reduces my anhedonia, but I also end up in a lot of difficult social situations when asked how I feel. I either lie unconvincingly, or be honest about it and create an imbalance where other people feel guilt.

Yes, okay, I understand we could go do something else, but that's less fun for you (all) and the same lack of anything for me. One of my most profound senses of dread is when I feel I am in the way. This can be physical, like in a sidewalk or having pulled into an intersection without room to clear it. It is more often social- that my ambivalence in a lot of things becomes highlighted. My ambivalence is in part trying to be accommodating to others- I'll like this movie as much as most others, please just select what you want most. People try to accommodate to me back, and I feel terribly, terribly exposed and visible. Visibility, not an inherent good either.

It's not that I want to disappear. Nor do I want to be undistinguished, never noted for being good at anything. I simply want other people to understand that however maladaptive my people-pleasing can be, I am trying to be gentle with people. This causes me a lot of angst, because hypomanic episodes make me un-gentle with people. Some people get to know me and like me in hypomania, then realize at baseline I don't resemble that person in some key ways. I'm not hypersexual, I'm barely even distinctly sexual. I'm not outrageous. And I'm not pushy, at least not at thirty-four. The rod of tension driven through my heart is that I believe I am punished by people for having a mental illness, but also understanding that they are often right to feel the way they do about how I have acted.

That's not neatly resolvable, and it creates a lot of ambiguous grief. Driving people away because of some core aspect of my personality, a bad fit, okay I get that! Driving people away because of a mental illness I spend so much time try to get a handle of?

It's devastating.

Artemis