I’m feeling better since earlier. I went to Megan’s birthday party, and even though I didn’t feel like talking to anyone much, it made me feel a little better. I didn’t have hardly any human contact on Saturday at all. Just stayed in the whole day. Being around people drew me out of myself a little bit today.

You know, it’s easy to blame someone else for your troubles.

I’ve been watching Law and Order, and I keep seeing commercials for Starter Wife, some USA miniseries. I have to say that those kinds of shows make me sick. Granted, I’m a man, but I’m not a fan at all.

Today around 11 I took a bath and read a book and got ready to go eat lunch at the Sir. I was all ready to go around 12:45, when I couldn’t find my phone. I looked everywhere. Couldn’t find it. Then I started flipping out. It was late enough that I felt like I need to let people know I was coming but would be late. I looked some more. Still couldn’t find it. That’s when I gave up and decided not to go at all.

Then I was sitting in Stuffy’s recliner that he let me borrow and felt it vibrate. I had already looked in it several times for my phone. So I took off the back of the chair and found my phone, finally. Too late to eat lunch, but I found it. So then I tried to put chair back together. It wouldn’t go. I tried over and over. I started getting angry and flipping out again. I gave up.

Now I’m emotionally shaken. Why did I flip out so much? Like, flipped out to the point of almost crying. I feel a little broken inside. I’m feeling lonely and abandoned.

Normally, depending on the company I’m in, I try to tone myself down to a level that I feel is “acceptable”. I’ve decided that I’m tired of doing that. There are limits. I mean, at work (for example) I obviously can’t be completely candid all the time. When I am censoring myself to a point where it’s uncomfortable, that’s when it’s too much. I do it to gain the favor of certain people and to make sure they’re comfortable, but at some point I don’t care anymore if they get offended. Be an adult; quit being so naive and disgusted.

I hate walking on eggshells around certain people all the time.

I hung out with some people tonight to watch the Olympics. When I left, I felt a sense of failure. I’m not happy about my behavior lately. I feel like I let myself down. No matter what I tell myself about how I shouldn’t do this or that, it doesn’t matter if I don’t subconsciously understand the reasoning.

The fact is, I’ve been kind of desperate for social approval. I try to prove how much I know. I feel the urge to let it be known that I have something intelligent to contribute to the conversation. I’ve caught myself exaggerating slightly. I’ve been doing the very things that I hated a few months ago. I still hate those things. Now that hate is directed at myself, by me.

What’s the solution? The scary thing is, I don’t know. This is a self-esteem issue, and self-esteem cannot come from other people. My cycle lately has been to spend time with people, and then go a week or so before I hang out again because I hated how I acted the last time. Maybe it’s time again to start using the techniques I learned in counseling. Reprogramming. Telling myself that I don’t need other people’s approval, that I belong in the world as much as anyone else, that I’m okay the way I am. Eventually my subconscious will start to believe those things, and I’ll feel better again.

I have an inkling about what caused my self-esteem drop. It could be a couple of things, but I think I have a good guess at what the real cause is. My guess is that it has to do with what I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think I ever really dealt with it properly, and I withdrew. I need to reconcile with myself.

I need to get to bed. I haven’t had enough sleep the past few nights.

Mitch ministered to me today at Sir Pizza. He was talking about today’s sermon at church, and it reached me. It was about letting God be the underlying support to your self-esteem. He also talked about how not having enough faith is a worse burden than not having any, and that is the truth. He said it’s not worth it unless you just do it all the way, which I’m not willing to do yet.

I’m just not into the whole Christian deal. I haven’t been for years now. I still look at Christianity in general and see something that is fake and unsustainable. But every once in a while I feel my spirit touched by something, and that happened today. It gives me some hope that one day I can have my own faith in God again instead of everyone else’s faith.