The first thing that crossed my mind this morning was, "I've lost my faith in humanity."

[Ladyhawk]

I HAVE lost my faith in humanity. And it upsets me.

In the year 2000, I underwent ECT. Afterward, I told myself I was starting over. I was going to forget about the betrayals of the past and live my life as best I could, but there was a whole new string of betrayals.

I came out of the closet as an atheist and my mother flipped. The friends I had wouldn't accept me and told me my depression would be cured if I would just return to Jesus. (Sorry, no. I was depressed as a Christian, too.) I lost a boyfriend who was cheating on me and an online friend of many years.

My last two relationship failures were the final straw. Two of my music teachers insisted if I would just follow their paths, I'd be okey-dokey. One was a Christian. I thought he was a good friend, but he cornered me and tried to proselytize me. The other was a Buddhist who thought if I'd just do good Buddhist things I'd be all right. I saw each as a rejection because, basically, they were saying I wasn't OK the way I was.

I didn't even share anything personal with the Buddhist lady. She just thought I was "negative." It freaked me out that I wasn't able to fool her into thinking I was normal. I really thought I always put on my "happy" face when I was around her.

Now I've run into someone on Facebook that I knew way back in high school and college. What do I say? I'm on disability and my life sucks? There are some very positive things going for me, but in my current depressed state, I don't know if I can fool her for long. There's also the small problem that I no longer believe in God. We went to fundy school together. I have no idea what she believes, but it's been my experience that Christians will not accept atheists. And no, I'm not going to hide my beliefs. I got sick of doing that.

Recently, it struck me that all my art and photos focus on animals and nature. There were only a few pictures of people and they were always last on my list of favorites.

I really don't like the human beast much anymore. It upsets me, but I can't change the way I feel. A quick look at GD these days merely confirms what I already feel.

This morning I realized that getting back in touch with someone from my past has a lot of repercussions and that it's nearly certain my old friend would run for the hills if she knew about my atheism and severe depression. I will hide the depression as best I can, but it makes me hate myself and other people for judging, judging, ALWAYS judging.

I really hope we're right that it's not my fault, because if it is, I've wasted my entire life. I've tried hard to pull myself up by my own bootstraps, but no effort was good enough. I wasn't good enough. I fucked up.

People are social animals, but I'm so afraid of them, I stay in my apartment and get more and more depressed. It doesn't help that I don't have the energy to expend (been suffering from hypersomnia).

People freak me out and I don't know how to fix that.