The saying goes that 'Pain is just weakness leaving the body'. For me, it's more than that.. It's a way for me to hide away, to find something easy to point at, to give my mind something else to focus on, to get my mind to shut up for a while. Pain, for me, is a crutch; an excuse, an escape. Pain shouldn't be that, but it is for me.
It's been this way for.. Well, nearly as long as I can recall. Be it nervous scratching, hitting my head on things (usually things that are quite hard), or even something as benign as gripping something a biit too hard. It's sad. It's a bad habit. It's something that I shouldn't even really consider to be an option. Yet I still do it. I still hurt myself, even going so far as to make myself bleed (Not anywhere that hasn't bled before, usually). I feel bad about it, sure. I recognise that it is something that I really shouldn't do. Yet, there's a part of me that relishes the pain, takes some form of solace in it; a part of me that enjoys the pain while it lasts.
Maybe it's me trying to feel something for a change. Likely, it's me trying to find something else, something more urgent to feel when I'm in some sort of distress. I know I shouldn't. I know that is a bad way to go about things. But I can't really say that I learned too many constructive ways to vent. I grew up being told by those around me to bottle, to stay quiet; to blend in, keep my head down, and be normal.

Anyone who knows the sort of stuff I like can probably tell you how well that ended up working.

The worst part of it, though, is that I (almost) never can bring myself to ask for help, to let people know that I'm hurting without them finding out on their own. I hide behind "Yeah, I'm alright", "Doing well enough", and quite a few other half-truths; I hide behind "Still breathing, so I must be fine" and "Nothing's broken" (which was actually untrue at one point in recent memory); "Still breathing" and others, simply using physical well-being and low benchmarks to keep people from worrying.

I've gotten really good at wearing masks.

I am of the belief (rightly or not) that logic tends to hold better answers than emotions most of the time; and believe me, it has helped. It kept my feet firmly on the ground when I (and others) needed it most. I find easy calm in logic, in programming and puzzles. I find it calming, letting emotions take a back seat as I focus on the problem at hand. This is healthy enough on its own - Far healthier than living life, wildly flailing atop the wild beast that emotions can be. The problem lies in leaving that beast - one's emotions - in a cage most of the time, only letting it roam when moods unlock the gate, or worse - When it careens right through the wall.

Saying that I have had a couple of outbursts is like saying that Mt. Saint Helens sprung a leak at one point. I've done damage to both the environment and myself in the past. And yet, I have yet to truly learn my lesson. My outbursts are far less visible now for sure - typically happening as thoughts on possible future - but I have had times where it was less internal; where I feared it coming out. It ranges from something as (relatively) harmless as screaming at people, breaking something (minor or not; I broke a lot of pens when I was younger), or even just making a lot of senseless noise. Harmful as those can be, they are relatively harmless compared to some of the darker things that have come to mind.. And that's what scares me. The part of me that is willing to dish out slow, painful torture; the part that would be willing to mutilate the shell it resides in, to dig a knife into fatty flesh to cut it free.. It's the part of me that scared me the most when it drifted from harming just myself or others I had no access to; when it gave me an image of Runac, curled up and crying after her ears and tails were cut off; disfigured, mutilated. I try my best to keep that part of me locked away, chained down and muzzled to prevent it from speaking of things that would seem to many to be naught but poison. With it, regrettably, I have also trapped many of my other emotions; things that I should listen to, being perfectly reasonable teachers that have valuable lessons. Instead, I opt to listen to mere shadows of them; speaking at a whisper instead of the full, beautiful harmony that they are capable of.
Perhaps worst of all, I have taught myself, trained myself to associate that monster - that horrible creature that would leave me bloodied and crippled and all others around me in pain - with uncontrolled emotions overall. And so, they all get pushed back; only coming up as some lesser form or, more often and far worse, as some form of pain; sorrow, grief, regret, guilt.. And then the poison starts to seep into my thoughts, twisting what might otherwise be healthy (and quite temporary) emotions into anger, loathing, hate.. Most, if not all, aimed at myself. From there, the reaction feeds itself, spiraling down and dragging with it the good that I try to find in things. I reach for it, I see the faint glimmer of happiness.. Then, all too quickly, it is twisted, turned away.. Leaving me the shadow, the dark side, the "You could have done so much more" to the "I did pretty well". It tries to smother me, to blot out what little light I found. And, far too many times, I find myself too weak to fight it.. Perhaps even just letting it happen; blinding myself to the problem by passing it off as just venting. I've gotten better, to be sure.. But I still have yet to really manage to stop it completely.
Sometimes it even just appears from nowhere; the spark being nothing more than I start crying for no discernible reason.

In many cases, it abates after a time; I find something safe, something calming to distract me, to get me out of that spiral. Sometimes I manage to beat it.
Other times, it doesn't. It follows me, lurking in my mind as I fall asleep.. Or, as is more often the case, it keeps me up, keeps my mind running even past when I try to shut it off. I use physical things as an escape more than I should: Pain, food.. Things like that. Things that either focus my mind on something else or something to just try and drown it out with something tasty.. Or a comfort food.
Many times, I have found myself poking at people with far too much hope, hoping to get their attention for a time; trying to distract myself with virtual cuddles which, ironically enough, can make things worse.. Both with and without, as my brain dwells on loneliness..

I really need to learn how to deal with my feelings..
Typically, I cope; I drown them out with music, food, games.. Even the body's natural "What the hell is going on?" signals. It's not healthy, not in the slightest, but I don't think I ever truly learned how to do otherwise; never learned how to vent safely. Far too often, my attempts are met with things like "Count your blessings", "It could be worse", "Suck it up", or, worst of all, just a generic "Cheer up".. Things like those from sources both internal and external; which are far from being helpful.

Surprisingly, I've found, the best way I have to vent are things like this; writing out something that's on my mind, going into a semi-rant. It taps into much the same sort of calm I get when playing a good puzzle game.. That ability to step back, take a deep breath, and look at the situation from an external, almost detached viewpoint; to look at all the data available and come up with.. Well, something, solution or not. To just let words flow, poetic or not, about what thought is currently running through my skull (along with, in many cases, caffeine).


So, yeah. Pain was on my mind earlier, along with achy legs.

tl;dr version: I'm messed up in the head and you really should read all of it because this is a long tl;dr.

If you tl;dr'd on the above tl;dr.. I have nothing more to say to you. Shoo; to the top of the page with thee!