x_empath | I am beginning to feel like a pariah

~translated from the Castillian~

I know that many of you do not like me. The smelly Brit practically drowns me in waves of suspicion and distrust every time I pass him in the halls. The groundskeeper is a festering ball of hate held back by a leash one thread thick. The blonde girl from the South feels I'm a disgusting pervert, and the one with the stripe in her hair is horrified and fascinated by me. The French girl can't decide if she wants me or if she just wants to lecture me. The Scot is swimming in guilt, and every day stabs a new hole into her heart.

I can accept this.

What I am currently having trouble with is that the people that I rely upon to maintain what precious stability that I have managed to eke out are now, as a favor to me, avoiding me.

I cannot help that I become what those around me feel. I have tried - oh how I have tried. Time and time again, I try to distinguish between me and not-me only to fail. I feel what they feel - and sometimes they feel what I feel. Where do I start and they end? Emma tells me that this is so because I do not have a clearly-defined sense of emotional self. I cannot define who I am and how I feel when how I feel depends on others.

The _only_ way I can keep even a shard of dignity and definition is to manipulate others. I cannot help it. If I do not, I fear I would go mad. I MUST zoom in on one person to block the rest of the world out. Sometimes, this works out very well. Amanda can speak to that. Others, it leads to disaster. Ask Doug about it sometime.

So I ask for patience, even though I probably do not deserve it. No - I know that I do not.

I will not suppress my power. Suppressing my power again will likely kill me. Even intermittently, for two years I had my power suppressed, and as Marie-Ange likes to remind me, I came out of it a half-dead corpse with a fondness for sicking up on people.

I can feel it all coming back. My range is increasing, my power strengthened by the drugs and the adversity. As my body strengthens, so does my mind.

I do not know if I can handle it.

~translated from the Castillian~

MdlR

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

~translated from the Castillian~

I like truth. I respect it.

And truth for truth - this is all very, very new to me. I don't think you understand that. You're an American, if I remember correctly. I am truly not used to being around regular people. I grew up among the elite, the powerful, and the depraved. I never even _met_ anyone who wasn't financially secure for life until I was fourteen.

None of those modes of interaction, as I am discovering, prepares me for just -talking- to regular people. And you're very much an ordinary person.

Does this help any, or should I just stay away?

~translated from the Castillian~

MdlR

I'm American, yes. I'm probably one of very few people here who can say that they came from a really perfect life. I lost it all because of what I am, but I did have it once and it was good. A white picket fence and a porch swing and just enough money that we never really had to worry but never so much that we forgot to be grateful for what we had. Perfectly ordinary.

You're right, I can't understand, but I can make the attempt. And I am patient, or I try to be, at least on some levels. You shouldn't stay away. You need to learn how to be around people. But I would think that you would /want/ to stay away from me with what's in my head.

If I stay away, I die. If I stay near, I lose all.

MdlR

Is there no balance? There is always balance somewhere. What do you need to find it?

I have no idea.

MdlR

You know, this made me wonder...is it harder to have had a normal life, and lost it all, or to have never known 'normal' at all?

And after some thought, I realized you can't really compare them. Each is a painful experience, something that no one else can truly understand, because none of us have gone through exactly the same thing. Some of us have had it easier than others, some of us have had our mutations manifest in more or less life-altering ways.

All we can do is realize that no one here has led the 'perfect' life. No one remains completely unaffected by their mutation. Sure, some of us have had it 'easier' than others, but that doesn't make one person better than another. On the other side, it doesn't make one person less capable of empathizing with the experiences of another, whether we can understand it or not.

Wow. I have no idea where I was going with this. Reading twenty essays in a row on the Civil War has seemingly turned my brain to mush. Shutting up now.

I am beginning to feel like a pariah

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That was my point.

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