People are always saying that if it seems like everyone is leaving you, maybe you're the problem. I can acknowledge that this is probably true, but I can never figure out what I've done wrong. What exact aspects of my personality or behavior make people leave. My therapist thinks I just have bad luck, or that I'm surrounded by assholes, but that can't be right. I always have this feeling that because she seems to think I'm a good person, I must not be as honest with her as I think I am. I don't feel like a good person.

Even if she is right and it all comes down to bad luck, I can't ever shake the feeling that being alone is a kind of punishment. I feel like I'm a six year old in perpetual time-out. I've been sent to the corner, but nobody will tell me what I've done wrong. When I try to apologize, desperate to get out of the corner, they tell me I haven't done anything wrong. That I put myself in the corner. But I can still spot the tick in their jaw when I step towards them.

Sometimes everything will go exactly right. I'll sleep for eight hours without any nightmares, eat a substantial meal, take my medication, and not want to kill myself. I will be fun to be around. I can make jokes and ask questions and be interested in what other people have to say. Steady 95 BPM, no sweaty palms, no spiralling, breaths come normally. The issue is that usually that isn't the case. Usually I'm miserable, and nobody wants to be around a miserable person unless they've already gotten to know that person when they weren't miserable yet.

I want to apologize for being melodramatic, but maybe I shouldn't. Writers are always too paranoid about sounding melodramatic.