When I worked for my dad, I missed a lot of days. It started as severe depression, then later it turned into habit. I would gather myself, come back, work for a few weeks, then fall off again and miss days at a time, staying in bed most of the time. I would miss days without calling to let anyone know, I would miss crucial days when other people needed to be off. It got so habitual that I was afraid to apologize when it did happen, because I feared it would just keep happening forever.

I got so used to feeling guilty about it that I could no longer feel genuine  emotional sorrow, only mental guilt. My dad means so much to me, and I knew I was letting people down, especially my dad, but in order to deal with the guilt I must’ve hardened my heart. I tried to feel the genuine emotions that involved wanting to come through for the people I worked with and cared about, but I couldn’t put the pieces together. I felt like I was no longer capable of sorrow and started comparing myself to terrible people on TV like Casey Anthony, people who have no heart, sociopaths who do terrible things.

I no longer work there, and have started to find healing, and to work on the emotional problems that caused me to act in the ways I did…I realize the job was a terrible fit and a main cause of my stress (I was trying to be a salesman when I’m an introvert).

In the days I’ve been off, I’ve found myself, realized I am not numb to feelings. But every once in a while I will see something on TV or think of something that makes my heart harden up again.

Everyone thinks Kate Gosselin is such a bad person for having her kids on a reality TV show. They say she is a terrible mother and a selfish, irresponsible person. When I was working for Dad, I couldn’t watch anything with Kate on it because I felt like I was just as bad as she was. She came to reflect everything I saw in myself but didn’t like. When people spoke badly about her, I felt they would probably speak just as bad about me when I wasn’t around.

Well, I saw Kate Gosselin on TV this morning doing an interview and it made my heart harden back up again. I guess I’m reminded of my mistakes and am hardening up in defense. I’m feeling that numbness again…I wanted to cry but no tears would come. I started feeling like a terrible person again, like my heart was seared with guilt and I might as well get used to being a bad person.

It hurts because I used to be such an emotional person. Whenever I hurt someone or did wrong, I would feel it deep down and give a genuine, heartfelt apology. And after I first accepted Christ and became a Christian, my hearts desires changed so that I was more inclined to do good instead of bad.

So it hurts that not only I have trouble feeling any emotion, but also that I feel like I’m such a bad person, when above all I want to do good things.

Ah…I definitely need to see a counselor more than once every two weeks.

-Matt