Work Text:
So, hi. Rhodey told me that this could help, write out my feelings and shit since I can’t talk about them or whatever. So I guess I’ll give it a shot, don’t tell Rhodey this but he tends to be right. God it feels weird to pretend this is a real person, it’s just a notebook, but whatever.
My parents died 3 months ago, car crash. Mom and Howard are gone. I was a fucking wreck that day, as most would expect. Maybe a little over dramatic but hey it’s me. I cried, screamed, hit myself, the typical things I do when I’m upset. Rhodey took me out for burgers, that was nice. I don’t think I told him that though, I didn’t talk for most of the day. Obviously I told him what happened, then I just… stopped talking. Another one of the annoying things that happen when I get upset, but besides the point. Basically I was a mess that day, then I just kinda became numb. Ok well I did get shitfaced the next day, I think Rhodey was just glad I didn’t have any coke, but again that’s besides the point. What I’m trying to say is that I reacted pretty normally when your parents fucking die when you’re way too young to function. But now… I don’t know, I feel like I’ve already moved on, and it annoys me. When your parents die, especially when you’re only 21 and can barely function as is, you’re supposed to be upset right? This was only 3 months ago, the last time I felt anything about their deaths was at the funeral and it was just me being pissed off at Howard for crashing the damn car. I should be having SOME sort of reaction right? Rhodey says that I’m throwing myself into work, not allowing myself to grieve… but I always work, even when I’m happy I work. Plus I’m now the CEO of Stark Industries, so I kinda have to work. Obie is saying that I’m handling everything amazingly, proud that I’m not breaking down like usual and moving on from everything. Which… is true, but it shouldn’t be. Rhodey has to be right, I’m not allowing myself to grieve, but it scares me that I feel like there’s nothing to grieve. I don’t feel anything about their deaths anymore, other than small bursts of anger at HOW they died, but not that they’re dead in the first place.
Ok there is another thing that pisses me off, which ties in to what Obie said to me. I have reacted so much worse to the tiniest of quote on quote “problems”, and yet have barely a reaction to something much more important. Like when I was a kid, I remember having temper tantrums over the feelings of certain suits I was forced to wear, or those public freakouts I had whenever the damn paparazzi showed up. I still hate the paparazzi. I started wearing sunglasses sometimes while going out and that’s helped a bit. Still can’t handle all the shouting, but it’s mostly solved the flashing lights issue which is good. Or maybe it’s not good. Why am I in my damn 20s and having to wear sunglasses on cloudy days or even at fucking night just to handle some cameras? It feels so stupid. There are so many things about me that feel stupid. The stupid hand movements I do, the rules that everyone just knows but I can’t get through my stupid head, the stupid breakdowns over stupid shit. I’m supposed to be a fucking genius and yet all I do is act stupid. This is why I like being high and shitfaced, people like me better that way. Ok Rhodey doesn’t, and there’s been a couple times where Obie has had to warn me about “ruining the company's image” or whatever, but I just seem to know how to… people better. People like me more when I’m wasted so I don’t see a point in me trying and failing to learn shit when I seemingly have it all figured out after a line of coke and a bottle of vodka.
I’ve gone completely off track, I’m rambling at this point. The point is that normal people don’t cry over lights as an adult, they don’t scream at their father every time a piece of clothing is itchy, they don’t freak out when a class they don’t even like gets cancelled half an hour before the starting time and just stand there like their some weirdo figuring out what they’re supposed to do, normal people don’t freak out over stupid shit. What they do freak out over is when someone they care about dies. Yet I don’t. Maybe Howard was right calling me heartless and narcissistic. I cry over things that don’t even matter in the end because guess what, I’m lucky. Boohoo I’m overwhelmed in college, just ignore the fact I’m 15 at a private research university and helping my father run one of the most successful companies in the world in which I will and now have inherited. I’m lucky, yet I still whine and cry over pointless shit.
I wish I knew what was wrong with me. I’ve known something’s been wrong since I started boarding school. I of course had a freak out over the uniforms, and on the first day I asked some classmates about it, if it felt itchy and tight to them, and they just laughed. I think I even asked a kid that was around my age, and they just looked confused. I don’t understand and I fucking hate that I don’t. I feel like if someone just came up to me and told me “hey there’s a word that perfectly describes everything that’s wrong about you” it would make things a lot easier. But I don’t know if there is, I don’t think there is. I think I’m just fucked up. I don’t feel things the way other people too, how I’m supposed to feel. I just feel things wrong, I am wrong. Everything about me as a person is wrong. So yeah, Howard was right. As usual.
And in this case Rhodey is wrong, I feel like shit. I’m gonna throw this away and never do this again. Maybe I’ll burn it. Yeah I’m going to do that. And I’ll probably drink, I hate feeling things.