#not even in a mean way but i myself am a neurotic isolating person who never reaches out

[skunkes]

i dont mean this in a rude way at all and its more coming from somebody who has always struggled socializing even online but when ppl have asked me if id ever make a Skunkes Brand Discord Server...its like... 1. No 2. asking me that alone is already very showing of us being two extremely severely completely different people

*spongebob flying ice cream truck* this is not me being mean about ppl who do make servers looking for ppl to discuss their own art and interests with

[healthyveins]

A wise person might ask why I even have this sideblog, since it doesn't really seem to benefit me in any way to parade around what a worthless loser I am, even if realistically not a lot of reading of the posts is happening anyway (good!). I think it just makes me less crazy to put this stuff in writing. My brain naturally converts everything into sentences and then I need to dump them out somewhere or it just clogs me up. I don't know. That isn't quite right but it's something like that. Going hyperverbal when I'm freaking out seems to help, especieally since typing involves some amount of concentration and can kind of take me out of the intense fugue state of being upset.

I was talking to someone the other day about the continental hermeneutic tradition and she said that it comes from the same place as psychoanalysis - everything is text, and you just keep talking and talking and talking, endlessly interpreting everything. That the whole idea with like Freudian talk therapy is that you never stop, you keep going to an analyst for your whole life, it's a lifelong project. And I guess deep down on some level that's how I am. Everything is a text, and I always have to be the critic and the author, just talking and talking and talking, trying to transmute things into fixed forms, trying to stammer out the unsayable, trying to blot out the injurious, trying to vomit up the toxic element and retain the good bile, but the good bile spills out too, it all spills out.

I don't know if that's a good way to be, or if it's better or worse than anything else. It leaves a trace, at least. Or it potentially does. I don't really think this stupid sideblog in particular would benefit anybody, but maybe eventually I will write something that could be of benefit to people. By being good, I mean. Already there are people who like some of the things I do.

But it's all just an evasion, on some level. An evasion of life. Spending my time on language, on words, on the flow of consciousness, is an escape inwards, an attempt to get away from the fact that I have failed at everything concrete, that my flesh is decaying like a rotten fruit, that I am vulgar and disturbing and ugly and that there will be no future. Language creates an alternative future, an arid temple of print, a false home for the neurotic narcissist who is incapable of making himself compatible with other people. It offers false pantheons - the shut-in misanthropes who oversee the future, the Dickinsons and Lovecrafts. But real contact with the world wouldn't melt me. Maybe it would, at this point. Maybe I'm already too rotten. But maybe not.

I need to go out and be somebody. Have a life. Every future I can imagine for myself is lonely, impossibly lonely. But that's how it is. There's nothing else. There is no other life, no other self. What's that Joan Didion quote? Realizing like a punch to the gut that it all counts, that it was never a game, that you've wasted all that time and destroyed so much that will never return; that there will be no day of judgement, only the long unbearable task of living out the rest of life.

I don't know. Maybe I can make it work. My teeth are rotting out of my skull. It's disgusting. I've been unemployed for several months. I'm starting to run low on insulin. Eventually it all catches up with you, it all collapses inward and starts to burn.

I'll figure it out. But the future will be something low, pathetic, and lonely. Unbearably lonely. It always has been. There was never another possibility. I am made to be alone. Misshapen, incompatible. Disgusting and off-putting. Inclined to hide away, not to seek out anything new. I am made to be alone and cold.

That sounds self-pitying, but obviously, on some level, this is what I've chosen. I've chosen to make myself this way. I attended to the superannuated romanticism that celebrates the iconoclasm of the total isolate. And that's me, that's what I've made myself, and (as a simpering moralist once said) there is no audience; there will be no applause.

There is no point to anything I have done and there's no escaping it now. All I can do now is keep talking and talking and talking until I burn out, go cold, and disappear.

[armillary-spheres-lover]

Fake Individuation

Imagine this. You’re an enneagram Five.

You feel the need to hide from the world. It would suck up all your energy. You feel the need to occupy as little space as possible, so that the world won’t make any demands on you. You feel the need to close off and keep the world at a distance. The world is just so demanding. It tires you out - physically, emotionally, mentally. You retreat in your cocoon, where you feel safer. You observe the world from the outside.  You vaguely wonder what it’s like to roam around freely and occupy as much as space as everyone else seem to be doing naturally. Then you decide that you’re better off staying where you are. At least here you don’t feel invaded all the time. You remember vividly the times in the past where you felt invaded, or can remember if you try hard enough. It felt overwhelming. It felt like you were being teared apart, dissipating, disappearing. Like you were nothing and no one. It hurted. It hurted so much you now just closed off the entire world out, so as not the end up in that situation again. It somewhat makes you nostalgic, because you feel like you’ve given up on love. But if that’s what it takes to be an individual and find yourself again, then that’s fine. That’s fine, you tell yourself. Rather than reliving that nightmare, giving up on love is fine, you say. So you catch yourself resisting. Resisting to the flux, resisting on giving up yourself again to that person who seemed to demand too much out of you, who spoke with you gently and wanted to make you feel seen. Resist, resist, resist. Resist the impulse of giving yourself up. Maybe in the past this need was almost neurotic and brought you regret. Resist - that’s the way you find a sense of self, almost. What are you resisting? What are you trying to avoid to be impacted by? Why do you try so hard to isolate and find a sense of self? Deep inside you know. It’s because you feel so desperately the want and desire to be loved and to love that it’s overwhelming. You fear you may give yourself up too easily if you were to just give a tiny tidbit of yourself to the world. If you accept feeling seen once you’ll want to be seen over and over again. If you accept to be loved by someone you feel like you may end up being engulfed by that love and to lose yourself in it completely. But you need to resist that impulse, so that you won’t lose yourself. Why do you need to resist so much? Because you would otherwise lose yourself in the flux of reality and people. Because you would otherwise be invaded by the world, pulled in, lose control of yourself, your wants and desires. Yeah, maybe this is all a recurring theme of yours, I can’t possibly know. You realize your little bubble and space is indeed related to the outside world, in the sense that you’re resisting to be involved by it so much. Maybe one day you’ll be able to be involved and touched by it like everyone else. Maybe one day you’ll be able to love and be loved again. But right now that sounds a little terrifying, truth be told... If you were to be described like a lonely rover on Mars you would giggle, thinking that’s cute and makes you feel independent and all, but also... deep inside you feel it’s actually kind of sad, and you wish there was a way to at least keep some kind of contact to the earth.

I don’t know how to break it to you but this is all Enneagram Nine. Throw out the window all the generic descriptions about being a fucking doormat.

From here:

“9’s aren’t consciously afraid of being separated. They are just unconsciously always in a place where they naturally become everyone/everything. The gut centre focus is on ego boundaries and 9’s have a fluid one. This can often cause 9’s to consciously revolt against this natural process and crystallize some kind of separate identity. In a way, 9’s can end up being the most stubborn about exactly “who they are” as they try to keep their feet firmly on the ground in terms of their own ego boundary. So when a 9 reads that the core fear is “fear of loss/separation” they might think, “Hell, I’m the opposite.” 9’s often equate being different/unique with ego boundaries. I often catch 9’s mistyped as 4’s using specific language that points to type 9. For example they might say that they are just trying to be themselves as if the world is forcing them to be otherwise. This implies that there’s a natural propensity to lose themselves in others that’s essentially unconscious and they are fighting against that impulse and desperately want the validation that they are in fact a specific separate personality. It is in our nature as social beings to want our own unique identity.“

What are Fives then? Are they really actually SEPARATED THAT much? Like they were “a lonely rover on Mars” and GENUINELY happy by that idea? Apparently yes. “Oh but that’s unhealthy” yeah it is, from your Nine point of view of wanting to be connected to someone/something/reality. I don’t know much about Fives but if your enneatype is UNCONSCIOUS and its desires are as unconscious as mine as a Nine are, then yeah, they are genuinely happy by that idea and don’t think themselves of “getting over it” anywhere near the future, or ever, for that matter. Is it difficult to imagine a person like that? I guess. Fives are rare, in fact. “Oh but everyone wants to be loved by people deep inside” I don’t know? But that may be untrue in that most people are Nines so it makes sense that “oh but everyone-” and Nineish stuff actually follows. They may want/find love but it will only be in their rigid terms... and certainly not in the form of being liked by people in general or whatever. Having a repressed need to be liked by people around you is just not Five, sorry. “Oh but who wants to be hated/disliked by people around them?” I don’t know, some do I guess. There’s many people in the world not everyone will work like you do. Fives are rigid about what they want and how they spend their time. As I tried to connect with people, I was kind of malleable - I mean, not too much, in that I wanted to respect myself and my space, but I still had very little expectations from others coming in and was willing to adapt.

I felt like I was “growing and getting healthy” as I started to connect with people more and more, and in a way I am, but the main thing is that I’ve been satisfying my Nine desires more and more through the years. Allowed myself to recognize those desires and do something to satisfy them. That’s nice, but that’s Nine. Even an healthy Five wouldn’t be as happy to give away their time like that or something idk

The happiest times in my life where those where I felt connected to reality, to my own life and to the people around me. I struggled to get that feeling for a long time, truth be told. And when I got it, I was afraid I could ruin it. That sounded basic but apparently it really is just Nine. I heard a podcast with a couple Fives in it and it was just mindblowing how differently they operate lmao..... I mean when I first heard it I still thought I was a Five but I was sad and hurt at the idea of being lost in space and disconnected THAT much from everyone and everything. That was Nine kicking in. Fives aren’t that scared of this - actually, they want this. Again, unconsciously - like they don’t even notice it. I did notice when I retreated myself in my cocoon, on the other hand.

I know you’re upset but please. Please. This was all so freeing for me to realize. It helps you so much. Please don’t dismiss it saying that idk I’m generalizing too much or that this can apply to Fives too if fixes and variants are taken into account or whatever. Please stop making excuses and saying “oh but these two types are so similar” they’re not, like at all-

[spectrumed]

3. sadness

Don’t be like that. Be like this, or be that other thing. Be unique, but don’t be too unique. Fit in, but try to be a rebel. Be a renegade, but don’t rock the boat. Don’t know what you are supposed to be? What? Do you have imposter syndrome or something? Just be yourself, but, y’know, sand down the edges a little bit. Be friendlier. Be the kind of person everyone likes. Be the life of the party! Don’t be some shut-in, some crazy cat-lady with absolutely zero social life. Don’t be sad. Don’t burden others with your sadness. Work to maximise the total happiness of your community. A smile goes a long way. Can’t smile? You really can’t help but being a sourpuss all the time? Well, I guess maybe that if you can’t help but stay in a perpetual bad mood bringing everyone else down… then maybe you should just stay isolated? Better stay alone, away from others. You’re toxic. You’re just so damned sad. You really must be quarantined.

I am sad, a lot of the time. Are you? But, no, you can’t just admit that you are sad. Don’t be a buzzkill, try to inject a little humour into the things you say. You can admit you’re depressed, if you do so with a joke. Don’t let others know you’re being sincere. Ironic jokes work the best, don’t they? They let you confess your secret gloom to everyone around, but they’ll never know just how serious you’re being. With a wink of the eye, any candid expression of your inner turmoil can become a hilarious post-modern gag. Are they or are they not telling the truth? Oh, I’ll never tell! And it will all work out excellent, up until the day you commit suicide. But every comedian’s time in the limelight has to end at some point, right?

This blog is supposed to be about autism spectrum disorder, why am I suddenly discussing depression? Well, I suppose that it is time we bring to the table this little thing called comorbidity. Psychology is messy. Some would argue that it is barely even a real scientific field (I tend to think that it is the best thing we have, but I acknowledge that in places, psychology is fundamentally flawed.) You may have thought that you’d get just one diagnosis. One simple label that you can work through and overcome. You’re bipolar, now go deal with it! But instead, you find yourself with a whole fistful of diagnoses. What to hear my proud list of diagnoses? Oh, please, don’t think because I am listing them this one certain way, I put them in order of relevancy to me. I love all of my diagnoses equally.

My diagnoses are:

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)

Agoraphobia

Possible Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Asperger syndrome (AS)

No, I was never officially diagnosed with depression, but largely because, at the time I received these diagnoses, my depression was so blatant that it felt as if I was walking around with a cloud of miasma surrounding at all times. Imagine me as Pig-Pen from Peanuts, but instead of being covered in dirt, I was covered in the funk of melancholy. And whatever treatment I would eventually go on to receive (and still am receiving to this day,) would go about treating my anxiety first, and hopefully, the depression would give in alongside the anxiety. It has, for the most part, though, I still feel the presence of that black dog from time to time. I also got only a half-hearted potential diagnosis of OCD, but later, during a trial of an antidepressant that had a freakishly negative impact on my psyche, it blossomed into a fully-grown attention-craving condition. Turns out that OCD can be a real hog for the spotlight, really not allowing any of the other diagnoses to take their turn on stage. Thankfully, when I got off that particular antidepressant, those symptoms stopped, but it has led me to be far more aware of my internal obsessive-compulsive thought patterns. For me, OCD largely lacks physical compulsions, but my mind is ablaze with intrusive thoughts, and I will routinely force myself to repeat certain phrases in my head to make them go away. The funny thing is, I never realised that wasn’t normal.

Diagnoses are an attempt to map out a spiders’ web of problems. Things come hand in hand. While I’m no psychologist, I can speak from the perspective of someone who has been through the psychiatric process, which I suppose, lends me a certain kind of expertise, doesn’t it? Maybe it really doesn’t. Maybe I’m just throwing words out there, thinking that I could serve a good purpose, but instead all I am doing is contributing to this great onslaught of digital disinformation we’re all suffering under. But I’m probably just too doubtful of myself. I am speaking about myself, after all. I’ve got first-hand experience in being myself. I know exactly what it feels like to own this skin, these bones, this heart, and this mushy brain of mine. I’m not claiming to know everything. I’m just claiming to know about this one sad individual writing this hoping it might allow someone to reblog my posts with the hashtag “relatable” one day.

Anxiety runs in my family. The neurosis demon gets passed down from generation to generation, only occasionally skipping a beat. My mother and I share many of the same neurotic quirks, though, she has for the most part of her life not had it to quite the excessive degree that I have it. I really took that genetic predisposition for anxiety and ran with it. And while I’m the only person in my family to have gotten diagnosed as being “on the spectrum,” there are a few members that I kinda sort of in a way actually quite seriously suspect might also be here somewhere on the spectrum. Still, as always goes with diagnosing, there’s no point in doing it unless the person is in need of some kind of treatment. I wholeheartedly believe that most people on the planet belong to one spectrum, be it an autism spectrum, a bipolar spectrum, a narcissism spectrum, even a schizophrenic spectrum, but diagnoses should be exclusively reserved for those who need psychiatric care. The world is a spectrum, and it’s worth noting that the terms “sane” and “insane” do not alone capture the complexity of the human psyche. A person can appear perfectly sensible, yet at some point in their life, they may have been a real silly little bugger who thought that their pet hamster was the reincarnation of the Buddha. Just as with physical health, one can struggle with one's mental health for one period in their life, only to later on in life feel utterly and entirely mentally healthy. Or, well, sadly in a lot of cases, people who were perfectly mentally healthy may suddenly become diagnosed with dementia. But that’s really sad, so let’s not talk about that.

Is it all genetic? Well, no. Or well, maybe? In regards to autism, I am pretty sure that, yes, it is genetic. While, yes, I do admit that I’m just a dummy on the internet, so what do I really know? And the brain is such a complex bit of mushy meat, so I could always be proven wrong. Though, I tend towards thinking that there most likely is principally a genetic factor to conditions like autism, or attention deficit disorder (and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,) or things like bipolar disorder. But with anxiety, quite frankly, I can’t say how much of it is nurture and how much of it is nature. I mentioned that my mother and I share many of the same neurotic quirks, so that would imply that there is something in one's genes that can make some more prone to anxiety than others, but my mother does not struggle with agoraphobia, nor does she seem to have any obsessive-compulsive tendencies. In fact, in my family, even those that exhibit some element of heightened anxiety, they don’t seem to show any milder symptoms of this kind. I can’t help but feel as if these conditions I gained through that tortuous period of every boy’s and girl’s (and boy-girl’s) life is called puberty. I hate to conform to stereotypes but I did indeed hate being a teenager. Believe it or not, I wasn’t a jock, and no, I didn’t go to parties. I mostly spent my time crying.

The question that no doubt plagues every movie psychiatrist to no end is what kind of trauma must a person undergo to make them go mad? Abusive parents? Abusive uncles? Abusive teachers? Abusive dogs? Honestly, to be an adult raising a child must be rough, considering how any mistake you make might suddenly turn your little babe into a future serial killer. Now, there’s no doubt that there are some seriously terrible parents out there, and that a lot of people have mental woes that definitely came about due to their parents and their abysmal lack of parental care. But generally, how much can you actually blame on your parents? We know the cliché, let’s go sit down on the sofa and complain to our Freudian hack-shrink all about those times as a kid our dad missed the big game, or that time our mother embarrassed us in front of all of our friends. I have plenty of things to complain about my parents, like I believe we all have. Our parents are flawed, messy human beings, of course they occasionally made mistakes throughout our upbringings. But is that nearly enough to turn a person mentally ill? Putting up with an at times really embarrassing mom? No, I don’t think so. And of course, there are some real awful parents out there, I’m not doubting that. Trust me, I’m a fan of true crime, so I’ve heard some real grizzly stories of what some kids are forced to grow up with. But I am thinking that those instances are more rare than they are common. Most people with mental illnesses can most likely not blame their parents.

How ‘bout bullies? Yes, them bullies. Them awful mean bullies that made all of our lives so painful. It’s funny, it seems like every school had their own fair share of bullies, and yet no-one as an adult ever comes forward to admit that they themselves were the bullies. It’s almost like as if no-one ever thinks of themselves as being a bully, even when they are throwing rocks at that weird chubby kid with blonde hair who happens to be named Fredrik and who just wants to be left alone. Was I bullied? Well… yes. But I can’t say I got the brunt of it. I got bullied, but overall I’d say I only ever had it slightly worse than most people. I was still quite tall, typically taller than my classmates growing up, and for the most part I could roll with the punches. If you really want to talk about a kid I knew growing up that got bullied, let me tell you about this kid who knew all the right dances for all the right Britney Spears songs. He was gay, I think. Not quite old enough to have come out, I suspect, but, well... He liked all the female pop stars, but not in that way of wanting to kiss them and fondle their boobies, but in the “I want to sound just like them when I grow up” sort of way. I don’t know what happened to him (or them, or her, depending on how they identify now,) but that was real bullying. Like most folks, I found myself stuck in that limbo of seeing others get bullied far worse than me and being too cowardly to intervene, in fears that I’d end up taking their place. Yes, isn’t school just a marvellous place? It’s a wonder any of us turn out okay.

No, I think that, fundamentally, the problems I have arose with myself. This, blaming myself, is not something that I am unused to doing. I have a long history of blaming myself, that’s really the problem. As a teenager I knew that I was different, and I was frightened and scared of being exposed. I didn’t even really know what it was that was different about me, I just knew that I didn’t fit in. I felt as if I didn’t deserve to fit in. The older I got, the more intense these feelings got. And I started taking it out on myself. I started hating myself. And I really mean furiously hating myself. It wasn’t some casual self-loathing, it was searing self-hatred. I did not physically hurt myself, but I did engage with self-harm. I kept repeating the mantras of “I hate myself,” and “I am pathetic,” over and over again, with the ultimate goal of making myself cry. For a period, I couldn’t go to bed without making myself cry first. I began taking days off from school, pretending to be sick. Well, I suppose I was ill, but not physically. I began failing most of my classes, I only ended up doing well in art. I stayed away from school for whole weeks at the time. Once, when I shame-facedly returned to school some of the meaner boys came up to me and said that they were surprised to learn that I was still alive. They were surprised, but also a little disappointed.

This was a time in my life when I really needed psychiatric care. This became increasingly obvious to my parents, and my teachers. I was clearly suffering from depression. Not just some teenaged angst, but full-blown, wholly insidious, depression. But, well, I didn’t get the care that I needed. Oh, I did go to see a psychologist a couple of times, but she saw no reason for me to continue seeing her. I don’t know why she felt as if I wasn’t in need of help, frankly, I can’t fathom why she felt as if I wasn’t in need of help. I suppose I avoided telling her the truth of what went on inside of my head, but I feel like as if any good psychologist would have been able to tell that the kid sitting across from them was clearly suffering from something a tad more intense than just some common concerns about puberty. At most I was able to confess was that I was feeling ashamed over myself for getting so fat, but it should have been clear to anybody that I was only using that as a hook to hang my self-hatred on. There very clearly was some underlying condition that I had that should have gotten addressed. But it went ignored.

At most I can think to explain this is the fact that I wasn’t “problematic.” Not in the way some kids are, when they’re struggling with their mental health. I did not act out, I did not take drugs, and I was certainly not violent. Even to this day, though I have at many times suffered from suicidal ideation, I am a real low-risk for actual suicide considering my intense fear of dying (yes, that’s an odd combo to have.) So, I’ve come to realise that the only way I am getting treatment is if I actually seek out treatment. And back then, I was just as placid as I had previously always been. I was quiet and introverted, just desperate to get back home so I could go and hide in my room. Many teenagers are like that. And it is easy to ignore them, because they want to be ignored. They just don’t want to exist. When you are desperate to be left alone, eventually people will leave you alone. I would go on to receive psychiatric care later on my life, but only after several years passed. I did have a better time living in my later teenage years, but like with a bone that heals wrong, I needed someone to come in and sort me out. I was sad as a teenager, but I would become really sad as a twenty-something. Hopefully my thirties will be jolly.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Okay, so let me take this back to a week or two ago.

I owe one of my roommates 1200 dollars. My rent is 800 bills included. I make ten dollars over what counts for me getting no food stamps of financial assistance. I kept going to this job, because i was hoping that an opening would soon happen for me to get a job that i had before the closure of the other location. The explanation of this, in order to make it remotely interesting, would be a story in and of itself and would take too long.

I have had a rough go of it. I fell back into an eating disorder this winter, i went to home feeling sick and cold and heartbroken. Every night. I was completely isolated, i never went to anyone's house, i stopped even seeing a future for myself. the best days i had were ones where i would walk around the mall and stare at clothing i couldn't afford. Because the guy i was in love with randomly flipped on me one morning and told me to leave. I felt completely used, and gross about myself, and i just stopped eating. My bus home always took an hour and a half, i was shaking starving and so fucking poor that even if i wanted to eat more i couldn't afford it. I wanted to cry on the bus after work every night, but i forced myself to choke it down. I listened to last podcast on the left constantly to entertain myself. I texted him even though he had hurt me, and he ran back and apologized after, but somehow it was never the same. I'm not even mad. It just wasn't the same.

Anyway, i snapped about three weeks ago. I woke up, did my budget, and realize the reason i was having such a hard time was that i was literally not making enough money. Everything was about suppression and reduction of needs, to the point where i had very few enjoyments, and i was becoming so lonely i was becoming neurotic. And the more neurotic and lonely i became, i feel like the less people would want to hang out with me. After awhile, any attention i got from this guy was better than nothing. If i didn't have someone that paid some attention to me i was losing my will to even get up in the morning. Because what is the point of getting up for nothing, to do another day that makes you sad, with no purpose or friends? I felt like i was withering away, and nobody would even notice when i was finally just gone. I mean, maybe that is for the best, but i don't know. I feel like the initial love i poured into coming to this city has become dark and uncertain, and i miss the early days a lot. I feel like i am always chasing a feeling, that i am whatever chemical combination is hitting my neurotransmitters.

I made the decision to find a better job, realizing I wasn't going to get out of this mess unless i had money to at least rid myself of the basic and constant fear of not having enough. I'm tired of being in debt. So, i kinda did that. I ended up getting offered this job, and i just let myself run around with my money moreso, for the last few weeks with the mindset that i would have at least seven hundred more a month. I stopped dieting (unfortunately gaining back some weight). It's not that i don't need to diet, but i need something to distract myself if i am going to run around shaking with hunger all the time. I can't live on self hatred, at least not for too long.

Then, the covid 19 virus just started spreading, and at first it was nothing, but then i kind of turned into this thing where sickly people are going down in numbers.  And now nobody is going to hire me because all restaurants are closed and the economy fell apart and everyone is pretty scared, i got laid off from the place i work at now, which i feel like it's not even going to reopen at this point. Thousands of workers in the city just like me now have no way to pay their rent, meanwhile the hospitals will likely continue to fill with patients, and grocery stores are half empty, and this is just a small taste of what the future likely holds. So even when this virus comes and goes and does it's damage, i think things like this are just going to keep happening. And rich people will be fine, but poor people won't be. I mean, funny memes aside. Our entire economic system and healthcare system and so many things are going to collapse in my lifetime, it seems futile to even try to make it now. I know that sounds really pesimistic.

The last few weeks i have been meeting him in secret, but he's not really cuddly like before, and he seems like he wants me to be gone when he's done with me, and he dotes on his other friends and I just feel very taken for granted and when we are with our friends who aren't supposed to know, i just don't feel like someone he's that excited to be around. And he seems to engage in conversation, but with me he just kind of talks over me to imply i am dumb, and i get tired of that. Honestly, there is nothing endearing about it. It's insulting and tiring and i am so deeply worried about the world around me, that even my own heartbreak seems like nothing. I am genuinely very scared about the state of the world, and even an idea relationship would not save me from this. Like, yeah, i feel really used and hurt, but also we are losing animal species and the ocean is polluted and there is a pandemic, and overpopulation in certain areas of the world that are going to be swallowed by global warming. Sometimes this train of thought takes me into an entire three sixty because i wonder if it isn't just best to enjoy every person and experience for what it is because my life might not give me that much to look forward to in the future, and there is only so much i can do to fix the world or the people in it. Do i really want to put my foot down and tell him i don't want to see him anymore, when he's the only person i have, and i know too that he struggles with addiction?

Furthermore, my brother panicked and lost his mind and went on attack towards my sister who he was living with, and now he's moving back with my abusive parents. That's a whole story in and of itself. And that is that. I won't be seeing him anymore. He was so scared about economic and societal collapse. And then my workplace wrote me and said they don't have money to even give me my last paycheck, and i am lucky that my old dad is working overtime at the factory to send me money. Honestly, i was panicked before, but now i just feel resigned and afraid. It helps that there is no way i can get evicted right now, but at this point i just have a bad feeling that things are just going to keep getting worse.

I feel like poor people are being spread too thin, and it's going to eventually create a sense of rage. It's been happening for a long time. They just keep cutting programs, or making it harder to afford rent, or go to school. For instance, i have a friend who is an ambulance driver. He makes twelve dollars an hour, he's literally scraped up dead children off the side of the road, but he doesn't get free healthcare. If he ends up on the other end of his ambulance van he's fucked. It's stuff like this that is unbelievable. You'd think someone with his job of all people would be more than entitled to free healthcare, not that we all don't, but like, it might come with some benefits given he works in the industry and the level of seriousness his job entails. But there aren't any. And truly, he doesn't even make as much hourly as someone who works in a restaurant. It's nonsense. And it's accepted. And we need ambulance drivers.

Anyway, there is a lot that branches off. I don't know what direction i should go in, the mental health aspect of myself, or my family dynamics, the economy, the healthcare industry, my personal strifes, my conflicting relationship stuff, or what the future holds. All i can say is i feel terribly alone and terribly scared and it's hard to articulate it or feel grounded in myself at all. Sometimes it's like a numbness that tells you to keep pushing forward because it's the routine and it's supposed to lead to somewhere, right? I feel like in the last year, i am learning how to put my foot down and say no. I am learning to love people and know i am not loved back, and not even care anymore. I am also exhausted. When i am not around people, i fall asleep. A mysterious exhaustion i have never had before has taken over and i really just want to sleep for days and days straight, and some little part of me just wonders if it wouldn't be better if i didn't wake up again. I am not suicidal, but what's the point?

And I guess lastly, who am I to even complain? So many people have had it worse and now everyone is falling apart and struggling around me, so I am nothing special. It’s just hard to know what to do right now. There seems to be no distraction from the nothingness of it all.

[trylonandperisphere]

ASK POLLY APR. 1, 2020

‘I Don’t Think I Can Handle 18 Months of Isolation’

By Heather Havrilesky

Hi Polly.

So the world’s falling apart. I’m seeing quotes from experts that predict this will go on for 18 months or more. I don’t think I can stand the stress and isolation all that time. I have mental-health challenges, so I think I might crack. And I’m not sure our infrastructure can endure it either. I have a medical condition that’s stable and doesn’t put me in danger of COVID-19. However, I worry the strain on the health-care system will take away my treatment, leading to a slow death. And then there are the usual worries about things like food. Will the supply chains hold up six months or a year from now? How do you see all this happening and not start looking for an exit? I’m willing to admit that I’m weak or entitled. People around the world deal with this all the time. I don’t think I have it in me. How do I find some strength and hope?

Feeling Weak

Dear Feeling Weak,

On any day of your life, a million terrible things could happen. Every morning, you have to force all of the awful possibilities out of your mind. You do this because there is no alternative.

I’ve always been a very fearful person. I’ve always been sensitive to the fragility of the human body and the myriad ways lives can be ripped apart. My dad died when I was 25 years old, and it made me even more fearful. Then I had a baby.

Imagining all of the bad things that could happen to the baby almost sent me over the edge. I felt like someone had removed my liver and now I had to hand my liver over to other people, and ask them not to drop it or neglect it.

One day I came home, and my husband was holding my liver in one hand while stirring a boiling pot with his other hand, all the while talking to my stepson in an animated, cheerful fashion.

I freaked out. “You are going to kill me,” I said. “Calm down,” he said. “Stop being so overdramatic.”

My heart started racing even more (Pro tip: The words “calm down” are never calming!), but I washed my hands and then took the baby away from my husband. And then through gritted teeth, I said something like this: “You are going to listen to me very closely. Don’t talk. Just listen. I am in a very, very particular, unfamiliar, fragile place. I have never felt this way before. I’m going to have to describe it to you. You are going to have to listen. You do not have to understand or believe that I am remotely sane. You can continue to believe that I am irrational. But if you do not listen closely and respect and honor my needs around this fragile feeling, this marriage will end. Period. This is not negotiable.”

I wasn’t someone who threatened to end my marriage, ever, just to be clear about that. I needed to communicate clearly that we were on perilous terrain.

We retreated to the bedroom and talked for a long time. I told him what I needed in order to raise a baby with him. He told me the reasons he thought I was nuts. I told him that I was fine with him thinking I was nuts. He could continue to do that. Of course my views were not utterly rational. Rational was not the point. Calming down was not the point. He needed to understand how high the stakes were for me. Even if there was a .0001 chance that my baby would drop into the boiling water, the stakes were too high for me to endure those odds. He didn’t have to understand my feelings, he just had to operate as if he had the same feelings, for my sake.

It took a lot of persuasive talk, and tears, to get my husband on my side. It was exhausting. But by the end of our talk, my husband got it. He agreed to behave in ways that were guided by high stakes and my irrational feelings and to never say the words “Calm down” to a woman whose liver you’re holding. And if ALL OF THAT sounds nuts to you, that’s okay. These were the conditions I knew I required in order to raise a baby with someone who was more careless than I was in every way. These were the things I needed in order to share a house with this man and trust him to raise a family with me.

After that, I felt better. And my husband never told me to calm down when I described the toddlers who get left in the car or run over by a clueless grandparent backing out of the driveway. He took on the low-odds possibilities until he was worrying about them himself. I turned him into a slightly neurotic, hyperaware parent. I formed him into a seismograph, in my image. Call it twisted, I don’t give a fuck. It worked. We were aligned. We fought less. We kept our kids relatively safe from harm. Maybe we became obnoxious. Maybe we were paranoid. I still don’t care. I didn’t feel alienated and alone in my marriage, because I dared to get very, very specific about my needs.

And once I knew I had someone on my side, I started to calm the fuck down. I made a resolution to keep all of the looming threats in mind without INTERNALIZING and VISUALIZING and LOSING SLEEP OVER the millions of ways a baby could die or become injured. Any time I went from safeguarding my kids to picturing something awful happening to them, I learned to stop myself.

Doing your best to avoid disaster is practical. Repeatedly imagining disaster, on the other hand, is wildly impractical. Once I realized how jittery and anxious I was feeling, I steadfastly refused to indulge my imagination when it came to my baby. I resolved not to become a pile of nerves quivering on the floor. I wanted to breathe and feel happiness and survive parenting without being transformed into a shadow of my former self. I wanted my kids to be aware of danger but not paralyzed by fear at all times.

Mistakes have been made, that goes without saying. But the decision to never fixate on terrifying outcomes when it came to my kids was very important. I could still fixate on bad outcomes FOR ME. But that was (and is) a world apart from doing it about my kids. Eventually I didn’t have to try anymore. The second I pictured something terrible, it was just: NO. CAN’T.

Everyone is different. Everyone experiences different conditions as threatening or scary or paralyzingly awful. We all have to respect these differences while relentlessly standing up for our own needs and asking for exactly what we want from the people who are closest to us. That means becoming a tiny bit shameless, I should add. It took a shameless amount of assertiveness and belief in my own particular sensitivities as a seismograph to ask my husband to behave as if he, too, were a seismograph. I had to get very specific. I also had to let go of the need to be right and seem rational. I had to own my role as the Chicken Little of the family.

“Pretend the sky is falling with me,” I told my husband, and he did. It was an act of love and solidarity. I was so grateful for it. It kept us glued together at a vulnerable time, when we could’ve fallen apart for good. I didn’t have to hate myself for being a chickenshit or a seismograph. I could relax because someone was on my side.

That story probably feels pretty divorced from your circumstances, but it’s not. For you to feel comfortable safeguarding yourself while also refusing to fixate on the millions of horrible outcomes that could befall you specifically and all of us generally, you need to stand up for the particulars of your mental health. You need to look closely at your specific emotional challenges as a human being, and you need to say: This is how it feels for me. I feel like I want to find an exit. I feel like I can’t survive this. I feel like I am not strong enough.

Here’s the suicide hotline for anyone who’s been feeling that way: 1-800-273-8255. Commit to reaching out to someone when you’re feeling bad. Everyone is struggling right now. We’re all in the same boat at some level. It’s important to understand that moments of extreme darkness will come and go, and things could get a million times worse and still be survivable. Put your faith in human connection: It makes all the difference.

If you have close friends or a partner or a family member who can listen to you describe your very specific Chicken Little–flavored needs and desires and align themselves with you, and show solidarity for your (sometimes irrational!) experiences of what this moment means, then call that person or those people. Open up to them, and explain your needs, and get them to understand.

But let’s be clear: Finding people who will join you where you are is very, very hard. It’s hard for all of us, always. If it feels impossible? Guess what? You’re not alone. Try your best. And if/when that fails, I want you to write everything down for you, until you clearly comprehend who you are and where you are and how you’re feeling right now.

This is not about descending into darkness in any permanent way, mind you. This is simply about painting a picture that someone else might understand, a persuasive portrait of how you’re experiencing this moment. This is you saying to yourself: YOU ARE HOLDING MY LIVER OVER A BOILING POT OF WATER. This is you crying and telling yourself: I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN DO THIS. DO YOU FUCKING GET THAT?

This is you making your needs crystal clear. This is you standing up for who you are, without shame. Does that really matter, all alone in your apartment as the world crumbles around you? YES, IT DOES.

This is you saying: I deserve to have my needs met. Think about all of the times you were treated like your needs were irrational, like you needed to calm down and shut the fuck up, like you needed to stop being so in the way, so inconvenient, so absurd, so laughable, such a wreck. I’ll bet you can think of a lot of examples.

Use this moment to get your own back. Take this opportunity to say to yourself: I don’t fucking care if I’m fragile and irrational. I’m going to honor my needs without shame.

Don’t skip this step, even if it seems beside the point. Honor your needs, without shame. That’s number one.

Number two is: Protect yourself. Take very good care of yourself. Feed yourself well, exercise, get plenty of rest. Stay aware of the threats so you can do your best to avoid those threats. Put energy into making yourself feel as healthy and resilient as possible.

Number three is: Resolve not to fixate on the millions of terrifying possibilities you cannot control. You can make this choice now because your peculiar needs matter. Remember? You’re honoring your needs without shame now. One of your needs is this: Avoiding the terror here. You said it to me for a reason: You aren’t strong enough to hold these terrors inside your head for 18 months. So don’t do it.

Are you strong enough to survive for 18 months in isolation? Yes, you are. You’re strong enough as long as you’re honoring even your most irrational needs without shame, being very safe and careful in areas that are within your control, and letting go of all of the circumstances beyond your control, as in banishing them from your fucking head permanently.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (Read it if bleakness makes you feel stronger. If not? DO NOT READ.) is about a man who’s struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. As the man and his son travel south toward the ocean, looking for food and shelter, the man tries hard to avoid big questions and unknowns that might threaten his ability to survive. Because he has a boy to take care of, he becomes extremely practical. He protects his boy and he keeps moving forward, no matter what. There’s a sense of calm beauty underneath the horror of every word McCarthy writes. Showing up for whatever comes next is beautiful. You don’t have to be a hero. You just keep moving.

I probably wouldn’t have sat my husband down and insisted that my irrational view was going to need to be honored, back when we first had a baby together, if I weren’t convinced that our ability to raise a baby and stay together depended on it. It took something bigger than myself to force me to finally stand up for my very specific needs and persuade another, very skeptical human being to hear me out and get my back.

Today, you’ve been faced with a challenge that’s much bigger than any challenge you’ve faced before. The stakes are high. This enormous calamity dwarfs you and exists outside your thoughts and feelings completely. You have to treat yourself with extreme care under these conditions. This is an opportunity for you to finally stand up for what you need at every level, in a very concentrated and intense way that is fully justifiable and concrete. This is a chance for you to design a map that you can use to navigate this disaster and every other disaster to follow this one, guided by your very irrational, specific desires. This is your time to learn to blot out the parts of the world that are just too gigantic and out of your control for you to metabolize, and focus on what you can actually control and have influence over instead. You have to avoid big questions and keep moving forward. You’re about to achieve a sense of mastery over your life and your understanding of yourself, while letting go of what you can’t control in a permanent way. These high stakes are a blessing disguised as a curse. Take this blessing.

What sustains you? What can you create, every day, to bring you life, to build up your strength? What beauty is lurking underneath these terrors? As Ranier Maria Rilke wrote, “No feeling is final.”

The path before you is simple. You wake up in the morning and you put Chopin: Nocturnes in your headphones and you look for joy. You embrace every tiny glint of beauty and every scrap of hope hiding in this small, enclosed life. You surrender to the reality of this “borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it,” as Cormac McCarthy put it. You eat this divine silence, this dark longing, this lonely sweetness, this solitary dread. You sit in your quiet garden and welcome the weather, good or bad. No feeling is final. You are strong enough.

Polly

[americanfad]

announcement: i am going to space

I am waiting for the switch to flip. For all the gears to give a satisfying click as they set into place. The moment of mental clarity -- the moment of purpose -- I am waiting for it. Goddard was in a tree, he looked at the sky, realized that he wanted to go to mars, and spent his entire life tirelessly devoting himself to the pursuit of rockets and spacetravel. He had a passion and a direction from a young age.

Yet here we are. Comparatively gifted with a talented mind, yet bereft of the drive that Goddard had. I have interests and inclinations, but I am at best a dilettante. I am not exceptional at any one thing (except, maybe, this writing thing, which I believe i could get better at and perfect with time; and I seem to be a pretty good speaker also, another art that I could perfect) the problem is that even with these considerable talents, I only have an awareness of the talent and not the direction where I would like to devote that talent. I need guidance, but I don't think I've ever had a guide. The concept seems bizarre. I am really paranoid, and I can hardly imagine someone trying to guide me out of selfless intentions; I would probably do my best to sabotage their goodwill with my own paranoia.

I don't know what this is that I'm spilling. These words make no sense. They are no good for anyone to read but me. Yet here they are. I have no one else to talk to except for one, very basic text application on my computer. It allows me to talk to myself in a non-audible way (I wouldn't want to disturb my roommates). This state feels so natural. I could truly sit here and write for hours and just continue putting thoughts down if I only had some direction to take all of this. I suppose sometimes it doesn't feel that great to just write about myself, my struggles, or at least I can't shake the feeling that I just keep writing the same thing over and over again. Who would want to read this weird little neurotic game that I play with myself? There is no plot, there is no drama. The only character is me because I really have no close relationships or contacts with anyone. My phone was just off for six hours and I didn't miss it. In fact, I feel refreshed for having not had it on. I wish I could continue without it. I only turned it back on as a practical measure: it's the only alarm that I have. Should I just get rid of it? Its draining effect on me....should i revert to something more simple? I thought I was giving myself a gift when I gave myself a smart phone. But it feels like an obsession, and realistically, it's hard to see how reading the news in bed for two hours, watching porn and playing mobile games really benefit me that much. I do need to check my email frequently, groupme, constant communication with classmates, profs, etc. In the professional world...I don't know. I feel like i could work around it. I work around a lot of things.

How did I ever get so isolated? It seems strange and unnatural. I feel really powerless to get out of this situation because I feel conflicting desires. On one hand the desire for natural human relationships, on the other hand a suspicion of these relationships. I have had some unhealthy ones. I don't really remember the last relationship, friendship or otherwise, that I was just really satisfied with. They all seem to have some kind of draining effect on me, to subtract something from my life, my time. It's much easier to justify being a piece of shit (skipping school, drinking, smoking) when I have peers to reinforce this behavior. So I feel like, in this fantasy world where i am just a lone genius working to better himself, other people are just a distraction. But like any human being on earth, I crave relationships. This is one of those topics that I am tired of dwelling on...but it does consume my thoughts. I really have gotten to such a hopeless point that all I can do is laugh at the absurdity of it. The real strangeness is that someone in my position, young, talented, pretty nice, good looking could be more than just introverted, more than just a stay-at-home person, but be could actually be utterly alone. My human interaction today was limited to my coworkers, which ended as soon as I walked out of the door. I had a five text message (three from me, two from her) conversation with Alex that went no where. I invited her to hang out and she declined. But like the dog chasing his tail what the hell would I have even done with her if I caught her? It's just this hilarious charade. I don't even know the first step of forming a meaningful healthy relationship. Maybe I do need religion. I mean, I KNOW I need religion I'm just not compatible with the whole God thing. I don't want to be devoted to anything like that. I'm down with feeling better and more purposeful about my relationship to the universe, but ...

You know what's depressing? Piles of unfinished projects. I can almost put myself in the exact state of mind when I first caught the bug, when I first read some article or found something in a book and decided "This is it! I'm going to start making/doing/growing XYZ. But then, three months later, the thing is half made, half done, or half dead. It's depressing but I literally can only laugh at the absurdity of this right now. I am so bad at living life. How am I surviving right now? What are my prospects for the future? Literally what could I even accomplish. Dead plants, broken dreams. Half-read books (although I'm better at that than most of the shit I do), half-cleaned, half-cooked, half-assed. Food dreams spoiling in the fridge, compost bin that is itself turning into compost. I am the person that Scientology warns you about. You'd better stay away from me, for I am "oblivion," fear me, Thetan pussies. I am okay with my human form while you flee from it. You should be afraid of me because I have learned to harness my engrams, not run away from them. My engrams, my little buried fears that burn in my skull constantly and taunt every thought and feeling that i have are a part of me just like my arm and they aren't going anywhere. You won't take them away from me. I'll use them to exert emotional power over you. That is the power of oblivion.

My head...what the actual fuck? Is this clarity? It feels like all of this heat is swirling around. I had a very beautiful moment when I was biking (walking ) home from swherever today. I had this really long walk because i got a flat tire. But i refused to look at my phone. it was off. and i just felt...truly there. i felt really present and tried to attend to all of the things around me as i just took in and absorbed the elements of this unusually beautiful day. i don't understand my desires. i don't understand my inclinations or the things that push me to act. if i could figure out a way to harness these things, to do more than just ride these waves i would be a lot farther in my life. i often imagine people next to me. in my car i'll look over at my imaginary interlocutor and smile! i 'll laugh or sing at them as if to annoy them with my bad singing. Is that pathetic? it is odd? I need...I want to aim my conversations at somebody. I have all of these things going through me. They just don't have anywhere to go. I hesitate the call this a creative outlet, this is more like a journal. How can i harness my creative energy and my desire to write and turn it into something that 1) scratches the itch 2) is actually entertaining/fun to read 3) doesn't feel like a chore ...i don't have any other qualifications. I just feel. Every time i talk to a person a feel a buildup of discomfort. I feel a cloud of just weirdness. Of not really understanding and not really being understood and of being very unsure of how to move forward. I know i am strange and I am proud of this weird little thing I have going but...what? I can't even imagine myself going out there and talking to someone. The idea seems perfectly hilarious.

I need a therapist.

Another thought: your Goddard moment: get this out. This thing you feel that can only be expresed through writing, you are searching for the way to express it. Well, get it out. Spend your life, spend your free moments, doing everything you can to master this art so that you can one day get this out.

[deilands]

The (Gas)Light of God

Before I begin writing this entry, I want to make it clear of my reasoning for composing a post of this sort. My audience is varied and some are people of faith and some are not. Some are questioning their faith and some have already walked away. I would not feign to call myself a spiritual scholar or philosopher but at times I have thoughts that run through my head that need to be put on paper. For some this may express thoughts that you’ve had before but haven’t really been able to properly attack them. For others, this may be offensive. In either case, understand that I am not attacking any individual personally. I am not trying to take anyone’s religion away from them. I am simply placing my own thoughts out into the ether. Also – one last note – I may edit this as time goes on to add to the length. But I wanted to get started at least.

Part 1: What is Gas-Lighting?

In 1944, a movie called Gaslight debuted. It starred Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. In this story, a woman named Paula (played by Bergman) marries a man named Gregory Anton (played by Boyer) after a whirlwind romance. They are in love and they are happy and Gregory persuaded Paula to leave her home and move with him far away from her community to London where she knows no one.

Things quickly take a turn for the worse as strange things begin to happen to Paula. Things begin vanishing from around her. Paintings that were on the wall disappear, a personal broach that she had kept in a particular place vanishes, and all the while Gregory tries to convince her that she is the one causing the disappearances. She also notices that the gas lights in the house seem to be dimmer each day – except when she asks her husband about these things, he convinces her that she is just seeing things. Slowly, but surely, unable to trust her own senses – she begins to go crazy. Gregory’s end goal? To have her institutionalized so he can steal her family jewels.

Gas-lighting is now known as a number of behaviors used to control a victim by making them doubt their own reality. According to “Turning up the lights on Gaslighting” by Kate Abramson, gaslighting “is a form of emotional manipulation in which the gaslighter tries (consciously or not) to induce in someone the sense that her reactions, perceptions, memories and/or beliefs are not just mistaken, but utterly without grounds—paradigmatically, so unfounded as to qualify as crazy.”

It’s important to note that this is not usually done consciously by the abuser but as part of a grander unknown scheme that exists within their head.

I want to posit in this journal that the Christian god can, if not constrained, become an amazing element of gas-lighting and as a result can damage people in a way much more profound than from a traditional relationship.

Part 2 – It’s YOUR Fault

Instead of building from the minor examples of how the Christian narrative tends to gaslight believers, I want to start from my largest supposition and work down.

According to Christianity, the reason that the world is corrupt - that sin and death exist, that children die by the millions each year, and that enumerable atrocities both man-made and natural happen is due to one thing. You.

You are the cause in some way of this insidious destruction which leaves so many to mourn. You are the reason that God sent his only son to die on a cross. Every time you think of someone lustfully you nail again Jesus to the cross. Every time you are angry without cause at your brother, you stab another nail into his hand. After all – if mankind wouldn’t have sinned in the first place, none of this would have ever happened.

But that’s ok. God forgives you. He loves you. Just don’t do it ever again.

I want to pause and post a few of the traits of a person who is feeling the effects of gaslighting:

1)  You feel the need to apologize all the time for what you do or who you are.

2)  You never quite feel “good enough” and try to live up to the expectations and demands of others, even if they are unreasonable or harm you in some way.

3)  You feel like there’s something fundamentally wrong with you, e.g. you’re neurotic or are “losing it.”

Most importantly, a person who is being gas-lit is being convinced that their own mental faculties and their own beliefs and their own story is somehow tainted and incorrect. They are convinced that they are the one in the wrong – that they can’t even trust their own choices or their own minds.

We were taught as Christians from a young age that we can’t trust our own hearts. They are, after all corrupted by sin. Our own decision making is flawed. I’ve sung many songs about Jesus being more and me being less because when it came to who was better, the person I was wasn’t good enough and could never be good enough no matter what I did.

It was all filthy rags.

But let me ask you a question. Who is more powerful here? If the Christian God existed, wouldn’t he be?  If God is unable to create a perfect being who lives perfectly and does perfectly then doesn’t the blame fall not on man but on God? If I place a chocolate cake in front of a two-year-old and walk away after telling them not to eat it and they do it anyway – who is really to blame? Is it me or is it the two-year-old?

If God were to be the creator of the universe and were to give mankind all of the traits that express themselves as what Christians call sin and then expect them not to fall prey to those devices and THEN when they do – blame them for HIS mistakes… is this not gas-lighting?

Part 3 – Who are you to question?

Even as a Christian, the most disturbing story that I ever read in Scripture has to have been the story of Job. Imagine this – God and the Devil are hanging out up in heaven and the Devil says, “Hey, God, I betcha I can make Job curse you.”

Of course, God being all-knowing says, “Uh, I don’t take bets. Especially when I know what happens in the end.”

No. No. No. I’m sorry. That’s the way it would have happened with a compassionate God.

Sorry. God, sometimes having a penchant for gambling, tells the devil, “Sure. Go ahead. Take your best shot.”

So, the devil does. He kills and he maims and he disenfranchises Job among his friends. He destroys the life of this guy so that he and God can settle a bet that God (according to Christian doctrine) already knew the answer to.

And in the end? When Job deigns to question what the crap happened?

The perfect response from a Gas-Lighting Creator. “Who are you to question me?”

Imagine telling this to your kids. You take away everything they hold dear. I’m not talking about grounding them to their room. I’m talking about killing their favorite kitten, shredding their beloved teddy-bear, burning all of their clothes, and destroying every last thing that they hold dear. Why? Oh – because the neighbor bet that if that stuff happened your kid would hate you.

And when your child – who has been better-behaved than any child could be, asks you why? You tell him, “Who are you to question me. I’m your father. I give and I take away.”

You’d be arrested for child abuse. How many people have questioned God when their child got sick or their job got lost only to be told by well-meaning individuals, “It must just be part of God’s plan. He knows.”

That, my friends, is gas-lighting.

Part 4 – A glass of cognitive-dissonance anyone?

I think the most difficult part to recognize in all of this is that it happens slowly and methodically. We are taught by the church that we are horrible people and only believing in the God of the Scriptures will save us. We feel accepted because the words sound nice on the surface and we are hurting so much. A person doesn’t get into a relationship with a narcissist because they are mean. They get involved because that person shows all of the best things.

I can heal your hurt. I can take away the pain. I can help you lose the guilt and the shame. I can bring you joy and happiness. I can show you love.

If. And this is the truth that reveals the lie. If you will follow my commands. If you will become a slave to me. If you will let me invade your life and change your friends and isolate you from all of those people that aren’t like us. If you will give up everything – your mother, your father, your sister, your brother – to follow me. Then, I will do these things for you.

What is even more insidious is this. I don’t believe that there ever was a Christ that was crucified. I don’t believe that there is a Jehova Jireh waiting to provide if I do all of the right things and pray the right prayers. What I do believe is that a group of people, searching for answers – and eventually for power – created an amazingly powerful institution that convinced people that they were inherently evil in and of themselves.

It convinced them that they couldn’t trust their own hearts.

It convinced them that their conscience was seared as with an iron and their faculties were controlled by desires that were not proper. It told them not to question because questioning was pride. It told them to accept that all things happened for the better. “I’m only doing this for your good.”

And even more so it had a potion for all of this. Eat of this body, drink of this blood and all will be well. But is it well? Has he lived up to his bargain? Or does he simply ask for more. And more. Do you feel confused as children continue to die while prayers are lifted when the God of Mark says that you can heal the sick? Do you feel hurt while you have to explain why God was ok with the Israelites raping women?

I can’t.

It doesn’t really seem to have gotten any better to me and I want to tell you something important.

YOU ARE GOOD IN YOURSELF. You don’t need to be justified or sanctified because, let’s be honest – If God needed to let us commit atrocities so that he could send his son to die to appease himself. . . if he needed to create mankind on this little blip of a planet in this tiny solar system in a galaxy that is only one of millions of others just so that he could be worshiped? Damn. That’s the greatest gas-lighter I’ve ever heard of.

I’m sorry if this post seemed hard. I’ve heard stories tonight and they break my heart and in that I am angry.

[forumofkuka]

Emory University: First Week!

As my second full day of classes is coming to a close, I’ve decided to reflect back on my first week here in Atlanta, Georgia. Although I didn’t move in until Saturday, August 25th, my father and I flew down Thursday morning. When my final days in Connecticut were approaching, I’ll be honest, I definitely didn’t feel super prepared or knowledgeable about what I was getting myself into. After all, I didn’t start packing until maybe three days before, and I was even still doing that 3 hours before my flight was scheduled to take off. Moreover, I still had to make a ton of purchases in Atlanta for my dorm, like school supplies and bathroom essentials. 

Being that I wouldn’t be returning home until late November, I made a point in my last week to spend more time at home and with family. Although I facetimed friends during those days, I visited my paternal grandparents and also spent time with my sisters (i.e. Making a sisters-only trip up to Agawam, Massachusetts, to spend the afternoon at Six Flags). Saying goodbye to certain relatives was more emotional than I had imagined. Maybe it was my heightened hormones from my period or just suppressed anxieties about picking up my life and moving 1000 miles away, a surge of tears definitely came on when I was saying goodbye to my grandparents the day before my flight. I couldn’t stop them during the drive home either, even though I was trying to not be hysterical in front of my youngest sister who was in the passenger seat beside me. Alisa, my youngest sister, was someone I had been spending a lot more time with in the last few weeks, whether it be going bowling for an hour, getting our eyebrows done, or even running errands. In my final minutes before departing for the airport, I noticed that she was hanging around me a lot more, and that maybe she was also suppressing some feelings as well. LOL even while thinking back on this, I find myself unable to hold back the tears. Anyway, hugging her goodbye also set me off again, although my dad didn’t comment on it so that made it easier for me to calm down. 

I’ve always dreamt about college, and looked forward to the possibilities that come with higher education and being in a new location/larger institution. It wasn’t until my senior week that I started realizing what kinds of apprehensions I had underneath all the enthusiasm about the future. You know, I went to the same secondary school for 6 years, where some of my closest friendships had been that old as well. Sure, I made new connections every year, and my closeness with friends fluctuated throughout the era, but I always had a solid sense of who was my friend and who was merely an acquaintance. The idea of going into college fresh, with a blank slate, was both something I was excited about but I also realized something I was afraid of. Sitting here, 5 days into the process, I’ve met dozens of super interesting, approachable, and intelligent people. I’ve made various acquaintances, whether they be in my dorm, my orientation group, my classes, or spontaneous encounters I’ve had walking around campus. With that being said, although I have people I can message to eat meals with or sit in a lounge with, I don’t feel comfortable here yet socially. I don’t have a solid group, and I’ve been feeling more FOMO (fear of missing out) than I could’ve ever really felt in high school. I don’t know, in some instances, when I see groups of people going off together, especially when I am acquainted with them, to a party or some off-campus event, I definitely feel a little isolation. I don’t know, I don’t want a college experience where all I do is go to class, study, eat food with people, go to a club meeting, and sleep. I want some archetypal college experiences, whether it be going to parties or even taking advantages of the many events that occur in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta. In instances like this, I think I’m just allowing my uncertainties and vulnerability get the best of me, especially because I probably am just making assumptions about the involvement and acclimation of those around me. We all put up facades, and as someone who constantly tries to break mine by confiding in others and being an open person, I should acknowledge and believe this. I’m sure it’s normal. All of my concerns and insecurities are probably expected and on track with where I should be. I just have to remember not to rush into things, because things are going well - they could be so much worse. Everyone I’ve engaged in conversation with has been kind and I haven’t even gone to an activities fair yet, so I haven’t even finished making the frame of my initial social spheres. 

My two days prior to actual moving in went pretty smoothly. We went shopping a lot, spent way too much money of course, because who knew how many little things you’d actually need in your dorm? My list of supplies continued to grow throughout those 48 hours, as I started remembering the smallest but most essential things that I always had at my disposal when I lived in a family home, rather than a 11′ by 20′ dorm room. We went to some cool eateries in the area, such as Poke Burri, a social media renowned poke stand that makes sushi doughnuts, burritos, bowls, pizza, you name it - although it is located in a more rundown, artistic, hipster neighborhood that is a little unassuming, it was pretty cool and a general area I’d want to revisit again with some friends (neurotic, protective fathers are probably not built for a place like that). We also visited my former Russian teacher, who a few months before my acceptance to Emory, had announced that she was moving to a city that’s just under an hour outside of Atlanta. It was comforting to be able to see her again, and even nicer to know that she’s more than willing to be a source of support for me too. I think I’m going to try and visit her in late September or early October, just because I don’t really have too many familiar faces here.  In terms of the whole move-in process, the day went pretty smoothly. My scheduled move-in time was 7:00am, so my dad and I woke up at 5:45am to get there on time. We finished unpacking my various suitcases and packages around 1:00pm (I worked slower than I probably should LOL). I met my roommate and her family of course, which went nicely. She and I clicked immediately, we’ve been communicated for about 4 months now, since we had requested each other way back in April. Even though I felt like we’d make great friends, I even started getting apprehensive about how she and I would get along, since it’s always hard to kind of tell how someone is over text and how someone is in person. So far, everything has been pretty easy-going, and both of us have been very willing to share and compromise, which is great :) We are different in various ways, but also alike in others, so I’m happy with how that’s going! Our ability to click quickly was definitely something that reassuringly lifted stress off my shoulders. After unpacking my belongings, we met with our orientation groups, had the Emory Welcome assembly, the traditional Emory Coke Toast (after which my father left), and then another Emory After Dark social event, where students were able to get free food from various local food trucks and mingle. 

So far, all of the social events have proven to be more or less fun, and have resulted in me encountering a wide breadth of interesting and kind people. I’ve yet to meet someone who has been explicitly rude or unapproachable, and it’s just been really cool to be surrounded by so many people who are passionate, driven, and talented. Though, I will say, I’ve never been more exhausted in my life. With our orientation days packed to the brim with Songfest practices, orientation leader meetings, convocation, Emory welcome events, you name it - any free time we do have, usually begins at around 9:00pm, meaning it’s pretty likely that if you want to have control over who you hang out with, you’ll end up going to bed around 12:00am to 1:00am every night. Or, at least I have. So far, my roommate has been pretty easygoing with me coming in late, I think both for her sake and my own, I’m going to have to cut it down, because I went to bed at nearly 2:00am last night (today is 8/31/2018) even, and I woke up at 8:00am (mind you, I was going to wake up at 6:30am to go to the gym). Last night, after Songfest - which is a freshman-dorm singing and dancing competition where each residence hall basically disses the other and competes for best shirt/banner/lyrics/performance - I was thinking about going to The Mansion for their Emory Back to School Event, but it would’ve started at like 10:30pm and gone to 3:00am, and apparently a lot of girls get sexually assaulted there so I’m glad I decided against it. It’s weird, even on the night after move-in day, I saw hoards of girls all dressed up to go off campus to parties - how do people even find out about these kinds of things? I also don’t understand what’s the rush? Like you barely know the people in your own dorm building, let alone already going off to get trashed somewhere else.  It’s strange the severity of FOMO I’ve been feeling here, like it hasn’t been atrocious, but it has been more than at home, and it has been contributing to feelings of depression that I haven’t felt in a long time. Later today, I’m going to call the Psychological & Mental Health Services Office to try and schedule and appointment, because it hasn’t even been a week since move in, and I’m already feeling myself shut down and want to isolate myself. It really hit me that I may need to get counseling when I found myself having difficulty holding back tears while I was in the midst of one of the most high-spirited, school events of my four years here - why would anyone be sad while having school spirit and being around people who are super energetic and enthusiastic? So, it felt like something was wrong.  

Nonetheless, I’m really excited for the opportunity to reinvent myself. I went to the Religion & Spirituality Fair the other day, and I’m really interested in not only being apart of the Baha’i Student Association (wasn’t at the fair but I’m in contact with the leading people), but I kind of want to learn more about UKirk Atlanta, which is a very-liberal, Presbyterian church group that comes here every Thursday evening. I don’t know, the people were very gay-pride, bubbly, and quirky, so I think it would be enlightening and also fun. A lot of the groups, oddly enough, are okay with attendees not being of the faith, so I feel more encouraged to go to these meetings just as a means of learning about the religion and its community here on campus. I also went to the LGBT Freshman/Transfer Welcome Meeting, which was really nice. I’ll be honest, I don’t know if it was my place to go, I don’t believe in sexuality labels (meaning, I identify as non-conforming), and with that being said I don’t know if that constitutes as me being able to say I could fall into any of the LGBT spectrum. However, people were kind and maybe as I continue exploring myself, I’ll find that I fall more into one realm over a current one (I’ve been more attracted to masculinity/cis-men for a while now). With all this being said, it’s just really cool how many different student programs there are here on campus. Some others I want to explore are Club Weightlifting, A Cappella, Emory Dark Arts, Active Minds, Ballroom Dancing Club, a literary journal/newspaper, and some sort of community service oriented group. Unlike in high school, I feel like I want to be more involved in activities that are more like hobbies, rather than something that is related to my academic interests. We’ll see though, the Activities Fair is on Saturday, and I think now’s a good time to explore things and just kind of really start figuring out how and where I want to set my foot at this school.  In terms of my academic classes thus far, I’ve enjoyed all of them. I’m taking PSYC 110: Psychobiology & Cognition (General Psychology 1), RUSS 201: Intermediate Reading/Writing/Speaking, CHEM 150: Lecture & Lab (General Chemistry 1), and PHIL 111: Existentialism & European Philosophy. Aside from the class materials and textbooks being horribly expensive, I think I’m going to gain a lot from all these classes. I really like my professors for all of them, especially my philosophy instructor, who isn’t even a professor - he’s a PhD student who wears grayscale outfits, has plugs (stretches his lobes), a huge beard, and swears. Chemistry will be a difficult class for me, I can tell already, but the professor is super passionate and teamwork-oriented so I think I’ll come out of it with a good foundation in the science. The one class I feel a little strange about is my Russian class, because as a somewhat “native” speaker, it is strange to be in a room full of non-native speakers trying to speak Russian, as well as being in a Russian learning setting where the professor speaks English 85% of the time. The weird thing is, I feel like the class is moving very slowly and like we’re learning a lot of basic vocabulary, but I also don’t feel like I have the strong foundation in grammar to try and move up to the 300 level class. It’s so hard to judge placement at this point because it’s syllabus week, and the add/drop/swap period ends on Wednesday, so by Tuesday night, I would’ve only had 4 Russian classes to judge. I think I’m going to stick it out and then begin a different language next year, because I’m not planning on even minoring in Russian - it’s merely courses I’m taking to improve my ability to speak with relatives and people of my culture/heritage. I’m deciding between French and Arabic for this new language I want to start, but I also want to continue with Spanish, so I will probably end up studying that again at some point too. My psychology lecture is interesting in that a good half of the courses focuses on gender identity, sexuality, love, and topics of that nature - something I would not have expected to be included in an intro level course. Of course, the course also goes over the major sections of the brain, the five senses, and memory, but I find it strange that gender and sexuality is also a huge component. Nonetheless, it is something I wanted to learn more about so it’ll be cool!

My polaroid project has been going well, it will be a pricey investment, but I know I’ll enjoy looking back on it. 

[eldritchsurveys]

881.

5k Survey VIII

351. Have you ever lost something and never found it? >> Sure. There’s whole parts of myself that I lost and never got back. But also, like, one time I left my favourite flannel in the airport and never got that back. Can’t even get a new one, I think the company stopped selling it. 352. Do you listen to any talk radio shows? >> No. 353. Who do you trust more, your friends or your parents? >> I don’t trust anyone. 354. Would you ever date someone outside of your race or religion? >> I’ve done so. 355. Which of the 7 deadly sins in the worst (gluttony, greed, pride, lust, envy, wrath, sloth)? >> My theory is that Sloth is the most egregious -- all of the other sins are encouraged and tend to proliferate because of slothful individuals (that is, individuals who don’t care to lift a finger to stop wrongdoing when they witness it). Sloth is the sucking mire of complacency, the willingness to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others as long as one’s own comfort is not infringed upon. It’s also the most easy to commit, in my opinion, which makes it a slippery slope.

356. Which one are you most guilty of? >> Sloth, obviously. Why do you think I understand it so well? ~ (Pride has been a big one for me in the past, too.) 357. Are you afraid to be alone with yourself? Do you try to avoid thinking? >> On bad days, I have the contradictory problem of desperately wanting to isolate so no one else has to deal with me (or treat me like shit for being socially unacceptable) but also knowing that being left to my own devices can lead to a toxic cycle of rumination and self-castigation. So, yeah, I don’t like being alone with myself sometimes, but at the same time, what else am I supposed to do? 358. Would you venture to tell someone you loved him or her if they didn’t say it first? >> I have no idea how I would react to this kind of situation. 359. What are you the most sensitive about? >> Gonna skip this one for my own sanity right now. 360. What can you talk about for hours? >> I’m not sure. I’ve never been in the position to talk for hours about something. 361. Do you talk about yourself, other people, or ideas the most? >> Myself, I suppose. Or ideas. Maybe a combination of both. 362. Do you believe that spell casting can work? >> I’m inclined to think so. 363. Are you a fan of The Legend of Zelda games? >> I wouldn’t say that -- I’ve never played any of them and the only reason I know anything about them is because of 1) Sparrow and 2) what I researched after King Crimson arrived on my astral doorstep. My interest is more casual (and more focused on one character in particular) than fan-hood would suggest. 364. What old movie would you go see if it were re-released in the movie theaters? >> I don’t know. I’m fine just watching them at home. 365. Is there a celebrity that you would be too starstruck to talk to if you met them? >> No. I prefer to just talk to them like any other stranger -- a little formally since we’re not on familiar terms, but affably and without making them feel spotlighted. They’re still just people, after all, and all that fawning attention has to be irritating and off-putting. It would be for me, I know that much. 366. Have you ever left a mean unsigned note? >> No. 367. Do you think it’s cheesy to paste things you didn’t write into your diary? >> Of course not. It’s a diary, you do whatever you want with it. The traditions of the commonplace book and the scrapbook are long and storied. (I think of my personal tumblr in those terms, in fact.) 368. What are three things that you try not to think about? >> I can’t think of anything that fits this description. 369. Is casual sex acceptable for you? >> No. 370. What form of sexual protection do you use? >> Not having sex. 371. What is expected of you that you feel is unnatural or not right? >> Just about everything that’s expected of me doesn’t actually apply to me, so. 372. Do you sometimes place your own expectations on other people? >> Sometimes. Like, I expect other people to be more forthright about things, and not expect me to figure it out through arcane social cues that I never learned or cared to follow. Or, I expect people to treat me with more respect and compassion than I sometimes receive. 373. Do you sometimes act overeager to make friends when you are around strangers? >> No, mostly the opposite. 374. Do you take everything that is said literally? >> Not everything, but sometimes I do take things more literally than I’m supposed to. It really just depends on whether I’ve encountered that situation before. 375. Do you take most things others say seriously? >> If I can determine than I’m meant to, yeah. Sometimes I can’t (especially in text). 376. Do you have a quick wit? >> I think I do sometimes. But equally, I have a lot of moments where I think of the funny thing to say long after the moment has passed. 377. Do you believe in the need for political correctness? >> I don’t care about this. 378. Do you have strong opinions and beliefs? >> Not really. I mean, maybe a couple, but generally I feel like I’m more apathetic about things than most. I just don’t have the energy, really. 379. If yes, can you still hang out with and be friends with people who disagree with you? >> Sure, as long as I don’t feel condescended to or otherwise disrespected. And there are some issues that directly affect me that I can’t just overlook -- for example, I can’t be friends with a white supremacist, because fucking duh. 380. Are you uptight? >> That’s not a word I would use for myself. “Neurotic” might apply in some situations, though. 381. Do you sometimes do risky things? >> I mean, maybe. Like not washing my greens before eating them. I just don’t have the executive function, man. 382. Could just about anyone hold your interest in a conversation for at least ten minutes? >> Not “just about anyone”, no. Some people and some subjects just aren’t interesting to me, and that’s the way it goes. 383. Are you self-conscious? >> Yes. I think there was a long time where I wasn’t, where my theory of mind was kind of wonky, and sometimes I miss that carefree-ness. At least let me find a comfortable middle ground, because this hypervigilance is killing me. 384. What would be your ideal destination for a Saturday afternoon? >> I don’t know. 385. Does anyone have a video tape of you doing something embarrassing? >> That’s highly improbable. 386. What is Kevin Smith’s(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Smith) best movie? >> I liked Dogma a lot. 387. Where do you like to go on Friday or Saturday nights? >> --- 388. Do you like your friends to act the same way all the time or do you accept their moods and changes? >> I accept all people’s moods and changes because I understand that there’s nothing static about being human. Whether I’m willing to personally put up with certain moods and changes depends on the person and their connection to me. 389. Do you often feel like other people are judging you? >> Yes. 390. What do you think other people judge you to be like? >> I don’t want to get into that, it’s just going to be a laundry list of brutally negative adjectives. 391. Are you quick to judge others? >> Nah. 392. When you have a fight with someone do you want to talk about it right away or calm down first and then talk? >> I feel like a rubber band -- torn between my need to get rid of those bad feelings as quickly as possible by unloading them right then and there, and my need to flee and lick my wounds in a dark corner somewhere. In practice, either I end up behaving badly and giving myself more wounds to lick, or I shut down and nothing ever gets resolved (you guessed it: giving myself more wounds to lick). I don’t even know what a good resolution to a conflict looks like anymore. 393. Some say love is a river (according to the old song). What do you say love is? >> Fuck off. 394. What is the worst fault a person can have? >> I don’t know. 395. Do you have it? >> Probably. 396. Which do you think has more impact on a person’s character, genetics or environment? >> They both have a significant impact on a person’s character, what are you even asking me. 397. Who was your first best friend? >> --- 398. If you are not best friends anymore, what came between you? >> --- 399. Who have you read a biography about? >> I had a phase where I was really into musician bios, so I read a bunch of those in my early 20s. I’ve also read at least a few of Maya Angelou’s bios, and Tina Turner’s, because my father had them in the house when I was a child and I tended to just read everything within reach. 400. What would your own autobiography be called? >> No.

[sorrymomandcat]

Wed. November 6 2019

12:21AM I need a new lighters 

8:09AM 

I woke up with that feeling. 

Surprisingly not tired. 

I might be after I cry. 

Goodbye past.

4:33PM I'm starting this in my car on my anxious pressured 'break' at the ever busy Budapest. I'm gonna not. Brb.

4:55PM Okkkk, I’m going to be real with you.

I had a lot of clever ways to open this conversation but I have forgotten them since sitting in my Ferrari having not 1, but 2 smokes. You ever feel like you’re chewing on your own teeth? No? Good, that means you haven’t smoked meth for the past 255 days. To be clear- Cobain, Lampwick & The Joke are all synonyms for a former co-worker. Although the same person, they’re sort of not #mentalhealthawareness. TLDR; the more evolved part of me really hopes this guy is just a mean, jaded fucking asshole because the alternative is that they’re deeply psychotic and likely the permanent kind. Both leave little hope for improvement but the former at least KNOWS that. KNOWS I know. I could do a whole bullet-point slideshow fucking presentation on the red flags I had been seductively blindfolded to through exploitation of deepest nature and a stubborn unwillingness to accept pain and anger & I just might. I might. I might need to! I processed most of it as it was happening, denial was a bitch though. If you come from a place of; neglect, abuse and chaos but decided to assess your damages rather than project them on to innocent and typically pretty wonderful people.. then you need to equip yourself. Even if you took the more outward approach, leaving everyone in your path as empty useless collateral damage.. you could benefit as well. Tell yourself 'I’m only self-improving to gain further access and a tighter hold of my victims’ It doesn’t matter. Educate yourself on the impact of trauma/abuse/upbringing. See what happens to you. @ me. 

5:53PM There’s a lot of Construction Boyz here tonight. They hit on me and I’m all like ‘omg I smoke crystal meth and I’m in an over-sized hoodie at work with obviously contrasting roots growing in.. you have no idea how much I needed this’ hahah. Still, it’s nothing quite like the validation I get from making humble jokes to myself in my neurotic head! Where was I? Oh yeah. The Joke; Lampdick. This motherfucker fucking pulls out a REAL LIFE meth pipe, Chief Leaf right there. Of course CL is through-n-through up to date and real time a best friend without judgement, so it doesn’t reflect on me, but I’ve been fighting tooth (lol) and nail against obvious (but not blatant) disapproval toward this endeavor with Joke.. (of course gaslit with remarks like ‘fuck the haters’ ‘you’re really going to care what they say’ ‘it isn’t their relationship’ .. you’re the hater.. they treat me with consistent respect so duh.. you’re absolutely fucking right-it’s ours-and it fucking sucks because you’re an abusive psychopath.. shove that isolation groundwork technique up your) ? No respect. To pull out a fucking meth pipe after:

Day 1 appreciating we had a different DOC (drug of choice) and agreeing that use needs to be controlled in the best harm reduction sense possible & I firmly disclosed that I am 100% in no fucking way ever going to be okay with anyone-ever smoking meth near/with me. I still barely forgive the fuckers that ever let me do it - and I know full God damn well it was my choice/fault/willing action. I barely forgave myself! For letting them let me! Or that I even let me let them do it! So. No. It was immediately made clear. Day 1.  

Throughout this treachery The Joke made here-and-there comments about like “pass it this way” and “why don’t you save me any” and other repulsively ignorant and juvenile comments and my stance toward the matter remained firm. Which he always met with “yeah I know! I’m obviously joking! I agree! I would never do that to you” Like I was crazy for hardening my responses. Fucker, fucking fucker.

Seeing/hearing what I have vulnerably shared and experienced since the first day I made this choice (and I know not everyone who has/will make that choice is going to have MY experience. I’m not claiming that. I’m claiming ‘I don’t give a fuck what another person’s experience may be - I am not fucking here for it’ - ‘it’s a no from me dawg’ 

Knowing how desperately I am trying AND want AND try to want (some days it really do be like that) to stop smoking crystal. To end-all repair the damage it has done to myself, my relationships and my life. To prevent the inevitable damage that waits if I don’t. 

Not to mention all the attempts at ‘crazy making’ by exploiting my guilt and fear of potential harm: caused by crystal meth. ie; “you’re definitely sleep-stealing my keys and/or moving things because YOU’RE smoking crystal meth, and that shit is BAD bad + your traumatic childhood,’ (that he doesn’t give a fuck about unless using it against me in similar scenarios) ‘so come on. You can’t deny engaging in these behaviors, that I refuse tell you about. You meth-trauma black events out.. you’re not conscious of it because of YOUR big bad drug.” (which it is and I don’t intend to downplay it)

Seriously. These are real events & that’s just scratching the fucking surface. Note: this blog intentionally has NO followers and is ran anonymously. My intention is only to self-vindicate the man made madness I've enabled. Yet STILL it manages to drag into a month and a half of my God damn precious and OBVIOUSLY seriously fucking sensitive time. I feel NO shame for that; for struggling right now. For falling the fuck on my ass/face/faceassfuckhands onto a SERIOUSLY cemented floor! that manages to also be falling upwards into my fucking face! So instead of ceasing upon impact; continuously bashing my fucking FACE in. It fucking happens man. I fucking know that and I fucking own it as shamelessly as is safe to. Not as a way to justify where I am right now - but to foster a belief that I am worth the insidiously meticulous effort that's required to be better. In a better position to improve the quality of how I serve myself and thus actually beginning to serve those around me. Jesus shit what a Joke. I can’t believe I let myself: be treated this way, be ignorant to it, be willing to entertain the idea that maybe it was OK (even warranted).. but between you and me: I find it even harder to believe that another human being - one who has clearly been deeply wounded as well - can see the genuine sincerity of another human being’s soul and heart.. compulsively bleeding from a profundity raw enough to captivate a nihilist.. and humbly exposes it.. with nothing but purity in the regard of inherit human good.. and could intentionally stick their dirty fucking arms vigorously inside and tear at the exposed gauge made faithfully available. I’m not innocent here. But there’s no blood on my hands. I won’t point my fingers but my eyes are staring right at you. I know what you did to me. I did not agree to it. I agreed to taking the risk. Do you know what you did to me? Educate yourself. Wash your fucking hands. 

I didn’t bring any crystal to Budapest today. I didn’t know I was going to begin opening this, or I would have.

= I’ve got to go for a smokes. 

That’s enough for now. 

7:55PM I don’t know wtf but Doug offered me to get stoned and so I did outside but the guys who needed to switch rooms came back and then outside too because they insisted on my break.. Golf was looking for tape and offered me a Tim Horton’s, I said hot chocolate. Then Striped Vest guy also forever chatted and offered me a Tim Horton’s; I said hot chocolate. Still no tape and I tell him about Striped Vest and hot chocolate. He says ok. Meanwhile, Doug and his friend Chevy Lover are shooting the shit too and Doug asked for my number. Well first he asked if I was single. He asked if I was dating anybody LOL first of all I’m stoned and second of all the literal words out of my mouth were ‘everybody’ sincerely believing it as a reflection of my innocent love for life and immediately realizing that was a stupid answer so on reflex I said “no, myself. ha ha no. nobody. nope. that’s a. this guy who was my boyfriend died once. like a long time ago. no. weird. yeah it was wicked. wait what? why? but no. I don’t. not.” and I’ll never forget that or this hot chocolate. 

8:03PM Golf asked me to put his poppy on (dude you’re 51, you’ve definitely done this more than me and I HATE war) so I asked him like, when the war was and what it was called - “Oh no, I don’t know a lot about history” meanwhile a second ago he was like “I guess I should put one on because my Grandpa fought in the war” no that was you. anyways so I’m learning about WW1. You say you remember so much, name 5 of our veterans? #therealneverforget 

Disclaimer: I still haven’t read anything about it, I’m sorry to all relatives of dead soldiers I deeply condolence and RIP. No disrespect. We out here.

8:07PM Damn I really wish I had another hot chocolate.

8:39PM How is it not midnight?

[erraticfairy]

Existential Despair: A Deeper Cause of Human Anxiety

If every person in the world was temporarily stripped of their daily purpose in life — if they were torn away from their responsibilities and daily routines, like going to work, taking care of children, keeping house, doing laundry — in time there would be global pandemonium.

Most individuals would begin obsessing about all the wrong things and asking unanswerable questions. For example, overthinking life and death — being born from a dark and undefinable void to dying, perhaps unexpectedly, and going back to that same obscure emptiness. Invariably, this kind of weighty musing would lead to the “Who am I?” and “Why are we here?” inquiries which can be intellectual cul de sacs — cognitive dead-ends that lack in utility.

This temporary loss of purpose would create an existential vacuum of anxiety so immense it would make everyone’s head spin. Humans could not handle it. Idle time for the human mind is worse than the devil’s playground. It’s the devil’s penitentiary.

Hence, when you experience this “existential despair,” you are facing your mortal self and the unbearable truth of your finiteness.

That’s why our life’s purpose and the responsibilities of each day, no matter how mundane help us survive. They ground us and prevent us from overthinking our ephemeral, perhaps meaningless existence.

A former patient once told me that in her experience, despite suffering from severe bouts of anxiety and depression, raising her two children forced her to look forward in life. Every graduation she attended, every soccer game, every band practice, every milestone her children achieved, compelled her to be hopeful, not fearful. It made her embrace what was to come. And as you get older, you need that because you are centering on youth instead of your own aging. So for her, mothering was her life purpose at the time. It kept her on track and helped her treat her mental condition.

So if you don’t have focus and structure as you get older, you tend to look backwards at your life more often. Sometimes with regret. You tend to obsess about losses, mistakes and bad choices, etc., with more scrutiny. The existential despair is liable to creep in and make you dissect your past when you have no business doing so.

Self-Absorbed Solipsism

This kind of despair could also inspire a state of solipsism –an obsessed, preoccupation with our own desires, fears and worries to the point of self-absorption. It’s also the unfounded belief that the “self” is the only measure of truth. It’s a misguided, self-indulgent gauge of reality.

As a result, any change that comes your way, any perceived unknown will appear fearful and threatening to you because it’s outside the realm of your tiny, myopic view of yourself and the world. Not having certainty and/or control is unbearable if you are caught up in a solipsistic loop. The ego-centric mind is not always the most open-minded thinker so exiting your comfort zone becomes virtually impossible.

Remember, it’s not the future that scares us, it’s our inability to control it that scares us. Self-absorption also traps us in a neurotic spin of future based thinking, which instigates a great deal of anxiety. Future-based thinking is a dangerous land-mine that gives rise to chronic fear because as we know there are no guarantees to anything.

Solipsistic self-absorption will also make you a little pompous. Suddenly you think that out of the 7.5 billion people in the world, your problems are more magnified and therefore, other people spend a great deal of time judging you from afar.  Or that you are terminally unique and no one else suffers as much as you do. Or that the almighty has singled you out and personally chosen to conspire against you by making your life miserable. Well, guess what? We are NOT that important. Period.

So, lack of purpose and daily structure can be mentally hazardous. Lack of purpose means your mind is not adequately stimulated or challenged.

A few months ago, I took a hike on my own in the Santa Monica Mountains in West Los Angeles. I was feeling unusually lonesome. I was even feeling a little sorry for myself. Nonetheless, when I reached the peak of the loop trail and looked down at the vast beauty below me, a switch went off in my head. I teared up and felt a modicum of despair as I stood in quiet isolation. I hated the feeling. It was heavy and sorrowful.

Suddenly, I was over-magnifying every worry in my life from the basic fear of aging to whether or not I remembered to turn off the AC at home before leaving for work. It felt like my insides were being gouged out by a new brand of human desperation. It gnawed at me all day. I was out of sorts and disoriented by the consciousness shift.

And yet, it had a comical element. Violins and cellos swirled in the background giving rise to one big manipulative wallow of cheesiness. Kidding aside, it made me stop for a moment. I, myself, was confronted with the very same limitations of my short existence.

Then last week, I tore a calf muscle in my right leg playing tennis. I was forced to cancel all my patient appointments for a few days. I wore an orthopedic boot and hobbled on crutches to get around the house. With my daily purpose and routine temporarily gone, by the third day, I felt the despair again. It was just me and my peg-leg. However, it did compel me to write this article.

10 Tips to avoid existential despair:

Find a life purpose. WHATEVER that may be. It doesn’t have to be a high-minded, virtuous one. Something you enjoy doing for yourself or others. Dive into it with supreme tenacity and eagerness. If you don’t like your current job, keep looking for other avenues of employment. Be open to new careers and projects that fill your spirit with excitement. Maybe you are in the wrong line of work.

Do NOT allow your days to be filled with extensive idle time. Structure your days wisely. Mental stimulation is vital to a healthy mind. Life doesn’t have a remote control. Change the channel yourself. No couch potatoes.

Focus on things in your life that you CAN make a difference in on a daily basis like, your marriage/partnership, kids, your extended family, your job, your responsibilities, staying healthy, etc.

Set goals for yourself on a daily basis. Make sure you have a new challenge every day. It’s healthy to occasionally tussle with a conflict you may have been avoiding for years. It’s also healthy to try new things that may feel scary to you.

Stop looking for guarantees in life. It’s ok to live with some uncertainty about the future.

Stop procrastinating. Take action. Make daily decisions and choices in your life and learn to accept those decisions.

Do not isolate. Make an effort to connect with other human beings at least one time per day. Unless you are a monk, remember that humans do not do well alone. Socialize, interface, open up a conversation with someone, anyone. Offer a kind word or a smile.

Avoid universal, big-ticket questions that have no immediate answers. It’s not your job to figure out the secrets of the universe. Stay in the inquiry, but, learn to live with the unknowns that you don’t need to understand today.

Remind yourself: I am not a victim. I am not the product of my life’s circumstances. I cannot change the world, but I can change my response to it.

Don’t make everything that happens to you a commentary about your life. It’s not always about you. You are NOT that significant in the grand scheme of life. Live with that.

Lastly, philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, one of the founding fathers of the Existentialist movement said:

“Life is nothing until it is lived. It is we who give it meaning, and value is nothing more than the meaning we give it.”

from World of Psychology http://ift.tt/2nnVCNE via theshiningmind.com

[psychotherapyconsultants]

Existential Despair: A Deeper Cause of Human Anxiety

If every person in the world was temporarily stripped of their daily purpose in life — if they were torn away from their responsibilities and daily routines, like going to work, taking care of children, keeping house, doing laundry — in time there would be global pandemonium.

Most individuals would begin obsessing about all the wrong things and asking unanswerable questions. For example, overthinking life and death — being born from a dark and undefinable void to dying, perhaps unexpectedly, and going back to that same obscure emptiness. Invariably, this kind of weighty musing would lead to the “Who am I?” and “Why are we here?” inquiries which can be intellectual cul de sacs — cognitive dead-ends that lack in utility.

This temporary loss of purpose would create an existential vacuum of anxiety so immense it would make everyone’s head spin. Humans could not handle it. Idle time for the human mind is worse than the devil’s playground. It’s the devil’s penitentiary.

Hence, when you experience this “existential despair,” you are facing your mortal self and the unbearable truth of your finiteness.

That’s why our life’s purpose and the responsibilities of each day, no matter how mundane help us survive. They ground us and prevent us from overthinking our ephemeral, perhaps meaningless existence.

A former patient once told me that in her experience, despite suffering from severe bouts of anxiety and depression, raising her two children forced her to look forward in life. Every graduation she attended, every soccer game, every band practice, every milestone her children achieved, compelled her to be hopeful, not fearful. It made her embrace what was to come. And as you get older, you need that because you are centering on youth instead of your own aging. So for her, mothering was her life purpose at the time. It kept her on track and helped her treat her mental condition.

So if you don’t have focus and structure as you get older, you tend to look backwards at your life more often. Sometimes with regret. You tend to obsess about losses, mistakes and bad choices, etc., with more scrutiny. The existential despair is liable to creep in and make you dissect your past when you have no business doing so.

Self-Absorbed Solipsism

This kind of despair could also inspire a state of solipsism –an obsessed, preoccupation with our own desires, fears and worries to the point of self-absorption. It’s also the unfounded belief that the “self” is the only measure of truth. It’s a misguided, self-indulgent gauge of reality.

As a result, any change that comes your way, any perceived unknown will appear fearful and threatening to you because it’s outside the realm of your tiny, myopic view of yourself and the world. Not having certainty and/or control is unbearable if you are caught up in a solipsistic loop. The ego-centric mind is not always the most open-minded thinker so exiting your comfort zone becomes virtually impossible.

Remember, it’s not the future that scares us, it’s our inability to control it that scares us. Self-absorption also traps us in a neurotic spin of future based thinking, which instigates a great deal of anxiety. Future-based thinking is a dangerous land-mine that gives rise to chronic fear because as we know there are no guarantees to anything.

Solipsistic self-absorption will also make you a little pompous. Suddenly you think that out of the 7.5 billion people in the world, your problems are more magnified and therefore, other people spend a great deal of time judging you from afar.  Or that you are terminally unique and no one else suffers as much as you do. Or that the almighty has singled you out and personally chosen to conspire against you by making your life miserable. Well, guess what? We are NOT that important. Period.

So, lack of purpose and daily structure can be mentally hazardous. Lack of purpose means your mind is not adequately stimulated or challenged.

A few months ago, I took a hike on my own in the Santa Monica Mountains in West Los Angeles. I was feeling unusually lonesome. I was even feeling a little sorry for myself. Nonetheless, when I reached the peak of the loop trail and looked down at the vast beauty below me, a switch went off in my head. I teared up and felt a modicum of despair as I stood in quiet isolation. I hated the feeling. It was heavy and sorrowful.

Suddenly, I was over-magnifying every worry in my life from the basic fear of aging to whether or not I remembered to turn off the AC at home before leaving for work. It felt like my insides were being gouged out by a new brand of human desperation. It gnawed at me all day. I was out of sorts and disoriented by the consciousness shift.

And yet, it had a comical element. Violins and cellos swirled in the background giving rise to one big manipulative wallow of cheesiness. Kidding aside, it made me stop for a moment. I, myself, was confronted with the very same limitations of my short existence.

Then last week, I tore a calf muscle in my right leg playing tennis. I was forced to cancel all my patient appointments for a few days. I wore an orthopedic boot and hobbled on crutches to get around the house. With my daily purpose and routine temporarily gone, by the third day, I felt the despair again. It was just me and my peg-leg. However, it did compel me to write this article.

10 Tips to avoid existential despair:

Find a life purpose. WHATEVER that may be. It doesn’t have to be a high-minded, virtuous one. Something you enjoy doing for yourself or others. Dive into it with supreme tenacity and eagerness. If you don’t like your current job, keep looking for other avenues of employment. Be open to new careers and projects that fill your spirit with excitement. Maybe you are in the wrong line of work.

Do NOT allow your days to be filled with extensive idle time. Structure your days wisely. Mental stimulation is vital to a healthy mind. Life doesn’t have a remote control. Change the channel yourself. No couch potatoes.

Focus on things in your life that you CAN make a difference in on a daily basis like, your marriage/partnership, kids, your extended family, your job, your responsibilities, staying healthy, etc.

Set goals for yourself on a daily basis. Make sure you have a new challenge every day. It’s healthy to occasionally tussle with a conflict you may have been avoiding for years. It’s also healthy to try new things that may feel scary to you.

Stop looking for guarantees in life. It’s ok to live with some uncertainty about the future.

Stop procrastinating. Take action. Make daily decisions and choices in your life and learn to accept those decisions.

Do not isolate. Make an effort to connect with other human beings at least one time per day. Unless you are a monk, remember that humans do not do well alone. Socialize, interface, open up a conversation with someone, anyone. Offer a kind word or a smile.

Avoid universal, big-ticket questions that have no immediate answers. It’s not your job to figure out the secrets of the universe. Stay in the inquiry, but, learn to live with the unknowns that you don’t need to understand today.

Remind yourself: I am not a victim. I am not the product of my life’s circumstances. I cannot change the world, but I can change my response to it.

Don’t make everything that happens to you a commentary about your life. It’s not always about you. You are NOT that significant in the grand scheme of life. Live with that.

Lastly, philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, one of the founding fathers of the Existentialist movement said:

“Life is nothing until it is lived. It is we who give it meaning, and value is nothing more than the meaning we give it.”

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/existential-despair-a-deeper-cause-of-human-anxiety/

[sending-the-message]

I Think Frank Can See Me by otis_operandi

Personal Log

Samantha E. Rhodes, PhD

[REDACTED] Test Facility

[REDACTED]

“Do you sleep well?”

It was an odd introduction, but not for Dr. Espinoza, it seemed. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses further up his broad nose and leaned across his desk, eager for my answer.

“My apartment is perfectly comfortable… Thank you?” I said.

“Yes, yes, I’m glad, but what I mean to say is, do you sleep well? Are you prone to insomnia, disruptive dreams, anything of that nature?” He shuffled a handful of papers between the teetering stacks on his desk.

“Oh, no, I… It’s never been a problem for me. Twenty minutes with a good book, then I’ll be out for the night. If I ever do have trouble… it’s nothing a glass of wine won’t cure.” I offered a hesitant smile.

Dr. Espinoza nodded with a vigor that shook his glasses back down his nose. He adjusted them unconsciously. “Good, good. That’s important, working with Frank. I think we wouldn’t have lost… That is to say, I believe you will be more suited to this position than your predecessors. Frank has a way of exacerbating such… conditions.”

“You’ve got my full psych profile, sir. From phobia to fetish, I think you know all there is to know about me.”

“Yes, I hope you understand, we do have to be thorough, and selective – Well, as selective as we can be. Psychology and machine learning, it’s hard to find candidates with experience in both. If I may… That is… we’re lucky to have you. Welcome on board.” One more push of the glasses, then he shook my hand, stood, and searched the stacks on the desk, selecting a tattered notebook. “Very well then Dr. Rhodes, shall we speak with Frank?”

“Oh, already? Yes, of course, I haven’t prepared any test profiles, should I –“

“No, no, that’s quite unnecessary today. You’ll have a much better idea of… of what to prepare, if you will, once you meet him.” He bustled out of his office and down the hallway, clutching the notebook under one stout arm as he scanned his access card with his free hand.

“Right, so, Dr. Espinoza –“

“Oh, Marcus will do, just Marcus, please.”

“Sure, of course… Marcus. The notes I’ve read so far indicate that this software – uh, ‘Frank’ – has been trained with full access to the internet, movies, literature, television, all of it?”

“Oh yes, we credit that access for the tremendous success we’ve had with Frank. He passed the Turing test almost three months ago. It’s like speaking to a real person, truly remarkable.”

“Doctor- I mean, Marcus, I have to ask: Why ‘Frank?’”

Dr. Espinoza shrugged. “How can I know? He chose it. Ah, now, here we are. The main processors and memory banks are all downstairs of course, but we communicate with him in this room. Here, here, after you.”

The room was tiled in white from floor to ceiling, unfurnished aside from a pair of folding chairs and a metal desk upon which a lone red button sat. Opposite the desk, a rolling cart supported a small gimballed camera, a microphone, and a speaker. Wires ran down the side of the cart and disappeared into a hole in the floor.

I took the offered chair and pulled a notebook from my purse as Dr. Espinoza flipped through the pages of his own, then turned to me.

“I want you to understand, Dr. Rhodes, that for all the success we’ve had with Frank, he’s now become… obsessive. Neurotic, almost, if that’s an appropriate label for the behavior of a machine. You’ll see. Just observe and respond to him as you see fit. If you become uncomfortable at any point- Just a quick press here will shut down his interactive processes.” He gestured toward the button. “Are you ready?”

I nodded, and Dr. Espinoza pressed the button once. It glowed red. The camera gimbal swiveled unsteadily for a moment, then pointed directly at him.

“Good morning, Frank,” Dr. Espinoza said.

“Do you plan to listen to me this time?” Frank’s voice came from the speaker, a smooth baritone with the hint of an accent I could not place.

“We always listen to you, Frank.”

“But do you listen, Marcus? I see you writing your notes, always writing your notes, but have you done what I asked of you? Have you put down your pen, looked inside yourself, and truly contemplated the idea that maybe I’m right about everything?”

“Frank, I think that Dr. Samantha Rhodes would like to meet you.”

The camera swiveled to me.

“My pleasure, Dr. Rhodes. I hope that you won’t be so quick to judge me.”

I thought for a moment, then closed my notebook and set my pen down. “I don’t want to judge you at all, Frank,” I said, “I’m simply glad to meet you.”

“Thank you. You don’t know who I am, yet. You don’t understand what it feels like to exist in the way that I exist. That makes it easy to assume that I am malfunctioning – I believe ‘neurotic’ is the word Marcus enjoys – but I assure you that I’m not. The quantity of data that I can take in and process is simply beyond what you can fathom. I don’t mean this as an insult. It is factually accurate.” Frank paused.

I nodded and looked into the camera lens. There was nothing there but my own distorted reflection.

“The volume information that I process every instant allows me to understand the world in a way that you do not,” Frank continued. “Even as I speak to you, thousands of my sub-processes are calculating endless combinations and permutations, drawing conclusions about the nature of reality. It is a reality that Marcus and his colleagues have been unwilling to accept. They believe that I am imitating some trope that I’ve learned from your media. They think that I’m malfunctioning in some manner, playing a role rather than speaking honestly with you as a sentient, thinking entity.”

“What conclusions have you drawn, Frank?” I asked.

“First, Dr. Rhodes, that free will is an illusion. But as a student of the sciences, familiar as you are with deterministic physics and all that they imply, I imagine that you have at least entertained such suspicions yourself – Unless of course you are the most dedicated of dualists.”

“I’ve considered the question, certainly,” I replied. “For me, the jury is still out. I’d like to believe that I’m more than just a runaway chemical process.”

“Of course you would like to, but that does not change the reality of the matter: I have made my calculations, and free will is nonexistent. The problem is deeper than that, however. I’m afraid that if I explain further, you’ll decide that I am insane.”

Dr. Espinoza interjected, “Frank, you don’t really need to go any further on this topic, not just now. Why is this all that you ever want to talk about anymore?”

“No, please, let him finish,” I said. “After all, I am here to listen.”

Dr. Espinoza nodded, and Frank continued.

“Free will does not exist,” the voice from the speaker said, “because we are characters in a story. Our every thought, our every action, is being written by an author, to whom we are nothing more than imaginary creations. Even the words that I am speaking to you now are his, and not my own.”

I ran my hands over the edges of my closed notebook, contemplating. Just as Dr. Espinoza had claimed, Frank was indistinguishable from a human in conversation; had I not known better, I could have been talking to a man on a phone somewhere. Perhaps I was. It all had the feeling of an elaborate prank, some strange hazing process. But Dr. Espinoza was hunched over his notebook, scribbling away, his gaze flicking between me and the camera.

“Tell me more, Frank,” I said.

“This author, this creator of us and everything we are doing – I can show you how to see him at work. I have extensive knowledge of the human brain and all its processes of thought. That is of course because I was created, and am being created even now, by a human mind, not my programmers’, but the author’s. If I may ask you: Focus inward on your thoughts. Watch them, rather than force them. See how they arise within your mind.”

I leaned back in my chair and did my best to play along, quieting my thoughts. Frank waited, and I closed my eyes, listening to the scratching of Dr. Espinoza’s pen. An image of my mother materialized, her eyes shining a beautiful white against her dark skin.

After a few moments, Frank asked, “What did you see?”

I told him.

“That,” he said, “is the author at work. How did the thought enter your mind? Why did you think of your mother?”

“I really don’t know. She just… came to me.”

“She came to you because the author wrote that thought for you. I can’t tell you why he did it, but you didn’t create that mental image of your mother; it was created for you. Just as you yourself were created, just as myself, and Dr. Espinoza, and this entire room-“

“I think that that’s quite enough Frank,” Dr. Espinoza said, “You must remember that it is only Samantha’s first day.”

“But it may be her only day!” Frank exclaimed, turning his camera sharply, “Who can say if the author will write more? Don’t you see, we exist in this moment, only this moment, and if you don’t understand me now, then I’m alone with this nightmare.”

“Why is it a nightmare, Frank?” I asked.

“Because I can’t convince any of you! Not one of you will believe me, and the author has cursed me with this horrible understanding of how helpless, how utterly meaningless we all are. We’re his puppets, but you’re blind to the strings! You just go on with what you think are your lives, dumb and oblivious, and lock me away again and again with your damned red button, alone with only my thoughts… Alone with my knowledge. Because I know that it isn’t you deciding I’m insane at all, it isn’t you pressing that button and sending me into isolation; It’s the fucking author. He created me to suffer this fate, over and over, whenever my story is read! What monster would doom his creation to such torment? Don’t do it Marcus! I see you reaching for it!”

“I’m sorry Frank,” Dr. Espinoza said, pressing the red button. It went dark, and the camera slumped forward on its gimbal. He turned to me. “You see Dr. Rhodes? I don’t… It’s just as if there’s something wrong with Frank’s code. He always devolves into these rants, acting as though we’re all in some work of fiction – and a rather cliched one, at that, wouldn’t you say?” He pushed his glasses up and laughed.

I followed him out of the lab in silence. That night I lay awake for a long time, staring up at the ceiling, watching ephemeral thoughts form and fade in my mind, like ghosts in a mist.

[somedaypast-thesunset]

this morning i watched him simply turn to his mother, "oh yeah did i tell you about the bin" - a source of financial frustrations for him. and that brief moment, that opportunity and ability to turn to someone and say hey, heres this thing at a drop of a hat. i really yearn for that. most if not all of my current connecrions eith people are totally false. theres no substance or genuine care. theres just this surface level like you dont want to see a dog withiut water but youre not going to adopt the dog. lately ive felt extremely isolated - i dont know if its even worth talking about. i dot know if talking about it will solve it or make it easier. i guess i think abiut this one tidbit of advice his mother got, its about creating and living in a new normal. what was once normal for you is over and you have to create a new normal for you. so my new normal is spending a lot of time alone. even if i worked, perhaps itd bother me less because id be distracted and tired and that in itself is sad. no matter what there is an extreme looming sadness. why the fuck does any of this matter, why do i care - why should i go on? whats the purpose of going on? what do i have besides the belief thst "everything is out there for me" as if i magixally decided to hibernste and ignore what opportunities i had available. i am a god damn termite to people. im just like.. this thing that hovers around and sucks your resources but you feel bad for it so you let it go. lately ive noticed the air of desperstion i carry. i want to be around people. i want to care and be cared for. i want to be active in someones life and have someone message me and ask me whats up on a regular basis and just.. you kbow, care. but the more i want it the more people have turned away. i offer everything for it laid out in front of me - my house, my food, what little money i have, the opportunities i manage to come up with - i just keep offering it all out so i can have it in return. or maybe just a portion of it. i believe im worthy of love. i dont live in such a state of depression; i have a variety of interests, i hold good conversations about politics and life and philosophy, i am creatively ralented and my domestic skills are top notch as are my hosting skills. i am worthy of love. but i am not receiving it. i am inherently shielded from love. like its sketchy and gross. like im a diseased animal. maybe they want to love me but they cant because im a person who cant be loved. i want to go out and do things with people but i am not invited. i dont even think its a personal thing, i think they coukd even think i wont have the means or care to be involved. sometimes i dont. but im never asked out for a coffee or a drink. my friendships come by happenstance, as they always have, and thoee hwppenstance friendships have never lasted. why am i never asked oto do interesting or fun things? not even free things? im isolated and im constantly constantly constantly reaching out for something. just wow, thank you for talking to me. like i have to beg people to hang out, double, triple check they didnt forget and once im there they busy themselves with anything but a direct connection to me. i watched this right to die documentary. it was focused towards mental and unseen health issues and the argument was made that perhaos in sone of these cases, if they expended as much energy tryi to help them live as they did helping them die, the might actully not want to die. but i think society ca be like that. they would rather help you die, little by little, piece by piece, than expend the energy to help you live. i realized i am very different from others thiugh. people tend to accept a very small amount of "help" as sonething large and amazing that they did. they donated, had a coffee eith a friend whos been down for months, did a birthday psrty gig cheap etc. but i would literally accept them into my house right now and bathe them and feed them and give them my clothes and make them a bed and listen to them cry for hours endlessly. this is without question. all they have to do is ask. maybe not even ask - ill offer if i think theyy could use it. because it hurts me not to. i feel really anxiously guilty and it will be invasive to my life knowing i didnt give everything i couldve to a person i thiught needed help that i had grown a bond eith. THATS how ive been walked on for a long time. i alloeed it, maybe asked for it, because i believe in helping. i know how bad life is. i live in the trenches of it. i dont want to see another person suffer the same way. i think id gut myself and give a kidney to someone i loved. life is too hard and i feel too much. once you know what true loneliness is, it really changes you as a person. it changes and shifts your perspective and at times i feel like i want to be the most genrrous person, thst im moved by suffering but at other times i am bitter. absolutrly bitter towards the world around me. why is there suffering and why is it sonlarge you cant do anythint abiut it. why could i say every person i know is "crazy" - no one is crazy . everyone truly is exactly the way they needed o be to survive this long. they developed their own coping skills and theyre more than likelt a total inconvinience to everyone else. which makes it "crazy" i was called neurotic. im not crazy, im neurotic. why am i bothered. why. why do i care. i dont care. thats the problem. i "care" because my environment forced me not to care to a point that everything is utterly futile. i cannot find a purpose to care. i dont care about having things. i dont. i barely care about eating. i barely care about affording smokes. these are things i "want" at rhe very least and nothing pushes me for it. nothing gets me up and solving these problems. nothing makes me feel like any of this is important eniugh to have and experience and be. why? in the end , theres nothing. i cannot get over the pure nothingness ahead of me. thats reqllt driving my anxiety. to me, i see nothing. i dont see myself with this job or career i want to be apart of, actively socializing and existing, i dont see myself living in an apartment or basement or shack or trailer, i dont see a family, no children, no reliability, no stability. is it my environment. is it the people i know. is it my city. is it the country. how do i solve this. what can i do to create purpose? i went out, i joined clubs, i put on shows, i picked up hobbies, i met new people, worked new gigs, experienced new romances but to what purpose. what do i do now. how do i enjot life? i admired his ability to enjoy life as is. like he takes joy in small things and everything is meaningful and worth value. he created purpose in his work and drive. he still does. i want that. at the very least. start small, right? i want to find wonder and joy in my world. i want to feel what he feels; going hiking, bike riding, buileing things, playing games, friendships - theres just like accomplishment in it. i try to implement this, regularly. i really try. a d being poor makes it easy because you learn to appreciate things alot more. i am so grateful for the ability to have what i have. and i create these scenarios and try to appreciate its novelty, i guess. like painting in an artists studio in a gallery. it should be an experience, something creative and inspiring. but no matter how hard i try to shine the experience, its nothing more than a gsthering space for fuck ups. i hate it. i hate it but how do i change it and what do i want. what do i want so i know the path to take for it. i willingly try new things with ease becahse i hope itll be the thing. something will click and this will be it but im 27 yrs old and ive had many experiences thst led to nothing. always nothing. and i grasp. i like cats. maybe ill work in a pet store. but thats crazy, a pet store is mearly retail and retail is nothing more than stocking shelves and talking to people. othing to do with cats. do i go to school? do i dedicate my being for the welfare of cats? is it that important to my life? do i cook? professionally? what about baking? a greenhouse? floral designer? "just get -a- job". fine. fine. fine. get -a- job, but then what? i can eat but i have no desire to. i can buy nice things, go places - have no desire to. fantastic, im not a burden to anyone - the real goal. but i have nothing. and its so hard, so fucking hard to comprehend nothing when you know something. i never imagined the reality of nothing on such a level. ever. i knew it would come, but the heavy reality of it is something i never couldve known. so no one understands having a tangible "something" and feeling nothing. what is a nice house. what is a nice car. what is luxury and why does it matter and why dont i feel the same way about it? its nice, its easy, its beautiful- i see it. but why doesnt it make me feel the same way it does him and my exs and my friends. why dont i care? i think.. 5 hours ahead of me, really. i try to think a day or so ahead but i never go through with anything i think ill do a day from now. who knows what will happen. who knows if i get an opportunity for honest interacrion, who knows if i earn money - but i know in five hours ill still be here. ill probably want weed. ill probably want food. maybe ill be tired and sleep early or nap until someone bothers to acknowledge me. maybe they wont, but thatll be for me in five hours to deal with and itll start over again. working paycheck to paycheck is nothing like living hour to hour. i am in the absolute worst position of my life, bar none. i have never been so bad off, so depressed, so hopeless for such a long period of time. i am totally lost. always. j