#the 2016 dr strange runs to me make me a bit sad

[doctorstrangeaskblog]

Have you met Zelma Stanton?

No. Why? Do I know her in other realities?

[tonycuseoblog]

Dirty Laundry: Part 1

In this post, I am going to begin the process of airing my dirty laundry. Since there’s quite a bit of it, I’ve decided to do it in categories, over the course of a few posts. This post features what I’m calling ‘sexual’ and ‘emotional’ secrets.

Dr. Blanton’s model puts an emphasis on being tuned-in to the body and the experience when sharing, so along with each “admission” I have written the sensations I’m experiencing and the thoughts and emotions I notice rising in myself.

Let’s get right into it:

1. SEXUAL

Sexual Partners

I have had approximately 30 sexual partners. I am not sure of the exact number because I’ve never kept a running tally. Not that makes me a saint or anything, clearly. For a good portion of my life, I’d say ages 22-29 I was obsessed with women and trying to seduce women. I was lonely and insecure and felt sex and validation would be my path to happiness. During this period, I also slept with two married women without their husband’s knowledge.

Sensations: As I write this, I notice my heart pounding in the back of my chest. I feel clamminess throughout my body.

Thoughts & Emotions: I notice the emotions I have come to label as fear and shame. I worry I will look like a “slut.”

Hook-Ups

During that 7-year stretch, I regularly used the internet and dating apps to meet women. Sometimes these relationships were exclusively sexual. On several occasions, I would meet women with the sole intention of “hooking up” at their home or a hotel room, and then we would go our separate ways. On a few occasions, I traveled great distances just for this reason.

Sensations: I feel waves of energy flowing up and down my legs, and some tightness in my left arm. I find it difficult to breathe.

Thoughts & Emotions: I notice what I’ve come to label as worry. I also notice a feeling of disappointment with myself.

Pick-Up

Around age 22 I discovered the “Pick-Up Artist Community.” I stumbled upon a book that detailed the “Pickup Industry” and was very intrigued by its tales of seduction. Up to that point, I had very little “success” with women and was desperate to learn how to do “better.” Much of the writing and instruction was aimed at quickly seducing women into bed. I felt many of the techniques were inauthentic and rather sleazy. With time, my interest ended. However, for a period of time, I was very keen. I desperately wanted more validation and more sex and was willing to try almost anything to get it.

Sensations: I notice tension in my head, face, and neck.

Thoughts & Emotions: I feel fear and dread. I worry I will be labeled as a “womanizer” and objectifier.

Pornography

Over the course of a few months in my late 20’s I watched pornography and masturbated almost every night of the week. While my viewing is less frequent now, I will still watch and “use” porn from time to time.

Sensations: I am tuned-in to my pulse and heartbeat.

Thoughts & Emotions: I notice the feeling of shame. I worry I will be thought of as a pervert or sex addict.

Vanity

I am very aware of the attractiveness of others, particularly women. While personality plays a part in my attraction, I find I am much more often interested in a pretty face and a nice body.

Sensations: I feel flushing in my face and cheeks.

Thoughts & Emotions: I feel dirty and ugly. I fear I will be thought of as shallow.

2. EMOTIONAL

Cancer

I have been more public about this over the years, but at the time it was happening I was very private about it. I was diagnosed with Leukemia when I was 13, was given a 30% chance of survival - underwent 4 years of intensive chemotherapy, suffered a stroke, collapsed lung, pneumonia, and other side effects.

Sensations: I notice my breath slowing down. I feel a weightedness/heaviness.

Thoughts & Emotions: I notice a feeling of sadness and despair. I notice myself trying to avoid the feelings and to escape the memories of that time.

Depression

I’ve had issues with it on and off since my cancer days. I have in rare moments contemplated suicide, but never seriously and have never harmed myself. I was on and off antidepressants for many years and stopped for good in 2016.

Tears

I am a cryer. This past year I notice myself crying quite regularly. I’d say several times each month, and quite forcefully.

Outsider

I have felt like an outsider for as long as I can remember. Most days I look at other human beings and feel separate from them, almost like I’m a different species. As a result, I constantly feel lonely.

THE TRUTH

Writing what I wrote felt painful. I worry about the backlash. I have a feeling I’ll have to come back and write more about all these things. I have a feeling there’s a long and difficult road ahead of me.

This is not a cry for help. Please don’t text me kind messages saying that I’m not a bad person, or telling me it will all be ok. If you’re shocked, say so. If you think I’m a pig or you’re disappointed in me, call me out.

THE WHY

Some may question the purpose of all this, so let me clarify. I’m doing this for me. I am trying to clear out all my cobwebs. I have accumulated so much shame and guilt over the course of my relatively short life, it’s pathetic.

On a grander scale, I would love to live in a world where we were honest about who we are and what we’re feeling. It seems like pretending to be happy and giving the illusion that your life is always perfect has become the norm. I call bullshit.

And what’s worse, pretending we’re always “AWESOME!” (I hate that word) is doing more to separate us than connect us. How can we expect to connect if we aren’t actually vulnerable with each other? It’s impossible.

I’m going to end my rant here and get off my soapbox because I am 100% guilty of this. Without a doubt, I have spent most of my life thinking I was open and vulnerable but in reality, I wasn’t. There are likely people reading this who know me quite well, and they’re saying, “You’re full of it, Tony.” You’re right. I am. And, I’m trying to change.

This post is already far too long, so let me wrap up by saying this: From now on, I am committed to honesty and vulnerability. I want to live a life of what Neale Donal Walsch calls “complete transparency.” I’ll likely receive some strange looks, judgment, and scorn. And, I’m ok with that. If that’s the cost of real connection, I imagine it will be more than worth the momentary discomfort.

[mrsabbington-blog]

Farewell, my dear Watson: Amanda Abbington on Sherlock and her break-up with Martin Freeman

The actress’s career was going from strength to strength when her relationship with her co-star imploded. She tells Bryan Appleyard how she contained the fallout

Amanda Abbington — who, as Mary Morstan, took a bullet for Sherlock Holmes — has a new man whom she won’t name. “He’s lovely, we’re keeping it very much on the low down. We don’t want lots of people to know. We’ve been together for about a year now. He’s an actor and he’s delightful. He’s very mindful of my situation and I’m very mindful of his.”

She was with Holmes’s sidekick, Dr Watson — aka Martin Freeman — for 16 years. They have two children, Grace and Joe. They broke up in 2016 while they were both starring in Sherlock.

“We still get on really well, we still really both admire each other as actors … he’s a great guy, but we just couldn’t live with each other any more.”

Given that Sherlock was an international hit, and that Freeman achieved global superstardom as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, this was a high-profile break-up. She was papped, looking supposedly “disconsolate” while out shopping.

Trying to keep the new man a mystery is understandable. But it won’t be easy. Tabloids have recently been reporting that she and Northern Irish actor Jonjo O’Neill are an item. She is neither confirming nor denying this. The paps would have been after her anyway, because she is the star of Safe, a new Netflix series by the crime author Harlan Coben. The first strange thing about this show is her co-star Michael C Hall, who played the Miami serial killer Dexter and the gay undertaker David Fisher in Six Feet Under. Here, he is a dodgy English husband in a wealthy suburban enclave (in fact Manchester, but you’re not supposed to know that). The strange thing is his English accent, which is near perfect.

“He was really worried about that. English accents are hard for Americans to do. I don’t think he had a voice coach.”

Her voice has a slight southeastern working-class flavour. She talks quickly, eagerly and laughs a lot and, for some reason, she seems much prettier in the flesh than on TV. I am sure, however, there is something wrong with her tastebuds. We’re both having tuna salad at a studio in north London. The fish is perfectly inedible, but she eats it all.

To get back to Hall — he will always be Dexter to me, so I’m pretty sure he’s guilty of something other than the affair he’s having with Sophie, the detective sergeant played by Abbington, which is revealed in the first episode. Also revealed is the fact that Sophie’s ex-husband is living in a caravan in her front garden.

This is the second time she’s played a detective sergeant. The first was Jo Moffatt in the series Cuffs in 2015. The BBC cancelled that after one series. She was also Detective Chief Inspector Louise Munroe in Case Histories, another BBC series. Female police officers, we agree, have a long and distinguished screen history. “Prime Suspect,” I suggest. “Helen Mirren!”

“The Gentle Touch!” she replies. “Cagney and Lacey! Angie Dickinson! I loved Police Woman. I wanted to be Angie Dickinson when I was growing up.”

There’s a good reason she fantasised about being a strong woman with a gun. For three years at primary school she was badly bullied — her lunches were stolen and she was called ugly, stupid and smelly. Nobody would play with her.

“There was a group of girls who made my life miserable. I am now very, very aware of it when it happens anywhere. If it happens to my kids or on the street or on the internet I’ll wade in.”

She’s certainly an active and sweary anti-bullying and anti-general-nastiness campaigner on Twitter — she is @CHIMPSINSOCKS.

“I’ve never understood the c**** who abuse and hurt animals,” was her latest tweet as I was writing this. “Wonderful. Just wonderful. Let’s make older women feel even more f****** invisible and unattractive,” she tweeted about a story saying men preferred younger women.

She was brought up in Hertfordshire, her father was a taxi driver and her mother was tough: she finally found out about the bullies and went round to the house of one of them. “If your child does anything like that to my daughter again,” she said, “I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

Her mother’s fierceness and her grandmother’s advice seem to have prepared her for the perils of show business. When I ask her the inevitable Harvey Weinstein question, she says she’s never had a problem. “I always go on a film set as a mate of everybody. I set my stall out. I’m just going to be like the funny mate who hangs out with the sparks and the prop boys, and I make sure I am not someone you can take the piss out of or take advantage of. I learnt that from my nana — be strong, make them laugh and don’t take shit from anybody.”

Anyway, there she is in Hertfordshire worshipping Angie Dickinson and wanting to be on stage. Somehow this leads her into dancing. She studied dance from the age of five. Eventually she got auditions for Cats and Starlight Express, but she knew she wasn’t good enough. In any case, the decision was made for her when, aged 18, she did the splits and ripped the muscles in her groin.

“That ended my dancing career, but I would never have been a good dancer. Then a drama teacher told me that he thought my talent lay in acting and he was absolutely right. I’d always performed, always made up stories and done funny voices. I went to a tiny drama school in Hitchin and I felt like I’d come home.”

She picked up small parts — The Bill, Wycliffe, Casualty and so on. But there was no real breakthrough. Well, there was one: the Maltesers TV ads she made with Katherine Parkinson. Unlike almost every TV ad ever made anywhere, they are still worth watching.

At one point she went 18 months without any work, changing her agent half a dozen times in desperation. The first stirrings of a change in her fortunes came with ITV’s Mr Selfridge — she was Josie Mardle — which ran for four series between 2013 and 2016.

“My character was an amalgamation of quite a few women who worked within the top echelons of Selfridges. There was so much going on in those years — the suffragettes, the Titanic. It was a dream job.”

It was a success, but not huge and a bit middle-aged — it was not for geeks, millennials or snowflakes, so it could not really go, as we must say, viral. All that changed when the actor and screenwriter Mark Gatiss invited her and Freeman to sit in on a discussion on the third series of Sherlock. They wanted to bring in a new character from the books, Mary Morstan, who first appears in The Sign of Four. Abbington had a couple of ideas. “I said Nicola Walker, she would be amazing in it. Or Olivia Colman.”

It was a set-up, they were going to offer it to her all along. She burst into tears. Sherlock was the big TV show of the moment.

“People started to say hello to me in the street when Sherlock started. Mr Selfridge wasn’t iconic. Sherlock hit the ground running and everyone went mad about it.”

She did seven episodes in two series, then she saved the life of Holmes and sacrificed her own by taking the bullet; it’s an invented incident, Mary dies in the books, but the cause is unknown. I ask her why a mouthy, Estuary-accented working-class girl like her would take a bullet for a toff — Holmes being played by the old Harrovian Benedict Cumberbatch.

“I know! Why would she do that? I wouldn’t, I’d run the other way.”

Did being killed off upset her?

“No, it made sense. And, anyway, you never really leave Sherlock, there are always flashbacks. So if they ever do another one I’m hoping they’ll have me back.”

The strange thing about her role in Sherlock was not simply that it made her famous. Out there on the easily offended, lost-its-grip-on-reality internet it made her notorious as the scheming woman who came between the previously happy and — in the imaginations of some fans — gay relationship between Holmes and Watson.

“I made the mistake of talking about the fan art very early on. They used to do some beautiful work about Watson and Sherlock being together as a couple, and I made an off-the-cuff remark that I wasn’t entirely happy with this because my kids might see it. The fallout was terrible and I felt really bad. I wasn’t being disparaging about their work. It got out of hand and I managed to make a lot of enemies. I had to do a lot of damage limitation. It’s because they’re fiercely protective of the show and that’s brilliant! But it means you have to treat it with a lot of respect.”

Meanwhile, Freeman had to be away for years in New Zealand shooting The Hobbit. While away she had the children to look after and had a cancer scare — a lump in her breast that turned out to be harmless. She also landed herself in trouble with the taxman. She was declared bankrupt because of an unpaid £120,000 tax bill. “I didn’t pay enough over a period of years and it accumulated, but for the record I paid it all back with a huge amount of interest,” she says. “Because I’m an idiot and I didn’t put enough away. It was my biggest regret and now I make sure everything is in place where it can never happen again.”

On top of that, their relationship was in trouble and, in the midst of the Sherlock episodes that put them on screen together, they broke up. They kept it as quiet as they could. “When we broke up nobody knew, we didn’t tell anybody except for a few key people because they had to know, because of the logistics of hotels and stuff. It took six months for it to get out and a lot of that was while we were working on Sherlock.

“We were not children, we weren’t going to start throwing crap at each other. We were professional and we were going to get on and make a show and be civil to each other. That’s far more important than being angry and being sad.”

Safe could have her up there again. The first episode I saw looked very promising and Coben does seem to be associated with hits. We’ll see.

Abbington, meanwhile, is back in her home village of Little Heath, Hertfordshire, with her parents living down the road. She’s an only child, they’re close. She loved being an only child because it made it easier to get on with adults and she never had to put up with rows like those between her children.

“Please, Mummy, can I get an agent,” says Grace, who is nine. She wants to be an actor. Abbington thinks she has the talent and presence to succeed. But she’s cautious. Parts like Mary Morstan and Josie Mardle don’t grow on trees.

Safe launches on Netflix on May 10

[trylonandperisphere]

Silent Retreat 2, Ch. 20

Hello!  So... fuck it, this fic is back.

Things went a little awry in 2016, to say the least, and the removal of this fic from AO3 (for reasons of me doing something wrong that I didn’t know was wrong and never got warning about) threw its progress off-kilter, and then there was the presidential elections, and well... you know.

So, joining back in on the story.  Just FYI, I kinda lost my betas along the way, so anything from now on is both unbetaed and maybe kind of weird from the shit year I was having.  But hey, I hope you enjoy it, anyway! :)  I give up on my perfectionism!  Here goes!

Also on ff.net and AO3.

Mostly it was blank.

Teo had pretty much forced me to take some Xanax. I didn't even know where he'd gotten it. I was so heavy, but I felt my tears slowing, and then he put me in the bed, and I slept.

Then the dreams came.

"I've made a terrible mistake."

"What have you done?"

I was back in that cot in the DYAD lab, and Delphine was crying. She had been tricked by Rachel and Kira was taken. I'd believed her then, her sincerity, her love. But in this dream, I wasn't sure. Could she be faking her sadness? Her tears were colours, whirling and blending. Some meant truth and some meant lies. I had to observe very carefully and figure out what was really going on before…

I was with Shay, curled up together in the house where we were staying. Despite having been appointed my monitor, she had taken my side. Unlike Delphine, I thought. Or had Delphine really wanted to mend things? And was there any way Shay could have been feeding information about me to someone, even while we were on the run? At night we sought solace in each other's arms. I let my body lead my actions, burying myself in each touch, each kiss. The feeling of her hands on my shoulders, her voice moaning my name, the clutch and tremble of her orgasm around my fingers were present, physical. She couldn't be faking all that, could she? I chose to give her a chance, because she had come clean to me, had suggested running. But underneath, I knew it was something else. I was running from the craziness my life had become, but also the fear, the doubt, the betrayal… and the chill of seeing the gaze of the woman I loved and not knowing if she honestly loved me, or the one thing I held most dear in my heart was a lie.

Suddenly it was morning, and Sarah was there, bursting into the room, waking us.

"They've got Sevvy and Kira," she shouted, both of them being children at the same time making perfect sense in my subconscious, somehow. "Get your shit together!" She started throwing things at me: clothes, papers, a familiar hunting rifle. Where had I seen it before, and why did it fill me with fear and shame? "We have to go!"

The dizzying world of a frantic dream, not knowing exactly what was going on except panic, and running… and Delphine was pulling me into a bed, and whispering "je t'aime, je t'adore" as she made love to me… and it was love, wasn't it? The steady depth of her gaze, the warmth of her voice, the way she'd dedicated herself to learning how to please me, after that first time when she'd fumbled with the actuality of having sex with a woman, being touched by slender fingers, herself.

"She's your monitor! Just because Paul can't act and Donnie was clueless doesn't mean she's being straight with you!" (Ha ha, my brain echoed dumbly, straight.) "She's smart, Cos, and she's higher up than any other monitor we've seen. She's in with Leekie, for God's sake!"

Was it fate, the way we fell into each other? Something vast yet concentrated and inexplicable about love? Or was it something rehearsed, practiced, studied until she could convince me utterly? Maybe even, sometimes, convince herself?

"I wish I didn't have to go, but I'll make it up to you after the conference."

"Ooh, Dr. Cormier. How are you going to do that?"

And with a kiss she was moving to get into her car. But this time she had Sevvy in her arms. He clung to her, and she kissed him softly on the temple as she put him into the car seat, its straps suddenly seeming like the unbreakable bonds of a trap, and as I glimpsed his face in the window as they drove away, it was filled with fear, and the knowledge that I had betrayed him.

I clawed my way out of the dream, moaning. I might have been shivering if my body didn't feel so leaden. No light shone through the window and there were no sounds save the raspings and calls of cicadas and crickets outside. My eyes rolled back behind my lids, and then I caught them and looked around me again. My bed at the boys' house. Was it safe? Was I alone?

I hauled myself up slowly and stumbled out the doorway. A faint light pulsed from the living room and I moved toward it. Michael was there, sitting in an armchair, the rifle across his lap. The television flickered and murmured in a low babble, as he faced resolutely away from it and toward the window.

I paused at the threshold. He turned and saw me.

"You got some sleep," he finally said, voice matter-of-fact, and my heart constricted again, wondering if he hated me now.

"Um, yeah," I managed, then cleared my throat. "Those pills, you know…" I didn't finish, and his eyes, dark-ringed by exhaustion, didn't move from my face or alter their steady, hooded gaze.

"Where are Sevvy and Teo?" I managed thickly, still a little wobbly on my legs.

"Our bedroom. Sleeping, thankfully, at least last I checked."

I nodded, turning on my heel, compelled to check on them, myself, but paused at the sound of his voice.

"Cos—"

His voice was tired, but maybe a bit gentler than before, and he'd used my nickname. I turned around, trying to read his expression in the gloom, the television light pulsing across his face in alternating harsh shadows and a dim glow.

"I can't imagine what it was like going through what you did," he said, "and I know your decisions were shaped by crazy circumstances. I just wish I had known, that you had told us, because I'm afraid for my son." I swallowed thickly.

"Yeah," I managed, "I know, I get that, now, but hindsight…" I took a breath, realizing I'd wrapped my arms around myself. "There's so much I could have done differently, but I can't change it now. And it's… it's hard, because there are no rational, scientific answers for all this. There was no way for me to research and test what I should do next, so all I could do was whatever felt right to me at the time. It's not an excuse; I know I fucked up, badly. And I can't be sure… How do I know what was beyond my control and what I could affect? I turned to spirituality because I had to accept things that happen that we don't know how to handle. I had to... stay strong, for my sisters, for everyone this fucked up… rolling boulder that was pushed before I was born had in its path; just to keep on living. I knew life was strange and full of seemingly random side trips, experimentations… even jumps in evolution that were both logical and completely out of chance. I tried my best to put it all in order in my mind. But, even though I'm a clone, I'm human. And when I realized having a child could be possible… when I saw you guys, my friends who I loved wanting a child so bad… maybe something primitive took over. Maybe it was my biology, or some psychological need to mean something other than being the freak who figured out how to save the other freaks like herself…" I choked on a sob, the first I really noticed in the series of them I'd been trying to control.

"Shit, I shouldn't say that. I'm so glad I was able to help my sisters, but… I still felt so isolated by my own… weirdness, or whatever. Maybe it was just… I needed to hope. Take a risk on something good, you know? A future." My words were tumbling out now, and I couldn't stop them, couldn't see his reactions through my screen of tears. "I wasn't honest and I was wrong for that. I thought I was protecting you, and my sisters, but I was also protecting myself. And I can't know that… if I'd told you everything at the beginning, would you have turned away, tried something else? Would Sevvy even exist?"

I stopped myself, panting, trying not to give in and curl into a little ball, give up. And now… a voice in my head said, did Delphine always mean well, as I hoped? As I thought, then doubted, thenbelieved again? Or was Sarah right? Were Delphine's intentions based on something scientific, some kind of desire for power, rather than love? Even worse, could they be based on financial gain, or some twisted set of morals she's had all this time, like Neolution or the Proletheanism?

But nobody can be that good an actress, I told myself.

But people can, I countered. People do it all the time, con and lie… and if anyone knew a con, how to let people believe what they wanted to believe all along, that would be Sarah.

I barely noticed Michael had risen as I struggled in the tangled web of my thoughts, but suddenly he was before me. I only saw him from the chest down, my gaze vaguely focused on the floor.

"Cosima," he said, and he didn't move too close, but he did put a hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him in fear and despair and desperation trembling on the edge of hope. "It's obviously difficult for you, and has been for some time." His fingers patted in an unconscious rhythm on my shoulder, more like he was thinking than a reassuring squeeze. He paused for a moment, his usually kind, calm eyes looking disappointed, maybe a bit lost. He sighed, looked down, then back into my eyes.

"I did some searching — with your laptop, since that's supposed to be safe. I remembered vaguely hearing about the lawsuit against DYAD, how they had experimented on some women and children. I had a buddy of mine I used to work with. He's the kind of guy who's always reading those sites about cryptids, aliens, government plots and whatnot. We used to joke about it. I always just thought it was his form of entertainment, like horror movies, that he wasn't serious about it. But apparently it's more than a hobby, because he still keeps up on all the conspiracy theories. He, uh, he had seen some stuff, some rumours and reports. Some of them seemed ludicrous… most of them. But some added up."

Now he squeezed my shoulder, lightly.

"The thing is, I'm at a disadvantage. I don't know anything, or who to trust. So I need you to look me in the eye and say you'll do whatever you can — whatever it takes to keep our family safe. Tell me if your… sisters are real and they can help us. Because I will; I'll do whatever it takes. Understand?"

I knew what he meant, underneath it all. He cared about me, wanted to trust me, but if keeping Savvy safe meant sending me away from our son, he would.

"Yes," I answered through a ragged breath, "whatever it takes. He is my first priority, always. And I believe in my sisters. If you knew the things they'd gone through—" I paused, not wanting to alarm him more, make it worse. "They're so strong, smart and incredible. They have kids themselves, so they know what matters most. If anyone can help us, it's them. I trust them with my life."

He stared at me a moment, searchingly, and then his face and shoulders relaxed just the tiniest bit.

"Okay," he said, and it looked like he might say something else, but Teo's voice sounded softly behind me.

"¿Mi amor?"

I turned my head to see him, watching us both with all the concern that his great depth of heart allowed.

"We were talking," Michael told him, and I turned back to see his expression now matching his voice: worried, but steadfast, grounded, his characteristic ability to remain calm seeping back into him. "Cos tells me that we can trust her sisters, they'll help us. She says they're resourceful."

My stomach eased its frantic churn. I stepped back so I could look at them both, and Teo came forward and put a hand on each of our shoulders, connecting us.

"I believe her," Teo said. "I know this all feels like a… some crazy nightmare, but we've seen her sister Mika, and pictures of some of the others; it all comes together. We need to come together, too, because we are more than friends, we're a family. Sevvy belongs to all of us, no matter what. However it happens that he gets into trouble, we've got to protect him." He pressed on both of our shoulders, until we were in a circle, arms around one another in a hug of truce and bittersweet love. I felt Michael lose some of the awkwardness, the stiffness with which he'd been carrying himself melting, and we all leaned our foreheads against each other in the embrace. As we did this I found myself exhaling a deep sigh of release, feeling like we could at last all work together to fix this situation.

And as I let go of some of that tension, thoughts of my other love came to the forefront of my mind, and I felt so scared and tired. Would I ever hear from her again? I wanted to believe so, but after an all too brief foray into trust, our love also felt bittersweet, once again.

[diary-of-a-lunatic-blog]

2017-04-08 | Episode 00

Hello and welcome to my new blog “Diary of a Lunatic”. If you’re asking yourself “why is it called Diary of a Lunatic and what even?” then ask no more because here is the answer. For the past 7-8 months I’m fighting my own little demons and in this process I’ve done some good damage to my own mental health. This “diary” is a place for me to write down my thoughts and maybe learning something while processing these thoughts. Also I want this to be at least a weekly thing.

So what happened? Love. Love is always the problem. Love is the downwards spiral of misery.... if you’re not emotionally stable enough to handle the unrequited type. It all started by making contact with an acquaintance from a year prior. At first we started to play a little bit of League of Legends and after that there was a time when we played osu! every night and it was wonderful. Then everything went in all directions...

My then-best friend was breaking contact with me and the whole group of friends I were in because of reasons I thought were nonsense. But there was a grain of truth.

After that I did more stuff with this girl. Having a sushi party at my home, watching anime, meeting almost every day, going to restaurants and talking about personal stuff. Naturally the good ol’ psychology and biology kicked in and I fell in love with her. The sadder part was that after she broke up with her then-boyfriend she said that she’s in love with another person and we talked about him more often than I could handle. Eventually I spoke up and told her that I do care about her but I didn’t like talking so much about him. Ultimately she realised that I was in love with her but never said anything until way later. I just continued to try to hide it but I didn’t knew she knew it already.

...Skipping a few months...

After reestablishing contact with my former best friend and some talks our scattered group came together for New Year’s Eve to “celebrate” the year but it was more hoping that 2017 is less shitty. We also talked about the good things that happened in 2016 which surprisingly existed. One thing was, for example, that I had made a new dear friend but I did not know what would happen to me...

The next strain on my health was a house we (me and a few friends) rented to live on (obviously). The problem with this house was that it wasn’t “finished”. We removed some walls, build another and spent more work in this house than I’m willing to admit. In fact we’re still not finished. And this house is another source of my misery but more of the financial side of life. Since renting this house my wallet grew thinner by every day and my stress went up by every step I took while working. Eventually we finished the rough stuff and moved in and since then (which was 3 months ago) I’m still living on a construction site. It’s just stress-inducing. Every day.

So yeah. We moved in. Had some good plans. And then she called me after a black out period of 2 weeks (I think). So we talked because I asked her prior to that because I wanted to talk to her. So she called me at 12am and we started talking. After stuttering for half an hour or so I finally managed to say to her that I love her. After praising me for finally saying it she also mentioned that she knew it since 3 months ago. And then there was the moment that lifted me up and made me stone cold at the same time.

Maybe you’re asking yourself “didn’t you already knew that she was in love with someone else?”. To that I can say: yes. Yes, I knew it but I still clinged to hope that maybe, just maybe she was also in love with me or that she’s getting together with that person so I don’t have to tell her how I feel and can just live on with it. But I was tortured. Not really by her but by myself and my hope. The hope that destroyed me.

After that I grew colder. I had less emotions. I just did not care anymore. I did have fun with her afterwards. More so than prior but I was empty. I still am. This dear friend which I mentioned earlier also stopped having contact somehow and I felt ignored by my group of friends to the point on which I quietly left the group because I wanted to see what would happen to me. Would I feel something? Would I run back? But eventually I did not care.

Then, last week, I had a really bad day and posted some tweets:

“ If life gives you lemonades just eat all of it puke everywhere. “ “ On that note: Why is the sky blue? Because everyone and everything hates you. “ “ Furthermore: Warframe is so bad of a game that i even invest time i don't have in it. (P.S.: Not really a bad game) “ “ One thing i learned about myself: I like doing fruitless things with the hope of achieving something AKA grinding. “ “ Also: gurrr #pidgeonsftw “ “ Isn't it just funny, this thing called life... “ “ That feeling when you're thinking about buying alcohol and then you remember that you hate alcohol. “

After I wrote those tweets a friend of mine send me a direct message telling me that he can’t stand this negativity and was unfollowing me. He was sad that I left quietly and was trying to make contact with me but couldn’t. I told him that I never saw him trying to make contact with me and that I don’t have friends anymore. I just have people I interact with more or less.

In retrospect it was maybe a little bit to hard but that’s what I felt and still do to some extent. The concept of a “friend” was somehow unfamiliar.

After that I wrote some other tweets:

“ And so another chapter closes itself (more or less) forcefully on me. People are free to do whatever they want to do. “ “ Maybe everything seems bad because I'm bad... “

And there was again a respone. But not from the same friend but from the friend I once called my best friend. He tweeted publicly without directing his tweets to me but because of the timing, the topic and his unfollowing afterwards, I knew it was directed to me. What he ultimately said was that I was telling bullshit and that I should seek help or delete myself.

To be honest I didn’t expect anything less than that but I still felt (almost) nothing. But now I’m feeling hurt. Not directly because of the things they said but because of the things I somehow expected. I got a notice from my health insurance this week and they wanted more money than I even own and the first thing my roommate asked me is if I needed money. And it was this moment I realised again what friends are for. Helping each other. Even if one is acting a bit “unsocial”. It was this feeling I missed in the group. The feeling of being cared for. But I got hit by a wall of not dealing with me because I’m having a rough time.

But the strange thing is that I still somehow want to be with this group of people. Maybe not now but in the near future. And even prior to these tweets I was looking for a psychotherapist but I didn’t feel well asking by myself for an appointment so this roommate who also offered me the money asked in my place and now I just have to wait for a reply. The only funny thing at the moment is I now need the health insurance I didn’t need for almost 7 years (more or less) and now it’s acting up.

So yeah, that was my last half year or so in one blog entry.

tl;dr I’m mentally sick, “lost” my friends, found one again and seeking help.