troubleshooting-phoenix

[troubleshooting-phoenix]

I Hate Myself

Hello World,

Self deprecating humour seems pretty common these days. I do it too. Except 50% of the time, it’s not a joke to me... because I really do hate myself.

I almost always have, as far back as I can remember. There was a few years where I liked myself to some degree... but then it faded, and lately I’ve been feeling it stronger than ever.

If you’re a person with healthy self-esteem, you’re probably confused. How can you hate... yourself? I mean, sometimes, you’re the only person you have in this world... right? I know that I spent a lot of time depending on myself to get me through problems. Yet, I struggle with being kind to myself.

Sure, there are signs that I’m not the horrible person I feel like. I manage to maintain friendships, keep jobs and hold conversations with people. Surely, if I was as terrible a person as I feel that I am... people would probably refuse to deal with me.

The thing about hating yourself is that it’s a really hard hole to get out of. No matter what you do, you dig the hole deeper. I have anxiety... so sometimes I get overwhelmed. If I take the day off to try and recover, then I feel lazy and weak, and I beat myself up for not being able to handle it. While, on the other hand, if I force myself forward and try to push myself to work harder when I struggle, then I beat myself up for not taking proper care of myself, especially when it starts wearing on me physically, because I know I might be causing long term damage. In case you didn’t notice, there was no winning in that scenario. Neither choice I could have made was the right one, and it’s the way that all decisions feel.

I can’t make the right choice.

Are there positive aspects of both choices that I COULD focus on? Of course there are. Logically, I know that... but emotionally, I can’t see past how stupid I am for making whichever choice I made.

The worst part though... is that when the bully lives inside your head, you have to handle them yourself. You can get counseling and support from friends to help, but in the dead of night, when you’re all alone, reminding yourself how much of a failure you are... it’s just you. If you don’t talk about it, no one sees it. Not even a chance for bystanders to step in and help. No way for someone to physically separate you and your bully so you get a break. You’re always there, and you always know when you’re at your weakest. Which points hurt the most to poke at.

Recently I’ve started trying to use old advice that I got from a counselor. Telling myself that I love myself, even when I don’t believe it (fake it till you make it!), and I got a friend to make a list of good qualities. I needed a friend to make the list, because I couldn’t come up with a single good thing on my own.

Of course, the list felt like lies. Like she’d gotten confused and written it about some OTHER person. Not me. It didn’t sound like me. But I keep the list on my desk top and I reread it sometimes, and try desperately not to counteract all of her points.

When I feel the burning sensation that I hate myself, that I’m garbage... that I don’t deserve the air I’m breathing... I try to tell someone. Not because they need to know, but more so that I need to acknowledge that I have those feelings, and that I know they’re not right.

It’s not easy... but I’m not ready to give up yet. Some people think I’m worth something, and if I fight hard enough, maybe one day, I can believe them. For now I’ll continue to draw inspiration from people I’ve never met, who have no idea I even exist... yet... somehow... I feel like they actually care about me. I mean, if someone I’ve never even met cares about me, I must be worth SOMETHING, right?

That’s all I really have. Troubleshooting in progress. And yes, I’ve tried turning it off and back on again. Hate mode still engaged.

~ Phoenix

[troubleshooting-phoenix]

Escape

That’s what the train tickets were called, and it felt like a good description for that whole trip.

Hey. I said I would give some more details about the trip I was talking about last time, and here I am.

I worked until 7pm the day before, and was up until midnight finishing packing and getting ready. Not that it mattered, I have chronic insomnia and the excitement and nervous energy for the trip and the show was going to make sleeping nearly impossible. I did sleep for at least 2 or 3 hours though. And then at butt crack in the morning, my aunt drove me to pick up my travel buddy and drove us both to the train station.

She talked about wanting coffee, but I was pretty focused on keeping myself from exploding in fiery ball of excitement. I don’t like coffee anyway. (Shh... no one tell Jack. I don’t want to be disowned from the fan base!) She had also warned me that she would likely sleep on the train ride, so I had brought along Jenny Lawson’s Furiously Happy which I had been meaning to read forever, colouring books, notebooks, playing cards and of course my cell phone of music and games, to keep me occupied. Yes, like a small child, I need to be occupied.

She did not sleep on the train ride.

Instead, we ended up having rather deep and intimate conversations, on a public train. My favourite part is that these stories are things that would likely be somewhat disturbing to other people, but were of little concern to either of us, because they were things we had accepted as normal for years.

Just to give you an idea of the subject matter... a lot of conversations that weekend involved our dead, alcoholic fathers, as well as abuse, neglect, anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts. I feel like that makes it sound like I’ve had such a rough life. I personally don’t think my life has been that bad... my friend’s life has been much more difficult. There are definitely some things in my past that as an adult, I have learned, are not normal, as I always thought them to be. Live and learn!

She also had to listen to me ramble on about Jacksepticeye at points, and try to figure out if there were things she would need to know about him before the show. She’d seen a few of his videos, and I knew she’d enjoy his sense of humour, since she’s a Markiplier fan. Which is... totally not my fault. I definitely didn’t talk about Mark so much that she started watching his videos, and then realized that he also calmed her anxiety, causing me to drag her into the fandom further. Does that sound like something I would do? ... It’s totally something I did. I’m actively trying to convince her to be a Jack fan as well, but it can take a bit to get past the screaming... especially for anxiety cases with horrifying flash backs that are tied to men screaming. For similar reasons, I also took a little while to get past the abrasive TOP OF THE MORNING TO YA LADDIES! I actually find it soothing now. Go figure.

Of course, we flipped back and forth between these subject matters and sprinkles of other things, like areas we passed through, or general life things. At one very distinct point, I may have exclaimed, “Look! A wind turbine!”

To which she responded, “Yes? Have you never seen one before?”

“Not in the wild!” I explained. It made sense in my head, but she burst into a fit of giggles at the thought of ‘wind turbines in the wild’ and it became a recurring theme of the trip. It’s fine. I can laugh at myself. Besides, I know that I’m crazy and some of the non-sense that falls out of my face, doesn’t register the same way in other people’s brains.

It was a four hour train ride, but it felt like nothing. That’s what good friends are all about. I don’t have a lot of friends, but they’re good ones. Ones that I get along well with, click with and can depend on.

We eventually arrived in Toronto. I had looked up the route from the train station to our Air BnB, because I was very prepared for this trip. Being prepared, almost overly prepared for things, is how I manage the anxious voice in my head constantly going “something is going to go wrong... any... minute”. As prepared as I was, I had no idea where the bus station was, so I gladly followed my friend, who decided that she needed to take care of me, the poor, innocent, child-like, small town girl.

I didn’t help my case, by staring straight up and going, “Holy shit! These buildings ARE tall!”, and then just standing and staring up at them every time she stopped to try and figure out where we were. She tried to complain about the buildings being all you could see and I’m pretty sure I responded with, “I’m being a tourist! Let me have this!” and she agreed that I was a tourist. After wandering around what seemed to her at least, like forever (I was in my magical land of absorbing my surroundings), we found out that I hadn’t gotten bus routes at all. I had found subway routes to our Air BnB. We don’t have a subway in Ottawa, I had no fucking idea what the icon looked like. I know now, I guess. “I hate the subway.” My friend said, and would repeat, at least 20 times during our trip. It became another theme, along with me using the excuse, “Yeah, but I can’t tell the difference between a bus and the subway.”, for basically every other stupid thing I said or did.

We survived the subway. I quite enjoyed the experience actually... which is strange, because I used to take panic attacks on buses at one point. I think I just had so much adrenaline coursing through my body that it couldn’t focus on all the people around us. I was also trying to make sure my friend didn’t take a panic attack herself, since she “hated the subway”. Also, in my defense, I said we could FIGURE out the bus route, and she declared that the buses were terrible and the subway was faster, and wouldn’t help me figure out a bus route. So we took the subway.

We killed some time at a restaurant and then checked into our Air BnB. It was a really nice little bachelor pad, that I booked for the night, for a decent price and was in walking distance of the music hall. Being the fucked up anxiety cases we are, we discussed how it nice it was that it didn’t seem like we were going to be murdered.

The show. Oh the show. I had warned her I was going to be crazy, and luckily I had warned her so much, she said afterwards that she had expected me to be worse than I was. One thing most people don’t seem to understand is that excitement... is pretty close to anxiety. So when I get excited, I can get really over the top excited, in the same way that I get really over the top anxious. We are talking... wiggling, dancing, jumping around because I-literally-cannot-stand-still excited. 

When we got to the music hall, we had to walk for 10 years, down like 3 blocks to get to the end of the line that had formed, to get in. 10 years is an obvious exaggeration, while 3 blocks is probably an understatement. If you have ever needed a visual representation of what 1,400 people looks like... don’t go sit in the theater with them, walk the fucking line at the front door. It makes me wish Jack could have walked along it, just to feel how many people it really was. But let’s be honest, that would cause a scene.

My poor Toronto Sherpa had to listen to me ramble on about Jack, while I was bouncing around and desperately trying not to poke at her, because she hates that. When we finally got inside, I had a moment where I was so overwhelmed that I had to let the energy out and I excitedly clapped my hands and jumped a little. The sudden clap surprised her and she shook her head. “You’re cute.”

Normally, I fight the statement, “You’re cute”, and yes, it’s not the first time I’ve been told I’m cute. In that moment though, I was more happy to be called cute, than get a “could you not do that?”, because honestly, there was no promising that it wouldn’t happen again.

We stood in the merch line and I got a poster (because I have a thing for posters), and a pin (because he has a thing for pins, and I knew he was proud of this one). I also handed over the strange package I had thrown together for him. I have literally no idea if he got it, but hey, maybe he’s better off if he didn’t. It was a bunch of glow sticks... because if he’s the man I think he is, he likes glow sticks. ( I don’t know. Are there people who DON’T like glow sticks? ) There may have also been a ridiculously sappy, and novel-length fan letter. Oh boy. I had been back and forth on actually handing it over and then the words, “Can we leave stuff here for Jack?” fell out of my mouth and the super friendly merch lady said, “Absolutely!” and then suddenly she had the package and my purse was slightly lighter. I don’t know if it was a good decision, but it happened and if he read that fucking letter... I just hope it didn’t come off too crazy and he felt appreciated.

We were guided to out seats, and I just enjoyed the energy in the room. That’s the best part of live... anything. The energy you get from the crowd. This crowd of people who are there, with you, for the same reason you’re there... to enjoy the thing you have come to see. The energy at this show was perhaps better, because it was a small fraction of the community there with you. Earlier, when we had gotten off the bus, someone had seen my hat and asked whether we were going to the 4 or 8 o’clock show. Normally being approached by a stranger freaks me out, but I LOVED that moment. I loved that a random person on a train, recognized my hat, and was also going to be at the 4 o’clock show. He was somewhere in that energy, that day too!

I mentioned this before, but I’m saying it again. Apparently I shook violently through the whole show. “Yeah, it vibrated my seat. Probably helped to keep my back from hurting, so thanks.” My friend told me. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I guess it makes sense. I was on an absolute excitement high. I was hyper focused on everything that happened, and my concentration has been shit for months, so it was pretty amazing.

Jack was hilarious, but I knew that he would be. More importantly, he was real and close enough that I could see him without the binoculars my mother had sent with me. What I wasn’t expecting was the journey, that show took me on and the message it ended with.

I needed that.

I didn’t know it was what I was getting, but I needed it. Somehow Jack (and I keep calling him Jack, and will continue to, so this doesn’t get confusing, but his name is actually Sean, just for clarity)... somehow Jack always seems to do exactly what I need, without even knowing I exist. It’s part of the magic of youtube, I’m pretty sure... even if this was a live show.

I slept worse that night, but I was happy. Ridiculous, crazy happy. Which is not something I often experience. I spent a good portion of the night reading the book I brought, which only helped to push me further in the right direction.

By the way, things get weird when you’re trapped in a bachelor apartment with someone trying to sleep when your insomniac ass can’t do that thing. The best part was my friend, who also has anxiety and sleeping problems, woke up a lot through out the night, and would experience snippets of my insanity. I started out laying on the floor, watching youtube videos until the internet crapped out. Then I listened to some music in bed, to try and sleep. Played some phone games. Then I decided to read and shut myself into the bathroom for like half an hour so I could use the light in there, when I remembered that I had brought some red glow sticks.

I brought red glow sticks in case I chickened out giving the green ones to Jack, and I could break them all and have a glow stick party in the room to make myself feel better. But I gave the green ones to Jack, I already told you that. So I was sitting in the bed, reading by glow stick, when I heard, “Are you alright?”

I glanced over my shoulder and sighed. “Yes... I’m just reading my book...” I held it up and then lifted the red, glowing stick. “With my glow stick.” There was a long silence before I turned to face her more. “Don’t judge me.”

“I’m not. That’s actually kind of genius.” She admitted.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been awake in a hotel room with other people sleeping.” I explained, and then went on to explain why I had the glow sticks.

“I have no response to that.” She muttered, and then tried to go back to sleep. I mean, is a glow stick party really that crazy?

Anyway, that’s it. That’s the day that returned to me, my will to live. I was a little worried when I got home and felt the weight of life hit me again, but as of today, I can happily admit that I am coming out of my depression. I love how all the colours feel brighter, and Jack’s videos sound louder. Yes, I have reached a point where I like it when his videos sound louder!

I’m still not in a great place, perhaps not even a good one yet, but I’m on the way now. I’m finally recovering. There’s more troubleshooting to do here though. Wish me luck!

~ Phoenix

[troubleshooting-phoenix]

Finding my Will to Live

Hello world,

I’ve been going by Phoenix for the last little while, and I don’t see why I would stop now. I’m starting this blog in this moment because my life.... my being... needs troubleshooting.

Recently, as in yesterday, I have regained the will to live. Yes, that means I had previously lost it. That’s a scary thought for most, and probably should be for me, but I’ve spent more years of my life wishing I was dead, than years enjoying I was alive. There’s something fundamentally wrong with that, and therefore, I think I need some troubleshooting. The process has already began, as that’s how I recaptured my will to live in the first place.

This is the story of how I regained my will to live in a day. A well planned and long awaited day.

The story starts with Jacksepticeye. If you don’t know who that is, I feel bad for you! In all seriousness, that is the name of a youtube channel. Feel free to look him up. Otherwise, let me give you the run down. He’s an adorable, loud, Irish man who plays video games, raises money for charity and spreads messages of positivity. With me so far? If not, we’re going to have problems because I’m only going to throw more information about random shit at you.

I feel it’s important to the story to mention that I live in Ottawa, which is the capital of Canada if you didn’t know. I moved here as an “adult” and was raised in a small town... not too far from here. I’m a small town girl, that’s important to know. Another important Phoenix fact, I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The word disorder is loud and demanding and scary. All it really means is that I’m anxious about a lot of things, all of the time. Over the top, above the normal levels of anxiety.

Those two paragraphs were completely unrelated. I’m super good at this blogging thing. Stay with me though! I mean, you already read this far, you must be some kind of invested.

Recently, Jacksepticeye has started doing live tours. The “How Did We Get Here” tour, which is basically a stand up comedy routine based on his life, with a few gaming elements and an important message. I, as a mildly obsessed fan, was more than a little excited about the idea of being in the same room as him. You know, seeing him in 3D and knowing he’s a real person and not a too-good-to-be-true CGI AI. (No, I’ve never really believed he was an AI, I’ve always KNOWN he was a person. But seeing is believing, right?) Except that during the initial phases of getting this tour up and running, he said he wouldn’t be coming to Canada.

Heartbreaking. None of the youtubers who aren’t already here... seem to want to come to Canada. Like they’re afraid we don’t have internet in our igloos! Or maybe they all share a secret fear of beavers and none of them are willing to admit it. He actually explained why though. Setting up a leg of the tour for Canada would be difficult because he didn’t have any Canadian contacts. Okay, I guess that’s reasonable. I accepted it.

Until the second leg of his tour was announced... and the first show was Toronto. “Toronto?” I thought. “Is there a Toronto in the States?”, as I frantically opened the website only to see, “Toronto, Ontario.”. That is very much a Canadian city. One that is reasonably close to here!

I screamed. Out loud. Like a 13 year old talking about cute boys at a sleepover. I feel the need to admit at this point that I am not a teenage girl... but a 26 year old woman. I imagine my neighbours thought I was being murdered, even though they never came to check on me. Thanks neighbours.

The show was so close though, only about a month away and I need to book time off work, several months in advance. More heartbreak. I had to check though, and pulled up my schedule. I may have screamed again.

Not only did I have the day of the show off, I had the day after it off and worked a day shift, on the day before it! How lucky! It’s almost as if it was meant to be. Of course... there was a problem, as there always is. I would have to get myself to Toronto, and to this show. I have been to Toronto maybe 3 or 4 times in my life, always driven by other people and usually just to the outskirts for Toronto. Like to the zoo. This was very different. This was the city, and I was a small town girl.

So... I convinced a friend who’s originally from the area, that she should come with me, and be my Toronto Sherpa. She agreed, probably because I offered to pay for everything, knowing that she didn’t really have the money for a trip at the moment and I knew... I needed this.

Why did I need this? Simple. Depression. Those words don’t go together by the way. There is nothing simple about depression. I’ve been moderately depressed for the last few months. Again, something I should probably be more concerned about, but depression comes and goes like seasons for me. I was having a lot of trouble snapping myself out of this spell though. This year did not start out well for me, and perhaps some day, I might explain why. The point is... I NEEDED THIS. I had gotten to a point where I was, what I call, passively suicidal. I wasn’t about to end things myself, I just kept hoping I would develop a terminal disease or get hit by a bus. Okay... I REALLY NEEDED THIS.

It wasn’t just about the show. When you are at a point where you hate yourself, and you think you’re worthless, realizing that you made a bunch of plans, got your ass down to Toronto, saw the show you desperately wanted to see, and then got your ass back to Ottawa, without any casualties... is pretty damn liberating. That’s an accomplishment. Maybe not for normal, high functioning adults, but sometimes I have trouble getting out of bed, and doing the dishes feels like a large task. So this trip, nay, this adventure, was a big deal.

I waited in anticipation for those tickets to come sale. However, the tickets were coming on sale on a Friday, at 10am... during a block where I was working overnights. This meant that I would be sleeping at 10am. A tiny anxious voice in the back of my head screamed “He’s doing ONE show in Canada, those tickets might sell out. Wake up at 10am and buy them.” and then a rather annoying adult voice in my head responded with, “If you wake yourself up at 10am, your insomnia means you won’t get back to sleep and then you’ll be awake from 10am to 11pm when you go to work until 7am and everyone and everything will suffer. They won’t sell out THAT fast. It’s fine.”. So I did the adult thing. I waited. At 3pm, I logged on to get tickets that were... already sold out.

Not heartbreaking... devastating. Soul shattering. I did what I usually did. Blamed myself. I allowed myself to get excited. I allowed myself to hope for something. To want something. I knew better than that. Any time I really wanted something, really loved something... life took it from me. My life has taught me to be defensively pessimistic about the world, because then you don’t feel utterly destroyed, when you already wanted to die. I tried to feel it, and then pushed myself to move on.

Days passed, and then there was a tweet. Due to two shows selling out, two extra shows were being added. I caught that tweet 4 minutes after it had been posted, by sheer, dumb luck. “Toronto? Toronto... Toronto... please Toronto!” I pulled up the website. “TORONTO!”. There was no time to celebrate. Tickets sold out fast last time, and I would not allow it to happen again. I opened the site and bought the tickets. Relief... and terror. Now I had to figure out how the hell to get us there...

I’ll admit, I had some help from family who suggested how to get discounts on train tickets, and helping me seek out a nice Air BnB. It took weeks to plan this trip, from getting us there, to where we would sleep that night to how I was going to feed myself, since I’m allergic to pretty much all food.

I did it though. The show was yesterday. We had a magical train ride down to Toronto, took the subway to our Air BnB which was a short walk from the music hall, and we went to the 4 o’clock show. I took him a ridiculous fan gift and everything! Yup, I’m one of THOSE people. I utterly loved the show (I apparently shook violently with excitement the whole time, even though I remember being cool as a cucumber). I’ll probably give some more details of the trip, and maybe some small snippets about the show later...

The point is, I did what I set out to do. I recaptured my will to live. Between the powerful message of the show, spending time escaping from our lives with a good friend, and facing this mighty adventure and actually accomplishing it... I did something. I did something good. I did something RIGHT. I did something FOR ME.

I’m home now and the anxiety is flooding back in like waves, and I’ve already had a few moments where I felt like I was drowning... but I’m fighting harder now. I refuse to sit back and let myself drown now. I’ve just proven to myself that I’m STRONGER than that. Besides, I didn’t get to meet Jack, or get one of his world famous hugs. (He has fans all around the world, I think that’s the definition of “world famous”.) So add that to the list, because I’m not done yet.

I just started wanting to live again. Now I have to figure out exactly how to continue doing that...

The troubleshooting continues.

~ Phoenix