Bullets Dodged

This was an event that could have ended badly, but didn't, thankfully. Still, understanding how close you came to something Bad can still be concerning. 

When I was but a young lad, my mom was crazy, as I've mentioned. When I was in my early teens, she began seeing psychics and tarot readers. Seeing a sucker, they naturally pounced. They quickly saw that they could reel her in by flattering me with grand praise. 

My mother was obsessed with me as an idea, while generally disliking and neglecting me as a person - a trait I would go on to seek out in romantic partners through most of the beginning of my life. I was "her greatest creation," emphasis on "her." I was a self-image prop for her. So, when a charlatan began talking about how important and special I was, she felt important and special. Direct flattery of her would have been suspect, but of COURSE I was special, which reflected well on her.

Anywho, this became a pattern. She'd go to a psychic, drag me along, they'd talk me up, she'd give them money, they'd suggest she see another psychic they were friends with, repeat. She was then seeing many on any given month - God knows why. You'd think she was a warlord desperate for victory against invaders, not some mediocre do-nothing whose life only had the most banal of stakes. 

As this went on, I collected possible origins, according to these psychics. I was an indigo child, a Pleiadean, an actual member of the angelic choir, a reincarnation of Saint Germaine, etc., etc., depending on the particular flavor of bullshit the charlatan was selling. They all agreed on one thing. I was Very Important. I would Lead Humanity Into Enlightenment. 

This is where my mom got the idea that I was the - or at least a - messiah. Let me tell you, your parents pressuring you into college has nothing on teaching you that you would have to usher in a new era of consciousness - and punishing you when you deviated from what they thought that meant.

I was constantly reading everything I could about spirituality, magic, tarot, runes, remote viewing, focusing of energy, meditation, Kaballistic mysticism, whatever I could - or was forced to. My mom would put a book in my hands and then ground me until I'd read it. She'd tell me that I have to be ready. That I'd be responsible for the soul of the world.

Yeah.

Side story. The first time I took acid, I was found out in the rain, taking my clothes off, crying about how I didn't want to be the messiah - much to the chagrin of my fellow party goers. Not a fun night for a 15 year old kid.

So the part that's been on my mind is something I hadn't thought about for probably 2 decades now. One of the psychics that my mom had been passed to so he could have a turn humping money out of her was a guy named Glenn. Older, very intense, gay dude. We were specifically brought to him because he could be a good teacher for me. Most of the psychics my mom frequented were women, so it was somehow important for me to cultivate learning with a similar masculine energy for some reason.

Glenn was to teach me more about tarot - I stopped using Rider Waite and began using the Thoth (because masculine energy) and I began learning more about Crowley. I also began learning from him about my supposed Pleiadean origin, which just so happened to be his as well. He was the head of his magic order, "The Hermetic Order of the Pleiades," which I was totally perfect for. I was going to be his protégé, and destined to be a powerful magician. 

Etc., etc.

So yeah. My mom would leave me at a stranger's house for hours because I needed to grow spiritually. Now, I thought Glenn was great. Mostly because he fed into my feelings of alienation from society, while saying that was because I was BETTER than everyone else, just like him. He began engineering it so that I came to rely on him emotionally, and considering my deep, deep troubles, it wasn't difficult to get pretty serious results. 

We spent long hours on the phone, a 15 year old boy and a 50+ year old man. This proceeded for months. When he started getting a bit more forward with his advances, I did my best to ignore them. He kept getting more and more suggestive, though.

Anyway, there's thankfully no great climax to this story. We moved away before anything bad happened. Still, holy shit, I dodged a bullet. 

That's it. That's the story.

Ten Years: A Retrospective.

On July 8^th, 2010, my mother shot herself in the head, ending her life. She was sixty-three years old, jobless, and living on a friend’s couch in Florida. She’d used up nearly all of the goodwill everyone in her life had shown her. She was physically and mentally ill and deteriorating.

I can’t say she made the wrong decision.

To this day, I feel her blood on my hands. My relationship with that stain has changed over the past decade. For some time, I felt a great anguish, a crushing guilt. She had turned me into her life support system against my will. I was the one who had to save her every time she came close to the brink. She’d laid that responsibility at my feet, and had been doing so since I was sixteen years old. I was the one who’d had to beg her not to sit in a running car in our garage, all while my stepfather sat by, impassive, wordless. I told her, knowing I was lying, that if she killed herself, I would follow right behind her. That stopped her.

Years later, she asked if I was ready to kill myself with her. She just… floated the idea of a suicide pact my way. It didn’t occur to me until then that there could have been times when she might not have asked. That, in the depths of her emotion, she might have thought it kinder to kill me in my sleep before taking her own life.

That was the lie that secured my caretaker’s continued existence, but that could have ended mine. That was the promise I made that I knew I could never, should never, keep. That lie defined so much of my life.

Some have said it was not my responsibility that she killed herself, but “responsibility” is a muddy word. I did not pull the trigger. It was her decision. However, I’ll resort to metaphor to explain. I was her shipwright and she was the constantly floundering vessel. When things got too hard, she always came to port and pressed upon me to fix her. I always would. I desperately tried to get her into operational shape in hopes that maybe one day, she’d get around to the business of raising me. Of being an actual mother.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, the immense toll it took from me each time, the constant fear of not being the right person, of not saying the right thing, of not being perfect for her… when I couldn’t take it anymore, I gave up. I was exhausted and had nothing left to give. I grew deeply bitter, seeing all the things she’d done to me with clarity and just gave up.

She set off to sea. She couldn’t do it without me. She sank.

While I was not her killer, I’m at least partly responsible for her death. I’m not sure if anything will ever convince me otherwise.

The past decade has not been about me learning to free myself from that responsibility, but about accepting my part, and about realizing that there was truly no other good options. There were too many holes in her hull, and the water came in too fast for anyone to save her. She had a decision to make, and I firmly believe it was her right to make that decision. No decision is more yours than the decision to continue living. She made the choice, but no choice is made in a vacuum. And her surroundings were deeply colored by my absence. By her ungrateful, selfish, delusional child’s choice to torture her for her very minimal, very understandable missteps as a mother.

My silence was killing her, she would say in the occasional screaming voicemail. Then it finally did. My silence spilled her blood.

I could go into how deeply disturbed she was. I could talk about how she tried to convince me from a very young age that I was the messiah. I could talk about her sexual impropriety with me. I could talk about her schizophrenia, seeing demons and soulless watchers following her. I could talk about how she grifted and conned the people around her. I could talk about all of the things that made her not only a terrible mother, but a terrible person. But I feel like I’ve spilled enough ink on those topics – at least the ones I feel brave enough to share, assuming I could even find the words.

I’m so sick of knowing how deeply her influence has shaped me. I’m sick of the fear that still hangs over me every fucking day, every decision, every interaction. Sometimes it feels like my bloody hands are the least soiled things about me. I almost feel her fingers wrapped around my mind, squeezing, still trying to make me her object to manipulate and abuse.

I’ve grown used to my damage, and god knows I’ve put in a lot of work to find my way around it, but it is forever in me and I am so sick of knowing it’s there. I’m sick of going over it, again and again, beating the subject into the ground, boring the people around me with my self-pity. I’m sick of needing to talk about it because of the wild hope that talking might mean I don’t end up like her.

I’m sick of being so afraid.

I’m sick of being so furious.

I’m sick of being so weak.

As a postscript, I’d like to say that I’ll be fine. I needed to mark the occasion and bleed myself a little here, but I grow better with each year. Now just isn’t the time for optimism or self-motivation. I just need to feel this and sit with my emotions as they come.

Registration

Tuesday 4/2/21 13:04

Darren: Hello, my name is Darren Garrett, and I consent to the recording of this conversation for official use. I have read the privacy statement and understand that these statements will be used by any government entities that are deemed pertinent.

Doctor: Thank you Darren. So Darren, please tell me why you are here today.

Darren: I am here to present myself to be registered as a supernaturally abled person as is required by law.

Doctor: Thank you for voluntarily coming in to do this. We appreciate your cooperation. Now tell me Darren, what is your supernatural ability?

Darren: Um, so I can basically sort of access the memories and learned skills of other Mes that went down different life paths.

Doctor: Can you elaborate?

Darren: Yeah, um, basically like what I said. For example, if my toilet breaks, I could basically ask myself “What if I had chosen to pursue a career in plumbing?” and then like I sort of feel this decision tree that branches off through the various courses my life could have taken. Um. I pick the path most relevant to my question or need, and I basically instantaneously experience all of the memories of that other me up until the present day in that Darren’s life. That gives me the skills I need to repair my toilet. That’s a really banal example but… uh…

Doctor: Can you describe this decision tree and how you pick the path?

Darren: Um, it’s very instinctual. Like I don’t see it so much as visualize it based on this other sort of sense. There’s like this vibration in my mind as I hone in on the most relevant thread to choose. It’s hard to say without getting too abstract, but it would really be like trying to describe colors to a blind man. But yeah, in a way, I can feel all of the hundreds of thousands of paths I could have taken.

Doctor: When did this start?

Darren: I think something must have happened during the car accident I was in. I mean, I don’t know if there was some chemical involvement, or if I hit my head in just the right way, or if the six days I was in a coma triggered it, or if I was bitten by a radioactive regret or what. I didn’t notice it for a while though. It wasn’t for a few months after that. I’ve been in constant pain since then, and I really haven’t been at my best mentally, and one night as I was rolling around in my bed, not able to find a comfortable position to sleep in, I was super pissed and sad and really thought about what if I had called off work on the day of the crash. All of a sudden, this rush of experience happened, the decision tree, the memories, and next thing I know, I’m sobbing and terrified.

Doctor: When was this?

Darren: … about four months ago.

Doctor: … why did you wait so long to report this to us?

Darren: For a while, I just thought I’d gone completely fucking insane. After I experimented and sort of confirmed for myself that it was real, well, I don’t have a great answer for that aside from avoidant anxiety disorder. Admitting this to others, it’s not a step I could take lightly. The fear just kind of built up.

Doctor: Have you admitted this to others? Aside from us?

Darren: No.

<pause>

Doctor: So tell me more about how you experience these memories.

Darren: It’s, uh, it’s a lot. … I’ll make an inquiry and then it’s this immediate flood of like a whole other life. It’s pretty overwhelming.

Doctor: I can imagine. How do you hold onto your sense of self?

Darren: That’s sort of the thing. I’m not doing an amazing job at that.

Doctor: Can you walk me through an example?

Darren: … Well, if you think about your life, you’re not going to remember every little moment. The boring shit just all sort of blends together. The more emotionally potent moments will stick out to you, the real defining factors. That’s basically it. But holy shit, it takes a toll. … Like in the lives I remember where I have wives or kids or friends that I’ve never even met. All of a sudden, I remember spending twelve years with a woman I’m very much in love with, right up until the concurrent moment that This Me asks the question, then all of a sudden she’s gone. It’s… rending. Here I am, feeling this intense intimacy with someone who I’ve spent so much of my life with, only she doesn’t know who the hell I am. ... Sometimes, I’ll go on Facebook and look up these people who meant the world to me. I’ll look up a woman who bore my children, only to see her married to a different man, with different children, and I’ll just… weep.

Doctor: How do you cope with this?

Darren: Not well. But the funny thing about memories is they do fade. Even skills I learn through this process, if I don’t use them, and build new memories with them, they fade. The people fade, too. But I’ll think I’m fine and then I’ll be walking through the store and suddenly smell Jessie’s perfume, or I’ll be watching a movie and remember sitting on the couch and watching it with Stacy, but it’s not my couch, and it’s certainly not my Stacy. I’ve sent dozens of different children off to their first days of school, and those small humans that I loved with all my heart just… don’t exist. The memories that stick with me most are the ones that I ended up obsessing over. I remember remembering them, so I’ve sort of cemented them in my mind, for better or worse.

Doctor: So using your power, it comes at a pretty serious cost.

Darren: Sometimes, very serious. Sometimes, not as much. The more middle of the road, mediocre life the other Me lead, the easier to deal with. And by mediocre, I mean personally, not professionally. Professionally, that stuff is pretty fine. Not very emotionally fraught, but potentially very useful. I mean, at no point would any of the skills I learn be considered superhuman. I can’t fucking fly or shoot laser beams out of my hands or anything. I’m just a guy, but a guy with feasibly a tremendous amount of skills that I can access instantaneously. I’m like a Swiss army knife, with a number of options for specific situations, but when you pull out the corkscrew, it’s exhausting and potentially emotionally devastating.

Doctor: What has been the most troubling instance that you’ve encountered while using your power?

<pause>

Darren: <sighs> Okay, so I was at a party and having a few drinks. There was a piano there, and also a really lovely woman that I wanted to impress. So I inquired about the life I would have led if I’d dedicated myself to learning to play the piano. Innocuous enough, right? But apparently, Piano Me raped a girl in his early twenties. … I can remember that memory vividly. I guess because the shock of experiencing it was so traumatic. But yeah. Piano Me, got her drunk and fucked her unconscious body. I remember the feeling of pounding away at this defenseless woman. When I came out of the inquiry, I stood up, vomited all over the place, and ran out of the party. Now I have to deal with having this memory of a disgusting act I didn’t actually commit to a woman I’ve never actually met, but it was fucking real to me. IS fucking real. I don’t know if these other lives I’ve lead exist on other planes of existence or if this is just some hypothetical construct in my head that I can somehow draw knowledge from. I don’t know if this event DID happen on some other plane or not. But is the only thing standing between Me and Rapist Piano Me a few life choices? Does that capability for awful acts lie dormant in me?

Doctor: Did this experience make you want to commit rape?

Darren: It made me want to commit suicide.

Doctor: Do you want to commit suicide now?

Darren: No.

<pause>

Doctor: Let’s switch gears a bit. Can you tell me some of the limitations of your power?

Darren: Well, I can’t access any decisions that would have occurred since the accident. That’s sort of cut off for me, which is why I’m fairly certain that that’s when my power came about. Um, if the most relevant life thread to what I’m inquiring about ends in my death that happens before this point in time, I experience the death, and, uh, fuck… whatever you’re imagining, it’s a lot worse than that. And I guess it probably goes without saying that, while I can know martial arts, I’m still in this body. I don’t have the physical ability to kick a lot of ass. Like I’m sort of a smart fighter, but not particularly tough or strong. And considering the handicap since the crash, I’m not really able to hit the gym. I think I’m stuck being middle aged and kinda doughy. But yeah. I’m fairly smart, I guess, so the proficiency at which I gain a knowledge is going to be relatively decent. But nothing above regular human capability. I’m not cut out for any of your superhero teams or anything. I doubt I’d even be all that useful beyond everyday sort of stuff.

Doctor: How has your power affected how you make a living?

Darren: Well… uh… to test if this was real, I inquired what it would have been like if I’d dedicated myself to becoming a professional gambler. Gambler Me made a pretty good living off of it. So I went to Atlantic City and tried it out. Made a fair amount of money, and then I knew it was time to get out before I was thrown out. The next day, I inquired what it would be like if I’d dedicated myself to becoming a stock trader. Made some investments with that startup money, and I’ve been working with that ever since. I can work from home, which is great for being in pain all the time. I’ve not gone crazy greedy or anything, and once again, it’s not like I can see the future or whatever. I make the same mistakes anyone else would, so I don’t think it’s particularly unfair or anything.

Doctor: Are the other worlds you see in your other lives different at all?

Darren: Not in any way that is particularly noticeable. I can really only ask hypotheticals about my own actions, not about the world. I can’t see what would have happened if Mitt Romney of Hillary Clinton became president or shit like that. I did see what it would have been like if I’d dedicated myself to politics. I rose to the lofty position of city councilperson of Upper Sandusky, Ohio. So no, I don’t see different worlds. I’m not sure I could handle that.

Doctor: Is there anything else you’d like to mention about your powers or your life?

Darren: Not really. I’d just like to know where we go from here.

Doctor: Well, we’ll be meeting every week for a few months until we have a firm grasp and who you are and how you are adjusting. We can be relatively flexible with this, you’re not on parole or anything. This is as much for your benefit as it is for ours. Then, depending on how that progresses, we’ll go from there. It sounds as if you’re not interested in participating in any of our crisis response teams, and while we don’t force citizens into labor, you may be approached about the issue later, if an agency sees that you could be an asset. I’ve noted your personal reluctance due to the obvious strain your power takes on you, not to mention your physical disability. But we will be as much of a resource for you as we can be. I hope you’re feeling more comfortable with having come forward to register now.

Darren: mhmm

Doctor: Good. Well, that’s really all for today. There’s a little more paperwork to fill out, but I can tell you’re ready to get out of here. Let’s - <recording ends>

Tell Me I'm Pretty

Like it or not, humans are social creatures. This isn’t an accident, it’s survival. If you aren’t part of a tribe, your life expectancy drops precipitously. It’s pure evolution; we need others.

And god, that sucks sometimes.

We need to be relatively functioning members of a larger body of society. It’s why we have moral systems, why we can divide labor and specialize, the very essence of history as a moving system. It’s how we exceled beyond subsistence farming. In even the most reductive sense, we are life support systems for genitals that need to mash together to create more life, an impulse ground into us by the mashing gene being successfully propagated by the mad mashing of our forebears. And we need to be social to have any hopes of that singular purpose of replication. Assuming you believe in the evolutionary psychological approach, all of human behavior spins out from that.

We need others to listen to us. We need to be heard, seen, and we need to feel at least partially understood, or we wither.

In short, we need validation. Aside from the very basic needs for continued existence like food, water, shelter, and warmth, validation is probably the most important need that isn’t strictly biological. The first step up Maslow’s hierarchy. We need to feel… something from others. To feel important. Valuable. Like our input is appreciated. Because if it isn’t, we’re useless to our tribe, and if we’re useless, we’re on the outside. And if we’re outside the tribe, well, that’s where we can get picked off by the predators.

Due to our general advancement, our predators aren’t hyenas or wolves anymore. We get chased down by depression. Alienation. Loneliness. Roving packs of personality disorders track our journey from the shadows, waiting for us to fall too far behind the tribe. Without our kin, we fall prey these savage forces.

Often, falling behind starts robbing you of the ability to keep up, a vicious cycle. Read a social psychology textbook; people who are perceived as lonely are often ostracized by others even further. Cruel, yes, but on a corrupt level, understandable. As individuals, we need to make sure we don’t fall out of the pack, and if we dedicate too many of our resources to helping another lost person, we may find ourselves marginalized, too.

You likely know someone that you feel bad for in this way, but you just don’t feel you can help them without hurting yourself. This sucks, but it’s not uncommon. Sometimes these people are too far gone. Sometimes they aren’t. It’s nearly impossible to tell the difference. So they get lost in the woods and the growing darkness. And yeah… maybe we could have done more.

This validation, it can make or break someone’s life. We all need it. We all know we need it.

My question is, if we all know this in our core, that this is a fundamental fact of the human experience, why is it seen as so wrong to openly ask for validation?

I need to feel smart, or desired, or funny, or wise, or fucking something so that I feel like I’m contributing to my chosen body of humanity in the hopes that they will protect me when I fall. And I will fall. We all fall. You need this, too, even if it makes you feel somewhat uncomfortable to admit. It’s the same impulse we have to feel like we’re good at our job so that we don’t get fired, but writ large. We need to feel good at being human, so that we won’t get terminated from the body that sustains us.

It is so critical to our existence and yet so many people feel ashamed to reach out and ask for help with it. I have had to force myself to ask for it from time to time, usually couched in a joke or some long-winded musing (hi there!). To some degree, my fear - which is probably common - is that if I ask for validation, I will be seen as weak. Even worse, I will be outright denied it, confirming my fears that I’m not worthy of the safety of the pack. It’s almost better to worry that I’m not good enough than it is to have confirmation that I’m not.

Is this something we can move past? Is it universal at this point, or is it perhaps a side effect of the rabid American individualism that is slowly isolating and atomizing us? Can I ask you, openly and earnestly, to love me? To tell me you that you care? To tell me I’m worth effort? And how much asking is too much?

Can we learn to offer more of it, unsolicited, so that someone doesn’t need to fall before figuring out if others will care enough to offer a hand up? Can we move past the bullshit notion that openly admitting a dire need is somehow weak?

We fear that weakness because we know in our bones that most people are too busy fending for themselves and fighting off their own battles to care for us. We get stuck in this loop of pretending we’re fine, so that others won’t see us as burdensome. All while we slowly lose the ability to keep up.

Perhaps this is why romantic partnership is so prized. We have a chosen person who, for however long we can convince them we’re worth it, is dedicated to helping us along the path. The school field trip buddy system, except instead of getting lost in the Titanic museum that one time in eighth grade, we’re lost in our own sadness. There are fewer clearly marked exits there.

How do we fight this irresponsible expectation of emotional self-sufficiency?

To change societal expectations, you have to first not be bound by them. Openly ask for validation. Openly give it. Bring people into your pack. Let them know that they are of your tribe and that that means something to you. Life is hard, and we’re all we’ve got. Make it easier on the people walking your path. Aside from bringing skills to the table, one way to do that is to let people clearly know your needs. If you are open, they will feel open, too. Your bond will grow. Your torches will light up the night and the journey through the woods will be safer.

Obviously not everyone will be walking the same path as you. That’s fine. You do have to curate your resources. The entire point of this statement is that you need to care for you and yours, and that includes removing toxicity. Let other tribes pass as they may. Let people go when they jeopardize the health of your cohort, but not by throwing them to the wolves. There are kinder ways to protect yourself, even if those ways are more difficult. Find those ways anyway, because you will be better and stronger for it.

Just fucking walk with love and compassion. We may go faster alone, but we go farther together. 

Love's Labor Lost

I’m distant. If you know me, this is no fucking newsflash. I don’t really have a problem connecting with people so much as staying connected with people. I’ve spilled a lot of proverbial ink on this and why it might be. In a nutshell, low self-worth, anxiety, moving around so much as to never develop very strong connections, etc. Plus I much prefer face to face interaction and, well, with being in constant pain, I just don’t leave the house much. This is less to explain or excuse myself, but to show some work I’m putting in.

So I have an online friend. A very lovely online friend of recent acquaintance. We talk a lot, and in the short time I’ve known her, I’ve grown to value her counsel and perspective. We hit it off and fell into a fairly easy, fairly regular discourse. It was nice.

After a month or two, she pointed out that I essentially never say hi first. I gave her my pat explanation that it’s just sort of how I am, and that, while it might not look like it, I am grateful for her contacting me and our continued discussion. At this point, most people don’t press. But then, most people would simply fall back to interacting with me on Facebook, or take an “I’ll see you when I see you” attitude. But I’d never see her at Shadowland as she lives across the country, and she’d never see me on Facebook because she loathes it. So the ball would be entirely in her court to carry the weight and pace of our friendship.

I know this is unfair. I know this is basically the spot that I’m in with most of my friends. I know this is why I am rather isolated. I let it happen anyway.

But she asked me to bear some of the emotional labor burden. She was… not optimistic. She wasn’t wrong to be so, frankly. However, the next day, I messaged her. And then again soon after. It feels fucked up to me. Unnatural. Like being aware of my blinking or breathing. It feels forced. Because it is. Not the relationship or the ensuing conversations - those are perfectly fine. But the reaching out feels messed up to me.

So of course I had to analyze the shit out of it.

Ultimately, I feel grateful for the time, effort, and attention that anyone wants to bestow on me, and I hate feeling like I’m asking for more. Contacting someone feels like asking for more. As such, I sit like a fucking barnacle (not bragging about penis size, but read into it what you will) and wait for the world to check in on me. NOT because I want everyone else to expend their emotional labor, but because I ultimately feel like me saying “hi” is me trying to take from a person.

I know. I KNOW. When other people reach out and spontaneously say hi to me or check up on me, I view it as a near mystical gift. When I do the same, I view it as some horrible, needy ploy for love. I KNOW this is stupid. Many people profess to like me, for no conceivable reason than that they, in fact, like me. They would probably like it if I bestowed that mystical gift upon them. It might, in fact, be WILDLY SELFISH of me to not repay their consideration in kind.

Okay. So it’s that self-image thing. All I have to do to start connecting with people more is to stop viewing myself as poisonous. Gotcha.

I can’t imagine that there’s a level of empirical evidence that will make me feel like I’m desired as a friend, lover, etc. So it has to be me. Something inside. I have to begin the internal work, likely the seismic shift, of trying to view myself as a benefit to others’ lives. I have to start trusting that when people say nice things about me, they aren’t trying to manipulate me for some future betrayal or abuse. That people actually want me around. That maybe, if I say hi to a person, they won’t be annoyed or rethink why they ever pretended to be friends with me in the first place. I have to purge these shitty worst case scenarios.

I have to somehow find my way through nearly four decades of viewing myself as some sort of leper, constantly falling apart and infecting everyone close to me.

Or maybe it’s as simple as putting in the emotional labor? I know it’s just saying “hi.” It’s typing two letters. But the scenarios that spin out in my head bore a hole right through my chest. I literally begin having trouble breathing at the thought.

I mean Jesus Christ, my last lover of two and a half years - I couldn’t just ask her how she was doing. I had to search the internet for a funny meme to bring to her like a male bird bringing a gift for the female to incorporate into her nest. I viewed myself as having such little value to her (or anyone) that I couldn’t possibly imagine a world in which my acknowledging a person could be seen as beneficial.

Okay. End of the day, I know what I have to work on. I mean, self-image, that’s nothing new. But this is a new, specific application of it that I’ve contextualized for myself and with a specific set of actions I can at least fake until I make. I like people. I like talking to people. Sure, I need to disconnect often, but that’s normal. I’ve let my leg keep me stuck in my house, so I need to compensate somehow, so texting it is, despite how uncomfortable it makes me. I’m unhappy with the situation, so I need to change it. Simple enough.

All I have to do is not think I’m worthless.

Under construction. 

Eros and Thanatos

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Sarahah and Sincerity

So Sarahah has become a fad, which means it has its lovers and haters, both with varying degrees of rational consideration. Personally, I’ve been enjoying it, though I know that others have had toxic outcomes from it. I’ve had many positive notes as well as a few challenging ones. I haven’t had any outright negative submissions, which my paranoid brain immediately turned into “What? Do people think I’m too fragile to handle criticism?!?” But yeah, that part of my brain is really stupid.

The whole thing has gotten me thinking about honesty and sincerity. They are both very difficult values to always advance in one’s daily life. I mean, I personally think deception is a vital part of society and that if everyone voiced every thought that they had, the world would likely crumble within a fortnight. At the very least, almost all of us would lose our jobs as soon as we started telling people what we really thought.

Maybe that’s just me. As a kid from an abusive family, I had to constantly lie or hide the truth. Not really about external things, but internal. My mother hated anything inside of me that wasn’t a perfect replica of herself, so any deviation was swiftly and overwhelmingly punished. I had to create an entirely different person to pretend to be on a daily basis. My mask was meticulous. It’s only when I gave up on ever displaying any independent thought that I could finally earn some peace. I got really, really good at being so vague and noncommittal that I never actually said anything, and the impulse persists. I am reflexively diplomatic to the point of rarely saying anything at all. It infuriates me. So much of my life has since focused on finding the right words, then forcing myself to make them public – to take a fucking stand and be me. It goes against all of my training and I panic each time I hit that “Publish” button. But it is my defiance.

I also have a very acute association with not telling people harsh truths because I think that what I say might set them down a path towards their death/suicide. PTSD – it’s called insane for a reason. I fear that telling someone something negative that I think about them will eventually be their undoing – I actually have OCD against telling people harsh truths. That’s wildly overestimating my influence, but a number of people have told me that my words have saved them, so it does stand to reason that my words could also have the opposite effect (even though that would obviously be the fallacy of the converse).

Plus, I suppose I’ll always feel like I have my mother’s blood on my hands. Broken brains can get really dumb.

So Sarahah has allowed sincerity to come anonymously, as conceptually problematic as that is. It’s also allowed for people to be shitty with each other, but any new medium of communication will do that. I’m pretty sure that if the telegram could have rendered visual media, unsolicited dick pics would have been a staple of the American West. Shittiness aside, I’ve found it to be a great prompt for a number of discussions. Me being me, I’ve tried to answer rather candidly when asked questions, which, when posted to Facebook, has given others the opportunity to comment on their thoughts. I actually do feel like I’ve learned more about my friends who participated and that perhaps they know more of me. This is invaluable to me. For as distant and disengaged as I tend to be on a daily basis, I consider my relationships the only thing in my life truly worth my energy (after that first level of Maslow’s hierarchy). Knowing each other better is beautiful. For that, I’m thankful. I hope the trend persists.

Also, the anonymous comments telling me that I’m hot have been very appreciated.

My mood has been more positive overall for the past few days, likely because I’ve been so engaged with multiple friends on multiple topics. Making people laugh is one of my primary goals in life, and I jump at any chance I see. I feel like I’ve been pretty on point of late. This could be bolstered by the fact that I haven’t been getting laid recently. I seem to get funnier the longer I go without sex. I think it’s an adaptive response built to attract a mate. I’m like a bird whose spring plumage is coming in. Except instead of feathers, it’s jokes about eating ass.

I will say this about sincerity, though. I largely prioritize kindness and diplomacy over truth when interacting with someone. This can lead me to sugarcoat things or to be evasive to the point of opacity. If you want pure truth prioritized, I can give it to you. Be damned sure that you want it. And also be damned sure that I’m not saying anything with the purpose of hurting you. My perspective is not a weapon aimed at you; it’s how I see the world. Just as an example, if you ask me to truthfully tell you if I think you are intelligent, I may say “no.” That will not at all be with the intent of insulting you, merely my perception. I don’t know if that makes a difference to you, but it does to me.

Just know that if I've been kind to you, that’s the real truth. I avoid outright lies at all cost, so if I have ever said something directly, ever taken a stand, ever told you that I like you or that you matter to me, that’s the biggest truth you need to know.

Anyway, if you ever want to ask me for my completely truthful perception, here are the magic words. “David, I want to ask you a question, and I want you to speak only the truth without regard for my feelings or any potential consequences,” then ask your question. I shy away from sincerity because I don’t think people truly want it, but if you make that effort, I will know that you do. I may suggest that the conversation occur at a different time, but I will get to it. I may suggest that the conversation would be better to have in person, so that could be a consideration. I will tell you this, though; the right time is NEVER at Shadowland. That’s happy fun time, not serious time.

So there you go. Magic words, if you care enough to use them. You now know the Zone of Truth spell. Yer a wizard, Harry.

Aromantic

It’s one of those times again. I’m perpetually short of breath. My skin feels tight and it feels like something has its claws in my chest and just keeps squeezing. Every day blurs into the next and all I want to do is scream. And sleep.

Sometimes I can learn something from my depressive episodes. It requires a moment of calm in the fury. It’s as if an alligator has me in its death roll, jaws tight, spinning and spinning and – somehow – I, in a moment of dispassionate clarity, notice which direction the bubbles from my scream are headed and I make a note to myself that, if I get out of this, that’s the way up.

Possibly more accurately, I’m in the irresistible gravity well of self-loathing. While I have nothing better to do than sink ever downward, I examine the physics of my fall, and, by doing some instinctive mathematics, noting all of the bodies powerful enough to exert their force on me. Thus I can infer the shape and location of the dark planets disrupting the orbit of the known objects in this tediously drawn out metaphor for my psyche.

Acute depressive episodes, if I can have that moment of clarity, allow me to measure the profile and power of the demons in the dark. If I can get a decent look at the shape of the horrifying feedback loop my brain gets stuck in, I guess it was worth something. Lesson learned, on to new terrifying vistas.

It takes a number of these insights to extrapolate a picture for myself, and it takes time, examination, and rumination to turn that picture into emotions and then words. My emotions don’t really translate well, at least not without a hell of a lot of work, so this process is laborious, at best.

This particular cycle seems to have shed some light on why I hold myself in such restraint when it comes to feeling connected to someone. To not belabor the point any further, I simply can’t place that much responsibility onto someone that I love. Allowing myself to feel loved, genuinely engaging someone on that level – at least at this point in my mental instability – is potentially a death sentence in which I make my loved one the executioner.

I have abysmal self-worth. I genuinely hate myself with the heat of a thousand comments sections. As such, I end up outsourcing my value to the outside world entirely. This ends up with me being kind of a needy piece of shit, begging for validation on the regular. Thankfully, there’s Facebook. It’s my one stop shop for people to make me feel like I have any trace of merit. I can diffuse the power of that sucking hole inside over whatever percentage of my friends haven’t unfollowed me yet.

I hate doing it. It’s tedious, annoying, and narcissistic. Also, probably not an effective long term solution. However, it’s gotten me through so far, despite… everything.

The reason I’m so scared to have a genuine relationship is because if I began to focus on just one person for all of that support I need, it would be hideously unfair, cruelly dependent, and ultimately it would taint any of the joy that romance is supposed to infuse into one’s life. They would become my reason to live, in the worst way you can imagine. Every word. Every action. Every facial tick. Everything. All of it. Everything that they do – it would be how I determined if were still worthy of drawing breath. You know, after it was all put through a filter of my own paranoia and self-loathing.

So there’s me, watching each minute thing a person does, weighing my life against that. They’d become my sole anchor to being a human. That isn’t a relationship – that’s profound sickness in the form of dependence. Romance, playfulness, confidence – they all die. All I’d do is panic each time the cloud of a bad mood crossed my lover’s face. Each harsh word, every deep sigh, all of it would send me into a catatonic haze, afraid that that would be the end of it all, that would be what pulled the rug out from under me.

What kind of person would I be if I knowingly did that to someone I professed to care about? And, in some dim, distant way, to myself? Logically I know that to rest my survival on something so potentially tumultuous as one other person’s perception of me could be disastrous. Especially when I know I’ll interpret the signs in the worst way possible. Especially since, when the chips are down, I begin losing all ability to communicate. Especially since, as soon as I begin seeing the signs of negativity, I immediately begin planning my exit strategy, hardening my heart out of self-preservation.

Especially since I know that I can in no way offer someone anything of equal value.

I can’t do that again. I can’t turn someone’s love for me into that toxic dependence again. I can’t turn someone into my life support system again. I can’t turn love into pity and obligation again.

I have to get better. I don’t know if I can, but I don’t want to be alone. Most of my relationships were pretty awful and easy to write off, but I’ve lost wonderful women now, because of my own weakness and terror. Because, like all abused children, I carved sword and shield from my own self, built myself into armor protecting… nothing. I used up all of myself to prepare for strife and suffering. I am prepared for battle, but not for life. A hollow suit of plate, fighting a battle many years lost. A ghost, needing someone to haunt in order to feel connected to the world, yet unable to stomach the guilt of being such a parasite.

There is no optimistic resolution here. No closure. No hero’s journey. I give you nothing and yet implicitly ask your validation. Same as always. 

Apathy

Recently, my anxiety topped out and the predictable result happened: emergency shut off. I've slipped into depersonalization. It feels like Actually David has fucked off and some sort of Backup David has had to take over.

I don't really feel anything, but logically I know that I need to maintain Actual David's interests in the world or else shit will fall apart, leaving Actual David a mess to deal with whenever he ends up getting back. I'm groping for metaphors, but it's like the store of Me is being run by the assistant manager who knows how to do everything but simply has no personal investment in the outcome, and just feels annoyed and harried by the unwelcome responsibility of running the show (or having to do anything, really). Perhaps maybe I shut down improperly and have rebooted in safe mode, only bare bones functionality until the problem is properly sorted. Maybe this is what Sam felt like when he lost his soul in season five of Supernatural.

During times like this, I feel like an observer watching myself go through the motions. When I care, I will often philosophize about the difference between this "I" and "myself," what is observing and what is being observed, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to properly express what it feels like when I say "I'm not me." The inherent paradox is staggering and nonsensical, but I feel it nonetheless.

Such times will inevitably lead to isolation, which is largely fine. I'm a fairly isolated person to begin with, so few would notice. I end up believing that it would be detrimental to Actual David's life if I were to attempt anything resembling sincerity with those who are normally close to me. They would notice the disconnect and take offense, if prior evidence indicates. Their opinions of me would, if history holds, shift to believing me to be "emotionless," "robotic," "rehearsed," or "distant." At this moment, all of those labels would be accurate, but I don't necessarily believe them to be on a longitudinal scale.

To carry the metaphor, the assistant manager believes himself to be competent enough to run the store for the untrained customer's needs. However, if any higher ups came to inspect things, they would immediately notice the AM's failings, drawing attention to how unprepared the general manager was for his own absence. The AM also knows that most of the problems come from the fact that he doesn't truly care about the outcome, but still doesn't want to get the GM in trouble.

So, yeah. That's where I am. Hollow and apathetic. Likely only for the moment. Time is flying past me and recollection of recent events is very hazy, as I'm not doing the normal human contextualization of events with emotional judgment. I guess it would stand to reason to ask why even bother writing this? Partly as a "Please excuse our mess while we remodel" warning/supplication. Partly because I'm aware that documenting my mental illness can help people and helping people is a good thing to do. Partly to lower people's expectations for me, mostly so that when Actual David returns, he won't have a pile of shit to clean up, as I anticipate serious feelings of guilt with the return of emotion.

So yeah. That's where I'm at. There's no need to worry about me; I'm likely more stable than usual. I'm performing all necessary life functions as well as normal. The worst I can say is that I've let some cosmetic issues go due to seeing no practical value in expending energy to maintain them. I've also not communicated this current situation before this post, so there's the chance someone could have noticed my change in behavior and been offended by it, which I certainly didn't intend. It takes a while for me to catch up with what is going on inside me. By the time I have adequate explanation, the damage is done. So it goes.

As for now, the store is tended, if sparsely. Please excuse our mess.

Trigger Warning

I want to kill myself.

I’m not going to do it right now, so don’t alert any authorities or anything, but I want to. I don’t want to want to, but that’s life, right? This has been my reality since around age eleven. I just want to kill myself.

Some days, I want to stop feeling and let myself die. Some days, I want to murder my greatest enemy - myself. Some days, I hate everything in the world. So. Fucking. Much. That I simply can’t see my way to exist through another horrifying day. Some days, I am so exhausted by the thought of doing laundry that I don’t know how the hell I’ll be able to accomplish any task ever again.

Those are the most prevalent flavors of my suicidal thoughts. Obviously, I haven’t gone through with it. I haven’t a fucking clue how I haven’t, but I’m still here. I’ve achieved some delicate balance. Most of it comes from releasing the notion of ever being happy. I don’t exhaust myself with chasing ideals of fulfillment. I don’t strive or desire. I’ve let my ambitions go. I simply don’t have the resources for such things. I’ve been much more stable since doing this.

Being a gamer, I have to make the comparison that it’s almost like mana usage in Dragon Age. There is always a part of me fighting off the desire to end my life, like a shield spell that uses a dedicated 30% of my mana pool. I start my day out at 70%. The Deal With Constant Pain spell takes another 30% or so, some days more, some days less. On any given day, I’m operating at about 40% of average mana, so I don’t have a lot of room for anything but work and basic life maintenance. I live within a very narrow margin that I have to carefully monitor.

It’s been worse, it’s been better, but I’ve been relatively okay of late. I only think of killing myself every couple of days, and usually without any real emotional investment in the idea. It’s been far worse. If you live in my town, there have been many nights when, had you been walking down Orange Street, you might have found me sitting on one of the benches outside of the eight story parking garage, crying softly to myself, going back and forth on if I was going to get into that elevator.

Right now, I seem to be at the Groucho Marx level. “I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.” I can find and experience enjoyable sensory phenomenon. Death will end that and I only have one shot at this, so, if I want more pizza and orgasms, I guess I’d better deal with the rest of the bullshit. This is Level One, and about as high as I can expect to function.

Level Two is I Can’t Do This To My Friends. I know firsthand how hard the suicide of someone close to you can affect you. At this level, even though my isolation and depression have separated me almost entirely from feeling like I can ever connect with anyone on a meaningful level, I know that many people would likely be damaged to some degree by my death and I can’t handle the guilt of doing that to so many lovely people who have been so charitable, if misguided, to care about me.

Level Three is I Fucking Hate You All.  This is when I begin to resent that every person in my life is passively guilting me into living even when they refuse to help (in my twisted vision of things). I want to scream in the face of everyone who professes to give a shit, saying that thing that I know I could say that would drive a permanent wedge between us. I want to dissolve every connection once and for all, leaving me alone and free, able to end my life with no one to mourn me. Because if all I’m doing is living for other people, and THEY AREN’T HELPING ME, why the fuck should I care how they feel after I’m gone?

Obviously, I realize the distorted cognitions of Level Three. I know people want to help, I don’t actually resent them (you). I just resent the fact that no one can reach inside me and actually do something to fix me.

I don’t know what Level Four is. I suspect that if I find out, I won’t have the opportunity to record it.

Why am I writing all of this? Chris Cornell just committed suicide, so the topic is in the ether. Naturally, we all have feelings about it. Naturally, there is a greater discussion about mental health, depression, and suicidal urges. Naturally, this sets me into a shitty place.

The following is a Facebook post I made about a year ago on the topic of how people want to help. I feel it bears repeating.

"If you're depressed and contemplating suicide, please reach out."

I've seen (and said) this statement many times. It's earnest and well-meaning and I’m glad for the many caring souls who say it, but I've begun to see the terrible flaw in it.

Let's say I have a friend. We'll call him Mort. Mort is depressed and becoming more and more suicidal. He is consumed by self-loathing and just wants it all to end. I post the "If you're depressed..." line on Facebook, which Mort sees.

Here's the problem. I have put the burden of action to protect Mort's survival onto Mort. I have put the burden of action onto the person who least wants to see Mort survive. He, in that psychological space, is the least qualified person in the world to care for Mort. The onus is on him to exercise self-care, when all he wants to see is his self end.

Do you see the problem?

If you are depressed, please, absolutely reach out if you can. But more than that by FAR; if you see someone who is having trouble, reach out to them first. Don't make the person being slowly crushed under their own suffering take the first step. And don’t tell them life is worth living, get involved and show them.

I’m astonished that people are surprised Cornell hung himself. For the love of cake, he wrote a song called “Pretty Noose.” Are people so naïve that they think money, fame, and love can fix this shit? This doesn’t get fixed. You cope. That’s the best you’ve got. And maybe you cope until life gets around to killing you. And maybe you find one day you just can’t cope anymore and expedite the process. But that’s what we’ve got. Coping. And sure, some of us can accomplish a lot with their remaining 40 or 70% mana. Maybe their pool of resources was just bigger by nature, I don’t know.

One thing I want to say as I close. When and if I kill myself, it will be my decision. There is no decision more personal and more mine than my continued existence. My persistence is my endorsement of my self and my reality. At some point, I may no longer be able to abide one or both of those things. And if you judge me for that, you can go fuck yourself. Be sad for my passing, be sad it came to such an end, whatever. Feel how you feel. But to judge someone who took their life? To call them a coward or weak? If you can even think such words, your myopic, infantile ignorance of how hard a person’s struggle can be makes you a useless sack of shit. I’m not endorsing suicide, but I do think there is a rather unnecessary negative stigma on it. It is sad, but that’s it. To blame or denigrate someone for their choice, to immediately jump to saying how selfish and thoughtless and awful and cowardly it makes the deceased? That makes you garbage, as far as I’m concerned. Take your judgment and shove it up your ass. It’s my life, it’s my death. You may have the opportunity to make either of them somewhat better, but in the end, for better or worse, I’m responsible for me, even if I, the actor, am a slave to myself, the construct.

And I don’t like what you got me hanging from.