Coping

“Tasteless” and “offensive” are sort of part and parcel of how I communicate. I try to make it funny, and sometimes I try to make it valuable. This will invariably be hit or miss. I’ve taken a  lot of shit from people for my defense of dark humor, and, to a degree, I haven't enjoyed losing the esteem that those people may have held me in. But this is me, and I don’t feel like I have a choice in being me.

I’ve been through too much to face life head-on. I just can’t. I don’t have it in me.

I feel like the only option that I have left is to come at life sideways through humor. I use jokes to defang the things waiting in the darkness.  

I’m sickened and terrified by rape.

I’m sickened and terrified by murder.

I’m sickened and terrified by suicide.

I’m sickened and terrified by hatred.

So I make fun of these things to try to chip away at their enormity. And not just about the concepts in general, but the damages done specifically to me. I joke about having gone hungry, about having been homeless. I joke about the fact that my mom shot herself in the head. I joke about the fact that my small body was subjected to the unstoppable hands of predators. I joke about the fact that I was abused in every way possible by people who were supposed to love me. I joke about being rendered less than a man by a crippling infirmity.

Therapy can only help so much. It helps you to find your own coping mechanisms. I have found mine. To people who don’t know me well, it can seem callous or sophomoric. It can be caustic and uncomfortable, which I suppose it is, and it can conflict with others’ coping mechanisms.

So be it.

This is what I’ve got. I’ve got a shitty, crass, foul-mouthed demeanor and I admit who I am. Hell, sometimes I even come close to liking who I am. My intentions are not to harm. My intentions are almost always to amuse. Few things in life give me the high of making someone laugh; truly, deeply laugh, especially at something frightening. The rest of the time, my intentions are to enlighten, because I’m pedantic and arrogant enough to think that I might have some wisdom to share (the desire to teach is an innately arrogant thing). Either way, what I want is to make the world better, or at least maybe easier, strange though that may seem. This isn’t always accomplished by Reader’s Digest saccharine wholesomeness. Sometimes helping requires a sharp edge.

I don’t take my suffering as free license to abuse others, no. I don’t attack anyone, and I do not invade another’s intellectual space to start stirring up shit. I keep to my own soapboxes to shout my profanities. Every reader always has the choice to roll their eyes and keep scrolling, or to terminate our friendship entirely. So it goes.

What I'm not doing is I'm not apologizing. I'm not saying how I act is right. I'm not saying it's righteous. What I am saying is that it is inevitable. If this seems terrible to you, then I guess we won’t see eye-to-eye, and that may be the demise of our relationship. Denying me my coping methods would only compound the damages already done to me and I can't afford to let anyone do that. my grasp is too tenuous. If you don’t like what I say, you have the freedom to ignore me or to walk away. I won’t blame you.

But I might call you a cum-rag.

(I might call you that if we stay friends, too.)

---Meant with genuine love---

Warning Label

The past three weeks have been profoundly challenging. The pain has escalated so much, and with so many sudden spikes, that I have mentally retreated from the world as much as possible. 

I am emotionally unstable. It feels like the door to my happy place, whatever that is, has been barred. Not a minute goes by that I don't remember that I am in pain and that I have been in pain for seven years straight without a day of rest.

It has gotten Bad.

I'm not saying this for pity or sympathy. I am saying this because a wounded animal is a dangerous animal. It is a struggle to mitigate how much I want to lash out, and anyone in my sphere is at risk. I feel I have kept myself in check, but I want this to preemptively explain my behavior. No matter what I am going through though, I am still accountable for my actions, which is something so many people forget. My trials do not entitle me to be selfish. 

I want to go out. I need a good time. I simply can't bring myself to get out of bed for anything but an obligation. 

Even opening up about this is hard, which is a rarity for me. I'm not even sure that I want to engage people about the topic. Talking about it makes me think about it more, and there is nothing any of you can do for me. It simply felt unhealthy to keep this in for so long, as I have been in some serious depths. 

As for my plan, I intend to try like hell to stay distracted and to just keep plodding on.