????

What. The. Actual. Hell. I was fine. I wasn’t even paying attention to it. Robert has some music playing quietly in the background because he likes some noise when he sleeps. I’m just here reading random crap online with zero point behind it hoping that I’ll be able to get some sleep myself soon as the past few days have been really hard on me in that regard. I’m not feeling particularly depressed or anything, mostly just really tired, and I just start crying. I know it’s the song that started playing and I know what I was feeling while it was going on. I just don’t know what triggered it exactly. As I said: Just tired. Just reading. Just crying? And as quickly as it came, it vanished again. I can’t really be that easily manipulated by music, can I?

Saw my podiatrist. Foot is healing but not healed. She still doesn’t want me walking on it. Gave me a new, less obtrusive shoe to replace the boot for now. I told her about the blisters and she cleaned them and gave me some supplies to keep up on them. The new shoe is because of the blisters and she wants to see me again in two weeks. I think I’m actually going in on the 19th to be specific. I really can’t blame her because the one on the bottom of my foot is rather nasty looking. I gather the boot will be returning after they heal enough.

Made a bunch of other appointments. Optometrist is tomorrow. Primary care is the 30th. Dentist is in early May. Still need to get that referral for my wisdom teeth done now that my insurance should be sorted. Chiropractor is still on hold until my foot heals more. Not much reason to go since it’s for my back and I’m still not supposed to be walking so… I was really hoping I’d be able to start exercising again. I’m guessing summer by this point. At least I still seem to be loosing weight. Well, fluctuating down I should say. Overall lower numbers are good either way.

Oh good. Another emotionally manipulative song just came on. I think I’m going to be able to sleep here soon. Starting to have trouble typing. When I have to keep going over words because I’m misspelling them over and over or have to pause for a second because I can’t remember how to spell them at all in the first place–. Once, in third grade, I forgot how to spell the word “of”. I actually had to ask the teacher because I kept spelling it “ove” and I knew something was wrong with that but couldn’t figure out just what.

Thirty-some-odd-years later that’s still a vivid memory for me. I wonder why that is. Why would I remember something so insignificant with such clarity and yet forget so many other much more important things. I can remember misspelling a two-letter word when I was nine but I can’t remember my own father’s face, his voice, smell, touch. I can see the shadow but it’s so far away. Was it ever even real to begin with? It’s running from me. Or am I running from it?

…

Where the hell is this coming from?

I don’t think I’m safe right now.

Regret

I am regret incarnate. I am regret given purpose. Given need. Desire. I regret so much. Do I regret existence?

When I was six maybe, one of our cats had kittens. I don’t know why our mother let us but she let us each pick one and play with them. We were far too young to be doing this and they were far too small to be handled. I remember me and my brother were playing a game with them sliding them down inside a blanket. My brother said something about his being better than mine. I grabbed his kitten and threw it against a table leg. It cried and cried. The sound of it still haunts me to this day. I could never purposefully hurt another animal again.

Sometime during third grade I believe, me and my brother were out playing with some other boys. I didn’t have any friends my own age so we were always playing with his friends who were a good two years younger than me. I don’t recall what exactly led to it but one of the boys picked up a rock and threw it at my brother. It struck him on the side of his head near his temple. My brother went straight down like a marionette with its strings unexpectedly cut. I went into uncontrollable rage mode. I ran across the street toward the boy who had hurt my brother and simply wailed on him. I probably punched him a good few dozen times screaming all the while. Then I ran to a car, threw myself against the hood, and sobbed.

In sixth grade I stepped on a kitten. Another one of our cats had had a litter. We always had some kind of animal around the house when we were kids. At least a cat if nothing more. So our cat at this time had gotten pregnant and had a litter. They were all up on the top bed of me and my brother’s bunk bed. I went in to check on them and realized that one was missing. While looking for it on the ground I stepped back and immediately felt it under my foot. It mewed and mewed. Wouldn’t stop. I quickly picked it up and put it back with the others, making sure it had a nipple, then left the room in such shame. I came back a few hours later to find it dead, it’s bowels released on the bed where I had laid it. It still makes me want to cry just thinking about it.

Junior high and high school were pretty much nothing but regret for me. I regret going at all. I regret not being able to confide in anyone what I was going through. I regret having friends, the few that I did. I regret not having friends. I regret letting people down. I regret that my one high school English teacher actually believed in me. I regret that I never stood up to the kids at school that tormented me, to the one school counselor that screwed up my classes over and over again, to my family that treated me like dirt and a slave and little more than a welfare check.

Worst of all, I regret not standing up to myself. I could have been someone, been something, instead of the useless, pointless lump of sad that I am today. I could have graduated college, I could have gotten a job, had friends, had a real life.

Work. I did work, twice. The first time I was very young and it was a stupid security job at a strip mall after I had failed out of college. The second time…

I was going to a program deigned to help people like me (crazy folk) find and keep jobs. One of the first things they do is test you to see what you would be best suited for. My results were off the chart on everything. It wasn’t a difficult series of tests. I think it was designed for lower functioning individuals as it consisted of things like completing lines and finding word matches in groups in a set period of time. Things you would do in elementary school. My scores being so high, they had no idea what to do with me. So they offered me a job.

This company was contracted with the state and actually had two positions that they specifically kept open for clients. They decided to offer me one of those positions and I took it. This was in my mid twenties and I wanted to work. I really, really did. We filled out all the paperwork, got me all set up. I went to a consignment store and picked up a couple nice outfits that I could wear to the office. Shirts and shorts weren’t going to cut it here. This job was supposed to be a stepping stone. I was supposed to work here for a year and a half gaining enough experience to move on to a permanent office position somewhere else. I was so excited.

I didn’t show up the first day.

I tried. I tried so hard. I got up, got dressed, got all of my things together. Got on the train and road down to the office. Got off the train and walked the few blocks remaining. Got in front of the office and then… I just couldn’t go in. I paced on the sidewalk out front. I’m sure someone could see me from inside but no one actually came out. I paced and stood, sweating and absolutely terrified. After what seemed like an eternity I simply turned and went back home. I didn’t call out or anything. How could I? What excuse could I give? I got there but was too afraid to go inside? The scary little office building chased me away?

After a few days of anguish and self-hated I eventually did show up. But that first day. That day when I was right there. Right at the front door but simply couldn’t bring myself to open it and walk inside. That really sticks with me. The regret. Knowing how things could have been instead of what they are.

I regret this fear that has controlled me all of my life. How it’s tormented me. How I let it torment me. There’s simply no other way to say it no matter what anyone else thinks or says:

I regret me.

There’s Always More

Lying in bed, trying to sleep, when what comes to mind?

It was my freshman year of high school. Specifically the first month of my freshman year of high school. I had been, inexplicably, placed into a class dealing with electricity. The best part was it was a hands on class. We were actually building circuits with real wiring and real tubing affixed to large wooden boards. It was one of the few classes that I really remember enjoying, for the month I was in it anyway.

One day when class was letting out one of the other students approached me from out of the blue. I guess he must have been watching me for a while and wanted to ask me a question. He was shorter than me, as most everyone was by this point, but had a thicker more muscular build that he didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in hiding, wearing tight shirts and the like. He was wearing a white undershirt that was at least a size too small for him this day. And then he asked:

“How’d you get your chest so big?”

I freaked when I realized what he had asked me. He was asking me for tips on working out and getting bigger. The getting bigger thing came naturally to me but the working out thing? I stuttered and stammered and eventually managed to extradite myself from the situation without actually saying anything. I don’t remember him approaching me again but I also don’t remember how long after that that we moved. The damage had already been done though. His innocuous question had set in motion a series of events that would change my life.

I was already incredibly body conscious. Incredibly. To know that someone was looking at me, that someone actually saw me–and worst of all that they had seen something that wasn’t there, something that they might have even admired in me–made me sick and terrified. If there was one thing you didn’t want it was to be like me. In any way, shape, or form.

We could have maybe even become friends if I had been a different person who wasn’t absolutely terrified of existing. Instead I ran and did what I always do: I hid. He had taken notice of me because I had been walking upright. I have a very wide but fatty chest. With puberty came man boobs. No matter what my weight I’ve always had them. I’m sure it’s genetic.

Point being though was that he had noticed them. Miss-interpreted what they were, had taken fat for muscle, but had noticed them none the less. A part of my body, my horrible disgusting body, had been made visible and that had to be fixed.

So, completely on purpose, I actually forced myself to develop hunched shoulders. I simply rolled them forward and kept them there. I did my best to crumple myself up into a ball and hide. No one would notice if there was nothing to notice. I was not to be seen. I couldn’t be seen. Don’t look at me. Don’t see me… Please.

I developed a pretty good hunch from that and I’m still dealing with the fallout from it today. I try to stand straight now but I have a mild case of scoliosis that makes it difficult. I still greatly struggle with body issues as well. I only really feel comfortable when I’m wearing a coat or a sweater. Something that hides any real detail of my form. Basic outlines are fine but detail, can’t deal with that.

There are so many things wrong with my body today and even though I know most of them can’t be traced back to that simple, friendly question, I’m sure that a lot of my back issues began there.

I wish I could have been what you thought I was. I wish I could be anything like that for myself today. Don’t think you hurt me though, because you didn’t. I know that wasn’t your intent and I bare no malice towards you. If you ever read this and wonder… Don’t.

…

GO TO FUCKING SLEEP ALREADY!

I’ve been wondering…

… am I depressed because I really am or am I hiding behind my depression as a means of avoiding-of escaping-from having to deal with my own life and the numerous problems that exist therein?

I’ve been getting threats about writing from a certain someone who wants me to write while they themselves are supposed to be neck deep in working on a book with someone else. Yes, I’m being dragged into being an editor. The horror… or something. Not that I don’t like to write (I have a rather innate talent for it), I just haven’t wanted to for years and having a metaphorical gun put to my head doesn’t seem like the most useful way to motivate me. I could be wrong of course.

I wouldn’t even know where to begin even if I wanted to. When I was younger I was flush with ideas. The first thing I would think about when I got up was writing and the last thing I thought about before going to bed (and sometimes even after) was writing. Then things changed. I changed. Now I think about writing so rarely it’s almost impossible for me to believe how much time and effort I once put into it.

When I was in high school I would sharpen a dozen or two pencils before class, fill up a binder with college ruled paper, and then spend as much time as possible just writing. Before school, between classes, at lunch, after school. My English teacher once told me that he was certain I was going to be a published author by the time I was 25. Twenty plus years later and I don’t even know who that person, the me who wrote so much that I developed a permanent dent in the side of my finger from the pencil pressing against it, was.

I don’t know why I wrote so much. I’m not sure what I was trying to achieve. Maybe nothing. Or maybe I was trying to drown out the silence between moments of sanity where bad thoughts happen and bad things are anchored.

Maybe I just liked it?

I miss just liking things.

What do you do? In time… in time.

I’m a fidgeter (shut-up spell check). I fidget a lot. A lot, a lot. For months I was fidgeting with C++. Then Windows 10 was released and I fidgeted with that. Recently I’ve been fidgeting with Debian. I actually have eight Debian… 8… installs running in virtual machines. I fidget with them, reset them, download tons of crap, reformat them. It’s fun and I like it. I just-. What is the point of all this fidgeting?

Been feeling lost again. I’m not fond of when the shadows come and pin me down. I can’t see the world rushing by and before long I’m out of step and then forgotten. I used to enjoy being forgotten, when I was younger, when I didn’t know any better. I embraced it. Encouraged it. What else can you do when that is what you were taught all your life?

A shape in the distance.

Don’t notice me!

I’m not here.

Things began to change in my 20s’. I wanted more. I wanted different. I had spent so much time crafting my own reality that I didn’t know how to interface with others. The collective consciousness was alien to me. Yet I wanted out. I felt old. Stagnated. It was the way others wanted me to be and for a long time I believed that what others wanted was all that was important. There was no meaning in “me”, only “them”. No purpose in “I”, only “you”.

So I reached out… and fell. I fell hard. Not in the ways that others fall. I’ve seen the wrath of substance addiction, it runs in my family, and I could easily see myself going that way. It’s why I avoid such things. The idea of being out of control of myself is more terrifying than the fear and pain I experience without them. When I fall I crumple. Like a sheet of paper. I fold up into a ball and roll away into whatever corner I can find and then just stay there. It can actually be more harmful since often people can’t or won’t see it as an issue. Drink too much? You’re an alcoholic. Take illicit drugs? You’re an addict. Avoid the world at large? You’re just shy, or something equally as pedantic and condescending.

I need to sleep. My body is tired. I feel weak. Nauseous. Everything seems to upset my stomach lately and my throat is still hurting from last night when I was awoken when I tried to inhale some stomach acid that I had re-fluxed. It can be pretty scary waking up choking on your own bile. Am I going to die here? Now? Or am I going to see another day?

Does it even matter?

This is all getting darker than I intended but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Tomorrow will be different. It’ll be a new day in a new world with all the same fears and pains and spelling mistakes of this one. It is what it is and what you make of it. Maybe I should study alchemy. I could learn how to turn shit into, well, anything else. Better or worse at least it would be different. That’s something, right?