Category Archives: Uncategorized

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So, it’s been a while

I’ve had a longstanding conflict with the idea of this site. 

On the one hand, I feel that focusing enough mental energy on my problems to write about them has the side effect of amplifying them in my mind, bringing me to a deeper level of depression than I might otherwise experience. My only workable strategy for handling my depression these days is to try to think as little as possible about my life — this means, no planning ahead, no thought about my failing health, dental problems, financial and tax nightmares, basic income shortfalls, occupational difficulties, mental illness, loneliness, social disabilities, etc.  I live as much as possible moment-to-moment, an approach which is almost certainly ultimately adding to my problems, but keeps me from being completely overwhelmed emotionally.

On the other hand, I think about these things anyway as it’s impossible to avoid it completely, and as I wrestle with the possibility of ultimately taking my own life it seems like it would be best to leave some sort of record of how things could reach that point. I feel like I have many problems that are nearly universal, but many more still that I have never heard anyone else discuss, and writing these things down might help answer some questions later on.

So, once again I return to contributing to this journal. 

What’s changed, or happened at all really, in the past couple years?  Not a lot beyond what you might expect. My life has continued its downward spiral, the car project I’m working on still hasn’t been finished and I’m in a state of perpetual panic about it. My situation at the hackerspace with the obviously derelict project is becoming a deepening embarassment to me and a subject of increasingly frequent and confused questions about its status and my own. My morning conversations with my mother, once a source of mental stability and a guiding hand through times of unrelenting darkness, have now become nearly meaningless. I can no longer talk to my mother about the pain in my life; it’s too much for her to bear. As a result she thinks that my life is trending slowly upward, a misrepresentation I feel powerless to correct.

Of course, I am still alone. And I still can’t focus on anything or remember anything. And I am heading down exactly the path I’ve been afraid of for years, and I still have nearly zero hope that there will ever be a meaningful improvement.

Until I get off of this train, I might as well make note of what happens along the way. I’ve set up an Android client for editing posts, so this is something I can do somewhat more conveniently from a tablet now.

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So easy

An acquaintance recently posted a quote (in the form of a dressed-up picture, of course), from someone named “Brian Tracy”, with whom I’m not familiar:

“Deal first with whatever is causing you the greatest emotional distress. Often this will break the logjam in your work and free you up mentally to complete other tasks.”

Seriously? To say nothing of the lack of eloquence in the quote itself (hardly deserving of such a decorated presentation), does anyone really think it’s so simple? Oh … just “deal” with it, he says. Does it really need to be said, that in many cases “whatever is causing the greatest emotional distress” is a chronic or intractable situation?

Oh, what an inspiring idea. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll just “deal with it”, and this whole lifelong problem will be solved, and I can move onto the next thing. Brilliant.

From my perspective, whoever finds resonance in this directive has lived a very sheltered or privileged life, free of serious emotional turmoil rooted in significant, challenging life problems.

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Alone

Not exactly a new realization, but one that’s been making its impact felt strongly of late.

I can’t work alone.

This is crippling for someone who wants to be an entrepreneur and operate a small business with an absentee business partner. And it’s pretty crippling for its extended implications upon the rest of my life.

Really, I can’t do anything alone . I’m inept, a basketcase. I can’t work, I can’t play, I can’t create, I can’t “have fun” — none of these things even make sense without other people. Zen koan cliches be damned, I can’t clap with one hand. For me, other people are part of the definition of an enjoyable, productive life. In isolation, life is simply existence, and a painful one at that. An agony that perpetually distracts me from everything I try to do. The pain of being alone and the distraction it causes are getting worse as I get older.

You can’t tell me to “learn to enjoy being alone”, in the same way that you can’t tell a person to learn to enjoy having their hand pulverized in a wood chipper. I can’t focus on a single train of thought when I’m alone — my productivity leaps a thousand-fold when collaborating with others. With no opportunity to create that context for myself, my current livelihood is in jeopardy.

And the problem is self-perpetuating. Loneliness makes me miserable and desperate. My misery and desperation make me unapproachable. So it has been for my entire adult life.

There is no solution.

 

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Shadow in the corner

Another night at a social event. Another crowd of people, another thick sonic cloud of conversations from which I am challenged to distill anything meaningful, even when being addressed directly. Another hour of sitting in a corner, punctuated by occasional greetings, exchange of pleasantries, and attentions refocused elsewhere. Another drink, and another; they get more lubricated as I remain sober, and the wall forms. I’m not allowed on the other side of that wall.

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An Open Letter to a Friend

I may seem to be an asshole when you try to do something funny and don’t get the reaction you intended. Please try to understand the background.

When I’m alone, often the only thing that occupies my mind is my death — the circumstances, how I’d do it, what I need to do to prepare for it, and my often high sense of urgency and desperation, and frustration that I can’t get what I want without hurting people I care about. I am frustrated that I must continue to suffer by remaining alive, to provide some kind of comfort to people I don’t even see every day due to our society’s immature ideas about death and suffering.

So when you appear and do something zany, can you understand why sometimes I cannot smile?

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No shopping list

Anyone else ever go to the grocery store only to realize after walking around the aisles for half an hour, that they just can’t bring themselves to want anything enough to buy it — leading to a sudden collision with the pointlessness of existence? Just me?

Oh.

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Praefatio

A message to those who have stumbled here randomly and are wondering who I am, what this site is and why I’m writing it: in fact, you’ve found me in exactly the same condition, with the same questions.

I have no intent on revealing my identity here, though it wouldn’t take a genius to figure it out and I’m taking no special measures to hide it. I’m a middle-age white guy living in central Texas trying to make something of myself, and dealing with a lifelong depression and my increasingly strained relationship with my own sanity.

This site is intended at this point to be a more-or-less private record of what little of my inner monologue survives long enough to be written down, a record of my struggles with my mental state and outlook on life, and some evidence of my existence that will remain when I am gone, at least until someone notices that I haven’t paid my internet hosting bill.

I’m putting this out on the web for no particular reason beyond convenient access to it from wherever I am. I expect to have no audience for what I write here, except for myself and the spambots who I’m sure will be more than happy to contribute their computer-generated praise of my posts, and their helpful links to porn sites and marital aid accessories.

One thing I have found is that when I’m in my darkest moments, there is literally no one in the world that I can talk to. There are people who have offered to listen when I need to talk, etc, something to which any depressed person can certainly relate. But of course, no one is really prepared for the burden they place upon themselves with such an offer, and I’ve found it corrosive to the few relationships I have to exercise their patience with my complaints. I’ve tried professional help, I’ve tried drugs and other therapies, some of which I’m sure I’ll eventually discuss here. At this point it’s become pretty clear that I’m completely on my own to either get through this, let it take me down, or keep me bound in mediocrity by the struggle for the rest of my days.

So perhaps this diary will be my confidante, the place where I can dump the sewage and detritus of my mind’s self-directed warfare, and maybe some of my better moments as well.