I can’t find my wallet. This is a very bad thing.

But it gives me an opportunity to explore oneof my biggest problems, and to start it off, let’s examine my potential responses to this situation,which are :

A. Freak out about it, or

B.Ignore the problem..

Note that “calmly look for it like an adult” is not on the list. I really wish it was. I wish I was the kind of person who can keep it together and proceed logically and sensibly in a time like this. The way I will wish I had handled it once the crisis is over.

But that is not in the cards for me.

Another example : I’ve been playing a game called Witcher 2 : Assasins of Kings lately. And yesterday morning, I came very close to quitting the game over napping.

Or the lack thereof.  As patient readers know, I have an absolutely atrocious sense of direction. I could get lost in an elevator. So I really need all the help I can get to find my way around in a video game.

And the next game in the series. Witcher 3 : The Wild Hunt, which I have played to DEATH not once but twice. provided that help.No matter where I was or where I wanted to go, there was a trail of little white dots to follow.

Not so in Witcher 2.  So I was spending a lot of time wandering in circles trying to find shit and getting more and more frustrated.

And not just normal everyday frustration, either. It was the kind I feel in my entire body that blackens my mood and makes me feel like I am inches from losing my mind.

It’s an extremely dangerous frame of mind for me. Not only is it unpleasant to experience, but I feel it’s dangerous to my physical health as well.  I get a weird feeling in my chest and every muscle in my body is clenched.

Not the sort of thing that I want to mess with.

And the worst part is that despite of how awful in feels, it also makes it hard to stop doing the frustrating thing. It’s like my brain is locked in “bloody minded determination” mode to a near psychotic extent.  It takes a serious act of will to yank myself out of that death spiral and return to what passes for sanity.

When I finally did get myself out of that trap, I immediately complained all about it to my buddy Maelkoth and a few other fuzzies and told them I was going to stop playing and got some validation on the whole thing.

Then later, I was sitting at this a-here computer and seriously contemplating quitting the game forever, because who needs that kind of aggravation in their life?

But I decided to give the game one more try, and whaddaya know,. it wasn’t so bad after all.Before long,.I knew my way around well enough to get shit done and I was left wondering what the big deal was.

And it is tempting, in those moments, to think that you should have just kept calm about it in the first place and saved a lot of wear and tear on my amygdila.

But that was never in the cards. I had to have my little crisis of frustration and anxiety before I could calm down enough to really deal with the problem. Until I had my crisis, the emotions were pent up and thus taking up a lot of valuable mental bandwidth just to keep them in check.

Once I got it all out via complaining,.I could calm down and be sane about the whole thing. The dark clouds parted and everything looked better in the light of day.

It would be ignorant of me to wish I could have skipped the actual emotional expression part of it. Ignorant, and inhuman.

Inhuman in that it is the product of a deep and terrible hostility towards emotion that kills by ruthlessly snuffing out absolutely all emotions that might raise my excitation level and therefore wake the sleeping giant of my anxiety.

Why, that might lead to emotions actually being expressed and that is the second worst thing that can happen if your mind is built aroung keeping it all inside.

The worst thing would be if that expression of emotion led to acting irrationally.

In other words, if it led to being merely human.

I have been thinking a lot about how I hold myself to inhuman standards lately. Standards that can’t possibly be adhered to because I am, when all is said and done. just another human being with all the pitfalls and frailties that involves.

Besides, why do I have to be the one who is sane and logical all the time? Why can’t I act out of emotion without the need for any justification like everyone else? What is to special about me that I have to hold myself above all that like I am trying to be some kind of angel of logic and restraint?

Because I know better, I guess.

But if I don’t makemore room for emotion in my mind, I will continue to be squashed flat by my burden of unexpressed emotions and at the mercy of the maelstrom of madness that is my inner life due to all the energy my emotional suppression traps in the weather system of my soul.

As recent events have illustrated, I would be far better off if I just let the emotional crisis happen so that I could get to the part where I am rational sooner.

No, rational is the wrong word for it. Get to the part where I am sane faster. Sane and calm and confident and ready to adapt.

Maybe if I can do that, I will learn to accept that I am merely human and not a robot angel and therefore should not judge myself so harshly all the time.

I am only human. I am only human. I am only human.

Say it three times and it is yours forever.

May I never forget.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Been thinking about my whole “mistrust your predictor” thing today.

And I have come to the conclusion that asking someone to lose all faith in their emotional perceptions is a little too much to ask. People just plain can’t do it. Our emotions are a key part of how we percieve the world and asking anyone to simply abandon that is like asking someone to not believe their eyes any more because of that one time you saw something that wasn’t there.

It’s still right most of the time, after all.

So I have refined the concept a tad and now I am saying that depressives ,like myself should accept the possibility that their emotional perceptions are incorrect some of the time. Especially when it comes to things like self-evaluation and what other people think of you and other matters rooted in self.

You also have to be wary of one particular perception that I will call the Gas Gauge. It is the sense you have of how much energy you have left in your tank.

It is this perception that tells a person with depression that they don’t have the energy to do X. And I have already talked about how wrong it can be and how there have been times in my life where I ignored it and it turned out I had more than enough energy to do X and more besides.

But what is really going on under the hood when a depressive feels like they do not have the energy to do something? It’s simple.

It means they don’t want to do it.

Why? Because depression is rooted in fear of change. The person with depression does not want to leave their current state of barely holding it together (so they think) and risk shattering their slender sense of safety that is the only thing that keeps the demons of anxiety at bay.

Viewed from that perspective, it is clear that any change had better have a guaranteed high level of reward to take the risk.

It’s amazing how I can be sitting there, utterly miserable and hating my life,  when the prospect of action comes up and suddenly that static miserable life I was just hating a moment ago suddenly seems like a golden paradise I would be a fool to risk.

That’s why I talk sometimes about the paradoxical desire for change without change. A mythical kind of change that has all the good parts of change, like things getting better, withoiut the scariness of things being new and different and unfamiliar.

That’s why, amongst the depressives, it is not hard to find someone who goes on and on about their big dreams while strenuously and vociferously resisting any and all change or risk in their life with every fiber of their being.

And I include myself in this. I have big dreams, sure. But I do almost nothing in pursuit of them. Clearly, they are there purely to give me the vague but comforting feeling that my life is going somewhere.

Or at least it will. Someday. In the future. Eventually. It has to happen, right?

And the best part is that I don’t have to do a single solitary thing that would take me outside of my teeny tiny comfort zone one bit

Because it’s totally going to happen. Some day. Eventually.  In fact, the really magical thing about it is that no matter how old I get, it stays the exact same distance away from the current moment.

That’s way better than trying. After all, if you try, you might fail, and then you might find yourself thinking about your dreams in concrete terms, and that’s surely death.

But the cold and bitter truth is that my dreams are nothing but self-satisfied bullshit unless I can imagine myself doing the basic steps to achieve them RIGHT NOW.

If I can’t imagine a series of steps that I can actually see myself doing that lead to the fulfillment of those dreams, then they are nothing but so much smoke up my ass.

So I have to ask myself, how seriously do I take my dreams? Is it really important that they comes true, or am I content to slide through the rest of my life and right into my grave living the exact same life I live now?

Pretty sure I am not.

But not totally sure, because that would mean having to do things. It might even involve the greatest evil in the depressive’s mind : MOTIVATION.

Motivation sucks because then you HAVE to do something or you will feel bad.

And that can’t possibly be right.

Then again, I did do a year’s education in order to get a certificate that says I can write. It’s handing on the wall next to the light switch of this very room.

What I didn’t account for when I did that VFS thang is that I am not emotionally suited to self-promotion and there was little to no chance I would even do the basic step of putting together a portfolio and sending it to people who might hire me.

Heck, I haven’t even tried to look for an agent.

Instead, I stay in my hermetically sealed little world and waste my life playing video games all the time and just… letting the days go by.

Water flowing under.

So it’s time to face up to it. Either my dreams are a fraud or I need to start living a different kind of life. One where I strive and strain and try and risk and push my ambitions as far as I can so that my dreamy little dreams can come true.

I truly believe that I could make legendary art if I only had the means. I could make the kind of comedy that remains famous forever, or at least for my lifetime, just like my heroes in Monty Python did.

But all that loively potential is locked behind a door called depression and while that door stays locked, nothing is going to happen.

And I will be yet another victim of Failure to Launch until that changes.

Now where did I put that key…..

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

The takeaway from today’s therapy session is :

I need to nurture myself. Like, a lot.

It seems obvious in retrospect. The elements are all there in my personality. I have a very warm,. tender, caring, motherly side that has rarely seen the light of day even though I treasure it quite deeply. It’s full of warmth, sunshine, sympathy, affection, and everything else traditionally maternal.  And so far, this side of me has only been expressed in the form of caring for others.

But I know a very sad, scared, lonely little boy sitting all alone as he watches the other kids’ get picked up from school by their parents, and he sure could use all that tender loving care and affection.

So really, there is nothing stopping me (except base fear of change) from lavishing that inner child of mine with all the things he never got when he was the outer me. Attention, support, guidance, protection, understanding, wisdom… the whole care package.

See what I did there? Care package! I’m hilarious.

It’s a scary thought because giving myself all that I lacked in my childhood is a very big change. I have no idea where that kind of change would lead me. I might become a completely different person.

No big loss.

At this point in my life, I am willing to become damned near anything if it means I will be happy. I might even be willing to bend a little on being a super nice guy all the time.

A lot of that comes out of fear anyhow. Fear that if I am anything less than super nice all the time people will remember what a piece of shit I am and flee in droves.

And Ubers. Mostly Ubers.

It’s not all bullshit, of course, or fear. I really am a super sweet guy. But I wonder sometimes if even that can be taken too far. To the point where it is unhealthy. Bad for me and bad for others.

It’s bad when it keeps me from setting boundaries.

It’s bad when it makes me afraid of people because their problems are so real to me.

It’s bad when it comes across as pathetic and needy.

It’s bad when it hurts me.

Moving on. Here’s my first try at writing a letter to my inner child from a maternal point of view. Warning, this could get pretty weird.

My dear sweet boy, 

Don’t you worry. Don’t you fret. Everything is going to be all right now. 

Because Mama’s here, and Mama is going to fix everything. 

I know it’s been bad, sweet boy. I know it’s been very bad for a very long time. I know that it’s been bad for so long that you gave up on it ever being good again and that made you so sad that you got sick. 

But Mama is here now, sweet child, and she’s going to stick by you and take care of you till you get better, no matter how long it takes. 

I will never give up on you like those other people did. I will never leave you all alone again. Those people didn’t know how you handle someone like you. 

But I do. And I intend to do it. 

And I will not let you slip away, or fail out, or do anything else that would mean letting you go. I will always be there for you no matter what. 

In fact, I will always : 

1. have time for you
2. pay attention to you
3. listen to what you have to say and take it seriously
4. give you big warm soft hugs when the world gets too scary
5. look out for you and try to keep you from getting hurt
6. give you good advice when you get confused
7. take care of you
8. be interested in you and your life
9. give you all the warmth and caring you could ever want, and
10. be ready to growl my big mama cat growl and scare the bad things away. 

And I will never : 

1. make you feel like you are not even there
2. treat you like an unwelcome guest who has overstayed his welcome
3. tell you that you are useless
4. take tasks away from you and do them myself because I am too impatient to actually teach you to do them yourself
5. make you feel like you’re not even supposed to be alive
6. treat you like an unwelcome obligation
7. punish you for voicing your needs or your right to exist
8. exclude you from things due to your awkwardness
9. expect you to know things without being told, or
10. let you get away with thinking you do not deserve love. 

In short, my wonderful boy, I am going to take care of you the way that you have always deserved but never gotten, and from this point onward, things are going to be better. 

Your long wait is over. Mama is here to pick you up. 

You’re finally going home. 

Phew! That was some emotional heavy lifting. But it feels good. It feels right. I am going to right the ancient wrongs and give myself what I have needed for so very long.

Finally, the warmth will melt all the ice around my heart and I will finally feel the sunlight on my skin and know that I am valued and cherished and loved, and that everything is going to be okay after all.

Because here’s the thing.  You can survive anything life throws at you if you are wirh the right person. And I am going to be that person from myself.

And who knows, when the ice melts,. I might finally have room in my heart for a special someone else. Someone I don’t keep at arm’s length with my shiny bag of tricks.

Someone who gets to meet the real me.

I get the feeling that we’ll be meeting him together.

I don’t expect this to be the solution to all my problems.

I expect it to be the beginning of the solution.

I’m going to love myself as hard as I can.

And spring will finally come.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Mental note : come back to that later.

But right now, I gotta do my homework!

Namely, writing the next episode of the show my client Nicole is making. She loved the first ep and wants to make it a weekly than.

Why, that’s almost like real work!

Here is a link to the first episode. Facebook Live doesn’t do embed, apparently. Grr.

I wrote the script upon which she based the video. Like me, she doesn’t like memorization and prefers to get the basic idea down in her head then wing it.

That might sound crazy, but it’s the only way to get a performance that sounds genuine, and I don’t know about her, but I put a very high value on being genuine and honest, so I get why she works off the script but not from the script.

If you know what I mean.

Anyhow, here’s the blurb she gave me for this week’s episode, due tomorrow morning :

“The client requests a basic package and then wants bells and whistles beyond what is reasonable. Basically, they are paying for a Chevy Cobalt but want a Corvette. We carefully work with these clients to let them know what is realistic on their budget, set things up as much as possible for future improvements and outline next steps for when they have more to invest in upgrading.”

Wow. I bet everyone who works in a client-based environment has a story like that. Hmm, that’s actually a pretty good opening.

“Now where was I? Right. Hi, and welcome to It’s a Solopreneur Life”, the show where I share  funny, inspiring stories from my life as a solopreneur in today’s digital world. This week, I have one I think a lot of solopreneurs can relate to.

Tell me if this starts to sound familiar.

You have a client who opted for the low-cost package of your services. No problem. Those packages are there for a reason.

But then they start asking you to do everything from your most expensive package!

Basically, they paid for a Chevy Cobalt and expected to get a Corvette.

I’d hate to be behind these people at McDonald’s.

“Hey, where’s my Big Mac, fries, and shake?”
“Sir, you ordered a small pop. ”
“Your point being….?”

And what you want to say is, ‘Hey pal, if you want more, pay more. That’s how this works. We’ve been through this. ‘

But of course, we’re professionals here at Virtual A-Team, so what we do is work with the client to make sure that they understand what they do and do not get with their package and give them some options for when they have more money to invest.

Crazy as it is, that’s just another day at work here at Virtual A-Team. ”

That will do for a rought draft for this week’s ep. If I have the time, I will work on it some more before I submit it tomorrow in the AM.

I am happy to get a regular gig. She pays me $35 per script. At the moment that is around $45 Canadian. But UpWork takes its 25 percent (hey, better 75 percent of something than 100 percent of nothing), and so I will be getting around USD $26.25 per script, which translates to around $35 Canadian.

Notice how that came full circle? The gains from the currency conversion are neatly canceled out by UpWork taking a cut.

It’s so efficient!

What else. Oh, Riders On The Storm.

I was listening to that song earler and for some reason, the couplet in the chorus got stuck in my head.

It’s the part that goes,

like a dog without a bone
or an actor all alone
riders on the storm

Why all lower case? Because it’s pretentious.

Anyhoo, when something gets stuck in my head I inevitably start playing with it, and I have been having so much fun that I thought I would call it a game and share it.

So we will call it the Riders On The Storm Game. The rules are simple : make up your own couplet then end it with “riders on the storm”.

Here are some examples fresh from my fervent imagination :

like an ancient mystic tome
made of purple styrofoam
riders on the storm

like when I blow a tone
on my chocolate saxophone
riders on the storm

like I just took out a loan
to buy the latest new iPone
riders on the storm

like a hot and dripping cone
of molten silicone
riders on the storm

like I’m always on the phone
with some stupid corporate drone
riders on the storm

like my car hit a stone
in a harbor loading zone
riders on the storm

I could go on and on. It’s just so much fun!

At least for me.

Look, I was a bored and lonely child and I learned to make my own fun, OK?

What else. I keep struggling with whether to sleep whenever I feel sleepy or force myself to stay awake at normal hours in hope of developing a healthier sleep schedule.

It’s a thorny nest of issues because on the one hand, the medical consensus is that I would sleep a lot better if I slept only when it is dark and stayed awake all the time the sun is up. Plus, a rigid and regular sleep schedule is healthy no matter when it happens becase our circadian rhythms will adjust accordingly.

And that sounds marvelously rational and sensible.

But it’s not that simple.

Because I already have a demon in my head that is constantly trying to force me to conform to its idea of how I “should” be doing thing and who I “should” be, and it’s one of my worst ones.

That means that this whole “sleep hygiene” trip is exactly the sort of ammo it needs to further persecute me on my failure to do things the “right” way.

From that point of view, I should simply accept that sometimes I will need to catch up on sleep so badly that all I do is sleep all day.

Sleep till I am not sleepy any more, basically.

But then again, I have a history of sleeping when I am not at all sleepy but I convince myself that I am because I want to hide from reality and not have to deal with anything.

Sleep is like death without the commitment, after all.

So honestly, I dunno.

Guess I’ll sleep on it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Gonna pick up where I left off yesterday re : my Asperger’s self-diagnosis.

First off, the list I came up with for yesterday’s blog entry :

1. I have had issues with shiny objects. 
2. I have had similar experiences with flashing lights.
3. Final one about light. Flickering light can hurt me.
4. Certain high frequences of sound make my whole nervous system go nuts.
5. High traditional IQ accompanied by low social IQ.
6. Mental tics and compulsions.
7. Unusual and/or inappropriate affect.
8. Early detached impericism and pursuit of truth via logical means.

I omitted the commentary on each list item. If you want them, please click here to go to the blog entry in question.

Not too long after posting that, I realized that I had miss the biggest piece of evidence of my Asperger’s of all : my difficulty in connecting with others.

And I am not talk abotu social awkwardness, although that is a huge factor. I am talking about the kind of deep emotional connection to others that makes one feel like they are a member of a tribe and part of what is going on in the world. Whether that feeling is a social, personal, or romantic one, whatever it is, I don’t have it.

In fact, I am not sure I ever had it. Maybe I had it before the rape, I don’t know. But since then, I have been isolated within myself on a damagingly deep level and it has done me immeasurable harm and cut my off from humanity.

It’s like the ending of that Star Trek : TOS episode Dagger of the Mind. Kirk is asked what it was like to be in the evil mind control machine and Kirk shudders and says it was like being alone. Completely, totally alone.

That’s what it is like to be me. More or less. Only without the soothing voice telling me what to do to make it all go away.

And it’s not just a matter of unintended isolation. I think back to times in my school life when people tried to befriend me. But I couldn’t ipen up. I couldn’t let them in. I could not give them what they wanted from me because my social transciver was broken.

Still is, in fact.

So I froze them out instead. Not on purpose. I was always trying to connect with people. I have desperately wanted to end my long stay in solitary confinement since Grade 1. I have tried to give people the signals they need many, many times but it has not worked. No connection was made.

Eventually I stop trying because trying and failing hurt too damned much.

I get that “black icicles stabbing my heart” feeling just thinking about it.

Now I hate to admit it, but my sky high IQ was probably a big part of that. It put me in a radically different mental space than my peers and so I found it hard to relate to them, and them to me.

I think I have also suffered due to having a bizarre emotional affect, which is something else that is a sign of Asperger’s.

Another clue to add to the file is my inborn ferocious need for autonomy and self-determination. I have never accepted authority except in intellectual matters.

And even then, I only accept that there are some who know things I do not. I do not accept that this means they are more likely to be right about matters of opinion in their field than I am.

After all, there is a lot of sloppy reasoning out there. I would have to be able to check theirs and confirm that it was sound.

As far as I can tell, I have always been like that. But why?

Because it’s not normal and it’s not healthy. I would have been better off being able to accept authority because through it I would have gotten the feeling of security and connection that I needed.

I think that the IQ thing played a big part there as well. Because the truth was that I was a lot smarter than most adults, teachers included.

That meant that I could not be intellectually dominated and therefore could not accept my teachers as authority figures. It also meant that I was quite difficult to deal with in that I did not operate like other children and I no doubt made some teachers feel threatened and/or humiliated.

So they did what people always do when they have a stimulus they can’t handle – they ignore it. Tune it out. Blot it out of their minds.

And by it, I of course mean me.

There were teachers who tried to help me. But never for very long because I was so unpredictable and uncontrollable. Just by being so bright and verbal, I am sure I innocently and unknowingly bit the hand that fed me many, many times with a sarcastic remark or a challenge of their authority or just asking a question they can’t answer.

And if you keep biting the hand that feeds you, people stop feeding you.

Hence my lifetime of emotional starvation.

For decades. I have thought that I could not possibly have Asperger’s because I had none of the major symptoms that I knew of. I had no problem understanding people and why they do what they do. I have, if anything, too much empathy. I haven’t developed the sort of safety mechanisms people with Asperger’s develop in order to cope with a world they do not understand, like retreating into abstract worlds that make sense to them like programming or train schedules. I didn’t mind being touched and I had no problem reflecting on my own motivations and understanding why I do what I do.

But that’s a conception of Asperger’s that begins two notches along the autism spectrum. As you have read, I have a whole lot of other, less major symptoms of the disorder, and I am forced to concluse that I have some form of it.

The question now is : what on Earth do I do with that information?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

For some reason, that part of American Pie is stuck in my head right now.

Today’s been OK. MAde a lovely discovery at the Sav-on food where I do my weekly shopping (the one at Ironwood, if you’re curious) and what made it better was that it was the result of my showing a good deal more initiative than usual.

And I find that quite enouraging.

Here’s the gripping story : I was in the cookie aisle and looking at my usual purchases when I spied a package of the Voortman sugar free wafers that I love so much,.

This is not the first time this has happened. Twice before I had found a single package of these lovely yummy things, but those times, I looked all around the cookie aisle and couldn’t find any more, and left it at that.

But this time, I noticed that there was a store employee in the aisle, and that allowed me to make the logical leap to “they must sell these here SOMEWHERE”, and so I asked the store employee where to find more of them.

And then he, my guide, led me to a wondrous place where all manner of Voortman cookies could be found, including the three flavours of sugar free wafer cookies.

And there was much rejoicing. (SFX : “yaay!”)

So I bought one of each flavour. Technically, I don’t particularly like the chocolate one. but I have certain compulsions and one is iteration/non-repetition and so if I was getting three and there were three kinds, I had to get all three.

I have a lot of mental twerks like that. More than I care to think about. I mean, that non-repetition thing can be ferocious. Here’s an example.

Say there is a sale – three bags of Doritoes for eight bucks. That’s a pretty good sale. But then I look and there are only two kinds of Doritoes there that I like.

This instantly throws me into a existential bind. I want to take advantage of the deal,. but I can’t buy two of the same flavour and I can’t buy just two when the deal is for three. I just can’t.

So what happens? I buy zero bags of Doritos. It’s the only way out of the trap. A sane person would not be in a bind at all. They would get two of the same kind, or just two, and not even see a conflict there at all.

But for me, it’s not just a conflict but I experience acute stress till it is resolved.

The evidence that I have a touch of Asperger’s Syndrome keeps piling up.

Anyhow, so I bought one of each. The flavours, in my order of preference,  are chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.

I have started with the chocolate, because yet another of my lifelong compulsions is to do things in ascending order of preference. That way things get better as they go, and I am very sensitive to that kind of thing.

That’s why I find the “eat dessert first” people hard to comprehend. If you start with dessert, then the rest of the meal will suck by comparison.

It’s like starting a symphony with the crescendo.

But I get that not everybody is wired that way. For some people, eating dessert first means they can enjoy the rest of the meal without the tension of having to wait for the really really good part. I respect that.

But for me, it’s clear  The trend must be an upward curve. Nothing else will do.

And that really does get me thinking about the whole Asperger’s thing. Maybe I really do have one foot in the leftmost part of the autism spectrum.

Let’s summarize the evidence :

1. I have had issues with shiny objects.  Sometimes some object, like someone’s earring or wind chime or such, will captivate my attention and I will find myself staring at it and finding it very hard to look away. And it feels like the strange mental sensation from it is slowly displacing everything else in my mind., a feeling I will call “whiting out”.
2. I have had similar experiences with flashing lights.  Whether it’s how a flashing Xmas light relfects of an Xmas tree ornament or flashing words on a digital display, the same “whiting out” can occur and as with the shiny object, I have to forcibly tear myself away from looking at it or I will disappear down the rabbit hole of this sensation and probably end up doing something crazy onjce enough of my conscious mind is blanked out.
3. Final one about light. Flickering light can hurt me. For example, one time in elementary school, one of the flourescent bulbs in our classroom began to flicker randomly. This caused a very painful sensation to build in my mind, something like fear mixed with a migraine headache. The pain got worse and worse but I didn’t even have the words to explain to the teacher what was bothering me. Good thing it had been replaced by the time we came back from recess.
4. Certain high frequences of sound make my whole nervous system go nuts. It’s that “nails on the chalkboard” feeling. But I hear it in otherwise normal sounds, like someone’s brakes squeaking when they stop at a traffic light or in certain kinds of otherwise great music.
5. High traditional IQ accompanied by low social IQ. As patient readers knows, I am crazy smart. Genius IQ, never had to study in school, etc. But I definitely feel like I never learned to pick up on social cues. I am fine with facial expressions, vocal tone, empathy, and all that. But there is a social frequency that informs the emotions and decisions of more typical human beings that I cannot hear. So for the most part, I can only guess based on what emotions I am picking up from people. And that’s not super effective.
6. Mental tics and compulsions. Like the ones I have discussed tonight. Like all compulsions, they are invisible when obeyed. But cross them and a horrible nameless dread rises up to enforce the compulsion.
7. Unusual and/or inappropriate affect.  Far too many times in my life I have found myself in the situation where it is clear some sort of reaction is expected of me but I haven’t the slightest idea what it is and so I end up disappointing, disgusting, or even angering people without any chance of preventing it. And that is very hard on someone who is as empathic as I am.
8. Early detached impericism and pursuit of truth via logical means.  I can’t remember a time when I did not have a sort of clinically detached outlook on life. It was especially absurd and troubling (or should have been) when I was a child. I made extraordinary logical demands on my teachers and others in my life because if something didn’t make sense to me, I felt compelled to pursue it until it did. On the other hand, I had almost no interest in toys of any sort. They weren’t stimulating enough. I wanted books and video games and comics – all high in mental stimulation and all something you could do alone.

Those are the ones I can think of off to top of my head. I am sure there are many more items that fit the pattern. I will likely add to the list in the future.

I’ve always been downright weird.

Turns out, there may be a diagnosable reason for that.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Forgot to put this in yesterday’s blog entry.

Finally got this done yesterday :

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It’s a compilation of the best takes from a night of doing very short video bits for the Paragon project that I have been working on with Felicity and Garth.

It took me over a month to get done due to my running into technical issues, one of which was depression.

And my inclination is to feel terrible about that. To exoriate myself for failing my friends and letting everyone down by being such a colossal fuckup, even though this is totally something I should have been able to do in an hour overnight.

But that sort of thing is the main reason why it took me so long, technically issues aside. It’s the kind of thing that makes teckling the problem seem so hard and like something I would rather not even think about, and that kind of gets in the way of productivity.

It’s a highly self-destructive patttern and one I would be better off without.

But as much as it hurts me and makes me life suck, I also sort of… like it?

It feels good to take my stresses and tensions out on myself. It’s like an internalized abusive relationship. A version of my angry dad lurking within me.

But more than that. My father rarelty turned his anger on me. He was impatient with me but he was impatient with everybody. So perhaos I got the pattern of abuse – venting your anger against someone weaker – but not the actual behaviour.

He still did plenty of damage to me with his impatience. He’s probably a big part of why I am such a nervous person and why I always feel like I am doing things too slowly and that everything has to be done as fast as possible because I am late when I start.

Anyhow, back to the Paragon thing.

The technical issues really threw me off. It started with my usual video editing suite, Ulead VideoStudio, died and could not be revived.

Then came a long series of alternatives which all found their own way of not working.

Finally I came upon WeVideo, and while I am not fully conversant with how it does things yet, I was at least able to assemble the damned clips.

Now I will try my best to learn how to trim clips, insert clips, and so on.

I have the PDF manual to the app open but the instructions are not making a lot of sense to me. This is hardly unprecedented. I have a hard time learning from instructions. My mind just plain can’t turn instructions into actions withouit a hell of a lot of hard work. And even then, maybe not.

It’s like I have to learn everything my own way and if that way is not available, tough.

I’m so goddamned specialized. Super great in certain broad areas and terrible in all the others. There are times when I wish I had more generalized competence. Then I would not feel so helpless and dependent.

I need more sleep so I am gonna nap nao.

Aaaand I am back.

I’ve been so tired lately. And I am sleepy all the time. I am worried that this means that my (untreated) sleep apnea is getting worse and that I will be in serious trouble soon.

Adding fuel to the fire is that I had three seperate times yesterday, I had trouble brathing and had to empty out my lungs completely (like I do) many times in order to clear out the excess CO2 that pools at the bottoms of my lungs and takes up space that should go to absorbing oxygen from my breathing.

Or at least, that’s my theory.

And that CO2 accumulates while I sleep. My interrupted breathing keeps me from fully exhaling and thus getting rid of all of the CO2 from the inhalation.

So I am a tad worried.

And I find myself staring at the CPAP machine that has sat idle for at least three years at my bedside and I tty to will myself to use it. I

I know it works because I did use it when I first got it.

I was such a good boy back then. Took my pills and my insulin, used the CPAP machine, even tested my blood despite the pain.

Where did that guy go? I guiess he got older and lazier and became me. Right now, it’s all I can do to keep up with my medications.

I haven’t injected my insulin in at least six months, probably more. It’s one of those things that died when I fell down the Skyrim hole and I still haven’t revived it.

I just try to make it through the day with as little pain as I can manage.

I want more, I really do. But I get so tired.

God damn it, I just woke up and already I am nodding off at the keyboiard. What the actual fuck, man. I feel like a nacroleptic.

Any way I can take naps in lieu of others for a living?

‘Cause I’d make a million at that kind of job.

I try not to fight it. I know that if I am this tired, it most likely means I am way behind on sleep and so sleeping a lot could actually help me catchon my REM sleep and thus leave me far better off when I am finally done.

Sure doesn’t feel like it, though. Feels like the more I sleep, the sleepier I get, until eventually I just stop waking up entirely.

Not likely, I know, but it’s how it feels.

But of course, I don’t want to sleep the day away, Iwant to be alive and awake and enjoying my life and doiung stuff/ Even if most of that stuff is playing Witcher 3.

Sleeping all the time makes me feel like the hours of my life are being stolen.

Damn I wish I had more Diert Coke.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

That’s what I am right now.

But I am striving to be cheerful about it.

There’s no particular crisis going on or anything. I only wish I was sane enough to only feel panic when there is legitimately something worth panicking over.

In fact, the cause of my heightened state of agitation is actually something good : long time friend of the blog William “spuug” Graham is going to take me to dinner and a movie tonight. His treat!

The dinner will be at Old Spaghetti Factory and the movie will be Isle of Dogs.  And I am sure I will have a lovely time.

And yet, it’s a change, it’s different, it means I have to rearrange my usual Friday schedule (which is why I am blogging now, at 1 pm, instead of my usual 7 pm), it means I have less time for things like napping than usual, and hence I am experiencing mild panic accompanied by terror and dread.

While also really looking forward to a pleasant evening.

I lead a complicated life.

In fact, sometimes it feels like I am lost in a never-ending maze of my own devising. I expore the maze constantly while never getting any closer to escaping it because I also generate the maze faster than I can solve it.

That guarantees that I remain lost in my own obfuscations, illusions, and blind alleys, and never have to deal with the real world that I am supposedly eager to reach.

Well it’s easy to be eager to get something and work very hard to get it when you know you have absoluitely zero chance of success.

That way you can comfort yourself with the illusion of progress. After all, it’s not like you aren’t doing anything! You’re exploring the maze all the time!

That should be enough to convince the world (and yourself) that you are definitely trying and are therefore can’t be accused of refusing to help yourself.

Look at me, world! Watch me try! Aren’t I cute with all my trying?  Doesn’t it make you want to hug me and squeeze me and deal with the world for me so I don’t have to?

This is what happens when you don’t go through emotional puberty. A lot of my behaviour patterns can be seen as a subconscious attempt to attract the kind of attention and nurturing I never got as a child.

Part of me is still trying to convince people to love me and take care of me. And a big part of that is my learned helplessness.

After all, if you can do it yourself, nobody will do it for you. So you have a vested interest in not becoming competent.

And god damn it, it works,. I have had someone dealing with reality for me nearly my entire adult life.

Always in the form of roommates. It makes me wonder why they put up with me.

It pays to be cute and funny, I guess.

But all in all, I would rather be competent. I think. It would certainly do my self-esteem to be able to show the world that I can take care of myself and that I don’t have to be a burden on others.

Or at the very least that I can use my talents to earn enough money to pay people to look after me and deal with the nitty gritty realities of modern life.

Maybe some people are not meant to be independant. I dunno. Maybe some of us are hothouse flowers who are lovely to behold but entirely dependant on the careful care of gardeners and an entirely arificial environment to survive.

I can’t accept that, though. Not about myself. To think that I will spend the rest of my life in such a state is intolerable.

And not just because it makes me feel helpless, although that’s bad enough. When you can’t look after yourself properly and therefore are depedant on the kindness of others, yoiu have very little say in what happens in your life and your ability to captain your own ship is severely limited.

But it’s also humiliating. It puts me in a permanently subservient role. You cannot possibly develop much self-esteem when you are in such a position. Just thinking about it makes me feel weak and pathetic and worthless.

Now I understand why biting the hand that feeds you might occur.  It would come from misplaced anger being directed toward the source of your dependance. If it succeeds in discouraging the one doing the feeding from ever feeding you again, then it has succeeded in ending said dependence.

And there is such a thing as gratitude fatigue. There is only so long a person can remain grateful for what they are receiving before they need a break. Taking such a break would be indistinguishable from taking things for granted to an outside party.

And the person doing the feeding gets sick of it, too. There is an underlying assumption in all forms of aiding your fellow humans that said aid is temporary. That you are helping someone get back on their feet, not agreeing to carry them for the rest of your life.

A learned helplessness pattern like my own violates that assumption. Hence my guilt over being a burden on others. I know that they didn’t sign on to take care of things for me for life but I also feel helpless to fix it.

The only solution I can see is money. If I can build a career as a freelancer, or even get a permanent job somewhere, then I can hire someone to be my majordomo and they can take care of things for me.

I think I would still feel bad for needing someone like that, but it would be better than what I have now.

Either that or I need to move to a bachelor suite somewhere and thus force myself to learn to make it on my own.

I don’t know.

But I do know that something has to change.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.