Ready to blog, that is. Or ready in general.

That’s one of the problems with having your head in the clouds by default. Things take me by surpirse because I am not paying attention to the here and now. I am in my usual deep processing state, even when it is wildly inappropriate for the situation I am in.

It’s that inward tide I keep talking about. My gravity well. Anything I do in the world takes a constant input of energy in order to resist the powerful forces that draw me back into myself if I let up for even a second.

Like just now.  I just spaced out for a good solid five minutes. An observer might wonder what had happened to me to make me sit still with my eyes focused on an imaginary horizon for so long.

And it’s been worse lately. I slip into reverie even when I am around others and should really be focusing on them.

And I can’t help it. The pull of that inward tide is especially strong lately and that means that all it takes is one unguarded moment and I am gone.

It makes me feel even more insecure than usual.

And yet, in another, more fatuous way…. it’s kind of nice.

Because recently,. these involuntary withdrawals while with others are not like the spacing out I do when I am alone and trying to blog.

They are actually quite soothing, in a somewhat infantile way. My mind relaxes and I feel warm and comfortable and secure.

And how could I resist that?

I honestly think I am regressing on some level. The image that comes to mind is myself in my early childhood being soothed by the sounds of the adults talking around me even though I did not know or understand what they were saying.

That’s the feeling I get. Just being happy to be around people while also being in my own little world.

Not that I space out while people are talking in the present day. It hasn’t gotten that bad yet. Nor do I space out when I am replying.

Instead, I space out the moments between conversational topics or any other sort of natural pause in the conversational flow.

And I have had no complaints so far, so I am probably making too much of the whole thing. I think (and hope) I am keeping up my end of the conversation without seeming too distant or distracted or like I don’t care what people are saying.

Damn it, it just happened again. Totally spaced out. Those internal processes of mine took over and I was a million miles away.

And it is hard to say what I was thinking about. Everything and nothing, like the Zen folks say, I guess.

I go back to the term deep processing. What is really going on is that I am relaxing my conscious mind so that the million and a half internal processes I have going on all the time can operate with maximum resources.

Which would be fine if it only happened when I wanted it to happen.

But it happens the second I stop moving, so to speak.

And it’s wearing me down.

Took a nap. Now I’m back.

I don’t like interrupting my blogging in the middle but sometimes I have no choice. This was one of those times. I was feeling very tired all of a sudden.

It was probably a stress reaction. The main reason I have never been able to stop taking multiple naps during the day is that I use said naps to reset my background anxiety level to zero before it spills over into foreground anxiety.

Not a very healthy strategy, but it’s what I have got.

When I am out in the world on my own, the fact that I can’t retreat into sleep when things get too scary can cause anxiety in and of itself.

Welcome to the nested fractals of anxiety.

Luckily, that only happens when some other stimuli gets my anxiety going. Normally I am quite calm and possibly even enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.

In that sense, I could consider my agoraphobia partially cured. I can go run an errand and not feel much anxiety. I guess a year of going to VFS helped.

My social anxiety is alive and well and living in my soul, but the agoraphobia is partly subdued at least.

But only partly. Because the truth is that the main problem, actually getting myself out the door, remains as formidable as ever.

It’s that old ill predictor again. It convinces me that I will hate going out and that it will be nothing but an anxiety nightmare and all the usual bullshit.

It all boils down to resistance.  The damage in my brain makes it so that just walking out that door means overcoming an incredible amount of inner resistance, and that makes the simple act of walking out the door a positively Herculean task.

There’s a world of stuff I could do instead of rotting away in front of this computer all day. I could go to the beach, once the weather gets a bit nicer. Could do me a lot of good to spend some time soaking up rays, letting the heat from the sand bake the toxins from my skin, and maybe taking the occasional splash in the water.

But there is still a part of me that needs a very strong motive to even consider going out into the world. The idea of doing it just for fun is a total nonstarter.

That would mean going out in the world voluntarily instead of because I have to in order to accomplish a goal.

And that seems like utter madness to my sadly still very ill mind. I need the motivation of a necessary mission – like picking up meds – to get me out that god damned door.

That’s what makes me an urban hermit.

And it sucks.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

A funny thing happened during my therapist’s appointment last Thursday.

Out of seemingly nowhere, he told me that sometimes he forgets that I have problems.

And that’s my therapist talking. The person who knows more about my problems than any other person in the universe. He forgets that I am sick.

It’s a rather shocking thing for one’s therapist to say.  But I instantly understood.

Because I put on such a good show.  If I am relaxed and feel comfortable, like in my therapist’s office, I come across as a  warm, charming, witty, articulate, insightful, and above all totally self confident guy.

I seem like the last person in the world who was wracked by neuroses and tormented by inner demons so profound that they have kept him from having an adult life.

And we know the reason why. I learned to hide my illness at a very young age. At first, it was self-protection. Reaching out for help only to be rejected or (worse) ignored taught me that there was no use looking for help because nobody could or would help.

Nobody. Anywhere. Ever.

So I grew a mask. A persona. One who tried as hard as he could to be interesting and funny and fun to be around in a desperate attempt to get people to pay attention to him for a while.

That meant sticking everything that was not fun into a deep dark trunk behind the curtains and only ever being bright and warm and fun.

If I could pull that off.I might just fool people into ignoring that I was horrible and worthless and revolting and should never have been born and the world would be a much cleaner and nicer and  happier place without me.

For the most part, this did not work. People went right on ignoring and resenting me whether they were my age or adults.

But it was my only gambit and I clung to it so ferociously that I am still doing it today.

The good news is that there is a certain truth to the whole “fake it till you make it” . I worked so hard to be that shiny happy person that eventually it worked.

Chalk one up for doing the thing that isn’t working until it works, I guess.

And as patient readers know,. I also became dependent on this bright and shiny mask of mine. He was and is, quite frankly. better than me.  I would much prefer to be the person I pretend to be than the loser I am.

Try not to think about that too hard or you’ll get dizzy.

Fruvous (my fursona) is an extension of this. He is an idealized version of myself that I invented and have developed over the decades. As him, I can be that lovely and lovable version of myself without any of my usual burderns or distractions.

In that sense, he is the ultimate manifestation of my social mask. As such, it goes without saying that I would rather be him than me.

Being him is a hell of a lot more fun.

Now if this was some kind of heartwarming narrative in which Warm Values are taught, someone in my life would get a glimpse of the real me and at first be upset and confused by the disparity but ultimately the plot would give them a golden opportunity to tell me that they have seen the real me and they like it, too.

And then there would be a warm gooey wonderful moment where I realize that I don’t need to hide my true self any more and do some small, brave thing to prove it.

That doesn’t happen in the real world. But it’s a nice thought.

In the real world. my disguise is nearly flawless. The fact that I like being that semi-fake version of myself a lot more than being my utterly wretched real self has caused me to develop that mask to the point where very little can make me drop it.

Even,. as we have seen, in the therapist’s office.

It’s so much easier for me to be witty and fascinating and warm and interesting there just like anywhere else. And that’s what I am comfortable doing.

But it doesn’t get me anywhere.  The show is not therapy.  The mask stays on. That’s what enables my therapist to forget that I am sick.

I forget too. That’s kind of the point.

So it takes focus and discipline for me to keep the mask off in therapy.  And it’s disappointing to see that my therapist, despite all he knows of me, can’t see through the disguise enough to help me in that respect.

I am just that mesmerizing, I guess.

This is why the question of “just being myself” has always confused me.If my social mask…. let’s call it Fruvous mode… was entirely artificial and not a part of me, then it would simply be a matter of not doing that any more.

That’s neither a simple nor an easy task. granted.but my case is more complicated/.

Because I like being in Fruvous Mode. It’s not some kind of artificially enforced person I was forced to adopt in order to fit in and get along or to avoid embarassing my middle class parents or anything like that.

I am Fruvous.  Fruvous is me. Just not all of me. My persona – fur optional – is not a lie in the traditional sense of the word.

It is, rather, a lie of ommision. It’s a real photograph that has been carefully cropped to conceal the ugly truth. It is an expertly edited news story that supports the dominant narrative in a way that seems honest and natural. It’s an ugly picture with a beautiful frame. It is a fresh coat of paint on a used car that’s a total lemon.

And that version of me is the real me – just not all of me.

Trying to figure out where the real me ends and the me I have created begins is a puzzle beyond my comprehension.

And is it even necessary?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.