It’s Therapy Thursday, I have my liter of Diet Coke and 7-11 samosas… time to blog.

One of the things we covered in therapy today is what an isolated childhood I had, and the phrase that popped into my mind was “emotional neglect”.

I had an emotionally neglected childhood.

There was nobody in my lirfe who considered by emotional wellbeing to be their responsibility. Nobody who made sure I got the emotional nutrients I needed in order to grow up healthy and strong. Nobody making sure I felt loved and valued and included.

Nobody took responsibility for me at all, for that matter.

Physically, I was covered. Food, water, shelter. Not a problem. But even that was provided as a kind of afterthought. Like they were already feeding and housing looking after three kids, so adding me as a fourth was within their very limited willingness to tolerate my existence.

After all, it didn’t involve paying direct attention to me at all. All it involved was not actively kicking me out.

They didn’t even have to make me feel welcome, let alone loved.

This, they could manage.

But anything more? Forget about it.

I wasn’t even supposed to BE there, after all.

Combine that with the social isolation and bullying at school and I was one very lonely, depressed, emotionally unstable kid.

This meant I received absolutely none of the positive social input I should have been getting. None. No friends, no family support, no peer group, no parenting, no guidance, no discipline,no reinforcement, and no personal connection to anyone anywhere at all.

It’s a wonder I didn’t end up some kind of twitchy paranoid sociopath.

In fact, in the face of all that,. it’s impressive that I turned out to be the sweetie I am.

A lot of people, especially males, in my situation end up going down a much darker path. And I have felt the call of that path many times.

But I don’t want to go there. It just makes things worse in the long run. No matter what, I want to stay as positive as I can and be as loving and cheerful and wonderful as I can.

That’s the life I choose and that’s the person I choose to be. I might be living in the dark but I am facing the sun and one day, I will live in the sunshine and leave the darkness behind me forever.

I reject the toxic comforts of misanthropy, cynicism, and jadedness, and embrace all the humanism, hope, and innocence that I can.

I know who I am and who I want to become. I know that I have so much love and kindness and cheer I have inside me, just waiting to be poured out into the world. I know that I can shine bright enough for all to see and be a star to guide and comfort to other dwellers in the dark.

And compared to that, darkness has absolutely nothing I want to offer me.

More after the break.

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Drops of Nothingness

Thats what my days (and by extension, my life) have been to me. For decades, I have felt like my life was a meaningless blank with no content and no progress and nothing to show for my time on Earth.

But my therapist challenged that today, and I am glad he did. He pointed out that I have written a ton, including short stories and skits, and that all this blogging of mine might not make me famous but it does stand as a testament to my perserverance and skill.

He actualy suggested I do a second, professional blog.

I am thinking about it.

Once he got me thinking about it ^[1], I also realized that the time I spend hanging with the fuzzies on Tapestries MUCK as Fruvous are not nothing. They count, they matter, just like I count and I matter.

Got to wedge those affirmations in there somewhere.

Plus, of course, there’s my friends – Joe, Julian, and Felicity. The time I spend socializing with them is not meaningless. It isn’t nothing. I contribute my company to the collective and they appreciate what I bring to the table.

So my life is not a waste of time or a meaningless void and I do not havre absolutely nothing to show for my time on Earth.

In fact, I contribute almost as much as a healthy employed person does.

If I had a paying job with co-workers, I would contribute as much as anybody.

That’s another thing that came up today – my long term goal of being an employed person with their own place and their own life, who can pay his own way and not be a burden to anyone, including the province.

Turns out that my therapist has been worried about this goal of mine for a while. He was rather vague as to why, but I assume that he thought I was setting myself up for failure and self-loathing if this dream did not come true.

I reassured him that this was an undefined, unlimited long term goal. No time limit, no desperate, unsatsifiable need. Just a goal – something to work towards.

I also told him that I would be working towards getting a hjob in my field, which gave him great relief for what I suspect are deeply bourgoisie reasons, judging by the horror in his voice at the idea that I was going to go work for “7-11, or someone like that. ”

Hey, I am just glad that someone thinks I am better than that.

Don’t tell him this, but were I healthier, I would totally work for 7-11. Or McD’s. Or any other low end McJob.

I’d be happy just to be earning a living at last. Paying my way. Having something productive to do with all my time.

Right now, there is no possibility of my entering the job market, even though I know I could many actual jobs.

But the job hunting process is an annihilation level nightmare for my social anxiety.

I will get there some day, though.

Self-sufficiency, here I come!