Well, we did it. We made it. We survived 2020.

Now it’s 2021 and time for new beginnings.

I won’t make a lot of resolutions or bright new plans or puff myself up with ambitions because that shit only lasts as long as the wave of enthusiasm lasts and when that shit crashes, boom goes all that hope and I end up super depressed and worse off than if I had done nothing.

So not gonna go there. I’m just going to say that I am glad to have a brand new year to do with as I please and that I look forward to seeing what I make of it.

That should cover it.

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I’ll permit myself one medium-sized plan : cleaning my room.

Or at least getting it cleaned. As much as doing all the cleaning myself would be good exercise and good for my self-esteem, I have to be realistic about how much energy and endurance I have now, plus there is the factor of how cleaning makes the air dusty and that can really kicked my ass.

God damn, does being sickly suck. Still got to talk to my GP about the fact that I am still all sickly and weak and I would really like that to stop, if that’s possible.

Preferably before I end up in a scooter or wheelchair.

Getting my room cleaned is entirely possible, though I imagine it might cost me a couple hundred bucks. Whatever. I have the money and it would be an investment well worth making as it would do wonders for my mental and physical health to no longer be wallowing in the filth of many years’ worth of cleaning nothing ever.

The only hurdle is shame. Obviously, in order to get the room cleaned, I have to let strangers see the state this room is in right now, and the prospect fills me with deep and terrible shame because this place is a pigsty.

Which is the whole reason I need it cleaned in the first place. Look, nobody ever said being middle class made sense.

One way to deal with it, and I am seriously considering it, is to simply be elsewhere when the cleaning is happening. Just let the cleaners in then leave. Go out to dinner or go shopping or something.

Problem with that is that I won’t then be around to answer questions. Do we keep this, is it okay if we move that, what do we do with this faintly humming ancient sarcophagus, are we expected to clean the demon’s cage, you know, normal stuff like that.

The answers are, of course, yes, yes, leave it an offering of dried corn and Viagra, and no, that thing will clean its own cage if it knows what’s good for it.

Besides, demon poop requires special handling.

The key is to just fixate on the end goal, which is having this room be nurse-level clean and a much healthier place to live.

After that, all I would have to do is keep it that way. Which means cleaning up messes right away, before they can accumulate, and when they are still small enough that my low energy levels can handle them.

Which means new habits and a new approach to life. Not an easy adjustment to make.

But I want things to be better so bad.

As long as I remember that, I should be able to make it.

More after the break.

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A distant ship smokes on the horizon

Now we get to the point of the cycle where in my progress towards being way nicer to myself I have to deal with all my anger.

Because if I am not directing it inward via depression, that means I have to direct it outwards in order to release it, and that’s where I generally shrink from the task and slink off and go back to my self-hating ways because I can’t handle the thought of loosing my rage upon the world.

The prospect terrifies me right down to my core. It feels like death. Like the power of all that rage would annihilate the person I think of as me – the me I know and understand – and in its place would be a raging ogre who doesn’t care who he hurts or what kind of destruction he leaves in his wake as long as he is getting his raw needs met.

I’ve always understood that being Doctor Jekyll is what created Mister Hyde. The classic Hulk is a raging monster from the id precisely because Bruce Banner is such an over-rational milquetoast of a guy. Suppression guarantees explosive expression.

But that doesn’t answer the question of what the hell to do about it when you realize you are Jekyll and your Hyde needs to come out or you will never be sane again.

So far, the only plan I have come up with is not very good. The idea would be to find a relatively obscure (but still fairly active) forum somewhere, sign up, and let loose. Let my very worst side come up and vent like a motherfucker. Like fucking Krakatoa.

Be as rude, dismissive, arrogant, pushy, sarcastic, toxic, and hostile as I need to be in order to vent all this pent up rage and get it out of my system.

Become that forum’s greatest villain, essentially. The guy everyone hates. The guy people whisper to each other about. The one they plot against.

Keep that going as long as I can, and when they inevitably ban me, that will be the end of that experiment and Mister Hyde would go back in his cage again.

Or maybe not. Maybe I will find I really like being a public bastard. I have always wanted to be notorious and controversial. This role would fit the bill.

But I would still follow my own rules.

1. Never say anything I do not mean
2. Never say anything just to hurt people
3. Never attack anyone personally
4. Never be afraid to apologize if I fuck up, and
5. Never, ever forget that people are not their politics

If I stay true to that code, I might even be able to justify being such a prick.

Or at the very least, not hate myself for it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

My mind is swirling with ideas right now, like I am looking at a disco ball through a kaleidoscope, but I have to start somewhere, so I guess I will start here.

First, this video :

Tons of interesting stuff in there. But the thing I want to focus on is that study where people wrote down their personal story then did a mental health test.

According to the vid, the people who changed their personal narrative to be more positive then reported feeling better.

And that might seem obvious, but it blew my mind.

It made me realize that I have a profoundly and deeply negative personal narrative, and that if I want to escape this deep dark hole I am in, I need to change that shit pronto.

I’m thinking of it as “spin”, in the political sense. We all know that there are different ways to present the same facts (remember facts?) and the way they are presented can lead to radically different interpretations of said facts.

And interpretations are depression’s playground. It knows it can control you no matter what the facts are by horribly skewing your interpretation of those facts.

But it’s not like I am surrendering objectivity. That was the first thing my old way of thinking tried to use to scare me off. Why, spinning the truth…. that’s just like lying to yourself! And that way lies MADNESS.

Bullshit. Because my head is already full of madness. It comes from the depression. Depression has been adding really negative spin to everything for a really long time. It’s like I have my own personal Fox News in my head.

Adding positive spin to counter the negative spin I am used to would only bring me closer to true objectivity, with no bias.

Besides, there are worse things than being a little delusional. Why not be optimistic? After all, pessimism and optimism are equally delusional, but at least the optimistic person is happy.

So choose happy! It should be the easiest choice in the world to make!

Another thing : my therapist today said that he thinks that the real me is an upobeat, optimistic, gregarious person, and you know what? I think he’s right.

That’s what I was like before the rape. When I was a wee thing I was a very happy, charming, adorable, precocious kid. I had absolutely no fear of people (something which often amused adults) and I was a very happy kid.

That’s my normal state. That’s the real me. Upbeat, cheerful, charming, and adorable. This other idea of myself is merely a product of a long term illness and is no more representative of the “real” me than how I feel when I have the flu.

So fuck all that negative bullshit. It’s been nothing but lies the whole time.

I am a bright, funny, lovable, charming dude. I make people happy when I am around. I am a positive influence on the world and lots of people love seeing me and enjoy the time we spend together.

People like having me around.

And you know what? So do I.

More after the break.

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When darkness falls

Oddly enough, I was in a better mood during the first half.

Usually it’s the other way around.

Then again, I did just wake up from a nap. And waking up is usually what makes me miserable during part 1,

I realized earlier than I have slept maybe five hours in the last 48 hours.

That’s like…. bad. Real bad. Like, I need to tell Doctor Costin about it bad. I need to bite the bullet and confess to him that I can’t find my trazadone. Or at the very least, take another lorazepam when it’s time for bed.

It does have a secondary indication as a sleep aid, after all. And it worked that way for me once. Managed to unseal my sleep vault for a while.

At least I am being adult and sane enough to recognize that this is a crisis even thought I don’t feel bad yet. I have not been so wise in the past.

But while I feel okay, I also can feel that tension in my mind that builds up when I haven’t been getting enough sleep, and I know it portends many bad things if I don’t manage to break the curse some time soon.

Perhaps the champagne I plan to drink it a couple of hours will help. Alcohol can be a pretty good sleep aid if not taken in excess.

But I doubt I will be buying any more liquor until next Xmas, because just from that big glass of champagne I had with Xmas dinner I have started to crave alcohol.

After all, the warm waters of inebriation can be very tempting to someone like me, who craves escape more than anything else. Drink some liquor and get a vacation from my depression, anxiety, and physical pain.

Which is exactly why I am not going to touch the stuff for a long time. The last thing I need is to add alcoholism to my list of ailments.

My kidneys would blow out pretty much right away.

It’s kind of like my attitude toward gambling. I really, really, really like to gamble, and that is exactly why I don’t gamble except for maybe the occasional scratch ticket.

And by occasional, I mean, maybe one a year.

Because I could totally see myself becoming a gambling addict. It’s the rush of excitement that does it for me. That feeling of possibility.

Basically, I am more or less a prime target for any form of addiction. I have the mental illness, the escapist personality, the weakness of character, the works.

I guess I should be glad to be addicted to video games instead of something way worse for my body and my mind.

I’d still be better off without that addiction, but at least it isn’t hurting me physically.

Well, not directly, anyhow.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.