Got the webcam working, kinda.
Needed some test footage, so I sang. Kinda.
Thoreau said, “mistrust” all enterprises that require new clothes “.
These days, it’s more like like “mistrust all enterprises that require pants.”
Mentally and physically sick
I’m sick because I’m crazy.
I’m crazy because I’m sick.I’m sick because I’m crazy.
I’m crazy because I’m sick.I’m sick because I’m crazy because I’m sick because I’m crazy because…
What I am saying is that it’s all mixed up.
It’s easy to see how I am sick because of my mental illness. My depression and avoidant personality syndrome are the main things keeping me from taking care of myself even close to as well as I should.
I take my pills and watch my diet and that’s about it. Right now I am not even monitoring my blood glucose levels because of my difficulty in making phone calls. I don’t exercise. I don’t elevate my legs to help the circulation. And so forth and so on.
And all because my mental illness makes it so that my butt might as well be magnetized to this shitty old computer chair of mine.
But it goes the other way too. My insanity may have roots in my physical illness as well. When your body is all fucked up, it messes with your mind as well.
Feeling weak leads to feeling scared. Being tired all the time leads to feeling depressed. Bad sleep leads to mental confusion and poor working memory. Chronic pain taxes mental coping resources.
And so on.
It’s all intertwined in a clusterfudge of fuckery and it’s very hard to pick apart. I’m to crazy to do what needs to be done to be less sick. And I am too sick to have the internal coping resources to pull myself together and tackle my mental health.
But there has to be a way. Some tiny loose thread in the system that I can use as a starting point to make the whole thing unravel.
And when I find it, I am going to work at it till I can make it out of this maze of mine. There is so much of me that is desperate to get out and see the world and finally express itself so I can grow as a person.
But there’s this big fat logjam in the way. A lump in my throat that is choking me to death. A seized engine that can only work against itself.
And at the center of it all, my flayed and frozen heart.
And at the center of THAT lies the terrible wound from being raped as a child. The wound that has dominated my entire life and left me weak and helpless and inert.
That fucker really did a number on me.
Bet he doesn’t even remember it.
I feel too helpless to do anything.
I feel guilty as hell for not doing anything.
And I am on a slow boat to Hell without a paddle.
More after the break,
A modern moment
- You order food
- The doorbell rings
- You go to the door to get it
- At the last moment, you think, “Oh right…. pants. ”
- You do NOT get arrested
Caring enough to be strict with myself
This is bound to get tricky. But here goes.
The phrase in the title of this section popped into my head earlier and I jotted it down because I knew it could lead somewhere.
Essentially, it’s about being a lovingly strict parent to myself. Were I a child in my own care, I would be very firm about caring for myself and doing what needs to be done in order to stay healthy and active.
Mostly I would be a “fun” parent. Making silly jokes, letting the kids do what they want to do as long as it’s safe and won’t get me arrested, playing games with them, and in general keeping the kid(s) happy.
But when health and/or safety are on the line, Fun Time Fru disappears and you risk getting Scowling Minotaur Fru involved.
Asides aside, the problem with being my own strict parent is that I have no lived experience of strictness.
I lack self-discipline because I’ve never been disciplined. Nobody ever cared enough to make me do anything. My whole life, from my very first day of school, I have been left to make it on my own.
Or not. Whatever. Just as long as we don’t have to remember he exists.
So what self-discipline I have, I developed on my own by getting myself up in the morning, making my own breakfast, getting myself dressed, getting myself to school, getting myself through the school day, and getting myself home again.
All starting at the age of 6.
That’s a lot more self-discipline than most kids have at that age. But it was all anchored by the structure of school.
I didn’t have to create my own structure. So I never learned how.
And critically, I never learned to make myself work harder than absolutely necessary.
Then adult life comes along, and there’s no classes and no grades and still nobody looking to see how you’re doing or give you crap for neglecting yourself, and so the definition of how much effort is “absolutely necessary” becomes very slippery.
So you end up wasting your entire adult life fucking around online and playing video games because nobody is “making” you do anything else.
So why don’t I take better care of myself? Because nobody is making me do it. Because left to my own devices, I have very little self-discipline or self-respect.
Because deep down, I don’t consider myself worth the effort.
Not when it is so much easier to just keep drowning very slowly in the warm wet womb of my zero effort zero strain lifestyle.
I know there is ambition in me somewhere. Deep within the icy walls of my tomb is a ferocious spark of ambition, vision, and just plain old greed waiting to goad me into action and pull me forward.
But first, I need to take my foot off the brake.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.