After all, it’s what I’m good at.

It’s a shocking thing to realize you’ve spent your whole life curled up into a ball with your back turned to the world as you tried hard to ignore brutal reality in favour of screens.

Like I am just waiting for reality to go away and leave me to my pain.

And because of the trauma that put me into this fixed position, I became extremely passive. I guess you could say that I dealt with being raped by going limp and waiting for it to be over.

I assume I’m not the only one to do that in that situation.

And I have spent the rest of my life doing the same thing. I have felt so powerless for most of my life that it would never have occurred to me that I was supposed to be steering this life of mine all this time.

But it’s clear to me now that much of that powerless is delusional. I have all kinds of power that I have never tapped into. If anything, I have actively (if subconsciously) dodged thinking about the true extent of my abilities in any but the most theoretical of ways for a very long time.

Them : But Mister Bertrand, you’re actually powerful beyond all mortal ken.
Me : I guess. Can I go back to crouching in filth now?

So why do I deny the truth of my own extraordinary abilities?

I think it has a lot to do with not wanting to take responsibility for them. After all, if I truly “owned” my incredible faculties, then I would be obliged to do something with them and that would take me out of my “safe” position of cringing in the dark.

And that would be the worst thing possible, at least according to that tiny child inside me that left the world behind in order to escape the unthinkable thing happening to him.

He’s still hiding deep inside me. That scared little animal at the heart of my psyche fears exposure most of all because he associates concealment with safety and discovery with terrible things happening to him.

Many, many bullying incidents taught him that, as well as an emotionally cold and distant and disdainful home life.

Obviously, accepting one’s true power as well as one’s limitations is a key part of growing up, and I’ve been afraid to do that as well.

Once more we come face to face with my “failure to launch” and that deep conviction that adult life would destroy me.

Or maybe just change me into something unrecognizable, which is worse.

Normal people don’t even think about this shit. They just go on to the next thing their instincts tell them to do without even knowing that is what they are doing.

They’re just doing what feels right and/or makes sense at the time, without the kind of overbearing metaconscious awareness that cripples the likes of me.

They have innocence, at least for a while. And it protects.

But me, I knew far too much far too soon. I couldn’t just innocently do normal kid things for the usual kid reasons because I “knew better”.

Sometimes having perspective can be downright toxic to your wellbeing.

I guess you could call it cosmic self-consciousness. At no point could I let my guard down and believe or do the things kids normally do.

My paranoia ran far too deep. Any sense of control over my existence I felt (and feel) is entirely dependent on tackling things with my over-muscled brain and trying to understand and anticipate everything.

It all seems so futile to me now. But it’s still all I’ve got.

It’s going to take a hell of a lot of growth to get over that.

More after the break.

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Failure to launch indeed

Gave masturbation a try.

As usual, it was a lot of fun, and it felt good to fire up my engines and run them for a bit. But sadly, as is alas also usual, I didn’t get anywhere near takeoff.

And that is always a bummer. I don’t know how it works for females of our species but for us men when we don’t get where we’re trying to go, we die a little inside.

What isn’t usual is that this time, that punctured finale came with a tidal surge of pure black depression. A wave of sadness flooded my mind and for around ten minutes I was feeling pretty bad.

The fact that I also developed a sick headache – the kind that comes with nausea – at almost the same time did not help at all.

But the depression came first. Pun intended, I guess.

That raises the stakes on my little erotic excursions considerably. Frustration is one thing – I have gotten somewhat used to that.

But being punished for my aborted orbital mission with black dog depression is a new wrinkle and one I very much wish to iron out.

Luckily, the flood waters receded after around ten minutes and I was left just feeling a little sick and a little bit, um, sore.

I pretty much have to completely abstain for weeks at a time in order to have any really good chance at reaching blastoff.

And way back when Paxil was pretty much completely nullifying my libido (the first few years after starting it) that was not a problem. Don’t want it, don’t get it, it’s all good.

The problem came when my libido returned but orgasm did not. Dammit.

I figure it must have something to do with the way Paxil dampens one’s emotions in general. That’s how it keeps people with social anxiety/Avoidant like myself from freaking out so much but it also keeps me from having other emotional extremes.

Jesus, what if the numbness I have been blaming on the depression has actually been the fault of my antidepressant?

Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants?

Good thing Doctor Costin has me slowly reducing the dose then, I guess.

Sure would be nice to feel things strongly again.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.