Why was I such an eerie child?

Patient readers know the drill. Preternaturally intelligent. Learned to read when I was 3 years old. Talked like a tiny adult. Was a strangely calm and self-possessed kid. Had zero fear of or inherent respect for adults.

Yet for all that, I was a terribly lonely child, starved for any kind of positive attention, all alone in my chilly little mind palace.

Honestly, that hasn’t changed nearly as much as it should have. I have very good friends who love me. I socialize with them regularly. And I love them to bits.

But I am still trapped in my palace of ice, nevertheless.

Lowering my Paxil dose gradually over time should help with that. I’m still trying to process the fact that a great deal of the emotional coldness and numbness I have been complaining about (a lot) over the last 20+ years was probably the Paxil, and I just didn’t even have a frame of reference from which I could understand the problem.

How was I to know what was depression and what was Paxil?

Arguably, Doctor Costin should have known. That is, technically, his area of both expertise and responsibility. He theoretically could have figured out it was time to cut back on the Paxil a long time ago.

But I bear no umbrage. I know that I can very intense and overwhelming to deal with. I have both great emotive power and a massive intellect that can make even people with doctorates struggle to keep up with me.

Sorry, Doc, but if I have to slow down to normal person speed for you, there is no way therapy is going to work.

Which is a problem in and of itself, and it’s why this song hits me so hard :

Obviously that’s a metaphorically exaggerated version of my situation. My mind might be accelerated but the rest of me ain’t.

But I get it, Barry. I really do. I’ve spent my whole life slowing way down just so I stand some kind of chance of connection with others. If I took the inhibitor off my engine and tried to go full speed ahead to see just how fast I can go, my last connection to the rest of the human race would snap and I would lose my fucking mind for good.

And that thought terrifies me.

Not to mention that I can’t even imagine what going full tilt would even mean for me. How would that even work? I’m neither a scholar nor a researcher so it’s not like I would be inclined to gorge my bloated mind on all the latest information.

I don’t gorge. I graze.

I suppose I could write at a frenzied speed. See just how productive an author I can be if I just surrender myself to my muse and my craft.

I know I could produce my usual rough first (and last) drafts that way. But then I would have to slow down to do the proofreading, editing, and so forth.

And that’d be a drag, man. I need an editor.

A pretty demanding one.

Often the people who most crave being controlled by others are the ones who can’t/won’t control themselves.

And I know I don’t have the self-discipline to make myself produce the very best writing of which I am capable.

I’ve gotten away with submitting rough drafts for far too long.

Then again, maybe that just means I’m so dazzlingly brilliant that everything I write is perfect the first time and I don’t need to slow down and edit and do multiple drafts.

Yeah right. Even at my most delusional I wouldn’t believe that. No matter how talented I think I am, I know that what I write can always stand a lot of improvement.

Including these blog entries. But that ain’t gonna happen.

The whole point of this blog is to allow me to express myself freely and second-guessing every word I type out of fear of my own eventually judgment is definitely a one way ticket to crazytown.

Oh yeah. And, um. something about being a weird kid.

I’m, pretty sure that’s where I started.

More after the break.

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It’s getting closer

Me buying a space heater, that is.

And none too soon given that it’s actually been below freezing all day today.

That’s no big deal for most of Canada, but here on the Wet Coast, below freezing with snow on the ground is like Arctic Armageddon.

So on the shopping front, I have at least narrowed it down to three or four potential space heaters, from a $45 el cheapo Amazon Basics model to this fancy thing. 

The fancy one is in consideration because it was recommended by two different “consumer reports” type sites and what the heck, it’s just $20 more.

What I want to avoid is the humiliating feeling that you get when you’re sitting there with something with subpar performances thinking, “I paid too little for this. ”

Of course, I don’t want to pay too much either, but at this point I am willing to err in the “too much” direction and rely on Amazon’s return policy to protect me.

Then again, I’ve heard they just keep making returns harder to do… probably because people were abusing the fuck out of the system to just get stuff for free for a week or two then return it.

This is how “restocking fees” happen, people.

Fuckheads. The enemies of all systems. The reason we can’t have nice things.

Anyhow, that is but a glimpse of why it takes me so long to make a decision. I’m trying to take the pressure off myself by telling myself it’s no big deal if I get the “wrong” thing as long as it does the job of keeping my enormous buns warm.

Especially my hands, specifically my right hand. The circulation in it must be terrible because it gets cold so very easily.

My fault, I fear, for using the mouse without a mousepad or wrist support at all for years.

Nothing I can do about it now but get a space heater… and some gloves.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.