Now, the one thing you absolutely have to know about my butthole..
Seriously though, relax, we’re not talking about physical hardware today.
But don’t worry, we’ll get there someday!
Instead I want to talk about how something clearly went wrong during my anal stage of development as a small child and that’s why I am a total slob.
It’s crystal clear to me that I did not get the full dose of grooming and nesting instincts that other people got. A lot of important switches were never switched on and that has made life very difficult (and smelly) for me in many ways in my life.
I’ve always been a slob. Now I want to know why.
It’s not hard to guess what caused the issue : I got raped.
In, presumably, the anus, even.
And so I reverted to the oral stage in classic Freudian fashion. I became passive and weak like an infant, and I gave up on ordering my world the way I wanted it.
“It’s fine how it is” became my motto.
And in early childhood fashion, I think it was a protest of sorts as well. On some level, I was trying via self-neglect to attract the nurturing and attention that I needed.
I think I am still doing that in a way, to be honest. Sigh.
I think that’s my biggest barrier to cleaning up my act, so to speak. Deep within my soul there is still that angry child who wants someone to see the mess and feel bad for him and be thus prompted to take care of him.
They ain’t comin’, kid. But I know that’s hard to take.
I think part of me is afraid to take on the responsibility, too. I mean, if you lack the drive for it, keeping oneself and one’s environment clean seems like a lot of work.
Especially when you know you can just, ya know, not do that.
But it’s not that the mess doesn’t bother me. It bothers me a lot, actually. It’s just that instead of dealing with that via cleaning, I deal with it by withdrawing from my environment like a turtle retreating into its shell.
After all, that’s how I deal with everything else.
Well that’s going to end. I am going to get strong enough to face things and handle things and cope with things so that I don’t have to hide from anything any more.
I will take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them, god damn it.
The stents in my heart have given me the raw material I will use to build a much, much better motivational engine for myself. One that actually drives me forward into a future with purpose and meaning and the ability to support myself.
I deserve so much more than this sad little life in suspended animation. I’m an amazing person, and should be out there proving that to the world.
But in order to get there, I will have to slowly wean myself off this turtle shell of mine. Convince myself to spend more time outside it. Learn that I don’t need to stay close to it so I can dive in at a moment’s notice.
Learn I can frigging deal with things, basically.
It’s going to cost me a lot of pain, anxiety, and fear, and there will be times when I will want to give up, but I will prevail.
Because fuck this weak pathetic life.
I want more.
More after the break.
Stop being smart!
And for Dog’s sake, slow down on the need to be right all the damned time.
Been pondering that never ending quest for the truth of mine, or rather the seamy underbelly of it, the need to constantly show off my intelligence and just how goddamned clever I am.
It’s not negotiable. It can’t ever be eliminated. This massive mind of mine needs exercise and my fragile ego needs validation and a childhood spent bored out of my mind in school left me in dire need of constant stimulation and all those factors combined plus a very strong need to prove myself means that I am probably going to be strutting my intellectual stuff till the day I die.
But I could dial it back a touch. Learn to moderate it and channel it into something more healthy and productive.
Luckily, I already learned to channel it into trying to be funny and interesting and fun to be around. That’s not without its problems but it’s a whole lot better than what a lot of my fellow neckbeards get up to.
It’s not the social aspects of this phenomenon that concerns me tonight, though. It’s that deep down burning need that rages like an out of control wildfire deep in my belly. It’s the fact that underneath all my sweet nature. wit, charm, and sensitivity is a part of me that is very. very crazy and dangerous.
Not hallucination type crazy, obviously. More maniacal. It’s cackling mad scientist crazy.
And this has to have a huge effect on the rest of my personality. That kind of thing doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
So I feel like I won’t get a real grip on who I am until I confront and try to understand this need to always do the “smart” thing.
As if life was school and I was still trying to get top marks.
As if at some point I would be officially recognized as the smartest.
As if I was still trying to make my mother happy by answering her questions correctly.
Whoa…. that one has to be big. Before I ever set foot in school, I was my mother’s student, and I would have done anything to make her happy.
Jesus, no wonder all four of us Bertrand kids ended up being so intellectual. We all started off as Mom’s students!
Well this has been productive AF. I have unearthed a lot of things for me to think about.
I can’t wait to tell my therapist about it all.
He’ll be so happy with me.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.