Well, the summer is here. So where are the boys??

I was promised boys. DON. Cute ones. In speedos.

Oh right, they are in the world outside my apartment. Never mind then.

I miss being able to go places by myself sometimes.

Not that I ever did that very much. Agoraphobia is a bitch. especially when it is backed up by social anxiety and/or Avoidant Personality Syndrome.

But still, it was nice to be able to do now and then.

And the thing is, I always felt a lot better after I had done it.

For two main reasons, I think :

Psychological. It felt good to establish that despite my mental illness, I was still a free and autonomous adult who could do what he wanted to and could do it wherever and whenever he wanted to do it. I’ve often felt trapped “in a house with unlocked doors” as Green Day put it so well in their song Longview :

God, that album had a huge impact on me. Like with The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails, it spoke directly to my profoundly depressed “failure to launch” self and helped me to feel less alone at a time when my mind was falling apart and I needed to feel like I was not as alone as my depression told me I was.

Oh right, the other reason :

Physiological. I’d actually gotten off my butt and moved around in the fresh air and sunshine and those old school doctors knew what they were doing when they would prescribe that for their patients with “melancholy” because it really does help.

Sadly, my options for that are quite limited these days. As I feared, I failed to go outside for so long that the option was taken away from me by illness.

Thank god I still masturbate.

A trip to the great outdoors is not impossible for me now. I could get Julian to drive me to some nice little park bench or spot on a beach and leave me there for an hour or so.

It would take some fairly advanced logistical planning on my part to make I had everything I might need – like sunscreen and bottled water, for instance – but it could in theory be done.

And I miss the world. Sort of. Kinda. I dunno.

My feelings about not being home are very complex, shall we say.

I am still wrestling daily with The Trog, otherwise known as the part of me that just wants to hide away in his tiny dark cave forever and that will be just fine and dandy for it because all it cares about is being “safe”.

Safe from what, though? There’s no danger. Nothing is waiting outside to “get” me. My bullies are almost n entire Canada away.

I think the real danger is overstimulation. That is what the Trog is really afraid of. The world out there is so much more stimulating than the one in here because in here, everything stays the same and is therefore tuned out by my nervous system.

Out there, everything is horrifyingly fresh and new and novel and I am getting loud inputs from all my senses and my atrophied sensorium is like a massively overloaded fuse box and my mind just wants to shut down.

That is the real danger lurking outside waiting to “get” me.

And I know that if I just give myself time to get used to it, everything will be fine. Better than fine, really, because I will be getting that fresh air and sunshine.

But I am so damned scared.

More after the break.

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The old familiar sting

Holy crap, it’s Trent Reznor AND David Bowie doing “Hurt”.

Well of course they go away in the end. Them going away is what ends it!

But I get it, Trent. Nothing lasts forever, not love, not friendship, not family, not anything.

There is no permanence. Change is eternal and flux is the only rule. Those of us inclined to seek things that last have to be content with things that last a while.

Things that last long enough.

One of the hardest lessons for a Taurus like you and I. Trent, is for us to enjoy things while they last and let go when they are done.

Just typing that gave me a heartache. I want there to be a final equilibrium to be reached where everything is good and stays good for a good long time.

But that is not really possible. Keeping things the same takes a whole lot of energy and you end up, like our fellow Taurus, Bono, says….

There is no town called Happily Ever After.

Happiness is always going to take work.

The best that you can hope for is to find work you can handle comfortably and that gives you enough happiness to make it worth your while.

I know that, for some reason, depression hates the very thought of a long term, open ended investment of effort.

I guess it’s all part of depression’s harsh austerity mentality where every single erg of personal energy is zealously guarded and spent reluctantly.

But as counterintuitive as this is, that is actually wildly inefficient.

You have to ask yourself, where does personal energy come from? What is the income source for this precious resource?

And it turns out that it takes energy to make energy. Hoarding every tiny bit of effort keeps you from being active and making the smart investments of effort that expand your capacity for effort and thus result in more effort to invest.

Treating effort like it’s precious beyond measure only results in less energy overall.

It’s like a car that won’t start because you won’t spare the energy it takes to run the spark plugs. It makes no sense.

And I know this. And yet, I still hide from the world and do very little.

Because I am scared.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.