Another day which I spent mostly asleep, and it is becoming increasingly clear that this is at least somewhat voluntary. I think there is something I am seeking in sleep, and it is not just escape from reality into my own inner world, although that is at least half of it.

But the other half is, I think, some sort of deep spiritual quest. In my dreaming, my mind attempts to resolve deep emotional conflicts, and a lot of my dreams provide some kind of strong and profound catharsis. Lately, that usually takes the form of anger. In my dream, I become incredibly angry, often in defense of my own ego but sometimes in a more action hero sort of way (I like those dreams!).

In my last set of dreams, I got really angry with my brother David for something he said. Something about my inability to do normal things, and that implied that I could be less of a spaz if I wanted.

(Note : this is not a conversation that ever has, or ever would, happen in real life. )

And I got super angry because that really hits me where I live, and I was screaming at him that I have tried my entire life to overcome my bizarre motor difficulties but it is just not something that can be fixed so I have just stopped beating myself up over it.

Obviously, this is a very deep issue with me. In many ways, I feel I am like an illiterate person who manages to learn enough tricks to just barely get by, but who has to be constantly alert, paranoid that their big secret will be revealed and always having to be two steps ahead of everyone else in order to make sure they are never asked to do what they cannot do.

Only instead of reading, with me it is a whole subset of small practical skills that I cannot do and I cannot explain why I can’t do them and so people end up just getting mad at me and I feel helpless and humiliated and isolated and confused.

It happened to me a lot as a kid, which is probably why the shame and pain runs so deep. I honestly thing I have some deep, undiagnosed motor visual disability, something akin to dyslexia but instead of affecting reading (I was an early reader) or grades, it just makes me very physically uncoordinated.

They tried to help me when I was in grade school, and they did manage to get me to the point where I could write almost legibly and did not trip and fall so much, but for most of my life, my problems have been my own secret shame. When you can’t help it, and can’t explain it, all you can do is hide it, and try to avoid any situation which reveals what a god damned cripple you are.

I guess that, somehow, despite the physical therapy I got in school, I never emotionally absorbed the idea that I had a disability, a sickness, and that I should not feel bad about it because it is a disability like any other, like needing a wheelchair or crutches.

Perhaps that is because nobody ever explained to me what, exactly, was wrong with me. They just said go here, do this, do that. If I had a diagnosis, an explanation, a word to hang it all on, I would have been able to understand and accept that I had a challenge others did not, and been able to explain it to others and therefore create a space of acceptance.

And then I could have just gone on with my life working around my problems in peace. It is not like I ever wanted to be a star athlete or anything else that requires a lot of physical coordination. I have always been an intellectual, perhaps because that was a realm in which I felt comfortable and competent and powerful and adept. And one where my natural strengths of intelligence and mental agility and so on were the ones that mattered.

When you are the kid who goes from special education because of your physical coordination issues in the morning to classes which are ridiculously easy for you in the afternoon, it sort of reinforces the idea that you are suited for only one kind of thing.

And of course, gym class was always a nightmare. That kept the pain nice and fresh.

But I think this deep issue, of being unable to do things and unable to explain why, or even to define what the frigging issue is, has a lot to do with why I feel so helpless in the world and why life seems so difficult for me.

Of course, depression has a lot to do with that too, but I often wonder why my reaction to being pulled out of university was depression, instead of rage, or determination to get back, or even some kind of profound sadness. Something that might have led somewhere, instead of just retreating deeper into the freezer while putting on the appearance of being more or less okay.

And I think it has a lot to do with how I learned to cope during my school days before college. I learned to just scrape by, do what was expected of me and stay more or less in my little box, and that was my role in the family, and by extension the world, I suppose.

And I really do not know how else to be, so I have been doing that exact same thing for my entire adult life. Like I am still a high school student, but one on permanent summer holiday. I just stay in my room, and read, and play video games, like I am waiting for something to happen.

But nothing is ever going to happen. Not on its own. I have to make things happen. And somehow, that is the hardest thing imaginable.

Perhaps something went drastically wrong in the processes that lead to becoming an adult, and I am lost somewhere around the age of twelve, emotionally speaking.

Is there a cure for that?