I feel bloated, moody, irritable, and depressed. Is this what PMS is like, ladies? If so, I saltute you ladies for hardly ever killing anyone because of it. I feel like I could punt a toddler.

Guess I am going through one of my dark periods. I have felt like crap pretty much the whole day. All I do all day is sleep and eat and pee and feel bad. I wake up dehydrated from sleep sweating and my dreams are hyper-real demi-nightmares of complex nostalgia, unstable reality, emotional eruptions, and below behind and beneath it all, a clean clear never ending deep down soul shaking scream.

And of course, there is the self-loathing. Seems like I can never entirely shake it, I can just displace it for a while, like a bad debt, and days like this are when it comes due with a vengeance. This is a sad truth that I continue to struggle with : there is no escape, only delay.

Escape, of course, is part of the problem. Escaping into my mind from harsh, complicated reality is exactly what gets me into such a pathetic state to begin with. But it’s all I know how to do. I have no other coping methods. I am like a box turtle. I only have one defense : retreat into my shell. The problem is that the predators don’t go away. They gang up outside your shell and wait. And now you can never come out of your shell again. Ever.

So many of us eggheads get stuck inside our shells.

I have been thinking a lot about my problem with option paralysis and the perils of too much creativity lately. I am an extremely creative person, and part of that creativity is the ability to see possibilities where others see none. But that gift is also a curse, because I see so many possibilities everywhere that I can never decide what to do, and so I end up doing nothing. It’s like being stranded at an infinite crossroads, with billions of signs pointing in every possible direction, and not knowing which way to go, and always afraid that you will pick the wrong way, and be doomed.

“Just pick something and stick with it, doesn’t matter what!”. Easy to say, hard to do. Next to impossible, it seems. I am not sure if it’s just option paralysis, or the pseudo safety of the sessile, or whether it’s the combination of both that is the truly deadly power in this never ending geologic struggle. I suppose the option paralysis serves the function of justifying the inactivity and withdrawal that I need anyhow.

But there’s always so many millions of possibilities, how is it possible to choose? Science shows that past a certain point, giving consumers more choices in products actually makes them far less happy with the product once they have bought it. It’s meant to empower people’s individuality, but instead, it cripples their enjoyment with doubt. If given three choices, they will choose one and be happy with it. Given a dozen choices, though, the odds of believing you chose the right one are eleven to one against, and people are left with uncertainty about everything about their purchase and are more likely to regret it later.

Now imagine being able to see more than a dozen possibilities in all things, and you get an inkling of my problem. In the consumer analogy, most of the time, I end up deciding I didn’t need one that bad anyhow.

This particular rund of depression and self-loathing was kicked off by this song.

The song is about a man looking back over his life and all the wonderful, life-enriching things he has done, and concluding that he’d lived his life very well indeed. And all I could think of was how my life was the exact opposite. I have done almost nothing. You’re familiar with the litany. Never had a job, never supported myself, never been in a relationship, never even really had a childhood in many ways, when you get right down do it. I am likely a medical case history of differential development gone horribly awry. All my development, so to speak, has gone to my head. Enormous brain, tiny wimpy little soul.

And I know I should not judge myself by the standards of healthy people. I am very ill, so ill, in fact, that I am unable to do the things I know would help make me well. Unable, even, to call attention to this fact and maybe get outside help. If you can’t do it, get it done. Nope. No dice there either.

But I cannot help but deeply mourn everything I have missed in life, and continue to miss. I am a very broken person abd being broken fucking hurts. Even if I stop myself for hating myself for it, just knowing how badly my life has gone is extremely painful and I long for the me that has never been.

The one who’s a real human being, and not a pathetic joke.