Wow, that makes this shit sound important.

Just got back from therapy and shopping (but not shopping therapy). Good gravy was the local PriceSmart packed. And it’s been like that since Xmas. I think it has become the common hub for all the apartment blocks going up around here (like the one I am sitting in right now) and that’s straining it to its limits.

And mine. My anxiety was peaking into the red zone due to the population pressure. I am not eager to return. It’s the closest one to us, and it’s more or less on the way back from therapy, but oy. I can’t hack that kind of crowding. That’s why I had to stop going to furry meetups. They got too crowded and my anxiety buried the needle and I ended up spending all my time squished into a corner of the balcony where I knew there could only ever been a person on one side of me.

And even then, I would get super anxious when there was more then a couple other people on the balcony. God, mental illness sucks. Part of me was having a great time, and really enjoying the success of this thing I put together (namely the local furry community). But my craziness had the upper hand.

In therapy today, I told my therapist about how it seemed like there was this vast lake of anxiety within me lurking just below the surface of my emotions, and no matter how calm I think I feel, it can come bubbling up to the surface at any moment.

It’s that anxiety that drives my self-destructive need to escape all the time. It’s what powers this freak-out panic reaction to even the smallest of things. It’s like this vast reservoir of carbonated liquid at high pressure, and the only way to keep it from releasing all the anxiety gas dissolved in it is to stay very, very still.

And that’s no way to lead your life.

So the problem becomes, basically, how do I drain the lake? How do I get rid of the fucking bubbles? How do I get rid of this massive static charge of anxiety so I can lead something like a normal life.

Well, as normal a life as a weirdo like me can ever have. Maybe a better term would be a “happy, healthy life”. The kind of life I want to live. Whole, sane, strong, happy, secure, filled with warmth and joy and humanity.

Another thing we talked about in therapy is my using my deep well of untapped rage to power my recovery. Being a liberal intellectual type, my therapist could not quite stand to ever wholeheartedly endorse anger. Anger is scary and unpleasant and makes people do bad things! It’s the opposite of the happy fluffy sunshine flavoured world a lot of liberals try to live in.

I wonder if that’s why they come across as so shrill? They often are very, very, angry about things that they really should be angry about, but they can’t quite express it as rage, only outrage, and that’s not the same thing.

What liberals, and me personally, need is the punk rock primal id anarchist impulse to scream “FUCK YOU!” and throw a metaphorical brick. The evilcrazystupid conservatives have no problem with that, but liberals shrink from it.

Outrage leads to complaining. Rage leads to action.

Anyhow, back to me. I see this reservoir of deep, deep rage from all the pain and injustice I have suffered to be like the emergency power supply of the spaceship of my mind. It’s not something to run on forever, but it will provide vitally needed energy to the ship’s engines so I can power out of the dark nebula of my depression and reach the open space of mental health and contact with the Federation.

I may have mixed up my metaphor in there somewhere. Man, I sling those around a lot.

When I need energy and motivation, I can just remember how fucking angry I am at how life has treated me, and scream “KILL THE MACHINE” as I throw myself into battle with the vigor and abandon of an aged Klingon who has decided that today truly is a good day to die.

In a way, what I need to tap into is that primal “NO” that makes the Terrible Twos so terrible. That deep, irrational, non negotiable defiance in protection of self is a key part of people’s psychological defenses, and I feel like I lost mine somewhere, back when my parents were teaching me to be “reasonable”.

Well sometimes you have to stand up for yourself, and your Self, regardless of whether it’s reasonable, logical, sensible, defensible, polite, correct, or even moral, because it’s your own psychological health on the line, and nobody else’s.

Suddenly I understand seemingly completely irrational, angry people who make a huge fuss over something that is not even a big deal. They are, on some level, defending themselves from a threat to their ego.

That doesn’t make them any less of a douchebag. But it does explain it better.

So somewhere between “angry douchebag mad at the world” and “depressed loner who hates himself” lies the way out for me. I’m not entirely averse to producing some extremely angry art. After all, it was punk and metal (and therapy) that got me through high school. I could make some super angry shit.

I just have to get to the point where I truly feel the rage enough to speak up for myself. Not against the world, but against the forces of evil within me who have kept me locked inside a cage in my own mind for decades now.

I mean, the world hasn’t exactly been wonderful for me either, but first things first.

Well I have rambled on for long enough. Time to go eat some lunch then snooze for a while.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.