Today has not been wonderful.

For one, today was the day of the big placement test I was sweating, and I am sure I did horribly, because I could not find my textbook and therefore could not study beforehand.

So I had to guess, and while that works wonderfully on multiple choice tests, this was written, and I just did not know the specifics of the subject matter at all.

And the subject matter was Utilitarianism, so it really hurts that I didn’t know it. But the thing is, I know Utilitarianism very well. I just don’t know how others define it.

I make a better philosopher than a philosophy student, methinks.

Not only did I bugger the beagle on the test, but I completely blanked on the essay that was due today. Only found out about it when a girl I know from Creative Writing class asked me if I had submitted it electronically. Um…. no.

So when I got home, I had to slap together something fairly zippy-quick and send it off. It’s not my best work, but what the hell, at least it’s done.

As if that wasn’t stressful enough, tomorrow I have both a major assignment due AND a major test in Linguistics, the subject that is scaring the crap out of me because we have to learn so much so fast.

What is worse is that I was supposed to do the assignment with a partner, and I gave my partner my email figuring he would email me and then I would have his email and we would hash it out between us… but he never emailed me. And I didn’t know his name. So we were both kinda fucked.

So I figured I would do the assignment on my own, even though the two of us were supposed to turn in one answer sheet.^[1]Then I took a look at the assignment and realized I didn’t even understand most of it.

Ergo, I have not done most of it. And my partner finally contacted me today, so now I have to not only do it but somehow coordinate with him on the answers.

I am really hoping that I eventually catch up with the damned course. She is throwing so much at us so fast. I feel like I barely get any time to absorb an idea before three more come along. And I am taking notes furiously at the same time, even though all her slides are available to me online.

There’s a lot more to what she says than is on the slides.

So tomorrow is going to be tense.

Oh, and speaking of tension, my therapist gave me more of the dissolve-under-the-tongue anti-panic-attack pills I had (and lost) before…. and now those are gone. And I could have really used them dammit.

I don’t know if I am losing them, or someone is stealing them. Either way, fuck. I can’t imagine them being used recreationally, as all they do for me is give me a feeling of cold calm, which is a lot better than a string of firecrackers going off in my anxiety center, but not exactly euphoria.

But perhaps, for people far more anxious than I^[2], finding an island of chemical calm in their maelstrom of anxiety is like spending the day in Heaven. I wouldn’t know. I have anxiety problems in social situations, and sometimes they feel downright overwhelming.

People with anxiety disorders freak out all the time for no reason, though. I almost always know why.

I am still pretty damned damaged, though. I can feel it acutely when I think about things like group work or joining a club or whatnot. The panic starts immediately. The difference is that now I am fully conscious of it, and can look at all my social damage and ask, what the fuck?

It’s clear that, at a very deep level, I am afraid of people, especially “normal” (non-nerd) people. Unless I feel safe behind my battlements of intellect, I am one very scared monkey, and when I have to deal with my fellow monkeys in realtime and in person, all kinds of very nasty stuff crawls out of the depths of my psyche and I do not feel the slightest bit sane.

And that’s…. bad.

It makes me wonder if I am capable of getting close to people at all right now. I have mentioned before how I can simulate closeness with others but in reality, they are not really getting into the club.

And I can totally deal with the most intimate levels of other people’s minds… as long as it’s in text on a screen. I can probably do it in RL realtime too, and it might even give both sides of equation a feeling of closeness and intimacy, but that’s a lie, because I never really opened up. I never really let the other person in like they did for me.

Because nobody gets in. For some reason, that is terribly important. Nobody gets in.

So go ahead, explore the mansion, wander the grounds, sample the food and drink, and be charmed and entertained and fascinated by the cheerful fellow I pay to pretend he is me.

But the real me is locked inside a hidden safe room staring blearily at a hundred video camera feeds and never, ever, ever sleeping.

There might be a story in that.

So I know I have a long way to go before I have healed all the social damage I took throughout my childhood. And during a lot of my adulthood too. Isolation damages you in so many ways… and the worst thing is, it makes you want to isolate yourself.

Because you are so damned scared of all those other monkeys.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.