As the urologist said when he broke the vasectomy speed record.

Read that, then the subject line, if it doesn’t make sense to you.

So,. How the hell are ya? Me, I’m doing okay,. Had therapy, got my meds refilled. Hung out with Felicity, Garth, and Amos.

So, a typical Thursday.

Therapy went okay. My therapist was ten minutes late starting the appointment and I let him know how frustrated that made me.

So my next appoibntment will be at 12:45 pm instead of 1 pm. Must rememeber to tell Joe that, preferably soon so he has time to get used to the idea.

We Taurus types need adjustment periods.

The other day, I was thinking about my tendency to reach a poinjt where I want to start over fresh instead of dealing with how complicated things have gotten or in general how I am not enjoying something any more.

And the analogy that popped into my metaphor filled head was that it was easier to start a new house of cards than to change a card in the existing one to correct a mistake, especially a mistake you made way earlier in the process.

For all you know, that could be a load bearing card.

And that’s how it is with my mind a lot of the time. It’s why I can’t handle sudden changes in plan a lot of the time. To my. my expectations of how the day was going to go are that house of cards and sudden changes yank a bunch of cards out and I am left desperately trying to fix the damage and keep things from collapsing.

That’s why I react like someone just punched me in the gut and my first instinct will be to say no.

What I really want to say in that momen is “fuck no, fuck off, go away and leave me alone, everything was fine until you showed up. ”

But that would be extremely wrong on many levels. For one thing, most people do not react like that. Most people handle sudden change better. So to get upset about it is to expect people to somehow know that what works for others doesn’t work for you.

And that is fundamentally unfair.

Even if the change is positive – turning a boring day into one where I will be doing something super fun that I will totally enjoy, say – there will still be a period of disorientation and dislocation and part of me will still want to go back to the appeallingly safe seeming time before the change came along and “ruined everything”.

Even when I am enjoying myself, part of me is still counting down the hours and minutes before I can crawl back into my cave again and hide from the world. isolated and alone and safe.

Which is, of course, the very condition I lament, loathe, and long to leave. I am more than willing to rail against the bars of my cage.

But only from inside the cage.

When I am out, I can’t wait to get back in.

Just today, I realized that despite my never having taken disappointment well, if a friend canceled plans to meet, a shameful part of me would be giddy from the relief.

And that really does fill me with shame. I feel like I am being disloyal to the person on a deep and terrible level, like I violated the connection between us, even though all I did was feel an emotion.

And emotions are never wrong. Only actions can be wrong.

And yet, I would be ashamed. Neurosis.

I have been thinking about my tendency to cling to where I am like a barnacle lately, so that each transition, no matter how small, leaves me with tendrils reaching back longingly towards the suddenly sacred socket I just left.

It’s quite unhealthy. I would be far better off if I just accepted change and thus was able to confidently put one thing down and pick up another, safe in the knowledge that whatever it was will be there for me when I have time for it again.

Instead, I have a life full of bruising dislocations, never all in one place, nevr fully in the moment, with parts of me left behind in everything I have done and the wounded animal in me just wanting to go back into hiding from everything forever.

I am serious. Everything. Forever. Infinite fear stretching to every horizon. That is what my anxiety feels like sometimes. Like the only real relief would be to stop existing.

Would if I could.

After all, that’s the message I got all through my childhood. Pretend you don’t exist. Be quiet and fade into the background. You are not and never will be welcome. You will always be an intruder to us. So don’t remind us that you are here. Be as small as possible. And don’t ever ask for anything because you deserve nothing.  Absolutely nothing. Not time, not energy, not money, not space. You don’t even deserve to be alive. The sum total of our love for you is expressed by us letting you stay,

But make no mistake. We do not want you here. Everything was better before you showed up. You don’t belong.

No wonder I learned to retreat into my own little world of media consumption. After all, like Robin Williams said, “I used to think the worst thing of all was to be alone. But it’s not. It’s to be with people who make you feel alone.”

I’d argued that it’s even worse to be with people who make you feel worse than alone, they make you feel alone and unqworthy and unwelcomne and useless and worthless.

I’ve carried that feeling of utter incompetence and total worthlessness with me for a long time. It’s buried deep in my code because it was installed when I was very young.

And it’s got to go. I am a good person. I have a lot of talent and intellect and personal awesomeness and I am a really sweet guy.

I have nothing to be ashamed of. (Repeat one million times. )

Somehow, I have to get to that place where I feel like I am okay.

It’s a long steep climb.

But I will NEVER stop trying.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.