Wow. That opening. To me, it seems like a parody of romance movies. It’s too self-consciously pretentious to be real, right?

Not only is it real, the movie was a huge hit. So what do I know?

Got my ass to my MD today, and I am proud of that. I ran out of my diabetes meds ages ago and lacked the gumption and wherewithal to make the appointment to get more.

And then, of course, the issue became how embarrassed I was to have let things go like that and that pushed me even further from doing it.

That’s the depression talking, of course. Doing its thing where it compels me to further and further self-neglect by having one mistake create another, and so on.

But it’s a new year, and I am determined to get my life back on track, and the first stage of that is getting healthy again.

Or at least as healthy as I was three months ago.

The appointment took longer than usual because most of it wqas conducted by a very sweet but not at all ready for prime time medical student.. A round-faced Asian girl named Laura, who I am sure will make an excellent MD some day.

After all, some things you can’t learn any other way than to do it badly for long enough to get better at it.

Roller skating springs to mind.

So Laura was a tad lost at sea. Luckily, she had a  benevolent and patient person to practice on, namely me.

I admit, I was getting a little bored and twitchy by the end of our 45 minute appointment, though. Even I have my limits. Another half hour, I might even have gotten cranky.

Or maybe not. I am still testing my testiness. I know that learning to be cranky or at least snarky now and then is a vital part of my recovery because it means I am developing the ability to protect myself emotionally and express my true emotions.

But it’s rough going. I am so terrified of hurting people. My therapist has repeatedly told me that people are a lot less fragile than I think and that they can handle me being less than perfectly pleasant now and then.

And I know he’s right. It’s not natural or healthy for someone to have no capacity for grumpiness. To hold myself to this extremely high standard of behaviour is lunacy. Most people are irritable some of the time.

And this exaggerated sense I have on the power I have to inflict harm on others with my words and how I express them is probably just my depression in disguise, right?

Yeah,. Probably. I guess.

But I can’t shake the image of myself as some combination of Sam Kinison and Dennis, the fat kid from Head of the Class, lashing out at people with all the power of my psychological insight and withering wit like I am Hannibal Lecter as an insult comic.

it could be pretty brutal. I am a very unbalanced person and that kind of thing can lead to horrifying consequences when it finally rights itself.

And all that suppressed rage comes exploding out of me like canon fire and I end up hurting a lot of people with my id driven verbal attacks.

It’s just plausible enough to be crippling.

That’s why I want to find a safe release for all of that ire. Some way it can express itself without harming undeserving others.

So I need to find deserving others, I guess.

That’s not who I want to be, though. I don’t want to be another angry screaming fat guy who can’t take it any more. I don’t want to lash out blindly. I don’t want to be the sort of guy that everyone avoids at parties.

Might be too late on that last one, actually. My social damage makes it hard for me to mingle. In fact, just typing the word mingle made me anxious.

That’s one of the worst words in the English language to a social phobic like myself.

Back to the point. So I don’t want to be The Angry Guy.

But it’s who I am right now, and I would be better off if I expressed it and got it off of my chest instead of letting it dester and rot inside me, poisoning me from within.

What I really need is a lngthy course of emotional dialysis. Clear out the toxin in my psyche. Filter out the bad stuff and replace it with good, clean blood.

Anything to make this feeling of deadly dirty decay go away.

I could turn my rage into political commentary, I suppose. It’s certainly the right age for it. But becoming a professional ranter has always seemed like a dark path to me. One that leads to heart attacks and income tax and turning into a jaded and bitter hack.

And it’s so limiting! What if I am feeling positive and happy and want to put out a feel-good message that will make people feel better about themselves? What then?

And why the fuck am I having a serious anxiety attack right now? It hurts so bad, like I am haunted by my very own personal banshee is screaming and wailing and scratchings its claws along the cliffside inside me.

Perhaps blogging and caffiene don’t go together as well as I thought they did.

I know! I will magically transform the anxiety into excitment!

Yeah, I don’t think so.

Instead, once I am finished my words, I am going to do what I always do in response to negative emotions : I am going to lie down until they go away.

And go away they will, because you can only remain adrenalized for so long without reinforcement before your body scrubs that shit out of your blood and returns you to whatever state youi consider normal.

Am I normal? Not often and never on purpose.

Hopefully, after some lights-out time, I will be able to relax and the mean ol anxiety attack will lose focus and wander away.

Because this shit fucking hurts.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.