That’s what I am right now.

But I am striving to be cheerful about it.

There’s no particular crisis going on or anything. I only wish I was sane enough to only feel panic when there is legitimately something worth panicking over.

In fact, the cause of my heightened state of agitation is actually something good : long time friend of the blog William “spuug” Graham is going to take me to dinner and a movie tonight. His treat!

The dinner will be at Old Spaghetti Factory and the movie will be Isle of Dogs.  And I am sure I will have a lovely time.

And yet, it’s a change, it’s different, it means I have to rearrange my usual Friday schedule (which is why I am blogging now, at 1 pm, instead of my usual 7 pm), it means I have less time for things like napping than usual, and hence I am experiencing mild panic accompanied by terror and dread.

While also really looking forward to a pleasant evening.

I lead a complicated life.

In fact, sometimes it feels like I am lost in a never-ending maze of my own devising. I expore the maze constantly while never getting any closer to escaping it because I also generate the maze faster than I can solve it.

That guarantees that I remain lost in my own obfuscations, illusions, and blind alleys, and never have to deal with the real world that I am supposedly eager to reach.

Well it’s easy to be eager to get something and work very hard to get it when you know you have absoluitely zero chance of success.

That way you can comfort yourself with the illusion of progress. After all, it’s not like you aren’t doing anything! You’re exploring the maze all the time!

That should be enough to convince the world (and yourself) that you are definitely trying and are therefore can’t be accused of refusing to help yourself.

Look at me, world! Watch me try! Aren’t I cute with all my trying?  Doesn’t it make you want to hug me and squeeze me and deal with the world for me so I don’t have to?

This is what happens when you don’t go through emotional puberty. A lot of my behaviour patterns can be seen as a subconscious attempt to attract the kind of attention and nurturing I never got as a child.

Part of me is still trying to convince people to love me and take care of me. And a big part of that is my learned helplessness.

After all, if you can do it yourself, nobody will do it for you. So you have a vested interest in not becoming competent.

And god damn it, it works,. I have had someone dealing with reality for me nearly my entire adult life.

Always in the form of roommates. It makes me wonder why they put up with me.

It pays to be cute and funny, I guess.

But all in all, I would rather be competent. I think. It would certainly do my self-esteem to be able to show the world that I can take care of myself and that I don’t have to be a burden on others.

Or at the very least that I can use my talents to earn enough money to pay people to look after me and deal with the nitty gritty realities of modern life.

Maybe some people are not meant to be independant. I dunno. Maybe some of us are hothouse flowers who are lovely to behold but entirely dependant on the careful care of gardeners and an entirely arificial environment to survive.

I can’t accept that, though. Not about myself. To think that I will spend the rest of my life in such a state is intolerable.

And not just because it makes me feel helpless, although that’s bad enough. When you can’t look after yourself properly and therefore are depedant on the kindness of others, yoiu have very little say in what happens in your life and your ability to captain your own ship is severely limited.

But it’s also humiliating. It puts me in a permanently subservient role. You cannot possibly develop much self-esteem when you are in such a position. Just thinking about it makes me feel weak and pathetic and worthless.

Now I understand why biting the hand that feeds you might occur.  It would come from misplaced anger being directed toward the source of your dependance. If it succeeds in discouraging the one doing the feeding from ever feeding you again, then it has succeeded in ending said dependence.

And there is such a thing as gratitude fatigue. There is only so long a person can remain grateful for what they are receiving before they need a break. Taking such a break would be indistinguishable from taking things for granted to an outside party.

And the person doing the feeding gets sick of it, too. There is an underlying assumption in all forms of aiding your fellow humans that said aid is temporary. That you are helping someone get back on their feet, not agreeing to carry them for the rest of your life.

A learned helplessness pattern like my own violates that assumption. Hence my guilt over being a burden on others. I know that they didn’t sign on to take care of things for me for life but I also feel helpless to fix it.

The only solution I can see is money. If I can build a career as a freelancer, or even get a permanent job somewhere, then I can hire someone to be my majordomo and they can take care of things for me.

I think I would still feel bad for needing someone like that, but it would be better than what I have now.

Either that or I need to move to a bachelor suite somewhere and thus force myself to learn to make it on my own.

I don’t know.

But I do know that something has to change.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.