Bastard, as in illegitimate.

Caught myself in the act of being self-destructive tonight, as I made the meal I am currently eating, and I decided it was something I really wanted to explore in the blog entry for today.

First, some quick recent history : Yesterday,  instead of going to therapy (see yesterday’s blog entry for why). Joe was nice enough to take my first to my bank so I could deposit some cash  onto my reloadable VISA and then on to do the usual weekly Costco shopping but with the added bonus of me.

See, usually said shopping is done while I am in therapy. Anyhow.

Sadly,. we did not end up going to Costco, though it was not for lack of trying. But the parking lot was absolutely packed. We circled for a while but then gave up when it became apparent that it would take a while before we even had a shot at a parking space. So we went to PriceMart (shop Mart…. shop PriceMart) instead.

Aside : God this area is densifying out of control. All these high rise apartment buildings are being built in a four block area near the Skytrain but nobody is building the rest of the new infrastructure required to support that bump in population. Why? Because poiliticians are the whores of the real estate developers, that’s why.

Anyhoo, at PriceMart. I ended up buying two pints of my fave new discovery. Chapman’s Sugar Free Ice Cream, and two bags of microwave burritos.

The burritos were part of an effort to make my diet contain more calcium and protein. Buttitos are great for that. They have cheese and beans, so there is your calcium and protein right there, and they zap up in like two minutes, plus they are delicious.

The ice cream’s part of an effort to make myself happy by putting food in my face.

Been working on that one for a long time/.

So I am taking the burritos out of the freezer when I feel a pang of guilt about how much more freezer space I am now taking up with my stuff.

And that’s crazy. Completely crazy. Not in any sense connected to reality.

Because why should I feel guilty for using up more of the freezer space that I have as much right to as either of my roommates? It makes no sense. I am nowhere near taking up a third of the space, and there is plenty of their stuff in there too. So why on Earth do I feel guilty for taking up more?

The answer involves two related forces in my mind : my feeling that I have no right to be here, and my compulsive self-minimization.

You can see how one leads to the other. I feel like I have no right to even be alive, and thus I feel like I should at least make an effort to make sure I am the smallest and lightest burden on people’s lives that I can be.

It’s how I was raised.

And this pervasive guilt for taking up space and air and other resources that should be going to other, worthier people (in other words, everyone) is one of the prime forces in my personality and especially in my depression.

It’s why I live my life in a constant state of cringing apology. Like I have to apologize for even being alive. I was an unplanned child and throughout my childhood., I was treated like I was a dog my family regretted buying.

It’s not my fault. I didn’t ask to be here. I just showed up.

It was made very clear to me by the way I was treated that I was not important at all. I was, at best, a warm afterthought, and should be happy that I get anything at all.

I emphasize : this is not something I was told. It’s how I was treated. And how you treat a child matters a million times more than what you say to them.

Although, come to think of it, multiple times in my childhood, when looking at pictures of me as a preschooler,. my brother said “You used to be so cute. What happened? ”

He meant it as playful teasing, but it really hurt.

What happened? I stopped being a puppy and became a full grown dog.

If that comes as a shock to you, then you’re an idiot.

So I grew up with this intense and pervasive feeling of illegitimacy. Like I deserved nothing ever. Everyone and everything in the universe was more important and more deserving than I was, and therefore absolutely anything I got, I did not deserve and should be both grateful for it and feel guilty about forever.

And that feeling still haunts me to this day. And it’s very easy to exploit. I was trained to always be accomodating and helpful, so even people who are not particularly selfish or greedy can come to take my ready compliance and desperate desire to be helpful for granted, and end up walking all over me without even knowing.

But that’s rare, because I would have to get in people’s way in the first place for me to end up getting trod upon. And I don’t do that.

Early on in my life, my sister told me that I was useless and that the best way for me to help was to sit quietly and stay out of the way.

I took that to heart.

The result is my life as it is now. I am so dedicated to staying out of the way that I find it hard to do anything which involves making myself visible, let alone actually acting like I have some kind of right to something.

Hence my agoraphobia. I can only feel calm and safe when I am tucked away in my bedroom playing video games and otherwise just killing time because anything else requires making myself known and present to people and I can’t handle the shame.

That’s why the closest thing I have to a social life requires me to wear a mask, a mask called Fruvous. I know that I, Michael Bertrand, deserve nothing in this world.

But maybe Fruvous does.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.