So there I was, standing there, urinating, and wondering what I would write about in that unfocused, consulting the inner voice kind of way familiar to most creatives.

As my mind wandered, I found myself thinking about how my room is a total disaster area that always makes me kind of sad when I think about it.

Then a radical thought hit me : I could change that.

I could clean it up. Then it wouldn’t make me so sad any more. I have the power to actually make my life better. I could totally do it.

This might not seem like much of revelation to you, and I understand that. Intellectually, it’s a no-brainer. ObviouslyI could clean up. My limbs work. I know the procedures involved. I have the necessary skills and knowledge to tell the difference betweeen dirty and clean. I can organize stuff.

Then again, that’s true of several dozen infinities of things that are simple, sane, logical, obvious, doable, and easy that would no doubt make my life a lot better, and I don’t do any of those, either.

Clearly, then, this is about the emotional component of ability. Everything else needed to tidy up is present but heretofore, the emotional component has been missing.

Because despite knowing that, on paper, I am capable of doing all these things. it never felt like I could. Like, at all.

That’s how bad my passivity and my sense of a total lack of legitimacy and agency has gone. Actually doing things seems impossible. The fear that grips me won’t allow it. To actually do things is to step outside that very, very small comfort zone in which I can be calm and escape the icy clutches of my pervasive anxiety.

Even just thinking about actually getting up and cleaning my room gives me the feeling that an icy hand is clutching my heart and threatens to do far worse if I don’t comply with its demands and cease contemplating action.

I am, as always, and at all times, my own hostage.

This cold hand wrapped around my heart is the main enforcement mechanism of my depression slash anxiety. It’s the villain lurking in the shadows with the gun pointed at my head making me say to the person on the other end of a phonecall that “No, I can’t do that. No, I can’t explain why. I know that’s not good enough. I have no choice. ”

Well the secret is out now. There’s a madman holding me hostage and his name is me. Call 911 and tell them to send in a SWAT team becuase this guy’s a fucking lunatic.

And honestly, I am so very over his drama.

It’s not hard for me to trace this extreme paralysis back to its source. When I was a kid, from way back when I was barely up off the floor, nobody would give me any responsibility or even ask something of me because they didn’t have the patience to actually teach me to do things and would just get mad at me if I tried and take the task away from me and do it themselves.

And all the while giving me no path out. I couldn’t do it myself and I shouldn’t be making them do it either. And the fact that I couldn’t do it myself without being taught made me bad or wrong somehow. And there was nothing I could do about that.

It was a no win situation.

So right from the beginning, I got the message that I just plain could not and should not do things. If I try, I will only end up making a big mess that other people will have to clean up and  they will be really mad at me when they do it and I will end up far worse off than if I had never even tried.

Oh, but I shouldn’t ask someone else to do it either. The very idea will be met with the kind of outraged incredulity normally reserved for daughter’s boyfriends asking their girlfriend’s father if they can bang their daughters right now, on the kitchen table, during Sunday dinner with the vicar.

Becuase it’s not merely rejection. It’s the kind of rejection that heavily implies that there must be something fundamentally and seriously wrong with you for even thinking of the question, let alone actually asking it.

Obviously, if you can’t do it and you can’t ask anyone else to do it for you, you can’t have it. You totally lack agency in the world.

I couldn’t even pray that someone would do it without asking.

And those are the bad tapes that play when I want to go outside my tiny tiny safety zone. Don’t do it. You will only end up screwing it up and making things worse. You can only ever be worse off for trying. Be quiet and stay out of everybody’s way.

In fact, could you be a dear and stop existing? We never wanted you in the first place and there is absolutely no room for you because to give you a share would mean less for us, and why should we give up anything for someone as worthless and broken and utterly unwanted as you?

You should be grateful we even let you stay around.

All of this (and my, there’s a lot of this) is to explain why the idea that I actually, truly, really can change my world to be more to my liking is such a radical thought.

I have known that I am capable of many things for a long, long time. After all, I was the kid with the crazy amount of potential who everyone said would make it big one day.

You know. Probably. Or whatever.

But as I have said many times in this space, there is a huge difference between knowing something and believing it.

Knowledge is a thought,.

Belief is an emotion.

And knowledge ain’t worth shit if you don’t believe it.

I will talki to you nice people again tomorrow.