I feel like I was never really a child.

Not since the rape, anyhow, and I was four years old when that happened. So my memories of the time before that are pretty fragmentary and while I am extremely glad that I had those golden years when I was a happy and adorable kid, I find it hard to consider that time part of my official biographical memory.

The rape changed so much.

Because once that innocence was gone, it was gone for good. The bullying I got only cemented that truth in place.

The world simply was not safe. The only time I was safe was when I was home. Out in the world, bad things could happen at any time and come from any direction.

No wonder I became agoraphobic. I was agoraphobic in elementary school. After I got bullied outside of school, the last barrier was down and I knew that the world was a hard cold dark scary place and there was absolutely nobody to protect me from it.

I was abandoned to the wolves,. which is a lot like being thrown to the wolves. but is way easier and thus more appropriate for a child who doesn’t matter and should not be here and deserved absolutely nothing ever.

I didn’t even deserve to take up space.

So anyhow. I feel like I was never really a kid. I certainly never behaved like one. All I wanted to do was read and watch TV and play video games. The idea of picking up a few toys and playing with them using my imagination would never have occurred to me.

I wanted constant mental stimulation even back then.

Lack of socialization began when I was denied kindergarten at the same time as my two friends went to school before me and then got raped.

I went to school already broken and fragile and strange. And then there was the small matter of my outrageous IQ making it hard for me to relate to other kids.

I was pretty much fucked on all levels.

And the thing about losing your innocence so young while also being painfully bright is that you now see far, far more of the world than you can safely handle.

Innocence has a purpose. I think. It’s like an immune system for the mind.

So from a very early age, I was paranoid, anxious, depressed, and bored. I had no friends and my family ignored me.

That’s not a real childhood. That’s barely a pupal stage.

And the thing is, when you don’t have a childhood, you don’t grow up. I know for a fact that on many very important levels, I am barely more than a toddler.

Social skills come to mind.

And I certainly never made it to adolescence, emotionally and socially speaking. I was too busy ignoring my instincts because I was too timid to go out into the mean old world and explore anything.

So i just filtered that confusing “illogical” stuff out of my consciousness.

And for the most part, I am still doing it. Anything that might lead to leaving my comfort zone is ruthlessly suppressed. That includes most motivation.

Instead, all I can do is hang in there and do my best to convalesce.

But it’s taking so long I will die before I am free.

And that fucking sucks.

More after the break.

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A Strange Dilemma

As I may have mentioned, I have been shopping for a new game, and today I decided to try one called Dragon’s Dogma : Dark Arisen.

First off, I fucking hate that title. It’s just so stupid. What is that supposed to evoke? Every time I read it, I hate it a little more.

And while I would never consider a game having a stupid name to be a dealbreaker, it’s a much bigger factor than you might think.

What can I say, I am a hyper verbal guy and very, very sensitive to words.

But dumb name aside, the reviews for the title are excellent, it’s a big huge open world game with tons of quests and other content and I love that, and someone I know online gave it the thumbs up as well.

So I decided to give it a try. Bought it, downloaded it, played it.

And it’s definitely got some flaws. The dialogue is atrocious, for one. Very stiff and unnatural and alienating.

And they really love the word “aught” and what they presume it means.

And to be honest, so far I find the game to be kind of clunky and awkward. And so very slow paced once you get past the “all guns blazing” intro segment where they make you fight the titular dragon twice.

After that blockbuster intro, to then have the game slow way down to a point where you are doing slow paced bucolic fetch quests and enjoying the scenery is torture.

But there is a lot to enjoy. This game feels more real than any other game I have played. The verisimilitude is astounding.

There was this one sound effect for when I jumped into the ocean that sounding so exactly right that it unleashed a whole torrent of memories from my childhood of playing in the sand at the beach and wading in the waves.

But that slow pace is killing me. Which brings me to the dilemma : it’s taking so long for the game to get started that I have already played the game for 113 minutes.

The cutoff for returning a game on Steam is two hours.

So my dilemma comes in deciding whether or not to keep the damned thing. Which means figuring out if I like it enough to want to play more.

And that’s a hard decision to make without playing a lot more, but if I do that, I will go over the two hour time limit and be stuck with it.

At the moment, I am leaning more towards keeping it. But I dunno.

Maybe I would be better off playing something else.

Or maybe I will absolutely love the game once I get used to the controls and the world and such and I would be denying myself a great experience if I didn’t tough it out.

So I am torn.

Oh well, no matter what I decided, it’s still just a freaking video game.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.