Maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world to have to depend on others.
Maybe being incapable of standing on one’s own doesn’t invalidate one’s worth.
Maybe you can be a symbiote instead of a parasite.
Maybe there are worse things to be than a burden.
I have felt intense shame and guilt over my own hapless helplessness for basically my entire freaking life.
There has always been my physical coordination issues and visual issues making it hard for me to acquire the physical skills to help myself and forcing me to get help with the simplest tasks or do without.
I mostly did without.
Because I was also timid, so asking for help was almost impossible. I would shrink away from the slightest impatience or disapproval. Add in a highly adaptable mind and you have a recipe for “making do”.
And “carrying on”.
These are all factors over which I had no control. I was clumsy because I had lousy eyesight and I was physically uncoordinated because I had nobody to play physical games with for a large chunk of my preschool years.
And I certainly didn’t ask to be raped, or to be an unwanted child whos family forgot all about him when he stopped being cute.
In their eyes, anyhow. I’ve never stopped being downright adorable in my own eyes.
My point is that it doesn’t make sense and is grossly unfair for me to hate myself for all these things over which I had no choice and no control.
I didn’t ask to end up being kind of a mess. I’ve done remarkably well given the burdens placed upon me by fate and unworthy caretakers.
A lot of important people failed me in my childhood. Parents, siblings, teachers, school officials. I just trudged through life the best I could. Dragged myself through the days doing what I needed to do in order to avoid drawing attention to myself and never getting strong enough to choose a path and walk it alone.
For the most of that time, I didn’t even grasp that was an option, let alone an expectation. All I have ever done is survive. It’s been a bunker mentality for as long as I can remember. All that matters is making it through the day(s).
Having the luxury of occasionally looking around and thinking about where I want to go and who I want to be is a relatively recent development.
And the further back in my life I look, the thicker the fog gets. It’s like as recently as a couple of years ago, I was sleepwalking through life. That makes it all the more impressive that I have coped as well as I have.
It might not seem like it, but I’ve had it pretty rough.
Maybe not rough enough, though. I dunno.
Maybe I would have been better off in the long run if some tragedy or adversity had dragged me from the shadows and forced me to deal with reality.
So far it hasn’t, knock on wood.
Those kinda lessons I can do without.
More after the break.
Sleep is a beast
Oooh nice. Very impressive sounding.
Like I’ve said, my overactive bladder has been making sleep especially difficult for me lately, and it’s never been easy for me in the first place.
Hard to pinpoint a reason why. Certainly my overactive mind must play a role. Overactive, and eternally hungry for stimulation.
So I spend all day stimulating it and feeding it a rich diet of information and virtual experience and of course, in my down moments, deep deep thoughts.
No wonder I always have a case of mental indigestion. It’s a wonder I can sleep at all. My deeply ingrained habit of living life like it’s a nonstop intellectual buffet leaves me precious little time to actually just slow down and process what’s already in the pipeline.
I think that’s another reason those times when I have ended up walking outside alone ended up leaving me feeling so much better. With that blessed respite from constant input, my poor battered brain was actually able to catch up with the backlog.
Most of the time, in my current life, that only happens when I am lying in bed either on the way to sleep or the way out of it.
Maybe that’s why I have such a hard time getting out of bed sometimes. I am not done thinking all the thoughts I need to think yet, and my brain doesn’t want me to go back to my smorgasbord existence until it is done.
So I end up just sitting on the edge of my bed staring off into space for a while. Call it Zero Input Program. Secondary Processing Maximization Routine. Think Mode.
Looked at that way, I should be far more forgiving of myself for those moments. It’s not that I am too depressed to move or that I am just “sitting there doing nothing”.
I’m just sitting there doing nothing conscious. That’s not just acceptable, it’s commendable. My poor beleaguered consciousness needs all the rest it can get. This high speed brain of mine tends to run it off its feet.
It’s like I am constantly running after a highly energetic and acrobatic toddler.
Well, might as well start doing this Think Mode thing on purpose. When I lay down after finishing my words for the day, I will deliberately clear my mind and open my consciousness up to be used to the max by all the subconscious processes that are always crowding one another in the hallways of my mind.
Have at it, little thoughts. Get done what you need to get done. Then you can release your resources back to the conscious mind and hopefully make the thoughts remaining easier to process with the extra resources, and start some glorious cascade collapse of cerebral complexity that leaves me very relaxed and calm.
And asleep. Sound, sound asleep.
Because for once, there isn’t a million different things going on in my head.
There is just me, my mind… and silence.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.