promeny

I could say that nothing happened over the past month, but that would be a big fucking lie. Would have been true until about a week ago, though.

I was over for dinner at my father's house last Wednesday, and he brought up in a lateral fashion that he and his girlfriend were getting married. There were a fair amount of clues, so as such I knew that it could have happened, but the way that he brought it up with his girlfriend right in front of me was emotionally manipulative. I couldn't look him in the eye or tell him that it was wrong (which it is), but I was able to expose him as a liar to his girlfriend, saying calmly that he told my brother that he wasn't going to marry her (which he denied) and that mother never wrote because she thought that he would never remarry (he replied by saying that she did, so I'll have to look into that). And I didn't even mean to expose him like that; nonetheless, it is pretty obvious that he was either lying all along, or decided to go back on his word. I have caught him lying about benign shit multiple times over the past year or two. And even if he didn't plan on lying, does that negate the fact that you can't trust someone who goes back on their word, let alone respect them? I don't think so.

Of course, I told my sister about it. It was hard to do, but I had to; it would have been wrong otherwise. She felt angry about it, but was very reasonable and controlled; she was not hysterical at all. Her main concern was that the house and the belongings might go to another family, which is very possible. I brought up the facts that our father was writing prenups, thus potentially meaning that they wouldn't, and that he told me to make a list of the things that I wanted after he died. She was pleased about the latter, but added that if he dies the prenups won't matter, especially if the house is going to be in the girlfriend's name. I don't know if there is anything we can do about it; it could be worse though, since that house wasn't the one that we grew up in. Still, it is a family resource, and it shouldn't be handed down to a stranger's family just because some divorcee from a lower background married a DOCTOR who was too weak and desperate to stand on his own.

Our conversation was perhaps the most important one I've ever had, or at least one of them.

The day after, my brother called me. He did say that he talked to our father, but didn't bring up the remarriage. I could tell, though, that he was slightly upset; I might speaking too soon, but I think that he is finally starting to see our father for who he really is. He asked me if I wanted to move to where he is so that I could be closer to family that I get along with, and I said that I was now thinking about moving (which is true). I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was worried about me. He also wants me to get a job, which I am thinking about. SSI wouldn't be enough to live on where he lives, and it isn't meant to replace a paycheck in any case. I just applied to Orange Julius yesterday (I have a friend there) so I might be lucky in getting one.

I probably will move. It is just becoming intolerable to live here. Not just my father, either; I've simply been here for too long. I need a change, to leave the past behind me. I've been here for six years, and the people around me just keep getting younger to the point where I don't fit in anymore. I feel like I'm just stagnating here. I could stagnate where I want to move to, as well, but at least I'd be doing something different for once. It is just a matter of money, I think, but that can be remedied over time. I should start getting rid of some of my stuff to prepare for the move.

It is just so bizarre, this turn of events. I can't do much right now, because I'm just dealing with all of this bullshit. And none of it is my fault, either; not a single bit of it has been brought on by myself. I'm being too civil and calm, if anything. But it is like this: I wake up, not really knowing what is going on. Then, after about half an hour, I start to realize the reality that I'm in, and after about an hour I get to the point where I'm so sad, angry and disgusted that I want to scream and vomit. My father is a disgrace to the family, and I'm not alone in thinking that. This whole thing is practically a waking nightmare, one that I never would have thought would happen when mother was still alive, because at the time I bought in to my father's lies. But in fairness, I always knew that he was very weak on some level or another...simply not as weak as this.

Oh well. Nothing I can do about it. Just have to prepare for my own life away from this whole ordeal. I'm done with it now. We never going to be one big, happy family, especially when mother is just replaced like this.

I'm not feeling too well.

I don't know if it is physically or psychologically rooted. It could be both. I just feel like I'm going haywire and that my body is just acting up. I feel like I see things sometimes, my body heats up for no good reason, my throat swells up, my eyes hurt, I have almost no desire or energy...I just have never been through anything like this before.

When my mother was in hospice, I just felt like I was running on empty. I had to keep myself from crying in my workplace. Fortunately, I did, but that was still embarrassing. The year after Mom's death, I just drank a lot and did a stupid amount of legal highs. Last year, I was only worried about my father doing something inappropriate at my mother's grave.

You'd think that it would be easier as it goes on. That was the trend. But now, it isn't so. It is like my father has completely forgotten about my mother; I brought up that it was the time of the year a few days ago to him, and he just thought that I was talking about the seasons. How dense and shallow could he be? That was his wife, and now he forgets all about her. He replaced her with someone else, and expects his children to be happy for him. Well, I'm not.

Also when I inadvertently brought up about the denial of my autonomy growing up, he added "...and you're going to blame your parents for that?", laughed, and then said that his conscience is clear because while he may have made mistakes, he did what was best. Sure, he might have, but best for whom? It was really all about him, growing up. Not to mention that admitting mistakes and saying that "I did my best" does not absolve you from the fact that you fucked your kid's life up; there is no way I can have a normal life due to what happened to me when younger...I basically have no career path, and no future. What is worse, is that he fully admits that he made mistakes, but that it doesn't affect him at all. That takes some real nerve to openly admit that; he probably is emotionally shallow, with both this and forgetting about my mother. I don't know how long I can talk to him.

And even if my father had nothing to do with it, my life is still hard now as is. I have no motivation; I still want to do things with my life, and I have minor interests, but I can barely do anything. I can't even read a book; I have the fear that depression is turning me into an idiot. I'm not quite drinking myself stupid, but I need to watch that, as well.

I feel that this is the beginning of a downward spiral. I don't know how to stop it. It is bad enough that things are the way they are with my mother dead and my father the way he is; I also need to find another place as soon as possible. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is ringing true for me, and it may not end up pretty. Just...Jesus. I ended up dealing with low blows, and they all synergized into one great mess.

I don't feel suicidal. Oddly, I feel less angry at myself, or anything anymore. I'm just sad. Perhaps that is a sign of maturity; anger barely changes anything. It can, but it usually doesn't.

It has been a really odd month so far.

I recently found out that one of my friends from MTSU died in a car accident last May. I can't believe that I didn't know that one of my friends had been dead for over seven months. We were pretty good friends during my last year at MTSU, but after I left we barely talked to one another so as such it wasn't as painful as it could have been. I guess that it just goes to show how far removed I am from that phase of my life; I really have changed a fair amount. He is roughly the ninth or tenth person who has died on me in my life, which is actually a fairly large number for someone who is only 31 years old; most of the departed were young people like him, too (he was only 26 when he died). I am no stranger to death; I was introduced to it on a significant level when my best friend died from auto-erotic asphyxiation when we were both 17. That was really shocking because I didn't know that people did that to themselves, and my friend was very straight-laced.

An odd thing about my dead friend was that when I was talking to him through Facebook four years ago, I told him that I wanted to move and yet I didn't want to abandon my mother, who had cancer and was going to die a year and a half later (I had no idea that my mother was soon to be dead, though; I just thought that I shouldn't leave her just in case she was going to die). He said something around the lines of "Dude, just leave and have your own life." He was right, but I really couldn't have left my mother like that. I just find it sort of ironic that he is also now dead, and I had no idea that anything like that would happen to him. To be fair, though, he had a vibrant personality that while it made him a very pleasant person to be around, it didn't really fit his age. He basically acted like he was 20 or so by the time he was 26 (not that he did stupid things; he was just very jovial and didn't take many things seriously), and there was always a part of me that wondered just how he would be when he was about my age; looking back on it, I honestly couldn't have seen him seriously being my age, not that I thought that he was going to die, though. He was my brother's age, which makes it pretty odd, to say the least.

I was on that one medication for two days in order to decrease my drinking, and it was strange. The first day, I felt all calm and almost euphoric, and I was kind of mildly dissociated, having the strange thought that we are just put on this earth with no purpose or plan, and no roles to act out, and no restrictions to our behaviors, and yet all of us seem to instinctively feel that all of these things exist in our lives, and that we are here for a specific reason, when we are not. On the second day, however, I felt like I was going to have a heart attack right after I took the dose, so I had to go into the ER. They did a check-up on me and also did an EKG, and I turned out to be fine. As it turned out, the medication gave me an anxiety attack that triggered some psychosomatic symptoms, and I freaked out over it. I don't feel ashamed because it was the first time anything like that happened to me, and I hadn't been to the ER in well over a year in any case. The physician acted surprised that I was on the medication in the first place due to me telling him how much I was drinking, and he said that I seemed to be very motivated to stop drinking and that I should try doing it without any medication. According to him, I don't seem to have a significant alcohol problem.

For days after I stopped taking the medication, my head hurt, I felt dehydrated and I was all-around miserable and prone to anxiety. My hair also seemed to fall out from it. I just felt like the medication had too many negative side effects, and that it was overkill. I didn't drink enough beer to seriously warrant a medication to curb the usage and the medication made me feel way worse than any hangover I ever had, with the exception of one during MTSU.

This is really the first time my psychiatrist has ever made a serious mistake. She must be really conservative with substance use, and probably believes that I have more problems with alcohol than I actually do. I ask people around me if I have problems with alcohol, and they say no and fully admit to drinking more alcohol than me. One of my friends privately felt that I should have never been on the medication, I later found out from him. It was just plain reckless that my psychiatrist would put me on such a serious medication for such a minor problem (if it is even a problem at all), although to be fair she didn't push it on me and it was my idea to try it out. She really can't be fully blamed.

There is one good thing that came from it, though: I quit smoking. It has been three days and I've only had the slightest cravings; it has been way easier than I thought it would be. I decided to quit because it was too expensive, it wasn't good for me, and it made my anxiety worse, so as such I did what I did. I don't regret it at all; if I control my drinking, I will now have a lot more money to save up for important shit or emergencies, for you never know what is going to happen in your life.

Not too much else is going on. Playing Final Fantasy XII for the first time in eight years, and that has proven to be pretty fun. Also trying to read a bit so that I will have enough knowledge and opinions to write one of my papers, although I wonder what the point of writing them exactly is nowadays.

Christmas was somewhat uneventful. There were some minor awkward moments, but overall I had an okay time, and received more presents than I thought that I would. I didn't have presents then, but the day after I felt bad so I bought two boxes of Moon Pies for my brother and a box of chocolates each for my father and his girlfriend.

I talked to my sister the day after Christmas. She seemed well, but somewhat disturbed. We talked a lot about the past, and of family stuff. I might have drained her a little bit, but the conversation ended well.

My brother was here until yesterday. We hung out a bit and he got me new pillows; he wanted to replace the sheets on my bed, but I washed them and they ended up being salvageable. I did buy him lunch yesterday, and we also had some beer that I bought the day before yesterday.

All in all, not a particularly bad holiday season.

I finished The Dynamics of Light and Dark over two weeks ago. I'll probably start writing again in a few days, because I still have a lot to write about and I need to keep my brain active.

Overall, it has been kind of quiet. I came to a realization about a week ago, while I was trying to go to sleep but failing, that throughout my youth I was too familiar and trusting with people, and revealed too much about myself. With my high level of empathy, I was too open and I was foolish enough to at least partially believe that others were as good-natured as me. Of course, I had experience that some were not, but a lot of people were kind to me out of pity, it seems. I wonder how long that has been going on? I wasn't entirely clueless about the whole thing; my experiences with others did give me the notion that I was wrong, but I still had it in my nature to be so open with others, with that sense of aforesaid familiarity. While I have endeavored to become a lot more distant (and have somewhat succeeded), it does not come naturally, and I eventually lose my filter when I feel either anxious enough or comfortable enough. I now know what the problem is, but what is there to do about it? I can't become a total jerk, because then I'll lose my friends and whatnot, and I'll be a lot more of a miserable and unpleasant person.

I have only one more book to read til it hits the 75th mark of all the books that I have read this year. I can do it! That is an impressive number; I have all the time in the world, so I may as well use it to become more knowledgeable, rather than have my mind stagnate.

It is near the end of the year, and I've got to write the Monthly Synopsis soon. Hopefully I won't forget.

Still smoking, although I feel that I should cut back soon, if not quit altogether. I got a pack of smokes early this morning and when I went up the hill to my apartment, I was nearly out of breath. But I did walk longer and up the same hill and more later that day when I went to the university and I was more or less fine then, so I don't know.

I saw my psychiatrist today. I told her that I stopped drinking, but that I was smoking now. She was a little alarmed, but she did admit that it was a sign of progress, in that I realized that I had a problem and that I was trying to find a substitute. She asked me what other substitute I could use (she couldn't think of any on her own). I told her that video games might work; she laughed and said that it was worth a try. I could sit down for a few hours a day and play my old systems while sipping an energy drink, I guess; I used to do that when I was younger. I have fond memories of that, but all in all it is only good to do that when you're just really bored (oddly, I don't get bored as often as one would think; I entertain myself through introspection and daydreaming).

I've been having these weird dreams over the past week or so where I go back to school (either high school, community college, or graduate school) and I fail miserably in the classes. In one dream I forgot that I had a biology test, and I was fretting over how to take it. I think that such dreams illustrate two things: that I am afraid of failure, and that my mindset has changed so much that I would no longer perform well academically, although I dare say that I'm more intelligent than I have ever been, outside of perhaps memory. Last night I had a dream that I went back to community college and that I had a really small, single apartment. I think this represents the introduction to independent adulthood that I was never granted in my late teens and early 20s; that kind of fucked me up. It wasn't until I was 28 when I had any semblance of an independent life, and I really only started acting like an adult when I was nearly 30.

My third book, The Threads of the Mind, is almost done. I basically have to wrap the sixth chapter up and then write a conclusion. After that, I'm going to revise the parts I haven't revised yet and then design a cover for it. It will be self-published on lulu.com and I'm going to hand out autographed copies to my friends (I have roughly five of them). One of my friends is really impressed with me; I should be happy and proud, sure, but writing a book is something that almost anyone with enough time and effort can do. I'm going to write more soon afterward.

Other than that, not much is happening. This September has been nowhere near as fun as last year's, but the next months might get better.

So it turns out that SSI won't be giving me my monthly paycheck because I'm basically not wasting their money.

Mind you, this isn't permanent, however I really need to get it under the limit of $2000 as soon as possible.

Most people would love to have this problem. My roommate says that people would be jealous of me. But honest-to-God, I don't know how to spend it. I know that I will have to get a new laptop (this current one is half-buggy and 6.5 years old), and I know that I should take a trip to the Washington Coast to visit the old haunts like I said I was going to, but I still have no urge to spend money.

I guess that I'm one of those retarded people who has a lot of money despite having no income because they never spend it.

I do feel burdened, but I feel more frustrated more than anything. I used to be really angry, but now I'm somewhat amused that they actually gave me MORE money while I was trying to get it down to the limit and now I'm not going to get my checks for a while. That doesn't add up in any logical sense. And all of this, was the result of me actually being respectful of their money and therefore not spending it so horribly.

There have been some good things as a result. New t-shirts of anime characters, in order to be "ironic". A used PS3 and some cool games, although I've only played two of them (Dragon's Crown, by the way, is just as awesome as I thought). An emergency supply of food, and some Belgian ales. Basically, I'm living a life I wouldn't normally live, and doing things I wouldn't normally do. Many things can be said about these purchases, but at least I can say that I don't regret them.

All in all, I sort of want to work again. Being on SSI has a lot of limitations, but I need it if my chronic fatigue can't be treated and if I will be discriminated against (as I have been).

So...what else? I don't feel the anxiety anymore. That haunted me for a while. I have sharply reduced my alcohol intake, replacing it with visual meditation. I also don't eat gluten anymore, or at least I'm trying not to. As a result, I'm not as tired, and in better shape. I'm starting to get pretty good at the meditation, and have started to see minor visuals, but I still have a way to go.

I have gotten all the stuff that I cared about from my Dad's house while he's away, and I was looking through my keepsakes. As it turns out, I look and act completely different from when I was in high school/college compared to now. Granted, there was some awkward middling period where I was sort of an embryonic form of my current self back in MTSU and the following year, but I'm distinctly different from my youth and young adulthood.

And you know what? I like what I became, and I sort of resent how I used to be. I've come a long way, and even though I was mediocre at best and then warped into an infantile sperglord for roughly eight years, I got back on my feet and I became someone who I can actually like and respect. Not many people can look at how they are now, and like what they see in comparison to how they once were. The fact that I have made such progress and can look forward to better times, rather than have then behind me is solid evidence that I've made something out of myself, or at least I will sooner or later.

The funny thing, though, was that when I was growing up with my family, they basically made me a black sheep and said that I had all of these defects and problems. Well, looking back to how I was, I was really not that far from normal. I was simply an obnoxious dork who was warped by over-controlling parents; deep down inside, there was someone who was at least halfway normal. It couldn't be helped that my development was skewed, given that I had no proper role models, because my parents were complete freaks. But since my father was a doctor, and I was just a kid back then, all the focus and the blame was on me.

I don't look anything like I did in either my teens or even my early-to-mid 20s. To be honest, I like how I am both mentally and physically better.

Yeah, I turned out alright. Just need to find my place.

So, what has happened?

I stopped writing poetry, but I'm still reading voraciously. I make notes in my notebook, so that I will use them later for further writings.

I actually wrote a paper for the class that I am auditing, that is centered on defining the self. It is a surprisingly hard thing to do, and I really only barely did it. I told the professor that I didn't think that what makes a person unique defines what the self is, and he found that to be interesting. But we'll see how it goes.

I plan on writing more books, and I am going to start writing one on mysticism and philosophy (my own original take, of course) by the time the semester ends. I think that it is critical to do so, since I'm in my 30s now, and I get the feeling that this may be the only time I will be able to, since I might die soon. I doubt it, but it could very well be possible. I'm not going to take any classes in either the summer or the fall, so I'll have plenty of time to do it, and no excuses. I need to do something with my life, anyways. And writing is really the one talent that I truly have.

My mental illness is still around. Not quite as bad, but definitely still ebbing and flowing in the recesses of my mind. But I'm starting to get over it, and I feel that I'm letting go of my obsessive thoughts and feelings, finally. It wasn't that I was stuck on one or two things in the past so much as though a whole lot of small things (and not so small) gradually built up in my youth, providing fuel for the growing fires of apathy, rage, and grief. It isn't healthy for me to do that. I'm 30, and I still have most of my adult life ahead of me. Let my past go; it isn't relevant anymore.

Of course, to truly escape things, I would literally have to move (probably to somewhere I haven't lived before), but I'll take that when it has to happen (not for another year, at least).

On the 7th of this month, was the anniversary of me leaving my main job, and have a life that was largely unburdened by external factors.

I knew that it was sometime around now, but I didn't know the exact date until I looked at the first poem I wrote in the notebook that I carry around.

Some people thought that I would just stagnate. And for a while, I did. Between March and June of last year I did a bunch of legal drugs, such as Nutmeg, DXM, DPH, LSA, Kratom, as well as plenty of herbal supplements taken in excess and copious amounts of hard beer. I guess that this was the "cleansing" period of my life, in some odd way. To get all of the debauchery and bad habits out of my system so that they wouldn't haunt me for the rest of my life.

I ended up going to the psych ward in May of last year, and soon afterwards I stopped the drug use (outside of DXM and Kratom, which I only did occasionally). I still drank a lot of beer (the extent of which amazes me to this day), but that was because I was dealing with the upcoming anniversary of my mother's death. There was simply no other way to handle it at the time.

Now, I still do drugs on the occasion when it is appropriate. Nitrous oxide has proven to be interesting, and DXM will definitely be done again in about four months from now. But they are no longer my life. I have other things to do, and to focus on. I'm keeping away from beer now, and what I drink now is pretty mild and not in excess (I haven't been seriously drunk in four months).

But since I've settled down, I've realized that since about July of last year, I have made tremendous steps forward in order to become something worthwhile in this world. I've written over 360 poems, dozens of essays, made two computer games, made a painting (want to make more, but it is sort of on the side right now), and I even wrote a book. And it will only go forward from here. There is no sign of me stopping.

It was all because I started reading academic books. It opened my mind to so many different things, got me out of my self-pity and emotional stagnation, and helped me discover many things about both the mind and the world that I had no idea existed. I've read over 40 books or so, and I'm not stopping anytime soon (although I did take a break from it when I wrote A Soul Turned).

So no, I'm not a failure. I'm on the way to something great. And it will happen.

I'm still around. Just nothing has really changed, outside of my thoughts.

I went to church today, and I mentioned to my pastor how I have a lot of ugly, destructive thoughts towards people. He basically said that I had that anger because I wanted to have it, which I didn't accept at first, but when I said that most people would just do me harm and leave me to rot, he said that Jesus had to suffer the same, and yet he still forgave them. That made me think a bit about my emotional state.

Most of the people I've been extremely angry at are people that I've had altercations with online; I don't even know what these people look like, let alone have ever met them. And yet I was around them for an extended amount of time, people who I probably wouldn't even notice in real life, and I let their toxic words seep into my soul. I let people who I never knew well, never met them in real life and would never either truly be their friend or enemy, hurt me in ways almost no one in real life ever had. People I didn't know, didn't care about, didn't get along with, and nonetheless I let them all warp me.

Why hate them? Why be hurt by them? The answer is simple: you don't. For all they were, was just a stream of words on a monitor. Never hearing their voices, seldom seeing their faces...they were just phantoms. And due to my weakness, I let them haunt me.

I'm a full grown man, now. I won't let that happen again. No one on the internet knows me fully or truly, and I'll never let any vulnerability show again. And seriously, my heart needs to harden, or else I'll just become a monster.

The new roommate seems cool. We talked about our drug experiences and stuff, and that was enlightening.

One thing that I've noticed, though, was that while I am a smart guy with original ideas, I am far and away from being the brilliant man that I thought that I was. Just speaking to the new roommate and his friends, I realized that they all had a lot of the same ideas I did, and I just recently came to these ideas. So I suppose that my thoughts and ideas are not as rare as I previously believed, and most importantly, I'm not so special.

Now it could be a lot worse. I still know a lot, and I still have a fair amount of wisdom and intelligence. The guys who I talked to respected me and my thoughts, and didn't think that I was an idiot. But still, it is a huge slap in the face that I'm nowhere near as original as I thought myself to be. But no thought or idea is entirely exclusive to someone, so I should just take it in stride.

I wonder how I ended up realizing this relatively late in life. It is probably because I don't talk to a whole lot of people, and was sheltered growing up. My parents were basically like "THIS IS THE TRUTH, OR ELSE!!1" While I was a bright enough kid back then not to respect an attitude like that, I was nonetheless provided with no intellectual or emotional road map in life, and as such not only did I get weird ideas, but I was stunted in quite a few ways (still am, to an extent).

But perhaps that is the beauty of it. To go your own path away from the main one, and try to seek out another side of the truth. You'd likely get lost, and run into many falsehoods, but you'd experience life in ways that few other people get to, and perhaps discover your own relative, subjective truths (truth is subjective, to a limited extent). The problem though, is that few people would either understand or appreciate what you had to offer, but if you didn't do many things differently from others (or sadly for most, nothing differently), you wouldn't have anything to offer in the first place.

It is a conundrum of sorts. Stray too far, and no one will understand you, nor would want to. Stray too little, and you're just boring and unremarkable. Hopefully I will be able to write things that people will both want to understand, and care about.