Fucking telephone company fucked up my telephone line last night. (Yes, as one of the lowly ones, I can only afford to connect to the Internet using dial-up. Yet another reason to be depressed. I wish they could provide free Internet access to individuals who receive SSI or SSD. Starting with me. :) ) So I couldn’t log in to write any entries. Apparently they just fixed it, since my telephone magically works again.
Life still depresses me as much as it ever has, although I think I feel a little better ever since I started writing this journal. I get this weird embarrassing feeling whenever I look over what I wrote here in the past. “I wrote that? What a whiny little baby!” I guess that’s because it’s a snapshot of what I wanted to express at that particular time. In the future, where I may have wizened a little, past journal entries would look embarrassing and foolish.
That may not be the real reason, though. If I met myself on the street, I would think that I was one weird motherfucker. I can only say that I’m a product of my environment. When I grew up, my environment was a vacuum. My neighborhood’s environment only influenced me during the time I was in school. I almost never played with the other kids. Just thinking about it terrified me. Ergo, if my writing style (or anything else I do, for that matter) looks bizarre, it’s because the things I learned at school, like reading and language arts, were the only things with which I could occupy my mind. As another example, everyone in my neighboorhood spoke with a unique accent, but I never picked it up because I never left home. When I went away from home to college, whenever I told others where I was originally from, they would say, “But you don’t have that accent!”
In other news, I visited my urologist a few days ago. There I managed to do probably one of the most brainless things a human being has ever done. The first thing I had to do once I saw the doctor was to urinate into a cup. So, I mindlessly traipsed into the bathroom, intending to do just that. Instead, in a preposterous move, I urinated into the toilet bowl instead of the cup. This was one of the most embarrassing and idiotic things I’ve ever done, not just because of what I did, but because I don’t have a single explanation or excuse for it.
The future does not look bright (people with depression tend to have that in common). I still feel a burning sensation every time I urinate, and they find blood in my urine every time they test for it. Instead of turning my brain off earlier, if I had enough sense to give them a sample to work with, I’m sure they would’ve found blood in it too.
Well, we’ll see what tomorrow holds. Nothing’s going on in the future for me except for a barrel full of doctor’s appointments. The excitement never stops! Stay tuned for the latest updates!
Saturday, February 07, 2004
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
I've been looking over some of my entries here so far. In retrospect, I feel pretty embarrassed by the Private Property entry. I'm not going to remove it, though (unless I'm forced to), because it accurately depicted what I had the desire to express at that particular moment in time. I did think, however, that it made me sound like some horrifically depraved sicko that needed to be sent to a mental hospital immediately and never again be allowed to see the light of day.
Here I learned the lesson that an online journal differs from a personal diary. Only I can read my personal diary, so I can write whatever the hell I want because it won’t offend me. Others, however, can read my online journal. Since what offends an individual may vary, I'd better clean up my act unless I don't mind some outraged individual sending cops to barge down my door and put me away.
I also noticed that this blog looks more like an autobiography than a diary. In spite of that, both types of writing consist of personal thoughts. They differ only in that an autobiography chronicles the past instead of the present. I rarely write about the present because I have no present. In the present, I feel like an empty shell of a human being or like a person who really wants to commit suicide, but can't. It's like being stuck in some kind of limbo. It's completely barren, and there's nothing around. There's nothing to write about. I can write about the past, though, because I have memories of events that happened, emotions I felt, and decisions I made that brought me to the condition I have today.
Shame
I used to play in a school marching band starting around 10 years old. I learned how to play the snare drum. I found out that I had a talent for it, which made me happy. Unfortunately, I remember the horrors of being in that band, which overshadowed everything else.
The band was more than a group of people playing musical instruments. It was a social group -- kind of like a clubhouse. This was an ancillary reason why I joined because at the time, I was painfully shy and never played with any other kids. So being in the band was supposed to be my way of interacting more with others. You don’t have very much fun, however, if you don't really belong in that clubhouse. You don't like doing what the other kids are doing because you're not interested in the same things that they are. So, instead of being fun, the experience is more like going to a birthday party of someone you don't know. Everyone else is having fun, but since you don't know anyone, you don't have anyone to talk to. Since no one knows you, the people at the party just ignore you and have fun with their friends at the party.
That sums up my experience in the band, except that the birthday party lasted for about eight years. The feeling of isolation I had was beyond painful. I concluded, at that time, that the other kids didn't want to be around me because I was a freak. This was one of the first times that I started to feel ashamed of myself. Technically I was a freak because the other kids couldn't understand why another kid wouldn't act like they did or enjoy the same things that they did. Since no one told me otherwise, I came to believe that it was my fault. I was fucked up because I didn't like doing the same things as the other kids. Therefore, I set a goal to be like the other kids as much as possible if I wanted to have any friends. As long as I was still different from the others, I was nothing. A fuck-up. A freakish oddity. Why else didn't I have any friends?
This message was reinforced day after day, week after week. Practices were held once a week. The other kids would always be hanging out and fooling around with each other before it started. But I never came earlier than the exact time that practice was scheduled to start. I did this so that I could avoid the pain of being the only person by himself with no one to talk to. Once practice started, I felt much better. We all had a common goal -- we had to listen to our instructor and do the practices he gave us together. There were no unstructured moments where I would have to feel the intense agony of not knowing what to say to anybody. My plan didn't work very well, though. Often practice started late, so the scenario I tried to avoid at all costs would happen anyway. It was sheer torture. Every time that it happened just added more evidence of how much of a complete freak I was. It happened after practice as well. The other kids would hang out, but I always bolted out of there as fast and as inconspicuously as humanly possible to avoid feeling even more isolated. I desperately wished more than anything that one day I finally would be comfortable around the other kids.
We took buses to go to the parade locations. This ride was just as tormenting. I always sat by myself, while the "cool" kids sat in the back of the bus, being rowdy. Many times, I just wanted to cry because of the unimaginable pain. I believed that the other kids didn't want to hang around me because I wasn't normal, and I didn't act the same way they did. Because of this, I would never make any friends.
To make things even more unbearable, some of the kids started having boyfriends and girlfriends, but girls went nowhere near me. It was as if a judge had issued an injunction that excluded any female from coming within a 1000 yd. radius about me under penalty of arrest, except that the girls did this voluntarily, even if there were no injunction. One time, I walked into a room and I stumbled upon two other band members making out. "Why doesn't this kind of stuff happen to me?" I thought. "Oh, because I'm a freak." I came to believe the worst about this, too. I believed no woman would ever want to be my girlfriend. Since I didn’t even have any male friends, how much more impossible would it be to have a girlfriend?
Finally, we participated in contests. We would compete with other bands and the winners received awards. Usually individual competitions would take place first in the afternoon. The band competitions took place in the evening. The competitions took place in a sequential order, meaning that when it was your turn to go, you played your piece. When it was your band's turn to go, you did your performance. The time when it was not your turn or your band's turn to go was unstructured time. Often it lasted several hours. The other boys would sometimes kill the time by playing wiffle ball in the schoolyard, or they would hang out with their friends or girlfriends. I, however, having talent for neither sports nor girls, was forced to be alone. I set a goal to avoid looking as if I were alone as much as possible. I ended up having to expend enormous amounts of energy just to do that. I was forced to be creative. Sometimes I would go into the area where the instruments were stored and pretend I was in the process of organizing or removing some of the equipment. In actuality, I would move the same piece of equipment back and forth, or I would pretend to tune a drum that was already tuned. Band uniforms were stored in the same area. So, on other occasions I would pretend to be looking through the uniforms for mine, although in reality I already knew exactly where it was. (Actually, I did this less often because one time somebody noticed what I was doing, and he found my uniform for me.) Other times I would take out the garment bag that contained my uniform and repeatedly zip and unzip the zipper. Or I would pretend that one of the buttons was out of place and I looked like I was busy trying to fix it. When I did that on one particular occasion, the other kids weren't really paying attention to what I was doing, but I kept zipping and unzipping the bag for almost an hour and a half. Since the other kids weren't looking, some of the time the emotional pain was so intense that I couldn’t keep up my façade any longer, and I secretly broke down and cried to myself. That day is deeply burned into my memory as if it happened just yesterday.
Talking to my parents about this was absolutely futile. Often it made me feel worse about myself. My mother was a devout Catholic. Therefore, all she ever told me was that suffering is a part of life, and there’s nothing you can do about it. What you must do is endure it, the same way Jesus had to endure his torture and crucifixion 2000 years ago. My father, on the other hand, was aware of my band experiences, but he told me that I was to blame for it because I am responsible for my own actions. Instead of compassion and validation, which was what I hoped for, I got blame, criticism, and self-recrimination. It was my fault that I was shy because I was a coward. I was too much of a chicken to talk to other people. Chickens, however, are fearful because that’s the way they are. Their brains come with an inherent biological instinct to flee upon sensing danger. Their brains developed this response because without it, they couldn’t survive. Those who instinctually fled upon sensing danger survived longer than those who didn’t -- long enough to pass this trait along to subsequent generations via reproduction. This is natural selection. As a human being, I inherited this trait. The important distinction between other human beings and me is that the part of my genetic code that determines my sensitivity to danger is higher than the average. Because of this, I flee or avoid situations that are typically not dangerous at all -- most significantly, social situations. I end up getting the undesired effect of social isolation, which in turn means that the odds of my reproducing and passing my genes onto the next generation are infinitesimal. In effect, I am being naturally selected against. My flawed DNA will not have an opportunity to pollute the gene pool. This is great for the future and for subsequent generations, but what about me, right now, today? What is to be my fate? I didn't ask for the genes I have. Is it fair that I carry genes that adapt poorly to the environment, while most other people don’t?
By behaving the way I do, I am only reacting according to what is contained in my genetic code. How can I be faulted for being the way that I am, the way that I was born? That’s like saying to an apple, “Hey apple, what the hell is wrong with you. You’re supposed to be an orange. You’re not an orange because you’re weak, you’re unmotivated, you’re lazy, and you’re not trying hard enough. Try harder!” Moreover, since this trait is unique to me only, I must take extra steps to take this into consideration with anything I do. People without this trait have no such burden. Consequently, I am naturally at a disadvantage compared to other people. It’s like being in a race with one special rule: everyone can start running once the starting signal is given, except for me. I am required to wait 30 seconds after the starting signal before I can start running. What then happens is the moment I start to run, I am being faulted, criticized, and mocked by onlookers for running too slowly and for not already being ahead with the rest of the runners, which is a physical impossibility. The other runners, obviously, have no need to play catch-up because they started on time.
In essence, this was the message my father sent me. All of the emotional pain I was going through was the consequence of my own actions. I got myself into this mess; therefore, only I can get myself out. Not only did this not make me feel any better, but it also had the effect of invalidating all of my emotions. Any painful emotions I felt were not valid because they were of my own doing. If I weren’t so lazy, and I tried to be more enthusiastic, and I put more effort into it, I wouldn’t have these emotions to begin with. As a result, any time I experienced any painful emotions, I chastised myself for being weak and lazy. And since I felt painful emotions most of the time due to the band experiences, I chided myself most of the time. Then I did it even more often –- often enough to become a habit. Then I did it so much more often that I came to believe that I was weak, lazy, and good-for-nothing because that’s the way that I was. That’s the way I was born. That was my identity, and as such, there was nothing I could do about it.
I was tremendously relieved when I finally left the band eight years later to go away to college. Despite all the emotional trauma I experienced, I didn't leave before that because this was supposed to be my outlet for socializing. In spite of how disconnected I was from the other kids, there was always the remote chance of connecting with somebody. I was also told that it was better than staying home, being by myself and doing nothing. I did get along with one person pretty well. We were both kind of shy and soft-spoken, and we were both nice guys. Unfortunately, I haven't spoken to him or seen him in twelve years.
I don't know how this affected me, if at all -- that's for some psychologist to analyze. What I do know, however, is that I wouldn't wish what I went through to my worst enemy. No one should go through an unhappy childhood. No one should have to avoid being ostracized by going to great lengths to develop eccentric behaviors. No one should go through life believing that they are alone because of who they are.
Here I learned the lesson that an online journal differs from a personal diary. Only I can read my personal diary, so I can write whatever the hell I want because it won’t offend me. Others, however, can read my online journal. Since what offends an individual may vary, I'd better clean up my act unless I don't mind some outraged individual sending cops to barge down my door and put me away.
I also noticed that this blog looks more like an autobiography than a diary. In spite of that, both types of writing consist of personal thoughts. They differ only in that an autobiography chronicles the past instead of the present. I rarely write about the present because I have no present. In the present, I feel like an empty shell of a human being or like a person who really wants to commit suicide, but can't. It's like being stuck in some kind of limbo. It's completely barren, and there's nothing around. There's nothing to write about. I can write about the past, though, because I have memories of events that happened, emotions I felt, and decisions I made that brought me to the condition I have today.
Shame
I used to play in a school marching band starting around 10 years old. I learned how to play the snare drum. I found out that I had a talent for it, which made me happy. Unfortunately, I remember the horrors of being in that band, which overshadowed everything else.
The band was more than a group of people playing musical instruments. It was a social group -- kind of like a clubhouse. This was an ancillary reason why I joined because at the time, I was painfully shy and never played with any other kids. So being in the band was supposed to be my way of interacting more with others. You don’t have very much fun, however, if you don't really belong in that clubhouse. You don't like doing what the other kids are doing because you're not interested in the same things that they are. So, instead of being fun, the experience is more like going to a birthday party of someone you don't know. Everyone else is having fun, but since you don't know anyone, you don't have anyone to talk to. Since no one knows you, the people at the party just ignore you and have fun with their friends at the party.
That sums up my experience in the band, except that the birthday party lasted for about eight years. The feeling of isolation I had was beyond painful. I concluded, at that time, that the other kids didn't want to be around me because I was a freak. This was one of the first times that I started to feel ashamed of myself. Technically I was a freak because the other kids couldn't understand why another kid wouldn't act like they did or enjoy the same things that they did. Since no one told me otherwise, I came to believe that it was my fault. I was fucked up because I didn't like doing the same things as the other kids. Therefore, I set a goal to be like the other kids as much as possible if I wanted to have any friends. As long as I was still different from the others, I was nothing. A fuck-up. A freakish oddity. Why else didn't I have any friends?
This message was reinforced day after day, week after week. Practices were held once a week. The other kids would always be hanging out and fooling around with each other before it started. But I never came earlier than the exact time that practice was scheduled to start. I did this so that I could avoid the pain of being the only person by himself with no one to talk to. Once practice started, I felt much better. We all had a common goal -- we had to listen to our instructor and do the practices he gave us together. There were no unstructured moments where I would have to feel the intense agony of not knowing what to say to anybody. My plan didn't work very well, though. Often practice started late, so the scenario I tried to avoid at all costs would happen anyway. It was sheer torture. Every time that it happened just added more evidence of how much of a complete freak I was. It happened after practice as well. The other kids would hang out, but I always bolted out of there as fast and as inconspicuously as humanly possible to avoid feeling even more isolated. I desperately wished more than anything that one day I finally would be comfortable around the other kids.
We took buses to go to the parade locations. This ride was just as tormenting. I always sat by myself, while the "cool" kids sat in the back of the bus, being rowdy. Many times, I just wanted to cry because of the unimaginable pain. I believed that the other kids didn't want to hang around me because I wasn't normal, and I didn't act the same way they did. Because of this, I would never make any friends.
To make things even more unbearable, some of the kids started having boyfriends and girlfriends, but girls went nowhere near me. It was as if a judge had issued an injunction that excluded any female from coming within a 1000 yd. radius about me under penalty of arrest, except that the girls did this voluntarily, even if there were no injunction. One time, I walked into a room and I stumbled upon two other band members making out. "Why doesn't this kind of stuff happen to me?" I thought. "Oh, because I'm a freak." I came to believe the worst about this, too. I believed no woman would ever want to be my girlfriend. Since I didn’t even have any male friends, how much more impossible would it be to have a girlfriend?
Finally, we participated in contests. We would compete with other bands and the winners received awards. Usually individual competitions would take place first in the afternoon. The band competitions took place in the evening. The competitions took place in a sequential order, meaning that when it was your turn to go, you played your piece. When it was your band's turn to go, you did your performance. The time when it was not your turn or your band's turn to go was unstructured time. Often it lasted several hours. The other boys would sometimes kill the time by playing wiffle ball in the schoolyard, or they would hang out with their friends or girlfriends. I, however, having talent for neither sports nor girls, was forced to be alone. I set a goal to avoid looking as if I were alone as much as possible. I ended up having to expend enormous amounts of energy just to do that. I was forced to be creative. Sometimes I would go into the area where the instruments were stored and pretend I was in the process of organizing or removing some of the equipment. In actuality, I would move the same piece of equipment back and forth, or I would pretend to tune a drum that was already tuned. Band uniforms were stored in the same area. So, on other occasions I would pretend to be looking through the uniforms for mine, although in reality I already knew exactly where it was. (Actually, I did this less often because one time somebody noticed what I was doing, and he found my uniform for me.) Other times I would take out the garment bag that contained my uniform and repeatedly zip and unzip the zipper. Or I would pretend that one of the buttons was out of place and I looked like I was busy trying to fix it. When I did that on one particular occasion, the other kids weren't really paying attention to what I was doing, but I kept zipping and unzipping the bag for almost an hour and a half. Since the other kids weren't looking, some of the time the emotional pain was so intense that I couldn’t keep up my façade any longer, and I secretly broke down and cried to myself. That day is deeply burned into my memory as if it happened just yesterday.
Talking to my parents about this was absolutely futile. Often it made me feel worse about myself. My mother was a devout Catholic. Therefore, all she ever told me was that suffering is a part of life, and there’s nothing you can do about it. What you must do is endure it, the same way Jesus had to endure his torture and crucifixion 2000 years ago. My father, on the other hand, was aware of my band experiences, but he told me that I was to blame for it because I am responsible for my own actions. Instead of compassion and validation, which was what I hoped for, I got blame, criticism, and self-recrimination. It was my fault that I was shy because I was a coward. I was too much of a chicken to talk to other people. Chickens, however, are fearful because that’s the way they are. Their brains come with an inherent biological instinct to flee upon sensing danger. Their brains developed this response because without it, they couldn’t survive. Those who instinctually fled upon sensing danger survived longer than those who didn’t -- long enough to pass this trait along to subsequent generations via reproduction. This is natural selection. As a human being, I inherited this trait. The important distinction between other human beings and me is that the part of my genetic code that determines my sensitivity to danger is higher than the average. Because of this, I flee or avoid situations that are typically not dangerous at all -- most significantly, social situations. I end up getting the undesired effect of social isolation, which in turn means that the odds of my reproducing and passing my genes onto the next generation are infinitesimal. In effect, I am being naturally selected against. My flawed DNA will not have an opportunity to pollute the gene pool. This is great for the future and for subsequent generations, but what about me, right now, today? What is to be my fate? I didn't ask for the genes I have. Is it fair that I carry genes that adapt poorly to the environment, while most other people don’t?
By behaving the way I do, I am only reacting according to what is contained in my genetic code. How can I be faulted for being the way that I am, the way that I was born? That’s like saying to an apple, “Hey apple, what the hell is wrong with you. You’re supposed to be an orange. You’re not an orange because you’re weak, you’re unmotivated, you’re lazy, and you’re not trying hard enough. Try harder!” Moreover, since this trait is unique to me only, I must take extra steps to take this into consideration with anything I do. People without this trait have no such burden. Consequently, I am naturally at a disadvantage compared to other people. It’s like being in a race with one special rule: everyone can start running once the starting signal is given, except for me. I am required to wait 30 seconds after the starting signal before I can start running. What then happens is the moment I start to run, I am being faulted, criticized, and mocked by onlookers for running too slowly and for not already being ahead with the rest of the runners, which is a physical impossibility. The other runners, obviously, have no need to play catch-up because they started on time.
In essence, this was the message my father sent me. All of the emotional pain I was going through was the consequence of my own actions. I got myself into this mess; therefore, only I can get myself out. Not only did this not make me feel any better, but it also had the effect of invalidating all of my emotions. Any painful emotions I felt were not valid because they were of my own doing. If I weren’t so lazy, and I tried to be more enthusiastic, and I put more effort into it, I wouldn’t have these emotions to begin with. As a result, any time I experienced any painful emotions, I chastised myself for being weak and lazy. And since I felt painful emotions most of the time due to the band experiences, I chided myself most of the time. Then I did it even more often –- often enough to become a habit. Then I did it so much more often that I came to believe that I was weak, lazy, and good-for-nothing because that’s the way that I was. That’s the way I was born. That was my identity, and as such, there was nothing I could do about it.
I was tremendously relieved when I finally left the band eight years later to go away to college. Despite all the emotional trauma I experienced, I didn't leave before that because this was supposed to be my outlet for socializing. In spite of how disconnected I was from the other kids, there was always the remote chance of connecting with somebody. I was also told that it was better than staying home, being by myself and doing nothing. I did get along with one person pretty well. We were both kind of shy and soft-spoken, and we were both nice guys. Unfortunately, I haven't spoken to him or seen him in twelve years.
I don't know how this affected me, if at all -- that's for some psychologist to analyze. What I do know, however, is that I wouldn't wish what I went through to my worst enemy. No one should go through an unhappy childhood. No one should have to avoid being ostracized by going to great lengths to develop eccentric behaviors. No one should go through life believing that they are alone because of who they are.
Monday, February 02, 2004
What follows will sound sick and perverted, but I'm going to write it anyway. This is a journal of my thoughts, and I am about to write down what I think.
Private Property
A couple of years ago I took part in a hospital's day treatment program. One of the therapists on the staff was a woman named L.C. This woman has been the center of all my sexual fantasies since the day I first laid eyes on her. She is always the first woman that comes to mind whenever I start to fantasize.
L.C. is the prettiest girl you could ever think of. She's about 5'9", has silky, shoulder-length brown hair, and has a perfect ass. And since she's a therapist, she's also very warm and very gentle. Those are just frills, though. The important thing is that she's one of those women who are highly "fuckable." You know, like for example when you see a piece of chocolate mousse pie, it looks so tasty that you want to eat it. You're not going to draw fancy circles on it, and you're not going to use it to wallpaper your living room. You're going to eat it. It was made to be eaten. Whenever I look at L.C., I don't see a person. I see an object. An object so fuckable that all you can think of doing is fucking it. It was made to be fucked.
I want to own L.C. I want her to be my plaything. I want to be able to do whatever I want to her. I want to be able to fuck her any time I want. After I fuck her, I want to be able to use her silky hair like a towel to wipe off my dick. I want her entire body to be my property.
That's not all. When she's at work, if she's in her office I want to be able to barge in any time I want. When she sees me, I want to see the struggle in her eyes when she knows she should do her work, but her primal urges are too strong and she jumps all over me. I want to be able to cum all over her face, and if she's about to lead a group, I won't let her towel it off. I want her to walk into her group with my cum dripping all over her face and dripping into her eyes so that she has trouble seeing. I want to see the looks on the faces of the other people in the group. Finally, I want to watch her struggle with having to lead the group and dealing with the embarrassment she feels when she looks at the expressions on the other people's faces.
Private Property
A couple of years ago I took part in a hospital's day treatment program. One of the therapists on the staff was a woman named L.C. This woman has been the center of all my sexual fantasies since the day I first laid eyes on her. She is always the first woman that comes to mind whenever I start to fantasize.
L.C. is the prettiest girl you could ever think of. She's about 5'9", has silky, shoulder-length brown hair, and has a perfect ass. And since she's a therapist, she's also very warm and very gentle. Those are just frills, though. The important thing is that she's one of those women who are highly "fuckable." You know, like for example when you see a piece of chocolate mousse pie, it looks so tasty that you want to eat it. You're not going to draw fancy circles on it, and you're not going to use it to wallpaper your living room. You're going to eat it. It was made to be eaten. Whenever I look at L.C., I don't see a person. I see an object. An object so fuckable that all you can think of doing is fucking it. It was made to be fucked.
I want to own L.C. I want her to be my plaything. I want to be able to do whatever I want to her. I want to be able to fuck her any time I want. After I fuck her, I want to be able to use her silky hair like a towel to wipe off my dick. I want her entire body to be my property.
That's not all. When she's at work, if she's in her office I want to be able to barge in any time I want. When she sees me, I want to see the struggle in her eyes when she knows she should do her work, but her primal urges are too strong and she jumps all over me. I want to be able to cum all over her face, and if she's about to lead a group, I won't let her towel it off. I want her to walk into her group with my cum dripping all over her face and dripping into her eyes so that she has trouble seeing. I want to see the looks on the faces of the other people in the group. Finally, I want to watch her struggle with having to lead the group and dealing with the embarrassment she feels when she looks at the expressions on the other people's faces.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
Venting
I just finished eating lunch. Afterward, I stayed at my dinner table for at least half an hour, apparently doing absolutely nothing. In actuality I argued with my therapist in my head.
I hate my therapist. I'd get rid of him, but only having Medicaid insurance severely limits my options. He doesn't understand me at all, and he manages to say the least supportive and encouraging things. Unfortunately, a lot of therapists I've had have done the same thing. You'd think it wouldn't bother me anymore, but whenever I have to talk to an especially clueless individual, it makes me want to scream.
He constantly compares me to his other clients, who happen to be street beggars, drug addicts, ex-murderers, and other assorted lowlifes. He unsuccessfully tries to make me feel better because I don't have any of their problems. Instead, I hear him saying that his other clients have real problems while I don't. I just have a problem inside my head. So he treats them seriously and doesn't really have to put too much effort into helping me. If that's the case, believe me, it shows. He consistently says nothing but the most idiotic and useless things.
I'm very worried that any form of therapy is doomed to fail. This is because I must bring certain things to the table in order for any therapist to be able to help me. First, the motivation to work with the therapist and change my life can only come from me. This fails because the only motivation I have is to die. Second, I must be concerned about my life and the work I do in therapy. This fails because I really don't give a shit about anything anymore, much less working with some guy who listens to me only because he's paid to. Third, I must be interested in what the therapist says and what goes on during these sessions. This fails because I definitely have no interest in what my current therapist says, and this makes the entire session effectively useless. Fourth, I have to cooperate. I didn't mention this earlier, but I'm notorious for never doing what any therapist tells me to do. Ninety-nine percent of the time the things that therapists tell me to do I've either tried already and had no results, or they sound so stupid that they would never work. Fifth, I have to have expectations. This fails not because I don't have any expectations, but because my expectations are way too high. I expect my depression to be cured. I expect to be happy again. I expect to have my career back on track. I expect to have a social life again. I expect to have enough money to be financially secure. Finally, I expect to have casual sexual relationships with many different women. Only then will I find life worth living. (Okay, I slightly exaggerated on that last expectation.)
Sadly, I'm probably just going to have to live with this. My therapist basically only has two options: sit there and listen to me, or throw me into the state mental hospital. Do you still wonder why I want to kill myself?
I just finished eating lunch. Afterward, I stayed at my dinner table for at least half an hour, apparently doing absolutely nothing. In actuality I argued with my therapist in my head.
I hate my therapist. I'd get rid of him, but only having Medicaid insurance severely limits my options. He doesn't understand me at all, and he manages to say the least supportive and encouraging things. Unfortunately, a lot of therapists I've had have done the same thing. You'd think it wouldn't bother me anymore, but whenever I have to talk to an especially clueless individual, it makes me want to scream.
He constantly compares me to his other clients, who happen to be street beggars, drug addicts, ex-murderers, and other assorted lowlifes. He unsuccessfully tries to make me feel better because I don't have any of their problems. Instead, I hear him saying that his other clients have real problems while I don't. I just have a problem inside my head. So he treats them seriously and doesn't really have to put too much effort into helping me. If that's the case, believe me, it shows. He consistently says nothing but the most idiotic and useless things.
I'm very worried that any form of therapy is doomed to fail. This is because I must bring certain things to the table in order for any therapist to be able to help me. First, the motivation to work with the therapist and change my life can only come from me. This fails because the only motivation I have is to die. Second, I must be concerned about my life and the work I do in therapy. This fails because I really don't give a shit about anything anymore, much less working with some guy who listens to me only because he's paid to. Third, I must be interested in what the therapist says and what goes on during these sessions. This fails because I definitely have no interest in what my current therapist says, and this makes the entire session effectively useless. Fourth, I have to cooperate. I didn't mention this earlier, but I'm notorious for never doing what any therapist tells me to do. Ninety-nine percent of the time the things that therapists tell me to do I've either tried already and had no results, or they sound so stupid that they would never work. Fifth, I have to have expectations. This fails not because I don't have any expectations, but because my expectations are way too high. I expect my depression to be cured. I expect to be happy again. I expect to have my career back on track. I expect to have a social life again. I expect to have enough money to be financially secure. Finally, I expect to have casual sexual relationships with many different women. Only then will I find life worth living. (Okay, I slightly exaggerated on that last expectation.)
Sadly, I'm probably just going to have to live with this. My therapist basically only has two options: sit there and listen to me, or throw me into the state mental hospital. Do you still wonder why I want to kill myself?
Depression Costs $5,000US
Scattered pieces of mail litter the floor near the entrance to my apartment. I have no desire to pick them up, much less read them. Some of the mail lay untouched for over three months. Others have shoeprints on them.
This condition has persisted since the company I worked for three years ago let me go. I didn't care for anything sent to me. During one of my brighter moments, I managed to notice two of my company's final paychecks. The sum of the two checks totaled over $5,000. Compared to the money I was earning previously, that amounted to only a few pennies. I threw them into a pile, intending to deposit them into my savings account at some arbitrary point in the near future. Not really caring about what I was doing, I also threw several pieces of junk mail onto the same pile.
About one year passed. One day I noticed a pile of junk mail I had. I was about to throw all of them in the trash, but out of my habit as a junk collector I quickly went through them one by one to make sure I didn't find something I might want to keep. Much to my surprise, I saw the two last paychecks my company sent me. Oh shit. By that time I spent all the money in my savings account. I rushed out of my apartment to the bank and tried to deposit them. The checks did not clear. In vain, I frantically tried to call my company and ask them to reissue my checks. Luckily, my company still existed, but almost the entire staff changed. I knew the former comptroller intimately (she was a very cute, friendly, and intelligent blonde (how often do you see that?) with a bright smile), but I didn't know the new guy at all. I repeatedly left several messages on his voicemail, but all of them went unanswered.
I used the last bit of my energy to go to my city's legal offices to find out if I had any recourse. I thought I heard them say that I could file a lawsuit. By that point, however, I had absolutely no energy left, and I didn't feel like I had the endurance to fight it out in court. I dejectedly walked home feeling utterly defeated.
Later I found out that the company lost a lot of money since I left. They were actually in the process of merging with a larger company. Economic conditions forced the old staff to reduce to fewer than 20 employees. For the new comptroller, reissuing checks to an employee he never even heard of probably didn't rank very high on his list of priorities.
You would think that I learned a lesson from all this. It did confirm my belief that the best way to hurt rich people is by making them poor. The strength of my depression, however, made any desire to permanently change my habits dwindle to nothing. Unopened pieces of mail still lie dormant on my floor. I have little hope that that will change in the foreseeable future.
I could really use $5,000 right about now.
Scattered pieces of mail litter the floor near the entrance to my apartment. I have no desire to pick them up, much less read them. Some of the mail lay untouched for over three months. Others have shoeprints on them.
This condition has persisted since the company I worked for three years ago let me go. I didn't care for anything sent to me. During one of my brighter moments, I managed to notice two of my company's final paychecks. The sum of the two checks totaled over $5,000. Compared to the money I was earning previously, that amounted to only a few pennies. I threw them into a pile, intending to deposit them into my savings account at some arbitrary point in the near future. Not really caring about what I was doing, I also threw several pieces of junk mail onto the same pile.
About one year passed. One day I noticed a pile of junk mail I had. I was about to throw all of them in the trash, but out of my habit as a junk collector I quickly went through them one by one to make sure I didn't find something I might want to keep. Much to my surprise, I saw the two last paychecks my company sent me. Oh shit. By that time I spent all the money in my savings account. I rushed out of my apartment to the bank and tried to deposit them. The checks did not clear. In vain, I frantically tried to call my company and ask them to reissue my checks. Luckily, my company still existed, but almost the entire staff changed. I knew the former comptroller intimately (she was a very cute, friendly, and intelligent blonde (how often do you see that?) with a bright smile), but I didn't know the new guy at all. I repeatedly left several messages on his voicemail, but all of them went unanswered.
I used the last bit of my energy to go to my city's legal offices to find out if I had any recourse. I thought I heard them say that I could file a lawsuit. By that point, however, I had absolutely no energy left, and I didn't feel like I had the endurance to fight it out in court. I dejectedly walked home feeling utterly defeated.
Later I found out that the company lost a lot of money since I left. They were actually in the process of merging with a larger company. Economic conditions forced the old staff to reduce to fewer than 20 employees. For the new comptroller, reissuing checks to an employee he never even heard of probably didn't rank very high on his list of priorities.
You would think that I learned a lesson from all this. It did confirm my belief that the best way to hurt rich people is by making them poor. The strength of my depression, however, made any desire to permanently change my habits dwindle to nothing. Unopened pieces of mail still lie dormant on my floor. I have little hope that that will change in the foreseeable future.
I could really use $5,000 right about now.
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