So Borred

So, had a partially successful afternoon. Found major bookstores in NY, haven't planned the route to visit them all, but have found them. Printed several copies of my bookstore resume.

Now what?

Extended therapy

The psychologist had a great idea.

See when I leave the office I burry my head in my book and tune out. Maybe I do something to extend my post-therapy motivation by meditating and writing about what just happened.

And I realized I want a few things. I want to feel employable. I want a retail job, just to make ends come close to meeting.

And I don't want to be in such a zombie state. I want to be awake--not like I am now, with the haze from sleeping too much and starving myself.

And I don't want to have to check with social services and look into living like a disabled person. As a disabled person.

the thought of it makes me cringe. To have to do that. Register as disabled. Have someone check in on me. Live in a group home. I know I don't want to live that way.

Just have to wake up to reality.

But I feel so hazy. Yet happy. It's like nothing is sinking in. Like the reality of the situation is just not sinking in.

But I do feel less of a desire to live behind the screen, wasting my life on video games. That's no way to live.

That's not living but living death. Sucking time away.

Yet the lure of escape. I talked about it yesterday. Just the lure of living life without thinking of all my problems... Not taking care of myself--wallowing in my own crapulence.

But ultimately I don't want that. And the video games aren't going anywhere. I don't need to worry about that.

They'll still be there once I've made an effort to live.

But it makes me scared to live. To want to live. What if I can't do it.

I know I have been able to do it in the past. Have a life where I was able to take good care of myself and pay my bills and like my life and keep trying to improve it.

I have been that person. I want to be it again. I want to say I will it.

I will will it, if that makes any sense. I just need to start. And then let the feeling come again.

This makes me feel better, writing like this, even as it makes me sad and scared. At least it's active. At least it's engaged. Thinking and not escaping from my problems. It makes the idea of escape less seductive. It makes me feel motivated.

It struck me yesterday that I've had a lot of therapy. And in the right mind I can do a lot of work on myself all by myself.

I know some of my patterns and I know I don't want to repete them. I want out.

I want the next chapter. The next adventure. The little steps of improvement that lead to a life I enjoy living.

I want something new. I want to wake up and not feel the desire to escape my life. I want something to be proud of.

I want to take responsibility for my life.

feeling terrible

I don't even know why I'm writing this.

I know what i do, and I don't need to tell the therapist about it, I just need to stop doing it.

I get out of therapy, eager for change. I take the train home and read on it. I get home and fire up the computer and waste time either playing juvenile games or interweb pornography.

Hours go by then days go by and I haven't done anything. Left the house, eaten, showered, anything.

It makes me paranoid, it makes me crazy.

Sometimes, like yesterday, I even go off of the drugs.

Why defies me.

So I can take them again and feel like I'm doing something good for me?

I just cut my fingernails. It feels so good, to type without having nails in the way and they were so dirty--been rolling cigarettes from the snubbed out butts in the trashcan. Makes the hands dirty. But why do I deny myself the pleasure of having clean hands, which is a pleasure. Makes typing easier.

Why?

For those few moments when I'm playing my games or surfing the pornography, I'm not myself. I don't have my own problems and I don't feel the way I usually do. I'm not afraid. And the lure of escaping, even for a moment, even when I know that I'll only feel more depressed when I come back and see how much time I've wasted--even that escape is preferable to the pain, I suppose, I'm feeling right now.

I'm trying to be honest here without beating myself up, because that is another escape. Blaming myself into inaction.

Things are difficult right now.

And I'm not helping them.

Just sitting here, trying to do a sustained thing is hurting me. I'm out of practice.

This is going to ramble.

I know no one is going to read it, but it helps, somehow, to write it out in public. I've never been terribly good at journaling. I feel like I've got nothing to say. But I know I can say it well. Sometimes.

Maybe having something to say, or feeling that way, is better than saying something well, if you want to say anything at all.

Last summer, I was so low. I starved myself and lost a great deal of weight for someone who weighs as little as I do.

Now I weigh too much. Inactivity with poor eating habits. Poor habits all together. I smoke too much, spend too much time wasting time. I'm trying to gear myself up to shower and shave.

I have to go out today.

Showered, shaved, cut the fingernails and toenails. I feel slightly human again. If only I did this every morning. Yet when you do, you no longer notice the lift it gives you. But that lift's still there, like the lift I feel from taking my medication. It allows me to do this.

But I'm afraid to stop typing. Afraid that if I do, then all will stop again--that I'll just sink into a morass of inaction once again. Evolution, not revolution.

Still the urge, it comes again, to ... not procrastinate, escape. That's the word. Instead, let my fingers crawl like spiders across the keyboard. Let the meaningful and meaningless come through as they like, meaningless and meaningful as each likes. Let good and bad be good and bad, let each have its time and each have its way.

But not escape. Let's face it, escape is an addiction. I'm addicted to escaping. The cause of and solution to all life's problems.

The easy stuff done--drugs, food (peanut butter by the spoonful) and grooming; it only gets harder from here.

Logging, web longing. Weblonger.

Not quite sure I'm up for taking down the recycling, yet. Took out the trash and that's a good start. Maybe dishes.

In a way, I wish I weren't going out today. So I can work piecemeal on these little home projects. Feels good. Taking care of little things, clutter, dishes, grooming. I feel like a human again, but the problems don't go away. Still have to work, still have to look for work.

But at least I'm not waiting until I have to go to therapy to work. Doing it a good twenty hours or so before that.

Well, I've reached the limit on my prescription drug coverage. No more free drugs for me.

Random. That's what this post is. Random.

Calling Bristol-Myers Squibb for assistance paying for Abilify. It doesn't sound good. I have had very limited prescription drug coverage, but it seems any amount will disqualify me.

Oh well. It's worth a shot. Shooting for anything these days.

Trying to get up the nerve to RSVP to the Apple hiring event. Or fill out the Abilify form. Probably should take an Ativan, since I seem to be blocked on these fronts.

Well, registered with Apple and downloaded the form for Abilify. That's something, and it's almost time to go out. Just one more cigarette. And if it's not raining, I'm good to go.

And I don't know what to do with myself meantime.

Vulnerability

I remember when my car was broken into in Chicago. I felt ashamed, I felt embarrassed, I knew it was my fault, my carelessness. But then I realized it didn't matter, because I could fix it and no one had to know.

Now things are broken, it's my fault, my carelessness and I haven't the means to fix them, without telling other people. Things are so broken I don't know where to start and starting little things, like sorting the mail, means facing not only up to the extent to which I've fucked things up, but to the very real possibility of needing someone to fix them for me.

I'm almost thirty four years old.

Tough Situation

I'm in a bind and need help.

I don't know what to do. I'm already out of money, haven't paid rent this month yet. I owe about a thousand to the credit card company, which isn't much, but they want it now, I fear. My health insurance runs out in about two and a half months, and I'm not sure whether or not I need to front the eight hundred dollars (which I don't have) to get my drugs.

And there's no income on the horizon.

I think my brother can bail me out for the moment, and maybe I can scrape by with that help through the summer, trying to get a last minute teaching position.

But for the summer, brother to the rescue. So I hope.

Therapy the angry way

Been talking to the therapist about things that make me angry.

The list goes on and on. But he says it helps with the paranoia.

So here goes. I'm very angry with the fam. I didn't have one of those happy-go-lucky childhoods even though I appeared happy. It was a mask I felt I had to wear to please those around me upon whom my existence depended.

And my existence seemed precarious. That's what makes me angry. I was never given the illusion of safety. That I could be difficult, could want things, could fuck things up and it wouldn't be the end of the universe.

It always felt that way.

I'm also really angry about the way the sibs continue to treat me. They pick on me in mean spirited ways--make fun of my failures. And things that aren't even failures. Belittle my efforts and small victories.

I remember them making fun of my clothing while my father was dieing. I had given up my job to take care of him. Money was tight. I would have loved new clothes.

I'd want an apology for mean remark. Every injustice put upon me. Every time I was made to feel bad for being different.

Good luck with that one, fellow.