The Black Rainbow

[Silverbirch]

The only thing worse than being alone is being broke.

 

Not for all of us! I could have stayed in a bad marriage and been comfortably off financially for the rest of my life. I've been broke, but it has been better than that empty existence. In fact, I would go so far as to say that for me, being broke, has brought out my resourcefulness, creativity and I've become rich in many ways which are not about money. Still, I agree it is a personal choice. I'm broke a lot of the time, but I live in paradise.

[ProtestTheHero]

I would definitely not stay with a partner I didn't love for money so on that front I definitely agree with you. When I speak of money I'm talking more about my place in the world. There are lots of people that have never been well off and they're happy and fulfilled.

 

I have certain goals and expectations that I apply specifically to me. I don't look at people without a lot of money and judge them negatively in any way. I would, however, judge myself harshly if I wasn't able to produce on a materialistic level because I should be able to make that happen given my background and resume.

 

I don't know. I've struggled to find ways to approve of who I am. When I was younger I was trolling this forum posting about my negative experiences with women. I thought if I entered college and attracted these hot girls and had "x" amount of sex hanging with "x" amount of females that I would feel better. Women ended up liking what I had to offer in ways that surprised me but their bodies and my bed didn't fulfill me. Maybe chasing a bunch of money will be the same in the end, but at least money is the eternal opener of doors. What it produces lasts longer than any experience in a bedroom.

 

At the end of the day I'm genuinely scared that nothing I'll do will ever make me happy and that this void that I feel will always be there.

[Silverbirch]

I hope that you will be able to take some time out and go travel a little. I have a son who I think is around your age. He is currently living in a European city for around a year just for the experience and has travelled also. He does not have a gf by choice at the moment and has found his career path, finished univesity, etc.

[tiredofvampires]

I hope that you will be able to take some time out and go travel a little. I have a son who I think is around your age. He is currently living in a European city for around a year just for the experience and has travelled also. He does not have a gf by choice at the moment and has found his career path, finished univesity, etc.

 

Just curious, SB, how is he supporting himself?

[Silverbirch]

Hi TOV,

Well, actually it is 9 months he has budgeted for without working over there. I wouldn't be surprised however if he does end up getting a little job to see himself through for longer. He paid for his holiday by moving back with his father rent-free for a year, and he worked very long hours at his job here, putting away every cent he could. Financially, he has done well for himself, has never borrowed money from a bank - his father got him his first vehicle - a motorbike which he had for a year, then sold it and bought a car for cash. He tells me that when he comes back home, he and 2 male friends who he has known from school are talking about buying a modest home together which they will live in and renovate themselves, holding onto it for a couple of years before resale, and then after that, buying his own home.

 

He tells me also that Berlin is a much cheaper city to live in than his home city here, and I can believe that. Although I live outside of the city, it is so expensive here, that I can't see how I would ever be able to retire here. I will possibly move back to my home state and get a small place in the country.

[ProtestTheHero]

I liked that song a lot LW. That's 2/2 for you in terms of song suggestions so feel free to post more, lol.

 

I haven't really been updating this journal very often. I keep thinking about what it means to be an adult. My life is very adult now. Bills, work, whatever.

 

I just wish someone would have told me that once you leave college life basically sucks. I would have lived my earlier years a lot differently if I had known that I was investing in a future that's nothing but boring obligations and x's on my calendar.

 

I don't know if it's common to wake up everyday knowing you have nothing to look forward to. I feel like I'm in the middle of an ocean and there's no land in sight. I'm floating. I'm like a robot going through the motions. A young professional...a respectable young robot who floats and is and that's it.

 

I don't want to be a dad, a husband, a pillar of my community or anything like that. I don't have these prototypical life goals that seem to give so many people meaning. I wonder if gangs would take a white dude from the burbs.

[Silverbirch]

I suspect you may be in the wrong job. I and likely others here have a strong sense that you are meant to be an artist. The work you do and the life you are living are not ever going to be satisfying to you. I feel sad for you and the young people for some things. In some ways, our lives were easier - it was a more simple world. I think a lot of what you feel is related to the politics to the world we live in.

 

Yeah, well what type of gang do you want to belong to? Son was living in the burbs with his father and I, but he will be living inner city when he comes home and I feel that is where he belongs. He needs to be more exposed to a type of culture he can't live in the burbs. Mind you, I'm sure I read recently about the changing emerging culture of the burbs - at least where I live - which were the origins of the many of the young internet hackers who I see as part of a revolution. I admire them and what they have started. They give me hope that there are young people, many with brilliance and diligence, who will help to shape a better world. I know of one group here "Hackers for Humanity".

 

I am surprised that you think others expect you to be a pillar of the community, etc. Is this really the case?

[ProtestTheHero]

To whom much is given much is expected. My boss tells me he sees greatness in me but he wants me to manifest it in ways that reflect his own priorities. He's a pillar in the community, a father, a husband, and is big on religion and what not. He tells me all the time that I'm too smart, nice, and good-looking (LOL) to go from work to the bars just to get hammered and be amongst a "cesspool" of people only to go home alone all the time.

 

The people around me don't really understand what's going on with me. I don't blame them for that because I'm not a very transparent person, but they'd have a hard time understanding where I'm coming from. The prototypical personality at a white collar office like this is generally obscene arrogance. Almost every person that I meet in financial services holds who they are in high regard. It's displayed in ways where I'm not even sure if they're conscious that they're doing it. All of their accomplishments are put on display, rehashed a thousand times in stories, etc. Everything that they do and say is a monument to success, whether it's the success of other people or their own success. The work they do in the community is sometimes just an extension of that pat on the back.

 

I'm a hard worker and I have an edge to me that these people like (they just don't know why that "edge" exists) but that is not who I am. They don't understand why I'm not beating my chest like everyone else and they think it's a confidence issue, as if confidence can only be expressed via self-worship. They couldn't imagine that a woman wouldn't be interested in them. Rejection/poverty/whatever are foreign concepts others experience.

 

They don't understand that I am riddled, at times crippled, with insecurities. They see a good kid who at the age of 23 "gets it." They tell me that I am saving their opinion of young people in the workplace. It's almost like they feel as if they're blessing and thumbs up to me should be the most validating thing ever...like it can wipe all my fears and self-doubt away.

 

They want me to reflect on them in a positive way outside the office. They don't force my hand in terms of church or whatever, but I doubt they are super pleased that I drink as much as I do to cope with this life I am living. As long as I show up on time and do my work they can't really call me out on it.

 

There's just a huge disconnect between how I feel about myself and my personality and how my coworkers feel about themselves and their personalities. People questioned my worth and value in ways they didn't experience so they can't relate to how I feel about things.

 

On top of that there's really no one here that I've met that's on my wavelength. I've been here six months now and I haven't really made any friends. That's unusual for me because I'm pretty outgoing.

 

I'm just basically stuck here. I can't leave. I don't know how to be anything else professionally. I don't know how I'd make any money doing anything else and I can't really flee to a bigger city to fight for more competitive jobs until I've built up more experience doing what I'm doing here. I'm stuck and I'm truly just very unhappy. Sometimes I hope that one more drink KO's me, one more drink until I pass out and maybe I won't wake up this time.

 

I just don't think that it really matters in the end. It doesn't matter where I live or where I go. I'm still going to be my own worst enemy. I can't shut off the voices in my head that tell me to hate everything about me and to marginalize everything I've ever done. I can't quench the desire to escape this body, this person, the need to be numb from everything because no feelings are good feelings. I want to punish myself and sometimes I don't have anything but an intangible, ethereal concept of why I'm doing it. In the back of my mind I know that I should be better than what I am in every way. My brother and I always felt like genetics really robbed us of something, our parents certainly brought things to the table but god knows where all of that good stuff goes when sperm and egg come together.

 

I just want to drink and wither away and be someone's sad story.

[Capricorn3]

I don't know if it's common to wake up everyday knowing you have nothing to look forward to. I feel like I'm in the middle of an ocean and there's no land in sight. I'm floating. I'm like a robot going through the motions. A young professional...a respectable young robot who floats and is and that's it..

I have a friend who felt exactly the same - in almost every aspect. He felt life had no meaning and he had no purpose. He was bored out of his skull with life. One day he quit everything, his job, his apartment, sold his car and went backpacking around the world - wherever his mood took him. He has never looked back. Been gone for a couple of years. Right now he's in Ethiopia, lol.

[Silverbirch]

PTO, I think you should get help for your drinking and sadness, and I think you are too harsh on yourself.

[ProtestTheHero]

I have a friend who felt exactly the same - in almost every aspect. He felt life had no meaning and he had no purpose. He was bored out of his skull with life. One day he quit everything, his job, his apartment, sold his car and went backpacking around the world - wherever his mood took him. He has never looked back. Been gone for a couple of years. Right now he's in Ethiopia, lol.

 

I think about that sometimes...quitting everything. I just don't know what I'd do after that, lol. I don't have any Plan B's that I'm drawn to pursue. I think maybe if I felt like I was denying something I truly wanted in order to chase someone else's vision of a respectable life then I'd give that other thing a chance.

[ProtestTheHero]

PTO, I think you should get help for your drinking and sadness, and I think you are too harsh on yourself.

 

You are in good company there. People that have expressed an interest in me on this site (whom I respect) have said the same thing.

 

I have a hard time being transparent in real life. I don't really like the idea of being stigmatized, even amongst people like psychiatrists or therapists who get paid to listen to people talk this way. I also have a hard time believing that they can tell me anything that I don't already know. I think most people that have read through this journal could come up with the same conclusions about me that a therapist or psychiatrist would.

 

The question has always been whether I'd ever consider medication and I would not. I don't know that anyone else could live in my circumstances right now and feel emotionally well-rounded. I have more or less been in the "hole" for six months...total isolation. I don't know anyone that could do that and feel differently.

 

I would probably get help if I felt like I was destroying something of value or making choices I'd regret later. Right now it just feels like all paths lead to the same underwhelming conclusion. It doesn't matter if I get to my destination slowly or quickly because it doesn't change. Substance abuse is the only small comfort I have. It's the only thing that takes me away from everything else.

[Silverbirch]

I hope I am not violating the terms of the site, but an alternative could be to go on a mindfulness, meditation retreat with one of the most well-known Eastern paths. You don't have to belong to their faith to go, and all the ones I know are inexpensive. I've done different class/group things with them. Some I really liked, and some I didn't so I didn't go to those.

 

There is also AA Online, and of course, AA is an anonymous organisation.

[itsallgrand]

Do you yourself understand what is at the root of this extreme sadness and lack of self worth?

 

You have always struck me as an exceptional individual. One of those cases of where people go "well that boy is too smart for his own good". I think I mentioned this to you before, but something about you certainly does continually remind me of my first serious boyfriend. I still haven't pinpointed exactly what that is...I think it is the form of intelligence...anyways...

 

What if it is going to take time for you to figure this out?? I am reading your journal, and your observations, and where you are at. Then I thought of myself at your age. It would not be a lie for me to say, in my mind and heart, I didn't believe I would see 30. Here I am a few years past thirty! And glad for it. Life kinda is starting for me in a way. Early twenties: my life seriously sucked on many levels. I mean on the deeper levels. I was a very messed up girl. Psychiatrists? Medications? HELL NO. I was busy feeling what I was feeling and living and muddled through a whole lot of experiences. Fell in love a few times, and yeah you know how that goes.

 

My point is. At about 28-29 or so, something just happened. Some combination of things happened. Bad end to a relationship. Finally going to see a psych. Change of some of my life in general.

 

And it hasn't been sunshine and roses. But my life now is nothing like it was before. I KNOW I am not broken (this was the belief I had which crippled me like a pup, yours may be different but that self denial is key key key). I had been struggling with years and years of night mares and anxiety that had me shaking (literally, I remember dates and soup spilling all over me not because I was nervous of my date but because that was my day to day struggle) - night mares cleared, hands steadied out.

 

I can be a stubborn ass, and that was half of it. I wasn't going to be some sad story (knocked up, drug addict, or some other bs suicide story) because it went against my snobbiness. lol. Well seriously, it's so cliche! That was enough to keep me fighting though, fighting to see a turn in the tide, something, just fighting.

 

You must have something which will give you a solid reason to stick around and see if life doesn't surprise you at some point. Or you surprise you at some point. And things just change...I mean they do...they do change but I am talking about a core change that is profound.

 

The difficult thing here is that you have apathy going on. Sometimes severe. So you probably do need to draw off others fight...to help get your through to some other place where it doesn't kill you.

 

You are very likable, so the opportunities are endless. Raising my hand here if you ever want some sass. That is my forte, and it doesn't help everyone, and not everyone wants it, but it has helped some people to keep going through some difficult spots.

[ProtestTheHero]

It's hard for me to point to any one thing and say "This. This is why." I can tell you a story. I've never shared it here because circumstances at various times made me afraid to do so, but nothing can blow back on me now. This will probably be long, jumbled, and non-chronological at times. I hope it is interesting for anyone that takes the time to read it.

 

My parents are from West Virginia. They married when my mom was 19 and my Dad was 22-23, it was a fall wedding so he might have been 23. He moves her to Florida away from all family and that's where I grew up. My mom comes from a supremely strict, emotionally incestuous background. All of her support, all of her friends, everything was family. She rarely had friends over, never had sleepovers, etc. The support structure was family and family only. Her father was hyper critical and she instinctively became that way as well.

 

My dad's mom is mentally unstable. She physically abused all three kids but the two oldest sisters took most of it. She held butcher knives to their throats, tried to kill herself in front them, the whole nine yards. Consequently, Dad became a man's man. No woman would ever scream at him, his kids, threaten his way of life, etc. He wanted a submissive woman to marry and he got one, but she wasn't faithful. She craved attention because of how critical her father had been and she scooped it up from any man who would give it to her. It was never enough.

 

My mom took my dad to church throughout all this and he converted to Christianity. My mom then slept with the pastor of that church (yeah.). Dad thought about leaving her but decided he would try to make it work. He'd never admit this but I don't think he realized he could never trust her again...it would never be "right." In the midst of this I enter the picture. The pieces are put together and I'm the bandaid. My younger brother is only 20 months younger so he follows soon after.

 

I am precocious...I'm doing everything early. I'm walking at 9 months, I'm reading at age 4, and mom's whole existence is my brother and I. She was well intentioned but she treated us like dolls, playthings...it was a product of being sheltered and immature. Dad plays with us and stuff but he is taking a more passive role when it comes to trying to instill life lessons. We're more or less mirroring mom. I'm going to church 3 times a week. I'm dressing like the dorkiest human being possible because of mom. I'm entrenched in religion before I understand it.

 

I'm in middle school and I'm getting made fun of. I'm tiny for my age. I'm a smart, socially inept nerd. I'm by and large ignored. My best friend is an obese Mormon kid who finds he has a lot in common with me at this time in terms of our relative worth to kids our age.

 

I'm in high school. I'm not just being made fun of now...now I'm getting my ass beat pretty handily. I don't swear. I don't do anything "wrong" ever. I read a Bible sometimes by myself before school. I pray every night and ask God for strength so that I can face the kids the next day.

 

I'm a sophomore. God didn't listen so I stopped talking to him. I told my parents I had no interest in going to church anymore. Volcanic explosion. Mom isn't having it. Dad appeases her at first. I refuse communion. I sit during worship time. I reject my faith privately and publicly. Chaperones, pastors, and parents try to intervene. I was supposed to be a youth leader and now I'm calling it quits.

 

I'm still getting beat up pretty badly. At one point a girl tells me to meet her outside after school. She approached me at lunch and had a little conversation with me. This was surprising because it flat out just didn't happen like that with me. Girls usually were pretty brutal towards me to appease the popular boyfriends who loved their little punching bag. I meet her outside with Joe. She's there with 5 guys. I get destroyed. One punch knocked me unconscious. The Mormon kid I mentioned earlier someone manages to get me home with his bicycle (like I said, still tiny).

 

I try to hide all this from my Dad but eventually he finds out. He goes to the school and says something but that only makes it worse. I secretly wonder how it impacts a proud man to know his son can't defend himself, that he is considered ugly...a blight.

 

I more or less go crazy. I become a gigantic ass. I was quick witted so now I'm making fun of the people that are making fun of me. I make friends playing basketball with big dudes who vouch for me. I join a deathcore band. I grow my hair out. Now I'm the robin hood of high school acting the fool towards all the people who thought they were worth something. I hated myself. They taught me I was worthless. I hated them, too, but I especially hated women. Mom was critical of my appearance and at times I disrespected her as an extension of the girls my age.

 

I feel so alone. It was around this time that I signed up on this website, posting inane stuff that reflects where I was at mentally at the time. Back then I was Tyler101. I thought it was a funny name because I didn't know who I was and I was trying to learn it.

 

Senior year. I grow from 5'7" to 6'0". I meet Hannah. Hannah changes everything. I encounter her in a small group as a senior. We talk for a while and she asks me to go grab some pizza with her. I almost said no. I literally thought about my answer in front of her for probably 60 seconds. Everything seemed like a trap to me at the time but against my instincts I say yes. I take her home after and she leaves her phone in my car. I check my phone and see she's added her number.

 

We date for the rest of the senior year up through the beginning of my second semester of college. It failed when she was accepted into a prestigious university in the northeast and we had to go long distance. She debated turning down the offer but I told her I couldn't be the guy that robbed her of that opportunity. It's one of the few things I'm proud of today. I haven't been the best at creating value in my own life but I have certainly not destroyed anyone else's.

 

In college everything changes. I decide I don't care. What can be worse than what has happened to me already with women and people? I can't think of the answer. I was smart and funny and I decided I'd just be more outgoing...I'd give people a chance. People liked me. I was surprised. Women liked me. I was more surprised. I still battled issues and things left over from my time in high school, but things were improving on the whole.

 

I couldn't shake my physical insecurities. I was never able to beat them. When I'd have sex with a girl I was seeing I would have to be drunk -- I couldn't do it sober. God knows how many of them internalized that without realizing I was drinking because I couldn't see their reactions, their disappointment, whatever. I didn't want to be a witness to my own performance, I wanted to just DO, so I'd always drink. The only time I didn't was when I was with Hannah, but since then I haven't had sex sober and I don't know if I ever will again. At this age it's not a huge deal. No one in college thought it was super atypical for a guy to be smashed at a social engagement that later led to drunk sex. It was whatever.

 

Things became a game. I didn't feel validated by sex or female attention. I liked conversation. I got to the point where I enjoyed the conversations more than anything. I'd rather walk up to a group of women at a club or somewhere, sit down next to them, engage them all in conversation, get a number from one, and then never call than have sex with any of them.

 

Sex was this obstacle I had to overcome, not this thing I wanted to pursue. No woman could make me feel like I was worth this shared sexual experience. No one ever complained but that didn't matter. My body, my face, my penis, whatever...couldn't deal with any of it, couldn't accept any of it, I absolutely had to be drunk.

 

I was put in a situation where eventually I was accused of being a jerk. A girl got really into me and she found me insightful, analytical, a good listener, etc. I realize that I have a few qualities that women seeking long term relationships really enjoy. It's just me trying to show them a fun time and I understand pacing, timing, when I'm only supposed to listen and not give solutions, etc. There's never any pressure for sex early on and they're blown away but they don't understand that it's a product of something less than pleasant. I didn't reciprocate the way she wanted me to and she felt like these positive traits I demonstrated were "acts" to draw her in.

 

I've had all these positive results at times but it never changed the wiring in my head. If anything it's made me stagnant here. I don't chase relationships with women or sex because I feel like at this point I've experienced most of what I can expect to experience in that regard. The bodies will change, the personalities will change, but there's no longer a curiosity that serves as a stimulus to action.

 

At the end of the day all I can see is the conversations we'd have to have if a woman truly wants to get close to me. She'd probably have to know my background, which would take away from this careful, conscious image I project backed by a career and various external things that say "Hey, I got my crap together."

 

As far as friends go, I'm not sure where to find them here. It's always been something I've organically experienced as people were drawn to me or I was drawn to them or whatever. I've never worked for it.

 

So, now I'm isolated. I've got women in their 30's and 40's throwing themselves at me in bars, some look good and some don't. They're mostly divorced and want to know that they can still get a young dude. These are not the people I can sit down and have that conversation with. They don't understand that I'd rather go to the doctor than have sex with them because I can't trust them at all with what they'll see, etc.

 

 

So...essentially, I feel the way that I feel because all of that marinated inside me for years to produce a crappy meal. I never found healthy ways to express how I was feeling outside of music. At the same time I didn't do a lot of underage drinking. As a very sociable person in general college provided me with that high. I was around all these people who enjoyed being around me and that put me in a mindset where I was ok. I drink a lot when things are bad because I can't really handle it on my own that well. I begin to act irrationally and erratically. I get consumed by nihilism and I try to show people that life is a big joke by treating mine like one.

 

The end.

[Silverbirch]

Hey, I will write soon and hope you are feeling a bit less uncomfortable.

[Silverbirch]

Had some things I had to do, but back for a short while.

 

Well, like a lot of our parents, when you consider what their own lives were like, they did remarkably well in bringing up their children. My parents had really terrible childhoods themselves, and when I was your age, I had a lot of resentments and disappointments, but eventually, I came to see that they did the very best they could, and were quite amazing - especially my mother.

 

Many of us also had a very bad time in highschool. I have known so many men especially who have talked about almost exactly as you have. The man in my life was nicknamed "Lurch" in highschool because he was so tall (6 feet 4 inches), but they still tried to bully him. He tells me now that he is still doesn't meet up to a lot of people's images of what a real man should be - but it's so strange because apart from being vegetarian and liking animals and hating football, he would be the envy of men seeking that type of machismo. In highschool, teenagers find something to pick on others for. I remember when my son was 14, I was terrified by what was going on between boys at the school he was at, and fortunately, I was able to pull him out of that school and did move him to a better one. He had a knife pulled out on him. He is only around 5 feet 8 inches or 9 inches, but he's a confident boy and I suppose by a lot of people's standards, been street-smart for a long time. I think that it is being brought up aware of that type of stuff, that people have to learn to look after themselves.

 

I agree that the best thing for you is not to be having sex with women at this time, and that you will meet other women your own age who you do like - ones who may be similar to Hannah.

 

You might consider also doing something with your music and channelling some energy into that - especially the writing at this particular time. You don't have to solve your life's problems all at once.

 

I do think you will be okay . . . . eventually.

[ProtestTheHero]

I think to a degree we all experience some of what I've talked about. My problems were definitely not so unique that no one else could tell the story. I think my parents did an excellent job but they sort of accomplished that in shifts. I don't think I learned anything from my mom after I turned 12.

 

I think the juxtaposition of how respected/desired my parents were at various stages of their lives compared to how underwhelming I have been has played a significant part in how I evaluate myself. I came from such a fortunate background that being incredibly successful in life would just be meeting expectations. I don't really have a good excuse to be as sucktacular as I am right now. The genes, the love, the dedication, the time investment...I had all the tools necessary to be a complete badass right now.

 

I think I make a lot of lateral comparisons to my dad because that's who I was compared to when I was growing up. People said I was little Jeff...that I reminded them so much of him. I wish.

 

I just truly don't want to be me. I guess I can't express it any more purely than that. I am so intensely disappointed with who I am.

 

Like I said, I don't know how often I'll be updating this journal. I don't want to be a poster ramming negativity down the throats of other people who are trying to better their lives. How I feel is contagious. Reading this stuff is unpleasant.

 

Eventually the training wheels have to come off and I have to learn to swallow this pill alone. I just don't know that I can do it.

[Silverbirch]

Hey, I hope you won't stay away too long and come here and post as often as you like. Sending warm thoughts your way.

[itsallgrand]

Thank you for sharing that story. It helps a lot in understanding. And story form has always been the way I best learn, so I'm glad you shared a story. It allowed me to really get into it and listen well.

 

I relate to being in a situation for long periods of time where your emotions marinate, and more and more keeps getting added, while there is still so much there which hasn't been processed or expressed enough for it to start to make something new of it. And not knowing what to do about it. Not knowing where to start, how to change it. So it keeps going. And new negative behaviors and choices get added to the mix. So something else to deal with. And then it hits peaks and valleys. SOmetimes things go really well. And I felt almost normal. ANd then other times, I felt (still feel sometimes) so disconnected and overwhelmed with build up of things which I do not completely understand.

 

I hope it is ok for me to share here like this. Mostly wanted to thank you for sharing. I'm glad you did.

 

It's your journal you do what you like with it and come and go as you please! lol.

 

I kinda do hope though that you will remember, when things get tough, that things do keep changing. And what seems like a huge block that can never be gone, one day can be. Will be. If you stick around long enough and don't do anything too harmful to yourself, you will be posting here one day telling a story about how it is/did and it will all seem so easy all of a sudden. And then you can start to take for granted even something that was a struggle for soo long! Seriously.

[Capricorn3]

I just truly don't want to be me. I guess I can't express it any more purely than that. I am so intensely disappointed with who I am.

I have to admit, this saddens me, because, if anything, I think you can be so proud of yourself and your achievements. You are way too hard on yourself. Wish you could see yourself as so many of us here see you - an exceptional individual.

 

That said, I'm not giving up on you. I don't doubt that you will come into your own. Maybe a little later down the track, maybe when you reach age 30 (or whatever), but I have no doubt you'll get there.

[tiredofvampires]

Count on you to encapsulate 23 years-worth of life, within about a 50-year context, in such an elegant precis.

 

Catching up a little on your posts here, so many things strike me it's hard to identify a dominant place to start. It's interesting to me that (and this is not a new experience, but in this last series of posts, it's quite apparent to me) I find a kind of overarching consistency to your thought process, where I get a cohesive read that hangs together -- but when broken down into components, there are some very strong internal inconsistencies -- and I think it is within those contradictory particulars, those "flaws", that you might be able to re-examine some of the premises that lead to seemingly inexorable, deplorable conclusions. I'm not suggesting that all your problems can be solved by logic (in fact, I believe that is only the surface level of healing) -- but recognizing internal illogic can be a powerful tool, because we often rationalize our feelings and behaviors based on a warped logical framework, which creates a warped belief system. And it's the belief systems that determine the playing field.

 

I know that you know you can be inconsistent. I know you've witnessed this in action before, within yourself. What I'm not sure you're on to is that these inconsistencies can be the driving agents of paralysis, stagnation, stymieing, and feeling torn apart. So identifying the conflicting thoughts and feelings -- so that you are at least aware of what is not reconciled yet, and therefore, what you're seeking to reconcile -- can be part of the key on the path. I know this isn't being very specific for now, but that's the outline of at least one piece of this puzzle.

 

It's very clear from your story, as you've told it here, that you have come a very long way since the inception of the story, and where the storm originated. You're not Tyler101 anymore, that's for sure. You're at least on Tyler303 now. You are evolving, most surely. And there is no evidence that this has suddenly ground to a halt, just because what's on the canvas is different. I echo all the others here, repeating what I've said so many times, that change is inevitable for you -- as they say, the one constant being change. Change can feel like a foe, taking from you your days of youthful freedom and replacing them with "the grown up life" that is so responsibility-bound and right now feels so stultifying. Even at your relatively very young age, now you're appreciating that old proverb, "Youth is wasted on the young," haha. "How if I'd known, I'd have done things so differently." Bank on that only increasing with time, thereby bringing a different sort of appreciation for choice-making. But who among us can interpret and internalize what hasn't been presented yet? (*foreshadowing*) It's only and ever in retrospect that you realize, with time and change, your perspective of who you are and what's important to you can go through a metamorphosis.

 

I think it's fair to even say that you are not the same person you were then. Because when your thoughts, perspectives and values change -- when what's important to you changes -- you are not the person you were yesterday. And here, change can take on the character of a friend. Because gaining in knowledge -- self-knowledge, worldly knowledge -- is what makes you more and more grown up, as a grown-up. This is something to want -- so even though this sounds pretty lofty, what I'm saying is that even with all this crappy marinade, you are advancing and progressing through positive changes.

 

For example, you can look back on the story of your mother and tell it with fairness. You never used to be able to see her through any lens but one of contempt and disrespect. You can look back on your first love and tell the story without the bitterness and vestiges of resentment that contaminated your mind for a long time about her. You can place all these events in a larger "container" of understanding. You are able to do justice to each of your parents (and their limits) in a way that you used to not be able to do. And you can frame the extreme rage towards women that once was devouringly all-consuming of your psyche as a chapter in this story that has closed, because you no longer harbor these feelings. You never thought you'd feel differently about any of these things at those times. They felt intractable, as part of you then. And now, they are personal passages seen through different perceptual spectacles. They no longer carry the charge. They are An History of Tyer101. History.

 

So I think it's amply clear to you now that change can be a radical process -- a very dynamic one that is operative in your life. Intellectually, I know you understand this. The problem is, emotionally, you have not caught up with that understanding. It's almost like you see those changes as flukes, or surprise elements that sprouted up -- smatterings of luck and chance that randomly occurred. Change is unpredictable and mysterious, so it's easy to mistrust it, emotionally. It's easy to feel at any given place in time, on the timeline, "how I'm feeling/how things are playing out, it's how things are going to always be, and how I always am going to be, it's just me, it's just the way things are" all over again, because anything that doesn't have an immediate answer or solution seems solid as bedrock at that time. But now you know better. Truth is...it's just another passage in time, and the same force that has moved you along before will move you (as you exist in a dynamic relationship with everything else going on in your world) again. I'm not saying that you won't have some themes and patterns that keep reasserting themselves, or that you'll acquire a completely different personality. It's that the vantage point will continue to shift and the perspective will continue to broaden.

 

That is not something to look forward to in an "I wake up ready to greet the day with a smile" way. But it's something to look forward to in a "life is prepared to work with me, if I'm prepared and receptive to work with it" way. So you have some power here. You have some leverage. You are an active player at this table, on this stage. It's not just a bunch of cards and lines and roles being handed to you, where you're just passively assigned. Some things were handed to you at the moment of fertilization. Other things were handed to you by circumstance of birth. Still other things were handed to you by circumstances of social environment as you grew up. But all the rest -- and that is to say, the largest portion of the pie -- you participate in in an active way, and the more grown up you are, the more awareness you have, and the more you realize you can assist the change that is naturally built into the life process, the greater your advantage in this game. (And by the way, on an interesting biological note, if we are JUST talking about the things that were handed to you at fertilization, let alone all the rest that would seem more variable, if you're talking about your physical being as a whole, genetically, only 30% of that is hard-wired, with about 70% GENETICALLY being plastic and changeable with environment [this branch of genetics is called "epigenetics", that which is "around/outside -- epi" the hard-wired genetics]. In the brain itself, only about 1-5% is hard-wired, with 95% being plastic, both genetics and conditioning factored in. So that gives you an idea of how, as a creature, you are WIRED for change, WIRED to adapt, WIRED for environment to shape your very molecules, WIRED to learn, to grow, to become something else WHEN CONDITIONS CHANGE BOTH EXTERNALLY AND INTERNALLY, AND THOSE ARE INEXTRICABLY INTEGRATED). Everything in your make-up craves receiving and responding -- and changing accordingly.

 

So there is grist for this mill in terms of what is around you and what's coming at you, what you consciously and deliberately immerse yourself in, and also, what you do with all of it. It's all going into that marinade.

 

The problem with only intellectually, but not emotionally, knowing that change can and does happen, is that you get stuck again and again in projections of the future which are so grim, that now you feel you have to escape. Which now has developed into more than a bad state of mind as it was before, but a habit which is damaging the very fabric of your raw materials. Your body is being slowly destroyed by drinking. Your mind is being slowly destroyed by drinking. (I ought to find a brain scan image to show you of what years-long chronic alcohol abuse does to the physical brain -- ever the wannabe high school health class educator, lol.) And again, I think you know this intellectually, and I sense you even do not approve, yourself, of what this substance abuse problem is doing, even though you feel you have no other attractive alternatives. Emotionally, you're just trying to "survive", and I understand that. But this kind of survival is a slow death march, and I think that because it's not started to affect you yet in noticeably detrimental ways, it's still conveniently a mere concept.

 

So the thing is, the way drinking as you are differs from how you were poorly coping before emotionally is that drinking could preclude the potential change -- and I mean, all your potential -- that may await you, and the fuller fruition of all the gains you have made. If we are to assume that change will continue as a trend, and by that token assume by probabilities that positive changes have no reason not to be built upon, there is only one word for what you're doing with the drinking: SABOTAGE. You are sabotaging yourself, your life, and your future. You've recognized this before, and I think that's the best word to describe what's going on. And not just with the drinking...I think as a pervasive MO right now, including the way you're seeking/designing social outlets, knowing they are dead ends (lol @ your boss calling it "cesspools", great word), and other ways you're evaluating options.

 

I'm making a point out of this because it's important to discriminate between what is under your control and what is not, and often, that line (what is "destined" for you vs. what you help create) is blurry. And you regularly cross it, in statements like:

 

Right now it just feels like all paths lead to the same underwhelming conclusion. It doesn't matter if I get to my destination slowly or quickly because it doesn't change.

 

See what I mean by easily forgetting about change? I know because I fall into this myself. When I'm standing in mire that I can't see my way out of, it really does feel like forever is implied. But that's when I have to pull on the emergency oxygen mask; break the emergency glass; and come back to what I know. And what I know is that this will change. Somehow. Someway. It always does, and that's partly because everything around me moves me along like a stick in the river, but it's also partly because I'm swimming.

 

And given that, I have to preserve myself for that unknown outcome. Could it really be tragic and a complete let-down? I leave room for that possibility. But it's an exact 50-50 -- I'll say, in the WORST case scenario, because if you determine that at very least, you don't wish to to load the deck against yourself by being your own worst enemy and sabotaging yourself (thus gratuitously destroying your chances), you may have quite a bit better edge than 50-50. When you factor in all those natural principles I mentioned about human resiliency, you naturally have an impetus to thrive, not perish. Add into that your drive, your inherent will to achieve, and you could redirect this in a monumental way.

 

But first you have to want to affirm this as something you want. PURELY FOR ITS OWN SAKE AS A FOUNDATIONAL POINT, REQUIRING NO OTHER JUSTIFICATION OR TARGETED PURPOSE THAN THAT IT IS FUNDAMENTAL TO ALL ELSE. You first have to want to say, "I don't want to sabotage myself." Then you have to actually not want to sabotage yourself. It's a radical act, but it's 100% internal and non-tangible. And that act will then already be affecting change and your moves, and life's response to those moves.

 

You have to first decide you want to make your coping choices consistent with your experience and intellectual understanding of the possibilities of change. Drinking the way you are is inconsistent with that understanding.

 

If you align yourself this way, then even though you may not know how to channel your angst, restlessness, and crippling feelings of insecurity, you will be placing them into a "holding pen" of the wisdom you've already acquired. You can allow yourself turmoil, but simultaneously zoom out to allow for sustainability and preservation of yourSELF since you're rightly gambling on change. Like I said, your most basic fabric, your life, needs to be intact to see the change and I think one of the most important things you can do for yourself right now is not something external (which is good news, because not a whole helluva lot can be changed at the moment, externally). It's not making a new friend, or creating a social niche, as important as those things are.

 

First, you have to decide that even if you can't manufacture a sense of self-worth or self-esteem on cue, you are leaving room for that to arise and develop, and therefore, establish that at very least you would like to stop hurting your chances with self-abuse and punishment.

 

I would probably get help if I felt like I was destroying something of value or making choices I'd regret later.

 

And how do you know you won't come to see your value and regret these choices, (which may involve irrevocable damage) later? Once again, you already can draw from life experience to extrapolate here: that "if I had known then what I know now, I'd have done things differently." You've been there. Use that cognizance now, because the same exact principle is applying here in spades.

 

So what I'm saying is that even if you can't contact a feeling of valuing yourself now, knowing that could transform in the same way other solidified attitudes and expectations have changed (and so you'll potentially regret your current coping mechanisms) is enough of a reason to actively work at finding other alternatives to fill the place that drinking has now. Think of working on addressing your drinking as for the person you may evolve into in the process of change and the new chapters ahead, not for the person you see yourself as right now.

 

I think IAG has a good point about apathy having set in, and resignation. As I've told you, I think this is partially due to depression, which has that insidious, malignant effect on a mind and the will. It's a strong gravitational pull, as inert as it appears. But I also think that you lose sight of the perspective about change, or you minimize its significance, and that's the difference between losing the will to go on and holding onto it.

 

Of course, the even deeper problem would be a conflicting, active desire/urge to sabotage yourself, rather than preserve yourself, which is stronger than just "letting yourself go" by default.

 

And that's part of what I'm not clear about. I'm not clear if you actually would have this urge to sabotage yourself even if you were able to acknowledge that you do not know and can't possibly know that "all paths lead to the same underwhelming conclusion." I'm wondering if someone handed you a warranty of some kind that the forecast was bright...if you would still have a force within you steering you the opposite way to prove you can't have it. Maybe because you don't feel you deserve it. Maybe because it's too foreign to accept, as an idea. Maybe you're terrified of the unknown and what it would mean, and the unknown now is you being happy. Maybe because you harbor an irrational urge to resolve the conflict you have about meeting people's expectations by ultimately failing to do so, forcing your own hand in a way, since you've created an impossible bar, a stratohuman standard to meet in your mind. Kind of like, if you believe you're destined to fail or fall short, might as well see that outcome through instead of fight it with alternative scenarios -- theoretically possible as they may be. Sometimes, it's just easier to keep being what you think you are, and judging yourself according to the life you don't want to lead rather than the one you could create.

 

And who wouldn't punish themselves ahead of the fact for that self-willed squandering? Start hating yourself now for the ending you made sure to do everything possible to prove was inevitable.

 

So I'm not sure how much that sort of mental contortionism is at play as a layer over the simple lack of concerted commitment to stop hurting yourself. What do you think?

 

I know it's really hard to piece out, given that if you weren't in these circumstances, your mind probably wouldn't be as inclined to go down these roads, and that's something you've agreed with. But given this is where you are and your mind is blocking you on various fronts, I would not assume that within this toxic brew, there does not exist an independent desire to punish yourself, and I still don't fully get at what point in that story -- or rather, what shaping event(s) -- gave birth to this element in your psyche.

 

I wonder if you can even identify it more precisely. The why and its point of origin. I get that you don't like yourself and feel disappointed in yourself. But that's pretty vague and I think there is a certain rejection of the vision of something better and an embrace of going down in flames, and edging yourself toward that, which is more particular...and a response to some part of this story. That's my sense, but I could be wrong, and the will to self-destruct according to Freud (who got a lot wrong, but got this one right, I believe) exists in everyone and it's fairly irrational. I just think in you, it's an "answer" to something, some fundamental challenge, divide, rift, inner conflict.

 

And what is that about. If it's there.

 

Ironically, I feel that all that is holding you back is going to help you get free, in the discovery of how things relate and what's lying at the root level. But it's going to take an a priori commitment to want to save yourself from *yourself.* A certain suspension of belief, the belief that you are indeed of no worth or value.

 

You don't have to be feelin' it for yourself to suspend that belief and act accordingly.

[tiredofvampires]

Like I said, I don't know how often I'll be updating this journal. I don't want to be a poster ramming negativity down the throats of other people who are trying to better their lives. How I feel is contagious. Reading this stuff is unpleasant.

 

And lol, on this. I mean, not to lol here, but if anyone is tuning in to ENA for tea time feel-goods and "uplifting words for the day", they should probably consider changing the channel, lol. That's goes for like, anywhere on this forum. But especially in the journals section, it's an unadulterated enter-at-your-own-risk zone.

 

Pretty much, if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen type deal.

 

So if anyone catches some horrible disease by reading this (or anyone's journal), and especially if they continue reading while so pitifully laid up, well, that's on them, isn't it. Shoulda taken a stronger vitamin C lozenge. (haven't used that smiley in ages...hyeh hyeh)

[ProtestTheHero]

I've experienced it enough to know not to totally discount it. I let my experiences dictate who I am because I have no internal opinion on the matter most of the time. It's good and bad. I'll never be the type of guy beating his own chest but at the same time I can swing a lot because I am a slave to circumstance. The relationship I had with my mom combined with my experience with girls growing up had me convinced that I could never have anything resembling a healthy relationship with a woman -- not as a friend, not as a girlfriend, not at all. I thought that would never change. I was so guarded when they were around because I could not escape the feeling that I was being evaluated at every turn, so instead of being myself and showing my hand I played no cards at all just in case my three of a kind wasn't good enough.

 

That sentiment has more or less left me. I don't know that it will ever totally go away. It's kind of like I littered my page with pencil marks and then spent an hour or so erasing everything. Yeah, it's a lot clearer, but the traces remain here and there. That in and of itself was a big deal. It's like, I stared at this huge blockade for so long and one day I put my hand through it and realized it was just this ethereal, meaningless thing. I can't really pinpoint how or why that happened...I guess it's a product of experience. You can't meet hundreds of women without being positively impacted by a few.

 

I think along the way I've done a decent job of batting away the residual effects of not being valued for a long time. I have a proven track record of being able to "defeat" things that have sort of been laid at my feet by other people, but I am batting .000 against myself. Sometimes I'll just be sitting at the bar watching other people enjoy themselves and I hear in my head "this guy is having a great time with this girl whom he obviously just met. How does it feel to know that you'd have to put in 20x the work to make her respond to you the same way?" BOOM. Shots, shots, shots, drink, drink. Group of people laughing..."You will NEVER have friends like that again. Not here. Not ever." BOOM. "Are you smart, Tyler? Is that what you'll tell people when they ask you why you stay here? You're smart and your job asks that of you. But where could you go? Go anywhere. Bring your off-brand, generic ass anywhere and be the diet rite amongst a sea of coca-cola. There is nothing you can do about it."

 

By that time I don't really want to wake up from whatever it is I just put into my body.

 

I don't know if that will ever go away. I can't say that it won't. I just know that it hasn't yet.

[itsallgrand]

Yeah. The conflict is with yourself and knowing, not only intellectually but really knowing, that you are of serious worth and not inferior. That you are not diet rite.

I understand that well.

My conflict has been in dissolving a very long deep belief (like you said, it is a voice that says things at the damnest times, but especially when things trigger you) that I am broken. It came from repeated circumstances in my life where I felt broken; overwhelmed and having to take on things that were beyond my development and capabilities at the times they happened. And beyond my capabilities in coping with the shrapnel and mess afterwards, life afterwards.

 

I was never a drinker. My thing has been - I used to smoke a lot. I've pushed my body so many times, and in so many ways, I'm lucky to be healthy right now. I'd go without sleep, work work work, then exercise like an madwoman on top of it. And I pushed people away, kept them out.

 

I agree with TOV: I put s/t loads of concerted effort into taking care of myself. Still do; I don't know if it all will all go away completely. It has gotten easier and easier though. I do know it the difference for me between constant chaos and fear inside for me and now most days are more peace than not. I'm in more control, and so I feel less out of control. go figure. I won't let myself smoke - I just won't. I watch out for over exercising. As examples. Most times now I don't even think about it anymore. "I smoked?! wow."

 

It's a whole lot of little decisions and builds and builds. Let's say you decided one time to simply not take that shot. You know, that's it, tonight I won't do it. Well the positive starts to get a rutting in you and replacing the negative.

 

You aren't particularly asking for advice and I'm really not trying to give it. More telling you what it came down to for me. JDI. (just do it). Actions. And my mind screamed the whole time. Did it any way. My mind screams a whole lot less now and so I can actually listen to it. "you aren't ever going to be like other women, you are always going to be a neurotic mess, so just give up now!" "thanks for reminding me...I'm going to do it anyways".

 

It's like a more gentle challenging oneself. Instead of trying to outright beat yourself into submission.