He’s been making comments lately on my blog that I refuse to publish, but something kind of traumatic happened to me this past weekend and I realized – with MUCH anger – that this blog is no longer a safe space for me due to my ex having found it and refusing to leave me the fuck alone. He’s a narcissist and unbelievably selfish, and has tried for months now to make MY blog, MY safe space for MY thoughts and MY words and whatever the hell I want to talk about – be about him. And at this point, I’m fucking tired of it. I love this blog and I especially love the name, but I will have to move it somewhere else and give it an entirely different name due to his refusal to leave me the fuck alone and his insistence on violating my privacy and continuing to contact me when I want nothing further to do with him. I’ve been of two minds about this for awhile, as of course – in true narcissist form – he would like nothing more for me to focus on him and make this about him and provoke me. In fact, it makes me even angrier that I feel anything more than a slight annoyance regarding him, because to selfish children like himself, any attention and reaction is better than ambivalence. But needing this space more than ever and not feeling safe to express myself has left me with no choice. And I hate him even more for that.

Die, “Chestah.” Terry Alexander. The piece of shit. You fucking drop dead, and you fucking go straight to hell. Words cannot express how much I hate you.

I have refused to publish his comments due to his desires to make my blog about him, but the latest one was so unbelievably selfish that my jaw literally dropped. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at this point, but FUCK.  In response to my last, decidedly dark post, he commented “ummm waiting on 2011 shit here…”

Oh, my bad. I’ll get right on writing thoughts on MY blog for YOU. And doing things on my PERSONAL blog because YOU want it. I’ll jump when you say jump, because god knows everything I do should be for you and due to what YOU want. Poor baby, what the hell have I been thinking? Being busy with things like WORK (which he wouldn’t know ANYTHING about, being a dedicated life-long moocher) when I have a psychotic ex-boyfriend to entertain!

Again… fuck you for putting me in this position of having to alter ANY bit of my life, but especially THIS part, because of your selfish demands. Fuck you for CONTINUING to intrude on my life when I clearly want NOTHING MORE TO DO WITH YOU EVER AGAIN. Can’t you like… get a JOB or something to occupy your time instead of being so bored that you must continually re-visit the past and its ghosts? MOVE THE FUCK ON ALREADY. Or, you know… just die. Preferably just fucking. die. Now. Soon.

If I have any readers.. Andrew, etc… who would like to follow me, please comment. I’d have to verify that you’re not my psychotic narcissistic ex and wouldn’t have any ties to him, and once I do I can link you to the new blog.

Peace.

pocketsizednegro

Why am I suicidal? Situationally… maybe I’m giving up to early according to the standards of some. or most, whatever. This feeling, I guess, can be alleviated with medication. This feeling is absolute torture. I’m gripped, sometimes randomly, by severe emotional pain. Like mental cramps? I don’t know. I’ll be laying in bed, silently crying, and maybe have calmed down a bit.. and then all of a sudden I’m gasping for air and sobbing. it hurts to breathe. every breath I take. I don’t want to take another one.

I try to do all the right things. And I’m not perfect, but I try to do the right things in my adult life and take care of my responsibilities so that I can improve my situation. My car is running fine despite the cold weather (thus far, knock on wood). I successfully received my FAFSA aid and registered for a winter class and bought the textbook (only $8!). I was planning on buying a U.C. Metro card for a significantly cheaper way to take the bus when I can’t drive my car… and that will be very often, according to how things are shaping up this winter. Despite my setback in savings, I’m not broke and am working enough to where the setbacks will really not been as huge of a hindrance as they were in the past. I had been buying everything I need in terms of food and other supplies (coffee filters, PUR filters, etc.) and actually made enough meals to last me through the week. It’s easier for me to cook now and I’ve been eating a LOT more vegetables. I’ve been losing a ton of weight, although it’s actually upsetting to me now. I guess I’ll go into that “aside” now, since I’m at that point…

A couple of weeks ago, I was starving myself almost every day. When I started cooking my meals and eating regularly, I closely monitored my weight to see if I could eat and not gain weight. And – I guess due to a combination of eating more vegetables and generally healthy ingredients – without counting a single calorie, I’ve been losing weight. Unfortunately, though I’m about only 10 pounds away from my “goal,” I find my weight loss upsetting for the first time in my life. I had this idea body that I wanted to have… and even though I’m far from having the perfect body that I want (which would require exercising on a near daily basis), I’m definitely in the ballpark. And while I want the numbers on the scale to go lower, when I look at my body… I realize that I don’t really LIKE what I WANT. And it’s the damndest fucking feeling. My thighs and legs are still way too big, but the big calves are genetic, and the thighs would be fine if I exercises and toned them. But the overall effect is that I’m definitely seeing the boyish frame that I want so badly start to emerge. And I think it makes me look like shit. I was staring in the mirror today and I wondered where the hell my hips went. I guess I was just really used to them. And then I had the bright idea to get my measuring tape, since I haven’t measured in a while, and I realized I’d lost several inches everywhere – waist, hips. Well not “several…” three? idk. The last hip measurement I remember is 39ish. Now it’s 35.5. The last waist measurement I remember is 31. Now it’s 28. Which, by my standards – the waist is still pretty big. In the number. My reasoning is that if 6′ models can have a 24″ waist, there’s no logical reason for my 5’1″ PEAR-SHAPED ass to not have a 24″ waist. I don’t even carry my weight on my top half. That should be much smaller. I don’t know. My waist, I guess, doesn’t LOOK big. But I don’t like the number. And I can’t wear a lot of my winter clothes from last year because they fit me horribly and are too big. And I really don’t feel like spending any more money on clothes. I bought a pair of size 8 jeans from New York & Company today simply to have a pair that doesn’t hang off me. Really, in the vain hopes that Pamela won’t notice that I’ve lost a lot more weight and fire me. But I understand intellectually that she’s trained in this shit. Still didn’t stop me from giving it the old college try. And they were on sale at 50% off, so why the fuck not. $24 for a crappily designed pair of jeans that fit. I’ve put a lot of money into my size 10′s with alterations, etc. – not to mention that they’re GAP jeans, most of which I bought at the $30 off sale but some I didn’t… It’s kind of perverse to wish myself to gain weight so I can use more of my wardrobe. But whatever. I guess I believed size 10 might actually be it. Size 8 won’t be it. I don’t know. This is boring.

But aside from that, I think I look like ass. I KNOW I’d look awful at 110. Awful as in… just not right, I guess. I’d barely have a body at all. It would satisfy my desire for the number, and for the “slimness” of things that I want… but the overall effect is that I’d look terrible. Hell, I look terrible now. Like I said, I just don’t look “right.” I feel like half my body is gone. And I guess it probably is. Or a third, idk.

My physical health is really bad right now as well. Same symptoms I’ve been dealing with for years. Horrible, horrible allergies… I’m still researching all my symptoms and the latest thing I’m looking at is a systemic bacterial infection. Which, I guess, triggers an allergy response? That also would explain the recurring yeast infections. And why my “wakeup feeling hung over without drinking” has resulted in a lot of responses about celiac disease. Which is essentially an allergy. My entire immune system is reacting horribly to SOMETHING THAT IS NOT GOING AWAY.

I also have plans lately that didn’t go as they should have. I bit the bullet, sucked it up like an adult and started seeing a dentist. I’ve done the cleaning and I’m brushing twice a day and flossing every night. I went in today (after MUCH anxiety and planning given to transportation due to the weather predicted for today) and had a very bad reaction to the numbing agent (rapid heartbeat that resulted in a panic attack). Granted, I had just received the news that I wasn’t a full-time e-mailer anymore and my mind was stressed about receiving calls again, but I’ve gone to the dentist stressed out of my high holy mind before and NEVER had that kind of reaction. And I’ve never known a dentist to use SO MUCH anesthesia. I’m used to a few shots here and there but I swear he was at 5 or 6 before I had the panic attack. He gave me laughing gas and I was able to stop hyperventilating but then when he brought the needle up for ANOTHER one, I said that I was done and couldn’t do it anymore. He said it was a common reaction but I’VE never had that reaction before and it’s not COMMON for me. Doing results on google seem to support what he said but it really bothered me when I asked him WHY I had that reaction, and he said he didn’t know.

Oh, great.

I don’t know… that in conjunction with all the waiver forms and acceptance of risks forms I had to sign just gave me a really bad feeling. I left the appointment without getting any work done. I’m not going to fucking die at the dentist. My health is already in bad form – including sharp, persistent chest pains and palpitations which could be due to a number of things (acid reflux, caffeine, whatever) but due to my eating disorder, I’m especially concerned about how vulnerable that makes my medical procedures to take catastrophic turns. I’m not fucking dying at the dentist. Especially if my family has no recourse due to all the forms I signed stating that I accepted the risk. The risk isn’t worth it at this point to me. I don’t know what I’m going to do though.

The plan was that I had this appointment and then the second on Monday to use my dental benefits for the year and save me a lot of money in the long-term. Plan wrecked.

The plan with Braxton is also wrecked. I… went by his house today. I just have been thinking some things about the relationship and how I don’t want to be in it anymore. I saw him and he was in the middle of eating dinner. He said he’d call me later (never did, nor responded to my texts) and he didn’t really seem to care that this was the first time we’ve seen each other in months. I had this plan… and I don’t know why I should go through with it. Why should I treat someone who is largely apathetic to my existence? He doesn’t care about me. I think he likes the idea of me, and he likes having someone to fuck when he’s horny. He doesn’t genuinely give two shits about me – as proven OVER and OVER again by his ACTIONS versus his empty words – but when it actually comes to doing things that prove statements like “I really want to see you” “I’m goddamn crazy about you” “I love you” – he fails. All of the time. I’m tired of that. At this point especially, I’d just rather have no one at all then someone who lies to me and is completely irresponsible and just… generally a really selfish asshole. The times when he’s “warm” are just SO few and far between that I can’t help but just chalk them up as flukes, and probably fake as well. Whatever. I feel like everything there is fake and empty.

I was really looking forward to that date though. Now I have jack shit to look forward to.

I just… I don’t. want. to be here. I absolutely hate my life and I hate living. I hate this cycle of trying to make the right decisions and be smart and prepare only to have your plans all go to hell and life fucks you in the ass anyway, regardless of what actions you do or don’t take. I plan, I research, I try my best goddamnit, and it doesn’t matter. It really just doesn’t even fucking matter to anything. Maybe I’m better off for some of the actions I’ve taken, but it’s not going to prevent future catastrophes, and it hasn’t really resulted in any significant, permanent progress. I’ve tried for a year and a half now to get out and make friends, and it’s netted me 0 people who really genuinely care. I mean, there are people who care in a superficial sense. But a non-relative out there who thinks about me on a regular basis? No. If I died tomorrow, no one would really care except my family. And they’re “supposed” to care. And anyone who says they did REALLY TRULY GENUINELY DEEPLY CARE about me is a goddamned liar, because I can bring up probably 15 reasons to prove them wrong.

Maybe that makes me a horrible person. I don’t know. What I know, at this point, is that I’m tired of trying things and making the “right” decisions for it to never really mean much in the end. I’m really tired of being sick all the time (which – moreso than my depression, I think – has affected my work performance more than anything) and not being able to find a doctor who can be bothered to actually think critically about ALL of my symptoms and not just write me a prescription for something that treats ONE of them. I’m tired of realizing that I can’t meet any friends and the ones I have all kind of suck. Mainly referring to Braxton and Elizabeth. Who, like I stated in my previous post, I’ve stopped talking to. Hannah is ok. But she’s not a best friend. She’s a good “girlfriend” in an acquaintance sort of way, but she can’t bother to take 5 seconds to respond to a text, which puts her under the “not truly deeply caring” umbrella.

Maybe I’m judging people too harshly. A lot would probably say that I am. But I don’t think I am. It’s really about the “if a tree falls in the forest” saying. If no one’s around to hear it, then many argue it didn’t happen. If no one exists who acknowledges and cares about my existence, then I may as well not exist. And since I hate living anyway… it’s pretty much a no-brainer, right?

“No one” excludes family members. But the fact that they care – and I should feel like an awful person for thinking this way, I guess, but I don’t – the fact that they care really doesn’t mean that much to me. Even when you really don’t like a family member or they’ve done some fucked up shit, most people still CARE about their family. It’s just how that works. But you know the common advice “you can’t live for others” when people talk about being pressured into certain careers, or maybe a dude wants his girlfriend to get breast implants? I can’t live for others. No one else can live my life. Even if it would hurt my family… I can’t live for them. It’s not sustainable. I have to find something to live for, and I have to experience some sort of JOY in living. I don’t. This is hell. And medication may put me into limbo, but medication doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have a single non-relative who really cares about me or thinks about me on a regular basis. And medication can’t change the fact that I can’t MAKE others care about me, no matter what I do for them. And medication can’t change the fact that people are essentially extremely selfish by nature anyway, so good luck finding anyone who cares. Medication doesn’t change the fact that I’m very ill and I can’t find a doctor truly invested in helping me get better. Medication doesn’t change the fact that I work at a job that is severely psychologically traumatic and draining to me and causes very heightened propensity toward suicidal thoughts. Medication doesn’t change the fact that no matter how much I prepare and how many of the “right” steps that I take, it’s simply not going to matter in the end. I’m still going to be extremely socially isolated and disconnected, stressed out with no reprieve or sufficient outlet, and relatively inconsequential to anything in the end.

You know what medication does? It’s a psychological band-aid. It’s a Jedi mind trick that fools your mind into not feeling the feelings associated with understanding how bad everything really is and is going to be. And for what purpose? So you can stay alive longer to experience how bad things really are and are going to be. I don’t see the point in that.

On. The. Left. That's like hair porn to me.

 The thing that sucks about my hair type is that it is EXTREMELY fragile, and all the creams, moisturizers, and oils in the world don’t stop it from breaking off every time I mess with it. So the best method for me to meet my goal is to actually keep it braided and covered, pretty much all the time. I take it down mainly to wash it and/or rebraid it. I wear it out on occasion, but most of the time I keep it braided under a hat. It’s better that way and looking cute for a day isn’t worth setting me back several strands or centimeters. I’m also experimenting with scarves… but so far I haven’t found a way to wear them that I really like.

I’ve also stopped talking to Elizabeth. I hadn’t realized how much better I felt when I didn’t talk to her until I didn’t sign online for a few days due to her being a ridiculous bitch (long story short: an old classmate looked me up because he was in town. he wanted to take me out to dinner. I thought why not… he had a crush on me in high school and he’s definitely on the path to success, even though I wasn’t really that attracted to him. And I came home and tell her about it, she asks who it was, I told her, and she spazzes the fuck out on me because apparently she had a huge crush on him and somehow I was supposed to be psychic because HIS NAME NEVER ONCE CAME UP IN OUR YEARS OF TALKING). And eventually, she sent me a text “I’m sorry I was a jerk now will you stop ignoring me” after I ignored her “happy thanksgiving” text, because that wasn’t a goddamn apology. And when I logged on after her “apology,” the first thing she does is bitches to me about her bloody nose. There was no “how are you, how’ve you been, I promise I’ll not be a raging cunt and blame you for something that is in no way your fault”. It was just immediately with the bitching. And I realized in that moment that she drained me emotionally. I was working 10 hours a day, listening to almost nothing but people bitching and complaining. And then I was signing online after work to listen to her bitch and complain for 3-5 more hours.And I do mean bitch… I have never. ever. known someone to whine and complain and bitch as much as she does. I mean, I know people love to complain, and sometimes we need to to feel better… but on a scale of 1-10, she was at a 15 ALL THE TIME. It seriously NEVER. STOPPED. I don’t know how the fuck I put up with it for as long as I did…

Braxton’s been in New Orleans since October. He gets back either the end of this week or next week. Lucky me that my period should be starting on the 17th and I work weekends, meaning the first opportunity for us to meet, I will probably be on the rag something hardcore. But that’s okay… I have something really special planned, and it’s not just for him, but for me too. Despite doing emails, I have been really stressed out lately over a myriad of things… and it will really be nice to fuck, have a really nice dinner, and fuck some more. Apparently, that’s the order things will go. I’d rather do dinner and then fuck, but I made the mistake of asking him, and he said he’d “fuck me proper” and then we’d go to dinner and then we’d fuck some more. I haven’t had sex since he left and I’m a bit of a masochist… I think having a nice long dinner and then coming back to my place will probably result in the most amazing sex I’ve ever had. I’m taking him to the Melting Pot and I already have so many details planned… they’re doing a “donate $10 to St. Jude, get a $20 gift card” promotion right now, and I already donated and received the card. I also bought some underwear from Fredericks and am planning on wearing it underneath this dress I bought. Me and my goddamn plans and my perfectionism -_-. Ideally, I would have been able to wear the cream colored one I bought that has a brown belt, but I don’t have brown boots. There’s a pair at DSW that I’d LOVE to have but they’re $99, and I have a $10 gift certificate but I know I’ll be getting a $5 one on my birthday. Plus.,.. they should be having some sort of sale or tiered discount soon because they haven’t had one in awhile. If I wait, I can probably get the brown and the black ones at a ridiculously good deal. So yeah. No boots, and I went today and bought the black version of the same dress (they’re on clearance for only $18) because I definitely have nice black boots I can wear. I also bought a MAC lipgloss in a dark pink color because my entire outfit is going to be black and I thought the color would be really striking. I even put a lot of thought into the underwear… I went to Victoria’s Secret today and their underwear is way too girly.. and kind of young, IMO. Like.. for teenaged tastes, strangely enough. I knew department stores wouldn’t have the edgy kind of things I was looking for, and Hustler was too fucking cheesy and costume-like. But I went online to Fredericks and actually found something that was both my tastes and he’d like.. because I saw a lot of things he’d like, but that I wouldn’t like at the other places. He likes my ass and I think my lower half is the worst part of my body, particularly my legs. It’s a pleather bra with gartered undewear, and in the picture she’s wearing it with fishnet stockings, but I found a pair of sheer stockings at H&M today for fucking FOUR DOLLARS that I just couldn’t pass up. Although fishnet would be nice. I have fishnet TIGHTS.. but not indivudal thigh-highs.

My anticipation is too much for words. Hopefully he’ll be free on a day that I’m off and I’ll be able to make the reservations for the “early bird special,” saving me $10.. with drinks, tax, and tip, and my gift card, the entire meal should be around $80. Which isn’t bad for two people, four courses, and drinks. And then we’ll come back to my place, and I’ll strip to my underwear, and fun times will be had by all. For several hours.

I’ve gone through this scenario play-by-play so many times I should be ashamed. But I’m not. I really miss him. I bought him some new shoes and shipped them to him about a month ago because his were falling apart and he pretty much only does physical activity. And when he got them, he texted “they look just like my old shoes. I love them.” They’re really expensive fucking shoes ($120) but they have , and there was a sale going on with them at the time… plus, I had a $20 amazon gift card, so I only paid like $70 for them.

The benefit about thinking about things constantly? I’m able to get things done in a very expeditious, productive manner (when my brain isn’t cloudy with depression or starvation). I’m still juggling a few tasks, but I’ve taken care of SO MUCH in the past couple months and am proud that I’ve been able to stay on top of things

Adult life, for all its perks and freedoms… really is kind of the pits. I’m still getting used to the idea that for the rest of my life… until my hopeful retirement – there’s not gonna be a such thing as “summer break.” Lol. You work… as you probably know… every week out of every month out of every year, and if you’re lucky, you get two weeks of paid vacation.

Were human beings really meant to work 40 hours a week, get two weeks off a year, every year, for decades?If there is a god, and that god is guiding our fate/destiny in some way… I’m pretty sure the evolution of man to walk upright, create fire and sustainable agriculture wasn’t so that we could spend 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for the vast majority of our lives doing things that don’t really matter in the end and don’t contribute in any meaningful way to the evolution of mankind. But maybe there is a plan, and this is just a rung to a destination that I can’t predict. I know America’s not number one anymore, and we won’t be number one for a very long time – if not ever again. Our values are inconsistent with our actions and our populace was too complacent for too long. Now it’s too late… the deck has been stacked in favor of corporate and wealthy interests, and we don’t have enough power to vote anyone into office who would fight this development in any meaningful way. And if we do get one or two in there, they’re so outnumbered that the gesture would practically be trivial.

We don’t care enough about the things that really matter and we allow ourselves to be distracted by the things that really don’t. Not enough people ever really see the bigger picture. So many other countries and societies have such values that they create educated, politically aware – and equally as important – politically active in their society. The French will protest at the slightest hint of undesirable government change or action – and guess what? THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT ACQUIESCES. Here in America, we let the government get away with more and more and more, no matter how badly we’ll be fucked in the end… because anyone who protests is un-patriotic (see exception: Tea Party, which is only acceptable because they’re “taking their America back” from a socialist muslim crazy racist black christian). We have become our own keeper, and we make it that much easier for the powers that be. “Oh, don’t worry… we’ll do full-body 3-D scans, but we won’t STORE them. We promise.” Oh yeah… lo and behold, guess who stored them?  “Oh, don’t worry… we won’t torture people we capture… that would go against our strict moral code of ethics.” Yeah, that turned out great. Every year, they get away with more, and more, and more… and our uneducated, politically disinterested, generally dumb (as in incapable of critical thought) American public doesn’t bat an eye. It’ll be news for a couple days. And then we need to focus on Bristol Palin and how “Dancing with the Stars” was rigged. Or Brett Favre. Or Tiger Woods. Or gay people marrying. Or illegal immigration.

No one from the outside is going to be responsible for America’s downfall. It will be a strictly inside job. There will be no middle class in 2050 – likely sooner than that – due to a myriad of factors. Not being able to find employment. Underemployment not being enough for a sustainable independent life. Potential debt due to lack of sufficient income to cover basic necessary expenses, or its partner-in-crime, the lovely social/media/advertising blitz that innundates you and tempts you with things that you HAVE to have, which you really don’t and can’t even really afford. Our consumerist-based ideology of “shop shop shop, buy buy buy, get more stuff” is actually a personal thorn in my side. I can’t tell you how many fucking Facebook updates I had to read about so-and-so getting the new iphone. For shits and giggles, I went on their website to see exactly how much something like that would cost me if I wanted to buy it and actually have the capability to USE IT in a meaningful way. I went for the 16 gig ($199), unlimited minutes because it was only $10 more than the 900 minute option, and 450 minutes a month – even with my unsociable, friendless ass – seemed really limited. $69.99/month. I would’ve liked to do the 3G + tethering, but assuming I am being REALISTIC about what I would buy, I went with the 2Gig data plan – $25/month. Then messages – looking at my current phone and how many messages I’ve exchanged in the past month, I’d want to do 1500 messages at $15/month, but considering unlimited is only $5 more… yes, that’s an extra $60 a year. That I likely wouldn’t even notice having saved. So, unlimited texts at $20/month. And we’re at $114.99 a MONTH for a CELL PHONE BILL. That’s almost the exact amount of my internet, landline phone, and gym membership fees combined. For ONE CELL PHONE. No family members, just one cell phone. And I look at my peers, and I’m like… wow.

I don’t mean to sound like an old curmudgeon, but unless you’re in a profession or duty where you need to be available at all times and be able to access the internet from any location… or maybe you run your own business… or SOMETHING… I don’t know why most people my age need to pay $115 (or more) a month for a phone. So many of the features aren’t really even that relevant. Oooh, wow, I can live stream video to the web from anyplace. Are you a celebrity? No? Then you don’t fucking need it, because no one fucking cares if you were at Starbucks at 1.15 p.m. on Tuesday and just saw the cuutest little picture on the wall that you just haaaad to share.

I’ve read a few articles trying to “ask” the “question” if this generation is more narcissistic than previous generations. 110% undoubtedly. I don’t care if you were with such and such at the movie theater. I don’t care which purse you should choose or which logo you think you should choose for your business cards. I don’t care that you had an AWESOME NIGHT!! HANGING OUT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!! I don’t. fucking. care.

I’m of the opinion that I shouldn’t – and won’t – share things with others that I wouldn’t care about if they shared them with me. Too bad it seems like I’m the only person my in my age group who follows the advice.

The answer to that “question” – in quotes because article headlines like those are usually never actual questions, but beg the question more than anything – is that yes. You hear me? Yes. Generation whatever-the-fuck we are ARE ridiculously narcissistic. Everyone can share in a few characters a simple opinion. Everyone can have a webpage where they list their interests and share photos. Everyone can create an entire world centered around only them.

But that doesn’t mean they should.

And that doesn’t mean others should be expected to care about it if they do.

But yeah. Diversion was diversive. Back to the original point… which, I guess, is kind of related to our increasing narcissism in a way… because we’re too focused on ourselves to care about others. And we’re too caught up in trivial national debates (gay marriage, abortion, gun rights, religion) to put much interest in the bigger picture that is why our mortgages are upside-down, why we can’t afford health insurance but somehow are expected to be able to afford the much larger costs from not being insured…why there are not enough available jobs for those looking and those who need one, and why a good portion of those with a job either have shaky job stability or are underemployed and overworked, because the company downsized and combined 4 positions into 2, and then 2 into 1, and cut your health insurance and pay in the meantime, because hey… if you complain, someone without a job will gladly take your place. The people at the top do not fucking care. They have gotten their riches and they will leave the rest of us to starve and not bat an eyelash. Are you in debt because you’re underemployed and simply do not have the funds for the basic things you need to survive, or because of a medical issue? Has your debt caused you to not get a job because it’s legal for employers to check your credit score? Your house has no value, or you overpaid, and you can’t sell it even though it’s a buyer’s market, because we bailed out the banks with our money and they’ll be goddamned if they’re gonna let us at it with mortgage loans. Or maybe you’re one of those who grew up in my generation, brainwashed from elementary through high school with the naive idealistic idea that education is the key to a successful future, and as long as you follow your dreams, you’ll be successful. Now you have a useless college degree in a black swan profession, or maybe you did get a degree in a decent field, but you have to compete with others in the field – older workers with more experience, because they were laid off after decades of working for the same company because their company didn’t want to pay a fair wage for that experience, their 401ks have no value due to the stock market collapse, they’re too young for social security – and even if they had it, it wouldn’t be enough to live on. You find yourself thousands of dollars in debt because you were assured you’d be able to find a job with a pay that can handle paying it back, and instead you’re back at home with mom and dad and the job you do have isn’t what you want to do for a career and it doesn’t pay enough for you to move out. And those who did happen to attain that successful position before everything went to hell… a lot of you are in the same positions as the downsized and savings-less elderly. Things were cheery when you had the job, could afford the bills, were looking forward to expansion… now the job is gone, and you have bills that you now cannot afford.

There are so many variations of this situation that once could be summed up with “the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.” It’s not just the poor getting poorer. Developed families and seniors who worked for decades, did all the right things, avoided major dumb financial decisions… and they’re in the same boat as those who didn’t.

I did a Facebook post on my opinion about how true, lasting social change occurs. I’ll probably post it here later. Things in America need to change – AT OUR LEVEL. The greedy elite are not going to willingly change the system that allowed them to get where they are. The American people actually have to stop bickering about such trivial bullshit – sports, celebrities, WHATEVER – and actually start becoming informed about the reasons why, when they come home from arguing at that bar, they’re in a house that is worth less than they paid. Or why, when they close that US magazine on their lunch break, they’re working at a job that is paying them much less than it’s worth, and what they’re being paid isn’t even enough to live in this country. We have to start CARING about this shit, and the second step is that we actually have to start EXPRESSING our outrage. And not let our short attention span get in the way of it. We have to ride our government like a reverse-cowgirl porn star and not ever relent until we SEE the change. No, not just hear the empty promises – I mean SEE more money in your paycheck. SEE affordable healthcare. SEE the jobs appearing that our citizens so desperately need to simply exist.

And that kind of takes me back to the original point, actually… we work for this money. Without the money, we cannot acquire the basic things we need to survive. The idea of money has absolutely been detrimental to our civilization as a whole, in my opinion. We toil our lives away working – most of us not because we want to or like it, but because we have to to have the money we need to live.

In some ways, it was probably better to be a caveman, be able to build your own housing and hunt your own food. No money involved. We developed agriculturally, and then mechanically, and then industrially… to lead to this society where, in most places in the world, money is required for goods and services, and jobs are required for money. Now, I’m not saying we need to go back to a caveman era simpler time… but I think we need to spring ahead – America at least, in particular – to a society were these basic essentials do not require money to buy, so that we can use our money to actually develop our lives, and in effect, our creativity and our productivity. Is this socialism? Sure, in a way. I haven’t really thought too much about the particular details of the theory… but I don’t think we were meant to live this way, and I don’t think that we should.

Personal update next, I guess.

So about a month ago, I had three functioning computers. I’m back down to one. Good times. My dad fixed my laptop but there’s the recurring (and well-documented) issue with the loose power connector port. When the damn thing was in warranty (eons ago) I had to have the harddrive replaced. My dad got the computer to run only for the connection to become too loose… I could solder a new one one. But no. Not my preferred method of dying.

And then I got some LOVELY spyware on my personal desktop. Which I brilliantly decided to remove with torrented Spyware Doctor. Yeah, well… we went from ridiculous popups and frequent re-directs… ran Spyware Doctor…. less re-directs and popups but still a headache of an issue… ran it again in safe mode as recommended by Elizabeth… Blue Screen of Death on regular bootup at/shortly after login. Could still boot in Safe mode… but no, that now gets BSOD and reboot upon loading. So yeah. Completely useless to me at that point. I hate to keep bothering my dad with it because I keep fucking shit up… ok, the spyware was totally my fault, the laptop not so much. But oh well. They’re coming into town near the end of September. I told my dad earlier I hated that he spent so much time fixing my computers and he essentially responded that he was a computer expert, why shouldn’t I be able to go to him with my computer issues.

I feel so goddamn guilty about everything all the time. I think it’d be nice to be a sociopath for a day. Just a day.

I’m taking vacation 9-11 until 9-15. Flying down to Atlanta to see aging relatives again and mah dog <3. Possibly get hair done, I don’t know (UPDATE: yeah no, not gonna get hair braided). That requires budgetary issues and possibly a shitton of overtime, and I have yet to fill my birth control patch prescription due to idk… costing $230 for a three-month supply. On the positive side, I got my shift changed to 4 10-hour days, and I now have Thursday through Saturday off. Which completely rocks, except for the whole “being 24-years-old and having no one to hang out with on my three-day weekends” thing. I’ve been finding myself going through my usual routine of texting the usual suspects – Hannah, Braxton, Randy, Elizabeth, Don – and I usually strike-out. I went out Saturday to the mall, just to try to get out and be around people, and ended up feeling immeasurably worse. Being surrounded by people… couples… friends… people who connect with so many others, have so many others who care. Who they can be around. I almost ended up bursting into tears so I just brought my lame ass on home. 

Fulfilling social interaction… don’t know why that seems to be so goddamned impossible to get on even a semi-regular basis. Fuck. 6 billion fucking people, like I always say…

So I’ve taken to becoming more sensitive/dependent on those I do have in my life. Mostly in regards to Braxton. Now that’s becoming good times -_-. We went out Saturday and got Greek food. Then went to a bar that was empty, bartended by a chick he used to hang out with in high school on the regular. Apparently she remembered me from some Chipotle event… I went out a lot more than I realized back then, with people who couldn’t have given a fuck about me, and Braxton and I’s social circles heavily overlapped in high school… we just never really interacted that much with each other alone. For whatever reason. I think I was ridiculously crushing on Steve at the time. Anyways.

He started off the night borderline touchy-feeling Braxton. Very borderline. Didn’t take long for him to drink himself into the cold, detached, asshole Braxton. He said he’d been drinking since 8 a.m. I actually have not the smallest amount of fear having sex with him when he’s cold, since our sex has been getting progressively more violent and painful. On my side, of course. To the point where I need to have a safe word, but I really don’t want to have one. Good old self-destructive times.

I don’t know how I can hate something so much and need it and love it so much at the same time. There are levels of complexity that I feel regarding our relationship, and the sexual element in particular, that in general distress the high holy fuck out of me, as I’ve probably stated I dunno… a zillion times. I talked to Pamela about it a little bit today. She thinks I feel the need to go further and further outside of my boundaries in part because I know he becomes so easily bored. Which is actually something I hadn’t thought about, despite the obvious element of truth. I feel like he’s someone who shouldn’t have the power he does over me, that he’s not someone who should be able to hurt me during sex… because I can’t trust him enough with it, I can’t trust that he will stop and I can’t trust that he cares enough about me for it to ever be safe. I feel like I should give that power to someone who respects me a little more, and who’s given me a LOT more of himself… and at the same time, the fact that he shouldn’t have it, but yet he does… and the fact that I really can’t predict or read him all that well, albeit probably better than most… it’s part of why I like it so much.

Maybe I’ll die like the worthless piece of shit I am, eh? I think it’d be fitting. Strangled by someone close to me.

Yeah, no that doesn’t remind me of my mother AT ALL.

I guess it’s the choking that I need to address more than anything. Scars can heal, blood can dry… death not so much. In fact, in that moment there’s really no sexual element for me at all when he chokes me… I dunno about him. It really is rather terrifying. But it fittingly feels like punishment, and so I get fulfillment out of it, on another level.

I wish I could uncross these goddamn wires from my goddamn brain. It seems like I am biologically driven to make even more knots. I feel horribly guilty, and I KNOW I should be making better decisions, but my emotional mind seems to have complete control over that aspect of me lately. When I’m around him… I completely lose myself. And I know he’s not lost at all.

And that truly does scare me.

Loneliness… it’s a helluva drug.

I’ve actually been thinking lately about what it would be like to be married to him. Miserable, unfulfilling, all that good times. When I told Pamela she gave me a good reality check – her immediate response after her look of shock was something along the lines of “get thee to match.com”. Lol. I honestly hadn’t considered how much my increasing attraction to him might be based on my dwindling lack of other social opportunities (and there were quite few to begin with). I’m actually on match.com, bought a three month subscription, but have a phobia of dating sites and a ridiculous mistrust of anyone on them and how they mis-represent themselves. So I’ve been letting it go to waste and don’t respond to messages in anywhere near a timely fashion. Good times.

(annnd current day *EDIT* more like five days ago at this point)

Got paid this morning. 100-hour paycheck. I would’ve been able to do my shopping and come in on budget had I not SOMEHOW mis-accounted for about $100 or so. I have no idea how the hell I fucked up that badly on my daily balance. And so at this point I’m at “fuck it” mode… because I leave for Atlanta in a week and blowing the budget to make sure I look nice is acceptable to me. Every time I go off budget, I always get back on track, so… ::shrug::

My mood’s been weird lately, but I guess I don’t really have a well-defined “normal.” Frequent thoughts of suicide/self-harm when I’m feeling frustrated (work, social/romantic life, etc.). Trying (and failing) to stop repeatedly comparing myself to others in my age/peer group… it feels (falsely, I know) like “everyone” either has the love life (if not marriage, at least a long-term partner) or the successful life (master’s, decent salaried job). That and looks are the three standards I evaluate myself by. I was looking through my yearbook a couple days ago… which I almost always end up feeling several times worse about myself after doing… (I should really fucking burn them or something) and I saw a girl that I recall being slightly envious of in high school. She was the predictably successful trio – intelligent, pretty, and talented. I pegged her 6 years ago as inevitably being one of the successful ones… lo and behold, guess who’s singing on Broadway?

Yeah, she’s gorgeous, she’s singing on Broadway, she has freaking google results for crying out loud. And then there’s me. No degree, no real boyfriend… ahh, I guess I have a boyfriend, but he’s not a serious prospect for a long-term fulfilling relationship… and for all my so-called intelligence, and all my ambitions as a child… and the paths that I was on that most certainly could have led to their fulfillment… I work at a call center.

I told Pamela yesterday that I wish there was a switch I could flip to get myself to stop comparing myself to others. It’s a HUGE – if not the BIGGEST – cause of my low self-esteem. Sure, growing up, the seeds and patterns were planted by a combination of family physical and sexual abuse, bullying at school, and the complete lack of support to combat it – but in 2010, at 24-years-old, I have no one who is around to make this cycle continue but myself. I perpetuate my low self-esteem with my constant negative self-talk and comparisons.  And I know this. And I recognize it every time it happens.

And yet… somehow… I can. not. stop. doing it.

I told Pamela because of this awareness of my mental dilemmas and knowledge that I should be doing things differently somehow never really translating into successfully doing things differently… I’d rather be dumb and crazy. I’d rather be insane. Than be intelligent, and know that I should have the capability to change these patterns… and yet still doing the same fucking things and making the same fucking mistakes and things never fucking changing. She said that it probably wouldn’t be a very good thing if I were insane and honestly had no awareness/knowledge/responsibility of and for my thoughts and behaviors. It’d be worse for others, yeah… but it’d certainly be better for me.

(September 8)

Today is the last day of work before my 10 days off. My period started yesterday… it’s not normal. Whatever normal is. My health is terrible. My teeth are in bad shape. It’s hard to breathe. My chest is congested all the time due to a post-nasal drip that has been recurring for the past two years and I can’t take deep breaths. Like I’ve been fucking smoking a pack a day when I haven’t smoked anything in months. I went to the doctor a few weeks ago, I might’ve mentioned, but didn’t have enough time to have my blood drawn. I finally did that last week… hopefully I’ll get a call in the near-future about some results.

It really doesn’t even matter anymore. I truly have no hope that I’m ever going to physically feel any better than absolute shit. Weakness, constipation alternating with random periods of near-diarrhea, itchy skin all the time, including bumps and sores – particularly on my back, can’t breathe, feel out of breath all the time, inflamed lymph nodes, recurring yeast infections, urinary tract infections, infected tonsils, sore throat/cough/sneezing, feeling hungover when I haven’t been drinking  – FEEL LIKE I’VE BEEN HIT BY A GODDAMN BUS, muscle pain, joint pain, heart palpitations (maybe low blood pressure due to diet/chronic dehydration). It’s like this, all day, every day, I never know which symptom is going to hit me next but they always come back if they ever go away.

I’m tired. Common theme is common.

I know I’m not helping anything with my eating disorder. I try but my effort doesn’t really produce significant results. I had a bowl of turkey chili with shredded cheddar yesterday and a can of green beans. That’s about the amount of food I eat every day. I don’t know how much of that is eating disorder at this point, though it’s probably denial to say it’s less than 80%. Starvation is easily self-perpetuating. When I eat a significant amount of food, I just feel ill. I can feel weak and have palpitations and ridiculously low blood pressure, or I can just feel disgustingly sick in my stomach. I usually choose the former option. I only eat so I don’t die, but who knows if I’m eating enough for even that. I might drop dead of a heart attack any day now, and I’ll still be fat.

“Fat” for me is having fat, any amount of fat, at all. My body could look a lot better if I could EXERCISE and TONE. I’ve been to the gym a couple times in the past 1.5 weeks but I couldn’t exercise as much as I should’ve because I didn’t eat enough. When I know I want to exercise, I try to eat more and I’m not successful. WTF is wrong with me? I’ve been trying to figure out why this has gotten so much severe and I can’t. I’m trying to rationalize a mental illness. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to figure out an answer.

“I want a perfect body… I want a perfect soul.” Emocakes. I sure as hell don’t have a perfect soul… maybe I feel a need to compensate. Or maybe that switch has been flipped in my brain, just like with my bipolar mood swings, and it’s the Starvation Era. It last went from 2004-2006 (155 lbs to 100 lbs). Binge Era from 2007-2008 (100 lbs to 180 and probably higher, I stopped weighing at that point but I probably might’ve reached 190)… which segued for a little bit. And now Starvation Era again (180 to 125 and counting).

That’s funny. I remember the Binge Era lasting a lot longer. Also, what I hate about losing weight is the feeling of dread that I am inevitably going to enter a Binge Era and gain it all back, and then some. I wish I could STOP THIS CYCLE. I can’t fucking STOP THIS CYCLE. I want to get rid of all my bigger clothes because they’re taking up space… but I know, deep down, odds are ridiculously high I’m going to fit into them again. And I feel like I have absolutely no power over whether or not that happens… it’s just a fucking inevitability. Gotta enjoy the thin years while I can.

Speaking of which, my vanity has reached epic proportions. I’m actually quite ashamed of how much time I spend looking at myself. Apparently not ashamed enough to stop, and I don’t go outside much anyway, so whatever. It’s mostly done in my room. I’m still only getting hit on by nasty looking thugs so there’s defintely no ego boost.

Well I guess that’s a lie. ONE group of nice-looking black guys gave me a compliment when I passed them to go into  my favorite sushi place. Welcome change.

(but still black… so nothx)

 Not that I wish that I was hit on more by white guys. Guys of all races have their own peculiar set of issues that really piss me off. I’m only more familiar with the ridiculous violent misogyny and almost pathological dehumanization from black men and the equally irritating dismissive sexism and egoism from racial supremacy from white men. I think I’d like a Hispanic man. I can’t quite explain why.

And it’s all cultural. I’m really only speaking from a cultural standpoint. I have almost nothing in common with the predominant features of “black culture,” however you define that. In fact, I don’t really belong to any culture at all… and that actually makes me kind of sad. For example… Gabe, a friend of a friend (Chris), is someone I met at Chris’ going-away party. Couple years older than me (I’m guessing, as Chris is as well), apparently well-off (drives a late model BMW) though I can’t figure out exactly what the fuck he DOES, and Jewish. Now I’m not saying I’m materialistic – really, all I ask is that someone bring the same to the table that I can, and making less than $25k a year BEFORE taxes, the bar really isn’t set that high. Of course, money is only one thing that needs to be “equally brought to the table,” but you get the point. But we flirted a little bit, and all I could think about was exactly the kind of person I needed to be to attract someone like him.

So Gabe’s recently found himself a girlfriend. Master’s in Statistics. What struck me about the relationship was the fact that she was also Jewish, and this is where I’m going with the point about not having a culture. What are the odds that he would find someone equally educated, equally ambitious, bringing something equally to the table… and also Jewish? I don’t know if he always screened non-Jewish women so him getting with a Jewish woman was inevitable, but what I do know is that they have this shared culture as well. Points of reference that not everyone would understand or be able to empathize with. And I realized how much I’ve been under-valuing the importance of culture, especially as it relates to social relationships.

On the flip side, this is part of why I like Braxton so much. Despite his very obvious flaws, he is decidedly outside of the mainstream. Also incidentally Jewish, but non-observant in pretty much every way. But I don’t know how I could be with someone who is mainstream for a number of reasons. He’s not particularly responsible, he’s an alcoholic, a pervert, is almost blithely unaware of many mainstream social niceties and customs (which is why I could never take him to a nice restaurant, because I’m not going to tell him a million times to not put his feet up on the bench and stretch out like it’s a fucking cafe), and has a decidedly casual disregard for the ones he is aware of.

On the other hand.

This minimization of social customs and mores means he wouldn’t think twice about dating a black chick. He wouldn’t have the slightest hangup about going out in public with me.  And strangely enough, he seems to have significantly less misogynistic leanings than about 99% of guys I’ve ever known… in my opinion, in no small part due to the fact that he grew up outside the mainstream and thus avoided the heavily entrenched sexism in American culture (with the only but significant exception of the fact that his dad was emotionally abusive to his mother, if not physically… and yet, unlike many guys who internalize this and hate women and think this is how they should be treated, he went the opposite and swore he’d never hit a woman). I say this because in all the years I’ve known him, he’s pretty much equally hated stupid men and stupid women, and I’ve never observed him targeting women moreso than men. There’s also the fact that the most shameful thing he feels he’s ever done - moreso than a number of ridiculously “twisted perverted” things he’s told me about (in quotes because I’m almost equally twisted and perverted so they don’t really faze me much) was the fact that he accidentally struck his mother. All the things he’s casually mentioned to me unasked, and it took months to get that one admission out of him.

I could date someone who’s reliable. Someone who doesn’t have a drug dependency. Someone more normal. But someone who wouldn’t have the balls to call people on their bullshit. Someone who has deeply hidden sexism. Someone who would think too much about what other people think.

See, and the crazy thing is I’m not sure how well the positive things I like in Braxton would co-exist with the positive things I’m seeking from a more “stable” person. I don’t know. I like being able to be as dark and morbid and sordid and disgusting as I want to be. There’s few things more freeing than being around someone and just truly being able to be yourself with no restraints.

But hell. It’s all bullshit anyway. The only reason I think about him so much is that I feel like this is the age when everyone is getting married and I “should” be too, and if I don’t, I’m going to yet again find myself further and further behind in my social development. I’m going to be 35 talking about going on a date when other 35-year-olds are going to be discussing book clubs and their childrens’ first day of school, etc.  Even when I personally agree that I – and probably most people, judging by the divorce rate – shouldn’t get married in their twenties.

Whatever. Thinking too much about things. Never gets me anywhere.

Not sane. Not sane at allll.

Getting kind of tired of the suicidal back-and-forth. Before my period, I could blame it on the hormones… during the period, I blamed it on the hormones… my period’s been over for 2 days and I still just want to eat a gun.  So I guess this is more chemical-imbalance related than hormonal.  Idk. Idc.

Any will for anything has just… completely left me. I can’t eat. My sleep is horrible. I just don’t. care.

Every day during work last week I cried. I hate crying. I wish I could go a fucking day without getting teary, cause seriously WTF.

I have things to care about and I have goals I can accomplish and I have people who would be ridiculously hurt if I offed myself. And I do think about that. Which I guess is why I haven’t done anything yet. But god, holy shit, last week so many times I just… wanted to die more than anything in the world. Work was hell. Pure fucking hell. I hated every second of last week. I worked overtime because I haven’t been getting any bonus money due to my shitty call times and low order values… 19 hours of overtime last week. So many customers who need to be shot in the fucking face.

I hung out with Braxton Saturday. That was depressing. He called me beautiful. We fucked on the floor of his new house (rented, of course). Had sushi, got beer, went back to my place and fucked on my bed. Passed out for a couple hours and drove him back home in the wee hours.

For as much as we told each other we loved each other that night, it’s funny how two people who love each other can’t find any topics of discussion during a simple dinner. I don’t think he loves me. I think he loves the sex and I think he’s attracted to me and he confuses those intense emotions for love. I think he finds my personality annoying, judging by the repeated criticisms about my driving, and how small my apartment was, etc., etc. that night. I think maybe he thinks I’m dumb because most of the times when I’m around him, I’m ridiculously manic or depressed/suicidal or not eating. I don’t know what he thinks about me. As a person. I don’t think likes me. As a person. I think his is a false love.

Then I realize if I don’t have him, I have no one. No one to tell me I’m beautiful whether fat or less fat, no one to show an interest in me regardless of how insincere or misguided it may be coming from.

Then again, I have this hangup about Don thinking I’m stupid too. So that could very well be a ridiculously projected insecurity on my part, the origins of which I don’t really understand. And granted, he’s been biking to and from his job a about 24 miles round trip every day and was admittedly exhausted, so that could explain his irritability.

I buy him things a lot. Booze, food, whatever. I pay for him all the time. I think I subconsciously am trying to buy his affection. If I don’t buy him things, he won’t like me as much. I think I do the same with Elizabeth. Even though the latter I have much less reason to need to believe I need to buy the affection of. I did the same with Don. I think I have a horribly deep-seated, chronic fear of being unlovable and unlikable and un-every-goddamn-thingable.

But goddamn. It was very unsettling to look at him and think that maybe we don’t even have the faintest foundations of a real relationship, maybe we just have sex and history and “comfortability.” We’re just comfortable with each other. We know each others quirks and flaws and bodies. But maybe we may not particularly like each other all that much. I probably have more genuine like for him than he does for me. Plus, as much as he finds me attractive, I’ve been finding him a lot more attractive in recent months. Even though I don’t view myself as a woman, I love the fact that he looks like a man. I’ve probably stated that before. The smaller I get, the more attracted to him I get as well. I love the fact that he’s a foot taller and 120 lbs heavier. I love the ridiculous power imbalance. I love how rough our sex has gotten. I think that’s part of my self-destructiveness coming through stronger though. When we fuck, I really want him to hurt me.

But there are other women trying to come into his life and they need to seriously GTFO lol. Even though I’ve fucked a few other guys in the years since I started fucking him… So I’m a complete hypocrite, but at least I could be semi-secure in the knowledge that he really wasn’t such a catch there’d be other females trying to bed him in my absence. So Imma need to know where the fuck these other chicks came from. Lol, no, I don’t really need to know. It’s none of my business. But it freaks me out because they make me think I will lose him to them. And you know, the whole “ridiculous fear of abandonment” part of my psyche that causes me to behave in ridiculous ways… I’m just really nervous about the relationship. He’s going to meet someone better looking who he thinks is more intelligent and has a personality that doesn’t grate on his nerves and then I’ll be completely irrelevant. I don’t know. Like I always think, if I really could do better, I already would’ve. I have to be healthy to attract a healthy person. I can’t seem to get myself healthy on my own and I don’t have anyone to help me. Elizabeth gives awesome advice. She and I are talking now. But the saying you can lead a horse to water… I’m just really goddamn stubborn. When I get it in my head that I want to die, and I feel like dying so strongly and so often, I really couldn’t give a flying fuck about reasons I have to live or all the things that have worked out for me or all the signs why I wasn’t meant to kill myself. And they’re there, and they’re personal, but you know… sometimes I just really don’t want to fucking live. I am so completely unmotivated at every single level. Even my preferred distraction of sex isn’t working, and my vagina spazzes every time I have sex anyway for reasons that I can’t figure out but that REALLY piss me off. Like damn, can I have one fucking outlet? I rarely drink, I don’t do drugs, at least let me have a sexual vice.

Nope. Can’t even enjoy that without being really fucking miserable for days afterward.

Fuck that shit. Fuck this shit.

I’ve been careless with my money lately. I haven’t been able to make my budget at all for the past 2-3 paychecks.  Well maybe just the past two.  My life is getting ridiculously expensive. And because I get so little pleasure elsewhere, when I have to not spend money on something I want to do because I’ve spent so much money on things I need or have to do, I just get REALLY bitter and miserable. And then I think “fuck the budget, I’ve got to have a LITTLE fun.” I understand that attitude is okay once in awhile as long as it doesn’t become a habit, but it’s the whole “not becoming a habit” thing I worry about. I’m becoming surprisingly comfortable with giving myself reasons why it’s okay to go ahead and spend the money and go overbudget. I definitely won’t reach my savings goals with that attitude. I’m trying to have at least $4k by the end of the year. It’s probably too high of a goal, but I want to try to get as close as I can. But with all the expenses that happen, car expenses, the investments I’m trying to make in regards to my appearance (hair, wardrobe, gym, etc.) so that maybe I DO attract someone healthy and so I don’t get further mired into my depression…. and when I look at spending money as an investment, it also makes it ridiculously easy for my eating disorder to thrive. I buy a nice pair of jeans, I see them every day, I get to wear them, I get to feel a little better about my appearance. I buy food and I eat it and then it’s gone. By not buying food, not only do I support my weight loss, but I can spend the money on things with value that I can see and get use of over and over again.

I see Pamela tomorrow. I’ve dropped down into the 120s, and I think I’m beginning to look like shit, even though I don’t even look thin, just average still. I want to be thin but with the way I’m shaped, I look disgusting on top when I get my thighs down to an acceptably trim size. I’m down to a size 10 pants, still medium on the tops for the most part, depending on the stores I even have to do large still for tunics (but that’s what I get for shopping at the same stores that also cater to 16 year old rail thin white girls). But I turned on the light last night while walking into the bathroom and unexpectedly saw my chestcage. That’s gross. I don’t want to look like a bird. I still envy thin people but I don’t want to look emaciated like I used to wish to be. My collarbones aren’t completely defined yet, and I still have flab on my upper arms, so I know that I’m not even that thin on top yet. My fat just tends to go first from ridiculous places. Like my wrists and my chest. Boring body talk is boring though, right? I know I’m going to get a talking to from Pamela when I see her in 9 hours.

I’m actually doing a bit better than last week. That definitely was period week and man… that feeling of just… hating life so much, and feeling that intensely suicidal and angry and hateful is really not the business. I can’t even describe how awful of a feeling it is, and that’s coming from someone who’s essentially in the same place but just not quite so viciously inclined to self-injure. Cause so many times last week, good god, I wanted to hurt myself more than anything. It doesn’t even feel like a basic melancholy sort of I want to die, it’s like I feel DRIVEN to hurt or kill myself, it’s that fucking strong.  It feels so fucking awful when you can’t think of anything you’d rather do more than hurt yourself. I daydreamed about it constantly. And thinking about hurting myself or killing myself was the most joy I was able to feel. WTF, you know? It sounds so crazy, and it felt so crazy, but that’s what it was.

Elizabeth keeps a dream diary. Every single morning, she’s able to recall her dreams from the previous night. I don’t know how the fuck she does it. I think it’s kind of odd that even when I’ve been feeling as bad as I am, I rarely have or remember my dreams. And I haven’t had a nightmare in some time. My dreams/nightmares used to be more closely correlated with my mood. But I don’t know why I haven’t been having significant dreams, despite feeling so vividly negative. I can’t remember the last dream I had, neutral or negative.

Tired, hungry, and going to bed.

I’m a Facebook fan of The Boondocks.  Since Facebook revamped itself a bit, now I receive feeds alongside my friends with the status updates of my likes (Colbert Report, etc.).  There was a post made by The Boondocks a couple days ago about Chris Brown/Rihanna.  And what absolutely fascinated me – in an entirely negative way – were the overwhelming numbers of black women who not only want to forgive Chris Brown, but then take it a step further and want to BLAME Rihanna.  The excuses were mostly along the lines of “you know how black women are.”  Yes, sure.  Every black woman in an abusive relationship must have somehow caused her own beating, because everyone knows black women only have one personality type, and that’s combative and provocative.

They forgive him because “everyone makes mistakes.”

They forgive him because “it’s not our place to forgive him, only God can and He will judge him.”

They forgive him because Rihanna obviously provoked him.

They forgive him because it was none of our business to begin with and has nothing to do with the music.

But most of all, they forgive him and will defend him tirelessly… because he is a black man.

Black women’s defense of black men borders on hysterical, and it almost always crosses the border into irrational.  We defend them no matter how they degrade us and talk about us.  We defend them no matter how frequently they leave us for women of other races.  We defend them no matter how often they beat us (we bear a soberingly disproportional number of domestic partner cases and deaths).  We forgive, forgive, forgive.  We never want to speak up and say the way they objectify us is WRONG.  We never want to speak up and say that we are worth MORE THAN OUR BODIES.  We never want to speak up and say that we are NOT their property to use and abuse however they please.

And we wonder why each generation of black men gets worse than the previous.

Because god knows, no one wants to step in and tell them that what they’re doing is WRONG.  Actual quotes from the discussion:

“i dont really care it happened he went through what he went through and that is really the end of it who the eff am i to say if i forgive him or not i wasnt in the situation”

“I was never mad@Chris…I do not condone anyone fighting but I do feel that no one deserves to be hit. Man nor woman!!! I was not there so therefore I can’t hate him.”

“U kno everyone makes mistakes and aint nothing wrong wit forgiving dat person if they realize what mistake they have made. I think he did dat last night he realized what he have done.”

“Did you really just ask did I forgive him??!! Who the hell are we to be judge and juror? SMDH! I will tell anyone out there that if you are not forgiving others, I pray that God has mercy on your soul when you screw up! People really need to quit with holding on to things. I mean what for? I am so sure if you made a mistake no matter how big or …”

“He did a wonderful job, was never upset w/ what happened” (the post was in the context of his Michael Jackson tribute)

“Like Mike Epps saidwe don’t know what all that frankenstine head b*tch said in that car!! I don’t think hitting females is right but in this case HE WHOOP THAT TRICK”

“as far as forgiving CB, only God needs to hand out forgiveness for our sins! Rihanna can fly back to da islands first-class on her big, big forehead!!!”

“All I care about is their music….didnt give a fuck about their personal life in the past and i dont plan to in the near future.”

“Chris Brown is still alright with me.”

“I neva strayed away,wut escalates beef iz da media,the man makes great music & that iz tha piece ov him he shares wit da world so take wut he gives to u & wut he does n private let him have his privacy,who can say wut took place dat day U KNW HOW WOMEN R WHEN THEY THINK THEIR DUDEZ R FUCKN OFF WE GET REAL TUFF TIL THEY START HITN OUR ASS BACK…”

“honestly i still liked chris brown after the whole rhianna thing, cause 1 the boy is talented and makes good music & thats something many can agree wit me on, & 2nd who the hell are we to judge him on his mistakes, now of course i don’t like violence against anyone male or female but he’s had enough of this following him around. And be real now …”

“I,m in no position to judge, therefore…..how could I forgive him….God,s job can,t be handle by people….We don,t know the understanding that God has with Chris Brown…I feel that this performance..was meant to awaken us on our human spirit ……to reveal that we can feel for someone that has made a mistake…..God forgives…….and loves us…..despite of….so who are we to think the opposite of that………..”

I wasn’t gonna do this until I improved my diet a little more, but here I am.  I’m too upset to go to sleep after having unintentionally started reading about the German Shepard dog Buddy who was tortured and dragged to death in Colorado last December.  I think I’m done crying but I don’t want to go to bed.  That’s a surefire way to bad dreams.  Some things I’ll never understand.  And I guess reasons only make things marginally more tolerable anyway.  But I don’t understand… why people do this.  I don’t understand why these things happen.  It’s senseless, yes, but I just… I really like dogs.  A lot.  I’ll take an average dog of average intelligence any day over almost any human.  I think they’re fucking amazing creatures, and the best thing about them is that they’re amazing but have no pretenses that they’re anything other than a dog.  They just do what they do.  Humans, on the other hand, elevate our status in the animal kingdom to something of a god.  And then we still do the same things others in the animal kingdom do… murder, rape… and what’s worse, we do it more creatively, more senselessly, more frequently.  And we still have the fucking gall to proclaim ourselves above every other animal.

If we’re so much fucking better, then how come we behave so much fucking worse?

Not to say that good things don’t happen, or good people with good hearts don’t exist.  They do.  There are many others who are saddened by Buddy’s death (and any similar animal abuse story).  But I think, by and large, most people fall somewhere in the middle.  They don’t think it’s right, but they’re not particularly upset by animal abuse.  Sounds innocent enough, but these are the same people who, when confronted with animal abuse/neglect in their own lives, will likely turn a blind eye because they “don’t want to get involved” or it’s “none of their business.”  And even so so many resources exist that people can avail themselves of to report such things, most would put the comfort of “not making trouble” above possibly saving an animal’s life or ending their suffering.

That’s one of many good reasons for the basis of my misanthropy.  The things people will or won’t do just to feel “comfortable.”  No one has any fucking spine.  No one has a strong moral compass.  Just mind your own business and get through your own life the easiest you can.  Hey, life’s hard enough already, right?  Why add to the stress?

It’s extremely depressing because I think it’s part of human nature to put personal comfort above doing what’s right.  I could try until I die to end the suffering of animals, one at a time, but in the end it’s a completely lost battle.  Not saying it’s not worth trying – even saving 5,000 out of 5 million is better than none at all – but I don’t think we’ll ever be at a point where most of the people do the right thing most of the time.

Maybe that’s my pessimism coloring reality though.  It was only a few hundred years ago that most of the world was ok with owning people, a practice that went back thousands of years.  So I suppose we can evolve our standards… but can we evolve our nature?  Our tendency to put personal comfort above doing what’s right?  I’m doubtful.  That’s why it takes much longer for positive change to happen than it should.  But people are fucking morons.  That certainly hasn’t changed one bit since we first started walking upright.  I honestly can’t believe how stupid people are sometimes.  I’ve been horribly taken aback by the rise in the number of people angry at Obama for the current situation.  Like, really?  After 8 years of driving the country into the ground, they’re not even gonna give the guy 4 years before they get impatient with things not being perfect already?

I guess that’s how it always is to people too dumb for memory.  Just blame the current person in charge, regardless of context or circumstances.  I just literally can’t believe the volume of people calling for Obama’s head already… and I’m not talking about the people who hated him to begin with, because that’s a REALLY lost cause… I’m talking about the people who voted for him and supported him.  What is he, a fucking magician?  Their expectations are just… horribly unrealistic, but that’s what they’re using at the polls.

(disclaimer: I don’t suck Obama’s penis.  I think he was HOT back in the day and I’d totally have hit it back in the 70s, and I think he’s still somewhat bought and paid for by corporations and not really that much different from Clinton in his centrist personality.  I don’t agree with some things he says or does or some of his ideas, he’s a politician and he still lies – albeit we kind of force our politicians to lie to us by necessity to even get elected because we want them to do things that aren’t really feasible nor advisable, but we don’t want to be told that we have to pay more taxes or tighten our budgets etc… but what I do know is that I like the fact that he has a brain, he uses it, and I really think he’s doing the best he can given the turd platter he was handed – in fact, I really am at a loss to think of anyone else who could have accomplished all that he’s accomplished and BETTER to boot.)

Yeah, but what’s been going on with me lately.  Not actively suicidal (UPDATE: yeah no, that’s kind of changed), for one thing.  I took some vacation and went down to see my parents last week for Mother’s Day.  I saw my dog (!!!) and it was a real relief to see her in her natural environment… she was definitely seeming like her old self.  I frequently think about her passing all time (I know I’ve written about it a lot) and I know it has to happen someday, but I just want that to be delayed as long as possible.  But she was the same lazy old mutt I’ve known for years lol.  My grandparents look good (saw both sets).  I think about their passing occasionally nowadays as well.  I’m so used to having both sets of grandparents and I know it’s kind of weird because I think, by my age, most people have at least had one grandparent pass.  But it’s just never been a concern for me.  I am trying to talk to them and learn as much as possible about them, though, because that’s an avenue I’ve never had the intellectual curiosity to explore before and the window is just going to get smaller.  I asked my grandma what my mom was like as a kid – if she was more of a mama’s or daddy’s girl.  My grandma promptly responded “neither.  She was her own person.”  I found that very revealing.  My grandma told a story about how my mom would love to cook for everyone but she was pretty terrible at it, and she would make the same dish over and over again once she learned how to do it and everyone would get sick of eating the same thing.  There was a funny story about bread pudding that my mom made for her siblings (4 of them) when she was twelve… she put too much flour in but she didn’t use the self-rising flour, and since she knew everyone liked crust she made lots of crust and went overboard with it.

It’s just… interesting… how I have to re-familiarize my family members through adult eyes now.  Because naturally, as a kid, there are so many things that go on that you’re oblivious to in the family dynamics, stories, and backgrounds.  And like I said… the window isn’t getting any larger to try to understand them, to understand my parents… to understand myself?  To understand my parents’ siblings, their relationships with each other, their relationships with my grandparents.  To see how each generation affected the next.  I don’t know what my goal is, but I just know that I want to know more about these people, in their own words.  I guess I need to make sense out of the dysfunction in the hope that understanding will help me move on.  Moving on = less pain, less pain = less depression, less depression = more productivity, more productivity = better life.  Or so my theory goes.

My trip wasn’t just to learn more about my family, but also to introduce myself as an adult.  A semi-well adjusted adult that doesn’t need to be taken care of, who can do for herself on her own.  I was thinking back on the contexts that my extended family has seen me under, and much to my chagrin I believe almost all the time, I was having some emotional crisis/issue or another.  That’s not the image of myself I want to leave them with.

But that’s all it is.  An image.  I put on a mask and acted a play.  I was successful.  I gave them happy, drama-free memories of me.  But it doesn’t go beneath the surface.

It was also interesting to observe how my parents interact with each other.  My dad was oddly distant throughout my visit, even for him.  I could tell there was A LOT on his plate, but I wish we could have interacted a little more deeply.  He told me about some of it – having to do the taxes took up a lot of his time with the move and the retirement and the health insurance… speaking of which, he had to spend a good deal of time straightening that out only to find out that he didn’t need to pay for COBRA, his insurance was available through his company but it was still too expensive for us.  And by “us” I mean my brother and I.  I didn’t know that there was a flat charge for having ANY children on the policy, and so when I got dropped, my brother got dropped as well.

My dad’s also been working on this farmer’s lawsuit (the lawsuit against USDA for discrimination against black farmers in loan practices for several decades) for my mom’s father.  I’ve heard about it here and there for the past couple years but I didn’t know my grandfather actually had a semi-legitimate complaint and documentation to back him up.  I’m actually supposed to be edited my grandfather’s written statement about the treatment, and I’ve done all but the last 5 pages.  I haven’t worked on it since I got back, though I’ve loaded it and held the pages in my hand to type.  I don’t know, I’m just not sharp enough/don’t have the mental energy for it right now.  But I’m procrastinating also due to perfectionism, and I wish I could get off my ass and just finish TYPING UP the damn thing, and edit it later.  Cause god it needs major editing.  My dad had to spend several hours with my granddad already, going over the numbers and timelines in the paper.  I don’t know, he’s just been doing A LOT lately because there’s a lot that needs to be done.  And then my grandmother has a minor manufactured crisis every week so they’ll go to Birmingham and visit her (like not getting the remote to work.  Dead serious).  I don’t know, I just wish I could see him relaxed and happy for once and not stressed, burdened, and run haggard.  He’s retired but he’s still working, just without the paycheck.  And my mom actually does take care of him, but something about the way they go back and forth at each other… I know the saying “fights like an old married couple” but it’s still a little unnerving to see how quickly my dad goes from 0 to 10 when my mom says or does something that annoys him.  My mom doesn’t seem to be that affected by it, at least, but she has her own issues.  She met another middle-aged, educated black woman in the area walking Hunter several months ago and apparently the lady likes to booze it up.  I was at her condo and she told me once my mom passed out on her bathroom floor… and I was slightly taken aback, lol.  That’s not really cute at any age, but 48?  What’s really going on here?

I’m always analyzing myself to see the negative things I’ve picked up from either parent to try to avoid becoming like them in those ways.  I know for a couple years I used alcohol as a way of dealing with stress, which I suppose isn’t really that unusual nor unhealthy, but I know if I don’t watch myself, I’m using a shot every night to help me lessen my anxiety so I can go to sleep, or deal with the next day, etc. etc.  My mom is not an alcoholic, but I think the way/reasons she uses alcohol are unhealthy to the point where I think it’s an issue.  Not a show-stopping, hell-raising issue, but an issue nonetheless.

We were actually mistaken for sisters so many times when we were out together I started looking really closely at her because I was so “WTF.”  And I realize that, despite being 48 in 8 days, my mom doesn’t have a single wrinkle around her eyes.  Not one.  And I looked at my maternal grandmother, and I have to say… I’ve got some damn good genes when it comes to aging.

What’s funny about my parents are the things they’ll confide to me about each other.  My mom says she doesn’t take my dad’s snaps personally because he’s off his meds and actually he’s acting a lot better off his meds than he normally does.  My dad doesn’t see how he snaps so easily.  My dad confides to me about my mom that he thinks she’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.  My mom doesn’t see how she constantly forgets things over and over and over again, or how she has the same conversations repeatedly.  My mom just thinks that’s normal for her.

I felt horribly guilty when I learned that my brother doesn’t have health insurance, though.  As a small saving grace, he is planning on going back to school, but who knows when that’ll actually be, and I’ve heard college health insurance isn’t as comprehensive as being insured with a company through employment.  For now, he’s a healthy, able-bodied young adult.  But it only takes one accident, you know?  My parents said if that happens, he can get Medicaid.  I have my doubts as to whether that’s a good plan, or even feasible, but it’s not like I know any other options.  But I do feel guilty.  I feel guilty for my drama and my mental illness taking up so much attention and time growing up… and the only reason I even think of that is because of a hurtful comment my mom made some time ago about how my issues caused them to neglect Mike.  I mean, she didn’t say it exactly like that, and I do recall she was purposefully trying to be a hurtful bitch at the time so god knows if it’s true – she’s lied about other things like that before to try to make me feel guilty – but it’s not exactly farfetched.  And even worse, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t – not once in my 10+ years of struggling with mental illness – thought about how much it caused my family to focus on me.  I honestly didn’t do anything for the attention…  I was fucked up, in no small part due to my family, and that was the way I dealt… but I had never once thought about how my issues affected my brother.  How fucking self-absorbed was/am I, right?

So essentially, he gets less attention growing up, and now he has less resources than I had at his age.  I feel so fucking guilty about that and I honestly don’t know what to do about it.  I looked into whether I could add him on my insurance, and of course unless he’s a dependent or a spouse, that’s a dead end.  I don’t know what to do there.  It’s all I can do to not call him up and apologize profusely and ask if there’s anything I can do.  And the stupid thing is, knowing my brother, it’s highly unlikely he’s viewing the situation like I am – but that doesn’t ease the guilt.

I guess I’ve been beating the shit out of myself for a lot of things lately, though.  I know I’ve been feeling down about my career/education… it’s really hard to not feel like a worthless sack of shit when so many peers are about to get their master’s, on the right road to financial security, to becoming those people I take orders from… and I am no where close.  I’m planning on getting my degree eventually – god help me if I can’t at least get my goddamn Bachelor’s before 30 – but as of right now, I’m 24 years old, no degree, and I work at a call center.  I don’t see anything to be proud of there, or even satisfied with.  I mentioned this to Pamela and again she gave me the usual accomplishments of getting out on my own, trying to meet people, etc. but I don’t feel like these are really accomplishments so much as just doing what I’m supposed to do.  I was kind of surprised when she said that she really wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to live on my own when my parents moved and was actually trying to find resources should I get kicked out, etc.  She’s impressed with me and where I’ve come from in the past year.  I’m not.  I’m doing what I’m supposed to do as an adult, but I’m no where near where I’m supposed to be.  I don’t deserve a reward for that.  And is it really admirable if someone succeeds when failure really wasn’t an option?  Looking at myself a year ago…  it was just the same old story to me.  I had no one to support me but me, only this time it wasn’t just emotionally, it was financially a well.  Sink or swim because the tide would keep on moving.  I adapt to these situations because I have no choice.  That’s not heroic.

And with the widening between the have and have nots, I’ve really got to bust my fucking ass to get some sort of leg up before it all goes to hell and I’m essentially stuck in low-level positions, not coming close to using my potential and not doing anything I like or really even care that much about.  I don’t want to be working there even 10 years from now.  Hell, maybe I’ll get laid off… my job isn’t guaranteed – which, as much as I bitch about my job, I’m definitely not going to say I’d prefer being unemployed.  Even more reason to get back to school.  I’ve filled out my 2010-2011 FAFSA and hopefully within the next couple weeks I’ll know the status.  I’m able to use my income from last year so I should actually get some money, granted I didn’t fuck something up again.

(and now it’s June 18.  I haven’t touched this entry since).

I need to move.  I just start feeling unnerved when so many things go wrong so close together in my apartment.  It’s supposed to be my safe haven.  And I can’t be relaxed in a haven when I’m anxious about what’s going to break/go wrong next.  I could be being slightly irrational, but I don’t know.  In a span of less than a month, my toilet stopped flushing and had to be replaced (I was flushing for a couple days with a bucket of hot water, fun times).  The power on the side of my apartment with my stove and microwave stopped working (the fridge was still on though, a total WTF but not that I wasn’t grateful).  I didn’t feel like spending money eating out and I don’t keep food/fixings that don’t need heat in my apartment, so I didn’t really eat for those couple of days.  Of course, I haven’t really been eating any other day anyway.  I just used that as my excuse then.  Then the deadbolt on my door to my apartment broke a couple Saturdays ago.  With my key still in it.  I was late to a dinner date with Hannah so I had to leave it in there… and Laura and Ray came over and had to drill the deadbolt out of my door.  Right now I have no deadbolt.  And then a couple days ago the lock to the main door of the building broke, which I didn’t know until I left to run errands and came back to not be able to do shit with the useless lock.  Called Laura and she was already informed, I got in through the garage.  But still… I mean, she DOES fix things.  She called me a couple days ago and said she was going to replace my deadbolt, the door to the main building was fixed within 24 hours, and I got a new toilet within a week.  Ray came over about my power and apparently all I had to do was push the reset button on the wall, which I totally had never noticed before he pointed it out.

But still.  Above all else, I just have to have reliability and stability.  My anxiety becomes crippling if I can’t depend on the basic things to work or don’t know what’s going to go wrong next and when.

My lease is up at the end of June and then I can go month-to-month.  I’m going to TRY to stay here another year.  I’m saving too much money to move, and besides which, I don’t have the time/energy to go apartment hunting since most of the apartments in my price range don’t exactly advertise online.  I need to drive up and down all the residential streets to know what’s available.  I definitely don’t want to stay where I am, though.  It’s a nice enough neighborhood, but I can’t deal with all the unwanted black male attention.  I really can’t.  I’d like to be able to walk to the bank and just not fucking be harassed by them.  And even when I ignore them, they just WON’T SHUT THE FUCK UP until I say something.  Leave me the FUCK alone, you know?  Take a goddamn hint.  I have a particular area I’m thinking about moving to that’s definitely whiter.  But my expenses would go up considerably…. which is why I’m trying to put it off another year.  But the bugs are eating me alive in my apartment, absolutely killing me.  Every time I kill a mosquito, a couple days later I am bothered by another one.  My windows aren’t sealed very well and I’m in the basement, so no matter how clean I try to be, my shower gets moldy every other day.  Along with my bath towel.  And my bath mat.

I don’t know.  Surely I can rough it out another year.

Also, come to find out I might not be able to get a “new” car at the end of the year.  Idk, I wish my parents would just stop being so vague and changing the terms all the time without informing me.  I completely understand that their ability to help me get another car depends on their finances, but I just wish… I don’t know.  I really don’t know if I can handle another winter with the Mustang.  Not that I’ll have to go anywhere now that I’m working from home, but still… when I feel trapped, that I can’t get out when I want and go where I want… I start to lose my mind.  If I could just have a definite “yes, you’ll get a new car” and WHEN, or “no, we can’t help you” so I can start trying to arrange it on my own…   And please don’t get me wrong, I completely understand they don’t owe me anything.  It’s just that when someone SAYS they’re going to help you and you’re just kind of waiting around for that help and it keeps changing… it kind of holds up your life in a way.  I don’t know what I should be saving for/prioritizing.

I’m gonna interrupt this bitchfest for some positive news.  When I went out with Hannah and her girlfriend a couple Saturdays ago, I did have a shitload of fun, save for the end of the night when we were behind a VERY shit-faced driver who almost crashed into cars in the opposite lane SEVERAL times.  I’m still quite pissed off about that… sometimes I just hate people.  But yeah, we went to the Melting Pot and then Tyler, her boyfriend, joined us at a comedy club and then we chilled at the hookah cafe.  I need another night like that… this is the end of my second 6-day workweek in a row.  To say I’m feeling stressed/overwhelmed/exhausted is a bit of an understatement.

Another source of my anxiety lately is my conflicting emotions.  Sometimes, I just can’t handle gray.  I really can’t.  I need things to be black-and-white, and when they won’t, or can’t, I just… don’t know what to do with myself.  Two prominent examples that have been weighing heavily on my mind lately are my mom and Braxton.  Undoubtedly, my mom has done some really evil fucked up shit to me.  Undoubtedly, at times in my life I have absolutely hated her more than anyone else alive.  And somehow I have to reconcile that image and those painful feelings to this woman I know today, who I know loves me and cares about me, despite her sometimes twisted way of expressing it, who is the way she is partly for some reasons that are out of her control, and I find myself feeling bad for my mother nowadays more than anything.  I can’t really fully explain why.  It’s something about how my dad just seems to snap at her and minimize her opinions when she wants to say something or try to help me.  It actually made me want to cry -_-  My parents came into town last weekend because one of my mom’s former co-workers graduated from college.  They brought mah dog <3 and my brother, lol.  He’s a goofy bastard.  I don’t really know him all that well in our more mature age but we’re still comfortably chill with each other.  Apparently he has a real hard-on for 80s music.  Never knew.

But yeah.  I was being emo… last week I was on my period and was on the verge of tears pretty much all the time.  The depression was crushing, I was suicidal, so the story goes.  I guess I’m a LITTLE bit better but the depression honestly kind of took me a little by surprise… just the sheer extent of it.  I was more sensitive to criticism than usual and I’ve been fucking up at my job because of lack of food and sleep, so now that my scorecards from the past few weeks are finally coming out, I’m getting criticism from my boss about it.  And I mean, it’s not like he’s being cruel about it or anything… I just really cannot handle criticism of any kind.  I’m harder on myself than anyone else ever could think of being.

So my parents met me for breakfast and I was unexpectedly emotional (so much for the polished adult image).  My dad… he tries to help, and I know he sees some of himself in me, and wants to help me by sharing what helped him.. and I don’t mean to completely minimize his advice… but sometimes I just really don’t think he truly understands all the levels of why I get the way I do.  He definitely doesn’t understand the eating disorder, and he tends to think I just need to sleep more.  My mom pushes the medication angle (as usual, and I wish she would just stop) and the “holistic” angle (some of which I can agree with) but sometimes she’d try to give me advice and my dad would just shut her down.  And I’d be like “what the fuck.”  I didn’t want to say anything but I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just let her speak.  She’s not stupid.  I didn’t entirely disagree with her.  I didn’t want to upset my dad who was just being… weird… so I just said that I understood and agreed with what he was saying, and I also think mom had some good points as well.

I don’t know.  Something’s weird with him.  He’s stressed….

Just, the dynamics when we all get together again.  There’s just something unnatural in the air.  I know it’s not just ME as well, because my brother said they go back and forth all the time at home as well.  And then my dad just throws himself into his tasks and my mom drinks and takes care of Hunter and dad and worries about everything.

I wish people could just be happy for once.  I know that I’m not responsible for their happiness, and they not mine… but it still greatly disturbs me.  Something I guess I can’t really put my finger on right now.

And I guess my feeling bad for my mother is why I feel conflicted about the resentment I have for what she’s done.  I don’t know if that emotional puzzle is ever one I’ll be able to solve, and I feel off balance because of it.

And then there’s Braxton.  FUCKING Braxton.  I remember what seems like eons ago, when it was really around late 2006 when I had a session with Pamela and was talking about how he was showing interest in me.  And she was making these knowing faces and I was all “ew no NEVER EVER EVER.”  Yeah, how’d that work out?

He treated me like shit for years and I gave a lot of myself to him to never get a return on my investment.  And now I am so reluctant to accept that he may be changing, even MATURING to a certain point.  Because that’s just a path straight to disappointment.  It was only a couple months ago that he passed out on me twice in a row after I got dressed and went out in the wee hours to go see him.  But when we do hang out… I kind of feel… ugh fuck me.

I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen in love with an asshole.

What the hell kind of good can come out of that?  He can’t be what I want and he’s definitely not what I need.  Yet he’s so comfortable, and I can’t deny that we have a bit of history, and his surprisingly consistent recent interest in my sexual needs has me very confused.

It’s kind of sad there as well… in that I kind of feel bad for him.  Just like my mom.  I know he likes me, I know he cares about me.  But his ability to care has such severely impractical limits that I could never seriously be with him, even though I guess in a way, I already am?  I don’t know what we have.  But fuck, I like him too, when he’s not pissing me off, and we do have kind of intense (albeit fucked up) chemistry, and I care about him despite myself.  I love him despite myself… I wish I could be in denial about that.  But I feel badly for him, because at this point, his personality’s pretty much set in stone.  And he is who he is, and while I don’t doubt that he does get lonely and that he does want a girlfriend… no woman in her right mind would ever seriously commit to being with him for the rest of her life.  He simply doesn’t have the capacity to provide what women need in a relationship, like um… consistency, and reliability, and responsibility.  Those little things.  I think any female in the world would be miserable if she spent the rest of her life with him, and it’s sad that something he really can’t change – his personality – is something that will prevent him from getting something he really wants.

He’s actually biked to my place a couple times.  Now in the interest of full disclosure, it wasn’t like he biked to my place just to see me – my place is conveniently located between his apartment and his parents’ house, and I have a bed and a shower and air conditioning – but when he has come over… I really miss him when he leaves.

He also broke my vagina.  I kid, kind of.  If it hasn’t stopped bleeding by the weekend I might very reluctantly see a doctor.  FML.  I need to make a decision about birth control anyway.

(and now it’s 6/21)

I am thinking about taking today off.  I already used half a personal day when my parents came into town last Thursday but my job is stressing me out so much that I’ve not been able to fight my suicidal impulses very well.  So many times I just stared at my phone, just wanted to hang up and do what a former supervisor did a couple weeks after I started working… go to lunch and just never come back.  God, what a relief.

But you know, I need the money.  And just as importantly, I need the health insurance.  So that’s the kind of catch-22 that doesn’t really make quitting an option, except if I quit via death.  And I know that a lot of people would think that quitting and being broke and having ruined credit due to medical bills you can’t pay is always going to be preferable to being dead, but I live my life pretty consistently by “quality over quantity.”  And it’d be selfish, and it’d hurt my family, and I really shouldn’t do it.  I know this.  But god, sometimes the urge is crippling.  My intense desire to cut myself while I’ve been working just… it’s really becoming unhealthy and it’s really draining trying to fight all my unhealthy impulses and urges and do the rational sane thing.

Because I’m not feeling rational at all.  Before my cycle I could blame it on hormones, but now that (admittedly very abnormal) cycle has passed, and I still don’t feel an iota less strongly about hurting myself, I have to admit that it has to be a combination of stress + medical (both psychiatric and physical and dietary).  I’ve also strongly been considering trying to take my Abilify again for some sort of relief because I am DESPERATE for some emotional/mental relief, but my fears always get the best of me.  Fear of not feeling like myself, fear of weight gain.  But my mind is so not right and no matter what I do, I just can’t seem to get it anywhere near back on track by myself.  I’ve been trying so hard…

And I still find myself on the verge of tears during calls.  I have to dig my nails into my skin as deeply as I can and grit my teeth so that I don’t let any sobs escape.  I just want to be anyone but who I am, doing anything but what I have to do.  I guess I’m having a bit of a breakdown?  I know my mind is just…. completely not right.  I’m off-kilter on the best of days, but lately… I can’t even explain it.  This constant-teary state for me is completely abnormal.  Even when I’m depressed and hopeless, I’m not TEARY.

And there are so many things in my life that I want to do, so many goals I’m trying to achieve.  I want my body to be perfect, I want my hair to be awesome, I want to attract someone who’s healthy… and good god I’m so fucking lonely… I want to have my degree, I want to have my shit together, I want to be where I thought I would be at this place in my life.  I guess I’m impatient.  Or starting to be really impatient.  I can have these things EVENTUALLY but I’m so anxious that I don’t have them NOW.  Even though I’ve lost weight, I’ve joined a gym, my hair is achieving some length in its natural state… you know, I went out Saturday.  And I’m going to say this without a hint of egoism:

I looked hot.

I got dressed up in bellbottoms, a mid-riff zip hoodie, and spent 1.5 hours the previous night braiding my hair into plaits so I could take it down, finger comb it, and have a big poofy curly fro.  And I went out, and I got compliments, and I came home at the end of the day.

And I looked in the mirror.

And still hated everything I saw.

And still hated everything I felt.

And still hated everything I was.

It’s been fucking me up even MORE, the closer I get to my goals, the worse about things I feel.  Because my goals are achievements but they won’t make me happy.  That’s why I have to keep moving the goalposts.  I have to be striving for something, I can never be satisfied.

And on the flip side of that…

I can never be satisfied.  And then I wonder why I’m so unhappy when I refuse to let myself feel any pride at what I’ve done or how far I’ve come.  And then I wonder why I’m still so lonely when I work to present an image that will always be betrayed by the aura of unhappiness that I know I can’t control radiating from me.  And then I wonder why I hate myself when I don’t even know who I am, and what I think I know I can’t stand.

I guess I’m also further upset by a mild anhedonic state that’s come over me as well.  Which usually goes hand-in-hand with starvation. And speaking of that, I think that I’ve been given a lot of chances in life.  A LOT of chances.  And I need to stop taking them for granted.  Because just because I haven’t had anything officially fuck up in my body due to my eating disorder doesn’t mean it will continue that way.  And it doesn’t mean that I haven’t already taken years off my life, or my kidneys won’t fail, or I won’t drop dead of a heart attack due to an electrolyte imbalance.  And god knows what the cumulative effects of the malnutrition and dehydration is going to amount to.  I need to stop fucking around with this shit.  I know I do.  The scary part is that most of the time I just CAN’T.  I really honestly truly can’t.  It was a small victory in the wee hours of Saturday morning when I went to Meijer to do some major non-food grocery shopping (tons of shit that I needed that I had put off buying just because I hate spending money on necessities, lol).  And then I went to Kroger and was there for about 10 minutes before I made up my mind.  I didn’t NEED to buy any food.  I didn’t NEED anything there.  And I turned to go and a voice in my head just told me to stop.  Just stop.  Just buy the goddamn food.

Baby steps, you know?  I’m going to thank my parents for giving me a chance to turn this around.  They bought me food and got me started on getting used to eating again.  Anything is better than nothing at this point because if I allow myself to honestly think about what I’ve been eating in recent months… most days it will amount to a bowl of soup and an Ensure.  And some pasta if I’m feeling gluttonous.  This is insanity.  I need to eat or I will die.  Period.

Yeah, but you know… I don’t wanna get fat again or anything.  And I still have about 15 pounds to go before I’m acceptable to me.

(so says I.  My goal was 140 and I barely blinked when I passed that.  Now that I’m near 130, which was my “final final” goal, it still doesn’t seem low enough appearance wise.  So now it’s 120.  And then it’ll be 110.  And then it’ll be 100.  And then…)

So who am I kidding here.

Wouldn’t it be nice if comfort in one’s own skin was something we could buy from ebay?  Wouldn’t it be grander if it’s something that could be taught?  I think a lot of people subscribe to that latter idea, and while I think that’s true in some cases… I really don’t know for me, personally.  I think for me, my acceptance of myself truly has to come with my own motivation to like myself (which I don’t genuinely have) and my own open-mindedness to my flaws (which, as a perfectionist, I don’t want).  I think this is in my hands and I don’t have enough motivation to not hate myself.  Because my hatred of myself drives me to change, inspires me to become better.  It also prevents me from feeling pride or accomplishment or self-esteem when I make these changes/betterments.  And so the goalposts take yet another journey.

Touching on the point that I raised at the beginning of this post… I was talking to Elizabeth after work, as I usually do because she’s pretty much the only person I talk to online and she’s up late at night… and she mentioned during our conversation that someone was calling her.  (this was around 3 a.m.)  And I asked her who it was, and she said she didn’t know, she looked at the phone and didn’t recognize the number so she didn’t answer it.  And then I halfway jokingly mentioned the college student who got a wrong number from a lady who was having a medical emergency and she stayed on the phone with the woman while one of her friends dialed 911.  And then I was like “you could be on the noon news” and she essentially responded that she didn’t really care.  But I guess she did listen to her voicemail, and she told me it was a woman sobbing and a guy yelling at her in the background.  And I’m like “WTF” and I told her she should call back.  What ensued was a discussion about how she really didn’t care about other people all that much, etc. etc., and how she was a horrible person because of it.  Now, she’s constantly trying to convince me that she’s a horrible person, and I never buy it, and I know that kind of irks her.  She says she doesn’t care.  She acts like she doesn’t.  I don’t claim to know her better than she knows herself… all I know is that people who don’t care wouldn’t feel so goddamn guilty all the time.  All I know is that true sociopaths and assholes don’t do things they don’t want to do all the time just to please others.  I’ve known assholes.  I’ve known sociopaths.  As much as she claims to be on a “left-hand path” and all that devil b.s., she’s a borderline just like I am.  She has a fucked up mom and a fucked up dad and a fucked up life and she’s really not that different from me at all.  And I know I’m an empath.  I’ve tried being a heartless bitch because I feel too much, and I’ve never been consistently successful.  She might have more success than I with the image, but her words and the feelings she expresses too frequently contradict the image of apathy and callousness she wants me to believe.  There are just WAY too many examples to the contrary.  Too frequently she’ll say that something I said/did hurt her, and I’ll say I’m sorry, and she’ll be like “I don’t care all that much.”  Whatever you say.  She’s hell-bent on convincing me she’s a bad person.  So many times I’ve been upset and she’s always offered me tons of helpful advice on pretty much everything I’ve bitched about.  But, you know, she’s a total apathetic bitch who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone.  So that didn’t happen.

So anyway.  She told me that she wasn’t gonna call the person back, and while that’s understandable – it was obviously a wrong number – for some reason, the situation really struck a nerve with me.  And I essentially went off – not at her, but at people in general who don’t have the courage to do something when it could help a person potentially in trouble – and maybe it’s because it was only a couple weeks after that drunk-driving idiot almost wrecked into several cars that were only guilty of being on the road in the wee hours of Sunday morning.  And if he’d crashed and killed someone, then what?  We stand around and wring our hands.. “I just didn’t know what to do.”  Why was I the only person to think “CALL FUCKING 911?”  You don’t wait on shit like that, you fucking take action.

And when I was talking to her, I realized where this urge in myself came from and why I hated everyone else’s lack of action so much.  Because no one spoke up for me.  Everyone turned a blind eye to my circumstances, and many outright just didn’t believe me when I told them what was happening to me.  No one wanted to get involved.  It was our personal business.  No one should tell a parent how to raise their kid.

And you know what?  If by some twist of fate, my mom actually HAD ended up killing me, or both of my parents on Jan. 3, 2000, how many of those same teachers, counselors, nurses, neighbors, family members would feign shock and surprise?  Oh, they just NEVER knew.  They just NEVER suspected.

Their indifference, their apathy, their putting their own comfort above doing what’s right could have very well cost me my life.

Some things never change, huh?

“All that is required for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing.”  And idiot religious nutjobs want to blame it on female sexuality, or liberalism, or drugs, or single mothers.  People who do evil are not going to change.  They’re evil.  They don’t fucking care.  The ONLY way to stop it is through people who aren’t evil.  But how many people who AREN’T evil actually speak out against it when they see it?  And I don’t just mean blatant evil.  I mean things that are just wrong.  How many black men do we see admitting that Chris Brown is a piece of shit?  Granted, my informal blogosphere survey sample isn’t exactly scientific, but I see an awful lot of them saying “that’s his personal life and we shouldn’t punish him AS AN ARTIST for his PERSONAL life” (and then will pretty astoundingly go on to proclaim Alicia Keyes a homewrecking whore because of what she does… in… her… personal… life).  Yeah no, I don’t fuck with black men anymore and I never ever ever will as long as I fucking live.  Fucking shoot me if I do, please.  They don’t see me as a person, with a mind, and ideas, and a personality.  They see me as a cunt.  All I am is reduced to my rear end and my vagina.  And what’s worse, they feel entitled to me.  Simply by sharing a level of melanin… that’s how I explain the disproportionate number of them who’ve sexually abused me despite growing up in overwhelmingly white environments, and that’s how I explain their apathy to the plight of black females, and how I explain their active participation in the demonization, stereotyping, and dehumanizing of black women.

And you know, there are a handful of enlightened black men out there.  A handful that would never be seen within a 50-mile radius of the cesspool of Cincinnati.  I need to move to the west coast.

Tangent aside, because that’s gonna be for a future post anyway, it’s not just the major evil things that people need to fight.  How are you gonna donate to the SPCA and not call them when you’ve seen a neighbor’s dog tied up for days outside in a blizzard?  How are you gonna claim that you’re for equal rights for women and then not call out your peers when they make a demeaning remark about a w0man or violate her boundaries because they feel entitled to her, or fly off the handle because she rejected his advances?  How are you gonna support our troops and then support people who send them to die for nothing?

When it comes to standing up for people in society, everyone thinks that they’d be the special snowflakes who speak out against things that are blatantly wrong.  But they encounter things they could speak out against every day in their lives and yet they can’t even take a stand against the small stuff.  Even when it might only take a 30-second phone call.  Even when it could be as simple as “hey, man, that’s not cool.”  Because no one wants to rock the boat or be the odd man out above anything else, even above doing the right thing.

Good god, how much better would our world be right now if people just grew a pair and just said something instead of nothing?  If people did something instead of nothing?  Everyone always focuses so much on the big stuff, as if the small stuff doesn’t make a difference.

You know what I think is bravery?  I can tell you what I DON’T think it is.  I DON’T think it’s skydiving.  I DON’T think it’s extreme sports, or putting on a bikini.  I DON’T think it’s a lot of more conventional things that people think, like being a cop or joining the armed forces.  I’m not saying those things DON’T require some sense of bravery, but you know what?  I think it’s bravery in a different sense.  To risk your life is one kind of brave, but after you do your heroic act, you’ll be dead.  You won’t have to worry about repercussions or consequences.  But the soldier who speaks out about sexual harassment and abuse in the army?  Why is that kind of bravery not as widely heralded as the soldier who threw himself on an IED?

Whatever, you know?  I am a lot of things, a lot of them really not so good, but above all else I do feel motivated to change things, even in little ways.  Lead by example.  I wear my hair natural and by god Cincinnati is never gonna be with the times – the attitude here seems to be “as long as it’s long and/or straight, it doesn’t matter how ridiculous it looks or how unhealthy, it’s always gonna look better than your real natural hair.”  I was at a beauty supply store around the corner buying some headbands and there was one black woman who was asking about the prices of fake hair.  It’s not buying the fake hair that bothers me, or even wearing it – for my braids that I had, I had to buy fake hair as well – but it was the disturbing way she talked about it.  Fake hair that was $3.  “Ooh, yeah, that’ll do fine.  That’ll do real nice.”  Seriously, like it’s the cure for all wounds.  I can’t even describe it but it really rubbed me the wrong way.  Even though my hair is important to me, I will fight tooth and nail this notion that my hair has to be long and/or straight for it to look good.  In fact, when I got the braids, the more compliments I got – from my coworkers, and Elizabeth, and even Pamela, who said “it makes you look more feminine” – the more eager I was to take them out.  And I was even more disappointed in myself for the mind amount of panic I had after I had taken them out and I thought I looked so much uglier without” the hair.”  But it only took me a few days to get over that insecurity, thank god.

Lol, I’ve read a couple “theories” on the interwebs about why blond is such a coveted hair color.  I’ve heard that it emulates “youth.”  I’ve heard that it is just so rare that we have no choice but to prefer it because, you know, it’s just so rare and unique a hair color.

You know what?  Black hair texture is very unique to us.  Not another race in the world has hair like ours.  So, um… why is this particular feature that’s unique to us not only NOT celebrated and emulated as a desirable feature, but outright DENIGRATED in society, in so many ways blatant and subtle, as completely undesirable?

Yeah, funny how unique things are only an asset when they adhere to the sickeningly dominant European beauty standards.  And then you have the ignorant people who want to say “it’s just hair.  It doesn’t matter if you wear it natural or permed.”  Which, aside from the blatant stupidity of ignoring all the decades of context and subtext behind African-American hair, is a ridiculous idea simply based on the fact that MOST BLACK WOMEN DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEIR REAL HAIR LOOKS LIKE.  MOST BLACK WOMEN DO NOT KNOW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR OWN HAIR.  In 2006, when I first went natural, I was pretty taken aback that I was a grown ass woman who hadn’t the first clue how to take care of my own goddamn hair.  And this insanity is so common that it’s NORMAL.  If it’s “just hair” then why do the vast majority of us choose to wear it in a non-natural state?  Is this really just sheer coincidence?  If it’s “just hair” then why don’t we see the sizable numbers of women of other races chemically changing their hair to match OUR texture?

I liken these “it’s just hair” women to the “post-racial” believers.  As if Stormfront shut down the day Obama was elected.  As if every racist and stereotypical belief held by everyone in America just magically vanished and stopped influencing their words and actions and beliefs just because a black man is president.  How, exactly, does that work?  Would sexual harrassment no longer exist in the workplace if Hillary were elected?  Would rape somehow no longer happen?   “Post-racial” beliefs are pure insanity, and I include the president among those who give credence to that nonsense.

I hope even just one person sees me rocking my natural hair, and even if I’ll never know it, maybe I’ll be that one person someone writes about “I was inspired to cut off my hair and go natural because I saw this one woman on the street….”  I try to change things in little ways because that’s all I can do at this point.  I was playing Catan online and this one guy IMed me.  Now, my moniker is distinctly female, and I don’t know anyone on there, so if I get a random IM I can pretty much guarantee it’s gonna be a perv.  So this one guy IMed me, and I’m pretty certain he IMed me a couple weeks ago as well… guy from Canada… and he repeatedly tried to ask me what my age was.  I played his game and baited him in, and tried to be as annoying as I could but he wouldn’t take a fucking hint.  Which pissed me off more than anything because I KNEW he was a perv.  And I told him I knew as much.  Which he denied.  So then I asked why the emphasis on finding out my age if he wasn’t a perv?  He said that’s how he got to know people (yeah, ok).   I finally tell him my age, followed by “now prove me right.”  To which he says “yeah, you’re right.  So do you like fantasies?”  At this point, I fucking went OFF.  I pointed out how he had given no thought to my wishes, which first was to be left alone, then to not divulge my age.  And that it hadn’t mattered to him, he was more interested in taking his perversions out on me than my actual wishes to be left alone.  I told him that my desires didn’t matter and my words definitely didn’t matter, and with guys they never had… especially the word no.  Now, at this point, I was drawing from my own history but also being melodramatic to make a point to the fucking tool.  And after I was done, he did a whole 180 and started talking about how much he hated himself and how he was so sorry blah blah.. and I know how these guys operate.  He probably was apologetic.  Not sorry enough to think before he did it, and not sorry enough to not do it again, but for perverts… I understand that they are driven to do the things that they do.  They have issues.  And he asked me if I ever thought just maybe there was a reason why the way he was.  And I responded that EVERYONE has reasons behind the way they are, but once you get past a certain age, regardless of the WHYs, you still ultimately become responsible for what you DO.

Am I gonna change that young Canadian man?  Probably not.  But maybe I’ve planted SOME sort of seed.  And honestly, I’d much rather perverts harrass me, a grown woman, online than to do seedier things in real life.  Idk.

Ahh it’s 6 a.m.  I should go to bed.  That’s what happens when so many things happen that inspire so many different thought paths and you’re too fucking insane to update with them as they happen.  And then you get a month of verbal diarrhea that hasn’t even really begun to scratch the surface of everything I’ve been thinking about (or rather, ruminating on).

My parents came to town yesterday.  My dad immediately set to work trying to help me with my computers – he brought a different PC and a new monitor, but he said the PC he brought he built around the same time as the one I have now, and that the one I have now is probably better.  It’s LOUD but my dad says that’s just the way it is… might need to replace the fan or something, I dunno.

They called me and awoke me when they were 30 minutes away, and we made plans to meet at Red Lobster.  I wore a dress that was cheap (think I paid like $30 for it or something) but at least looked nice.  From the first couple minutes that I sat down, I was immediately kicked in the face with why I wanted to commit suicide.

I hugged them and sat down, and they immediately began talking to each other about all things esoteric – my brother applying for a promotion, etc.  I sat there awkwardly.  And when I mean “to each other,” I do mean “to each other.”  There was no eye contact with me at all.  I think during the whole meal we maybe exchanged 5 lines back and forth.

I’ve always kind of felt invisible from my family.  Growing up, I always wanted my parents’ affection and approval – who the hell didn’t?  My dad worked… my mom I knew best, but a lot of times, she kind of hated me.  I bore the brunt of her anger, and she’s a classic borderline.  I suppose I am too, but I don’t, you know… try to kill people I allegedly love.  She turned her anger outward, I turned all mine inward.  My dad, as I probably wrote, admitted last year that I essentially raised myself.  I don’t understand… cold love.  I know, intellectually, that my parents love me.  Sitting at the table, I realized why that didn’t really ever seem to matter or affect me that much.

Because their love is a cold love.  My mom is warmer than my dad, but she’s still cold.  This really struck me when they were talking about Tiger Woods’ mistresses.  The focus was on the women – how stupid they were, etc.  I couldn’t help but feel like I was the same women they were talking about…

When, at 14, I told my dad’s mother that they had both tried to kill me after they learned I was sexually experimenting.  “Well, I guess you’ll never do that again.”

My dad after my mom told him I had sex in their house – “kill the bitch, Michelle, kill the bitch.”

And a decade later, I still can’t write those words without crying.

When

will

this

pain

diminish?

I can’t believe ten years later it still eats away like this at me.

The coldness… those mistresses are “sluts.”  As was I when I sexually acted out after years of sexual abuse.

“Take a look at your brother, because you’ll never see him again.”  I go to hug him… I loved my brother.

“I don’t want you touching my son.”

Being institutionalized because they didn’t want me anymore (the noble revisionist version reads “because they were afraid they would hurt me”).  Being blamed while in the hospital because I was read as a spoiled rebellious brat who lied and exaggerated.  Screaming myself hoarse in the “quiet room” because I could not believe the situation of telling so many people, so many times that my mom tried to kill me and nothing ever happening, and telling alleged teen counselors this information and constantly being asked to explain how I contributed to my situation, because they couldn’t change my parents, they could only change me.

Ten years later and I don’t understand.  I’m still so confused.  I understand the borderline love/hate relationship, because I guess I personify it… but I just can’t imagine a love that would allow such actions.  I just can’t.

But I guess cold love could do that.  You want the best for your child, you want to see them do well and succeed and be happy… but you don’t really care all that much about their emotional or mental wellbeing.  What do you know about warm love, anyway?  My parents are products of their environment, their cold parents, and I’m a product of them.  We’re all just going by what we know, and I guess their cold love isn’t anything personal, but it doesn’t give me what I need.

I’m so glad I was states away when I learned I was pregnant.  I can imagine the horrible things my dad thought of me, if ten years ago is any indication.

Why do I think I’m a piece of shit?  Why do I think I’m worthless?

In the actions of the bullies who tormented me at school, I was.

In the words and actions of the mother who abused me at home, I was.

In the actions of everyone I told and who chose not to believe me or take action to protect me, I was.

This is horribly ingrained.  Unbearably so.

Cold love is about as useful as a cold fire.

I’m not blaming them, so please don’t read me wrong.  Whatever I do is my responsibility.  Hey, as I was staring at myself in the mirror tonight, I had the kickass thought “maybe this life isn’t about you.  Maybe you exist to save some stranger’s life 35 years from now in a random encounter.”  Lol, if everyone killed themselves because their life was hard and unrelenting… what if the ethnically European ancestors of today’s billionaires had given up due to persecution in their times?  And hundreds of years later, their descendants are probably set for life.

Who am I to escape my fate by killing myself?  I might be dooming that stranger in 2045.  I’d be playing god, but of course, I’m not entirely convinced such a thing exists.

In fact, I may never know why I exist.  I guess most of us never do, but for me it’s a hard pill to swallow.  All I know is that I don’t want to exist, and I feel like I shouldn’t.  I don’t mesh with this society I live in, nor the larger world around me.  That’s playing god as well, though.  I’m basing my actions on my feelings, but feelings can be right (and wrong).

I don’t want to live this life.  I don’t want to feel this pain that I spend so much mental and emotional resources every day trying to keep deeply suppressed.  Just because it’s second-nature doesn’t make it any less draining.  If I just knew someone with some warmth… I’m dying of emotional hypothermia.

Maybe my mom’s a borderline and my dad’s a narcissist.  Maybe that’s why my relationships keep panning out as such.  Elizabeth sure as hell clearly states her intentions to have a relationship like her parents’, even despite me pointing out how fucked up it made her.

That was another shocking thing, sitting at the table.  Realizing how flawed my dad is.  Naturally, and cliched…edly… I idolized my dad growing up.  But isn’t it always much easier to idolize the person don’t really know nor spend too much heart-to-heart time with?  I did that with Trent Reznor.  Thought the guy was a genius from age 13 on up.  Gained mass respect for him when he kept releasing free music, even if I fell less and less in love with what he made.  Then he marries… a bimbo.

I’m no different from anyone else.  I only see what I want to see, what keeps my worldview in line.

At the table, I just kept quiet and my only contribution to the Tiger Woods’ conversation was “well, I don’t blame them as much as I blame him.  They’re not the ones who made the vows.”

My mom’s mother didn’t believe her when she told her that she was sexually abused by a neighbor. Maybe she convinced herself she deserved it, and thusly all such victims deserve it… including her own daughter.

“I thought I taught you better than that!”  My mom, crying, when I was in the fifth grade and she found out.  Almost the exact turning point when she started becoming violent toward me.  Maybe she could blame me for my abuse instead of blaming herself for hers.  Maybe she could blame me for my abuse instead of blaming herself for not noticing some pretty obvious signs.

A father who believes… god knows what… about women.  I don’t know.  He has two womanizing brothers… why should I expect that he escaped unscathed?

Maybe after Hunter dies, I should move halfway across the world.  I’m not sure if I can still keep my remaining soundness of mind if I still have to acknowledge their existence.

It’s funny how Elizabeth will tell me the horrible things her parents have said and done to her that day, and then the next day when I bring them up, she’s nothing but defensive of them.  “They’re not bad people…”  “My mom bought me a neat trinket…”  It’s only funny because I know that I probably did the same things for my parents.  Hell, maybe I still do.

My parents came up yesterday.  They sense I’m extremely depressed.  They threw money at the problem.

“Since you’ve been out on your own, you’ve been doing so well… we’ve decided to pay your rent for May.”

That will help a significant bunch since I now have over $60 a paycheck deducted for health insurance.  Allow me to get a jumpstart on catching my savings back up.  So I can have more of a cushion when the inevitable future financial blows come swinging their fists again.  So I can stay in my apartment and fall asleep alone… and even worse, lonely.  Feeling disconnected from everyone in the world.

They threw money at the problem my whole life.  Sorry for flooring the gas pedal when I told you to get out and walk to work and you started to get out the car… here’s the Mustang.

That was a fun walk to work.  I think I was 17.

She liked to write me letters of apology after every expression of violence.  You kind of stop thinking someone’s really regretful about something when they continue to fail to take steps to prevent it from happening again.

Insanity.  Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

I give off such twisted vibes and I don’t even mean to.  “Stay the fuck away from me, I’m scared that you’ll hurt me.”  “I’m really lonely, desperate for a tender, warm human connection.”   Most of my entire personality is so deeply apologetic in nature.  I feel like I need to compensate for existing.  I feel guilty for not leaving a 20% tip even when the service doesn’t warrant a 10%.  “They’ll chalk it up to me being young, black, and female… and then not only will they not reflect on their attitude, but the next young black female will be treated even worse.”  Hell, when I feel too broke to pay tip and get carryout, sometimes I still put a couple dollars on the tip line because of this fear.

I’m not enough.  I constantly feel the need to prove that I’m enough, that I’m not worthless.

I thank waiters and waitresses so much at restaurants, you’d think I was the server.

Why don’t I try to open up to people?  Because I don’t think they’ll care, and honestly I’m not always wrong about that.  Fuck, I’m usually right.  People love to talk about themselves and their problems, but far fewer care to listen.  I can listen but I don’t always receive the same in kind.  A co-worker has bitched to me about his girlfriend and I’ve listened and tried to offer advice a few times.  Wednesday I told him that I didn’t want to be here.  I emphasized “here, here” a few times before I flat out said I didn’t want to be alive.

He pretty much said something to the effect of “hey, you don’t mean that, don’t let people get to you that much” and left – hey, it’s the end of his shift and he was off the next day, don’t you know.

I was talking to another co-worker after a few days of being silent about something semi-personal and she actually started talking to me about her problems over me.  Like… I was in the middle of my sentence and I’m hearing something about her son, as I’ve done dozens of times, or her evil daughter, or her boyfriend.  I honestly was frozen, I was so taken aback.

I expect too much of people.  People are flawed, and I like to think that I can deal with that.  But this particular flaw just pisses me off, and it never pisses me off any less.  I feel used when I am an ear for others but when I want them to be an ear for me, they’ve suddenly gone deaf.

And then I start to feel my misanthropy cloak me, and I isolate myself from them, all the while growing more and more depressed at the inability to have someone in my life who would care for/about me like I would them.  Until the desperate loneliness or mania sets in, and out into the human world I venture.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

Even my eating disorder… “I’m sorry I’m so fat.  I’m sorry I don’t look like a model.”  I would feel so guilty if I ate anything other than soup at work.  Hell, I feel guilty eating anything at work.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m here.  I’m so sorry I’m alive, so sorry I offend everyone with my existence.  I’ll try to be perfect in all ways to compensate, but I know I won’t succeed in that.

What do I have to do to make people care about me?   What do I have to do to make people like me?

Not pretty enough.  Not conventional enough.  Too vulgar.  Too intimidating.  Too intense.  Not normal.  Not thin enough, too weird, too crazy, too sensitive.

But I am worthless.  The co-worker who walks away instead of taking 10 minutes to be a sympathetic ear tells me that.

And the funny thing is how delusional people are after someone kills themselves.  “If only they had said something, if only they had told me, OF COURSE I would have tried to help, listened, be there for them.”  No, you wouldn’t.  You would be too absorbed in your own lives and your own problems.

The fact is, if there was something you could have done in that moment to change the outcome, odds are you wouldn’t have done it in that moment.  The people who do are the exception to the rule, but everyone always wants to believe they’d be the exception.

In writing this, I was really hoping to come to a better conclusion.  A conclusion that doesn’t have me dying today.  I’ve gotten no where.  Frank might ask me if I don’t want to be alive, or if I don’t want to be living in the position I’m living right now.

I don’t want to be alive.  This never gets better.  People are never going to change.  I might find that sympathetic soul I’m looking for, or I may never.  Happy endings only occur for a lucky few.  Unless I can erase a chunk of my memory, I cannot even begin to ease this pain.  I’ve tried so many times in so many ways.

What a fustercluck.  A big part of recovery is having a healthy support network.  It’s hard to attract healthy people when you’re ill, depressed, tormented by inner pain and demons.

Tomorrow is my last day working at the office.  Sunday I can start working from home.  I know that this is going to exacerbate my depression but on the other hand, it’s a good thing because I know my sourpuss attitude due to my depression is hurting my relationship with my co-workers.  I just – omg, I just CAN’T stand to be around others, and I know they can sense that.  I get so agitated when someone talks to me.  When I’m at work, I just want to be completely fucking invisible.  My agitation is, naturally, heightened by the fact that I got a write-up – not due to anything actually job-related or affecting my job performance, but for using “inappropriate language” and epousing “negative views about the customers and company” in the work instant-message program.

Good god I hate corporations.  I don’t understand it – why would you sit around and think of ways to criticize people?  I swear, that’s what 90% of corporate does.  Me using “fuck” didn’t affect my ability to place an order, it didn’t make me magically steal a credit card number, it didn’t make me give a customer incorrect info.  And regardless of how I feel about a customer, I’m still going to give them my best customer service.  It’s called BEING PROFESSIONAL.  Also, since when is having negative thoughts about the company a crime?  That SERIOUSLY made me “WTF.”  Am I supposed to fellate the walls when I come in?  What the hell?  Stopping me from expressing my negative views won’t stop me from HAVING negative views, so… what’s the point?  I didn’t know that was illegal.  But I can be horribly passive-aggressive, so I guess that’s the route I’ll have to take.  When I first starting working there, I didn’t understand why one of my co-workers kept taking time off and getting write-ups for it – while I NEVER believed the company gave a flying fuck about me, I still was motivated to do my best and be there and take calls every time I could and not dilly-dally around.  Not saying that’s changed, but I definitely don’t judge him for doing what he does anymore.  They seem to operate by an attitude of “how much can we do to them and take away from them and still keep them here?”  That’s actually something that that co-worker expressed to me on the IM, and I completely agree.

1) I’m hard enough on myself already, I don’t need any other voices added to the mix, thanks just the same.

2) I already have two parents and neither one of them work at my job.

I mean, I knew intellectually that’s how corporations and businesses and offices operated before I started working at one, but it’s, naturally a completely different thing to have to experience the schizophrenic insanity of working in an atmosphere where people are just constantly trying to call you out on all your flaws and every mistake that you make.  Meanwhile, they took away the ability to visit WCPO – ok, wasn’t hurting anyone – and then engage in bullshit “morale boosting” things like potlucks and competitions to get the highest average order values.

You know what would ACTUALLY boost my morale (and probably some of my coworkers’)?

Stop trying to impede us from doing anything that might give us a little bit of relief or distraction.  Block WCPO on work computers, w/e, it wasn’t hurting anyone but w/e.  But why are Facebook and Myspace blocked on the BREAK ROOM computers?

If we have vacation, allow us to use as many vacation days as we wish.  I haven’t had to experience the pleasure of trying to get scheduling to approve my vacation yet (was supposed to have the balance available to schedule last week, but as usual that never came through), but I’ve witnessed them constantly subvert others’ attempts to just get an entire fucking week off.  There shouldn’t be an arbitrary cap on how many days off we can take in a row – they’re our vacation days, we’ve earned them, we should be able to use them as we please.

Stop always looking for things that we’re fucking doing wrong.  Stop being so eager to correct every little imperfect thing that we do, especially when so much of it in customer service is subjective and specific to the situation.  Just because you would have phrased it this way or said this or not said that doesn’t mean what we did was WRONG.

I have never hated working somewhere so much.  I mean in every fiber of my being, I hate my job.  It’s one thing to have to spend mental and emotional energy and resources putting on a front for the customer – it’s another to have to get off the phone and not even be able to be yourself around the people you work with.  So many of the rules don’t make any sense and half of them prohibit or impede my ability to do my job effectively or to the best of my ability, and I try not to let that frustrate me but it does, fuck.

So glad to start working from home.  There’s just been something about turning into that parking lot this week that makes me want to eat a bullet.  I feel it, as soon as I even turn off the interstate, a sense of tension, dread, and apprehension fills me.

Also, I’m not not-suicidal, the date just hasn’t come yet.  It may pass, it may not, who the fuck knows, who the fuck cares.  I know I don’t.