…we are supposed to be working tomorrow, and so I’m not bothering to go back to the house, because it’s almost 2 hours to get there, and then 2 hours back, and the air conditioning here works. And I could duck out, but then I would feel like I was letting everyone down, and I would feel guilty about it, and stressed out. So I’ll stay here in the office tonight, and work tomorrow, and then by God I really should just kill myself. There is too much crashing around in my head right now, there is too much pain, of old and new kinds, in my body, in my mind, and I can’t get hold of anything I’m supposed to be doing. I can’t get ahold of myself. I can’t take care of things I should take care of. I can’t even make my follow-up appointments, or get plugged into a primary doctor or a psychiatrist or anything else. Or, I can take tomorrow off and instead just go sit in the stupid house over the weekend and bake, and go nowhere because I have no vehicle, and I sure as hell am not going to ride my bike or walk very far in the state I’m in. And then there’s laundry on Sunday, of course, I guess if I’m alive I have to do that. I couldn’t stand it not being done…I even squeezed in to do the load on Tuesday night when I got back from the hospital. Also, if I take tomorrow off, it’s too obvious that it wasn’t what was INTENDED to happen, it’s just an exception made now that I’ve expressed my dismay (by punching a wall and throwing my chair against another wall like a fucking moron) at the fact that we’re being open. I have too many windows open and too many browser tabs open, and too many USB attachments and their drivers going, and too much fucking malware in my code, and the system and the CPU and everything else are about three generations obsolete, and the cooling fan is running and about sixty MPR (minutes per revolution). I can smell the stench of melting plastic in my own head, and my body stinks of rotten meat (this is metaphorical, of course). I hate myself. I’m useless. I’m pointless. I’m alone because I deserve to be alone, and what I really deserve to be is gone. I could just finish work tomorrow and then take the rest of the Percocet that they gave me, maybe throw something else on top of it. It’s probably not enough to kill me, unfortunately, just to do damage. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do, I cannot manage this anymore. I’ve been trying, I’ve been trying to hold together for a long time, through divorce and not seeing my kids and going to prison and losing my license and chronic pain and issues related to the fact that I’m a previously undiagnosed autistic. and I’ve TRIED to be positive and to do and make positive things, write books, learn guitar and make and record songs, do this horribly annoying blog every day, but I can’t seem to make it all work, and I can’t seem to do anything, and there’s no point, anyway. I hate it here. But I hate the prospect of trying to move somewhere else at least as much. I hate my situation, my living arrangements, the weather in this stupid excuse for a state, but the prospect of conceivably trying to pick up and start anew somewhere else is just overwhelming and horrifying. I am trapped in my own mind, and there’s nothing I can do to get out, because the problem is my own mind, and my body. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t. I can’t figure anything out. It’s all just chaos and entropy, loud noises and loud people, and nothing makes any sense. And it hurts to fucking go to the bathroom, on top of everything else. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, everyone. I’m sorry I’m such a miserable person. I don’t mean to be. I try not to be. I try to do good in the world, especially for people I care about, but I never do get it right.
Author: Robert Elessar
A nameless Friday blog post
It’s hard to believe, but something truly obvious didn’t even occur to me until yesterday afternoon as I was getting ready to leave the office. I was really worn out and tired and grumpy, and I said to my coworker, who was very kindly giving me a ride to the train station, “If I were a sane person in a civilized world, I wouldn’t even have come to work at all this week.”
That’s when I thought: the people at the hospital probably didn’t expect me to go back to work this week.
Meanwhile, this has been one of our busiest weeks in a very long time at the office, and the office is in the process of moving to our new location, and I had to iron out the details of the records from Monday and Tuesday, which were a bit off, and then I had to do the payroll on Wednesday all while having the busiest day of this very busy week so far.
Yesterday was not quite as hectic as Wednesday for me, but on Wednesday I had kind of maxxed the pain med dose so I could get done what I needed to do. Not so on Thursday. I want to make sure not to overuse the meds in the short term, since I don’t know when a really bad spasm might happen. Of course, I’m not taking my usual aspirin either, per recommendation, nor any other go-to NSAIDS, so things are complicated.
Anyway, the meds situation wasn’t what I wanted to discuss. I just wanted to note how pathological I must be to have not only come right back to work after being discharged from the hospital, but to have applied pressure to get me discharged Tuesday afternoon. I can’t believe that I even said I would sign out AMA* if I had to do so.
But I am basically on my own; if I don’t work, I don’t eat, so to speak. Even that is misleading, though, and is not my real reason, which is that I have to be productive or useful to someone, in a way that I accept, or else there is no point to the fact of my continued existence.
I mean, I know no one wants to be around me or to have me around them for fun and pleasure; the copious evidence for that is glaring and even blinding. But I am capable of being useful in quite a few different ways; even my misautonomy doesn’t force me to deny that I have gifts that can be productive and useful and even sometimes beautiful.
So, if I can’t be useful, well…what’s the use of me? If I were not at work, what would I be doing but lying around in my one room (plus bathroom) with a malfunctioning AC unit?
Meanwhile, I still haven’t made my follow-up appointments or any of that. My sister has offered to help, and I think I’m going to have to take her up on that, though she’ll have to be doing stuff from long distance and second-hand and I still find the process daunting. It’s really quite pathetic.
And if not being useful is a feeling like being in an intergalactic void, it’s even more horrible to feel like I’m a burden or even an inconvenience to someone else, especially someone who really matters to me. That’s a failure worthy of fire.
Also, I am tired of being in pain. Everything in my life centers around pain. I suppose it should have been obvious for quite a while, but at least since the time I was sent to be a guest at FSP West, pain has been the central fact, the only consistent thing, about my existence. Now I’ve just added another color, another flavor, another timbre and type of pain to my usual mix.
I suppose one could almost call it refreshing as a change, or one might if it weren’t just absolutely overwhelming at its peak, and none too pleasant when it’s at a lower level. And while, if one’s pain is in one’s back and legs, it is possible to rest them to some degree, you can’t really rest your urinary tract when it is where the pain is focused. If you try to drink less, you’ll only make the primary problem worse, but of course, drinking more (hopefully to get the stone to pass) does mean more of the acute discomfort in the meantime.
Why am I doing any of this? Why am I continuing? It’s certainly not out of any sense of my personal value. I’m just a maggot-ridden turd lying by a dirt path in a humid, stagnant, pollen laden drizzle that doesn’t refresh anything or allow anything but mold and fungi and coprophagic organisms to grow. I’m so tired. I have no purpose, and I am so tired.
Anyway, this ought to be it for this week. I don’t think there’s a plan for the office to be open tomorrow. If it is, by rights I ought not to come in anyway. But since the alternative is just lying around by myself, and since I’m stupid, and I don’t live in a civilized world, and I am certainly not sane, if they open the office, I will probably be here. If so, I’ll probably write a blog post.
Until my next post, whenever it is, I truly and sincerely and urgently hope you all have objectively good days and nights and everything else. If my words have the power to make anything real, that is what I would want.
*Against medical advice.
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You blogs, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
Hello and good morning.
It’s Thursday, and here I am writing another blog post to prove that yesterday’s was not a fluke nor a false flag nor any other term beginning with “f” other than perhaps “fair play”.
By the way, I may have previously used the Shakespeare-based title above‒it’s just so easy to make, and I’ve always loved that line from Julius Caesar‒but I don’t care. It’s too perfect for my current circumstances to miss the chance now. I mean, blogs and stones? Come on!
I’m on my way to the office, and speaking of stones, I am far from being over the process of having, let alone passing, my kidney stone. I’m trying not to overuse my pain meds, largely because they tend to have diminishing returns, and I want them to work when I really need them. Also, they are quite…well, constipating. Now, it’s true that I didn’t eat all that much over the course of the early part of this week, and of what I did eat, much of it didn’t stay down. Still, I went Sunday through Wednesday without doing anything but peeing.
I have been doing a lot of that of course, deliberately. It is not pleasant. The pain is not like it was Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday, but it still doesn’t let me forget. And, of course, we’re moving office this week, and that adds extra hecticity*.
I don’t know how much you all would want to hear (that I haven’t already said) about what went on in the hospital. I did talk about it a great deal yesterday. I suppose I’ll play it by ear and just bring up things that occur to me as interesting.
I have not yet made my follow-up appointments, but I need to try to do so today, if I can. Even writing about it makes me feel very tense and anxious. I know there’s no good reason for feeling anxiety and resistance toward such things, but at least now I know something of the cause: It has to do with ASD, with possibly some pathological demand avoidance, but also just with associated, fairly severe, social anxiety.
But I have to try, and I want to try. I’ve been rather impressed by the hospital and its associated staff and attending physicians and their network and such, and I would like to get myself plugged into their system if I am able to do so.
They seem quite generous and caring as a tendency and policy. They do everything from providing free meds for when you go home to getting you a Lyft if you don’t have a ride. I think that’s pretty nice.
It was oddly nostalgic, being in the hospital. Well, I suppose it’s not so odd. I spent much of my earlier adult life in and around hospitals, from med school to residency to medical practice, nineteen years in total. I guess I miss it. It was nice working with intelligent, disciplined, professional people at all levels and being able to relieve and even prevent suffering, all while getting a good amount of intellectual stimulation in the form of understanding and solving complex problems.
I don’t expect that I will ever do it again, though. There are ways, I am sure, to fight to try to get my license back and so on, but it’s not the sort of process for which I have any avidity. When civilization falls apart, as it appears to be about to do, I can perhaps find a time and reason to lend my skills to the survivors, if I am one of them, which seems unlikely. Otherwise, I don’t feel a lot of enthusiasm for supporting the world as it is. Humans have revealed themselves over and over‒by and large‒to be inadequate to tasks that require actual cooperation and consideration and compassion and humility.
It’s ironic that humility is so challenging for humans. Given how profound their limitations and failings are (despite undeniable strengths, as well) you might imagine that humility would be easy.
But somehow, the default setting even of those who try to be humble is to characterize themselves as absolutely worthless‒which from a certain point of view is always true, but which misses the point of real humility.
Humility is not self-hatred or self-contempt or self-destruction (from which, to some, the only rescue is through some imaginary supernatural being); it is a recognition that one is and will always be limited, capable of error, and incapable of being perfectly objective about oneself and the nature of one’s existence. With such self-knowledge, one will tend to be better able to make good choices about oneself and others.
Maybe I should try meditating again, to try to keep myself calm when possible. It might help with my serious social anxiety. It would probably also help me to get less upset over the idiocy of the current administration**. And perhaps my mind would then be more useful overall.
Anyway, that’s enough for now. I hope you all have a good day and try not to get too upset, yourselves. The world is going to end soon, but that has always been the case‒it’s just a matter of time scales. On other scales, even a single mayfly’s life is practically eternal.
TTFN
*I think I made that word up, but it seems too good not to use.
**It would be nice to administer a fair amount of current to the members of this US administration, though‒alternating current, with enough voltage and amperage to cause serious discomfort, but not enough to kill them…at least not quickly***.
***See? Upset.
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I am not Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror…
…nor am I King Under the Mountain.
Nevertheless I return.
I hope no one was too worried about me these last few days, though I have probably given you cause to worry. Honestly, though, I was in a fairly dire situation. On Saturday night/Sunday morning I woke up just after midnight with what started as right lower quadrant abdominal pain, which at first I thought was some “normal” GI cramping, maybe from something I ate that I shouldn’t have eaten.
As it rapidly worsened, I became more concerned. I checked myself for fever (didn’t have one) and for abdominal tenderness, including rebound tenderness. That wasn’t really there either.
If you are a medical professional, you might recognize that I was worrying about my appendix. And though the location was right (lower quadrant, ha ha), there were some things missing. Still, I was concerned, and the pain was worsening.
To make sure I wasn’t being reckless or silly, I bothered my poor sister with a phone call in the middle of the night (she was very kind about it). She asked me a few questions, tried a little light-hearted banter to try to relax me (I was, regrettably, not amenable, and I fear I might’ve been rude). The final thing she said was to point out that I have chronic, often severe, pain. If this was much worse than that‒and it was‒then I needed to get it looked at.
She is wise, my sister.
I had to finish the call quickly and call 911 because the pain continued to increase. There was no other credible option but an ambulance. I don’t have a car, but even if I did, I was not capable of driving at all, let alone safely. There was no one who could drive me, nor was I going to call an Uber or Lyft. The delay in that, both at pre-pickup and at the hospital, would be intolerable.
As I tried to keep speaking with the 911 operator, I went outside, onto the back patio, where I eventually laid down on the concrete, confusing at least one cat to a level that would have made Monty Python proud. I figured it would be easier to get to me there, outside. The lying down part was because I didn’t want to sit or stand, and didn’t care about getting dirty. I also didn’t have any shoes on.
Then it occurred to me that I didn’t want to awaken my housemates, who have dogs that would bark if people walked up beside the house with a stretcher, so I made my awkward way to the front of the house, to the sidewalk, where I sat down, first with my back to the gate post. Then the first real right mid-back (or flank) pain added itself to the mix and I think I cursed as quietly as I could and slumped to my side, trying to ease the pressure.
The 911 operator told me the EMTs were just arriving, and she was right. I thanked her and said goodbye (my Mom and Dad did not raise their children to be rude to those who legitimately and professionally help others in emergencies).
The EMTs were very professional, and they were the first to recognize what turned out to be the case, though the ER doc also took one look at me and ordered an immediate non-contrast abdomen and pelvis CT which revealed the specifics of what he and the EMTs had clearly recognized: I had a kidney stone in my right ureter.
So, to bring an already drawn-out explanation to a provisional conclusion, that’s why I’ve not written a blog post either on Monday or Tuesday of this week. I’ve been in a torture chamber of my own body’s making.
Still, there are some compensations. One gets pretty thorough evaluations when in hospital. I learned, for instance, that though my blood sugar was rather high at first, largely due extreme physical stress, it came down to just above normal. A hemoglobin A1C that was added on showed that I was high normal/low abnormal, or pre-diabetic. Diabetes does run in my family, and also, I’m sure I have chronically elevated levels of cortisol and related hormones in my body that make such things worse.
Of more mild interest was that I had lowish hemoglobin and hematocrit, and my blood concentrations of hemoglobin and RBCs were low. In other words, I was borderline anemic. This was a mild surprise until I thought about how much aspirin I take. As part of taking that aspirin, I also take acid blockers to protect my stomach (and to combat GERD). So, from two ends, that can explain a bit of anemia: some low-level blood loss over time from aspirin’s antiplatelet effects and probably chronic gastritis, and somewhat decreased iron absorption, since the acid in one’s stomach facilitates that absorption.
I know this much in such detail because of a cool service the hospital offers, which is an app on which you can access your test results and (to some degree) other medical records. It’s really quite nice, because too often, people have only vague ideas of what their tests mean, and they arrive when the occasion might already be fading in their minds. That doesn’t happen to me, of course‒mine is the superior mind, like Khan, who was even more in his own way than I tend to be.
Ha ha. I am of course exaggerating, and not just about Khan being more in his own way than I am. This app’s data is great information to have. They even give you little notification dings when new stuff is added. It can be handy.
I’ll go more into what happened in the hospital at another time, but I will give a spoiler or two now: I have not passed the stone, but I have a stent in my right ureter and I am on meds to try to help that to let the stone pass. My pain is not completely gone, but there is only a bit of right flank ache and spasm sometimes when I use the bathroom*, and a fair amount of blood and irritation in the urethra from the stent placement. That’s always fun.
Also, I kind of pushed to get out earlier than they really wanted me to leave, because I have to do payroll for the office today. It would be possible for my coworker or my boss to do it, but when you’re doing something you don’t usually do, there are much more likely to be errors, and I don’t want people to be accidentally underpaid (or overpaid).
Even before I finished the first draft of this blog post, I already found two places where that would have happened had I not come back. So, while I was probably somewhat foolish‒I’ll tell you later about another extremely foolish thing I considered doing when my pain first subsided a bit on Sunday‒I am also confirmed in my judgement. And the needs of the many (ceteris paribus***) outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
One final thing, the most important of all things, before I go. While I was in the hospital, my youngest, Ezra, having followed my little comments on Threads or Instagram, realized that I was in the hospital and why and contacted me and came to visit me in the hospital! That’s right, for the first time in almost 13 years, I got to hug my child. They also made plans to get together with me more regularly.
So, let me address the notorious question: Is a kidney stone the worst pain I’ve ever experienced?
Absolutely. And I’ve been through open-heart surgery and fractured my right scapula and had back surgery and “failed back surgery syndrome”. We ASDers, supposedly, do not like to exaggerate if we can avoid it, but there was at least one time, and I think several, when I was asked what my pain was on a scale of 1 to 10, and I said 10 with no hesitation. Sometimes I only said 7 or 8.5 or 9 or 9.5. I try to be as precise as feasible. But there were 10s in there, and I normally treat 10s on such scales like massive objects trying to go the speed of light, or probabilities in the real world trying to get to 1.
Was it worth it to get to see my child again? Well, I would be afraid to offer to experience it again with that outcome in mind, but I would be willing. Yes, it was worth it.
I will speak more about this tomorrow. Thank you for your patience and apologies for any anxiety you might have had on my behalf.
*Perhaps because I’m not using it for that for which it is intended, which is, obviously, to bathe**.
**That’s an attempted joke.
***In the real world, ceteris is almost never paribus.
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Nothing very interesting
It’s Friday. I wish I could feel happy about that. I can remember back in high school, especially, when I would look forward to Friday, because my friends and I would probably be getting together at one of our houses to play role playing games over the weekend. Other kids might sometimes abuse certain drugs (usually nothing worse than marijuana) but we just abused coffee. We were often up waaay into the night.
I was almost always the first one to wake up even after a long night of gaming. I was also the first one in my house to wake up during the week. I guess one could see the shadow of where the insomnia tree was growing already, but I didn’t know to recognize the signs.
In college, I would often go downtown on Saturday to the city center where there were some shops and stuff, just to wander around (though there was a pretty good comic book store there). For a while, I would go to temple downtown on Friday evening and Saturday morning.
Anyway, enough reminiscing. The good days of the past are not going to return, so whatever.
I’m on my way to the office as I write this, though editing and posting will take place after I get there. It’s already way too humid down here, such that I sweat just while standing still outside.
We’ve been packing some things from the office and so on to bring over to the new place. Yesterday, I gathered my science books and my black Strat (see below) at the office and put them in a big, industrial garbage bag. I was planning to bring them to the dumpster, but my boss asked to take the guitar and stuff for either his brother or cousin, who apparently has only an acoustic. So, he took that yesterday.
I still haven’t brought my science books to the garbage yet, partly because they are heavy, and I have been having particularly bad issues with my chronic pain this week, as you may know if you’ve read this. Also, the dumpster was ridiculously full. It seems we’re not the only people moving.
Actually, I would have thrown away much more of my stuff, but much of it is little things people gave me over time that I never would’ve gotten for myself, like Funcopop(?) figures or whatever you call those. One doesn’t throw away things that were gifts‒that would be rude. One of those figures is of Hannibal Lecter, and he would not approve of me being rude with him especially.
Anyway, that’s it. No more delusions that I’m going to play guitar at the office anymore‒there isn’t even going to be a space for me to do so. Also, no more deluding myself that I will actually read the various science books ever before the end of my life. It would be cool, but I don’t see how it’s going to happen. I don’t expect (or hope) to live much longer, honestly.
Oh, I got a box of syringes delivered yesterday, with needles, in case I want to try the idea from yesterday (nothing drug related, for those of you who don’t go back and check it out).
It’s all a bit frightening, these ideas of how to complete my personal arch of time. I’ve said before how hard it is to override the idiot biological drive to avoid injury and pain and death. That’s probably why so many suicides are associated with alcohol and other psychoactive substances. Maybe I should take up heavy drinking.
That’s not likely to happen. When I drink alcohol, it seems always to lead to my chronic pain worsening afterward. Neurochemical stuff is probably involved, a reaction of my nervous system with a rebound after the alcohol. Anyway, I’ve never been much of a drinker.
I can’t think of anything else about which to write. Nor to sing, not to draw, nor to play, nor nothing else. I know, that was technically a sentence fragment, just now. Sue me*.
If I come to the office tomorrow, I’ll probably write a post. I apologize again to all those dedicated readers who keep hoping for something interesting or good or amusing or whatever in these posts. I’m out of fuel, out of ammo, out of pocket, out of this world, and out of my mind.
I hope you have a good day.
*That was not a sentence fragment.
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The blogger, learning, physic, must all follow this, and come to dust.
Hello and good morning.
It’s Thursday.
I was inclined to make that the whole post today, just, “Hello and good morning. It’s Thursday. TTFN.”
I still don’t think I’m going to make it much longer than that. I don’t have anything new to say. Everything I have to say has surely already been said here.
Nothing is any better than yesterday, or the day before, or the year before, or the decade before. I have no reason to expect that anything will be better tomorrow. It’ll just be another day gone by, so I’ll be a little more used up and fatigued and probably a little more pessimistic.
I’m waiting for the train now. I expect today to be pretty much as always. There is nothing to which I look forward. Music isn’t interesting, whether playing or listening. I can’t eat foods that give me any kind of even momentary surge of pleasure, because those foods also tend to give me GI problems (and then apparent metabolic problems).
I don’t really even know the full state of my physical health; I haven’t been to see any kind of doctor for several years, maybe almost 10, not since the time when I went to an urgent care because a respiratory infection I had was persisting longer than expected. They found that I was desatting* a bit, so they told me to go to the ER, where I was admitted. While I was there, they did an echocardiogram, and supposedly (I never saw the actual echo myself) there had been a slight…I don’t know, a recurrence, a reopening, a relapse of the ASD** that I had that required open heart surgery when I was 18.
I was supposed to follow up on that recent echo, but after my infection was treated, I felt much better, and I didn’t and don’t have insurance. Honestly, the thought of going through all that shit with my heart again now, almost 40 years after the first ordeal, is not acceptable. Besides, honestly, there wasn’t and isn’t any reason for me to try to preserve my life and/or health. I’m disappointed the thing hasn’t caused me any problems so far.
Many days I wish I would just have a heart attack or something, or get a severe infection. After my little semi-humorous footnote yesterday, I thought about just trying to inject some shall we say less-than-sterile liquid into myself, and I even ordered some syringes from Amazon for that purpose. If I do still have any kind of irregularity in my heart, that would provide a good nidus for the beginning of an endocarditis.
I may do that. It’s simple and straightforward, but it could be a very long process. It’s probably not a very rewarding option. It’s too slow and too reversible.
I’m so exhausted. I’m so tired, mentally, physically, and “spiritually”. I wish I could just go into a field somewhere and collapse and just lie there not moving until the elements took me. And I feel so tense and angry so much of the time.
Never mind, this is all stupid. Sorry, again. I’m sorry that I’m whining so much. Yeah, yeah, life is hard, the universe is hard, the world is idiotic and no one is in charge or in control of much of anything, but it’s nothing new. Humans‒at least some of them‒do have the potential to do great and relatively enduring things, but all the other idiots who want to think of themselves as special and important to some divine creator, but who are, ironically, much more akin to chimpanzees and savages than are those who reject superstition, get in the way almost inevitably.
Anyway, enough of this. Again, I’m sorry. You’ve been kind and optimistic to read my daily excretions, so here’s a slight break for you. I hope I won’t write a post tomorrow, but I probably will.
TTFN
*Short for desaturating: when the percentage oxygenation in the blood drops below normal, healthy levels.
**Atrial Septal Defect in this case, not Autism Spectrum Disorder. Apparently it wasn’t much more than a patent foramen ovale at this recent stage, but that still shouldn’t be there. I mean, my heart surgery was done by the guy who literally wrote the textbook on the procedure. That was in 1988, of course, so things have surely improved, but still.
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Morose, meandering musings of a misautonomous moron
Every time I write a blog post on a Wednesday morning, I feel the urge to include a reference to the Beatles song She’s Leaving Home, as in “Wednesday morning at five o’clock as the day begins…”
There, see, I just did it again. At least it was self consciously done, not some quote put in as if it were my own words, intended only for those “in the know” to recognize. I guess that’s a way for me to feel vaguely clever‒and sometimes funny‒while actually just following the often irresistible compulsion to quote shit* at every turn.
In high school, when I was a senior (and maybe when I was a junior?) I was pretty confident in my place as one of the “leaders” of our school orchestra, and I used to go to the orchestra room first thing in the morning before school, usually arriving before the teacher, and then I hung out there (with other orchestra members and friends who arrived a bit later) until time for classes to start. While there, pretty much every day, I would write a quote from something‒Shakespeare**, Tolkien, Stephen R. Donaldson, Poe, etc.‒on the board. I even won the “Dusty Cello Award” at our end of the year orchestra party because of it.
I’ve always had that habit of quoting books and movies and plays and shows and so on, and even doing the voices of people when I could.
I think reading fiction in particular was very good for helping me to understand what goes on in other people’s minds, at least in principle. But I also just liked being able to go to those other worlds and other lives. It’s better in general than watching TV or movies, though the latter are easier and also easier to enjoy with other people, if you have other people with whom to enjoy them.
Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. My past and my thoughts about it are of no moment to anyone but me, and even I find them boring. It’s just that they’re all I really have.
I’ve tried to interact with people to some degree online, but that just gets me weird feedback, like getting almost 3,000 “likes” in less than 24 hours for pointing out in a comment that the biblical Jesus would not approve of a particular, supposedly religion-based, exclusion reported in a thread about a shopkeeper toward a trans woman (ironic for a nonbeliever to be pointing out Jesus’s very clear attitudes, but I am one who remembers characters and quotes).
On the other hand, when I noted yesterday on the same site that the office where I work was 3.4 miles from the nearest “beach” (and a fishing pier) and I thought it might be good to walk down to the shore, kick off my shoes and socks, and just start swimming east into the Atlantic and not come back (pointing out that it would leave no need for cleanup, and it wouldn’t mess up anyone’s day, or anything of that sort) I got 3 likes (after quite a while) and only one comment by a person saying she doesn’t like to dwell on such thoughts.
This is, supposedly, Mental Health Awareness month, but I don’t know what good such a thing does, especially if such is the response to someone expressing suicidal ideation. I’m aware of mental health in general, but it’s been a long time since I had any personal experience of mental health (if I ever have). It’s been at least 13 years since I’ve had even moments of mental pseudo-health. That was the last time I saw my kids in person, for one afternoon.
I’ve only recently realized that it’s now been a longer time since I saw my children than how old they were when I last saw them. So, I’ve missed more than half of their lives now, and that fraction is only going to get bigger.
What would I possibly know about mental health?
Physical health is not my biggest attribute either (not many people had open-heart surgery at age 18). But I know it gets very boring for people to hear about‒for instance‒the fact that I feel right now as if my entire right side from the lower ribs on down to the ball of my foot feels as though it’s filled with molten lead, which is quite painful, in case you were wondering. But that’s always the way it is, for much longer than 13 years (more than 20, actually) and though it waxes and wanes and shifts locations, pain never fully goes away while I’m conscious (and probably contributes to the worsening of my insomnia).
Anyway, I know, Waah, waah, waah, shut the fuck up, Robert, no one wants to hear all this shit*** over and over again! It’s tiresome to face nothing but complaints. I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry. I really am. To everybody.
I really should just try that swim. There isn’t much to prevent it. I’m not particularly afraid of drowning (other than in an instinctive sense) though I do have misgivings about sharks and other sea creatures. That’s probably silly, since, even in shark infested waters, statistically people are far more likely to drown than to be attacked by a shark.
I have to do something, or at least to have something done to me. I don’t have the will or the wherewithal to take action to save myself in any way (and wouldn’t know where to start if I could) but I don’t have the strength to keep living, not for much longer. And I don’t have any good reason to keep living.
But that same problem with “executive function” or whatever it is makes it hard for me to take action to kill myself. So, for the moment, I just hurt myself to try to distract myself from other pain and to punish myself for being such a lame and shitty person, but weirdly, I have a hard time making such things hurt very much anymore. Maybe I’ve always got too much pain medication in me, but I just don’t realize it because it doesn’t do all that much for my back and joint pains. It’s weird.
Then again, I’m weird, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Like the song says, “I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here.”
I don’t belong here.
*This is the nonjudgmental version of the word “shit”. It’s more or less synonymous with “stuff” but it flows better (so to speak). I don’t mean to imply that the song to which I refer is in any way shit. It’s one of the most beautiful songs I know.
**Yes, I loved Shakespeare even back then.
***Here, the use of “shit” is much more in the derogatory, excrement-related vein. Though if someone had excrement in their veins, they would be in big trouble, because that excrement would be carried to the lungs and then heart and could cause horrible endocarditis and pneumonias and so on.
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No songs or pictures, just pathetic words of despite and destruction and despair
Well, it’s Tuesday. I think my stunt (or whatever you might call it) yesterday has failed miserably. I don’t know why I’m surprised, let alone disappointed. I’m either just not good at that sort of thing, or I’m just not worthy of that sort of thing.
I don’t know if that quite made sense just now. I’m apparently very bad at getting my feelings across, on top of the fact that, a lot of the time, I’m not quite sure specifically what I’m feeling. They’re just a bunch of swirling, overpowering sensations that don’t ever seem to show on my face or in my voice.
Anyway, I have no subject on which to speak (so to speak) today, and it doesn’t really matter, because I seem incapable of conveying anything important to anyone for whom it could possibly matter. It’s fine. As Thomas Covenant said (before he ever went to the Land) this is what people are like: futile. He would change his point of view on that after many grueling and heartbreaking yet inspiring experiences, but I think he was onto something.
I’ve always had a bit of sympathy for Lord Foul in those books. Part of this was just because he was so eloquent‒I’m a bit of a sucker for a good speaker‒but especially after I learned that he was trapped inside the arch of time, inside the Land, and he literally cannot possibly die or be permanently defeated while trapped there. He hates everything in the Land and its world not just because it’s his nature to hate, but because he is trapped by and with everything there, potentially forever. So if he is ever to be free to go anywhere else‒even to die‒he has to destroy the arch of time and thus that world. It is personal to him, of course‒he’s not called the Despiser for nothing‒but it needn’t be.
Anyway, I am not trapped in the arch of time, or at least I’m not constrained from ever dying within it. Or maybe my own arch of time is just that span of moments that began at birth (or conception) and will reach its other end at my death. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t need to destroy the arch, just…complete it.
This is all metaphorical bullshit, I know. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t have any misgiving that any of that could be real. But the stories were good, at least the first two trilogies; I’ve never finished the last 4 books. There is no denying that The Lord of the Rings is better, and much more inspiring and uplifting. But the Thomas Covenant books do a better job of capturing the horror and despair and terror of not just fighting evil, but of being evil.
That’s probably why it appealed to me. My innate tendency is to be, well, perhaps not evil, but destructive. I feel terribly angry so much, so often, and I just want to break and burn this world, this life, that is so bloody uncomfortable. But I know that I don’t have any business hurting other people, almost none of whom are ever deliberately hurting me. So I bottle it up and try to calm it, and I don’t act on it.
But like I said in my reversal of Nebula’s last line to Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, I wasn’t born to be a dad, I was born to be a destroyer. I’ve just always tried to fight against that, and I have in some small ways succeeded. I even swung things in the other direction at times, becoming a doctor and a dad. Of course, I eventually failed miserably at both of those things, as usual, but I did some good in the meantime.
And there is one being I have a proprietary right to destroy. I just need to quit the foreplay.
Anyway, this has been weird, I suspect, but what else is new? I hope you all have a good day.
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Six songs to try to express a little bit of how I am doing
I don’t have the energy or will or “spoons” to write much today. I’m just about ready to tap out. My “executive function” is so low that I think the only thing I’m capable of executing is myself, and even that is difficult. I certainly don’t have the capacity to act to save myself. I keep trying to express just how fucking horrible I am doing, but I don’t think it’s coming across. I guess it doesn’t matter much.
Anyway, today I figure I’ll embed some songs I’ve recorded myself performing that do something to convey my difficulties. Some are originals, some are covers. I don’t know if they will work, either.
It doesn’t really matter. I don’t have the will to take any action about anything. I can only do what I do every day, automatically, and I am getting closer and closer to being unable to do even that. I think I’m pretty nearly completely out of gas, and I am basically only a burden to the world. It doesn’t help that we’re moving offices this month, which I hate, but that’s just a little insult to add to the injuries that are leading to the end of things.
Anyway, here are the songs.
It’s not a perfect expression or set of expressions, but it’s about all I’m capable of, even after a weekend “off”. It doesn’t matter. I’ve basically given up. I’m so tired already and it’s just Monday morning.
I hope you each have a great day, individually, and that you all have a great day, collectively.
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Dolly on the trolley found a seat, by golly
It’s Friday, and I am not expecting to work tomorrow. In fact, I think if I were asked to work tomorrow, I would have to refuse. If someone tried to coerce me with a gun to my head, I would probably just tell them to pull the effing trigger. I might just try to fight them, frankly, and force their hand, because if someone threatened me with deadly force, I wouldn’t feel any real compunction about doing my best to kill them, instead.
My point is, I’m not going to work tomorrow unless lives depend on it (which seem quite unlikely). Even then, it would very much matter whose life was in the balance; there’s a moral triage that would need to be done. There are people whom I would not be willing to put myself to any significant effort to save, even if I were the only one able to do it.
That’s not true of most people, though. Despite my talk in yesterday’s post, I wouldn’t be inclined to let any of the vast majority of people on the planet die just so I could avoid going to work. But there are people about whom I would consider it a lovely opportunity, if it happened.
This is all so stupid, I’m sorry. It’s just an absurd notion, though I know that sometimes one can imagine physically unlikely situations in order to clarify moral concerns, such as in the truly blunt thought instrument of the “trolley problem”. I think that scenario is so absurd and contrived that I have a hard time taking it seriously when I hear or read it.
I mean, how did I come to be put in charge of this trolley lever? I certainly didn’t ask for the responsibility. And then there’s the whole “fat person” variation, where you can push a heavy person onto the track to stop the trolley, saving the 5 people down the way. But if a trolley can be stopped by one person, however large, then how could it have the power to kill all 5 people working down the track? Is that one person literally larger than five track workers? And are the track workers really so oblivious that they can’t see or hear the trolley coming? It can’t be going very fast, since kinetic energy scales as velocity squared, and if it was going very fast, the heavy person wouldn’t stop it.
Also, what about the people in the trolley? What about the driver? Are they all just oblivious? If I can see the problem, why can’t the driver? If the heavy person is pushed and stops the trolley, will it derail? How many injuries and potential deaths will be caused by the sudden, catastrophic stopping of the trolley? And where are those responsible for the scheduling and routing of these trolleys? And where is the foreman (foreperson?*) responsible for scheduling the track work? Why am I being thrust into a situation where I need to fix their failures?
More importantly, how did I get sidetracked (ha ha) onto the stupid trolley problem? What is my idiot mind doing today, anyway?
I’m so beat right now. We’re going to be moving offices within this next week, and I hate the process of moving and the need to adapt to a new place. It’s so irritating and stressful. It would be one thing if there were compensations of some kind‒not monetary, but perhaps an improvement in my commute. Unfortunately, the new location is barely different from the old, just a block or two away.
I also have accumulated a fair amount of stuff in the office. I’m tempted just to throw all of it away, including my guitar, my science books, my drawing supplies, all of it. It’s all just going to lie fallow, and will simply act as a constant reminder and reproach about all my various failed endeavors, which are legion.
Yesterday morning, I forced myself to pick up and strum around on my guitar at the office and sing. I literally had to force myself. I got bored after about three or four songs, though it was nice that I didn’t need to look at the chord sheets or anything for most of them. The tuning didn’t require much adjustment, which points toward how consistent the temperature in the office is.
And here I go again, just meandering in my thoughts, not giving any kind of consistent output. I’m not sure if any of this even makes sense. It’s almost like free association, as in the old Freudian style psychoanalysis. I suppose this blog provides a slightly pertinent data point about just how useless that endeavor was, since doing this has clearly not helped my mental health (well, maybe I would be even worse otherwise, but at the very least it has failed to get me into a healthy mental state).
Okay, that’s enough idiocy. I’m past 800 words, and I doubt more than one or two people will really read this whole thing (you have my admiration, oh intrepid souls). I hope you all have a good day, a good weekend, and as good an every day after that as you can.
*I raise the question because I’m led to understand that, in its origins and original use, the word “man” was sex/gender neutral, and just referred to a person. I may be wrong about that, though.
Robert Elessar 