Pain

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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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It’s the end of the month as we know it

It’s the last day of April in 2025, which means tomorrow is the beginning of May.  This is also the last day of the official Autism Awareness Month, and tomorrow begins the official Mental Health Awareness Month.

That last term is a bit odd.  If mental health is the norm, we don’t really need to be aware of it, except perhaps to be thankful if we have it (I certainly don’t).  It’s the lack of mental health‒you know, mental illness or even mental injury‒that we would like to be aware of and make better.  But I guess some people feel that’s too stigmatic or negative or something.

I think that’s silly.  Do we euphemize cancer?  Not really, not when we’re dealing with it seriously.  All the cancer awareness things slap you in the face, and they more or less say, it’s cancer, take it seriously, we want to fight it.  But what does it mean to be aware of mental health?  We don’t want to fight that, we want to fight for it.

I’m aware of mental health as a concept, of course, though even there, things can be a bit nebulous.  I guess health in general is just the notion that things are functioning more or less as they are supposed to function.  But that allows a fair bit of leeway.  It’s also somewhat relative.  If it were “normal” to be as healthy as Captain America, for instance, Usain Bolt might be considered a bit sickly, and most of the rest of us would be functionally disabled.

It’s hard to convince oneself that the average person, in America, at least, is as mentally healthy as one would like them to be.  I suppose that shouldn’t be too surprising.  Mental health (or the relative lack thereof) is measured largely by its interactions with the surrounding civilization, and that has been changing quite rapidly, from any kind of evolutionary standpoint, especially in the last few centuries, and especially in the last few decades.

Small wonder our brains/nervous systems often don’t function optimally in this realm.  The human (and humanoid/replicant/changeling/alien) brain is remarkably adaptable, but it is not a blank slate upon which just anything can be written at will.  There’s plenty of hardware that’s specific to certain kinds of functions, and there are read-only aspects of the operating systems and even the user interface (which we call consciousness when it’s combined with something akin to the Windows task manager).  We can’t rewrite the firmware yet, and we may never be able to do so.  We have trouble even changing current programs or loading new ones.

Well, that was an unplanned digression…which may be a redundant term.  Are planned digressions even truly digressions?

I was mostly just thinking this morning about what such a pair of months might mean to me.  Both of them are pertinent, since I have issues relating to both “awareness” subjects.  But so many of the things I see shared, particularly about “mental health”, are things I already know, but which have obviously not been adequate to improve my mental health.

Heck, I remember paying real attention in high school in our psychology lessons, reading all the abnormal psychology stuff, knowing that there was something off about me, but not seeing any good answers.  Of course, this was in the 80s, in a public high school, so the material was pretty simplistic and out of date even for the time.

I also used to own books about psychology, self-hypnotism, self help, lots of related stuff.  I didn’t know what it was with me, but I knew that I was strange.  I was pretty good at pretending to be “normal” in a sense, but a lot of even that was just me owning and sometimes exaggerating my odd habits as if they were normal things.

It helped that I was known to be smart, and also that I was raised to be polite and not to be mean or cruel or condescending to people.  That was pretty easy; while I was good at some things, there were many things with which I had difficulty, and I knew that only too well.  I still don’t feel very comfortable riding a bike, for instance, and many athletic pursuits requiring agility have always been hard*.  I also was truly abysmal at dealing with girls/relationships.  I had no idea how really to interact in any kind of would-be romantic way, nor to recognize if someone liked me, nor to let anyone know that I liked them.  I’ve not grown out of that problem.

Anyway, so I’ve been dealing with issues of mental health for as long as I can remember, including a time when I was really quite young and I almost made myself unable to talk after getting upset about some interaction and telling myself that I just wouldn’t talk anymore.  When I finally (after several hours) decided to talk again…I almost couldn’t do it!  I really had to force myself, and almost panicked before I finally was able to squeeze out some words.  That was frightening.

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned that to anyone before.

So, anyway, I’ve been weird my whole life, and I’m no less weird now, but now I am alone, and I have lost pretty much everything I worked very hard to get or be or create as well as nearly everyone I care about most**.  I recognize that it’s not impossible that good things will happen for me in the future.  But I can see pretty clearly that it’s really unlikely.  What could lead me to think otherwise?  Only some profound delusions could do that, and though I cannot rule out delusions in myself, if I have them, they are not of the optimistic variety.

Geez Louise, this is such a pointless post‒just like my pointless life.  I need to wrap it up and be done already.  I hope you have a good day.

*It turns out at least some of this was related to my congenital heart defect, which was discovered when I was 18, and for which I had open heart surgery in the summer after my freshman year in college.

**By this I mean they’re not around, and most of them don’t want to be around me, not that they’ve died‒except my parents, of course, but that was basically natural.  Still, there was a long stretch when I didn’t even interact with them.  It wasn’t as long as the time since I last saw my own children, but it was still very painful.

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How long should one keep smacking the bottom of that bottle?

I made it through Monday again, it seems.  It wasn’t particularly easy.  Starting in the morning, I developed a nasty, unilateral headache that I couldn’t seem to get to go away.  I finally left the office at lunchtime and went back to the house, where I mostly laid around and tried to sedate myself, with some success.

The headache didn’t really start to fade until around midnight, so I didn’t have quite the rest I might have desired, but at least I got some rest.  And now, only a faint residue of the headache remains.

It didn’t feel like a typical migraine, which I have from time to time‒thankfully not very often‒but almost more like a bad, unilateral sinus headache.  Hopefully, it has pretty much run its course now.

It might be nice if there could be a situation in which one could go through some period of painful illness, but then come out afterwards with one’s prior, chronic pain somehow eliminated.  Of course, that’s not likely to happen in real life.  It certainly hasn’t happened to me.

It is true, apparently, that a bad measles infection can effectively wipe out prior immunities, making one vulnerable to diseases to which one had previous resistance.  I suppose that might even be a boon in someone with an autoimmune dysfunction, though it would be difficult to time the infection just right.

I’m not aware of anyone having tried such a therapy, and I don’t think it’s something I would recommend, even if it were workable (which it really isn’t).  Better just to keep vaccination for measles and other preventable illnesses going and look for other avenues to treat autoimmune disorders.

As for what else to discuss…I’m coming up empty here at the moment.  Actually, it’s not just at the moment, is it?  I’ve been squeezing the dregs out of the mustard bottle that is my life force for a long time now.

Sorry, I know that’s a terrible metaphor, but I don’t feel that I’m really worthy of anything fancier.  Anyway, I’ve certainly spread that condiment out over a lot of sandwiches (that’s my continuing the rotten metaphor, with a sandwich representing a day).  But there’s hardly anything left in there, and there are no refills available, as far as I know, and now I’m really just going through the motions.  There’s just a dribbly little, watery remnant, with no flavor left and very little color.

I really pushed that one to the crumpling point, I fear.  But I hope I at least got my point across.  If I didn’t, that would be a real shame.  What a thing not only to have used a truly lame metaphor but to have it fail to do what one intended.  What a tragic joke that would be.

It wouldn’t be very tragic, of course‒it’s hardly anything of consequence.  But still, it would be sad.

I’m really tired and wiped out, even though I went back to the house early yesterday.  Well, I mean, I did just say that my headache didn’t really start to go away until about midnight, and as per my usual self, I was awake today well before three in the morning.

I know, I know, this is all so boring and repetitive!  I’m very sorry.  I wish I could be telling you all about a new story I’m writing, or about my return to a past story, or about some new music I was learning or writing, or even some new drawings I might have done.

Heck, I’d like to tell you I was making progress in studying quantum mechanics and general relativity or differential geometry or computer programming and computer science in general.  I wish I could tell you (and do so honestly) that I was learning more Japanese, or refreshing my Spanish or learning Russian or German, or even French, all of which languages are interesting.

But I’m not doing any of those things.  I’m not doing anything creative or productive or even just distractive (that’s probably not a formally recognized word, but maybe it is).  I don’t have the energy to do anything creative other than this, if this even counts.

Of course, I go to work and do my job, and that’s all well and good as far as it goes, since I don’t like being a burden to people.  But that’s as good as it gets, I think.

I don’t know what else I can do.  I’m just a mess.  I feel like a tattered and smeared old wrapper from a cheap, fast food hamburger.  I suppose some of the smeared matter on the wrapper might be mustard, if we want to keep the metaphor‒or simile, in this case‒consistent.

Well, my train will be here soon, so I’ll bring this to a close.  I hope I haven’t been too much of a downer.  If I have, well, take comfort in the fact that you are only reading these thoughts.  You don’t actually have to experience them.

Please try to have a good day, and try to have better thoughts than mine.

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Step up or STFU

Here I go again, writing another blog post.  It seems like just yesterday that I wrote a previous one‒but of course, it was two days ago, not just one.  Wow, what a spooky difference.

I’m getting ready to be at work, or rather, am in the process of being on my way to work as I begin to write this.  I’m not actually currently moving relative to the surface of the Earth, but that happens a lot during commutes, especially when you don’t have your own vehicle anymore.

I don’t really have “my own” much of anything anymore.  I mean, I have a small amount of stuff, as George Carlin might say, though I’m quite sure I have waaaaaay less stuff than he had when he performed that particular routine.  Not that that’s bad; he certainly earned his stuff.  I mean, he’s still making loads of people laugh and think even after he’s been dead for a while.  I don’t know how long that will go on‒contrary to delusional claims by people who like a cool-sounding expression, online is not forever‒but he will, I suspect, be remembered fondly far longer than most.

The average day, on the other hand, feels like it is forever.  I don’t think I really look forward (in the positive sense) to anything nowadays.  There are two movies in theaters right now that I ought to want to go see, but if you presented me with free tickets, free concessions, and a ride to and from a theater of my choice, I think I’d say, “Thanks, but I’m not interested.”  And that would be true.

Likewise, though I watched the first episode of the latest series of Doctor Who a few weeks ago, two more have come out since then, and I have no desire to watch them, or anything else.  There are no books to which I look forward.  I’ve had to force myself to read at all, and even that’s probably a mistake*.  I occasionally look at my guitars and at the keyboard and they almost feel alien to me.  Like, what is that even used for?  I can’t really even imagine picking one up and playing it (or sitting down and playing, in the case of the keyboard).

I can’t really imagine writing any fiction.  The only thing(s) I anticipate at all anymore is something to eat, and that’s just so, so pathetic.  Thankfully, even my favorite snacks are starting to feel and taste and smell very dull lately.  I don’t know if perhaps I had my sense of smell altered back when I got Covid, or if this is born of the fact that all pleasures have backfired on me at least one time or another, and more so than ever, lately.

I really think I’m just about done.  I should’ve been done already.  I should’ve been done a long time ago.  But we’re always told to hold on, to stay alive, that we’re wanted and needed here on this stupid planet.  It’s a bit of a similar situation to what happens with “pro-life” people:  They don’t want there to be abortions, they want all those potential people born, but they aren’t helping to take care of them, and they don’t even want there to be public services available for them or for education or what have you.

So it is with the people who don’t want other people to commit suicide.  They don’t want you to kill yourself, but they’re not offering to help you be alive, not in any meaningful sense of helping.  And so, of course, when people do reach the end of their rope (sorry, no pun intended, but the expression is doubly appropriate so I’m leaving it) they have to choose the analogue of “back alley abortions”, killing themselves (or trying to do so) in messy, unreliable, disruptive ways that often don’t succeed but can lead to permanent damage and social opprobrium.

In some civilized countries, it’s possible for people to go to places like Dignitas and get physician-supervised ways to end their lives with minimal pain and with some peace.  Of course, even in such places, the service seems to be available mainly for people with terminal cancer and similar incurable illnesses.  But depression is often a terminal illness, and it is certainly incurable as far as I can see.  And, of course, ASD is not a disease, it’s a neurodevelopmental difference, so there’s no curing that, short of a brain transplant (which would really be a body transplant for the donor brain).

But if no one is going to give serious help to a person who has severe difficulty even wanting to live, and who has no capacity to lift himself out of the whirlpool of self-loathing and chronic pain, then why is there all the verbiage about how “depression is a liar” and other bullshit like that.  As if optimism weren’t a liar.  As if all the ideals and isms and dogmae and “good” things weren’t lies or liars or both.

So, fuck that noise.  Don’t tell a woman not to have an abortion if you’re not going to care for her and the child, and don’t cajole and guilt-trip a suicidal person about not killing themselves if you’re not gonna come in and help them in some real, tangible, serious way, God damn it.  A person on the verge of suicide is already admitting that they don’t think they can survive under their own steam.  They can’t swim anywhere, but you want them to keep treading water, or at least floating‒indefinitely‒just so you don’t have to be aware of the fact that they drowned while you were out boating.

All right, that’s enough for now.  I hope you all have a good day.  Autism Awareness Month ends this week and Mental Health Awareness Month begins.  Fat lot of good they’ve done or do.

*Interesting aside:  I accidentally typed “provably” when I tried to write “probably” right there.  The words are, so I understand, etymologically** related‒probe, prove, proof, probable, etc.

**Etymology and entomology are however (apart from the “ology” bit) unrelated.

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Definitely NOT in the park (and it isn’t the 4th of July)

Well, it’s Saturday, and this is a blog post, so as you may surmise, I am working today.  I’m writing this on Google Docs, but not on my mini laptop computer and also not on my phone.  I’m writing this on the desktop computer I use at the office.

I went to the train to head back to the house yesterday, feeling despondent and dreary.  When the train arrived, it was so overcrowded that I just couldn’t stand the idea of getting on, and so I decided to wait for the next one.  Then, as I waited and more people arrived at the station, I thought the next train was likely to get just as crowded as the previous.

I thought about the fact that I would just be going back to the house and trying to lie down and sleep and then trying (so to speak) to stay asleep, only to need to get up and make my way back to the office again.  Well, there’s nothing at the house that makes it much more inviting than the office, apart from the shower and clothes.  But I wear the same clothes to work every day, anyway‒same color, style, brand, what have you.  I can get away with a bit of deodorant and spray cologne and a shave and toothbrush‒I keep extra implements for such things at work.

So, anyway, I came back to the office and just slept here on the floor.  This is the exciting and glamorous life that I lead.

Now, it’s early in the morning on Saturday, and I figure I might as well write a blog post, as I warned you I might.  And here I am, writing it.  I think it’s going to be short; I have no topic to address, nor really any interest in anything.  I’m disconnected and disaffected, and if I can think of a good third word that both rhymes and applies, I’ll add it.

Nothing’s coming to mind so far, though.

I’m actually kind of pulling up short already.  I don’t know what to say next, other than to comment on the fact that I don’t know what to say next.  I’m still in pain, and it’s still above my average (though not by a huge amount), and of course, I slept no better at the office than I would at the house, but I also slept no worse.  It’s quieter at the office, also.  And it’s not as though there would have been anything interesting for me to do on Friday night, even if I’d been free, and there’s certainly no one with whom I would do anything.

I see that Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith is out in “select” theaters this week, to celebrate its 20th anniversary.  I’m unlikely to go see it.  If I had someone to accompany me (whose company I found comfortable enough) I might go, though it would be bittersweet, I think*.  The last time I saw the movie in theaters, I was with my (ex) wife and our kids.  We had a very good time, and my son at least was probably old enough to remember some of the event.

That’s about it.  No new fiction, no music‒I have my guitar right here next to me as I write this, but I cannot even comprehend the notion of wanting to pick it up and play.  When I conjure the image, I feel more like one might feel sitting in an overly sterile, very crowded waiting room for a job interview for a truly uninspiring company, one at which one really doesn’t want to work.  At least it’s not a nervous feeling; it’s just a bored and pointless feeling, a lack of interest in or at least energy for anything.

And now, this week I’m going to be getting less weekend rest than I have been for the past short while.  I only hope it doesn’t too strongly impact next week.  But it’s not as though I’ve been doing well even with full weekends and heavily sedated sleep (as heavy as OTC stuff will allow).

You would think that, as you approach the center of the whirlpool that leads you down to the inevitable abyss, you would pick up speed and things might at least become a little bit exciting.  This does not, however, appear to be the case for me right now.  I’m losing my patience.  I’m in physical and mental pain every waking moment‒and for me, that’s more moments per day than for most people‒and can really only seek distraction when I can get it.

That’s enough kvetching for now.  I know all you regular readers already know of my issues, and I don’t think anyone out there has any answers for me, even if they were inclined to provide them.  I hope you all have/are having a good weekend.

*Not the candy.  I don’t tend to eat anything with bittersweet chocolate while at the movies.