log(in)

I stopped taking SSRI’s. I still have frustrating emotional problems but the trauma level has definitely cooled down a bit. Bought my mom a house and I’m going to move back to my home state.

Now I already feel some pressure to DO something, now that I feel my chemical mood a little stabilized. But also I’m just enjoying being able to enjoy. I am still haunted by all the ways I feel betrayed, but I have more space to just walk down the street. It’s actually been kind of a Buddhist lesson in being present. There’s very little I can ruminate on without pain anymore so I have to start over in a very real way.

I’m ok. Most of the time I’m ok now.

I usually only write here when I’m in the most dire and suffering place and have no one to talk to. I think that leads to a somewhat skewed version of this log, although I truly was suffering SO much of the time in the past year. I’m about a week or two into the higher dose of ssri, and I think it’s kicked in pretty well. I do not feel miserable all the time. I still struggle with the memories of what happened to me and how many doors to people I was once close to are closed. But I have an easier time looking at the moment that’s happening right now, and just being grateful that I’m alive and breathing. (That’s the kind of thing I have to be grateful about.)

My latest metaphor for how I feel is that I feel like my heart got punched in the face. I’m just sitting here pretending like I feel ok, and that I don’t feel pummeled all the time. It’s like, I want to be using this hurt to make art but I feel like I have no starting place and no potential result in doing so. I keep thinking each new hurt is maybe the last one, that the ripples of the original events will finally die down now. That there’s no one else to be convinced I’m a horrible person. Oh please let the drugs work.

About to go to the doctor. “BestFriend” has been silent even though we just had a talk about her disappearing in the middle of a conversation for several days. Doesn’t look like anything changed here in spite of the fact that she seemed to understand how jarring this was. I’m seriously considering switching to some kind of text-message-based therapy or something just so I have someone guaranteed to be able to process to. I’m going to the doc to see if maybe they can bump up the SSRI dose. Ugh.

Ok, I’ve mostly survived. I managed to get some unit tests written and that’s always a good thing. Test all the units. I think I minorly impressed people and that’s good. I’m going to Baltimore to visit my friends there and just bask in love. Could be worse.

I’m feeling a little better. Work is ok and I feel a little more hope. The hardest thing is the rest of the time. I don’t know how to get over the feeling that I’ve been utterly defeated by people. They just hurt me so badly and they feel like I deserve it. It’s maddening. I don’t know how to turn off thinking of them. Everything reminds me of them. It’s so hard to reconstruct a positive story of my life.

Oh man, first day on the new job and I’m so tired and hopeless.  Why did it have to be like this today?  I want to lay down so badly.  It’s hard to imagine wanting to engage.  I cannot bring myself to care.

I don’t feel like there’s any hope of life feeling like a creative good force anymore. I just woke up and don’t remember any dreams. The world feels like a cold hopeless place where people trick you. It doesn’t feel like any loyalty means anything.

Did K on Sunday and it’s astounding how much it’s improved my mood. Like, I can’t even believe it. 95% less total fucked up hopelessness. I wonder how long this lasts.

I don’t feel horribly crushed or anything. Just sort of a low whine I guess. I feel slightly empowered by my decision to quit drinking but still a deep abiding feeling like my life kind of already played out and there’s nothing new in store for me. My fate feels written in stone and it is extremely disappointing. I don’t know how to move on from my previous expectations in life. The whole world seems to radiate anger and disappointment at me. It’s snowing.

So much of this year has been wondering what other people thing, wondering how far the consequences would reach, wondering if there might be some unexpected mercy from any corner and not often feeling like there was. I sure am not enjoying life. Jesus I need to actually meditate. I do a lot more thinking about meditation than meditating.

I have a sense of humor about it but it just informs everything I do.  I’m so sick of myself.  I’m sick of all this business with SpiritKid and Corgi and I’m so angry at them and so angry at myself and I feel so betrayed but I don’t know how to move forward with it.  I’m literally just sick of being myself and having all these fucking impulse control issues.  I feel so alone and isolated and so angry.  Once a week of therapy hardly feels like it’s scratching the surface.

Going to Baltimore to hang out with StarWars and his wife. Visiting people and connecting seems really nice right now. Work was chill and I left early. I feel good about being a grown-up who can go wherever he wants and do whatever he wants.

Feeling ok. New boss seems ok so far. Same stuff that sucks still sucks but it doesn’t seem to suck as bad. hooray.

I had a good ol’ anxiety attack last night on the train ride home thinking about what email I’d write to SpiritKid and CJ. I’m banned from further considering an email to either of them since it’s not fucking happening. That and trying to consider who knows what and who to talk to sent me into a tailspin, heart pounding and shaking on the train. I was so glad to make it home. Then, I talked to someone I’m dating last night about what happened to SpiritKid (someone who experienced sexual abuse as a child) and it was cathartic. Today I feel better.  Still super lonely.  Goddamn it’s hard to adjust without company during the day.  Why oh why did I have to lose Corgi’s daily company.  And now TechnoDruid is so silent during the day.  It’s almost like I just have to work during the day or something. :(  Seriously though, it actually helps me work to be less lonely.

Did droogs over the weekend so maybe that’s the reason but I just feel crushed and lonely with a huge hole in my heart.  TechnoDruid has been kind of absent from IM and he’s kind of my closest friend and confidant.  I don’t know if he’s taking a little space on purpose or just busy but it hurts so much.  I miss him and I miss Corgi and I miss everyone I was really close to.  Everything feels tainted by my reputation and it seems obvious this is supposed to be a wake up moment for me where I realize what a monster I’ve become.

There’s people who want to hang out with me and talk to me of course and it seems so obvious that I would reach out to them but something keeps me from it.  Partially just not feeling like they’re cool enough to be close to I guess.  I don’t want to feel this way anymore.  I don’t know who’s been talked to about my reputation and part of me has to assume everyone.

I’m back to where I feel like I can barely work.  I just start at the screen uncomprehendingly and then when I think about what the first step would be towards getting to work I just can’t face it.  Then I feel the mounting pressure of another day passed without doing anything.

I should have probably known better than to take the droogs but I was lonely there upstate w K and R and it just felt so good to actually feel good for a moment.  God I’m just fighting to function and I have a new boss and everything feels so wrong.  I want to fast forward through life.  I can’t believe this is affecting me so much.  I don’t know how to stop getting hit by this wave over and over again.  I can’t believe CJ won’t talk to me.  I can’t believe this is still happening.

I’m just freewriting, trying to make myself feel better like I used to.  God I want to look back on this time with affection so bad.  I hate everything.  I hate being this vulnerable to myself and everything.  I hate not having any remedy or way forward.

It hurts.  It feels like a literal hole in my heart.  Why can’t I stop obsessing about it and feeling horrible about it?  It doesn’t matter whether I’m angry or feel compassion I’m still just excluded and it’s never going to stop.

I’ve alienated all my friends and I’m not just going to die without a partner I’m truly going to die alone.  I’m going to live in some shitty old folks home doing puzzles in the air like the Maria Bamford joke.  I’m seriously wondering if the rest of my life is going to be filled with new and humiliating ways to discover that I’m even more of a failure.

My fucking dad tried to call me and we go through the same fucking thing every time where he tries to get me to call him on the phone and pretend like nothing happened last time and I remind him about the boundary problems and then he’s like we’re never talking again like a sulky child.  It’s the worst.  I should know better than to try to open up to him about my feelings.  It’s watching my most snotty self-destructive tendencies play out before me in of course the most cartoonish immature possible way.  I’m much more sophisticated but that just lets me to a more insidious slow burn damage where I fool people into wanting to get close to me first.

All this therapy and I don’t feel like it’s doing any good.  Got it’s so tiring to try and convince people I’m loveable when I don’t feel like I am.  I know you’re not supposed to try, it doesn’t matter I just feel like the black sauce that’s me pouring out the hole in my chest and making a hole on the floor.  It’s magnificent.

I thought I was talented and I’m not enough.  I fought so hard to get out of Rockford so I could become the special person I was supposed to be and in the process I discovered my own lack of anything really distinguishing except being kind of mildly mentally ill.  God is this getting older?  Just repeatedly discovering how deep your damage goes and losing hope increasingly that you have any hope to really heal in a meantingful way.  How much further can I lower my expectations for myself and my life?  How many more people are going to trust me only for me to hurt them.

Corgi’s birthday was last weekend. Somehow I did a good job and pulled out all the stops and she felt special and satisfied. We did mild drugs all weekend and at the end of Saturday night we did whippets in bed at the end of the night, DJing songs to each one. Then on Sunday we cooked chili and watched movies and Game of Thrones. Pretty idyllic really, no significant fighting. Went to work fairly inspired and relaxed.

I guess Spiritkid and I aren’t having sex anymore.  Corgi was relieved for only a minute yesterday before she picked a fight with me.  It’s wearying, she knows it.  Just trying to survive both of our birthdays.

It’s been tremendously hard to write here.  All of the guilt and pain and anxiety of what happened with Spiritkid and its ripple effect on my relationship with Corgi and other people is kind of crippling.  The Telephone party is tonight and it’s hard to look forward to it.  Corgi went to a party with me the other day and I connected with and kissed someone in the other room.  She saw me go off and knew I was going to kiss that girl.  It really disturbed her and we didn’t get to a good place last night.  My birthday party is coming up and just everything is a source of dread.  We have 8 days to complete a major project at work and it’s horrible to face.  I feel so out of control with everything and so groundless after the (pretty much) end of the telephone work.  I thought I would feel good now but I just feel horrible.  I don’t know if I should just end my relationship with Corgi or not.  It feels like some kind of last chance at sanity but it also feels like this constant source of pain and stress.

Just as the end was in sight with the Telephone stuff, I super fucked it all up. I woke up in the middle of the night next to Spiritkid and started having sex with her without a condom in a confused state. All Corgi and my recent progress shuttered and any chance of civility between the two of them kinda shattered. It was some kind of weird subconscious sabotage I guess. Of what though? Telephone is launched to the public and we’re all waiting with bated breath while we wait for it to come out.

Corgi and I had a rough talk in bed last night but we got some things worked out. Today I feel better like we got straight with what we needed to talk about, basically that I can’t think long term with her under the current treatment. Today is a beautiful sunny day. Working on Telephone Game stuff. BBQ with some friends of hers tonight.

My body still feels so fucked. This morning my shoulders joints are super messed up. But emotionally I feel a little better and not everything feels so impossible. Corgi and I are talking tonight about relationship stuff.  I’m really not happy and have to find a way to transmit that to her. Telephone and the NYT article are happening. It’s hard not to be excited but I just feel so beat ALL the time.

don’t feel physically as bad but emotionally worse. Kinda picked a fight with Corgi even though she was a bitch. Things are going so badly at work I wonder if my job is secure. I think I’ve had some sort of weird respiratory infection the entire time I’ve been here in NYC and when it flares up I feel super fatigued.  Plus the crick in my back leaves me always hurting and ragged. I feel horrible and I just have to keep working. 

Man… did the tiniest amount of weed tincture last night and a _very_ moderate amount of drinking. Woke up with the crick in my back worse, and bad headache all day. Went to therapy and everything feels so empty and hollow. God everything feels so impossible. For like really no good goddamn reason.  Frenchy at work pointed out that what I accomplished didn’t match my time allocation and he’s right, I’ve been dragging my feet but I didn’t know he was going to bust my balls so hard about it.

Too excited by Telephone game work to do much at actual work today. Seeing Voluptuous tonight and thinking of the sex. I wish we could go have sex mid-date instead of having to wait until we’re super tired and tipsy at the end of the night. We’re going bowling and for Peruvian food.

Feel grumpy having to return to work and face the pressures here.  Needing to change direction and now needing to scramble to re-estimate the new project is super stressing me out.  Plus the two demos we have to do.  Burnup sucks and I just feel low.

Finally got Telephone to its second-to-last milestone.  That felt good and I felt lonely and nice to just watch TV and eat and drink by myself.  Ended the weekend with Corgi and I in a good place after some rough feelings about the DC weekend all needed to get talked out.

Feel super worn out. Had Corgi over all this week and it’s been nice but also tumultuous. She’s not a naturally easy person to get along with even though she’s fun and very loving. I’ve been working my ass off on Telephone project and that’s coming along nicely. She’s been around and helping out and we’ve been cooking all domestic style but it’s been intermittently rough. We have fun and cook and have sex but she’s so prickly and it brings out the prickly in me because of the unfairness of it. Work is good but feeling a little impossible at times. Cooking with her has been lovely. My body feels fucked though and I have a weird neck/back crick for days and now feel a run down cold feeling.