Aug 19

 Despite being utterly floored, yesterday I cooked something half properly for the first time in months. I think. Maybe. Feb. Was the last time I cooked something.

I disassociated through half of it. I wasn't even really aware until at some point I realised I was observing myself from outside myself kind of thing. Like watching a video game character. I felt truly terrible doing it. And I did it through sheer spite and willpower. Not a happy undertaking.

Yesterday was uncomfortable. And mentally very sketchy. Shifting from one state to the next. I reflected that this was a different kind of purgatory. There is the obvious one of being so ill and or exhausted that you have no choice but to be in bed. Sleeping. Watching days pass in a blur. But there's another. Where you are good enough to be out of bed. But not good enough to do much useful. Go anywhere. Do anything. And so you hover in a twilight. Unable to escape reality into the oblivion of sleep. And unable to escape the malaise by doing something. Instead you squat in the lands of not enough and not too little. It is insanity inducing. There is no escape from the mind, like being forced to stare at a point on a wall without sleeping. And anxiety scratches at the back of your eyeballs. Panic skitters in and out, not quite enough nor long enough to induce a fully blown panic attack. But there. Right at the periphery. 

Purgatory. I pondered whether in fact all paths were just purgatory at this point. Left, straight on, or right. Just wandering the plains of purgatory. There is no "better" path.

Put one foot in front of the other. Hope that the next day the wind changes and things get better.

Futile.

I am glad you are still here. The words echoed in my head again yesterday. It made me think of whether you live your life for others or yourself. At what point does it become ok to go. What point should you stay to make everyone else happy. They say with animals, that you should not put them through unnecessary suffering just to placate your grief. We tend not to apply that to people. Where our values run a different - arguably hypocritical - path.

I imagined talking to the shrink about it.

At what point is it ok to make a decision that is for your self rather than everyone else I said to the imaginary shrink.

The statement belying the altered set of priorities in my head. Living for everyone else, but not yourself.

I know this to be true. I have known it for quite some time.

This is something I haven't shared with the blog. Or anyone. 

In the past almost everything I did was in service to someone else. Not because they asked me directly. But because I thought it would make them happy. I would burn through energy and things in some vain attempt to please them. Even though most of it was in my head. A scenario I thought would please them because of what I had observed of them in the past. In a way, desperate to please everyone else.

Conflicts I got into with people in the past are often down to me trying to balance the needs of more than one person. Trying to do things for more than one person at a time. And those people not liking it. Because of jealousy. Suspicion. Loyalty. Need. Ownership. Sometimes in helping, I end up fucking something else up. And then sit there, bewildered, trying to do my best to put it back together. In the very distant past also not being terribly aware of the variety and strength of emotion some could have to my actions. I had not learned to be very careful with people at a younger age. Just problem solving ways to make people happy, unaware that people could be fragile around me. I know better now. But. It can still be an impossible balancing act. There is not enough love, patience and luck in the world to heal some wounds. Some wounds. Are always going to bite. No matter how carefully you tread - a very sad and depressing realisation.

It still runs very strongly in me - living for everyone else. I have to sometimes work at it to suppress it - because now I am aware of it. But even so. It's a huge pull on me. It is, for better or worse - worse - my raison d'être. Even my work has this at its core. It is why I take little interest in pay. Or career. But all the interest in helping someone else do something. That's all that matters.

This is my parents dysfunctional influence again. Warped. A good trait in moderation. A devastating one in the extreme. And in my case. It has been beaten into me as an extreme, never once let up on, never once balanced. It is also connected with my sense of no self worth. I am not worthy unless I can be of service to someone else. And even then. I am not worthy of consideration. This is my childhood. A nuisance. A problem.

In hindsight 20:20, my father in particular should never had had a kid - me. He was in no way ready to be a father.

Nevertheless. Here we are. I suppose from one point of view, I have held down a job for almost all of my adult life. I have contributed to society - via taxes if nothing else. I have been a useful member of society.

Like a cog in a machine.

 Anyway.

That always doing things for everyone else. Was not obvious to me when I was younger. I didn't even recognise it. I just knew it as a drive. A drive to do things. But always because someone else wanted it. Was interested. I could do that for them. Relatively late in my life I started examining it. And realising my entire life was just lived at the behest of everyone else. 

If you take all of that away there isn't much left. On some days there isn't anything left. I suspect I don't know how to be a human at that level. This chimes with being non materialistic. Not getting joy from achieving things. Understanding why people do things, but not really understanding it for myself. Watching animals in the zoo. Of wanting not things, but when I have energy and interest, wanting tools because with tools I can better serve others.

I can remember as a young kid definitely having things that I wanted to do. Or wanted materialistically. And in every single case they were thwarted. I was taught that what I wanted didn't matter. What my dad wanted first off, and then my mom wanted secondly, was important. And that's what happened. I didn't get an input. I didn't even register on that chain.

I can remember as a kid going through multiple disappointments, and then quickly learning that this was what the pattern was. Continual disappointment. So. I turned it off. I turned off hoping for stuff. Or wanting to do a thing. Or wanting a thing. Turn it off. It only ends in disappointment. Just. Go with whatever your parents do.

When you set it out like that. You can see what's going on.

This is by and large my dads influence. Always with a "better" idea. Always with his own way of doing things. And his way was the only way. Always cheaper. Meaner. Shittier. No debate. Always dodgy - out of a skip or stolen. Always resentful - don't trust people. But not beyond lavishing himself because "he deserved it". The 15k diamond ring he bought himself to feel important. And flash about down the pub.

This also tells you why he would never buy a brand new TV. Despite both he and my mom living half their lives in front of it. The reason why I bought them the only new TV they ever had - which they then loved. But this is the idyll. The child serving the parents. 

And yet my dad isn't an outright monster. Well. Perhaps he is when it comes to my mom. That horrible mix of black and white as all people are.

But perhaps we underplay the psychological damage people can inflict. Particularly those who are dysfunctional themselves. Spreading their pain and suffering and worldview to those around them - god forbid if you are their child, you will get a hard schooling in their poison and poisonous environment. If I step back and view this neutrally. Imagine this was someone else I was listening to. Their story. I would easily rate their parents as monsters. No question. Perhaps my own lack of self worth in the equation numbs me to the psychological damage inflicted when it's about me instead.

I think. I have done my best understanding who I am and changing bits of me. Trying hard despite my parents. I am not sure "my best" amounts to that much in the end - this too I am slowly growing aware of just how much baggage I still have attached to me, and how not so very far I have managed to escape from the long shadow of my parents. And also I dare say if I tried harder I could have done better. There are still enormous parts of me that are just my parents fuckery. And at this very dinged up part of my life, on the last bits of the path, I doubt much will change there. 

I also think, getting further into the weeds of it, my whole upbringing is also a shadow of my moms insecurities.

Of remarrying and desperately trying to placate my dad into agreeing to raise her kids from a former marriage. Anxious. Scared. Having to rely on someone else to secure her "past mistakes".

To that end. Securing her future, her prior kids future. I am the pawn. I am brought into the world - much later than my siblings - to secure loyalty. An anchor. Cynical. But then treated as an afterthought once present. The anchor clause in the legal agreement has been manifested. That's all that's required. Everything else doesn't matter. A nuisance. Do not disrupt in any way the lives of my parents. To do so would make them question the setup. Would perhaps make my dad wonder what he was doing with my mom. My mom could not countenance being on her own. She said this later in life, in hospital. That dread was real.

I think in hindsight. I was the grease on the wheel. Securing my moms insecurities and future. And ground down under the heel of my dads dysfunctions. I got no help or relief from either. My dad was not fit to be a dad. And my mom had a massive ulterior motive.

I was definitely not a kid borne out of love. Or happiness. Or whatever you want to call that.

A means to an end.

Thus. My form. Only setup to placate everyone else. No sense of self worth - my parents certainly didn't have any worth in me, so why would I learn that I had one - and only a sense in being able to do shit for my parents. What advantage might I be to them.

I suppose.

Given all that.

It's remarkable I am not more bonkers than I already am.

But I am very broken.

I see it quite clearly in my more advanced years.

The shrink is wrong when they say I am not broken.

Today I am filled with guilt. Anxiety. Sketchy mentals. I feel guilt about not being more useful at work. I feel guilt at just existing to be honest. I am filled with an exhaustion - more mental based than physical. But not to overlook the physical. If I were to test it, I would fall flat.

I have no interest in anything.

Perhaps I should try streaming a game again. Sometimes I do this against my will. I feel absolutely disinclined to do it. Horrible. And yet. After a while. It can often stabilise my mood. Talking to myself. In positive fashion.

How strange the mind weaves. 

Edit update.

Weirdly, after writing this, someone had posted me this link. Most of it describes me to a tee. I am self aware to know this is the case and how I got here. The love bit is not me. I am ok with people just being comfortable with me. Ish. I am jumpy around any shift in mood in such things though. So. Unlike the video. I can be open and intimate with people. Arguably. Too much. But I think that's a case of overcompensating. Always looking for people I can be close with. Regardless of relationship. Anyway.

Video. It's so much me it's almost talking directly to me. Including the broken bit.