Now Hiring!

I need to apologize to everyone right now for being a shitty person as of late. I’ve been on a journey to find answers and solutions, and in so doing, I have neglected the people in my life. It’s not ok.

However. I am on a mission to find those answers, and I’m not going to stop until I’ve found them. So I need anyone who is reading this to understand that. I may disappear sometimes, randomly, but I’ll always come back. Don’t think of it as me ignoring you, please. Instead, please trust me.

When I need space I will take it, but when I need help, please don’t give up on me.

I know this is going to sound weird, but please hear me out, and if you don’t pick up what I’m laying down, then you can feel free to skip merrily along your way and distance yourself from me, if that’s what you feel is necessary. But please do not be spiteful.

I’m recruiting people with different sorts of brains. People who follow white rabbits and find Blue’s Clues and study and compare notes to join my unusual school I call “Homestuck Hogwarts.”

Since we are all stuck at home during this virus thing, we need to work together in whatever ways possible to fight for the common good, which, if I’m not mistaken, I think is basically world peace and saving the planet.

I have stumbled across the answers, or rather the tools to find the answers, and it just keeps adding up in an eerily creepy way. I will explain my findings soon, but just so that we are all on the same page, I am recruiting people who:

◉ Enjoy scavenger hunts and secret codes

☭ Question their sanity constantly

△ Want to believe

▼ Always follow their hearts

If this is you, and you trust me, then please let me know, and then await further instructions.

I am a communication and linguistics expert; a universal translator, if you will. I need people who are willing to work with me and who trust me completely.

If that isn’t you, then that’s fine. You don’t have to subscribe to my psycho babble if you don’t want to. The choice is yours. But I simply ask that you please, please, PLEASE understand me when I say that empathy is the most important tool in the universe, and please don’t walk out on me just because I sound like a nut.

Some of the most intelligent geniuses in our history books were a little bit crazy, but they taught us a lot of very important things. Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Alan Watts… Did you know that Harriett Tubman had narcolepsy? I just found that out. It’s very interesting.

At any rate, I don’t want to overwhelm you by writing a novel right away. So the bottom TL;DR line is:

I’m sorry I’ve been absent and weird lately. I won’t always be this way, and I love you and I need you, so please don’t abandon me. I can help you find the answers you are searching for.

There are only people.

Every category that you could classify someone under has different spectrums within it. This is why it becomes so difficult to assign identities to groups. 

It is common for younger generations to throw hate toward elder generations, simply because the majority of the “boomer” population have similar views and prejudgements about the younger generations. But there is still a reason why it is also sort of a… trope, if you will, that elders are wise. But it has nothing to do with the physical age of their body.

Have you ever heard of someone referred to as an “old soul?” It’s usually used to describe young people who have a distinct wisdom in their ways. Like my son, for example. The things that he said and the ways that his beautiful mind worked, everyone could tell that he wasn’t a child on the inside. And sadly, he died before his time, but had he lived, he would have aged into what people may refer to as a “wiseman.”

When he learned of his diagnosis, he handled it with more grace and more stability than anyone I have ever known. He didn’t cry. Occasionally, he would have spells of rage, but those were only brought on by the steroid that they used to keep the swelling down in his head. Once his body was used to the medications, he became just this old little young little man with wisdom and serenity that I wish more than anything I could be. He was and still is an inspiration to anyone who hears the stories we tell about him. 

We never saw him show any indication that he was sad. He stayed strong, and he fought to survive with every last ounce of strength he had left until his brain literally could not function to keep him alive anymore. Human bodies are so fragile and pathetic. But his soul was far from. Even in the days and weeks and months leading up to his death, despite the suffering pain of being immobilized and fed through a tube, he continued to indicate that he wanted to continue the fight. I fought against doctors and ethic boards and family members and even myself sometimes, but I never gave up because he never did. 

Even when he could no longer use words, he found ways to communicate with me. I would ask him if he was ready to go, and he wouldn’t answer. But when I asked if he wanted to keep fighting, he would squeeze my hand and attempt to vocalize, even if it was a grunt. So, even though I was chastised for “prolonging his suffering,” and even though sometimes I catch myself wondering if I did the right thing, I always come back to the fact that I only did what he wanted. And I knew him well enough to know that that’s what he wanted. I fought for him, and Nebraska’s medical staff did not. The medical staff who are fucking around with Covid-19 like it’s just some sort of spoken curse than you can avoid by covering your eyes and ears and humming. But it isn’t. And they know it isn’t. And they knew that there were different things that we could have tried that would have helped buy him more time. But they refused those things. And whether it was over money or because they simply thought they knew what was best for him when what was really best was simply to respect his wishes, the point is, they were wrong. Money isn’t worth a human life. And taking away someone’s right to try to spend as much time alive as possible, even if that time is painful, is the same as murder. 

Again, I say that if you think you can force anyone to die because of what you think is right, then you absolutely must not stop those who are suffering from choosing when they are ready to stop it. The right thing to do in life or death situations is obey the choice of the person whose life is at stake. It is their right to decide. Do not treat others the way you want to be treated. Treat them how they want to be treated. And rest assured that you have done the right thing.

When I began this entry, I had originally come to talk about identity and what it means to be unique and why labels are a double-edged blade. But since it has seemed to digress into a different direction, I will instead send this one off with a new title and come back again later to revisit my initial topic. 

At the bottom of it all, I want to say that you can be pro-life without not being pro-choice. Sometimes pro-life is pro-choice. And if you’re thinking about ending your life, please at least do the following:

-Give the decision some very deep and scrutinous thought before you really make your move.

-Do not leave any loose threads. Get everything squared up and away so that you aren’t leaving anyone with the burden of your unfinished business. 

-Write an essay, record a video, do a podcast. Whatever medium you choose is fine, but you need to explain your reasoning. Don’t leave anyone wondering why you chose to do it, and don’t leave anyone with the burden of thinking that it was their fault. Express your feelings as transparently as possible. Acknowledge the pain that you will likely cause, but do not discount your own feelings either. 

It is my personal belief that physical death is not game over. The things that make death a terrifying and painful ordeal are the ambiguity of the unknown and the time spent waiting to find out. We will all get there eventually. So all we can do is accept it and look forward to it. The unknown doesn’t have to be scary. It can be exciting and exhilarating. It’s the ability to let go and try something new. All you need is the trust that when you leave your body, you will not lose your consciousness. That consciousness is what it means to exist. And while science may tell you that, to some degree, your body dictates your consciousness, consider the following:

Memories come and go. Sometimes, something that you thought you had completely forgotten returns very suddenly, and then you can’t possibly imagine how you could have forgotten it. Think of our brains like hard drives. There is only so much space for information storage. So what do we do when our computers can no longer hold the information? We upload it to the “cloud.” It can still be accessed from anywhere in time and space as long as you have the passcode. Files can be shuffled around and traded off to save space and are only dowloaded again when they are needed. Maybe each time you recall a long-lost memory, you also send an unnecessary one back to the cloud until it becomes necessary again. And maybe once your hard drive stops working, you pack up the remaining files and escape to the cloud to keep them safe.
Perhaps you meet up with some of the consciousnesses that you enjoyed time with, or maybe you find out that there are only maybe a handful of consciousnesses and you all channel yourselves into life as we know it, for fun, sort of like a video game.

Or maybe you find out that it’s just you. And all of existence was just a thing you made to occupy yourself.

You won’t know until you get there. But while you’re here, make the most of it. And when it’s time to go, embark on the next stage of your journey with serenity and grace. Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best. And expect that it will meet somewhere in between.

It’s getting closer…

“Mrs. Frenchie’s cat is missing.
The signs are posted all over town: “Have you seen Honey?” We’ve all seen the posters, but nobody has seen “Honey,” the cat.
Nobody… until last Thursday morning, when Ms. Colette Piscine swerved her car to miss Honey while she drove across the bridge.
Well, this bridge, now slightly damaged,
is a bit of a local treasure, and even has its own fancy name: ‘Pont de flaque.’
Now, ‘Colette’… that sounds like ‘culotte’ (that’s ‘panty’ in French).
And ‘Piscine’ means “Pool”… “Panty Pool”
‘Flaque’ also means pool in French. So, Colette Piscine, in French ‘Panty Pool’, drives across the ‘Pont de flaque’ – or ‘Pont de Pool’, if you will – to avoid hitting Mrs. French’s cat that’s been missing in Pontypool.
Pontypool… Pont de Pool…
Panty Pool… Pont de flaque…
What does it mean?
Well, Norman Mailer, he had an interesting theory that he used to explain the strange coincidences
in the aftermath of the JFK assassination:
In the wake of huge events, after them and before them, physical details – they spasm for a moment. They sort of unlock, and when they come back into focus, they suddenly coincide in a weird way: street names and birth dates and middle names… all kinds of superfluous things appear related to each other. It’s a ‘ripple effect.’
So, what does it mean?
Well, it means something’s going to happen… Something big…
But then, something’s always about to happen.”
 -Grant Mazzy; Pontypool (2008)

As I’ve been forced to revisit my past a lot lately, I’ve had my former step father on my mind often. I started noticing common traits between what I remember of him and what Ben has been evolving into. But as an adult, I have reasoning skills, and I can think critically about cause and effect, and I understand why Ben is the way he is. And because of this and my empathy, I can possibly help him, and have also started to paint a better picture of the person my former step-father actually was.

Now… consider this. Two days ago, I woke up and found a message from my mom with a screen shot attached, which showed a sudden message from said step-father. Just a short hello, just passing through. He offered well wishes and shared the fact that he was 25 years sober. Approximately how long it’s been since the last time I saw him. What are the odds?

People like to toss the word “crazy” around when people start putting pieces together and noticing patterns. But what if they’re actually onto something, and being flagged as “crazy” is just a way to turn people against them and get them to keep their mouths shut? What if medication is just a way to control them away from noticing these patterns and make them complacent? It’s just a theory. But what I’m going to tell you is a strange story about my life; an underlying subplot, if you will. And I promise you, it’s going to sound stranger than fiction. Because at a point, you just can’t make this shit up. It just… happens.

I haven’t tried retracing my steps any further back than the first time I remember starting to notice the pattern. But I was about 12 or 13 when I noticed. It was Gorillaz. They became an instant favorite of mine, because I’ve always been a massive fan of cartoons and music, and this was a beautiful marriage of the two. 2-D was my favorite. I can’t explain why, I just thought he was attractive, I guess. And so, back then there was a fan site dedicated to them that had neat info like backstory. 2-D’s bio mentioned that he was 23. And for some reason, that just stuck. I’d later see a picture of him wearing a shirt with the same number on it.

But from then on out, it kept happening. I realized that I lived along Highway 23. My birthday adds up to 23. It’s in other sensitive personal bits of information that I dare not divulge. But it kept happening to the point where I started telling my close friends and family about it. And from there, it never ended because they all teased me about it for the rest of my life. And it kept popping up.

So. After a million years of this, after I moved out of state and started trying to adjust to my shitty new life, I went to see Pan’s Labyrinth with some of my new “friends,” and by friends I mean a bunch of older Gen-X people who insisted on my constant presence, despite always seeming incredibly inconvenienced by it and failing to understand that I was still just a kid barely out of high school with no job, no license, no freedom to just go out and do things with them all the time. So when we went to see Pan’s Labyrinth, it was preceded by a trailer for a movie about a man who was haunted to insanity by a number. And guess what goddamn number it was.

I was freaked. The fuck. Out. And you know, it was in a crowded theater, shit was loud, you’re not supposed to talk, and so… I had to sit there and keep this panic all to myself throughout this really stressful movie about really scary and depressing things.

When the movie finally came out and we went to see it, we walked out of there and I can’t even remember all the coincidences that immediately happened, but I do remember the most ominous one. We all looked up and saw the number 23 written in the fucking clouds.

Now… this has never stopped, and believe me when I say that it always pops up in the most wtf places possible. But thinking back on that stuff, coupled with some other strange facts like how in 2010 I wrote a short story about a girl who writes fiction that comes true, and no one believes her, so she writes a ridiculous book about a viral apocalypse which- wouldn’t ya know it- comes true. And then everyone hates her. Ten years ago I wrote that story. So many of the details kind of became hazy in my memory, so after the CoVid-19 outbreak, I started noticing how we had this indoor garden going, like my character had. I was prepared for the occasion with face masks and other precautionary items just because I’m a zombie junkie. So I had the idea to go back and read it to see if there were any details I’d forgotten about that might creep me out. I should not have done that.

Not only did it all add up pretty weirdly accurately, down to the limited quarantine with people still working their jobs and going shopping and shit but with mandatory precautionary gear, only catching it through the air if you’re standing closer than a certain distance from the infected, growing an indoor garden to keep fresh produce around, etc. Too many details. But anyway, on top of that, I apparently also predicted the end of a friendship that hadn’t ended yet, down to the last little detail of being denied the right to know why and being threatened with legal action for continuously trying to obtain the answer. 😐

What the fuck. And if you go back and read some of my previous entries leading up to this, you might find that I felt this coming. I tried to warn everyone, but no one listened because I didn’t have a good answer for why I felt that way. It was just a feeling, it doesn’t come with a readme.txt file, okay? But by now, I’ve learned to sense when something is about to happen and to listen to my instincts. They are not wrong. But people think that because the ominous thing doesn’t happen the same day, that it’s not going to. They also assume that because nothing bad did happen than it was a false alarm, when perhaps maybe I just helped them avoid it.

Call me crazy if you want to. I don’t care. By now, I’m more than aware of the fact that everyone thinks I’m crazy because no one really listens to anything I say 100%. Sure, a vast majority of the things I talk about are just theories I’ve constructed. No one ever takes me seriously when I say that it’s all hypothetical, they just push me off as a nut job and assume I’m trying to preach my theories as gospel, when really, I’m just trying to explore different ideas about why some of the unexplained phenomena may actually be solvable. They refuse to even consider them as a possibility. So when I have one of those impending feelings that something is going to happen and soon, they do the same shit. But this time, I’m not just trying to have a friendly discussion about the theories that swirl around my mind. This time, I’m saying “Hey. Something is actually going to happen, and I feel it.” This time, it’s a warning. But regardless of how many times I warn, they ignore, and I end up being right, and regardless of any of the times they actually did listen and took evasive action which led to a favorable outcome, they still do not trust me when I say that I’m sure I know.

Sorry for the digression. But what I’m trying to get onto is that all this stuff recently has made me realize some things I hadn’t noticed before. Like how the actor who played the main character in The Number 23 also played the main character in a movie about a man whose life was not his own. He had no privacy. The entire world was watching him constantly, and he had no idea for the longest time, until things started adding up. People from time to time would gain access to him and try to expose what was going on to him, but until he started figuring it out for himself, none of it made any sense. And when those people did try to warn him in huge extravagant ways, they got caught and banished.

So that’s all fine and interesting, heck of a coincidence, sure. So what if he’s been in two movies about topics, or possibly other movies about topics I haven’t realized yet? Big deal. And sure, think that if you like. But then also consider this very strange detail that seems completely out of left field: I found a picture of this actor once from when he was quite young. Probably about the same age as my youngest brother. And the photo of this actor looked exactly like said brother. Uncannily so. Like if you’d shown me that photo without any context, I would have wondered when and where my brother posed for it, without even considering that it might not be a picture of him.

Feel free to think whatever you’d like. I’m sure there’s a finite amount of ways that a human face can possibly look. Like how my friend Chris looks exactly like McJagger (sp?), but until I’d met him, I’d never seen a picture of Jagger before. And if I’d come across one later, I would have for sure thought that it was my friend.

Who can really say? Some people are just crazy conspiracy theorists, so completely mentally disabled that they are capable of noticing patterns and forming theories. So I suppose that makes scientists insane. And coders. And doctors. And detectives. Important people who help us gain knowledge and understanding for the growth and development of our species. All a bunch of whackadoos. The only thing that separates me from them is a piece of paper saying that I went to a school where they told me things.

And on that note, I’m going to sign off and go lie down and hope that the virus doesn’t kill me. Because I am infected now. And it’s extremely painful.

A Symple Thot

If you ever feel like your identity is being attacked by someone, try to remember this:
Most people try to avoid conflict at all cost, because conflict causes anxiety. So it is almost certain that if someone makes you feel invalid, it’s because they are feeling the exact same way. If you hate feeling like that, don’t make someone else feel that way.
Say how you feel if you must, but don’t be mean. Feelings are feelings. Everyone’s feelings are unique. It’s part of who they are. Focus less on the things that make them different, and redirect your attention to the things that unite you.
Everyone is a hypocrite at some point or other. But we are constantly growing and changing. Every moment is a new experience, and a chance to learn and grow. By the time you read this message, the person who wrote it will be long gone. But it’s okay. Because I am constantly being replaced with newer, more updated versions of myself.
It’s called being human. People can change. And they do. Some just take longer than others. So don’t stop taking chances on people. It’s better to have friends than enemies. One day they will wake up and feel completely removed from the person they were when you knew them last.
Wouldn’t you want another chance to disprove the idea that you’re a garbage person? Everyone does. So just relax. We’re in this together, for better or worse.

Nothing is fine.

I’m getting frustrated. I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t be bothered to play the new animal crossing game. Because they took the fun out of it and made it more grueling, which is just not what the goddamn game was supposed to be. I have enough mindless bullshit tasks to perform in real life. Why should I have to do the same shit in a so-called “game” that’s supposed to help me unwind, or something? That defeats the purpose. =_=

But that’s not really what I came here to say. It’s just that instead of putting the time and effort into doing things that make somewhat of a difference, people are literally forcing me to play this shit game. I’m too stressed out in real life to have time to stress out about imaginary things. So my night was wasted, and I feel worse.

What I came here to talk about was how stupid the world is right now. I can’t cope. So Nebraska is trying to cure the virus by covering their ears and singing la-la-la and pretending there is no virus, which is not going to help. They’re refusing to test people. Straight up. If you have to come to the doctor for any reason, they will try to push you away by making you take a survey to screen you for symptoms. And the symptoms are so fucking vague that everyone has at least one of them. And if you have symptoms, you can’t come to the hospital. Stay away. Stay in your house. La la la.

So, if I’m dying of coronavirus, I’m dying alone at home. And if I’m dying from, I don’t know, tuberculosis? Then I’m dying at home alone. For no reason. They aren’t testing. They aren’t helping. They’re just forcing everyone to keep going to work and keep putting themselves in danger and keep spreading the goddamn disease. It’s disgusting.

And speaking of disgusting, you know what I’m fucking sick of? I’m sick of getting emails from everything everywhere begging me for every last penny I have to go to a “disaster relief fund” for “people like me.” Etsy. Spotify. Patreon. Everything. I have not made a cent from any of my work in the history of goddamn fucking ever. People are happy to use my work and enjoy my work and ask me to just give away my goods and services as a “favor.” So when the shit hits the fan, “ohhhhhhh my god, surely you have at least some couch change you can spare!? You poor pathetic artist? You wouldn’t want other poor, pathetic artists to suffer, would you?” Everything’s like DONATE DONATE DONATE and when I’ve scraped every last fucking dime out of my piggy bank and under the fridge, I’m thinking “huh. Where the fuck is my money going?” Because if it’s supposed to be going to “people like me,” then why am I not included in the group of “people like me?” Why am I going broke paying into disaster relief funds for everyone BUT myself????

Out of money? Well then you can just keep giving away your goods and services for free! Just keep “volunteering,” servant girl. Fuck this. My life has been a fucking shit show since I was born and every day I wake up wishing I hadn’t. I have suffered enough for an army. What has an army ever done for me, but traumatize me? And speaking of which!! I found some fun family photos to go over!

Here’s little me in 2013, before the whole shit show with juvie and Laura/Arsen. Aww.

Ugly, still. But not as ugly as the little ugly fuckhead who deserved every beating from every bully because of her hideous disfigured speckleface.

Look at this piece of shit. Let’s cut her heart out, the little cunt.

I’m sorry I’m ugly. Okay? I couldn’t help it. I didn’t ask to be born, motherfucker. But no, I didn’t suffer enough. So flash forward to 2014, *after* the whole bullshit fiasco, and look at this tired ass motherfucker standing tall and putting every ounce of energy into just smiling for one goddamn family picture.

Ugly bitch!!! Kill her!!!
#affected

But that’s not even the half of it. Let’s jump forward a year to Katrina and the evacuation and being ripped apart from everyone I loved who wasn’t genetically related to me.

My mom took this picture. I couldn’t even summon the strength to smile anymore.

So now I have resting bitch face. I can’t imagine why. And everyone assumes I’m a shitty person because I suck to be looked at. Story of my life. Stop fucking rubbing it in. You wanna see what that ugly asshole looks like now?

If it weren’t for my fucked up ugly-ass nose and my lazy-ass eye, you wouldn’t even really know it was the same person.

I’ve been through some shit. And I’ve been through some shit. And I’ve been through some more shit. And I take shit from everyone, always. And I put up with it. And I take it. And I obey. But the motherfucking moment that I stand up and say “FUCK THIS SHIT. I AM A HUMAN BEING!” Everyone’s like “Jesus, calm down, what the fuck is wrong with you? Stop overreacting.” Am I overreacting? I’ve been under reacting every moment of my life up til now! This is a delayed response. And it’s too much for you???

I work hard. All day. Every day. And I take bullshit from people about why my existence is meaningless. But the instant I try to do anything for myself, they treat me like I’m selfish. You want therapy??? Get over yourself. You wanna kill yourself?? That’s a felony. Which is it, man? If my existence is meaningless then why make it illegal for me to terminate it? It’s okay to kill fetuses that haven’t even had a chance to decide if they want to exist yet, but then you refuse to let them abort themselves once they grow into people and change their mind?

If you’re pro-choice, you can’t back down. You can’t half-ass this shit. My body, my choice. Right? Or… is that not how choice works?

I think I’m pretty much finally out of options.

I don’t know what to do anymore. The world is counting down to self-destruct, and there is no hope for anything. I’ve fought so hard for so many things, and I don’t think that I have anything more I can contribute to the world other than the story of my life and what it has been about and why it’s an important lesson to the world right now, if anything is going to change for the better.

My life has been nothing but tsunami after tsunami with hurricanes in between. I know how that must sound, but god, I haven’t been able to catch my breath, and I’m running out of breaths to breathe. At this point, my psychiatrist has more or less had to acknowledge that I’m beyond help where therapy and medicine are concerned, and blatantly told me that the only chance I have to survive is to block out my past by desensitizing me to it and possibly learning to forget its existence. Because she’s listened to me, and she’s heard enough of my story to know that things just never get better for me and likely never will. I’m so tense by now that I have to actively focus my attention to be able to relax my muscles, which I simply cannot do all day every day. I’m wound up like a spool of thread. Every muscle in my entire body is constantly tensed up and rigid like a fist. And I can relax them only if I put specific mental focus on forcing myself to relax them, but it doesn’t last. The only time it can is when I’m asleep, but getting to sleep is difficult because my body is so tired that when my muscles actually do start to relax, they spasm violently causing me to jerk and thrash which of course wakes me up.

There is no making progress with trying to deal with my trauma, and there is no hope of at least getting my mom to understand just how horribly fucked up I am, which could do a world of good in just keeping her off my back at a time when her abuse hurts worse than ever. But her meltdowns have gone from a couple times a month to a few times a week to every single day, and so I finally snapped and started trying to tell her about some of the shit in my life in case she just forgot (because her memory is kinda shitty these days and she can’t even retain something she was told three separate times a week ago), and ho-ho boy, let me just fucking tell you.

I tried to explain how trying to desensitize me by fighting my trauma with more trauma just puts me in a POW situation where the torture gets so that I just give up the fight and flop over and wait for it to finally just kill me. You don’t get what you want from torturing someone who isn’t going to talk, or who legitimately can’t bend to your expectations. You’re just going to end up needlessly wasting a life.
And I tried to explain this to her by bringing up the shit show with the MPs and violently separating me from my significant other and banning all contact, followed by three back-to-back-to back lock-ups due to truancy issues surrounding my weakened state and inability to function properly enough to pick myself up and force myself to conform to some bullshit structure.
The message I was trying to convey went in one ear and straight out the other and she shot back in the most ridiculous way imaginable. We know she doesn’t give a shit, that much is clear, but holy shit. I mentioned about her memory problems, but what I probably didn’t mention at least in this entry was that she is a textbook example of NPD (narcissistic personality disorder).
So, because she didn’t remember correctly- whether that’s due to her memory loss, her lack of empathy, or both- she straight up told me that it didn’t happen that way. She told me. She didn’t even question whether it was possible that she might have just been remembering wrong because it’s not like she was the one who actually experienced it. She preached her word as gospel because that’s how she said it was, and so obviously, that’s how it was. Because she’s the only one who knows anything about anything and the rest of us are dumbasses.

And so… admittedly, that was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I finally breached the the topic of NPD, which I had specifically avoided for years because advising someone that they have NPD is a very dangerous game. But unfortunately, she had just demonstrated a perfect example of narcissistic behavior by denying my account of personal experiences in favor of her own flawed, second-hand memories. So it was inconveniently a convenient time to address it. And I didn’t know how else to do it but by sending her the webMD page on the illness (she doesn’t trust Wikipedia).
As expected, she scanned over it without taking the time to really think about any of it, and immediately shot back by insisting that I didn’t even read it and that I was stupid for trying to accuse her of having NPD because she only has one symptom (in my perception, she added); that being the lack of empathy.
I calmed down, took a step back and told her as calmly and eloquently as possible that she was expertly proving my point by denying every single symptom. I tried to explain that I wasn’t attacking her, I was simply trying to help her because she needs help in order to feel more comfortable and fulfilled in life, and that help can’t start until she can admit, or at least explore the possibility that she might have a problem.
But she kept carrying on, calling me a fucking bitch, and claiming that she’s the only one in the world who deserves judgement. I pointed out how narcissistic that statement was because it was necessary, but reiterated that I meant no offense. So then she started up with the guilt trip angle trying to get out of it by inviting pity. When I addressed this, she then tried to spin it back on me by claiming that I do the same thing by always screaming that I’m going to kill myself any time something happens, which… first of all, sure. I do consider suicide quite often, almost daily. But those thoughts are never hollow, and neither have my attempts been. Further, unless I have actually made plans and am intent on carrying through with them, I don’t really mention them outside of this blog which, (let’s be completely honest here) no one even reads.
And as recently as a week or two ago (I can’t even keep track anymore, but it was the day she had that meltdown where I made the money flowers) she had been corrected by everyone else when she tried to belittle me in the same way as an attempt to tear me down for trying to defend myself. They pointed out that nowhere in the conversation had I even mentioned anything that could have even possibly been construed as suicidal.
The reason she tried to spin the suicidal thing on me was because I told her that lashing out at me was showing that she felt attacked, which was another symptom of the disorder. So she tried to use the suicide thing as a way to turn that back on me and claim that I’m the same way. But what I tried to stress was that when I argue back about people’s criticisms, it’s not because I’m specifically enraged that someone would dare say such a thing, but rather as a way to try to clarify myself so that my intentions are not misconstrued. Because a lot of my problems in life could have been avoided if more effort had been put forth by everyone involved to extract the root of the problem instead of just making surface-level assumptions based off of their own human experience. There’s never one side to any story. And the problem that narcissists have is that they can’t easily fathom that things go on outside of their own personal consciousness. If they didn’t see it happen, it didn’t, and no one knows more about any subject than they do.
For a while, she was quiet. And then she jabbed back by bringing up a time when my brother (who had always been very kind and respectful toward me my entire life) called me a bitch for the first time over something incredibly inconsequential, and so I used a knife he had given me to scratch the word “bitch” onto my arm as an ironic statement. Because that’s how I deal with criticism. I make ironic statements and wear them on my sleeve.
To put it simply, she’s rubber, I’m glue. Or something like that. She takes criticism as a personal attack and converts that to anger which she then channels into malice and spite.
I take criticism to heart and and use it as a learning experience by publicly shaming myself as a punishment for shitty behavior. And yeah. Sometimes the ironic statement is also my way of communicating myself in ways that people can physically see. Because it gets overwhelmingly tiresome and frustrating to try to verbally communicate my intentions to people who refuse to or have the inability to listen.
Like I said about people with NPD- they have a difficult time accepting things they didn’t personally witness. And so visual cues like public, ironic self-shaming can serve to help paint a picture for them to really see and process. This is why artists create films and music and pictures and so on. Some people cannot process raw information through text. In order to assert empathy to those types of people, we have to appeal to their personal sensitivities. I believe V for Vendetta summed it up well with the quote that “artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use lies to cover up the truth.” (I’m not actually sure if that film coined the quote or not, and full disclosure: I’m too preoccupied to look it up right now. XD)

But yes. This entire shit storm was born from my attempt to explain that change cannot happen until we can achieve empathy and balance in each of ourselves.
I think my last blog was me whining about Matt going to work on one hour of sleep during the apocalypse in the snow.
I was trying to share this with my mom, hoping she would relate which I have discovered quite painfully is a really, really bad idea. And she took a jab at me saying that I was only concerned for Matt because if I lost him, I’d lose his paycheck. And that was a complete contradiction of what I was really trying to express, so I called her a dick and emphasized that I was specifically not thinking about money when I begged him to stay home; I was thinking about my dead son and how shitty it feels when you lose someone and look back on how much time you wasted that you could have spent with them. Regret sucks.
But she belittled those feelings by saying that if he died, then I’d just have her paycheck to fall back on.

Oh. My. God.

That wasn’t a criticism. That was just pure nastiness, and so this time yes, I was actually quite offended. But I didn’t lash back right away. I stewed on it a while and then sent her an email to address it calmly and try to explain why what she said was incredibly hurtful.
And she told me that valuing time over money was a luxury that she couldn’t afford. But the entire basis for my entire argument was that money does not equal happiness and that money won’t matter if everyone dies and if our planet dies. And she couldn’t understand that, so I tried to tell her that it starts with empathy. And if everyone had a clear understanding of each other, they would realize that we are all one and the same. We are all human beings who are afraid and hurting and just want to be happy. We all want peace. And if we can breach that barrier and work together for the common good, then we wouldn’t have to rely on money. We could just rely on each other and everyone would have what they need.
It has to start small with people like us getting the word out enough to change people’s hearts in favor of a leader who truly loves and cares and is in it for the good of all life and not just for themselves.
And that’s why I’m trying to spread this word of mine. That’s why I’m Bernie or Bust. And that’s why I will do whatever I have to. I don’t want to have to riot and march and protest, but when it comes right down to the bottom line of life or death of an entire planet… what’s right?
I don’t know anymore. I will fight for the cause as hard as I can, but I don’t think that I can necessarily get violent. If suffering is unnecessary, I would like to avoid it. And that’s why I have to try really hard to embrace the pain of my past, even though it hurts like hell.

If I hadn’t suffered, I wouldn’t have this story to tell. And if I didn’t tell my story, I wouldn’t have any chance of affecting anything. And actually… I wouldn’t even be the person I am today. For better or worse.

Who can really say if that will actually make a difference, or if it even matters on a universal level?