Anxiety in Journal of life stuff

Anxiety. That is the best word to describe how I’ve been feeling for… a long time. Roe Jogan (Go Rojan? Hoe Jogan? Joe Rogan!), via Youtube’s black magic algorithm that only shows popular and non-indie things, had a few bits on anxiety, its causes, and societal pressures in general. Some with experts, some with peers. I never thought I had anxiety, but in reality, I do.

I often find myself asking “What broke?”. I ask this because compared to where I was in May 2017, I am 40lbs heavier, have no job, have less in savings (though far more in potential money), no hope for the future, no real belief that life will get better, and a bunch of other negative outlooks on life. Despite how hopeless that sounds, it isn’t the black morass of true depression I spent about 13 years of my life getting through. I know true despondency. This isn’t that. This is just an honest appraisal of how I view the world.

But what broke? What went wrong? May 2017 I lost my job. I loved my job. I got annoyed with people who had higher positions and pay, I loathed my management chain because they were assholes. But I loved the actual work I did. I had just saved the company just shy of $100 million a few months back, around February 2017. And I get called into my manager’s office and told I am being laid off because of ‘different talent needs’. It was personal, and that rat bastard didn’t have the balls to look me in the eye and tell me he was a gormless piece of shit. It was good to see him turn white when he saw me back in the office a year later for an interview after I gave him the death stare with all the rage I felt towards him. He went from “Oh hey, it’s BossElLobba!” to “Oh shit, I think this guy would murder me in my face!” He’s almost right. I have no interest in going to jail, so his life is safe.

Did that break me? No. The day I broke was 2 months later. I had gotten back from a horrible first date with a woman who was just another empty-brained progressive parrot, and then got a call from a company where I had a 100% chance of getting a job offer only to be told that they weren’t going to hire me. I had been sticking to my diet, but I gave into despair at that moment, because the bad date, combined with the non-existent job offer, combined with losing a job I knew I was great at…it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

But that isn’t what broke. That’s not what broke me. What broke was far deeper. I stopped believing I would ever have a community. I’d been raised a Christian, and I’ve lived a Christian life, at least insofar as every other Christian you’d see in a church lives it (IE: follow some rules and not others, but generally don’t be a dick to others and care about your fellow man). But the girl I’d been on a date with echoed the same sentiments I saw hanging outside every church within 50 miles. Progressive political beliefs. Because if you have a church that doesn’t fly a pride flag around here, they shut you down for hate speech. God forbid someone not agree with the herd’s mentality. God forbid there be logical arguments against LGTBQ+.

I lost my community at work. I had e-mail addresses, but none of those people ever reach out to me. I have to reach out to them. We don’t hang out with each other. I went from being able to talk to them daily, to never hearing from them.

I lost my belief that hard work matters. I was the best employee my boss had. Objectively. I saved the company the most money, generated the most revenue, and cost the least. My only flaw was that I knew that to be true, and I wanted to be paid more fairly (market midpoint! Rather than 20K below market midpoint!). I also called bullshit bullshit. So I wasn’t the dick-sucker he wanted. It’s not fun to be in a position of power when the people working for you look at your power plays as infantile punches into a concrete wall.

On top of that, I watched people who had never worked hard and never accomplished anything get promoted and rewarded purely for sucking dick. In some cases, I mean that figuratively, in other places, literally. My father drilled the lie that “it’s better to get a job for what you know than who you know.’ over and over. He doesn’t even live by that rule himself, and I never realized it until I was nearly 30!

I lost my parents. I had to go no-contact with them to save my own life/sanity. I never had an extended family to speak of. Most friends I’ve ever had I know far better than anyone other than my parents.

I have no people to call my own. I have no one who cares that I exist. And, if the scientists are to be believed, that is the root of my anxiety. “I’m separated from the tribes, I’m totally on my own. Shit! Oh shitohfuckohshitohfuck!” Because, ya know, when you live in a cave or on the plains, having nobody to watch your back means you’ll probably be food before the week is out.

I have felt this sort of anxiety before, back when I was in college. It was far worse back then. It was actually life impacting. Why? Because I wanted to kill myself. Why is a long story. I got better. The primary reason I am not worse is because I do know I have 4-5 people I can e-mail and they will (eventually) reply. Just knowing that I can reach out to someone is enough to keep the worst of the anxiety at bay.

My lease is up at the end of April and I need to move out of this place as fast as I can. Partly because it costs $2000/mo to live here (just in rent) and partly because I know there are plenty of places in the country that are full of people who are willing to have a reasoned discussion and disagreement with actually thought out arguments, rather than a bunch of progressive group-think parroting.

My hatred of progressivism is purely because they have hurt me in the past, and because they continue to hurt anyone and everyone who even dares question them. They are immature bullies who need to be put down in the same manner that schoolyard bullies are put down: by either getting punched in the face and laughed at, or by being reamed by parents/teachers until they understand that bullying is wrong. But currently the political winds are protecting these bullies, rather than crushing them. I feel like I’m taking the crazy pills.

My lease is up in a few months and I must leave this place. I have not, and will not, allow my violence to leave my mind. It’s not worth it, to them or to me. I want to find a family, not hurt people. I want to make the world better, not tear it apart with my rage. Anxiety just gets more frustrating when you also have to balance the fact that rage is a suitable defense, in the short term, for physical dangers. It’s a stupid-ass defense, but it is effective. Bleh. I want to get out. I will get out long before it comes to that.

20 year old me would be ashamed of what I’ve allowed myself to become. I used to have pride in myself and live by a set of ideals. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t believe in those ideals anymore. Well, I kinda do. I wish they were true, rather than believe they were true. They went from being the bedrock my house was built on to being sand my house is built on. If you don’t get it, houses built on sand fall down, because sand is a terrible foundation.

This anxiety is also why I struggle so much with rejection. It’s why, as much as I’d love to have a dog that I knew loved me, that dog would never be able to make me ‘better’. Because being loved isn’t the problem. Having a tribe is. A dog isn’t a tribe. A human is a tribe. Many humans is a tribe.

The 4-5 people I mentioned earlier? Not one of them is less than 20 years older than I am. “Meet people through them!” They don’t have friends who aren’t there age, except me. Their kids are either actual children, or adults with kids themselves. There is no avenue to build a life there. I looked. I tried.

Even when I move I know I’ll have the same problem. Cities are where rent is cheap, and my investments haven’t made me financially independent yet. If I’m suuuuuuper lucky, I will be by Dec 2020. But 2021 is more likely. But that’s two years I have to wait to start living my life as I want to. What am I going to do for two years?

A great use of my time now would be to build relationships, but I plan to leave and go 1,000 miles away in a few months. It seems…wrong, on many levels, to try and meet new people. Do you see where the anxiety is becoming a problem? The thing is, I never realized anxiety was my actual issue until Roe Jogan and his science friends broke down what is happening and why. It made sense then. And why it’s so much less intense than it was during my college years makes sense. I’m still worried about being alone, but I’m less afraid of strangers than I used to be. I have been on my own for enough years that I know I can handle most things that come up without needing anyone’s help. My anxiety got less, basically, because I didn’t get eaten in my first week alone, and so I started learning how to survive without a tribe.

But I will never be ‘ok’ being alone like this. I must have a community. I must have a home. Not a house, not a yard, not 4 walls. A place I call home, with neighbors and friends I consider my own. I must have a place where people ask and receive help with the same ease as water comes out of a tap. Where people talk with each other and act reasonable, try to get along, rather than be rat-bastards to each other. That is what I must find. One person is enough to bring me 95% happiness, but realistically, she and I need to have friends. We need to have a community of our own to exist within.

Curse my elementary school teachers who made me hate leading others and punished me for being smart. Curse myself for not succeeding at throwing off these mental shackles of being unwilling to lead others and create those communities for myself. I know how to do it. I know what to do. The muscle is beyond atrophied though. I scream at it and it barely twitches.

For the next 6 months, the thing I want more than anything, is for my anxiety to calm down enough that I can lose weight at 2lbs a week or faster. I can’t tell you how happy I’d be to step on the scale and see 190 lbs. And then to see 180. Then 170. Then 160, and finally 150. To finally be done losing weight, and be able to switch to maintenance. To never again use food to compensate for my mood. Fuck I hate this fat jiggling around me as I walk. I hate that food is the only thing I have to calm my nerves when they get too frayed for me to tolerate. I hate every day being a drain on my willpower until it is empty.

That’s the thing about willpower. You can use it. But when it gets drained to 0 every day…that isn’t what Roe Jogan is talking about. That’s so far beyond what he or anyone else means when they talk about discipline and focus, stamina, and whatever else. They’re talking about being in a much healthier starting place than running on empty. And the few times they admit to that, you realize all the support systems and networks they had in place, even at their lowest. But they talk about it like it was a ‘real struggle’. It’s disingenuous to those of us who truly have nothing to try and say you made it from nothing when you didn’t.

I get it though, he’s trying to motivate the lazy fucks who aren’t on 0, they are just disillusioned and unimaginative. He’s trying to give them a goal to strive for. I understand why he talks the way he does, I just hate that it is a lie to those of us truly running on empty and still running every day.

I just want someone to talk to. I want someone to build a life with.