stress ramble in Journal of life stuff

I’ve been sitting wanting to eat because I’m stressed for the past hour. I tried looking through imgur posts to find peace. It kinda worked, and kinda didn’t. What made me decide to start writing was clicking on my messages in imgur and seeing a message I wrote to another imgurian 2 years ago that never got a reply. I didn’t read much of it, but I know enough of who I was back then to understand the content. In that moment, I saw how far I’ve come and, for once, don’t feel ashamed of that progress.

I’ve been told “Wow, <weight loss good” dozens of times, and it has never made me feel happy. Why? Because I never finished. I never hit 150. I never stayed at 150. I was always overweight, except for a brief 2 month period where I touched the very tippy-top of normal for the first time since I was a newborn. Anytime I think about my body all I feel is either shame, hate, or loathing. Possibly a combination of those things. No matter how strong I got when lifted, or how far I could run when I trained for marathons, nothing ever mattered because I was still the fat guy. …Rather than go into that bottomless pit of despair, I’ll skip ahead to the point.

In social interactions though, I can see progress. It does take failure to learn with respect to social interaction. 2 years ago I had a chance to either date or be friends with an absolutely gorgeous girl. To give some context to that, it wasn’t that she was a model. It was that she was 36 with the body of a 25 year old. That is only the result of decades of healthy lifestyle and mental choices, with some good genetics thrown in. But I fucked it up by being the insecure person I was. The failure I had with her is the reason I took up being a sugar daddy for a time. I was the ultra-rare platonic sugar daddy. Why? Because paying for sex is illegal, and if the day ever came that someone figured out who I was and tried to use that time I spent sugaring to shame me…they couldn’t. I did nothing illegal, immoral, or wrong. I lived in such a way that I would not be ashamed of the outcome.

Being a sugar daddy taught me how to say no to bad relationships. It showed me that I had a lot to offer in a relationship and if the other person didn’t value what I offered, that was not my fault. I also got better about cutting relationships off when they are over. Only one person has ever tried to rekindle a relationship with me, and she…we didn’t end on terms where there was anything to rekindle.

2 years ago I would have had a mental breakdown to not have seen a friend for 5 months. But I’ve been in my apartment, not talking to anyone I knew, for 5 months and…I’m fine. When I get too stressed out about being alone, I go shopping, or walk around a mall, or find some other place with people and just walk around in the presence of others. I never speak to anyone. I just need to see other people, see them nod at me with respect, see the odd girl smile at me. That’s enough to recharge the social batteries and keep me sane. To be clear, we’re talking about being good enough to survive, not talking about me at my ideal. But I’m totally content to just survive.

I understand how men and women flirt now…amusingly, because of Overwatch. I’ve joined enough random groups and heard how guys hit on girls and seen how effective it is. It isn’t about confidence; it’s about lying. It’s honestly shocking to me how effective it is on the ladies, and how blind the ladies are to what is going on. I say this as someone who was either friends with the ladies before hand, or pulled them aside after, to pick their brains. Not once did they realize they were being played/hit on. Not.once. Now, obviously, not every person is that oblivious to the goings-on of men around them. I’d even go so far to say that the people I meet in overwatch are the very specific subset of women who don’t get socialized with in real life for various reasons, so the flirting is extra effective with them due to the lonliness debuff.

But still. It’s fascinating. To see someone who makes completely mediocre art get told “Oh man, X is awesome!” and know that the guy is lying because I know he has privately told me he doesn’t give a shit about art. It’s all lies. And I refuse to lie. And that’s why I’m finally at peace in my apartment, alone. It’s why the thought of getting a dog and having that be the source of love in my life no longer scares me.

To be clear, what scared me about owning a dog was that if I found such affection from something other than a person, then I would likely shut people out entirely. I didn’t want to do that because I believed people had worth in general, and it was a good thing to care about them. This is not the case. People are horrible. They lie to get what they want, the perpetuate social norms that are downright harmful and toxic to themselves, others, and society. And they do all this with the bold-face confidence that this is the only way it ever could be, and anyone who says otherwise is just wrong!

I got laid off twice because I refused to lie to my manager. I lost my only friend in college because I refused to lie about his character as a person. Refusing to lie has cost me everything I ever had that mattered to me. But, it’s also given me something. I know who I am. I know why I am. The day I find someone who decides they want to be around me, it will be because they too understand the toxic nature of lies, and have no desire to be around them either. But, since that day will probably never come, a dog will do nicely. A dog who loves me purely because I exist. A dog who would rather lay his head on my leg and stare up at me while I paddle a canoe, than take in the gorgeous scenery all around us. Dogs are the best people.

I do still care about people, but what changed between 2017 and now is that I understand that people need to earn my compassion rather than be given it freely. Earn is the wrong word. Be deemed worthy of is more accurate. I build houses with Habitat for Humanity, and of the homes I’ve helped build, I personally would only have given homes to 3 of the 8 tenants. Why? Because those three help out and raise good families. The other 5…teach their children the wrong lessons in life.

This all sounds like I am learning to hate others. In some ways that is true. In reality though, I’m learning that I don’t have to love everybody, and I specifically don’t have to love people who aren’t worth it. I have a great example.

My parents told me, point blank, that I only exist to take care of them when they are old and senile. I was not born for any other reason. My mother only took interest in me when I was a teenager and capable of thought on her level. When she could have a debate with me and I could offer her genuinely new and different insights. My father…he thinks he’s intelligent. He’s a bit like a candle when compared to the car high-beam of my mother and I. Bless him, he tries, but he’s nowhere near our level. I got my father’s body, and, when it isn’t burdened by obesity, it’s a great body. But I got my mother’s mind. That has its benefits and problems, but the intelligence is nice. The fact that I will almost certainly suffer from dementia when I get older less so.

I read posts on reddit and imgur about toxic parents, narcissistic parents, entitled parents. I never felt like my home life was that bad by comparison to the stories I read. But one theme, over years, kept popping up. Among people who had had breaks with their parents and tried to reform a relationship, one (conceptual) phrase kept occurring: “We’re sorry you feel that way.” or “We’re sorry if you feel…” The conditional apology, I would learn it was called. Universally phrased such that “We did nothing wrong, but we understand you feel we did.” It was the common thread in every.single.story I ever read from people who had bad relationships, not just with parents, but with a anyone, and whose only recourse was to cut those people out of their lives entirely.

I was raised to take care of my parents. I was raised to be alone so that I wouldn’t have a wife or family of my own to detract from my ability to care for those parents. Anytime I liked a girl I was endlessly teased, harassed, or otherwise bullied into thinking she was more trouble than it was worth. I saw relationships with other people, even male friends, as being a source of pain, rather than pleasure. It’s a huge part of why I choose to be alone rather than try to find good friends. I must overcome that programming in small steps over a long time, when coping mechanisms exist to do so in a non-destructive way.

And…I have nothing and no-one to care for. I have no purpose in life. The thing I was designed and programmed to do doesn’t exist. In 2017, it drove me mad to live in that reality. In 2019, I have finally made peace with that reality. I can exist without a program. I can live for myself. It’s not about hate. It’s not about intolerance. It’s not about rage. It’s about finding peace without a purpose.

I won’t stay like this forever. I won’t stay like this for more than 2-5 years I’d wager. But I am like it right now. In 2017 I couldn’t respect myself for all the change, improvement, and healing I’d done in my own life. I could only see the flaws others pointed out. The things I still had wrong.

Now? I can look at my life when others tell me how evil or wrong, or whatever bullshit they spew at me and I can realize that I’ve fixed more in my life in the last 10 years then they’ve ever had wrong in the entirety of theirs. They don’t get to tell me how broken I am. I will take my feedback on what to improve from people who have a history of making the world better, not those who can only take a shit on the world so that it comes down to their level.

Even in relationships I know I can be of great value. I was always the person my partners could call in the middle of the night. I would always drive over to visit them, even if I had an exam, or work, or something else in the morning. I always cared. What I found was person after person who refused to care about me as much as I cared about them. And because of how my parents raised me, I lost over 10 years of my life to believing that was my fault instead of the failing of the other person. No more.

2 years of time have helped me finally see changes that took decades of work to bring to fruition. That is my Christmas gift to myself. Not the cookies I will make, or the giant reese’s cups I eat. No, a better me. That’s my gift to myself. I will move out of this place, and I will make better friends. I will throw the shackles off my mind and I will become the person I want to be. I will be free. Goddammit I will be free. They have no idea what they have unleashed.