Hey, Remember Me? Day 1

Where to begin. How to begin. Should I bother to begin? 

My last post was three years ago. I should probably start a new blog. I already feel the voice I've established on this blog coming up, and I'm not sure that's the voice I want to use. 

I want to start writing daily again. Instead of a new journal full of hope and intention that I might fill the first 1-5 pages with, I thought a new entry on the blog might be a good path instead. 

No one reads blogs anymore, and all social media is going to shit. But it still feels more real in a way than writing it down on paper. Plus my hand(s) hurt less when I type than when I write. I spend more time online than offline if you count watching streaming tv and staring at my phone in a depressed stupor. 

Where to begin. Probably play catch up. 

Oy vey. Or not. I'm worried America is crumbling to shit. The class war is nearly over, and the ruling class has won. I have guilt I'm not doing more, because apparently I was supposed to do more but either forgot or didn't try or something. 

I'm afraid of speaking up for the safety of my children. I've only gotten bluer, and my neighbors have only gotten redder. and instead of purpling, we're either bootlicking/deepthroating, or complaining to the referee that a dog shouldn't be allowed to play basketball. 

This is a journal so it doesn't have to make sense. 

I attempted suicide 2 Decembers ago. @ the 22 of 2023. Spoiler, I'm still here. But I get to carry the guilt that I traumatized my wife and children in a selfish act that I had nearly perfectly convinced myself was an act of kindness. But the guilt is at least alleviated slightly by the knowledge/hope that the trauma I gave them would have been much worse if I'd succeeded. I at least can be here to try to help them through the trauma. 

Some days I feel I'm sitting on the precipice between success and failure, wealth and poverty, life and death. I guess in many ways, many of us are. I don't want to be successful, because I feel afraid that may corrupt me. That my desire to help others will be extinguished by an unquenchable greed. Because I see that everywhere. Or the desire to help others is seen as evil, or masquerading, or whatever. And poverty, as Tevye says, "It's no shame to be poor. But it's no great honor either." In a world where success is a virtue, poverty is a sin. A punishment. A failure. So I try to ride the narrowing knife edge of a middle class, while seeing more and more there is no middle class. There's a ruling class and a working class. The ruling class has successfully pitted the workers against each other. Marx was right. Maybe. 

Remember how I said I've lived in near constant pain for about 27 years? Well, that's stopping. It's insane. I've been afraid to talk about it. Because so many times in the past a new treatment seemed to work briefly, drugs, physical therapy, steroid injections, etc. (Legal drugs, sheesh). IDK if I want to write about it here. But wtf. I'm just journaling, yo. 

I should/could go back. Nah. I'm supposed to write @ 3 pages a day if I wanna do daily pages. So write some back story. It'll fill pages faster. After the suicide attempt, we all see therapists. My wife and I also see a couples therapist. Should told us about IFS, Internal Family Systems. 

Look it up, I don't wanna go through it all. Even tho I'm a believer and a potential evangelist for it. I don't wanna tell you everything. JFC what a blog entry this is. Bottom line is, by working more with protectors and exiles, different parts of my personality, my brain, my self, whatever ("I contain multitudes" and/or "I am legion.") much of my physical pain has reduced. To the point of feeling almost no pain. 

Dick Schwartz (great name. I considered it for my porn name once. Not really. For reasons.) doesn't get all the credit. But IFS is amazing and I really do recommend it, despite my hesitance. I'm feeling a lot of protectors right now, and my wife suggested I try writing daily pages again for other reasons, so here we are. 

Should I delete this? fuck it. 

I'm so frustrated right now. I work from home on Fridays and so I sometimes do errands on those days as well. Utah is currently having people sign a petition to allow workers like teachers and firefighters to form unions. Which is so fucked up already. We need unions. Unions help the workers. Full stop. Are they perfect? Hell no. But if you, person not reading this, want to discuss the pros and cons of unions I'm here for it. 

Anyway, I drove past a billboard that said "Kids, Not Unions. don't sign" and I felt livid at the evil of pretending like it's an either/or. If you wanna help kids, fucking let teachers unionize. I'm furious that I have to say this, on a platform screaming into an empty room. 

Watching my community of humans in my state actively working against themselves. What the fuck. So that's why part of me wants to say fuck it and if there's a ruling class, what do I have to do to be in it? But a part of me (Imma say part of me a lot. Read "No Bad Parts," the original book on IFS to learn more) knows that's not the answer. If I sell my soul, or even figure out a way to get wealthy by NOT exploiting others (tips welcome) I feel like that will just change my problems, they won't fix them. I'd like to help others, I'd like to help as many as I can. I don't fucking know how. 

Part of me wants to write more in earnest, hope to be published, read, and change things. But any time I start writing, I hate it. I think "I don't want to fucking read this, so who would?" 

Anyway. I feel trapped. I don't want to be rich, because it seems like in order to be in the ruling class, you have to climb on the corpses of people you exploit. And then they (rightly, probably) hate you, even if you devote your riches to charity. But at least you get to take cool vacations. At least you don't have to be afraid that you're standing on the edge of homelessness at all times. Some bad luck will ruin anyone. Unless you have money to protect you. 

I don't want to be poor either. I don't want either. I want to live in a commune with people I love and trust. But I can't have that for lots of reasons. None of them want to go with me. None of us can afford a commune. "Non-monetary society? in THIS economy?" I also am feeling abandoned by everyone right now. Which is one of my biggest triggers (hey, remember I'm borderline too? So far IFS isn't healing that, but it's helping me understand it better, so yay for that!) 

One of my closest friends is getting baptized in a christian church. Which, great, I hope it makes you happy. It also kind of grosses me out, the submissiveness and belief that you have to wash away sins, and that someone has authority over you to do so. If there's a god, please mark my words, you don't need an intercessory. You don't need a middle man. You don't need a priesthood who only get corrupt and wicked. If you want absolution, apologize to people who you've wronged. You don't need Jesus for that. You don't even need God. 

To make it about me (it's my fucking journal, leave me alone), i feel abandoned by them. We used to get coffee every week, it was something that kept me going, something to look forward to, something special and made me feel needed and seen and heard. Because they're busy doing more productive and enriching things with their life, I've been abandoned and I'm lucky if I get to see them once a month. I feel hurt and cast off. And it triggers that abandonment because I can look at the past and see people abandoning me forever. 

People I played DnD with. Gone. I spent hours and hours prepping exciting fun adventures for them. I've done it and loved it for like 25 years as a DM. Wanna know how many quit playing, quit seeing me, quit being my friend? Nearly all of them. And it's only a matter of time for the current ones to leave me forever. 

All my childhood friends. Most of them get a pass, or at least half pass, because we're in different states. and most of my closest friends aren't on social media, so w/e. But my high school friends in texas who ARE on social media. many of them have blocked me or unfriended me. Or I've blocked them or unfriended them. 

SO writing this the narrative that everyone leaves me feels less solid. Which brings my ADHD brain who wasn't finished complaining about feeling left behind and neglected and forgotten thinking about my BPD brain (lots of initials in modern life, yo) that splits and wants to see the world in black and white. 

While I look at humanity who sees in black and white and how fucked up and wrong it is. We're going to destroy ourselves because of greed, selfishness, and failure to see and/or understand nuance.

Most of the media I watch is comedy. That's because I'm shallow and depressed, and because deeper media fucks with my psyche and I internalize a lot. Like a show where the wife says "my husband is a loser because he does this thing." and I immediately tell myself "your wife things you're a loser because you do that thing, which is synonymous with the thing the tv woman said. Kill yourself." because I have at least 2 protectors in my skull who don't know how to handle tough emotion, so they think self-destruction is the answer. Because they're so fucking scared of abandonment and death and failure and ridicule that they push me further to depression in effort to keep me safe. which is pretty fucked up, but to their credit, I AM still alive. thanks, guys. 

Anyway, the reason I brought that up is I'm still reeling from the Black Mirror episode where the guy from Get Out (shit, is it him? now I feel racist if I get the actor wrong and they're a person of color. But if it IS him, am I not racist? Dang, worth a try) rides a stationary bike to get points and he can turn in enough points for food or rest or fun, or a chance to be on American Idol and try to have a better life. Long story short, horrible shit happens, watch it, I'm not IMDB. But he eventually just trades his cage for a bigger cage. And like, omg that's capitalism. I'm stuck in a cage and I can work and work and work for what, a bigger cage? Fuck this planet. Fuck capitalism. 

Media that's not fun sitcoms fucks me up. Full stop. So I don't know what to do. It's scary and evil to try to get rich. It's scary and stupid to not try and be poor and homeless where you're seen as a threat or an evil or something to be pitied or eradicated. Fuck us all. 

"I tremble for my country when I think that god is just" Thomas Jefferson. And that was 200+ years ago. Dude, we are so much worse now. We still have slaves and still have masters who think they're better and they deserve to rule. We just have different names and slightly bigger cages. Humanity I hate you. 

Humanity I love you. I want so much for us. I want equality and community and harmony and compassion. All I can see is selfish greed and lies. 

I want to be wrong. I don't think anyone gets it. I WANT TO BE WRONG. I want there to be a god who loves us and has a plan for each of us and has more for everyone that anyone can imagine. I want the fucks at Doge (such a fucking stupid name) to actually care, I want a president who is what Magafucks think he is. I want religion to be good. I want everything we're doing to be for the greater good like so many people think. But it's not. I think the evidence is very clear that there is no god. America is dying and we can't save her, or we won't save her. Democracy will survive. Just not in the promised land. at least not for a long time. 

Diatribe. I mean this whole thing. As I write I imagine people reading this and passing it on and then I get fame and an audience at last. So fucking stupid. 

I want to write. I want to write my allegory of how I ME would fix America. I want to write my story about an art dealer who makes the greatest work of art of all time. i want to write my story about a sidekick who does the hero's job because the hero died and he lives in a world where only heroes can be heroic so he has to carry the corpse around and pretend it's the dead hero saving the princess and killing the evil witch but spoiler the princess is evil and she's been terrorizing the witch so the witch and the sidekick have to work together but what ending. I want my western supernatural horror story to be good. I want to be a better writer than I am. I have story ideas, unborn children in my mind I want to build, but I don't have the tools or skills to give them the life I want them to have. I want to write childrens stories about ducks, and I want to have massive canvases and paint and I want to make love to my wife and give her more joy than anyone on the planet. 

But i have to work. I have to do my best to get my breadcrumbs to help the rich get richer. And watch as my creativity and energy is sapped the entire day so I can't do anything at night but try to escape. 

But I've got a daily page started. (Austindm pastes blog post in word) 2500 ish words. 4 1/2 ish pages. woot. That's more than three. Do I feel better? Fuck no. Do I feel like this is a good step towards feeling better? Maybe. Let's hope I can do so before Dump and Husk kill us all. Peace.