Day 7 - One Weekiversary of Daily Pages

So far I've done daily pages every day for a week. Go me. Sorry to my unaudience I kept the extra personal stuff personal, but I promise I wrote on those days as well. #accountability

Even if I don't think anyone is reading this, cuz 2025 and wtf are blogs, I still wanna keep my private life private. Plus when it involves other people I wanna respect their privacy too. And I'm realizing if I keep talking I'll negate the aforementioned privacy, so Imma stop now. Is Imma capitalized? Maybe when it's a name. idk. 

I don't remember what I've written publicly so far and what I haven't. Don't bother to forgive me if I'm repeating myself. But this is a journal I'm writing on a public blog, so there's gonna be some repetition. There's gonna be. Some repetition.

I'm realizing a lot of my life is dominated by fear. A lot. And after "Strictly Ballroom" was my favorite movie for so long. I'm ashamed of my fear and allowing it to make me live a half life.

I'm reading 2 books (well 2 1/2. Well 4. But let's focus on the two). One is "No Bad Parts," by Dick Schwartz (great p*rnstar name. I like that I bleeped p*rnstar. But I'm down with saying "fuck" when the situation calls for it. (also, "the situation" would be a cool nickname, if it wasn't already in use. I'm the situation, and I'm calling for it.))

No Bad Parts asserts we're all made of various parts and personalities, and most of them are formed in childhood during traumatic events when they get stuck, frozen, or burdened in one place. Through IFS, Internal Family Systems, we can talk to those parts and show compassion and love and understanding and gratitude (that's a lot, but it's good) to them to help them become unblended, unburdened, healthier and happier. It's changing my life. Our life. W/e. 

The other book is "The Way Out," which is about overcoming chronic pain. IDK if you know this, but I've had near constant pain for 27 ish years since the cancer in my teenage years. It's affected and poisoned and muted and colored and ruined my life. At least I've blamed a lot on it. 

Anyway, I'm realizing 1) so many of my parts are rooted in fear. Afraid of ridicule. Afraid of pain. Afraid of death. Afraid of abandonment. That's a big one I didn't realize affects me a lot. I mean I should have, cuz BPD. 
And 2) a lot of my chronic pain, if not most or all of it, also has a root in fear. Fear of pain returning. Fear of cancer returning. Fear of getting better. Because without pain, who am I? 

So my thought was to list out my fears today, in effort to face them and deal with them. It looks like I already started doing that, so that's fun. #efficiency. 

I'm afraid of a lot. I'm working on calming and comforting myself, as well as learning to be ok with the fear. It's going... ok. (Also, i'm running out of time to have daily pages AND list all my fears. Cuz I DO have a job I have to work on a little bit. Allegedly.) 

this is enough for my needs for today. Tho I will end on this thought: 

If my bday is on Sunday this year, can we call it "Auster?" or would that be sacrilegious? 

Because if so...



Even better

😈

Day 4 [redacted]

 [this is just to say i decided to write privately today, but so i know i wrote daily pages today. it was about my relationship and trying to grow from the therapy i'm doing. business as usual.] carry on.

Day 3

 I went to a non-denominational church today, to support a friend who got baptized there. The cool: there were a number of unhoused people inside and outside, who were being cared for and fed by many of the members. Which is upsetting and infuriating the number of Xtian organizations I've seen, inside and outside Utah, that instead find ways to send them away or reject them, rather than care for. 

There also was a LOT of praising Jesus. I'm no christian, and I think if I were anything like him, I'd prefer they focus on what I said rather than me me me me. But, again, I'm no christian, so maybe he wanted that. If I died for all mankind and suffered on a cross and was dead for a couple days, maybe I'd like the attention and praising. And like I said, not to poo poo them. They seemed to be doing what he said people should do more than most. Myself included. 

I enjoyed going, despite running on 2-3 hours of sleep, and I'm not going back in a hurry. Another friend is separated and I'm sad for them but happy for them. The downside of writing on my blog is I have to vaguebook more than I would. But it feels more accountable, that it's THERE, rather than in the first few pages of a notebook before I abandon it. It feels more real than a word document saved on a computer. Plus I can write this on any computer or phone if I want. I use 3 different computers at different times, so it's useful. Anyway, what else. 

I've been making sourdough for about 4 months now, which is pretty fun and I've gotten a lot better. I'm considering making mozzarella next. idk if it's worth it or not, but i fucking love mozzarella, so maybe #shrug. 

This isn't three pages, but it's more than nothing, so I'm gonna do the cop out thing and say I'm just trying to get into the habit. Now I'm gonna watch White Lotus season 3 before bed. 

On a Roll: day 2

 

I’m writing in word today. Making me think of Creed’s blog back in the office. Probably shouldn’t post about sex on the blog. Even if no one reads it, enough people know whose blog this is, and it’s not hard to figure it out if you care to. I scrubbed all references of my name on it, but I’m sure there are still links and shit that can lead you to the conclusion of identity. Yay.

 

I hate the modern problem of authenticity. We can’t say how we feel without fear of firing, ostracization, cancellation, etc. I’ve been guilty multiple times of people I disagree with getting fired and having more than a bit of gleeful schadenfreude towards them. Even if they’re voicing agreement with fascist dictators and racist pieces of shit, IDK if they should’ve been fired. I feel so much guilt and fear it’s awful. I want to just say my truth, but I apparently live in a police state and watched it creep up around me and now it’s too powerful to take down. I’m grateful of all the people fighting, and ashamed I’m not fighting more.

I don’t really know why I’m so ashamed and afraid of why I should be responsible to fight. Who the fuck am I to challenge? What power do I have to make a difference? I don’t know if it was religious upbringing saying I was special and chosen by daddy god to make a difference and be alight to the world. (fuck typos, deal with it). I don’t know if it was because daddy god gave me cancer as a teenager, and I told myself the afflictions would be consecrated for my gain. Instead of weakening my body for my life, dragging me down, making me bitter and closed off. Thanks daddy. Fuck you daddy god.

 

I have so many problems I don’t know what to complain about first. So that’s cool. I AM really getting better in pretty much all of them, so that’s cool. I mean it’d be cooler if one of the problems wasn’t my country falling apart around me with nothing I can do but hunker down or consider fleeing. So that’s cool. Didn’t think all the times I sang the star spangled banner or repeat the pledge of allegiance that I’d be worried I have to run away because my country no longer has freedom. And I feel guilt that, for so many fellow americans, it hasn’t had freedom much longer.

There’s a poem about America being on fire, and the poet wants to let it burn to the ground. But then they remember “there are children inside.” I want to help, and when I ask what I can do, it’s call your politicians offices and leave a message with an intern who wishes you were dead or a slave. I hope a revolution is coming. I hope we can survive and that the enemy can learn to be the allies.

 

I want to fight with love. But I also want to fight with fire. And I’ll probably fight with clicktivism and self loathing.

 

One of my favorite shows is Steven Universe. One theme is throughout the show, most or all of the threats and enemies become understood with empathy and patience and become friends. I think that’s the best foot forward. But I also watch them tear us apart, and no one is talking to me about it. I know it’s because I’m scared and a nobody/peasant/serf. Oy vey. Is this helping me? I don’t fucking know.

 

I am overwhelmed. I am scared. I am multitudes. I am cute. I am broken. I am a survivor.

 

I have BPD and trauma/ptsd and other acronyms. Most things say the cure or the way to reduce the symptoms is to have a better sense of self. And I’m doing that I think. I am getting to know the pieces of myself and and working towards healing them. I’m working towards them. Healing them. Now I’m just writing filler trying to fill the pages faster. Ugh. I want to be better already. I want to heal. I want to be healthy and smarter and not freak out or spiral at the first chance I get.

 

BPD makes me terrified of abandonment. I think everyone has or will. I try to reassure myself and comfort those scared parts. They’re all so scared. It’s annoying in some ways that so much of my parts are based in fear. But better to work on it now than 20 years from now.

I thought I’d be immune from a mid life crisis. Or that I already had it. If I can get a ponytail and a convertible I’d do it if it meant I got through this faster. I feel like so much of my life has been wasted. I only have one life and how much of it is spent doing what I want to do instead of what I should do or have to do? How much mediocre conversations or forced work, undesired by myself or others, has these 42 years been spent on? How much more mediocrity and menial mundanity will I meander through without meaning? (only partially intentional alliteration). I want to write poetry that moves people, art that makes them cry at the beauty of it. I want to kiss to change the world and I want to dance like everyone’s watching. I want to tell jokes and make the world better with comedy.

 

Can’t you tell? I’m fucking hilarious. I want to work harder on my artistic endeavors. Not for the world but for me. For the transformative power of art. For the Proustian moments that make life bearable/enriched. Instead I’m gonna spend my Saturday cleaning a house that will probably look like I didn’t spend all my hours and spoons on it the next fucking day.

 

If anyone wants to give me a genius grant so I can hire a staff to manage all the shit I don’t wanna do so I can focus on making mediocre art and sexist poetry.

 

I thought I was a good feminist ally. But I just finished two poems that made me feel like an asshole. One was about the medusa myth, and my anger at athena for cursing her priestess (did I write about this yesterday? Who gives a fuck I guess) but I didn’t realize I had little or no anger directed at Poseidon, Medusa’s assaulter, or Perseus, her murderer. I think I already wrote about this. Anyway, it made me feel douchey and problematic. I hate being male. But I’m not female. I think I’d know by now. Maybe I’m nonbinary. Or is it just another mask I wear than the real me? Gender is stupid. Labels are limiting. The world is ending and I’m whining to the ether instead of fighting until it’s impossible to do even that.

 

I’m probably done for today. This was much less cathartic than yesterday. But I’m gonna keep at it as I think overall writing muscles flexing. Flexing writing muscles. It’s also hard because apparently my family can’t clean unless the disable dad with mental illness is also cleaning. But it’s an infinite number of the times dear old disabled dad cleans when no one else is.

Now I’m bitching about the people I love most in the world. Healthy and smart. Post it online. It’s not like a journal post online almost ruined my relationship with the love of my life before it began. Watch me go insane. It won’t be meaningful, it won’t be seen, but at least it won’t be boring. Or maybe it will. I’m not a fucking psychic.

We went on a date for the first time in a long time, meaning we went to dinner ½ an hour before closing. We brought baggage of the week and the world because of course we did. It was still a nice time. My chicken was raw inside so they comped it free and gave me a replacement to take home that I’m a bit scared to eat. I’d like to go on a date tonight, but she complains about money because she handles the finances because I’m a terrified little kid who goes insane when he get it pointed out to him that we’re barely scraping by with the effort of me giving 100%. And then I feel like the 100% I give is not enough. My spouse and my therapist and my friends and dead gurus all say your 100% is good enough. But capitalism disagrees. The world disagrees. I’m never enough.

Enough is an addicting target, because it’s unspecified so it’s very easy for my frightened protectors to tell me you’ll never be enough. Because there is no enough. I know that, they know that. But it’s still fulfilling in a twisted way to have that reminder. I am not enough. No one is enough. But that’s ok. We can still try to enjoy friends and wine however forms those take. Grape juice and ward members. Vino more expensive than a car and servants. Conversation, art, laughter, maybe fucking, make life not wasted. It’s just a pity we have to carry so many capitalist leeches on our backs in the meantime. 1/3 of life spent sleeping, 1/3 spent working. 1/3 spent trying to cope with not enough of the first and too much of the second. Coping. That’s why I survived cancer. So I could try to cope with the planet and my failings and how it sucks and whether America dies first or I do, there’s nothing I can do about either.

I was trying to end on a positive note. Maybe tomorrow. Today I’m off to push a rock up a hill until it rolls back down again I mean clean my house and fold laundry. Maybe I can get laid, maybe I can be reminded of my failings by my loved ones and my body. Imma talk to my parts now because I’m sane and see if I can get some energy to face the world even if it’s a losing struggle I can still agitate and struggle. Agitation makes pearls, I think Scott Adams said that or at least quoted it. Is he a fascist/fascist fanboy? Probably. Everyone lets you down. Everyone fails. But we keep trying, and I think there’s something positive in that. The stupidity of the human condition. Born in a losing struggle and trying to make meaning in a meaningless world, while those who found or follow worse meanings work to end your struggle faster. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

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.