a healthy relationship with an employer

Disclaimer: This post is not only about the employer/employee relationship, it is abstract. If a prospective employer is reading this remember that at this point I have not met you. As I will go into this is about where I have been. I actively want to be proven wrong on this.

I did a web search on: "can't have a healthy relationship with an employer". Instant gratification being what it is, I was shortly disappointed in the results. A long list of articles all to the tune of "how to improve your relationship with your boss" came up. Which is not what I meant at all by my search. I find the notion that it is the employee's job to make their relationship work is not a good metric of healthy relationships. It smacks of codependency and it stinks of desperation.

Maybe this is what we've come to. Perhaps our society is so overburdened with an obsession over money and employment that now employers have replaced men as patriarchs of the world. However it is not so for me. I desire an equal relationship. An equal relationship relies on trust. In an equal relationship an employer should express an equal desire for an employee to trust them. This is not my experience. In every job I have worked, and by the way that is many, the employer is not a leader in the modern context of the word. The employer is either a knight or a king. To put modern terms to it they are either a tool or the literal oppressor.

Which means I have to talk about totalitarianism. There are nice dictators. That's not to say that dictatorships represent an ideal, it is simply true that some people are nicer than others. Some dictators feed their people, while others do not. This is true of employers. I have worked for a few days for employers that do not pay their employees. That shouldn't be possible. I did not volunteer for these people, I worked for them and was promised a wage. I was not paid. This is how capitalism truly works sometimes. I find it true far too often that people work for nothing. I am not saying that I find a large trend of shorting wages illegally. I am talking about legal wage slavery. I have seen employers pay their employees just short of what they need to survive. This makes people work multiple jobs to make ends meet.

It is just so hard for me to hunt for work, running into these predators in the market. When I do meet an entity I perceive to be an exception recently I experience rejection. Which deepens my apathy towards the entire market. I am not interested in work out of a love of money. Frankly I find money entirely meaningless. A rich man and a poor man will both get sick, experience heartbreak and die. I like work, and I find it really unfortunate that I have to deal with employers to do work.

I don't know if this is representative of all relationships like this. From a scientific point of view I can't create a large enough sample size. I'm also a biased data collector given that I like myself. I also have struggled with my anger at past employers. It is only now that I try to separate out the abusers from the kind or indifferent. I have been hurt very deeply. It put me in the hospital, and I will never let someone in that position act like that again. Even if I cannot function and therefor cannot live. I would rather end myself than that. Of course it won't come to that. Despite my problems my family loves me. Despite my struggle they still have hope. So I keep trying to live up to their hopes for me. Hope is a powerful motivator.

I keep coming back to the analogy of a romantic relationship, because the parallels are so strong. Like a romantic relationship a work relationship is something I desire strongly. Like a bad relationship I have been intimidated into staying quiet and not expressing my true feelings because of fear of retribution. It's taken incredible courage in the face of my fear to even type this post. It will take ten times more to put it online. I'm not magnifying myself here, I'm admitting my fear. This is because oppression will continue until the oppressed say no. I did not shake off my chain of unhealthy romantic relationships until I told my prospective partners that I did not need them, nor would I ever. I have met a woman I love more than I could have imagined, and I had to look deeply at myself to do that. I plan to keep trying. I know that there are kind people out there. I sincerely hope some of them are hiring.

self edit/troubling thoughts

I don't want to alarm, as everything is fine. I am merely becoming aware that my thoughts are not what I represent them to myself as. This is difficult to bring to awareness. I have known for some time that I have been attempting to edit and regulate my... madness for lack of a better word. Manic moments. Which is not a sentence but nevermind.

I was under the impression I was laid back, content. That appears to be less the case than I thought it was. Which isn't to say it isn't partially true. Contentedness is not like happiness, because I can get it, and as often as I want. It is a sliding scale from not at all to completely. I'm only saying I'm not completely content. Which is only natural, life is in flux, I have to adjust. This is how I self edit. Troubling thoughts are immediately followed by comfort, rationality, and level headed feeling thoughts. I'm actually currently of the opinion that I probably am over doing it. I think if I found a productive outlet for the manic thing.... it would be better.

So it goes, so it goes.

Goodnight.

On the problem of good choices

Last night I posted some thoughts I had on futility. I want to address the opposite problem because at times it is an equal foe of productivity.

There are many good things to do. One might clean or organize their house. Applying for jobs is also generally viewed as productive. Working in the garden is a nice way to get fresh air. Going to the gym helps a person stay healthy. The list goes on, yet the problem is the same. There are 24 hours in the day and a minimum of 6 are needed for sleep. Another 1-2 are needed for other body needs. That leaves 16 hours. The individual is left with the choice of how to arrange these hours for the maximum good of self and community.

For the last few months I have been relatively inactive. I find times like this restful. It's good to take a step back and reevaluate what makes life worth living. Yet it also highlights flaws in my life as it was and as it is currently. The problem of good choices is one that haunts me. Is it a good choice to chase this path or that one? No one seems to have a clear answer. My family is pleased with any path that brings me back to the world. Personally I desire to remain removed from the world, but that desire is not one I'm supposed to have. It's not "healthy" to drop out of life I'm told. Yet it remains a central desire of my heart and so I chase paths towards the ability to not have to engage.

I'm still startled by that truth. I don't talk about it because it's not something I want to discuss with my family and I have yet to meet a therapist that actually will drill down to my central philosophy and why I want what I want. I feel like everyone wants to impose their life goals on me. They like going to a job, talking to people who have no desire to talk to them and chasing employment and relationships that do not reciprocate interest. I want to be where I'm wanted. That's what I look for in a job. I don't give a damn if it is cleaning toilets in a stadium, if I came to work every day and felt necessary and could maintain the hours and lifestyle I enjoy I would do it. Yet that doesn't have a degree plan. I have yet to figure out how to get employers to give a damn about me, and if it isn't obvious by now I have no profit driven dreams. I do believe that if I get out of bed and go work I should make a decent paycheck. The counterpoint is that I enjoy work in it's pure form. I could make a dollar an hour if I could eat, buy a new computer once a year and keep my house working on that budget. Of course I can't do that. A dollar an hour doesn't even cover the cost of driving to work.

That's what happens to good choices. Going to the gym is an exercise in futility (get it?!) Cleaning the house is lovely, but it will require cleaning again soon. All these lovely choices are equally futile in the end. As the good book says "I looked upon man's toil under the sun and I saw that too was meaningless." I had a few very interesting political and philosophical ideas I wanted to unpack, yet I looked at all of them and realized that they too were meaningless. I could struggle all day to understand the underpinnings and reasoning of life. Yet it would not make you read it.

Even if I came up with the purest truth imaginable, if I couldn't make it interesting I would be only doing it for myself. Finally I realize doing things for myself is a struggle against the wind, because one day I will die and return to dust, and that will be that. So it goes.

“Nobody is making you feel what you’re feeling. Nobody has the power to make you feel something negative emotionally. Your reactions are caused by how you interpret any situation. This is so important because it means that you ultimately become your own resource of emotional freedom and truth.”
Adyashanti (via celestinevibes)

I’m going to use this as a starting point for talking about my feelings of futility. I think the greatest thing I have learned is how little other people’s regard actually effects my mood. However certain realities do have a tendency to pull me downwards.

The name of the problem is futility. As the good book says “I worked hard, built things and stored up riches, yet this too is folly”. The fundamental foundation of capitalist employment is money. The stick is how unhappy we are supposed to be without our little luxuries and status. The carrot is the partial promise of life getting better. Life has not gotten better. I have thrown myself into everything I do with passion. As to the Lord, my work is my offering.

Yet now I’m struggling to get back into work. I feel as though I have no purpose and it keeps me up at night. I don’t particularly need a high purpose (though my spiritual life would benefit from such a thing), I would be content to be doing a small essential job where I can carve out a place of peace amidst the chaos of toxic work culture.

It is no one’s journey but mine, and it isn’t even one I should be going down. Yet once I confronted the absurdity and futility of living life to serve unrewarding causes and to pour out yourself and your passion to receive nothing, not even a leg up, I became nothing.



I am still yet a man with some deep thoughts, some kindness, and a loose grip on dreams far beyond my greatest abilities. I have faith, not that my plan will work out, but that something will. It’s still a daily challenge to take up my painful journey. I am often told I am going the wrong way, as my only desire is one that goes against the very fabric of what capitalism is about. I desire enough. If my current life was sustainable I’d find complete contentment here.



Even should I lose everything, my mind remains, as does my voice and faith. I cannot seem to find an actual solution to the absurdity, because by it’s nature it is meaningless. 

A subtle nudge

I'm not anticipating this becoming a long post. I just wanted to take note that I achieved one of my lifetime goals. It wasn't a big goal, and it wasn't one I thought I ever would get done.

I feel like there is significance to this. I desire to attach more to it because I didn't intentionally bring it about. That feels spiritual to me. It is also possible that I am being drawn towards the spiritual, and today is just another lever on that journey.

a short after thought

I was thinking about what I just wrote and I realize it sounds like I hate where I am or who I am. That is simply untrue. I think where I currently am is one of the most liberated states I have ever experienced. Sometimes when I reach rock bottom it's great, because there is no pain that can be greater. This leads to a kind of euphoria. Imagine laying at the bottom of a deep hole which you can never imagine a way of climbing out. You look up and see the most beautiful blue sky you could ever see. There are two ways to view that blue sky. You could resent it. How horrible that I cannot run and play on this beautiful day.

I for one prefer a different approach. I look at the beautiful world without as I am dying inside. I look around as I realize it may be the last time I get to. Further at last I can revel in the joyous notion that I could not be doing a thing better. What a terrible fate you healthy folk have. You have to make the best of what you have. You will always wonder if you are doing the best you can with what you have.

Yet I am singularly blessed. I cannot waste what little I have. The horrors I have been through have stripped away all guilt. All I can do is either address the pain that defines me, or observe the pleasures of a world that left me behind. You who experience them will never know how sweet they are by comparison. Your mouths are blinded by excessive sweets and your eyes are dulled by the wonders you take for granted.

One day death will come for you and you will not see it coming. You will suddenly realize that you did not cherish what you had while you had it. I speak to my metaphorical opposite, for I know no one so crass as to be completely ignorant of death. Yet few can count non being and death as familiar companions. Not many have withstood encounter after encounter with the abyss. This is my blessing. I choose to focus on that which I have and that which I am. I can't be anything or anyone else.

Progression of Evil

Disclaimer: This is likely to be a pretty dark post. It's not very pleasant to read these things at this time of year, but my crisis doesn't respect schedules. Skip it and read it later if you are likely to be disturbed by morbid and depressing musing over the contents of my soul.

I love a good metaphor, and I finally have one for my life. Hence the title.

A few years ago I was in a board game group and we played a game called Shadows over Camelot. The basic idea of the game was that you and your friends were a group of nights trying to complete various quests. In the easy version of the game the mechanics of the game itself were all that stood against you. In the normal and hard versions someone in your group was a traitor.

The interesting mechanic though was the Progression of Evil. What this meant that for every good thing you did, the game did something unpleasant back to you. It might be laying down cards you had to beat, or siege engines around the castle. The point was that you had to work together to fight the progression of evil.

I think it appeals to something in all of us to believe that there is some balance in the universe. I also think that it's a big pile of shit. There are times when fewer people are suffering than at others. There is also no direct causal link between doing good and allowing evil to bloom.

The thing that makes me think of this is being very sick. I haven't been this depressed before. The simple reason is that I see no up or out. I have gone to more interviews than I can count, and still no job. Worse still I cannot see myself returning to school due to my medical limitations. My only hope is God, and that's where things get complicated.

I believe 100% that God can do something, and even in fact anything. I also understand that he doesn't have to. Many good people get illnesses and die and it is not a sign of faith being lacking. I have to admit that this darkness that is slowly eating away at my will to fight to live is actually an illness. Not everyone recovers.

I suppose what I am saying is that with every day deeper into the abyss I come closer and closer to accepting the concept that this could kill me. I'm not sure if I want it to or not... I suppose it depends heavily on what kind of life I might live if I survive for a few more decades. I personally don't think what I want plays very heavily into it. As long as there are people I love and want to keep from hurting I will fight to stay alive.

Which brings me back to the progression of evil. The illness is clever and finds new ways to hurt and isolate me, not all of which I am equipped to reverse. Eventually if my pain exceeds my capacity to cope it will be the end of me. I'm thinking about it rather unemotionally at the moment. Simply as unavoidable as weather. You can bring a jacket and umbrella but if you get stuck for long enough in a blizzard you will freeze. If I exceed my capacity to cope, and remain there for long enough, I will die.

God for me has become a part of my much larger net of coping mechanisms. On that score I can say without a doubt he is quite amazing. Yet he has yet to completely negate the struggle. I'm trying to avoid talking about it, but  I worry that one day soon he won't be enough.

Here's the crazy part:
It's not lack of love or desire that are failing me. My love for God is as great or greater than my love for my family. His love for me is greater still. Yet I have been on this journey for 6 years. He's been right beside me. I've survived more than I thought I would. Yet being in this hopeless place again for the second time in a decade is almost more than I can bare.

Is there a future? I can't see it. I'm well aware my views are limited by how I think the world works, and I do not understand a great many things in that category. I'm only talking about my view of myself. I'm incredibly self aware. That awareness tells me that my resources are down, and we have no way to resupply. I'm about to be forced to go on the least fun encounter with hard drugs, which is the kind the doctors think can fix things.

To tell the truth there is only one glimmer I can see in my life. That glimmer is that if my view is correct I won't suffer for very much longer. If I don't pull up and out, then it's not much further down until I reach the end. I have to believe that if there is no comfort left for me in this world there is hope. That hope might just sound like the bleakest future to healthy people. Trust me when I say that this illness reaching it's natural conclusion is the only think it gives me to look forward to.

Reality, dreams, and sleepless nights

I haven't written in awhile, mostly because there isn't much to report. I vary from day to day from depression, anxiety, to hope and pushing back against it hard.

Lately my old dream keeps coming back. I can hardly get to sleep without visualizing living my dream. Yet it frightens me that chasing that emotionally sometimes begins to feel like I'm peeling away from reality. I have real reasons to be afraid from totally seperating from reality. It was that sort of thinking that got me in the hospital.

Yet that is the crux of the problem. Faith is about believing without seeing. Which is also what being paranoid, delusional and psychotic starts out as. I don't see any way forward for me on chasing that dream in my day to day life. Further there isn't much I want to chase in my day to day life. The things I long for cost more than I can pay. The things I can reach don't satisfy.

Tonight I tried to step out further on faith and give the dream back to God. Which is why I'm sitting up at 3:15 AM writing instead of sleeping so I can do stuff later. He's so frustratingly silent. Further a part of me worries that my experience of God is part of my illness. I've been sick for a long time. Worse is that since the hospital and my mental break I don't even trust my senses anymore.

It should be strictly hyperbole that seeking and waiting on God can drive a man crazy. Yet here I am, living proof that things like that happen. The part of me with faith (which won't die) says that it isn't seeking God that has driven me to this broken reality. It's the enemy and dark forces who oppose me trying to keep me from achieving joy in him.

As for my logical side I remain unsure. I have to grapple with the concept that until others see something I can't be sure something exists. Even then there are some mass delusions that bother me. I'm afraid of losing myself again.

I want to talk about how large this dream is. First it requires me being able to walk away from the house I live in, which is harder than it looks. Second it requires some way to move to the land I dream of. That likely involves quite a bit of money, a minimum of 1.5 million dollars. I don't have that kind of career money available to me. My family doesn't either. It has to be entirely God. Which is a strange place, feelings wise. I cry out to him pretty much nightly. I haven't heard him in some time..... What am I supposed to do?

It's like that They Might Be Giants song, Dead,
"Now it's over I'm dead and I haven't done anything that I want,
or I'm still alive and there's nothing I want to do."

One thing I am sure of and that is that I'm doing enough as far as God is  concerned. I feel like my job in terms of his business is to survive this time period with some amount of faith intact. That's pretty easy as long as I don't blame him for my life as it is. Which for me means knowing that if he led me hear he has a purpose in this suffering. I guess that's all I have to say. One day all this will make sense. One day I'll know what God really plans for me.

Focusing on what is, not what isn't

I've reflected a little further on last night's depressive episode. I had to analyze my own envy, which is hard because envy in my mind is the greatest sin an intelligent man can commit. Envy that I find in myself is almost always a result of misreading how things are for others and assuming that provides information on how it might be for me.

More specifically I am bothered by the success of my ex wife. It bothers me that having done what she has done she can have the successes and rewards she has. I prayed pretty hard about it, because it made no sense to me how she could have more. The fact is that she doesn't. She has had about the same amount of minutes in her life as I have in mine (actually a year short of that), and she wanted and still wants things I don't.

It occurred to me that though it appears she is spiritually and emotionally fulfilled, my lack does not reflect her superiority. Here is the tricky bit: If I were to find myself in her shoes I would not find contentment. She found her bliss while younger because that is where her journey led. She has experienced many things I have not. Yet she will never experience some of the things I have. An apple cannot be compared with a mango. It doesn't work to say "This apple is green and therefor superior to the orange mango", or to say that one ripening faster, tasting sweeter, or making a better pastry reflects it's validity as a fruit.

My point is that I am on a journey, and I haven't come close to arriving yet. However I don't put that delay down as a failure. The problems I am unraveling are complex, and even if I don't succeed it will not make the attempt less worthwhile. I guess that is to say that I have faith. God can yet pull through. The future remains unwritten, and until the final breath is drawn we can make no judgement on the value of a life. Suppose we were to judge Einstein or FDR based on where they were at a younger age. FDR suffered massive setbacks, and had he let them stop him the world would be quite different today. I'm absolutely certain that many good or even great men have looked around at their peers and longed for complete peace that the average man finds.

Nothing beats experience. Further nothing in the long run beats faith. Even if I die with no achievements, children, or impact the faith I had remains. Assuming there is something beyond this life, that's what counts. God does not care what is in the bank, what is parked in the driveway, or the house you lay your head down in. He cares for the heart. In the balance sheet of the heart I remain far better off than I might be. I cannot see into other people's hearts, it isn't my place. My place is to be the best me I can. Which is rather cliched.

Who knows what is around the corner? A better life or the peace of death? Further agony? God knows. I'm fairly certain that I don't know what it is.

Focus defines reality. If I cannot focus on victory, I must focus on peace. If I can't focus on peace, I will focus on God. If I can't focus on God, then I will cry out until he allows me what meager peace I have today, when I affirm once again: I belong to him, my life is not my own. If I had my way I'd be dead already. He is the shepherd, and he is responsible for where he leads me. He alone knows if my life is worthy or wasted. Someday I hope he'll let me in on it.

Yet here I am

It's time to come to terms with that I'm losing...... got rejected for a job I wanted, constantly seeking health and not coming close..... I guess I just.... had faith for more.

I thought God would be here with me. I thought that all the pain I was going through was going to pay off, that He would take care of me, take me out of obscure suffering and into a place of.... I don't know. The thing is that having faith is all about trusting God to have a better plan, trying to let go of self focus..... I know that I'm not doing very well at letting go of self focus right now..... The pain is just worse than it has been recently.... I had been detaching from the mess my life is.

Apart from whatever hope remains that God isn't done with me.... I have nothing to look forward to. If I had a gun right now I would end it. It's not about self pity, or even depression, it's just being done. He is so far from me, so vacant in my life. I am aware I'm not seeking him lately. What am I supposed to do? I sleep more than I'm awake, and honestly when I'm awake I'm trying to make myself feel better. I'm looking for work, playing games, eating and smoking. I didn't stop having faith, I just have begun to lose hope.

My best hope is that I'm totally wrong. How I long to be wrong about what the world is. He may yet redeem this mess he's led me into. I will admit it is less of a miracle than what I know he already has done. How long I cry into the night, screaming at the abyss. Next to being wrong, the abyss of nothingness is the next best option. That being my overall impression that beyond the surface of mental and physical activity there is a great void. When I cease to breath I could embrace it, itl yet be as if I had never lived. There is no proof of life after death, apart from the word of the church and the general hints from God through scripture. God's never personally talked to me about it, though I think that has equal amounts to do with how he knows I long for death. He doesn't need to make it more appealing. Afterlife or not, I'm approaching death at maximum speed.

I just have a need, a need I really needed God to fill. That need is for hope, a future. I need somewhere to go. I'm on a long journey with no destination, apart from death. I'm fully aware that it's not a physical need to be psychologically complete. Plenty of people function without a higher destiny. I keep feeling like people around me are telling me that is the path to peace. I've tried so hard to go that way. I tried so hard to be happy at Heath. I actually succeeded more than I thought I would, to the point that I miss it now.

I need more. I need what only a power greater than me can provide. *sigh* Worse yet is that if tomorrow I were to ask for help from my family, we'd go find a therapist (or one I've already met).... and we'd start the same set of talks. The therapist asks me to describe my feelings. Then I describe them. They propose a different way of looking at life that amounts to basic focus on what is good. Eventually I relent, because I so badly want to believe that will be enough, and they say I'm nice and healthy. I am good at giving others what they want from me. I'm just not good at providing for myself. Christianity seems to imply that I'm not supposed to be good at filling my own needs.... Yet I have searched for God, I have asked for what I am missing. He has yet to provide that. Maybe he can provide oblivion, if life and completion aren't in his plan.

progress is slow, if it exists at all

I'm going to see the new therapist in a few hours, and to be honest that's one of the only reasons I'm writing. As dark as things are at the moment there is serious doubt that a future self will exist to read what I'm writing. Yet I seem currently incapable of death, and there are other things to talk about.

One is that the bank that holds my mortgage decided to jack up the payments by 20% this year. I am now for the first time paying more than my parents do for a house twice the size of mine, and on two incomes. I'm told this isn't currently my concern, but it delays my recovery. It's hard to come to a place where I believe things will get better when they are getting worse. It's hard to not feel like a victim when I have been attacked.

I don't want it to sound like I'm ungrateful. It's quite nice that everyone is supporting me so well, and it is what is currently keeping me unsuicidal (that, coffee, tobacco and meds). I feel more like I'm delaying the inevitable.

What am I sticking around for? I'm really just waiting to be the last to die. Given my self destructive nature I doubt I'll manage that. I cannot stand or come to grips with the concept of leaving my loved ones to deal with my death. Yet the fact is I'm surprised the pain has not yet overwhelmed my ability to feel empathy. Until that happens I'm stuck here.

Nothing else to report.

just.... worse

I'm only writing now because of a generalized sense of guilt over not writing for two days.

I'm not feeling well, if anything it's worse now than it was. I am now given three choices: To talk about it and sink deeper, to try to avoid talking about it and type on, and finally to not say a thing more. However a four line post does not really constitute therapy.

I'm suicidal, entering the phase where my brain tries to come up with an idea for how to kill myself. I have a plan for fighting this, broken into stages:
Stage one: Get more serious about taking my meds, avoid sedatives, start drinking coffee tomorrow.
Stage two: Passing the time period in which my meds should kick in, I begin smoking again.
Stage three: check myself into a hospital.

I have already alerted my family of the urgency of the present situation, and of this plan. I've given them plenty of time to try and solve it, in their way. Of course the problem is that all of my solutions are chemical..... But that is what it is.

I really try to remain peaceful after dark, as midnight approaches I must return to the things that bring me a measure of peace:

The complete void that is the universe. It seems counter intuitive, but the most calming thing I find is to think about how little anything means. Stating things as less than statements. One being less than two. The most peaceful is less than zero, less than nothing at all. Focus on the darkness that surrounds me.

Occasionally I do seem to like thinking about horror stories. It amuses me that I once feared these things, I have no idea why they comfort me now. I suppose it is somewhat uplifting to think of how it could be worse.

the new push

I met a new doctor yesterday, the kind that listens not the kind with pills. Anyway, the net result of our conversation is that I have been asked to write daily as treatment for my illness. I was more enthusiastic at the time I agreed to this, he's a good listener and talker.

Today wasn't particularly.... I don't want to talk about it, but I will anyway.

Had someone knock on my door and offer to mow the lawn.... A little background, my lawn has been overgrown for about a week.. or two. I don't pay TONS of attention to it. It really doesn't matter apart from strangers wandering in and telling me to mow it. Eventually someone complains to the city, or mows it while I'm not looking (which is nearly all the time), but what the heck? Anyway this is somewhere around the 10th time someone has offered to mow it (offer being a subjective word for somewhere between guilt trip and asking for money). It's been hot, for one, two I have been forced to do something almost every day this week. I don't get that for free, I have to push out every one of these.

So I set out to mow the lawn. Somewhere around a third of the way through it  I was borderline suicidal/homicidal about the whole thing. It used to not be a big deal. I can understand how to anyone else this seems like "no big deal". I wish it was just laziness, that I was understating how horrible I feel every time I push myself for someone else's mission.

It second only to how bad I feel actually saying anything about it. I would much rather allow it to pass, or slowly fester into part of my general distaste for humanity.

I will say  that part of the mistake was queuing up my "worship/god focus" playlist. I have been avoiding blaming God for this whole situation. I don't know who or what IS to blame... I suppose no one has to be, it would be nice if someone other than me felt like stepping up. My point is that I have been blaming myself. If I have the qualities that others have ascribed to me: intelligent, self aware, etc. then I have no-one but myself to blame for the mess I'm in. I have every right to try to kill the person wrecking my life, that person being me.

Yet I must come back to a separate point: I prayed specifically about the future, I believed in that future because of faith. I could say faith led me here. I could say that and it would be it's own kind of true.

See I don't worship faith. At the moment, in the location of desolation I am I consider myself free from the compulsion of worship. It still occurs to me that God could.... allow my general suffering and failure to lessen or even stop. He could put people in my life that lead me out of the desert. Proverbial desert, I have water at my beck and call. He has not, for his own reasons he doesn't want my suffering to stop at the moment. Which should make me distant from God. Yet that is not so. I am as close to dead as the world will allow me to be. I'm trying to get there, not very fast mind you. the balance of odds is that I will someday die, and given my 6 year track record it's more likely than not that I'll be happy to greet death when it gets here. God has nothing to do with it. Sometimes people die, and often enough it's because of lingering disease. Depression (or bipolar) is an illness... that tends to kill those with it. Some get there faster than others. I could write another couple pages on my envy of the dead and dying. However the point is made: misery.

*shrug*That's life. It sucks until it doesn't. I can't get too attached to anything, it's as likely as not to be gone tomorrow. I just move on, adapt, try to make the best of what I've got. For now I'm going to finish my game for the day, go start reading Children of the Mind for the first time (or perhaps some Lovecraft), then pass out.

Grocery shopping comes early.

still further yet to travel, the road ahead

Came to another crisis point today. Which just highlighted how poorly I have let go, how poor I am at trust. I just couldn't even figure it out.

The problem is that I long to function highly. Deeply, I long to exercise often, work until I'm dog tired, run myself ragged and come back for more. Yet beneath all of that is the lurking fear. Fear that I might lose myself again. Fear that I want to lose myself. That my self destructive impulses might take my sanity away, again. With it would go my freedom.

So I try to recede, sleep and accept my powerlessness. Yet it is so hard to trust, so hard to wait. Day after day I push ahead, trying new things, trying not to let my loved ones down.

I don't see the way out, because it isn't time yet. I still believe in that light at the end of the tunnel, I'm still breathing so it's not over yet. God can  still work his wonders. I'm just being taught patience in a very painful way.

my line in the sand

I've been trying as hard as I can, yet it feels like it can never be enough. The deck looks stacked in a certain way, why did I pick up the cards?

I thought I could win. I thought my confidence and power would last. I thought I was smart enough, strong enough, or maybe correct enough.

But this is my line in the sand. You can take away everything I have left. You can't have me. I'll get away. It seems like I'm fated to survive this.

I'm washing away, letting all my cares go. Wondering why they seemed to matter so, why is it hard to let go?

Maybe I don't know. Maybe I won't win. But then again winning is walking away to fight again. Today's a new day. I'll survive this too.

One day I'll understand. I'm sorry I didn't plan good enough to fall and rise again. Sometimes there is not enough.

I gave it all up. It's not mine anymore. You can't steal from a man who willingly gives it all away. Talk to God. I'm his and so is this stuff. I don't have to be enough.

Tomorrow will come. Justice will win. I don't have to make it so. God is faithful.

Trusting beyond my ability. Lusting for more than this world can give. Letting my lack be a lesson. Letting go.

This is my line in the sand, and the tide is coming in. It will wash away the filth and disease. Leaving just me.

Hopeless

I'm not one to subscribe to the things my depression tells me. I really try to hold onto some sense of hope and faith that I believe has helped me me get this far.

Which is why when I woke up this morning after another in a long line of bad nights of sleep believing the doctor would make things better, I was on my last hope in the "real world".

She did not seem to agree. I was told I need to pull myself back together. She did give me some new meds and instructions, which I will follow because the drugs are good and the instructions are to work out. I like working out.... it's like telling a kid to eat candy.

She said I likely won't be getting medicated for my ADD any time soon. Which to me means I won't be high functioning... it is what it is. I could rebel and abuse drugs, or I can obey. Since my family wants me to obey, and in my depressed state they're all that matters, I will obey. I'm also a horrible liar... probably one of the reasons I haven't succeeded as much as I wanted to.

I'm dealing with philosophical/spiritual issues of hopelessness. I have no idea if the dreams I had were delusions or not. At the moment they seem more like delusions. Yet following (and loving) God is a delusion if you approach it from a pragmatic/logical view. It's supposed to be. Maybe that's part of it's power. In the study of human potential I've lost track of people doing things simply because no one told them that they couldn't.

Yet... it's just another thing to give God. I have to give him back the vision I thought he gave me. Because he has done nothing to develop that vision into reality in my life. I don't deny he can do it. Guess what: He doesn't have depression or the same limitations I have. God knows (literally) what he can do. One day I'd like to know.

I was happy, for a brief moment, despite the absurd problems of my life. That was nice. Maybe someday I'll feel okay again. Not today though. Nope.

still trying to return to reality

My doctor has taken me off the drugs which allowed me to function on the level that I did. Further I'm lacking on help right now. So from day to day it appears I am alive. However at the moment I'm pretty depressed (chemically). My spirit fights on and if I fail to return to the functioning I was at, I'll find it in total oppressive sobriety. I will get stronger, because that's kind of what I do.

That's my update. The fact that I wrote a positive update on this nonproductive mindset shows that you can't crush hope. It's still there, stronger than ever.

Maslow 2 ‘I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane’

‘I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane’

Maslow seems to think he wasn't insane. If he was not insane then what am I? At times I do lose grip on the world around me, yet I never doubt myself entirely, or lose all grip on where I have been.

They say I lost it. I'm not one to disagree, but I'm not dead. As long as air passes these lips, I exist. As long as I like a good pipe at the end of a rough ordeal, I am Max. From the proof of me caring about other's feelings, I have empathy.

Fear however is not a vital ingredient. Caution is.

Evil is not necessary either. Judgement of myself when I can bare to judge is the closest I may come.

Worry is dead. It won't be missed.

In fact I find myself quite sane, despite what others may say. Time and patience will prove the words true or false. If I am wrong then I will develop my arguments better next oppertunity. If I am right then I will have the joy of living in the truth.

looking ahead, looking behind

Sorry in advance for sparseness of updates.

Spent some time in the hospital, *shudder* never wanted those words to pass my lips. Ugh, the meds are terrible, the only thing more terrible is how shameful I feel over the whole incident. Yes, Max feels shameful for the 1st time in his life. Mark your calendars, since it's NEVER going to happen again. Not as long as I live.

That's the news for today. Not working anywhere exactly, more pacing and waiting for the world to be ready. When you have done all you can to stand, stand.

Yes, in fact I do have a reason for being AFK for 7-10 days

So... yeah, that happened. That referring to my long forced absence from anything social.

I was not well, I had to submit myself to medical help. It was not easy. I wouldn't go there again had I the choice. Yet... I cannot say what the future may hold. Maybe we're free. Perhaps it is the dawning of a new era.

Then again, who am I? Just a tired guy who wishes he could find any neverending source of peace.

One day at a time. One step at a time. We will get through the other end of my recovery together. If you compulsively need details... you know how to find me.

I got so close to what I thought was a way out I forgot to look where I was going. Next thing you know I'm negotiating harder than I ever have for my life and freedom.

Sincerely,

Max