...at least we can joke about it now, what do I know

Happy new year, Drifterman!

 

thank you! same to you!

I am at the "I wanna stop smoking, and for that reason I will not drink for a while, also quit coffee too" point.
Reasons for that: I am smoking way too much, which gets to me and make my gums hurt, aslo cancer and shit.
Also, I kinda wanna have a clearer head, so booze can go for a while, too.

preparing for that super slow brain, always on the brink of a nervous breakdown mood and the sleepiness.
starting smoking again bc I was hanging with a dude I liked and we smoked a lot of pot. din't go anywhere with
the dude, so this also feels a bit like a clean up after that.

 

Day 5 of smoking cessation.

The usual first day emotions have come and gone: Clouds of rage, the wish to throw shit, set shit on fire, strangle people, intense feeling of hyperreality, intense feeling of no reality, bursts of laughter, spells of absolute brain frost.

I am slowly normalizing the no-nicotine thing. Still phases of slow thinking and waves of emotionality, but everything within expected margins. I have quit smoking so often now, I could be my own fucking tour guide.

Had two dates, one dude, one gal.

The gal had covid today, so no date. The dude was the most overthinky dude I have seen in a long time. Also not good at listening. I told him him postponing our date for eh, 6 weeks in weird iterations
kind of was a no go for me. As was the constant mentioning of his girlfriend - I am not super anti poly, but seriously, dude. DUDE. Have better manners about it.
After two hours of conversation about why I wouldn't date him, he insisted that I date him. Dating men is a weird sort of fun, sometimes. Well, he's off the list.

Now waiting for the gal to get better. Stupid covid.

 

Saw an old friend, the oldest, really, yesterday.

He is in a bad way. His mind has gone so hostile, corroded by paranoia. And alcoholism. And psychosis. Not much left.

I wanted to run, seeing him like that. Took the life right out of me. He refuses to struggle, always. Too proud, too hurt, I don't know.

And now he's almost all gone. Plans to leave town, claims it drags him down, almost no one in his life he had no bitter words for, kind ones, ones of love, none.

I held out the longest from all of his old school friends. Most, if not all people, who still give a fuck about him (a handful, which is way more than you might expect) came to be his friends via me. Not claiming any hero status, it's just

For a long time I tried and put energy and time and all this wholesome shit - and now I just want to fucking run and never have to see the person he's become.

And I'm not even wrong. It's the only real move, run for cover when someone goes nuclear like that. But I loathe it. Its fucking bleak days, fam. Nothing to win, can only run and try to mourn the friend I had years back and run away from that hollow, sad and angry dude he's become

Fucking shitshow

 

Stay with him. Help him for old times' sake. Help him gain his trust in humanity back.
Your paths crossed right now for a reason. He needs you.

 

While I sympathize with what you said, a lot, Shady, this course of action is out of the question.
Firstly, because I cannot teach him anything he does not want to learn. Believe me I have tried, over the course of more than 15 years.
I can be conceited about my own abilities at times, but in this case? I fully appreciate I can only raise my hands, let it go and fucking lament.
I have no agency over the souls of others, I cannot turn their hands away from their own thing.

The only thing that I can find some solace in is that we used to be a team of two, and while the situation might be shit,
I can still salvage half of us, even if that is just myself (and look at the deeply ingrained self-devalueing here, guys. Just. Myself.)

Secondly I cannot help him, because I am at the moment in a tail spin sorta situation. At least in part due to that situation.
Don't want to put it all on this one thing, but looking at this issue and the hopelessness of it, and the estrangement, fuck me dead, that's gonna affect you.
I don't know, I might try to help him in some capacity at some later point, but for the time being I have to self-right that shipwreck-horny ship of my soul.


Been using porn again and generally not in a good spot at the moment. Drug use is down. Smoking cessation has been 3 weeks or something.
Some of the pain/confusion/drive to use might also still come from suppressing that (in me very strong) habit.

Screen use is up. Watching stuff, gaming, porn use. Been noticing degradation in attention span.

Phsyical well being is a mixed bag. The current no smoke is a nice buff (or rather a nice removal of a strong debuff). Have been eating
half ways okay, which is good for my standards. (Tend to eat crap and/or too little, especially when smoking a lot.)

Not been moving much. Full time office bitch job, have been procrastinating doing yoga or any kind of work out.

Journalling/mediation, forget about it. Been meaning to get back into it. Been meaning to do a lot of things, recently.


I can write all of this shit down, and I'm still in denial about it. Weird dual thinking. Weird looking at your own brain doing two things at once.

Ah.

I should stop trying to think and just get out of the house.

 

I totally see your point.
In that case, the best course of action is just to let him now that you'll be there for him for old times sake if he ever needs you and then keep your distance.

Also, helping others might help you in the process.

I also know how difficult Journaling and meditation can be to get into sometimes, but it's all worth it.

 

ye its worth it.

I just sometimes lose the reason why we do it so very thoroughly.

anyhoo. sort of back on track. and sort of not. picked up smoking weed again, which is dumb, I know.
but I most often do that in spells of maybe ten days and then quit for half a year. not super concerned.

I am at least moving again. slow steps. it's been a lot of shit lately. I feel its okay to slowly rebuild. I got out of
the good old "catastrophy! do nothing, lament and do porn its all too late anyways aaaaaaaaah!" phase way smoother
than, say, other times before.

you are of course right. just texted him. thank you for these clear and concise instructions, I was rather lost on the matter. the part where "I do not have a solution, so I cannot say a thing" is stuck in your mind, if you know what I mean.

ja man. I had two friends over on the weekend who are both doing the break-up character ark as we speak. we had food, baked stuuf, got baked, watched stupid tv.
great times, even if I sort of overdid it, but hey.

enough for today. time to meet friends and drink the dull pains of corporate life awaaaaay.

yeah I know its tuesday, i know i know

 

I really don't.

 

Ah. Sometimes I see a problem that seems so big, that I feel it would be pointless, dishonest to try to do something about it. Then I do nothing.

Can also happen that I would know how to start attacking the problem, but I am not the one having it. So I can't solve it.

And then I don't know how to comment without giving bad and unwanted advice. And I say nothing.

Thats what I meant.

 

Yeah I see your point now and i know that you could feel lost, but I believe that trying is enough even if it doesn't lead to the desired outcome.
As for seeing others in trouble, it's good to help, but it's not always right to do so. Depends on the situation.

We're all learning in this life.

Hope you find the answers and peace of mind.

 

Eh. Got covid in my home. Got home office'd all of a sudden. Hit to mood. Also an ex I was planning to see cancelled, wasn't the first time. Feel dumb for still being in contact.
Feel a bit cooped up, working from home, miss shit talking with the colleagues. Was close to using porn just now, wrote this here instead. Need to sleep over it.

 

Yep, I'm okay. Ended up leaving my flat, staying at a friends place - until he got covid, too. Then I moved in with my family, as their flat was empty for the weekend, so I could make sure I was still negative. Which I was.

Actually, it was a good experience, in a way. Reconnected with both of my parents during that time. Hadn't spoken to my dad in roughly a year. But not talking to your parent in times of pestilence and war is a shitty thing, so I did the thing and met him. Was a nice get together.

First two weeks of the war I was just stoned all the time. And I worked a lot, almost two weeks in a row. Helped processing, I have dropped the weed since, but started smoking, again, in the process, like the idiot that I am. But hey, its weird times, and something had to give, I guess.

 

long time of being lost on the road.

for some reason I have started to move in better directions. March saw me counsel, therapize and sort way too many people.

So I decided that April would be "No fucking life advice" April. Stepped away from a role that had become overburdgeoning and warping my friendships.
Also noted how often I have the impulse to hand out my very questionable advice when not a bloody soul asked for it.

It was good, and I have decided to cut back on that behaviour in general.

Like my ability to be an argumentative asshole (and run over people successfully) the life advice thing can go into the quiver of skills you only use sparingly, but not on autocast anymore.
If that makes sense.

Now I have also dropped talking about my exes and I am trying to get them out of my system. I have drastically lowered the amount of contact with the one I was still talking to.

And that stuff was somehow enough to convince me I can develop myself and, to some degree steer that process, too.

It has been some time that I had lost belief in that possibility, being frozen in a certain, very uncomfortable spot in my life, honestly.

And then spring comes around and says: time to melt and move, fucker.

And there we go, again.

 

I attended a workshop on the topic of transactional analysis (and no, it got squat to do with banking) some weeks back in Italy.

Its basically a system for looking at interactions between people and in what sort of mode they are emotionally, separating into
fancy terms like adult, parent, child and an assortment of subcategories. Aim of the whole thing is to notice under what kind of
mode you are operating under at any given point.

There was also a section called games, as in the subconscious repetitive interaction patterns people get into. We had a 1. - 8. list section
on how these kinds of games might feel/play out - and I had a fucking laughing attack, cos you could have just as well labelled that section
"My mom" or "My childhood in 8 steps" and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Anycrap. It's just a tool, looking through the old shit thru new lenses. And I have been thinking about myself using that lens during a walk
this morning and wondered how little time of my life I actually feel like I am in the possession of my full range of options, that ego-state
called adult.

They had another thing, not necessarily a TA thing, called life script, basically: The totality of ideas you believe yourself to be true about
what your life is, was and is going to be. Subcosnciously. Because of cause.

I have not been feeling like I am enough, like I am going places, like I make sense much in life, and I have a hard time doing so in regards to the future.
Not that I haven't tried, but belief? I think I need to look hard into what I assume to be true about myself and then start shifting that.



Don't be worried, this workshop wasn't a cult or something, it's just new perspectives on the same old life.

 

About to make some changes. Have had a friendship/occasional friendship+ with an ex of mine for some years on and off.

When I decided to be less of a therapist in April, the relationship with them was by far the most affected, as a huge chunk of that
was me managing their emotions. And weirdly that seems to have been the thing holding that crude, unbalanced thing in place.

Since I don't take care of them anymore, I do literally not care anymore. They have moved to a different city anyways and the whole
relationship is made up by a lot of interpersonal scar tissue.

I have a phone call with them scheduled for Monday and I actually sat down and mapped out what I want to communicate and
what my counterpoints to the expected rebuttals are. Like a total nerd.

I do not even feel a lot about it now, its just a thing that needs doing.

The other thing is my day job. It's boring and dumb as fuck, and my coworkers are mostly about to leave for that reason.
I might go down from full time to three days a week, they cannot really afford to lose anyone and will likely comply.
And that will make time to find a job I actually care about. I am a very low cost creature and money is not my primary issue
at this time. But boring, useless work just kills my brain.

So, we'll see where these steps lead me.

 

The ex cancelled, because of course they did. Said they were sick. Annoying, but I also don't really need them to let go of them. Summer in the city, high on emotions, and a reigniting crush on a friend of mine.

Bit much, but we're holding on. At least its not boring.

 

Huh. Have been on occasional pmo past weeks and, without intention, stopped last weekend. Been shitting myself about it being an issue. Job fucks my head, its absolute nonsense, but sorta tool centre stage

Now I feel like a lantern burning with tainted oil. Everythings okay, but there is a nagging feeling of wrongness in my stomach, faint, yet present.

Time to take this serious again. Been making developments in other departments, but I have to get back to this work. All hands to battle stations, ra ra ra.

 

Processing a lot of BS.

I use to ruminate a lot on exes and past relationships. I use it as a cover to flee to when I don't want to feel (other) stuff.

Also I have a bit of a bad habit talking shit about exes. Not as in badmouthing them ultra hard, just complaining. I think to a degree
that is a cover up for being ashamed of not having had too many or too nice relationships.

It's good for comedy sometimes, but I have better venues of doing that.

So many of the issues I have nowadays are somewhat functional adaptions to past shit. Functional as in they did the trick but at a steep price
and with diminishing returns. Some spells are cast from your own fucking hitpoints, man.

Been dissolving my (only mental) connection to exes. It's a slow process, but I am getting to that "I love(d) you, but I love me more" kinda
state. Only really possible if I am feeling good about myself, the self love part. But I have been getting a bit better at that, doind stuff with friends,
not moping at home as often.

But its actually more common that being msyelf is a great thing to be.

Weird thing is to acknowledge: The rumination is not really about being in love, its like a drug I am using. The PMO is not really about sex, its just
a drug I am using.

I know this should be common knowledge to me; but good luck to me not losing the focus on that distinction in the bloody day to day.

But the more I keep awareness of these things, the higher the rate of getting rid of these old shticks, of shifting them into something more
suited to an actual life featuring me.

Bit like dismantling old tools of war. Demilitarize those dirty bombs and do some fucking gardening of the soul instead.

 

Hah.

Finally had that talk with that ex.

It went according to plan. Its a riddle I never could have solved and today I finally surrendered it to be a part of my past.

I feel like a witch who finally lets go of a seven year old spell sustained by my own lifeblood.

Tired and so relieved. Let all these things fall to the ground, become undone, free to take new form.

Finally truly alone again. Exactly what I need to go on.