October 10, 2018

Life is exhausting. I know I’m the first person to notice that, so you’re welcome for mentioning it.

On a happier note, I stood up for myself at work and it went well. I didn’t trip or pee myself or run into a wall. I didn’t stumble (too badly) over my words. I didn’t break down hysterically crying. I DID mention how uncomfortable I was, but that’s pretty much as good/bad as it got. My boss is awesome.

Anyway, that went well and then I got chicken for dinner and fell asleep on the couch so in case you were wondering, I’m a depressed, divorced, 50 year old man who’s about to have his reawakening in a mediocre rom-com.

I hope life is a movie.

Day 122 – Rom com hopes

October 8, 2018

Bad news bears. My mom’s dog died. It’s hard to explain to people when your dog is ACTUALLY your best friend how hard this is.

It’s hard. Loss is hard.

I can’t seem to eat, drink, sleep, exercise, laugh, run, avoid, work, or beg the sadness away. How do people get out?

Day 120 – Sad Day

October 1, 2018

All I do is work and eat and work and sit and try to stay up and sleep and work. Do other people have hobbies? Energy?

I have a writing deadline… So far, all I’ve written is my name at the top of the page. You do not write your name at the top of scripts.

Day 113 – Work Work Work Work Work Work (thanks, Rihanna)

September 27, 2018

YOU GUYS. If I’m not having an anxiety attack, I must be asleep. Actually, I have anxiety even when I’m sleeping so never mind. Constant anxiety.

I am missing him so much. I don’t know what to do with myself. WHAT IF HE STOPS LOVING ME WHILE HE’S AWAY? That would be weird, right? Right? I can’t tell. Is this why people take meds?

My parents’ dog is not doing well. My mom will be devastated. Too much tragedy for my family. We do not have the greatest coping mechanisms, but we do have the worst. Like usual, I am dealing with all my feelings by watching TV and eating. What do other people do? When will I have better coping skills? Help.

Day 109 – So many feelings.

September 24, 2018

I had a terrible dream. I was desperately begging someone not to do something and they kept doing it. I’ve never felt that desperate before. I was crying and begging and watching him ignore me. I felt powerless and hopeless simultaneously. It was the worst.

But then I woke up like: Oh, thank god, that was just a dream.

But no. The reality is so much worse. I woke my boyfriend up to comfort me because I was completely losing it.

To realize that your real life is worse than your worst nightmare??? Fuck me.

Day 106 – Waking Nightmare

September 22, 2018

Slept on the couch. Sometimes you need to get away (usually I need to get away from myself, but that’s not easy to do). This time I had to get away from someone else.

That’s what I’ve found with this (maybe all?) relationship(s) – two weeks of happiness and enjoyment followed by one night of arguing and frustration and not hearing what the other person is saying. And when I’m upset I need space. So I took space, then got angrier, then had to watch Friends to distract myself.

I felt like I was trying to share my dreams with him, and he was telling my why they didn’t work. I had to walk away from that. But was I just being dramatic? He’s allowed to have dreams and plans and wants, too. I literally feel like I never know how I’m supposed to feel.

Day 104 – Dreamin’

September 15, 2018

I spent the day helping my friend move. He has helped me move no fewer than 4 times. I have helped him move 0 times. (He’s never moved…calm self.)

I hated every damn second of it. When I moved, I had approximately 1,000,000 things to move and he helped me do it without complaining even once. He had: a bed, dresser, box of clothes, some little knickknacks, shoes in a suitcase, a few board games, and a bookshelf. You would have thought based on my annoyance and exhaustion that he had as many things as I have. Not even close. AND we had help. AND I barely did anything. I complained when he asked me to make his bed while he carried in other items from the U-haul. I sighed and moaned when I had to take the clothes out of the garment bags, and not just leave them there. I almost hyperventilated when he asked me to go through one of the boxes when I was just uselessly sitting on the floor pretending to be useful. How dare he?!?

My instinct is to blame how overall tired I am from being sad all the damn time. Sadness takes a lot out of you. I imagine it’s similar to hatred/anger. I wouldn’t know, because I feel them both simultaneously, so I can’t tell them apart. It is exhausting to be wrecked from sadness, though.

I have almost no patience for anyone or anything. I get upset when people ask things of me or expect a normal level of participation/help/being present/caring/showing up. So I “helped” my friend move but really I wanted to sleep in the corner and believe I was anywhere else, living someone else’s life.

Not moving that stupid, heavy dresser with its stupid, heavy clothes and its stupid, heavy expectations that I be normal.

Day 97 – Just be normal

August 23, 2018

I would like to think I was doing something important, like saving a child from a burning building or solving world hunger or figuring out how to wash laundry without actually having to wash laundry. But I wasn’t. I was talking on the phone. And then I was rewatching Parks and Recreation when I fell asleep on the couch. Don’t be too jealous of my glamorous life.

Day 74 – Oops, I Did It Again

August 19, 2018

Yes, I have life-invading anxiety. And no, I cannot always tell the difference between real anxiety (like, intuitive anxiety) and general anxiety (like, fuck you and your sense of well-being anxiety).

But I had a TON of anxiety this weekend. Some of it felt specific. All of it felt terrible. I swear, y’all, my stomach has been in knots all last week and this weekend.

I have decided it has to do with someone in particular. But I don’t know WHY. He hasn’t done anything to warrant it. Have we not been connecting as well? Am I just struggling because that’s life? Am I inventing things to worry about because life isn’t stressful enough? I DON’T KNOW!

Day 70 – Anxiety, That Fucker

Update: We talked and it felt normal. This didn’t 100% erase the anxiety, but it really helped a lot. Like 95% erased. I swear, there is a reason anti-anxiety meds were invented. I should probably take those…

July 18, 2018

Late at night, when I’m lying in bed, I like to replay all the mistakes I’ve ever made in my entire life on loop, and feel embarrassed about them all over again. Do you ever do that? I still cringe about something I did when I was 4, and then more things when I was a teenager, and still more things that I do every single day.

It’s like this endless cycle of things I wish I’d said as an angry retort at some point during the day – like when that lady cut me in line at the store I wanted to say “Fuck off, you entitled piece of shit. You are not better than me, so stand in line like I’ve been doing before I make you,” or someone in a skirt yelled out to me that I look like a man, I wish I’d said, “I still look better as a man in a skirt than you do as a woman in one”…Or something much better and wittier – so a series of things I wish I’d said to idiots throughout the day, and then a reminder of one very embarrassing thing I did at some point in my life, followed by a flashback of one VERY embarrassing thing I did at some point in my life, pursued closely by one VERY EMBARRASSING thing I did fairly recently until I’ve convinced myself that all I do is embarrassing things and I’m never leaving my bed or my house again. And once that thought is complete, I remember the LADY at the STORE…

I cringe at myself for the things I’ve written before, the angsty teenager that I was, the dumb things I’ve said or done over the years (usually with the best of intentions) until all I can do is hope that everyone else hates themselves as much as I do or that there’s a magical pill out there in the world that can stop this loop but not actually kill me. Are there people out there who live without anxiety? Who don’t hate themselves and everything they’ve ever said or done? Come at me, bro.

That is not me. I am cringing about 10 different things as I write this. I’m very capable of cringe-typing multitasking.

Day 38 – Embarrassment runs amok.