Just a little bit crazy

June 17, 2016

Starting back at 1

How does one just throw away 27 years of sobriety? I keep asking myself that question as I think of my father who did exactly that. 

For whatever reason my father, that takes anti-psychotics to treat paranoid schizophrenia, decided it was a good idea to buy a fucking 30 pack of Coors Light and drink 19 of them in quick succession. 

The result is just as one may expect, he blacked the fuck out on his driveway, landing face first in his attempt to get the mail. 

One of the neighbors saw him and called 911 and he was rushed to the hospital. 

Then at 8:30 I get four calls from both my mother and father, one after the other. My heart starts to race thinking my aunt from my previous post has passed. 

I listen to my father’s voicemail and he non-chalantly informs me that he’s in the ER and needs me to pick him up because he fell after having a beer. 

I just don’t understand. Why ruin something you built so hard to build? He put so much distance between him and his past that for whatever reason he risked it all, including his life. 

What I hate the most is that I get it. Being an addict myself (not with alcohol) I know what it’s like to use something to ice the pain. He’s icing the pain and he was willing to destroy everything for a momentary solution. 

I asked him if he was on antidepressants and his big box of pills seems to contain everything but those. He laughed at me when I asked him. Clearly he doesn’t see the problem. 

My husband was furious with my father when he got to the ER. I’ve never seen him that angry before. Honestly it was weird. At one point I asked him to bring it down a couple notches because while it was deserved and justified it wasn’t helping the situation. No matter how angry one is with someone fucking up with their vice getting angry and making him feeling like shit is 100% counterproductive. 

After dropping my dad off and discovering his 6 beers was really 19, I went home to recoup. I had had enough and listening to him lie and tell me what he thinks I want to hear was frustrating me. There was nothing else I could have done. He was an adult man acting like a child. At least with a child you could have it committed to rehab or a psyche ward but someone that is coherent and present (most of the time) there is absolutely nothing one can do. My husband and I racked our brains trying to come up with some kind of solution. What it boiled down to was leaving him to make his own fucked up choices. 

The next morning (today) I went over to see how he was doing and if he had gotten more booze after we left. I didn’t find any in my quick search, but with my dad that doesn’t mean shit. He tends to hide his poisons. 

I found him wrapped in a blanket on the couch, staring blankly at the TV. I know how he feels, if he does feel any shade of remorse. I really understand. So, with a fresh perspective I tried to tell him what it is I would want to hear after I fucked up. I basically told him to keep calm and carry on. I let him know that we are all so angry because we love him so much and don’t want to see him do this shit to himself. 

He just stared at me. 

In the end I took his car key, cash, and credit cards. There is money hidden somewhere in the house but I don’t know the location and he is only aware of one of them, I guess. (So my mother thinks.) 

I really looked up to my dad. I never realized that I did until he disappointed me. I took his positive change for granted and without it I feel lost. It’s almost as if my whole childhood is a lie. He is lie. He is a fallible human being. 

He was my hope that I could get over my own demons. 

Today I remind myself that I don’t want to be him. I don’t want to let my past transgressions dictate how I handle situations which baffle me. 

June 6, 2016

Cancer Kills Humor

My aunt is dying. There is no other way to put it and for herself or her children to keep trying is… I cannot think of the appropriate word.  I don’t mean to appear callous or cruel, because I don’t want her to die just as much as they, but I have accepted that in her case the possibility of recovery is next to none.

She has thyroid cancer.  Apparently it is the kind that is the fastest growing and most deadly, and unfortunately occurs primarily in men. It would appear that time is telling her that it is time to go. The two doctors she has seen have flat-out denied her treatment, because of where its at and how large it is they don’t want to take on the risk of operating on her and have her die. (Granted she’s going to die anyway…) The lie she told my mother was that she just needed to have radiation to shrink it and they would operate.  Whether she intended to deceive my mother has yet to be seen.

Before I knew all of this, and was aware that the doctor had suspected it to be cancer, my mother asked me to send my aunt, my mother’s best friend, a get well card because she could use something to perk her up. What I did instead was piss her and her daughter off.

I thought my card was humorous, it joked that “a bible verse would be good right about now, too bad you have a heathen for a nephew” and I thought my personal message was spontaneous and off-the-cuff funny. However, it was not received in the manner I intended it to be taken. For me saying “I may not pray, but…” I might as well have said “Fuck you, I hope you die” because that was the response I got.

Since then her daughter has unfriended me on Facebook, which means any hope for an apology from me has absolutely dissipated.

I know when I’m at fault.  Hell, I blame myself for everything eventually. That is why I have an addictive personality.  I always feel that I am a mistake, not that I just make them.  So I will eventually come to the conclusion I need to apologize. BUT if you unfriend me on Facebook that is guaranteeing I will say nothing of the sort. My pride on the matter is petty and ridiculous, I know that. It is the conscious effort that goes into the action where I find umbrage.

So, I sent another card to my aunt to apologize.  This time however it was a religious card that said NOTHING about prayer (amazing, I know), because in fact I do not pray and felt any mention of it would add insult to injury. I apologized and told her that there have been only 3 women in my life that helped shape me to be the person I am today: my mother, grandmother, and her. Fingers crossed she won’t see it as me mocking her faith or telling her she deserves to have cancer. Who knows in this wacky world.

The reality of the situation is everyone handles crisis and grief differently and we need to be patient with the ones when something in the vein of my situation occurs. The thing I find humorous is that it was the cousin that unfriended me who said exactly that many years ago.

May 2, 2016

Definition of Insanity

Let me preface this post by saying that I am crazy. As in a legit form of mentally unbalanced. I sometimes wonder if I am bipolar, however when I was tested for it many years ago I was diagnosed with depression instead. If that diagnosis was correct, that is something I still suffer from to this day. For all I know it could be my mental sorrow that is making me feel this way.

For the past six months I have been working the 12 steps of recovery (currently on 4) and doing some serious inner self-examination. I know what I have done has barely gotten into what really lies beneath my facade and I could definitely be doing more. Regardless of my level of dedication, what I have learned is still just as profound: I am a hurt little boy fearful of rejection and being discarded. 

In my process of breaking down past resentments I found a reoccurring theme of people “betraying” me or “ditching” me. As I wrote them out I honestly could have copied and pasted the same response to each of my mental inventories. 

What I find interesting is that even though I haven’t gotten to the part where I examine my part in all of this yet, already I subconsciously have been putting the pieces together and seeing that I may be the cause of my pain.  

I think I am guilty of playing games with people, friends, acquaintances, to test their loyalty. My tests are cruel and unnecessary, but because I had someone hurt me in the past, I have made a mandatory obstacle course each person in my life must run because I am fearful of being hurt again. So instead of just thinking it was that one person who was untrustworthy and moving on with my life I let myself believe all people are not to be trusted. 

In doing that I have inadvertently (or on purpose) made myself a perpetual victim. 

No one will ever live up to my standard of loyalty. Ever. I expect entirely too much and no one will ever reach the “Josh Standard of Friendship,” and to make matters worse I only hold these trials with those who don’t deserve it and in doing so ignore those who are able and willing to step up to my unnecessary challenges. 

What is even more peculiar is that I walk this strange line of wanting to have a deep connection with someone and wanting to isolate myself from everyone. It makes for chaotic thoughts that drive me insane and act out in damaging ways. 

Right now I want to pull away from all of my “friends.” I want to distance myself from everyone I know and I cannot explain why. That’s a lie… I am hurt because these weird games I play with people to test their “loyalty” fail and because of it I am hurt and want to run away. 

And yet I know these things and I don’t care. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to start all over because nothing and no one will ever live up to this image I have in my head. I have these expectations on companionship that no one will ever fulfill. And try as I may to let them go I cannot. I cling to them like some sort of security blanket. Quite possibly because I want to remain the victim forever. I want people to feel sorry for me. I want someone to reach out to me and care for me because I DO NOT care for myself. I hate myself. And in the end I don’t trust myself… 

The desire to recoil into the shadows of my own misery is very strong but I have to fight them because I know I will expect people to come after me, comfort me, and give me the love I so desperately crave but they WILL NOT. Ultimately no one cares and they will chock up my manic actions to me just being crazy; and they will be right. 

Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results and that is what I am doing. Even though I KNOW I have to let go of these antiquated ideals of friendship I won’t. I downright refuse, thus proving that I am mentally unhinged. 

November 5, 2015

I’m 30, ladies and gentlemen!

Molly Shannon’s character embodies precisely how I feel. However Sally O’malley was proud of being half a century I am a little distraught about being one third of that time. In the beginning I didn’t know where this fear came from, but the more I thought about it that the reality came to light. 

The simple answer is I’m no longer a kid. I am an adult and getting older. There is no denying that fact. Scratch below the surface and there is the remnants of dreams long since gone. The hope that I would have accomplished so much more by the time I was this age. Yet that is very much not the case and instead my life is just beginning. I wasted the youth I had doing nothing productive. Fuck me. 

Then below that fossilized failure there is the granite of where now no one will want to fuck me. Yes I am married so that shouldn’t be a problem, but everyone wants to at least be wanted by someone else. She wants to feel attracted and desired. In the gay world once you’re thirty you may as well be dead. Just a quick look through a craigslist ad and you’ll see that top billing among “no chubs” and “no Fems” there is “only under 30.” What hurts the most is the poster is more than likely in their fucking forties so who are they to cast that stone? 

When I was in my younger years I never understood why people were so upset about turning 30. They were still the same in every way. The only change was that the number was different. That is very typically a “Josh” response. I have half empathy where I can sort of see the other side but not quite. It isn’t until I have experienced the same agony and pain do I know what it is like to be consumed. 

Now that it is just a fact that I am 30, I still feel the same. I’m still the same person with the same desires. There is no difference other than my response when asked my age. And no one will want to fuck me from a personal ad but I shouldn’t be there in the first place. Fuck them and their conceited posts. No one wants to fuck them either. That’s why they are so desperate their posting ads on Craigslist! They might as well be posting it in Parade magazine or on that one wall in every porn shop. 

As to not achieving my goals… After some reflection I realized that it is ultimately my own fault for where I am. There is only one captain on the SS DRAMA QUEEN and that is Josh. No one else calls the shots. Instead of feeling bad about it I will change it and put engines to full steam ahead. The only way to change tomorrow is by changing today. 

Finally, I am an adult. Yes. I am worthy of the title by age alone. But however old I am I still act like a kid. I had a Star Wars birthday cake for christs sake. (My mother in law knows me well.) I read comics, I play nerdy card games, I play D&D, and I WILL be one of those nerds that is dressed like a Jedi when Episode VII premieres in December. It’s all state of mind and if I let the fear and panic consume me those are just going to bring down the ship. 

Now is the time to get serious. My twenties were for fun, making new friends, and having unforgettable experiences that only a dumb twenty something would do. However fleeting life is (and it is fucking short) I still have enough time to become a journalist, a published novelist, an appraiser, and a father. It is all up to me.