Apocrypha

Violence in the media is caused by the revenge fantasies of the masses. If nobody had these revenge fantasies, nobody would watch the violent movies and shows- they would simply hold no appeal.

While I resent the drive for 'sameness' in world cultures, at the same time I find myself longing for sameness in others. It's not only that I wish to be accepted and appreciated despite my differences, but that I would like to share those differences with other people.

I find myself being intolerant of other people's differences, or at the very least, dismissive of them. This provides a good deal of conflict between some of my friends and I, and prevents me from getting attached to very many people.

At the root of it, perhaps it is an issue with empathy. An empathetic person would be able to appreciate another person's perspective without having to share it. I think that's a healthy way to live cooperatively with other people, and I would like to learn how to do that.

I think it all stems from an unfulfilled childhood need for mirroring. As I've said in earlier entries, if people don't feel the same way I do about something, it feels like a failure to give me permission to feel that way.

Here is a link to something that goes into 'mirroring' a little bit:

http://www.narcissism101.com/Beginning/alicemiller.html

How do I recover from this? Perhaps I'll bring it up in therapy.

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

You know, most of the time I get down on myself for my myriad of flaws. I'm always worried about the way I look to other people, how it sounds when I speak. And much of the time this is for good reason because, if living with my dad has taught me anything, I have the social skills of a mushroom. I'm very inappropriate, and I don't have much of an 'appropriateness' filter. Trying to learn how to speak to and around people is a constant, ongoing struggle.
If I had to guess, I think it has something to do with my disorder. I read an autobiography by two schizophrenic men, and there was something in there that really made a light bulb go off. I can't quote it exactly, but it was something about how most people compare their thoughts to reality and check in, and schizophrenic people can't do that as much. So if they think they can fly, their brain doesn't step in to remind them that that isn't possible. I think I have a less severe form of that, mostly in regards to how I think people will react to me and how appropriate what I'm saying is.

That aside, I have come to recognize one strength of mine, and that's my adaptability. I have the power to change fairly quickly sometimes. I can become a kinder, more aware, more sensitive person as time goes on.

A year or so ago, I used to say things like 'I hate slutty behavior'. I thought only people who loved each other should have sex with each other, and I looked down on people who did otherwise. That has changed. I don't even believe in using the word 'slut' anymore. At first I tried to narrow my definition down to people who have sex to be liked, who don't respect themselves, but it's not as though they deserve to be shamed, because they've been taught to disregard their own desires, to "earn" their love, and it's cruel to shame them for that. I'm also slowly starting to cease over-valuing virginity, and I'm exploring the idea of polygamy.

A year or so ago, I used to hate my mom's dog. I blamed him for the things he would do, like peeing all over the house. I made myself realize that he's just an animal, and that he can't help what he does if he hasn't been trained properly, and I think I'm starting to like him a lot. He seems cuter to me now.

Three years ago, I only needed to read one psychology book to start changing how I thought about the world and how I felt. I got rid of most of my shame and depression (though not all of it).

So, yeah. I feel pretty good about that. It's one of the few things I'm really good at. I just wish I could apply it to other areas of my life, like avolition. But I guess avolition is just what it is- it's hard, it's a disability, and it's going to take time to overcome. In the meantime a little extra confidence about what I can do shouldn't hurt.

You know, it seems like as time goes by I uncover a new layer of sexism in the way my family has treated me. Yet again this realization comes from comparing the way they've treated me with the way they've treated my brother.

When I was thirteen, I was cutting myself. My parents put me in a mental institution twice. I've been to one two more times since then.

My brother used to cut himself. My brother used to do drugs. My brother used to hit me, and not in a friendly sibling manner. Why was he never put in a mental institution?

Not only did we do the same things (cutting) he did worse than I did. He did drugs and hit people. He went out all night and day while I stayed home.

It reminds me of what I've read somewhere- that psychologists who are diagnosing people will tend to diagnose women as mentally ill and consider men normal even if they have the exact same symptoms.

My first impulse is to tell my dad about this, but I can already guess his reaction. "Why do you dwell on the past?" I'm not ever, ever allowed to talk about the past with him, or else I'm 'dwelling' or I 'need to forgive'. He hasn't answered my last several E-mails, either. I'm sick of this. I love my dad, but I'm slowly finding out there are all these flaws in his character, and I don't know how to handle this.

In other news, I'm seeing my new therapist today. I'll update later about how it went.

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I saw the therapist, and it went well. At first I was overstimulated and nervous. Sometimes being in new places with distinctive decorating and lighting does that to me. It feels at once familiar and alien, like a dreamscape, so it makes me uneasy. There was also a particular perfume smell in the air that added to my overstimulation. The woman herself came as a surprise. She was quite tall and willowy, somewhat aged, with blonde hair cut in a grown out bob. I was intimidated at first by her beauty, tallness, and accent, and I remained nervous throughout the session, because as I told her, I have poor social skills.

She was very nice and sympathetic, just like she was over the phone. She complimented me profusely one or two times. She told me the way I speak is beautiful, that I have a beautiful voice and that the way I speak is very cultured. She also called me intelligent and sophisticated, and said I have beautiful hair. Well, those things are very nice to hear.

Her sympathy made me uneasy though. I can only guess as to why, and my guesses are that 1. Her sympathy reminded me that my life is rather worthy of being sad about, and 2. I didn't know how to respond to sympathy. Do you say thank you?

She also told me that she believed the answers to my problems were frozen inside myself, and it was her job only to defrost them. She said she would be my coach, pushing me, and that we'd be a team. She was also quite emphatic when telling me that everything was confidential.

When I left her office I felt at once immeasurably better and overwhelmed. During our subsequent meal at Ihop I almost felt like crying for some reason. Everything was just too intense. I blame that on the caffeine, though. I had a large cup of coffee this morning.

So, I honestly cannot say whether or not I think this woman can help me. It's too early in the game and I haven't gotten a look at her methods. But I very much hope she can, because I'm in a bad way right now.

Here's hoping.

Not much has changed since my last journal entry. I haven't flown off the handle at my mom again, there's that much I can say. And I've been pretty good about keeping my schedules. I don't see my therapist again until the 30th.

I'm in desperate need of new things. I somehow only have two pairs of pants now, so I have to do a load of laundry every two days. I also need new boots. The leather on my pair folds over on itself while I walk in them. And new bras- one of my bras is broken. The straps keep coming loose and it's unhooking itself while I'm wearing it.

I'd like to take a moment to make a correction of a previous post. I was listing the privileges I have, and I left out able-bodied. To be honest, that was because of my subconscious reaction to the word 'able-bodied'. I've had people use the fact I'm able bodied time and again as an excuse to harass me for not being more productive, without understanding that my disability is of the mind and that my able body has nothing to do with it. But yes, I am able bodied. Even if I have no car, I can generally go where I like, most places are accessible to me. I don't make full use of my able body, though, because of my mental illness.

I've been getting back into Satanism. I've been a Satanist for six years now- I'm a theistic Satanist, though that doesn't tell you much, because the beliefs of theistic Satanists vary widely from person to person. I believe that Satan is a living, powerful entity, one that is friendly towards humanity, and he has demons who do his bidding. I don't believe in the Christian god, or other gods- everything else is just a "spirit" of varying power.

The essence of my religion has to do with individuality and truth. Not 'truth' in the same sense that some Christians use the word, which is 'god said this, so it's the Truth', but the pursuit of truth insofar as it can be known. It's about being the best you can be. There are no set moral guidelines for theistic Satanists, because of the emphasis on individuality, but I've come to believe that as a human it benefits me to have a humane, morally sound perspective, and that I'm being the best I can be when I'm compassionate. Humans are social creatures, after all, and we have a need to connect with each other, and to be useful to each other and kind to each other. Being kind to another person is releasing a flow of energy that cycles back to you and out and back again, and that keeps you energized and happy. Being narcissistic truncates that flow and leaves you unhappy. However, I do not think it's possible to be kind to others without being kind to yourself. You can't love others if you don't, on some level, love yourself.

For more information on Satanism, this is a good place to start. Here's an FAQ. Here is an interview with a Satanist I found to be inspiring.

So at the moment, I've been researching meditation and self-hypnosis. I'm concerned about doing it, because I've read that people who do it, who are unstable, have had psychotic breaks, and I've experienced some unsettling symptoms just from doing very light meditation. I would very much like to be able to use self-hypnosis, though. I was thinking about using it to give myself the confidence I need to improve my life.

I'm still not settled on my stance on friendship. I've cut out some people from my life who I wasn't really good friends with to begin with, but I don't want to lose the friends I already have. Because, for whatever their flaws, they are still generally very nice to me and supportive of me, even if they can't be as supportive as I'd like and I can't talk to them about certain things. I can't help but feel as though I'm being ridiculously intolerant, but at the same time I feel I'm right in this. So I suppose I'll just be content with the friends I have and work on cultivating new friendships.

I just had a really bad fight with my mom. She's been using my room like a storage closet, putting this little wicker reindeer that the dog peed on and couches he also peed on in my closet. I barely have enough room for my own things, and I've been trying to clean my room, so that pisses me off.

And she says it's not MY room, it's HER room. This is how little respect I get that I'm not even allowed to have my own space, and that pisses me off so much. And she was yelling at me and being belligerent, and I just SNAPPED and stormed at her- I swear I almost hit her, but I stopped short- and told her I was going to fucking kill her.

So she does what she always does when we fight and calls to bitch at other people about me, first calling my dad saying if he doesn't come to pick me up, she's kicking me out on the streets, and then just to complain to my brother about me.

I fucking hate my family. I hate my brother, who feels he has a right to call me "unstable" when he's beat me up before for doing much less than my mother's done to me. Everyone is always, always fucking against me. I'm just the fucking scapegoat. Nobody ever examines their OWN behavior.

Then she goes crying to him about how she "doesn't feel safe in her own home" as if I'd actually seriously kill her, and it's so obviously just a fucking pity ploy to get him to sympathize with her.

It's going to take me a while to calm down from this to be able to say that I don't think I should have snapped- and I'm not quite sure why I did snap, so fast and so  hard that I couldn't take a second to think twice and try to get myself to calm down first. I really honestly stopped just short of hitting her.

And I truly feel like it's her fault I get this fucking angry. I feel like after all her screaming and abuse I have a lot of rage inside me and a really low threshold for belligerence. My dad has told me numerous times that no matter what she does, only I'm responsible for my own behavior. And I wish that I could do something with my anger so that I didn't feel like I had to punch someone just to feel better. That's where it gets overwhelming for me- that I get so fucking angry and I'm not allowed to talk about it, she won't listen to me, she just keeps screaming at me, and I feel like I absolutely have to get the anger out somehow, that I have to hit something. I can complain to my friends and all, and they're usually great about being supportive, but it doesn't feel like enough. I feel like I need her to listen to me. That's what it is- I need to be able to express myself, I need to be listened to, and when I'm not, I get so angry I want to lash out. I feel so helpless and pent up that I feel like the only way to regain control is by threatening someone.

I really and truly am an abuser. I've threatened and hit people before. I feel like there's always been a reason, but not a justification. I think the rage ultimately comes from the helplessness, of not being heard, having no say in things, being treated like an object someone can shut up in a cupboard when it becomes inconvenient to have it around. Like I'm just a piece of wasted space taking up room in her house and she has every right to fill up my room with her crap. I don't have any rights to any space or property because I don't pay the bills. I don't pay the bills, so I have no fucking rights. That's what makes me so angry, the helplessness, of being dependent on someone and that person using that dependence to abuse me and treat me like I'm not even human. And then rubbing it in my face that I'm dependent, as if I could just pack up my bags any day now and walk out of the house and start my life, when I'm struggling so fucking hard to get therapy and overcome my disability, struggling so fucking hard just to get my stupid GED. I'm going to be twenty soon and I still don't have my GED. A twenty year old who hasn't graduated high school. That's fucking pathetic.

I get so fucking angry.

Well, I went to school last Friday only to find out it was already summer vacation. That sucks, because I need all the time I can get to work on my math skills. I'm progressing so slowly, and without the computer program I was using, I'm cut adrift. So I'm checking out algebra books from the library and using web sites, but they all use their own unique language and I'm struggling to understand concepts I already know simply because the language is so foreign to me.

You know,  I've been thinking, even if I do complete the GED, what next? Will I still have my problems with avolition? Will I be able to go to college and function properly? I don't feel like my therapist is really helping me... I feel like she's already told me all she possibly can and it's not enough.

My mom said something the other day that bothered me. "You know, if you become a social worker, you're going to have to deal with people." It was as if she thinks I deliberately choose to have poor people skills, that I choose not to work on my people skills, and she's bringing home the hard hitting truth that I have to work on my people skills, as if I don't know that. I told her, "It's not like I want to be this way forever."

Just, fuck. She keeps talking to me while I'm trying to write and it's fucking up my train of thought, so I'm ending this entry prematurely and waiting to add to it later. Fuck.

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Hours later, back on track.

So, my strategy of 'saying everything' has gone awry, but mostly because what I'm saying is to the friends I already have whom I know are intolerant. All I'm managing to do is alienate myself from the people I do have in my life. And now I keep wondering if I'm just being intolerant, and just need to accept that my friends aren't going to meet all my friendship needs.

But I sincerely would like to improve my situation, because I've attracted people into my life who are intolerant and seem to reinforce my insecurities, the ones that prevent me from being myself 100 percent. So I guess I just have to put up with what I've got until I can find more friends.

I'm doing what I can to stay active now that school is out. I found a packet of fraction work sheets, so I'm working on that, and I'm starting to exercise. I'm 5"0 and 182 lbs, and I'm not comfortable with that. I used to be 145 lbs and STILL felt fat, so this isn't good to me at all. I feel less self-conscious about the way I look, but at the same time that number worries me. 182. 182. It's too close to 200 for comfort. My friend who's 6"0 weighs the same as me.

I've honestly been more bored and depressed than ever, but the activities I talked about are helping a little. Maybe I should actively try to learn other things, too. I could still learn Japanese, and I could maybe teach myself some sign language.

I've been writing more. I'm trying to write sex scenes because I want to get over my paranoia and embarrassment regarding them. It's really, really difficult. My super ego is a very real entity looking over my shoulder and judging every word I type. And then the writing seems dry and not very sexy to me. But at least I'm writing things I like. I swear I can't ever find any literotica that appeals to my tastes. Writing these sex scenes is like another way to let myself be me because the things in my writing reflect my tastes. I use technical terminology, because that's what I think is right. I allow for some awkwardness- they don't make love as if they'd practiced it a thousand times to get it just perfect. It feels more real for me that way.

Another writing practice I've been doing is some 'flow of consciousness' stuff. I do it when I'm feeling particularly bad, or in one case already, particularly good. It helps loosen up my emotions... like when I'm feeling really bad they're crushed up inside and painful and tight, and then doing the flow of consciousness practice kind of unravels them and makes them softer and easier to deal with.

Oh, my brother's started doing something really offensive lately. He keeps making remarks about my mental illness. I don't appreciate it. God, why am I the one who's always silenced and admonished when I speak out, but no one tells him shit for picking on me for my disability? He's done it TWICE now and I swear to god he had better stop. I'm so fucking angry at my family now because I keep reminding myself how they never let me talk or take me seriously when I get angry or offended by something my brother does, but he gets away with murder. RAGE! I fucking hate my family. My dad's supposed to be this better person because he's gotten therapy and all but he still falls into the same group dynamic patterns where I'm the scapegoat and everyone silences me and corrects me and moderates me. Fuck them.

Jesus, I went on a tangent. I guess everything I write here is a tangent, though- I skip around from topic to topic.

Well, it seems now my senses were right. I was getting this feeling that this group I hang out with on a website tends to hang out with people who are... kind of sick. They give me a strong sociopath vibe and they seem to be misogynists. Today I caught one making an absolutely disgusting, misogynist remark to one of my friends, and she just took it in a stride, so that proves to me that she's not willing to stand up for herself, and she associates with these types of people. So I may have to break away or something. I want to start my own group so I can be surrounded by only the people that are safe for me to be around. I seriously don't need any shit in my life right now.

I'm thinking more seriously about going to college to study for becoming a judge. It's a mainly male dominated profession, and I think I could really help people in that position. I've just been reading about all these stupid, sexist, racist, just BIASED decisions that judges make, and that's fucking stupid, and I want to do better than those people. My uncle is studying law- I'm not sure if he's going to be a lawyer or what, but I hope he brings something good to the courts. I'm not sure, though, because he's homophobic. He's a very nice person and everything, but I don't know how his biases are going to act up in law.

I'm not sure if my local college can help me do that, though. It might not offer all the classes I need. I'll have to look into it. I don't have a really high opinion of my local college.


Oh, another thing. I read this: -> http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2010/04/go-through-stages-of-anti-racism.html and decided to make my own list of privilege.

Privilege:
-White
-Cis-gendered
-Heterosexual
-Lower middle class
-Not ugly

Oppression:
-Female
-Mentally ill
-Fat

I thought about also putting 'ugly' under oppression, but I'm not sure about it. I feel pretty ugly. I know that I don't take care of my appearance the way the mainstream woman does. I don't wear make up, I don't wash my face or use creams, all I do with my hair is wash it, brush it, and stick some mousse in it so it doesn't frizz, and I wear baggy, wrinkly clothes. And my nose is weird and I'm hairy. But I left it out because I didn't want to stick too much under the oppression side and I already had 'fat' there. And men have been attracted to me before, which... mostly I just attribute to men being crazy, but I don't know.

...Well, there's obviously more for me to think about than whether or not I'm ugly. I would like to think about what sort of advantages I have because of my privileges, how it might be different for me if I had been born differently. I'm hoping my local library can help me out by looking into the issues other people have.

That's all, I guess.

*Switches mood from 'annoyed' to 'calm'.*

Shortly after writing my last journal entry, I found myself being very angry. I think I was manic, because I felt good, yet I also felt aggressive. I confronted two friends about behavior of theirs that's been bothering me. One of them just stopped talking to me for the rest of the night, and the other one explained herself.

And then after that some more shit with feeling anxious and stupid, and being disturbed by all the bad things I've been absorbing.

It just fluctuates... feeling good, feeling shitty, being overwhelmed by the evil of the world. The latter is an especially recurring theme with me. Sometimes those thoughts and negative feelings well up inside of me and make life so hard.

I've skipped school twice this week already, but I'm resolved to work on my math at home to make up for it. I was all ready to go, having showered and eaten breakfast, today- but I felt too light headed and hungry and knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on school work.

I'm a bit worried my library book is overdue. I already owe money.

My brother came over and helped us clean up the house. The livingroom and kitchen look really nice. Apparently, the dog had peed around all the borders of the house. We didn't want him to come in and pee all over everything again after we'd just cleaned it, so we're putting him outside and making him an outside dog. He's been whimpering and scratching at the door all night and day. It's extremely annoying and sometimes very sad. I wish he'd just get used to it already, because we can't let him inside anymore. He's proven impossible to house train because he always pees when nobody's looking, so we never have a chance to correct the bad behavior as it's happening.

Urgh, his high pitched whining is piercing my skull, I can barely concentrate on what I'm writing, so I think I'll just end this entry, which isn't important anyway.

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I was discussing my recent problem with becoming more open about who I am and more outspoken with people on a forum. I'm relieved to know that many people have this problem. And I got to talking about how much people in my life moderate what's "appropriate" behavior for me, and how this compares to how they treat my brother.

Every time I get with my brother, either with my mom or my dad, he's very abrasive with me. He grabs me and puppets my arms around, he'll shove his face in mine, he continually makes fun of the way I stand up, walk around, look at him, do ANYTHING at all except be motionless and breathe- which I'm sure he'd find a way to get a kick out of, anyway.

So I tend to be very rough with him when I talk to him. I'm blunt and a little insulting, because he's rough with ME, and my parents will continually cry out, "You're so RUDE!"

Why am I rude? I don't do half the things he does to me. I don't manhandle him or push him around or make fun of him. I just talk roughly to him. My mom actually LAUGHED when my brother pushed my glasses up my face so he could put his eye next to mine and I was flailing and yelling, "Stop! Get off!"

The inequality in treatment is starting to make me furious, and the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it's sexist. I constantly get reprimanded by my parents for simply being outspoken, while my brother gets to be offensive, insulting, and antagonistic with impunity. I'm sick of it. I wrote my dad a long E-mail telling him how I feel and his response was basically, "But it's fun! Be a Buddhist about it and don't let it get to you."

No wonder I am the way I am. I'm so shy, withdrawn, afraid of saying something stupid, so demure, so willing to please and be overly polite and say the right thing, and when I ever DARE to relax and be myself, I get admonished for it. Fuck that. Fuck everyone.

I had an excellent day today. Yesterday I couldn't go to school because my glasses broke on the way there and I had to turn back, right? Well, I got them fixed, and I went today. Also, yesterday I got an E-mail back from the ninja instructor I contacted. I guess my first E-mail to him was kind of weird- it was just me asking, "Are there girls in your class? I don't see any girls," without introducing myself or explaining my intentions, and I got a rather severe reply back that I should have introduced myself, and that his dojo is not a place to get dates if that's what I'm after.

I apologized and explained who I was, how old I was, and how I got into ninjutsu, and then explained that I only asked because I was nervous about joining the class if it was all boys. He accepted my apology and explained that he's rather abrupt, especially when he thinks 'some crazy male is looking for a hunting ground', and that he's very big on honor and exemplary behavior. Then he said yes, there are women in his class, one of his students actually shares my name and is studying in Japan right now, and he gave me contact information, and information about when the classes are. He also said I would have to meet him before he could accept me as a student, and such meetings are on Tuesday evenings.

I thanked him and told him I may not be able to meet him for a while, and that I'd talk to my parents, and he said something polite in return, and that was it.

My mom has refused outright to either pay for the lessons or drive me to them, so I'm thinking about taking money out of my disability check (when I get on disability, anyway) to pay for it, and then I called my brother today to see if he'd be up to driving me to it if I joined.

So, on to today! I almost didn't get out of bed because I felt tired, but I made myself, and taking myself to school was actually pretty easy. And I did pretty good with my math, but the final test in fractions stumped me. They're having me do stuff like rounding fractions and figuring out which fractions are smallest or greatest from a list of mismatched fractions, and it's getting a little complicated for me, but I'm sure next time I go I'll be able to figure it out.

After I was done working on my math, I asked about self-defense classes at the college I'm going to. I was told there ARE some, and then I was showed how I can register and find a schedule for it. I'll probably have to register for the fall classes. I'm not sure yet if it will cost money, but I'm going to find out.

I also worked hard on being alert today. Usually I just stare into space and think, but today I made myself look all around and constantly scan. I no doubt looked paranoid and twitchy, but I don't care. Being constantly aware of your surroundings is just good sense, and it's safer. Plus it helps me "keep in the present moment", distracts me from negative thoughts (which I have a SHITLOAD of throughout the day, Jesus), and it's a good skill to have when you're learning to drive, because it ensures you'll always be aware of what the other people around you are doing. I did pretty well, but I need to learn how to actually SEE what I'm looking at, and I need to learn how to prioritize- so say I want to scan, but I need to pay attention to whether or not the bus is coming. What I would do is scan, and always bring my eyes back to the place where the bus arrives after each scan.

After I write this journal entry, I'm going to do more anatomy work, and answer some PMs and shit. I'm also finally almost done with War of the Spider Queen III: Condemnation, WHOOT. I'm at this really interesting part where a god is trying to destroy another god.

So, yeah, I accomplished a lot today, and I'm happy about that, and hopefully it's a stepping stone for accomplishing even more in the future.