Category: :(

better help – part trois

this will be my last update for a while on this. not because i don’t have thoughts or opinions, not because i am stopping or cancelling it, but because i think i need more time to really develop my thoughts on this and witness some form of material improvement over time… updating weekly i don’t think will be doing anyone justice.

so where do i stand on whether this is worthwhile after today’s appointment? still undecided.

so much of this has me rolling my eyes at myself asking if i am serious right now. i mean, i’m an avid consumer of tv and movies and protagonists in therapy is certainly an overused trope in just about any modern story. so i am not unfamiliar with at least the hollywood interpretation of how this goes. the conversations are surprisingly predictable in the sense that these are all conversations i have had with myself or here with you, nameless, faceless internet, over and over again. so yes, i roll my eyes. and yes i am asking myself how i can take this seriously. and i think that may be part of the problem to be honest. if i was able to unfuck myself on my own, i guess i probably would have done it by now, right?

i guess sometimes things are done certain ways for a reason (i know, what a shocking revelation, right?), as trivial or trite as it may seem, literally just talking to someone who i don’t know and have no fear of saying something which may hurt their feelings, or give them the wrong impression, or change the way they see me is kind of freeing. so i am going to give it a go for a while and see what happens.

feeling venty, might delete later

first, g, fuck you man. despite the fact we almost never see each other anymore, i love you like a brother. you’re one of the most important and influential people in my life. i know i wouldn’t be who i am today without you. no joke, you are one of the very few people in this world i would take a bullet for without any hesitation.

so it fucking KILLS ME when you pull this shit. i know you have social anxiety and a million other self diagnosed ailments, but dude, it’s me. you understand that you are a terrible liar, right? i don’t even care if it’s just a text, an email, a voicemail, we don’t even need to see each other in person or leave our respective homes. just please stop stop stop making plans and then disappearing. i can’t take it. i needed to talk to you, and i think you wanted to talk to me too.

you’re leaving the day after my birthday. are you going to AT LEAST reply before then? tick tock mother fucker. <3

next, k8, i really should send this to you in an email, but for whatever reason i feel like i need to state this out loud, well, this isn’t exactly out loud, but whatever, you know what i mean.

i read through everything and my heart broke a million times. i so wish i could have been there in some capacity for you. but instead i had my head up my ass. i can’t help but wonder how things could have been different if only i had picked up the phone, answered an email, anything at all. i also can’t help but feel indirectly responsible, a contributing factor or at the very least an influential precursor to so many of your trials. maybe i am giving myself more credit than i am due. maybe i am just projecting based on the headspace you take up for me. i don’t know. either way, i really do hope you’re currently the happiest you have ever been. you deserve that. also, please don’t give up on writing. just fucking do it. i know it’s hard. trust me, i know it all too well. even if what comes out doesn’t live up to your standards, it’s fine. at least you did it. you have a gift with words that i certainly envy. don’t wait until it’s too late to use it.

last, k, bruh… why must you insist on poo-pooing on everything. i was excited about that AND the other thing too, and now i just want to give up on both. thanks.

i miss aim

definitely about to show my age here, but whatever. i really miss AOL instant messenger. i miss the nonsense font choices people made. i miss having a buddy list. i miss the away messages. i miss desperately searching for meaning in the lyrics people posted in their away messages!

i know, i know, facebook messenger, discord, telegram, snapchat, imessage, bla bla bla… it’s not the same thing. these try to do too many things all at once. they’re too connected to a million other features, platforms, distractions, etc.

when i think about it, i really miss a lot about the early days of the internet in general. it seemed a lot more ‘special’ back then. everything that existed really showed how much, or how little effort an actual, real person put into it. everything was so much more intentional. everything was so much more personal.

i remember when i built my first web server way back when. i had just moved out of my parents house and took over the spare room in j&k’s apartment @5309. i didn’t have a computer, nor did i have very much money, so i scoured the local newspaper’s classifieds section to find something for sale and i ended up finding a used 486DX4 system in a giant metal tower for a price i could manage.

the only operating system install media i had were a million different versions of macintosh system (6, 7, 8 and maybe 9 too? i’m not sure that was out yet.) and a handful of freeBSD disquettes. so, freeBSD it was, because macintosh system was 68k only and this was x86. i had no clue what i was doing, no clue how to make it work, no documentation, no nothing. yet somehow i got x working, and then somehow i got it online too.

i think i probably ended up getting debian install media too at some point and switched to that, but, honestly, i don’t remember all that much from back then any more. heck even what i do remember is probably wrong too haha

i must have been using a dyndns domain back then, because i only registered my current domain back in the summer of 2002. no, not this one, my actual one… not that this one isn’t real… ahh forget it. you know what i mean.

having to figure everything out, learn how the operating systems worked, learn how apache works, learn how bind works, learn how sendmail works, all of it so that then you could learn how html works and then learn how to make something that was even a little bit functional and all that work, just so you could post some nonsense online that was important to you… like, that’s a lot of fucking work. back then you had to really want it. you had to really care.

compared to today where this very site took me all of about 17 seconds to set up from beginning to end. it’s not the same. honestly, it feels disposable. like if i just deleted this whole thing tomorrow, would it even really phase me? i could start again somewhere else in no time flat.

don’t worry, i have no intention of deleting this place any time soon. i just really miss the old days.

now get of my damn lawn you kids!

explorer build update

got most of the bits, pieces, doodads and doohickeys i need to get started today. i also decided on the finish i want to do, but i’m not telling what it’s going to be just yet. you’ll need to wait and see. i think it’s a bit of a risky move, but i’m doing it anyways. if it turns out how i am imagining it, it’s going to be amazing! alright, lets gooooo!

step 1. sand everything.

step 1. find somewhere to do the sanding.

step 1. clean up the garage.

argh! the back of my garage, which also serves as my workshop is, funny enough, about as clean and clear as my mental state these days! it’s a dump zone and it has been for a few years now. for fucks sake. it’s completely out of control. i gotta clean this shit up.

i swear i am not a hoarder.

guitar build might have to go on hold for a couple days while i deal with this. what a fucking disaster. how did i ignore this for so long?!

i really should get started right now, but i’m too discouraged to even think about tackling this mess tonight. it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow.

spidey senses

many times at work when working on a project, troubleshooting an issue or reviewing someone else’s game plan for the same i get this feeling that i’m missing something which will cause major problems for no apparent reason, or that there is imminent danger if i continue on that approach because i am working based on false assumptions or information. it regularly leads me to make decisions based on ‘gut feel’. more often than not, i’m right to do so and quickly discover a seemingly unrelated issue that would otherwise be a showstopper with the current plan. and even if i’m not necessarily right, then at least one potential cause of failure gets ruled out for certain. risk vs reward is always in my favor, because the worst possible outcome is that i will have spent a bit of time double checking something that is fine. so the only thing ‘wasted’ is a bit of time.

the same cannot be said for things that happen outside of work. i have the same feelings, the same impending doom predictions, or that the story is wrong, or even what the truth really is that no one is willing to admit… but it is so much harder to address it because fixing things sometimes means breaking things first. when you break something with people, unlike a line of code or a configuration setting, there is no undo, there is no revert, there are no backups you can restore.

e, years ago when you had your crisis, i knew your story was a complete fabrication, and i know what the truth was. but you sold a story to everyone and i went along with it. you’ll never read this, but i knew the truth, because i know you. it’s ok, i’ve been there too.

j, i know you know. and i know you know that i know that you know. we’re never going to talk about it, but i know.

z, stop it. you think i don’t know what’s happening? of course i do. i wish we could talk about it. we’re more alike than you know. i think i could help you, or if nothing else, we could be miserable together and you would not need to do it alone. then again, if i were in your shoes, i would probably do the same. actually, i did do the same. so i guess i can’t blame you.

m, i see you. (edit: phrasing? re-reading this it sounds incredibly creepy, jesus christ. that was not my intent, i don’t actually see you.)

and last but not least, k… i’ve messed up so many things, i don’t even know what to think any more. but for a while my spidey senses have been literally on fire and all i want to do is talk to you about it because i know there is something, but i am terrified to find out and i am terrified that it likely is a cat which can never be put back in the bag.

so i guess i will just go with the flow, and wait to see what happens next, like i always do because i’m too much of a chicken to rock the boat.

am i just doing it again?

and in today’s episode of steve blurting things out before thinking them through and then probably regretting it later…

i slept soundly last night for the first time in like a month. as good as it felt, i woke up this morning feeling… i don’t know, scared? upset? worried? disappointed? angry at myself? i’m not even sure, but it wasn’t good.

ok, i’m just going to say it… i’ve been unhappy for a long time. lately it’s been pretty bad and i have been doing some things i’m really not proud of. a lot of it seems to be about love, attention, affection, intimacy, things like that. something that i feel i am missing in my life. i looked in so many of the wrong places to find it, and i made things weird for some people. it’s made me think a lot about a lot of things i didn’t want to think about. and i think maybe i’m doing it again.

i reached out to you for a lot of reasons. i’ve never been happy about how things ended. i regret how i treated you. i miss talking to you. i have so many, life changing, good memories in my head associated to you. i think part of me never got over you either… also, the last time i felt this way was when i first met you and you made the bad go away. but fuck you steve. that’s not fucking fair and you can’t expect the same things now. seriously, FUCK YOU. you’re a selfish prick. asshole. i wish i could punch you in the fucking face right now.

one email is all it took, and then suddenly my outlook on everything seemed less hopeless. one email and i was able to sleep again. one email and everything that’s happened in the last few weeks suddenly snapped into clarity.. and shame.

but that’s not right. am i just doing it again but placing this shit on you? i don’t know. i don’t want that to be it. please don’t let that be it. please let me have the courage to talk to you about this. please don’t judge me too harshly. please don’t be weirded out or disgusted by my actions. please be a friendly ghost from my past who can help me make sense of all this and find healthy ways to get past it.

thank god i’m fully booked at work today, i don’t think i could handle being alone with my thoughts right now.

i just want to be your sweet heart

when i removed a bunch of posts a few days ago, one of them included this song. i didn’t want to take it down, but i wrote some stuff that really i should have kept to myself and didn’t feel good about leaving it out there. but this song is still important to me.

so… take two.

for me, this song really embodies the feeling of limerence, obsession, infatuation, love addiction. feeling something so strongly for someone who, realistically, doesn’t even know you exist. so much so that you’re willing to humiliate yourself, subject yourself to any amount of suffering, debasement and degradation, just to get that hit of dopamine from the slightest bit of attention.

it’s a delusion, and it’s harmful. it hurts. and yet you can’t help it, and you do it willingly.

eugh.

better help review – part 1

so far, not impressed.

sign up has you go through a whole slew of questions, many of which, at least for me, don’t have a definitive answer, or the answers they provide don’t really apply or aren’t quite right. on it’s own though, that’s not a deal breaker, i mean i get it, you have to start somewhere, right?

the part that kind of soured it for me at the start is how after spending a good 20 minutes answering questions, you are then hit with the payment screen. at this point you’re invested, you’ve committed time to answer truthfully and from the heart, at least for me i was feeling pretty vulnerable… so when the payment option comes up it felt like a slap in the face.

i am not trying to say it should be free or anything like that, far from it. it’s just the way that the site does it makes it feel predatory almost.

the billing model is weird. they give you the weekly price, but then say it’s billed every 4 weeks, so why not just make it a monthly price? there are a metric fuckton of youtubers pushing this platform right now so discount codes are abundant. i chose a fellow canadian i really like as my referrer, thanks @Julie Nolke! got a few bucks off, so in the end just shy of 400 CAD for the month.

Once in the platform, you need to answer more questions, and then wait for a match to a therapist. they say it could take 24/48 hours, but i was matched in just about an hour or so.

unfortunately, the person i was matched to was about to go on holiday or something? so their first availability is only next week. ehhhhh…..

so remember the weird billing model? if that’s a 2 way street, then i am now paying 1 week to wait. really?

anyhow, we’ll see how this works out. in the meantime i am checking out the rest of the platform. yesterday i explored the journaling system which allows you to write whatever you want, they offer various prompts to help inspire you or get you started. you can attach a feeling to the entry and you also have the option to share it with your therapist. seems pretty well thought out and has all the functions and features you could expect. i made an entry, but decided not to share it with my therapist just yet, i’m not even certain i will stay with this one and wait the week. apparently one of the features of better help is that you can change any time, so maybe i’ll try that.

help

i signed up for online therapy today. i don’t know if i really believe in it or not, but i figured it couldn’t hurt. seeing as i have literally no one else to talk to at this point, i guess it’s something.

i also messaged k8 last night and wrote a comment to her blog post from 2005. she’s probably the only one who i might even feel a little bit comfortable talking to about things. that might have been a mistake. it’s probably been too long since we last talked. i hope my message doesn’t upset her. that’s the last thing i want. although it’s completely unfair for me to expect a response, i really hope i get one anyways. not that i would even deserve it.

it’s m’s birthday today, and as much as i really really really want to send a message, i won’t. i can’t go back there. that’s done. i fucked that up beyond imagination.