heartlessviking

sidestepping the humorous implications; I am talking about a specific tooth pain, and I’m aware that the teeth are broadly within my head. This is about psychosomatic vs real sensation.

I have a hole in one of my teeth. It’s been there awhile, and most of the time hasn’t bothered me…. but these last two weeks it’s been bugging me. I’ve been taking pain killers, and most of the time they work. Last night it reached a point I actually took enough pain killers to feel “high”…. which I don’t even know how to feel about really

but then this morning, the pain was going in and […]

Objectively, things should be going well. I’m five months out from starting grad school. I have enough to eat, gas for the car, self care items like toothbrush and foot cream.

I just don’t feel it. I don’t feel any of it. I don’t know how to make myself want to get up and go. I just got back from the store, which I did by myself. Upshot I got some things I probably wouldn’t have if I had been accompanied, but I was hoping it would energize me, but it’s draining me. I got myself a strong cup of coffee, but even that is failing […]

Recently two games I’m fond of got updates; Timberborn and Sons of the Forest. I only mention names so our discussion here can be grounded in something. Timberborn is the real star here, Sons of the Forest is after all only a few months into development.

But the devs for this project…. have no right to be as good as they are. The game goes for $25, full price. That is to say you can get it for $10-$15 if you can wait for a sale. I had 300 hours into it before the update, and already I’m up over 400 after the update. That’s how […]

not that it feels like it has any part being here, beside people talking about chronic pain, poverty etc. That’s often the problem, my issues seem silly compared to the problems of others. I guess I’m trying to make peace with being silly…

So the grad program I’m going into did a webinar this evening, an hour of talking about the program and what it’s there for. I get why, well informed is better for them. At the same time, it feels like a sales pitch.  I don’t know if I buy it, the whole “we’ll put you into a fulfilling career”…. yeah, heard it before, […]

I was woken up this morning by my tooth hurting…. so I ended up working on a horror novel I’ve been reading…. in the end it drove me to the edge. A few minutes ago I reached the point I stopped reading the detail, and started skipping about trying to get some answers, only for most of those answers to be out of reach. That’s what appeals to me about horror; often enough there are no answers, or the answers are up for interpretation.

It bugs me that humans as creators of narrative prefer to create a world of happy endings. Happy endings are a lie, […]

I’ve been going to therapy for nearly 30 years at this point, long enough that I’ve done therapy with every modality and philosophical bent. One particular therapist had a pillow on his couch that said; “if it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.” I don’t remember him being particularly Freudian in any other way, so it might have been a joke.

That joke being that in Freudian therapy, it almost always comes back to the mother for young men. I remember when I was covering it in college and I found out that part of why Freud is less taken seriously now is that his approach […]

Around the time I was trying to create an efficient reply to “People don’t magically get better” I got a message that chilled me to the bone. Apparently my former boss at the electrician gig was extending an offer of work to me.

Years of conditioning, as well as my present unpleasant economic reality meant that my gut was to take it. That little rebellious voice in my head said “wait on it, think on it” and though it froze me out of all action the rest of the night…. I succeeded at resisting.

This morning, half awake, I tried to reconcile my issues. What I realized […]

Adjusting parameters is pretty much all I’ve ever done that has challenged me. It’s why I took to programming and software so well, because it follows simple A + B = C or A -B =C. If you know two variables, you know the third one for those a little rusty on their algebra.

Down from the esoteric logic of the process, I’ll explain using the sample of the problem I’m working on right now. Set A = base state (at this point that means medications as prescribe, normal activity levels), and B = stimulant levels, because that’s a very easy to adjust variable that also […]

after years of toxic positivity, I find myself in need of discouragement talks every now and then.

This morning the temptation was rising to go back to electrical work, which on the surface seems innocent. I thought about how I enjoyed solving those problems, and getting the appropriate tools. I thought to myself “maybe it was just that employer”

but my gut knows better. My gut reminded me of how much pain it was, working for incompetent people. It reminded me of the hours doing stupid stuff,  like running metal pipes for wire to go through. It reminded me how I always felt tired and I couldn’t […]

Apart from what consumption I manage, I feel as though I’m already dead. Dead minus the expensive parts; coffins, funerals, etc all are unnecessarily expensive and thus some days it’s just my frugality keeping me from snuffing it.

So I’m nominally alive, that is to say in medical terms, but not in any meaningful philosophic way.

I have some money, I don’t have anything I want to spend it on. Meanwhile there are things I want, but they are so out of my price range…. like where am I going to get $10k, the low end for unoccupied undeveloped land. What I want most right now is […]

at the same time as it is the problem, it’s the only solution I have, avoiding life that is. Like when I talk to the suicide hotline… or a therapist… it all comes down to how well am I avoiding triggers, which now most of life is filled with.

It’s Monday, it’s supposed to be my productive day, and I just can’t engage with almost anything. I want to, but I don’t know how to make that happen. I had an image waking up today; an ostrich with it’s head buried in the sand. That’s me. Looks pretty stupid.

Thus far I filled out some forms…. but […]

I don’t know how common this situation is; as I start to build my energy level back up it takes all the self control I’ve got to avoid going manic. I have to examine every single thing, is it advancing my goals or is it activity because I’m anxious and resent silence and stillness? More often the second thing.

Then, in the stillness, there is the temptation to sink back towards depression. Is a healthy middle ever going to be easier?

Of course it can, but will it? I used to be so sure, if I put my weight behind something, within reason, it seemed certain it […]

Three times this week, I’ve gotten emails about jobs that think I’d be a good fit and they want me to apply. Then they set up time consuming obstacles in the process. The first, a cover letter, like who REQUIRES a cover letter? If I’m such a good fit I shouldn’t have to beg.

The second, some forms. Again I almost complied, and thought “No, if they are demanding more than is reasonable NOW, what kind of employment relationship does that set up?”

The third one though, really takes the cake. They want me to take a 9 hour drive and stay overnight in another city, all […]

Isn’t it something that you can say something is a metaphor and most people will take it as is, rather than discussing how accurate it is, probably part of why I’m so lonely. I’m big on metaphor, which is more direct than I feel like I should be. Last therapist and I worked on that word a lot “should”… but we never got around to why the way it shouldn’t be… if that makes sense. Even my wife sometimes needs me to explain the meaning of words I use…. how’s that for solitude?

Grant, it is theoretically more alone to not have someone….. but it’s a […]

I don’t know if I’ve ever given as far into medications as I have this past year. Like borderline abusing medications, getting as medicated as I could so I didn’t have to feel. I’m not even sorry about any of that. I think that was the right move.

Lately though, the cost is getting to me. For one no sex drive, and I’m married to someone I love, I have things I could do if I had a sex drive. The other thing is that my energy level is constantly low right now. I thought I was just unmotivated, but I just feel tired all the […]

for the record, never found support for this, and I’ve been looking.

I was raised in high achievement culture. Put it this way, I only made friends with weirdos and outcasts, and most of the people I grew up around ended up pretty damn successful. I say all this to say I’m the runt of the litter, the black sheep who despite fine breeding and training still ended up almost useless.

And again; this is something I’ve never found another likewise afflicted. The pressure, to be something, somebody….. it’s unreal.

Today it hit me in the gut again, because once again I demonstrated my ability to adapt and […]

It’s that time of year, talked to my psychiatrist today. I’m at the point in my life I see him four times a year, on average for the past three. We don’t tinker alot with my loadout. You know what’s fun? Normally I’d be really paranoid talking about my loadout, but none of you know my actual name or anything about me, so I can go full bore.

[Addendum to security nuts. I know I can be traced by the truly determined. I write too much for that to be a particularly interesting task. Relative bulk is part of my strategy]

since few apart from me care […]

if there is one peculiar thing, it’s how celebrity suicides are handled. We were talking earlier about the note and the utility of framing your own death. Well Tom T. Hall didn’t leave a note. No one definitively knows why this 85 year old man killed himself.

In fact, it didn’t come out until well after that it even was a suicide. And that is the note that EVERY STORY ABOUT IT covers… OMG he was a country music legend, and isn’t it sad etc etc etc

Country music and depression go hand in hand in the United States, I don’t get how any country star dying […]

I’ve been trying to find a way to frame it and wrap my head around this whole thing. For me there are two critical spectrums in a job; ethics and compensation. Less ethics should equal greater compensation, seems like a given. More ethics, less compensation.

Except I’ve worked for some of the most morally bankrupt people…. and I’m broke…. it’s not like I had any kind of luxury lifestyle. And I can’t afford to work somewhere that I find morally rewarding anymore either.

It kind of built up for me, I watch a lot of movies where the main character is a hit man. Like, if that […]

k, things adjusted back the other way, and I feel relatively “normal” for me.

First, completely goobered the job fair sitch. I didn’t have the energy to push my wife to come with me, and then I was so wrecked I didn’t go either. She needs her resume, but we got in a sort of argument/discussion about how she really doesn’t know what she wants to do or who she is. I suggested therapy and meds, and she didn’t like those options. After all, they aren’t exactly “working” for me. IDK, I guess I’m still committed enough to going through the motions…. I’m trying. It doesn’t […]