How Did I Get Here?

I started out with so many dreams, such promise along with some drive and even some talent. And yet I'm still fighting the same struggles I've been fighting the past 40 years, still making the same mistakes I've been making for four decades. I've learned nothing and gone nowhere. Easter has always been special to me because I'm enamored of the theme of rebirth. But when does it become meaningless in the face of repeated unfulfilled promise? The phoenix tattoo I got on my 30th birthday is now 24 years faded like the hope it was meant to represent – that I'm not too old, too late to achieve anything other than mediocrity and the bare minimum of a functional adult. The life I've constructed is vapor and lies, a brittle veneer of what others expect to see. 

How do you go on when there are no dreams of a better tomorrow, no joy and no purpose? The same way as it's always been, I suppose: inertia and the path of least resistance, ever seeking the grooves of transient pleasure and least unhappiness.

Longing for Belonging

Waiting all day by the telephone
Wondering if you're gonna call
I'll go out to my friend's party
Wondering if I belong
Well do I, boy?
Belong, belong, belong, belong
Do I belong, belong, belong, belong?
{The Hidden Cameras, "Do I Belong?"}

Loneliness, isolation and a profound sense of not belonging are dominant themes running through my life. I have difficulties with social interaction that can make interpersonal relationships particularly challenging, and my severe neurotic symptoms tend to make me want to disconnect from others to reduce the mental and emotional stimuli I have to navigate and process. Conversely, at the same time I long for company and connection. I think this is a systemic problem in our society, exacerbated by social media (which I don't touch), but of course, I can only speak to my experiences.

There are two other gay men in my department. One of them is a good work-only friend where we chat a lot on our in-office days, and we exchange a lot of NSFW text messages after hours. It's nice to have someone I can share tacky, adolescent humor and my lustful thoughts over hot guys I see during my day with, but he has never shown any interest in spending time outside of work. I know the other one well enough to exchange brief pleasantries, but we've only had a few extended conversations. Every week on our team day in the office, the two of them go out for a friends lunch of sassy gay talk together. As the third gay guy who's really friendly with one and friendly enough with the other, I feel hurt that I'm excluded from their lunches, even as I acknowledge how irrational and unfair that is. I wouldn't invite everyone in the office I have a friendly relationship with if I were to go to lunch with a co-worker, and it's egocentric to think they have any reason to consider me. And yet, I'm resentful all the same, mostly borne of my desire to connect and spend time with others.

A Yokel in Athens

The sounds of the May term, the scents of the Cambridge year in flower, floated in through the window and said to Maurice, “You are unworthy of us.” He knew that he was three parts dead, an alien, a yokel in Athens. He had no business here, nor with such a friend.
{E.M. Forster, Maurice}

My hurt feelings at being excluded from the weekly lunch excursions (no matter that it's a case of "benign indifference") reminds me of what happened to me at the Memphis Pride event last June. My company sponsored a booth, and I volunteered for one of the shifts there and to walk in the parade. I started talking to a guy who works in an entirely different part of the company. I was attracted to him, though quickly found out he had a serious partner, but we got on really well in a friendly way. Throughout the day, we continued to talk. I expected him to make polite chit chat and then drift away, which is the norm for me for such interactions, but he made a point to walk with me and continue spending time together. We eventually connected with his partner who was at Pride with a different company, and they continued to want to keep me around. I can't tell you the last time someone I didn't already know well made a point to include me and act as if they wanted me there.

We all got on very well, and I was so pleased with how the day was turning out. They were both very social people and seemed to go out and do things all the time. I started to hope that I could be part of their friend group. Maybe I could get invited out and actually start doing things, more than the once every two or three month I see the straight couple who are my only real friends in town. During the course of the day, they also met and befriended a young hetero couple. The two couples dizzyingly became fast friends. They almost immediately started making plans for a post-Pride event that evening and brunch the next day. In my rapidly devolving status as fifth wheel, I was conspicuously excluded from all of these future activities. As noted above, I understand that no one is obligated to spend time with me, but the way they planned things right in my face while leaving me out just gutted me. Was I not even worthy of common courtesy to not blatantly arrange activities that leaves out someone in the group right in front of them? My hopes for finally finding a friend group were abruptly dashed, and I left Pride feeling absolutely terrible about my self-worth and despairing at ever finding the kind of social interaction I crave.

Dispirited and Dyspeptic

    Since Wednesday of this week, I've been feeling a little discouraged along with spikes in my depression and anxiety. Gray winter mornings and coming back to work after an extended weekend probably contributed a lot to my mood, but in spite of the gains I've made, I look at the state of my body, disheartened by how far I still have to go to even get to "average." I made the mistake of weighing myself Wednesday morning and had gone back to a couple of pounds over 250. I'm trying to convince myself that all the walking I did the previous four days had added some muscle.

    Even if I do get my body somewhat in shape, I'm still worried over loose skin and the inevitable losing battle with aging, sagging and vanishing hair. I haven't been able to generate the same excitement over the carrot of my trip to Atlanta in April lately and have grave concerns about being ready – that is, being in the physical and financial state I want to be in – in time. I wish I had better coping strategies for keeping my dips into depression and anxiety from spiraling into despair and panic. I've abandoned most of my maladaptive copium – which is a good thing, but I don't really have healthy methods to fall back on. The past several days have seen me backslide in my binge eating habits (resulting in morning stomach aches), which only comes back full circle to self-esteem and body image issues. And no matter what, time continues grinding on. Suddenly it's a bright, new year. Then you're immediately back to inexorably ticking the days off. Still, it also shows that moving forward is the only option, so one should embrace it by centering on the present with as hopeful of an eye on the future as one can manage.

Goal Actually Achieved

    I've managed something I haven't managed in a long time: I actually achieved one of my goals. I wanted to get myself under 250 pounds before the new year started, and I was able to get that done. So far I've lost about 25 pounds and 13 inches on my waist. I've been amazingly consistent with my diet and exercise, sustaining them for far longer than I have in years. Yesterday was a holiday, and I've taken today off as a vacation day. During the long four day weekend, I've managed to walk a total of 35 miles in addition to keeping up with my strength training while even adding some new muscle groups. (I was trying for 50 miles, but I decided I shouldn't push my old ass too much.) I've been using my planned trip to Atlanta in April as a north star to keep myself motivated, and I've set a new goal of being under 220 pounds – a weight I haven't achieved since I became obese – by the time my trip comes around.

    Of course, the way I'm wired, all joys are tainted. I can never escape the entropic nature of existence. Age will eventually rob me of the physical gains I may make now. Even if I get into shape, I'll never be young and fit, a key component of the hopeful fantasies that sustained me throughout my life. (And at the same time, robbed me of my present, substituting delusion for reality.) It's too late for my fantasy of attracting a young and fit partner to come true since I have no desire to date someone who isn't age appropriate for me, so I have to reconcile the death of that dream that has been so central to my identity, self-conception and self-worth since I was an adolescent – not an easy ask. Still, as Albert Camus wrote, "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart." So I set my sights on pursuing that Sisyphian happiness.

He told me, "I see you rise
"But it always falls
"I see you come, I see you go"
He said, "All things pass into the night"
And I say, "Oh no sir, I must say you're wrong
"I must disagree. Oh no sir, I must say you're wrong
Won't you listen to me?"
{Q Lazzarus, "Goodbye Horses"}

Family Issues

   Recent issues that came up over the weekend in my complicated family dynamic were also making it difficult for me to stay positive towards healthy change. I was sorely tempted to drink Saturday night, or at least fall off the vaping wagon. I ended up limiting myself to eating pizza and a box of cereal as the lesser of evils. I know everyone's family situation is complicated; all family dynamics are messed up in some way. But I'm not exactly emotionally resilient, and I often feel caught in the middle and helpless when family issues arise because you can't control other people's feelings or reactions. Things fortunately seem to have settled down now, and hopefully they'll remain so.

But business is business and business runs in the family
We tend to bruise easily, mad in the blood
I'm telling you 'cause I just want you to know me
Know me and my family, we're wonderful folks
But don't get too close to me
{Amanda Palmer, "Runs in the Family"}

He's an Emotional Man

He's a desperate man in a world so cold
...
Ooh he's emotional
So emotional
He's an emotional man
He's got tears in his eyes
Watch him break down and cry
{Falco, "Emotional"}

    I certainly haven't gotten less curmudgeonly as I'm hurtling through my 50s. For most of the time I've worked at my current job, I've been able to keep an even keel and my emotions under control; however, I've really struggled with it in the last couple of years. I think the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic along with my generalized anxiety disorder morphing into full-blown panic disorder has a lot to do with it. In my past two performance reviews, I've been dinged a point for "not keeping my emotions under control." I, let's say, passionately voiced my frustration with a substantial problem that everyone acknowledges and yet no one in authority will do anything about on a team call that included my new boss. He wasn't upset with me but commented that he was "concerned about my blood pressure." He later printed out a copy of the first part of the Serenity Prayer and gave it to me. He meant it as a joke but the undercurrent of comment on my behavior was there.

    I'm not exactly the poster child for being adaptable and have been dealing with a lot lately, which hasn't improved my emotional volatility, irritability and anger issues. I have ambitious goals to change my current meds and eventually eliminate as many of them as I can. But the mental turbulence this is causing me is fucking me over, including resurgent daily struggles with anxiety symptoms and panic attacks. The day after my last post I decided I couldn't deal with the side effects from Buspar anymore and quit taking it. Even after stopping, I'm still getting episodes of tinnitus, which is disappointing and adding insult to injury. They're not as frequent or severe, so hopefully they'll eventually fade away. I managed to get worked in at my psychiatric provider, and I'm trying yet another medication. Theoretically, it has a lower potential for anorgasmia, but I'll just have to wait and see.

    There is also a serious issue going on with a close family member, and I'm doing my best to be supportive and as helpful as possible. Unfortunately, there is some corollary and (in my humble opinion) entirely unnecessary pedestrian family drama BS going on as well that I am characteristically caught in the middle of. Sometimes I feel – probably unfairly – as if I'm viewed more as a function in the family dynamic than as a whole person, but then no one in my family (by design) really knows what goes on with me. So it's hardly surprising that I don't feel "seen" and not entirely the fault of people left purposely in the dark.

    In addition, work has been uncharacteristically stressful lately. It's the best job I've ever had, and it has rarely been a source of stress in the 7+ years I've been there. But we are in the midst of a period of rapid change and upheaval. The uncertainty – where even the executives in my department don't know how everything is going to shake out – is unnerving to an "individual contributor" like myself when the future of what will happen to my position is unknown. Turbulence in the workforce also means that less people in my department are handling more tasks, and recalibrating the scope of what we're able to offer our internal customers and the need for greater reliance on other departments facing similar issues means navigating the new normal can be taxing on my emotional equilibrium.

    In spite of it all, I've been pushing ahead with daily self-care (frequently a challenge) as well as moving forward with my self-improvement goals. Considering my mental state lately, this is nothing short of astounding. I don't know why I've managed to will myself into motivation while dealing with profound anhedonia and spikes in anxiety. But I'm grateful and have made an effort to practice gratitude, reminding myself of all the many blessings I enjoy to redirect myself from obsessing over the inconsequential inconveniences and annoyances. It can be as small as being grateful for the technology that allows me instant access to music and audiobook entertainment to ease the time as I work on improving my life to as large as reminding myself of how the people in my life show me I am loved instead of just focusing at the disappointments I sometimes feel by the actions of flawed humans with as much going on in their lives as I have in my own.

An Honest Assessment

    I managed to get back to taking my walks this morning, and in the storm of my thoughts, I once again landed on the idea that I would be better off dead. I hate life. I despise everything about it. There is a great quote that I can't seem to find about not being grateful to one's parents for giving you life and how creating life is an act of monument hubris. That's how I feel about it.

    I'm not going to harm myself, but I'm so sick of desperately seeking relief from my mental illness, only to find intolerable side effects. Even after I moved to the bare minimum dosage of 5 mg twice a day, the buspirone has left me with a constant ringing in my ears along with agitation, constipation, headaches, nausea and lightheadedness. The 7.5 mg dosage gave me all that along with extreme irritability and hypersexuality to the point it was interfering with my life. I was only on the 10 mg dose a couple of days, but that made me feel so terrible I felt as if I were dying. I'm going to give the buspirone until the end of January to see if it truly helps and if the side effects lessen. If not, I honestly don't know where I can go from there. I've tried almost every class of psychotropic there is and every other avenue of treatment. They are either not effective and/or have side effects I can't live with.

    I just don't want to be constantly managing depression, anxiety and panic to the point where everything else in my life gets crowded out. But the cure always seems as bad as the symptoms and invariably sets you up for terrible withdrawal when you want to get off things. All while keeping up with the day-to-day demands of holding down a difficult job, all that goes into living independently and dealing with family stressors.

Side Effect Whack-A-Mole

    I'm tapering off one antidepressant and starting another psychotropic. Unfortunately, short-acting SNRIs can be some of the most difficult to quit. Fortunately for me, it hasn't been all that bad. It's called Antidepressant Discontinuation Syndrome, but it's really just a form of withdrawal. Today is day three of halving my dosage of Effexor ER, and – right on schedule – I woke up this morning feeling exhausted and my emotions have been (even more of) a trainwreck. (It doesn't help that everyone else in the world is a complete idiot!) My job is rarely stressful, but it can be demanding. So I'm trying to just take a breath and take care of things one item at a time. Rereading and waiting a few minutes before hitting "Send" is also a critical part of this strategy.

    One major reason I wanted to change medications is that I am tired of being chemically castrated by my antidepressants. In the past decade or longer, I've had maybe three orgasms that weren't caused by my own hand. I've got precious few years left to enjoy my sexuality, and I can't live in constant frustration over everything to do with sex. And I still hold out an anemic hope that I might actually find a partner one day, but sexual intimacy is integral to a romantic relationship for me. Buspar may actually help with antidepressant-induced sexual dysfunction. Of course I can't make an effort to rid myself of one side effect without picking up another: I seem to have developed tinnitus, which I've dealt with before and which can be a side effect of Buspar. So far it's tolerable, thankfully.

    I mainly wanted to switch to Buspar because my anxiety and panic disorder are having the most impact on my life. I've considered in-patient care a number of times over the past year solely because I was not able to deal with my panic attacks. If it can help manage my anxiety, then I'm hoping to be able to stop the medication to lower my heart rate and a tranquilizer that I take daily. (Each with their own side effects, not to mention the counterindication of taking benzodiazepines long term.) One of the longer-term goals I mentioned in the last post is to drastically decrease the number of medications I take – always under the supervision and care of my medical providers, of course – because all medicines have side effects that affect the totality of the person. I even stopped the pill I was taking to preserve my hair for this reason, though I'm already considering topical alternatives. I'm shallow & vain, and I proudly own it.

Rudderless

    I've been in a weird headspace. Hopeful. Emotional. Agitated. Angry over everything and nothing. I've been motivated to stick with small efforts at self-improvement and have been vaguely optimistic about the future, starting to set some longer-term goals for the first time in forever. I've even been generally not unhappy. And yet I'm struggling with a profound malaise and finding pleasure in anything. I've just been constantly running fantasies of indulging my baser passions obsessively through my head. Of course, I've pretty much given up everything that gave me pleasure in the name of health & wellness. I gave up drugs & alcohol. I gave up vaping. And I've recently given up binging on bad-for-me food. I'm on third month of Wegovy, so I'm making the effort not to sabotage that. Unfortunately, the semaglutide may be messing with my mood, as that's a possible side effect. Besides the fact that I simply desperately need to lose weight – for my self-esteem and physical health – I'm calculating (hoping) that a drastic reduction in my abdominal fat will result in a dramatic improvement in my mental health, the theory being that getting rid of all the chemicals the fat pumps out constantly will unstress my system.

    There has been a lot of change and upheaval at work, which is distressing to someone like me who abhors uncertainty. Though I'm not the only one unnerved and wondering when and how everything will finally settle into place. My boss moved to a different part of the company, and I didn't find out until a week before it happened. We worked well together, and with her long experience, she knew the answer to everything. So I'm keenly feeling the knowledge deficit and constantly feeling as if I'm navigating the complexities of my position without guidance and making it all up as I go along.

    I've also taken a long-term pause with my counseling. My therapist also moved to a different practice, one that is difficult for me to get to on a weekly basis. I like my counselor, but my therapy didn't really seem to be going anywhere. I would mostly just tell her what I'm actually feeling and what is really going on in my life, something I no longer share with friends and family. It allowed me to feel "seen" and to have my emotions validated, which was something I didn't get growing up. But I wasn't really moving forward in any way or learning how to handle my emotions and better ways to cope. This blog is one of the aforementioned longer-term goals, but I was additionally motivated to pick it up again to fill that outlet I was getting in therapy.

My Day Today

1. Once again tried to help my mother with her shit. Once again have her move the goalposts on what she wants/needs. Once again have her mistake and misunderstand pretty much everything I tried to say to her. Ended the conversation with her crying inconsolably and ruining her day, once again.
2. Tried to see a new psychiatrist after my previous one suddenly shutters her practice indefinitely. New place – recommended by my primary care provider – is unprofessional and sketchy AF to me in a lot of their practices before they've even treated me. They also drag my ass across town to miss an hour and a half of work to just have me piss in a cup and have some woman take a five minute history in pen in a spiral notebook. I won't actually get to see a "doctor" (nobody in the entire practice is an MD) for two weeks to actually talk to someone about my actual fucking medications. So no help and a waste of my time for the opportunity to waste more time missing work to have someone possibly actually provide me a useful service.
3. In spite of exercising every day and working hard to moderate my eating, my weight just keeps going up. Got to add another four pounds to the tally this afternoon.
4. Went to a Meetup walk at a local park after work instead of getting shitfaced, which was my strong inclination after #1, #2 and #3. Before the walk, someone posted in the group chat about going to dinner after, and I reply that I'd like to. After the walk, no one else seems interested in grabbing dinner, and the guy says to me, "Well, if it's just going to be the two of us, I'm gonna just go home."

After weeks and weeks and weeks of not being able to enjoy anything (vid. blog title), it's getting harder and harder not to just give in and go back to drinking: use alcohol and vaping to smooth into and actually enjoy playing a video game, have a few hours of actual pleasure. When everything – like even brushing your teeth – takes such a monumental effort of will and just keeping your life the bare minimum above water seems monumental, it's so hard not to wonder why I bother with anything at all. I'm just a bitter, angry, perpetually unhappy, broken, empty man hurtling through his 50s whose only positive impression of life is that it isn't permanent.

Realizations

My depression has been particularly weighing on me the past few weeks and is especially bad today. Sometimes the rabbit hole of thinking spurred on by depression causes my sense of self and reality to unravel somewhat, which can lead to existential panic and increasingly disjointed thought patterns. My whole psyche is patched together by self-delusion, and sometimes the cracks start to show. One of the motivating factors for writing this is to focus and seek a semblance of sense.

"I know you don't want to be here forever, even I got things I want to do in my life."

"When?"

{Shaun and Pete, Shaun of the Dead}

After an ill-advised and uninspired encounter last night, I realized simply that none of my dreams are going to come true. I'm fifty-fucking-one years old. I'm never going to have any success with my writing. I'm never going to have a significant other. I'm never even going to have a group of friends, just my usual small cadre of loyalists that I speak to and see only rarely.

I see young people achieve great success as writers, even in poetry, the form of expression most nearest and dearest to my heart. I see writers and other artists living with terrible mental illness, including soul-crushing depression, manage to rise above it enough to have their voices heard. I barely have enough mental energy to hold down a job, pay my bills, live independently and maintain a minimum standard in my self-care and living space. I don't have any extra to complete writing projects; I just endlessly scribble down all my little ideas. For those few things I actually manage to finish, I don't have the wherewithal to scramble and hustle to actually have my voice heard. I feel as if I have talent and something to say and the ability to entertain. But I struggle with finding meaning in anything, and writing something that no one will read is the height of vanity.

I'm desperate for connection, but never seem to have much success in relationships. Family and the few friends I have appreciate the idea of me more than the experience beyond the occasional brief encounters. I want to connect over shared interests so badly that I pointlessly beg my sister to watch a movie series or wheedle my friend into playing a video game franchise (both of them refused). Lately, I've been posting endless comments on "r/" YouTube videos as if anyone reads then or cares or as if they mean anything. Connection can't be forced, so it's all just a waste of time. The physical dysfunction caused by my antidepressants and other factors certainly hasn't improved as I've gotten older, so what hope is there for a relationship with no solid sexual expression and fulfillment, even if I managed to attract and not repulse a potential date.

I live my life in fantasy, and fantasies are more meaningful to me than reality. That's why every once and a while I will spend literal hours lost in a fantasy. I desperately try to make my fantasy world come true, but either fail or end up disappointed with how they look in the cold, harsh light of reality. My fantasy of writing success (specifically for a young adult adventure series) told me I should delete or heavily edit the raw and deeply personal honesty of a previous entry, but why bother? With past as precedent, I know exactly how my life will actually go:

1. I drop dead sooner rather than later. (Given my age, I can hardly call it untimely or too young.) I haven't taken great care of myself over the years, but I also come from a general history of longevity on both sides.
2. I continue to linger like a sleepwalker through a dream or a zombie stumbling through a barely perceived landscape. I'm good at my job (which is in fact my only real source of stability, security and fulfillment), so I will keep it, achieving moderate, perfunctory, unspectacular success until I finally come of age to retire. I haven't saved all that much, but the lucky happenstance of inheritance may keep me from being completely destitute through the hard work and prudence of others. In a dwindling sphere of isolation, I'll spend my time watching TV & movies and playing video games while probably developing into a full-time alcoholic. My days will revolve around drinking, preparing to start drinking and recovering from drinking the day before. Companionship will continue to be short-lived, transactional encounters. I'll write a little bit here and there, perhaps nursing the delusion of "one day." Finally, I'll drop dead later rather than sooner, alone and so quickly forgotten. My siblings' descendants will look upon the writing I leave behind with novel interest before packing it up somewhere until eventually it gets thrown out and even my memory has been obliterated from the world.

Ultimately, like everyone else, I'm just killing time until I die, so none of it matters anyway.