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holy shit do you have any idea how hard it was just to post the fucking thing in the internet my tutor account got blocked even though it was private and had no followers dad why didn’t you look at me Mom I didn’t look at me how do I die

16 years, 1 month, 27 days

That’s how long it’s been since I created this blog. That’s a long fucking time. It’s nearly exactly half my life ago. Since then, I’ve learned so much. I’ve been hurt. I’ve been bored. I’ve been angry. I’ve been overjoyed. I’ve been hopeless – kind of. Throughout it all, I never stopped believing that my happy ending was somewhere in my future. To me, it was never “belief” – it was knowledge. I guess that’s what you’d call “faith”.

Since then, I’ve been diagnosed with a veritable bouquet of mental health thingies: ASD, OCD, PTSD, a mood disorder – a couple more and I get a free sundae. I’ve been to hell, and I’ve crawled out of that pit by my fingernails. I’ve crawled out of that pit and I’ve climbed up higher than I’ve ever been. I’ve also eaten a lot of cheeseburgers. It’s hilariously ironic that the all-time high water mark of my mental health is coinciding with the all-time low point of my physical health. January 1 is coming. New Year’s resolutions have nothing to do with it. What makes it effective for me is a robust delineation between “before” and “after”.

When I was younger, I’d cringe at old memories. I’d try to make myself feel better by saying “if it’s been longer than 2 years, you don’t have to feel guilty”. What I’ve just recently learned is that having to say that to yourself at 15 is a sign of larger problems than that time you made an ass of yourself.

Monday, Oct 15, 2018

I’m on my second 15-minute break at my warehouse job. Ironically, even though this is a public blog, I’m posting on it through a VPN. I’ll likely be quitting this job soon. In 3 hours and 40 minutes, I will smoke marijuana while my wife drives us home. Currently, I would rate my emotional state at around a 4 out of 10, large numbers representing a healthier mental state. 4 is pretty much par for the course at this job, especially on a Monday. The transition from weekend to weekday is not a gentle one, especially for someone with autism.

Every day I’m learning something new about my autism specifically, autism in general, and myself in particular. The insights that I’ve gained in the 2ish months I’ve known I have autism are among the most influential and life-changing that I have ever experienced. My daily struggle is to try to contain myself and hold everything together mentally and emotionally. I go to work because I must work. The alternatives are far inferior to going through all this while being away from home for 10 hours a day. However, the cost for me is high. Trying to act like everything is status quo while simultaneously weathering what I can only describe as an emotional typhoon…it can be…taxing.

The first time I went back to work after being formally diagnosed with autism, it was too much. I heard my coworkers’ tones of voice – they weren’t happy the weekend was over, but their level of stress and mine were as different as they could possibly have been. They were inconvenienced, tired, and crabby. I was in my own personal hell, a whirlwind of sudden impulses, sensory sensitivity, emotional vulnerability, and mounting anxiety. My wonderful wife faked an illness and we got the hell out of dodge.

Since then, I’ve gotten a better handle on my mental state, thanks in no small part to my new therapist. She’s the one who diagnosed me with autism, and I’ve been seeing her once a week. She fully authorizes my use of weed as a coping mechanism, citing my years of trauma and continuing difficulties meeting the expectations of daily life. It is my hope that continuing this path of self-discovery, therapy, adaptation, education, and healing will yield greater and greater outcomes. So far, since 2006, it’s been a wild ride, but it has been more than worth the price I’ve had to pay. In short, it is better to know you’re drowning than to gasp for air and wonder why. I still wouldn’t mind breaking the surface sooner, rather than later, though. The salt makes all this taste terrible.

Calc 2

In 2012, I didn’t know I had autism. I didn’t really understand my ADHD. If you’d asked me at the time, I would’ve said I was still dealing with my mother’s death from 4 years earlier. I had no idea that my dad was continuing to emotionally abuse me. The fact that I had PTSD couldn’t have been further from being discovered. I had never tried SSRIs, let alone weed. I didn’t even know I had any mental health issues whatsoever. I lived for the weekends, when I would get drunk and laugh with my girlfriend. Saturday and Sunday were oases that motivated me to keep crawling through the grit and heat of weekdays in my small singles dorm room at my university.

My Calculus 2 professor was woman so old, she used the PA system wired into the walls of the classroom. If she hadn’t, the people in the back wouldn’t have been able to hear her speak. She was about the height of a mailbox, and looked like she weighed about as much as a couple of bowling balls. I wasn’t foolish enough to ask her age, but she couldn’t have been younger than 70.

She was passionate about her subject and her job. But, when she would raise her voice, it would come out through the PA system. One day, she kicked out two girls who were chatting. She went over to their desks, gathered their belongings in her arms, and lead them out the door. You may be asking yourself, “How does a 5-foot, 100-pound, 80-year-old math professor kick two college girls out of her class?” The answer really is quite simple. It’s easy to do, really. All it takes is being terrifying.

I didn’t go to class for weeks after that. It might’ve even been months. I hated myself for not going, and I knew what I was doing was setting myself up for failure, but I couldn’t help myself. No matter what I did, for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to go back. Every time I tried, her furious voice would ring in my ears, and I would shrink away from the thought. Those mornings, I didn’t even leave my room. I would eat handfuls of peanut M&Ms and pretend not to be in if friends knocked on my door.

At the end of the semester, with exams approaching, I panicked. I flew into a storm of studying.

I got a B in the class.

I’ve changed. I have autism. I’m pretty sure I’m a genius. I’m only being arrogant if I’m wrong, right? Well,

Eugh what the hell is this font. Sorry about the long title, but I couldn’t just not say anything. Then again, I had other things to say, which is why I wanted to write in the first place. So, if you’ll excuse me:

Axiom 1: I’m an autistic genius
Axiom 2: Weed is well-known as an apparent creativity boost
Axiom 3: Weed seems to make my autism “worse”
Axiom 4: Monologuing is a symptom of autism

I could probably write some pretty good books about how I view the universe, with weed enough and time.

crime

MIRROR 1: https://instaud.io/Zni

MIRROR 2: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1mMrhCd4UvU

MIRROR 3: https://clyp.it/fvnj4cy5

My Webcomic

Hello everyone! I haven’t updated this blog in a long time, but I still consider myself to be a creative person. In January, 2010, I started a webcomic called Between Classes. It’s been going pretty strong. I’d like to consider it to be one of the best things that I’ve ever started. So far, I’ve made almost 80 comics. Right now I’m drawing 3 new webcomics a week. I’m also updating the site with my girlfriend’s webcomics once per week. If you like what’s on this site, maybe you’ll like my webcomic, who knows!

Check it out!
www.between-classes.com

How to add your computer to a workgroup

In this tutorial you will be shown how to add your computer to a workgroup in Windows XP. The menu system is slightly different in Windows Vista, but the principle is basically the same. The menus should only be slightly different.

The first step is to right click My Computer and go to Properties

Next click on Computer Name and then click on Change

This should bring up a window with the computer name and the workgroup. All you have to do is change the workgroup name. Note: You will have to restart after doing this.

And that’s it! You’re done!

Hey World

Bring it on.

Unknown

Usually when I write these posts I have at least some idea of where they will go.  With this one I have no idea whatsoever, but I still feel the need for expression through writing.

There is beauty in shame.  Truth in misery.  Clarity in pain.

In life things keep building and building until release, and when all the walls are torn down, everything is open and on the table.  With a house of cards you don’t know what might happen.  You can build something up differently than was planned and things happen in unexpected and spontaneous ways, but destruction (real destruction) only goes one way.  Loss is only loss if you don’t gain something, and it is only on those rare occasions that lead to losing more than you gain that we should truly weep.

This post is not a post, but is in fact a (insert wonderful word used for emotional dump that I can’t think of).

To some I may seem insane, and some may indeed be correct, however to quote Homer*; “In a world gone mad, only a lunatic is truly insane.”

*Simpson

You will never be so close to those who suffered greatly with you.  It is only when we are weakened that we let others in.  This may not be true and may only apply to me and the people like me (insecure and highly jaded from being burned too many times) and it may be many other things, but it’s not false.

Tragedy has a way of bringing people together.  Sometimes I want to tear it all down just so I can have the excuse to cry on someone’s shoulder – sometimes I hope for things to fall apart for the sole reason that I can be on the inside facing the dark and scary outside world instead of continuing to be on the outside looking in.

Does having enough courage to admit your flaws make you a coward for not taking all opportunities to fix them?  “Sometimes I want to put a bullet between the eyes of every panda who wouldn’t screw to save its species” -Chuck Palahniuk

Lonely people put up walls to protect themselves from who they believe threaten to hurt them while they sit on crowded buses next to people doing the same thing, all of them alone together, surrounded by friends but alone in their own minds.  People like me are those that search for what they have and do not believe happiness when it buys them lunch, and are always looking for the trap door, the catch, the knife they’re going to stab me with as I turn away.  None of these fears are held logically, consciously, but the suspicion and borderline paranoia (based on experience mind you, and at a young age toboot which makes all fears extreme) remains, buzzing in the background like a warning alarm, wailing it’s everlasting message that the people you are with will hurt you and you should find the right people, when you are in fact among friends.

Why do we feel alone in crowded rooms?  How can we?  When does it end?

Control

If I could change one thing out of anything I would wish to have more control.  I want control because I know I’m capable of anything (within reason) that I want to do.  If I was in full control of myself, I would be able to say that I wanted to do something, and then do it, instead of doing something after a great deal of mental and emotional exertion to motivate myself to do it.

Deep down I know I have control of myself, but what I am realizing is that I don’t have control of my motivation.  I can control what I do, but I can’t control if I do it, at least not right now where I’m at.

I know that I can motivate myself, but when I try it doesn’t happen.
Why is this?  What am I missing?  If self-motivation is something that can occur, why can I not do it?  I believe I can, yet it is not occuring, so either in fact I cannot, or my problem is something else.

If I can motivate myself, the problem might be that I am unfocused, and might combine with my lack of organizational skills.  My lack of focus might cause me to be distracted and then I would lose track of time and what I had to do.  This might contribute to my lack of success.

Another contributing factor might be that I am able to motivate myself, but logically am having a hard time either justifying myself or committing myself to a goal.  I might not believe in myself as much as I would like to believe, and fear of failure might prevent me from committing to a goal I’m afraid I might not succeed at achieving.  I might believe that I’m wasting my time and might doubt my own judgement in selection of a goal, or doubt the worth of achieving that goal.

Additionally, self-loathing and frustration are very strong contributing factors.  I know that things that I have failed at doing were not impossible, and this causes me to beat myself up about the fact that I could have done better.  Frustration comes from my lack of familiarity with upcoming challenges, which reminds me of my last failure, and causes me to think that I am not going to succeed.  I doubt myself because sometimes even when I believe that I’m going to succeed, I still fail.  I lose faith in my ability to evaluate the current situation.

Self-loathing is caused by the thought that I was assisted by so many, but achieved so little.  The knowledge that even though I was perfectly capable of succeeding and did not does not help boost my self-esteem and morale.  I wonder if there is something wrong with me that others have right and if there is something that I am unable to understand that others comprehend.

What I need to keep reminding myself of is that what I’m doing is difficult and that I’m not the first and will not be the last to find it to be challenging.  Many of the others that I know are in the same position that I am in, and in many cases they are worse off than me.

There is a solution to every problem and not all of the problems that I encounter are as bad as they might initially seem to be.  What I am trying to do is not impossible, and neither is succeeding at achieving my goals.