chronocidalrage

[chronocidalrage]

BOSTON CALLING

Annoying crowd and location. Very uncomfortable. But I had fun with Susie. 

We found a nice spot towards the back on a slight hill where we could stand and watch the National and Foo Fighters. No one crowded around us or blocking us. A clear view. It was cool. It reminded me of being at Fort Devens watching the Fourth of July fireworks when I was a kid. That part I enjoyed.

At one point I was feeling good so I put my arm around Susie and kissed her on the head and the next morning she specifically mentioned it as nice and said she wishes I did stuff like that more often. She’s right, I should. 

Foo Fighters were okay. Seems like they’re definitely still grieving. Josh Freese is a great drummer but not as smooth or natural as Taylor or Dave (he seems more mathematical). Made me miss Taylor a lot. But his son Shane came out to play I’ll Stick Around and that was awesome. He has the it factor. I hope he becomes the official drummer when he’s older (if he wants it). 

They also did a full version of Everlong instead of the usual mostly-solo version. Did not expect that. Very exciting. Great way to end the show.

All in all, I think I’m glad I went. I’ll remember being there. Glad Susie encouraged me to go.

[chronocidalrage]

MY LIFE IS MY FAVORITE SCARY MOVIE

Just like Sid said in Scream 3. Scary, painful shit, but I don't want to stop fighting.

BEHAVIOR We all assume that everything we do and say makes sense, because it makes sense to us.

FEAR That feeling I have when I imagine taking chances or being challenged at night is fear.

Am I a coward? It’s my least favorite quality of mine and possibly my biggest shame.

I love movies about fear and bravery.

I remember Atom taking me sledding at the golf course at night once. I was so afraid but trusted him. I remember we doubled up layers, wearing jeans over sweatpants. I remember looking and seeing his baggy pants getting weighed down by the snow as we tried to walk through it.

I remember him showing me how to climb a tree at camp.

What I need every day is to be brave. Atom made me feel like I didn’t have to be. I felt safe with Atom. Like he would protect me. And I’m terrified without him. And I keep wanting Susie to protect me but she doesn’t want to (and she shouldn't have to). She wants to have my back and that’s different.

At night when I’m high with Susie and Ruby, I feel safe.

Intimacy and connection with others requires bravery and I’m afraid.

Maybe that’s what my life is missing. Bravery. Be more confident with Susie. Braver about maybe dealing with some of my weird shit.

SUSIE I should be more flattered by how often she wants to talk to me.

SELF EFFICACY That’s where I still have to work. This concept of my limits compared to people who impress me.

I have to let them go. I always see it as “what thing that I’m not ready for am I gonna have to do next?” When I should see it as “I either want to do this now or I’m certainly trying to do this now.” If I don’t succeed, maybe I will try it again the next day or not at all.

I learned. I didn’t know how to take care of Ruby, but I learned. I didn’t know how to sing better, but I learned. I didn’t know how to make a podcast, but I learned.

I spend all my time agonizing over the past and over preparing for the future.

I need to focus on the now. How do I plan for the future then?

PRESENT Sometimes I really feel great when I’m present. I think food helps me focus on the now in a way that I enjoy. Movies allow me to not care about the past or present. There is no now. The present barely exists.

PUPPET Remember that I am not a puppet. People may tell me or ask me to do something, but I am choosing to agree. They aren’t making my arm move, I am. You can say no. You can resist. I don’t have to do something just because I’m capable and someone asked.

MIND, BODY, & SPIRIT My mind and body suffer because my spirit is always in turmoil.

WANT AND CAPABLE I want to eat junk food and watch TV because it’s something I both want to do and am capable of. Focus on what you want and why you’re not capable if that’s the case.

ATOM Thought of Atom on the beach. He said hi and asked me how I was doing. Told me to tough it up, walk it off lol.

We both saw ourselves as puppets. So we made sure to treat each other like real people. Dad wanted to use us to make his decisions feel worthwhile (oddly they would feel that way in the end), mom and Scott had no real use for us. Which is still kinda the problem.

We found other puppet friends and promised to operate them kindly. But when we needed a real friend, all we found were puppets.

I think we both wanted a puppet master who was a beautiful girl. You more than me. I kinda wanted to be a real boy. We gave up and decided to be real boys together and that’s when Susie happened. That’s why you loved Liz. A puppet master.

SLEEPING WITH THE SIMPSONS ON I fucking love The Simpsons. Jesus Christ. What a brain-forming piece of media. Life changing.

ESTEEM I am responsible for my own personal happiness. I am responsible for my successes and in some cases, my failures. I am also responsible for learning why I failed and how to succeed on the next try if possible.

FOCUS The problem is that other people cause me to forget I’m not a puppet. The introduction of other people generally causes me to go submissive, so working from home when Susie is here is incredibly difficult because I keep forgetting to be responsible for myself.

MODERN MEDIA I think normies have trouble connecting with fantastic and hyper real things. So the fantastic needs to be treated with cynicism to take the edge off. All mysteries need to be explained (hence the love for origin movies), and the visuals have to look real or like a video game (the most visually bizarre thing a normie understands).

It’s like modern audiences are having an imagination crisis.

MAKING SHIT Weirdly I’ve also been into watching movies less lately. I wonder if being more creatively productive with Tony is helping? I do technically prefer creating art rather than consuming it.

ALONE TIME What you do when you’re alone says a lot about who you think you are.

TONIGHT I can hear the SNL “Goodnights” theme when I think of this apartment and this neighborhood (our Neponset apartment). In the future I’ll look back at this time and at least envy how simple things were in so many ways. Just us. Safe and otherwise unbothered.

I also have to remember Susie is sad about leaving partially for the same reasons as me.

I have to remember how huge it is that Susie wants to live with me at all. She probably couldn’t even stand living with any of her best friends, she just doesn’t really like sharing space with people.

It almost helps to think of those you’ve lost as amazing places you’ve been. You’re just glad you got to go there.

We’re just the same essence tracking through different bodies and moments and surroundings through time. I’m the same thing that was in this body when I was watching dad sing in school shows. With Atom sitting next to me.

It’s like gravity pulling us down through time. Time itself doesn’t do that, the force of death does that. Every moment is real and important.

I love the night because it used to scare me and now it doesn’t. It makes me feel excited and brave.

I still feel like I just talked to you. I hope you’re always the first thing I think about when I hear “friend,” “brother,” or “loss.”

I’m always looking for confirmation that I’m doing the right thing.

When I imagine things I have to do, imagine completing them rather than failing at them. It’s the sting of the immediately imagined failure that fucks me up.

We only experience time because our consciousness is attached to our current state and our state keeps changing due to time. Otherwise we would just be.

I think sometimes I really wanna stay stuck in the period right after we moved to Kendrick. When I thought Susie and I were all up from there, life was up from there, and Atom was kinda in the early stages of his struggle and may still just snap out of it. It was the last time I felt actually hopeful. And I’ve been losing faith ever since that was ruined. And I think every day I wake up realizing how much less hope I feel. And that fucks me up. So I focus on Ruby as my biggest reminder that good things have happened since then. But then I fall back to my “oh fuck I have a whole place to myself but not in the depressing way, I can do whatever I want without judgement!” Which became a fun benefit of my modern life, and I think unfortunately I see that and Ruby as the best developments since I lost hope.

The truth is that I think Susie could be with anyone if she wanted to. But she’s with me. Wild.

I think I need to realize that if I want to do more, I have to devote less time to leisure. Which sucks because I love leisure.

I think I just learned to look at it like: trying to do things will go poorly, insulate yourself and try to make it fun.

SHIT It’s the immediate image of me failing at something that stops me. I think of something that doesn’t have a 90-100% chance of success and I immediately imagine me failing at it, which then makes me feel sad and pathetic and I feel awful and don’t want to do that thing. Maybe I just have to imagine myself succeeding instead and deal with it if I hit resistance.

RANDOM SPACE THOUGHTS The people around you will change if YOU change. As you go to different places in life, you’ll be surrounded by different people. It’s normal.

While in space, I “talked” to Atom. It was us on the phone the last time. I told him how much I loved him, I gushed. I told him he has no idea how much I love him and he said “you know I do. I know exactly how much you love me.” I asked him if he’ll forgive me if I move on. He said he won’t forgive me if I DON’T. He said I have to.

Thought of him laughing at the fire at camp. Him looking at me and seeing what I saw.

Thought of me when I was younger. I never could’ve imagined how my life has gone. I just wanted to be cool and famous. I didn’t think of much else.

Tonight, seeing you at the funeral home seems fake. Cleaning out your apartment feels imagined. I feel like I had just talked to you earlier today. Thanks for that.

You also told me you can’t wait to see what I make. “Show it to me.”

You didn’t know what you were doing either, you just gave it your best shot.

I think I struggle with how guilty I feel about wanting more for myself, like mom and Scott, while also believing in and being in awe of self sacrifice. I so loved the way dad and Atom put themselves second. It was so beautiful in its dark way. But Scott and mom were more likely to have what they wanted. To love themselves in some capacity.

I’m the pet project of dad and Atom. Their science experiment. Their creation. They wanted someone who saw the value of love and self sacrifice, while also believing in themselves and having the lives they want. They wanted me to have the strengths of both sides. It’s just so hard to be both.

FOR ME Think of how everything benefits you. How it’s for you. A coffee is for you. Working out is for you. For your stress. For your health. For you to move your body. If it’s for your body, it’s for you. Don’t think of things like “you’ll get less fat,” because that never works. You never imagine you can feel good about your body, so that won’t matter.

The junk food is to have something that’s “for you.” But so many things are for you. A healthier breakfast is still for you. It tastes good, it saves you time, it saves you money. More things than food and movies can be for me.

I like them because they feel like they’re completely for me. When things are partially for others, it ruins the fun for me I think.

WALK When I make stuff I can kinda feel Atom. Like he sees it.

I guess part of the problem is that I assign Atom all the responsibility for the good things that have happened to me. Never myself. Even the stuff that I assign to Susie, I never would’ve found or managed to keep Susie without Atom’s guidance before meeting her (in my mind).

I technically taught myself how to play guitar. Taught myself how to write songs. How to sing high. How to play drums (mostly). How to record. How to make a podcast.

How to take Atom’s lessons and use them to find my own style and taste. How to make comics. How to write. How to be funny. How to be the “cool sexy guy” on the rare occasion that I can pull it off.

How to make movies. How to transition from retail to my position at the end of Abine.

How to talk about and analyze movies. Learned from Willems and so forth, but I can actually do it now.

The things I’m able to do or figure out are a sign of my ability. But I tend to ignore them and focus on what I CAN’T do.

OTHER PEOPLE I think I believe I CAN’T put myself first. I have to put others first and me second. I can only be selfish when I’m alone or when I have successfully come through for others first. I need to drop that habit and learn to be selfish COMFORTABLY.

ART AGAIN Can’t stop thinking about Kevin Eastman. The artist most influential on me was Atom Harris. But from there it was Kevin Eastman, then Jim Lee and Erik Larsen, then Bruce Timm.

DATE NIGHT Susie and I got Thai massages and then randomly went to Cathay Pacific. It was amazing. What a good time.

RANDOM I think eating junk food and watching TV is my way of saying no. Saying no to what I should do, what I’m being expected to do. It’s a form of rebellion on my part. I’m not being healthy, fuck you I’m eating junk. I’m not being productive, fuck you I’m watching movies.  

[chronocidalrage]

February Has Been a Motherfucker

ATOM We both lived with the fear that we were happiest when we were kids together.

I guess I need to remember that they’re not the only good things in my life. The best things in my life can be whatever I want them to be. It’s not already written. No fate but what we make.

WE WENT TO THE BEAN POT 2/6/23 My connection with the Donahues is honestly really good. I have a lot of fun with them. I do feel loved and supported by them.  

Storytelling is a thing people love, and sports and reality TV are just a different form of storytelling. People down on the ice are having the biggest moment of their lives possibly, and we get to watch it happen for real. That’s pretty cool. I guess get more into the “story” of non-fictional things?

Wonder if I can get connected to the people who film stuff for the Bruins or whatever? The videos are cool and I bet a lot of the skills that go into capturing a game would translate to capturing action.

It’s cool that Susie and her family are real Boston people. Not people from Brighton, not people from Cambridge, actual people who grew up and were shaped by Boston. It's cool that I managed to get into that crowd. Good for me.

THRIVE I need to thrive, not just survive. I want food because it’s familiar goodness. That’s surviving. Just enough good to keep you going. You can also thrive. Have a bigger appetite.

I just want reliable and familiar goodness. But I also want more, and in order to find other good things you have to kinda turn away from familiar good things.

Thrive. Want more.

FAMILY Susie was looking at a list of different kinds of dysfunctional families. Mine is an "emotionally distant" family that looks like a substance abuse family from afar.

Susie’s is a substance abuse family that acts like a conflict driven family (because that's what they were all raised in - conflict).

I want my family to acknowledge how hard it was for me to try to save Atom by myself. And I want them to admit that they maybe should’ve listened to me.

2/9/23 Joe Wakeham is dead. Jesus. I guess he was just miserable. Changes perspective on some of his weird behavior.

So weird to think back to all the little things. I think I actually always really liked Joe, I just didn’t trust him. Like I thought he was laughing behind my back. Now I know he probably wasn’t laughing at all.

It sucks that now I’m realizing how much I’ve always liked Joe, I just haven’t trusted him since I was a kid. But I always really liked him. I thought he was so cool and sarcastic and funny. Loved coming up with offensive sitcom ideas with him. Still remember seeing him at that Green Day show in Worcester in High School. Still remember the first time he had talked to me in years when I was in line at the theater in Leominster. Jesus.

I didn’t text him after Bob. I didn’t because he didn’t text me after Atom. I was wrong. He did. And it was really nice. Dammit.

I guess I’ve never really seen something horrible happen to someone who has actually hurt me. It changes your perspective on things. On the hurt. On yourself. It recontextualizes things.

Family isn’t necessarily your favorite people. They’re the people you’ve gotten used to being a regular part of your life and you’d be upset if they weren’t.

KENDRICK Told Susie about our first night at Kendrick. How happy I was. She really thought it was sweet. I think she said it was "the sweetest thing anyone has ever said about her" or something like that. Nice.

FEARLESS Atom was fearless about loving things and people. It was amazing. And dangerous. He wanted to pass that fearlessness onto me but with better controls.

You were always trying to teach me a lesson. Everything was a learning opportunity in some way. Gossip even. That’s what you’d try to teach me now.

In some ways, that’s what I mess the most: guidance.

You’d remind me that things aren’t always (or often) the incredibly insulting version of events that I always imagine. Sometimes I’d even be flattered. And other people are often struggling just as much or even more than you.

Atom was kind of a philosopher. We used to “life brainstorm” together, especially at night. Talking about our days before bed. I think that’s kinda what the journaling is trying to recreate.

I just remembered seeing Fast 5 with Atom and how excited we both were about it being good. I remember seeing part 6 and being like “oh fuck” about Statham being the brother and the change that he had killed Han (even though I believe I already knew it was happening, I just can’t remember how I found out at the time). I forget how exciting that was and how we were talking about it and shit. We talked about specific action beats and shit. Fuck I forgot how exciting that was. I miss talking to Atom about this shit so bad. I remember us seeing F7 as soon as possible haha. We were so excited. The Rock. Jason Statham. James Wan. We were pumped.

DREAMERS Addicts are dreamers. People who yearn for something out of their reach, so they fill the hole with whatever works. The bigger the dream, the bigger the hole.

People who aren’t dreamers could never fully understand.

Something to remember is that I survived losing Atom tragically. And I did so mostly by myself. Without guidance. Remember that when you’re afraid.

That’s what you’d tell me. That if I can handle that, I can handle anything. Because you wouldn't think you could handle it. And you wouldn’t doubt how much I love you, you’d just see it as me being capable of anything.

That’s what you had been trying to tell me. That I’ll be fine. To not worry about you. It wasn’t my fault you were suffering and I should keep going.

I’ll always wanna see you one more time. It’ll never be enough.

SOMEONE I KNOW COMMITTED SUICIDE I feel weird. Dark but okay. In a way I think it’s made me glad I didn’t kill myself years ago. It makes me realize my life can still get better, unlike this other person.

But also the casual reaction from mom (and kinda Scott) makes me feel like they’d barely care if I HAD done it.

INADEQUATE Why do I think that? What do I think I’m missing?

My worth is due to how people have treated me. What’s the source of the ability problems?

I used to think I must not deserve to be treated better. Now I realize people just weren’t meeting my standards.

I used to think I almost always fail. Now I know I just tend to give up after the first try. I hit an initial "no" and I stop. Like rolling dice. I take the initial reaction as success or failure. I’m too busy rolling dice to just live.

I live like a character in a Roleplaying Game. I take failure as a sign of my limits. I assume I can’t just go auto, I have to make active decisions.

I just assume my character sheet is generally bad at this point. I forget I can gain experience points and get better.

I don’t really think I can try something more than once. I start seeing it as “I’m going to fail that” when I should really see it as “I’m probably gonna wanna give up on that if there’s any resistance at all.”

I can’t tell the difference between learning pains and regular pains. I see some pain as a sign that I’m not supposed to be doing whatever it is. I can’t tell the difference.

A better way to view it is that I’m being lazy, not that I’m incapable. I hate seeing myself as lazy but maybe it’s time I accepted that about myself? I’m lazy because I never got used to trying multiple times. I just always gave up after the effort because I didn’t like the resistance. For whatever reason. But this created a complex where I have almost no experience powering through something. So I assume I’m not able to. Accept that I’m lazy in that I never developed the ability to persevere in the everyday sense.

I link the things I don’t want to do with my perceived inability to do them.

But why does that get worse when I’m stressed? So today I felt like I was presented with multiple things I’m bad at: giving Ruby meds, putting the cone on her, keeping her from licking her foot, possibly having to get over her if something bad happened. All things I don’t think I could do on the first try, so therefore things I’m not capable of but have to do anyway. So I just have to have my limitations rubbed in my face.

So when I’m feeling like a failure, I want to avoid taking any other chances. I don’t want to do anything else that could add to my feeling of failure. So I want familiar things. Things that are a slam dunk. But in a way, those things make me feel like a failure too because I’m like “this is really all I’m good at?” So I can feel super lost when I feel challenged.

SECOND TIME I need to accept that it’s normal to have to try a few times. No one is perfect on the first try. No one is great right away about everything all the time. Just because something doesn’t come naturally doesn’t mean you can’t end up good at it.

I can keep trying.

I guess I suffer because I think not being good right away is shameful or something.

RUBY I need her to be alive and around. We can be in separate places but she needs to be alive.

STRUGGLE I assume failure, unless I can borderline guarantee success. I guess I need to get comfortable with having to make 2nd, 3rd, infinite tries. Think about the singing thing. I’ve been seeing noticeable improvement and I’ve just been trying and trying. I didn’t even really think I was improving and then BOOM: some things are just way better. Practice does make a difference, I just have trouble seeing that. Same with editing and writing the podcast. It really IS a lot easier for me now.

So STOP assuming failure! Even if your first try doesn’t succeed, it doesn’t mean a subsequent try won’t work.

I’m also realizing that I built my “post-breakdown” self-esteem on Ruby effectively. I matter because I have Ruby and I take care of her. I also believe that Susie keeps me around because I take care of Ruby for her (most of the time). And the idea of something happening to Ruby makes me feel completely lost. Who am I without Ruby, and why would Susie keep me around after that?

It’s good that I see this now, because I need to work on that. I’m better than that. I’m more than that.

WORK ON Testing my limits. Trying again. And again. Being okay with initial failure.

Believing that Susie really loves me and wants to keep me and I’m not in some situation where I could lose her easily by fucking up.

Need to remember that Susie is just a deeply critical person due to her experiences and the defense mechanisms she's developed in response to those experiences. I doubt anyone else would hold up as well to scrutiny as I have, in reality.

SELF LIMITS I think when things are bad or stressful, I believe I’m capable of less so I avoid challenging things and favor simple joys.

I should start ignoring my perceived abilities and just look at it like this: do I WANT to do it? SHOULD I do it? Do I NEED to do it? And generally how I spend my time should be things that are at least 2/3 of those? Maybe I only get one "I WANT to do this but I don’t need to and I shouldn’t do it" thing per day?

MISS I really miss Atom. I’m worried my life is getting consistently worse.

If I end up eating myself to death because I’m sad, I wouldn’t want people to only remember and talk about how much I liked pizza. 

I just hate thinking back to these times when I had more.

BETTER I have to WANT to wake up and exercise. And draw. And make stuff. I have to let myself want these things. The problem is that I’m afraid and I think I can only want the stuff I know I can do.

WORRIED I’m worried that I’m starting to pull away. From everyone.

I can feel myself hardening. And I don’t like it. It’s the opposite of what I want in many ways and the last thing Atom wanted for me.

Maybe I really do have trouble accepting that people can love me and be there for me and still disappoint me sometimes. It’s just hard for me to accept that, since my first concept of real love was Atom and we worked hard to never disappoint each other.

FAITH I think I’m at an all time low for faith in other people. That’s one of the biggest problems I’m having right now.

No faith. Hilarious that that would be my problem.

That’s why religion works out for people. Because the more often you put yourself out there and believe in a greater plan, the more successes you’ll statistically have.

What would my week look like if I could help it? What would I be doing?

It’s not that all I want to do is walk Ruby, eat Breakfast, maintain my life and sanity, watch shit if I can, get high, watch TV and eat Copeland with Susie. It’s that that’s what I feel SAFE doing. It feels good and safe and I don’t want to break it.

Sad.

You have a better life by being brave and having faith in yourself and others.

Live more bravely. Happier.

I struggle with non-religious faith. Life has gotten more and more disappointing, including myself. And I don’t want to get excited because I don’t want to be disappointed.

Atom didn’t believe in himself either. He believed in me. I gave him faith. He had faith in me and I made him so happy. Look how amazing he was and all he accomplished while not believing in himself!

I guess I wouldn’t care as much about Susie asking me to do things if I believed I could accomplish them to a satisfactory level. I worry endlessly that I can’t.

I worry about meetings and reactions. I always assume everything will go poorly. I rely on the two things that never seem to go poorly: movies and junk food.

I think what I’m often asking Susie for is consistency. Because I need consistency to have faith (which isn't really faith at all, if you think about it).

I’m passive because I think “this is gonna go poorly so I’m gonna do as little as possible to save my energy and avoid making things worse.”

I second guess my every decision because I don’t think I can believe in myself.

RUBY (AND MORE FAITH) Found out I did a great job treating her foot and watching over her. Proud of myself. I was so scared. It’s been so hard and I’ve been so stressed over the last week (NOTE: she cut her paw somehow). I don’t see myself as capable of taking care of someone. I assume I’ll fail. Because I can barely take care of myself, I don’t want to ask a lot of myself. I couldn’t take care of Flash. Or dad. Or Atom. No faith in my ability to succeed or take care of others.

I think I want my every moment to be one that I’d be okay dying during. Because of my fear of death and my assumption of the negative, I live like I could always die. Both because of my desire to "live" more but also to avoid wasting energy on something if I’m just gonna die tomorrow.

My negativity isn’t wanted. I want positivity. But it’s been implanted in my mind that things are gonna go bad. The end of everything is going to be bad in my mind.

So I kinda wait for the things I want to happen. I try to stay open to them so I can nab them. I don’t actively pursue. I put my foot out and see what bites. I can actively pursue things if I want. If I want to start having more fun with Susie, I can have more fun with Susie. I don’t have to wait for the opportunity to present itself.

I’m probably Ruby’s favorite thing on earth. She always wants to be near me. She comes to me for things she needs. I’m the thing most associated with good in her life. I probably make her happier than anything. That's awesome.

FOOD I eat like it’s going to be my last meal. If I die in my sleep, I want my last meal to be good, not some boring healthy thing lol.

ATOM The other day I was able to feel how much Atom must have loved seeing me grow and achieve things. How happy he was to see me find my way. I’m glad I was able to give that to him.

I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad. Being someone’s significant person is probably the best you can do. When I think back to my life I tend to think of things in three chapters:

My life with Atom before Susie

My life with Atom and Susie

My life with Susie after losing Atom.

Those are the chapters of my life and everything else is a sub chapter. So many things seem so silly now.

The people are the events in your life. You’re their story. Someone’s life is just stories about their favorite people, and how they were affected by them. If you get to be someone’s chapter, you’ve done a great fucking job. You made part of their life. I got to be Atom’s main chapter.

It’s not right, because you deserved so much better man. So much. So fucking much. You more than anyone. You should be the happiest person on earth right now. It’s completely wrong and it’s so hard to have any faith at all when (in my opinion), one of the worst things that could ever happen, has happened.

Get back to living like you’ll have future options and lots of time to do cool stuff. Live like you can eat shit next week. I don’t succeed because I live as if I could die at any second. I should live as if I know I’m gonna die someday. There’s a difference.

I legitimately don’t want to eat healthy food in case it’s the last thing I eat. I don’t want to get rejected because I’m like “what if this is the last thing I feel?” I just have such a negative outlook it’s so hard to imagine things in the long term.

I think a lot of what bothers me about Susie is lack of predictability. I want consistency so that I can justify a positive outlook. That’s not always fair to her.

I just see everything as awful unless I’ve been convinced it’s good or harmless.

2/23/23 Took it easy today. Watched Darren Aronofsky movies with Susie (Black Swan and the Fountain). Both good. Both kinda depressing.

I’ve realized I don’t eat to eat. I eat for pleasure. If what I’m eating doesn’t make me feel “good,” I’d almost rather not eat at all. Interesting.

It’s so hard to be positive sometimes. Things can be so fucking hard.

I really find things to be so negative. I believe almost nothing is good. That’s why I don’t have celebrity crushes, because I assume everyone is awful in the end.

I need to work on this. Only Susie, Ruby, and junk food are truly good to me. That’s bad. I can’t live like that.

It’s weird thinking back. I forget that I drank and partied for like 4 years before I ended up with Susie. I was a full fledged part of that lifestyle for years. I saw the cracks. I didn’t just abandon Atom. I saw the dangers of the world, I knew it was sinking. I tried to get him to get into the boat too and he wouldn’t. I tried to pull him away from it. I warned him.

[chronocidalrage]

PHANTOM BROTHER SYNDROME

The feeling at night is the other possibilities. That I could be doing the same thing but with my brother.

In a better universe, you and I are getting high and watching Universal Soldier movies TOGETHER tonight.

I’m always struck by the sadness of the fact that I could feel better if you were here too.

We both suffered from knowing how much better life can be with a partner.

My life has been about doing whatever it takes to stay connected. Because I got to experience beautiful, loving, consistent connection and it kinda ruined me in a way. It was so good (and so rare in my life) that I felt broken without it.

It’s so hard for me to just do the things I wanna do and hope I can find connection along the way. I focus on the connection first. Exercise is lonely and boring. Shit like that.

So yeah, start going to Susie’s Tuesday class. Ride the bike for at least 15 minutes on Wednesday and maybe Thursday this week. Read while I eat. Figure out how to LIKE working out or how to do it for myself? How does that work?

Also cut back on watching movies. I can watch stuff on the bike or at night if I’m done with stuff or on Saturday or Sunday if not busy. But I’ve gotta cut it down.

DEPENDANCE Isn’t that what it’s all really about? Some sort of ingrained belief that I am simply not enough on my own and I need SOMEONE or SOMETHING else to complete me? If I can’t count on another person, I look to things, such as movies and food. All because deep inside, I believe I am incomplete naturally. Never enough.

I’m always struggling with my primary addiction (connection) and my secondary addiction (food and movies). I’ve been leaning more on my secondary addiction because it’s easier to control. My primary addiction has proven to be quite difficult and unpredictable in recent years.

So I think I’m at a good level when there’s background connections available. Susie in the house. People in the office. It’s like the security of having food in the fridge. It’s there if I need it. But then someone (like Susie) asks me a question or something and I suddenly realize how much MORE complete I could feel. It’s not really that I “go away” it’s that I’m suddenly reminded of the completeness of real connection and all of my other goals seem less important in that moment. But it also stresses me out because I’m like “don’t tease me with real connection if you’re not gonna give it to me.”

So on days like today, I like the break from the “tease” of connection. No one to potentially connect with. I have no options to feel more complete. Just me. It’s nice in a way but I have to watch and eat a lot to feel complete on my own.

So I guess I need to always remind myself “you don’t need connection, food, or movies to be complete. You are complete on your own.”

FEELING COMPLETE Try focusing on your senses. Don’t think spoken thoughts about them, just think about them. Sound, sight, taste, smell, touch. Feel your whole body. Focus on that and let feelings and thoughts come up if they want to.

My primary trauma is the fear that no one will ever love me more than (or possibly even as much as) Atom, I’ll never be more complete than that, and I’ll never be happier than I was playing Sonic 2 on the living room floor with Atom. Or than I was when he got off the phone with Stacy to keep playing GI Joe’s with me. My trauma is the fear that the best parts of my life occurred before I was 14. It’s all been downhill from there. Not because good things haven’t happened since then, but because I have felt less and less complete, and more and more afraid since then. That was when I felt safest. Most content. Everything was so simple.

ATOM We both lived with the trauma that our lives may have peaked in childhood. Because life just kept feeling worse and hurting us more and getting in the way of our connection. Our trauma was the fear that it would never get better than that. For Atom, that may have turned out to be true. Sadly. But I still have a chance.

I was always more interested in the unknown. The horror fan. Atom wasn’t. He remembered life before “us.” I didn’t.

I guess I’m struggling. I could be doing worse, I’m doing my best to hold on but it’s hard. To me, the only reasons to live are Susie, Ruby, food and movies. That’s it. Some other things are great (Matt and Tim), but they don’t feel like reasons to live for me. That’s a bummer. I guess I need more reasons to live. Reasons for myself.

I guess I need to remember that they’re not the only good things in my life. The best things in my life can be whatever I want them to be. It’s not already written. No fate but what we make. 

One of my favorite things that happened in my life was Atom coming home from Blockbuster with Hard Boiled. Showing me Metallica. Ninja Turtles. The Tick. Probably GI Joe and Transformers. Batman comics. Predator. How to draw. Seriously some of the all time best moments of my life that have led to so much joy. So grateful and so heartbroken that he’ll never be able to give me one of those moments again.

I think one of my favorite things was nights when mom and dad were out and Scott was busy and Atom and I would just hang out in the living room and watch TV and play games and get pizza delivered. Papa Ginos I’m sure. Like they’d leave us money to order pizza and we’d get some while we watched movies. Those were my favorite nights. I don’t remember them super clearly but I’m 90% sure they happened. Is that where my “I’m more alone, but I can watch movies and eat pizza” habit comes from? All this is because I’m more and more afraid that I’ll never feel that good again. I’m just trying to recapture it without losing anything else.

COMPLETE AGAIN I wouldn’t be doing “nothing” if I felt complete. If I felt complete I wouldn’t be spending so much time watching movies and eating shit. I’d be more fearless.

I think I’m actually more scared of connection than I am addicted to it at this point. Not that I’m not addicted, but I’m also terrified of it.

Maybe the trick is to realize you’re also one of the best parts of your own life. Arguably the best. You’ve done more for your happiness than anyone. You listened when Atom showed you good things. You knew which people were special. You’ve done good things for yourself too.

Spend time with yourself. Love yourself. Is that the whole loving parent thing?

WITHDRAWAL Yeah I seem to go through this awful withdrawal period after spending time with people. After real connection. Does it make me feel more alone in comparison after? More hollow?

Am I struggling with some sort of separation anxiety? Do I worry that it’ll be the last time I see them?

FEAR What am I afraid of? I’m feeling fear when I’m having these connection withdrawals.

Did I really decide I wanted to live or did I just decide this was an okay way to die? Slowly fading away on the couch with my girls? As if I decided my life is already over. As if I’m in the final chapters. This is the night I die alone, or this is the night I never see Tim again. Shit like that.

Am I just living like death could come at any time? Do I not even see a future really?

It’s like I’ve decided the end is near and I’m always looking at things from that perspective. I don’t like being alone because I’m like “am I gonna die alone?” I have trouble doing chores and shit because I don’t wanna die alone doing dishes lol.

I’m just really overcome with dread. And it’s hard to not see everything that way. I think sometimes I think my life peaked in Portsmouth that weekend. Atom and Susie together. Great place. Great food. Great beer. Just a beautiful weekend. And I worry that I’ll never top it.

But I guess my nights with Susie and Ruby get in the way of believing it’ll never be that good again. I guess I just need to believe good things can happen. That my future can be good.

Am I constantly carrying the fear of dying alone? Not exactly because I think being alone is the worst thing ever. But because I don’t want that to be the last thing I feel. Atom died alone. I wish I had been there if he had to die that night.

I guess your final moment doesn’t really matter. People won’t focus on it, and you won’t remember it. Yeah I don’t like how Atom died, but I wouldn’t like him dying in ANY way. I’d want him around. And I remember him for everything else and the fact that he was taken too soon, not his last moment.

But I guess that’s the point. You don’t know when you’re going to die. It’s not written. You don’t know if your life will get worse. You can maybe make it better. Is the solution to stop seeing myself as powerless? Because I think that’s the problem. The last 5 years have really made me feel powerless. Like there’s nothing I can really do anyway. I’m just along for the ride.

And that’s not true. That’s the lesson I was trying to get everyone else to learn. You’re NOT powerless. Atom could’ve changed his life. Mom could’ve helped save him. All sorts of things are possible. No fate but what we make.

My life may have gotten worse. But I can also make it better.

TOOK SUSIE'S YOGA CLASS Thought about how I’ve always wanted to feel loved and only ever really felt loved by Atom. Probably just because he knew me best (so he knew how much there was to love) and because he was consistent so I believed it.

Felt signs of love from others. People disappointing you doesn’t mean they don’t love you. I think Susie is someone I struggle to see love from. Should think about how much of that is me and how much is her (probably more me).

PESSIMISM I think I’m deeply pessimistic. I guess I never noticed? I think because I hate it. I WANT to be positive because I’m so fucking sick of negativity. But I myself am not positive. I’m a pessimist who hates being a pessimist so I pretend to be an optimist. Damn. It’s really hard for me to see the bright part of things, so the bright sides have to be really shiny.

I think to me, everything in the world was bad in some way except for Atom and the stuff we liked. I was between good and bad. And now everything is just bad without him.

Yeah just start looking at things more positively. Look at how the glass is not empty, rather than the fact that it’s not full. I think I view things so negatively that the few things that seem good (or at least that have the downside more down the road) are really bright to me and hard to ignore. Like I see it as “tomorrow will be shit except for maybe when I get Dunks for breakfast or get high and eat Copeland with Susie” I just only see specific things as “good” because they’ve lasted the test of time. Makes me not want to make changes.

FLAWS I only see flaws and my concept of “goodness” is based on how few flaws I see.

No wonder I’m insecure, my concept of a good looking dude is completely unrealistic. Like, as completely insane as it is, the only guys I truly believe a girl could actually find attractive are tall ripped guys with great cheekbones and shit, great style, can dance and move and so forth. It’s not like I see a normal looking guy and think they’re better looking than me really. I’m always comparing myself to fucking models lol.

MAKING SOMEONE LAUGH It’s crazy to realize how much of a compliment it is to try to make someone laugh. Susie’s family really loves me. They’re not pretending.

Susie recalled my "lizard person" theory about Chris Harrison from the Bachelor the day after I randomly said it. She DOES pay attention to me.

DOERS There’s doers and observers. I’m an observer. The only things I figured out on my own were Susie and Ruby. And both scared the shit out of me but look how great they are.

THE WEAR AND TEAR OF ANXIETY It’s like I’m always holding a shield. It’s exhausting. And I’m tired of doing it so I want to avoid situations where I need it.  

[chronocidalrage]

Maybe I’m Not the Problem

Maybe I’m just beyond my world in some ways? I want more? I’ve always wanted more and that has made me feel like a circle in a square peg. It’s made me feel like the “bad” one, rather than the things around me being “bad.”

I’ve been blaming myself for being out of place when it may just be that my world isn’t up to my level or standard?

DENIAL Am I trying to avoid facing a truth? That Atom isn’t the best part of my life, he WAS the best part of my life. And it’s up to me who and/or what will be the best part of the rest of my life, if anything. I can’t go forward thinking Atom will always be the best part of my life. But it’s so hard to accept that he never will be again. Brutal.

Also hate how unhappy he was in his final years. Of all people to deserve happiness, he did.

Maybe I should apply more of my loving thoughts to myself as well. Don’t just treats yourself the way you wish to be treated. Sometimes treat yourself the way you’d treat Atom. You believe he’s worthy of the love you aren’t worthy of (in your mind).

The more I think about it. I think I’m angry that I lost Atom and Dad, and that I’m left with the ones I’m least emotionally connected to. Not because I wish they weren’t here, but because if they’re gonna be all I have left, I wish they loved me as much as Atom did.

I’m afraid the person who loves me most is already dead. That I’ll never be that loved again. It’s possible Susie loves me just as much or even more, but it’s hard for me to believe.

Atom got to die with me as the best part of his life. He got to end with things still close enough to good. We even had one final good talk. But I have to move on and accept him not being the best part of my life anymore. The only way that gets to remain true: that Atom is the best part of my life, is to give up. Those things are linked. And I don’t want to give up, but I can’t handle Atom not being the best part of my life. That truth has always made me feel so safe. And I can just feel that safety, that comfort just drifting away.

In the end, this is all about people. People really are the best part. You can create things, achieve things, improve your body. But the most complete person alone, is still alone. These things we can do on our own can make us happy and we should pursue them, it’s important. But life is really about the people and places and things that you get to be here the same time as. I get to be here the same time as Susie. We get to be on this earth at the same time as Ruby. We even get to be her family. That’s incredible. Don’t sleep on people.

I had to suffer for 41 years to find my favorite people, Atom, Susie, and Ruby. And I would happily suffer another 41 to be around even one of them and maybe find an additional favorite person along the way.

But I keep coming back to this shitty thought: nothing good can happen because if things were good, Atom would be here.

ANXIETY Everything is just fucking hard for me. Everything is exhausting and hard. I always feel uncomfortable and out of my element. Is this a winter thing? Do I need to just be healthier, eat better, exercise more and get vitamin D? Is that what’s going on? Probably not the ONLY thing that’s going on.

I want to feel more relaxed. Less nervous. Food and movies just feel safe, and nothing else does anymore.

I think being present makes me sad. I think about how alone I am. I think about everything and everyone I’ve lost. I get worried about the future. I get worried about my capabilities and possible future loss. My mind just gets flooded with negativity when I’m present and that’s really hard for me.

How do I get around it? How can I be present yet not be overwhelmed by the weight of the present? Is there a “surface” presence? Do I not know the difference between being present and over-analysis? Do I confuse the two?

Does food help to make reality more palatable? Like here’s something that’s good about it? And I tend to like simple food so I can’t over analyze it?

I dunno man, I may finally need something for anxiety. I don’t see my life getting LESS stressful.

I think I need to take a movie break. Movie and junk food break. I can replace it with reading and eating breakfast I make in the morning. Watch less stuff. Be more present.

Eat better. Exercise. Do more things. Get myself used to living. Think less.

When you really get to know someone, they feel permanent. Like your own voice. It’s incredibly difficult when that person is somehow gone.

I’ve definitely thought of this before but I definitely always think of what I CAN do and what I NEED to do.

Rather than what I WANT to do and what I SHOULD do.

I think of things like “I could make a giant Friends thread with funny descriptions of the show” but I don’t do it. Why? Because I don’t really want to. It could be fun, but it’s not important to me, so I never find time to do it. I’m always looking for dopamine sources. Movies I could watch. People I could please. Things I could eat. Just constantly looking for the most reliable sources of dopamine. It’s hard for me to resist a chance at it.

Rather than focusing on what I want, I focus on what consoles me for not getting what I want.

So I’m always ignoring my natural self because I don’t trust its instinct. I think my natural self is primal. I want this. This sounds good. But I don’t trust that side of me. For several reasons. The biggest of which is that I think what I want is irrelevant, it’s what I CAN HAVE that matters. And I don’t want to miss something I can have because I believe I’m just going to have less and less.

Anxiety and over-analysis are borderline the same thing. Over-analysis leads to anxiety. Focusing on something simple helps because it allows us to stop analyzing. I’m analyzing too hard in order to find opportunities. Openings. Open doors to something that will feel good.

And I think that’s why I get so upset if Susie doesn’t want to do something or isn’t happy to see me. I see it as adding to the potential belief that my chances of finding simple happiness are decreased around Susie. Which I hate thinking. So I obsess over her watching stuff I want to watch or eating something I’d enjoy together. I want more things, but I don’t see other things as reliable moments of joy.

I want safety because it makes my quest for joyous moments less tense. The stakes are lowered so I can look for happiness more casually.

Is the cure to anxiety to not “think” at all? Like, let the engine reboot?

I see life as a scavenger hunt. Like I’m always hunting for joy. And if one tunnel has big joy way down, I’m like “no thank you, I’d have to ignore all these easier sources of joy in order to get there.” It’s so hard now because I used to have this super reliable source of happiness. I knew where it was, it could come to me, just this amazing constant source of joy, who also helped me find more joy. Now I feel more lost. More likely to miss joy, more likely to struggle to earn it. More likely to run into bad things in the process.

We were both joy scavengers. Dumb name. I really still can’t believe you’re gone. It still seems impossible. I feel like I just saw you. I can remember you knocking on the window in the living room at Neponset.

I could see Atom’s pain and I knew what would help. And I told everyone and no one listened to me. 

I know it would’ve been up to you. But like me, if your life were more full of love and joy, you would’ve been okay hunting less. If your needs were being met, you’d stop hunting so hard. 

Atom just wanted to be loved. And he wasn’t loved enough, people just kept giving him opportunities to love them instead. And he did. I wanted Atom to be the target of the love. I wanted him to see proof that he was better than what he was giving himself. See and feel all this love and see how the way he treated himself wasn’t in line with how loved he was. That’s all I wanted people to do: love the guy. And everyone decided they’d rather be loved BY him. I get why. Who wouldn’t want to be loved by him? He’s the fucking greatest. Did they not feel capable of loving him enough? Did they feel like it wouldn’t matter what they did? Was it their self esteem? They felt way too small to do that for him?

I can’t imagine asking someone to do something annoying for me and saying “don’t worry, I’m worth it.” Wild.

Yeah I focus on CAN and NEED, because that’s my quickest route to joy and my easiest way out of pain. Do what I can, but only worry about what you need. As long as you do that, you should be able to avoid major pain and have fairly easy access to joy.

But instead you should focus on WANT and SHOULD. Because need tends to take care of itself. When you really do need to do something, your brain tends to tell you. There are things you should do but don’t need to do. There are things you’re gonna want to do but you can’t do currently. I can see why I avoid these but they’re the path to a better life. Do what you should do and do what you want in between.

LEARNING I feel like I’m learning new things about me and my life every day. I keep wondering when I’ll have learned enough, but I don’t think that ever happens.

FRIENDS I think the world I grew up in builds friendships on mutual interest and maybe accomplishments. Not quality of character as much. I think I want friends who are legit good people and that’s made me feel out of place with others.

I think I’ve always been annoyed by how not cool some people are.

That said, I’ll always think Brendan was cool for stepping in to help Susie at the holiday party.

Looking back, there’s all these signs of why I didn’t feel like I belonged in groups. I didn’t want to be friends with people who were assholes to me, so I didn’t have a lot of friends. Andy and them didn’t seem to like me that much and didn’t make me feel very welcome so I didn’t feel like putting in effort to make them like me. They dropped me instantly when shows stopped happening, shit like that.

Jimmy and his friends were awful. I hated being at those parties at his apartment and had no interest in being friends with those guys, I just wanted to be accepted by them but didn’t want to have to earn it because they weren’t worth it. Interesting.

Maybe it’s time to accept that I’ve always felt out of place because I want more than the people around me. And the other people who want more make me feel insecure or I feel like I can’t relate to them because I’ve never quite pulled off HAVING or GETTING more.

[chronocidalrage]

We lost Bob Wakeham and it sucks

NEEDS I think I have a habit of ignoring my needs. Because I tell myself that my “needs” are being met. I’m roughly healthy, I have a family, I have companionship, I have food, shelter, money. My “needs” are met, so I tend to ignore them.

I think that hunger that runs through me and drives me to eat junk food when I’m alone is some version of my sense of need. A hunger caused by feeling like my needs aren’t being met. I feel a “need” to be loved. I feel a “need” to be adored. I feel a “need” to be comfortable all the time. So some mornings, if I’m feeling needy and Susie is around so I don’t feel comfortable getting a placeholder for these needs (like a breakfast sandwich from Dunks or something) the hunger builds in me. I see her interruptions during a work day as a sign that my need for love is being ignored (like if she “loved” me she’d let me focus), her well-intentioned digs as a sign my need to be adored is being ignored, her irritation towards me being a sign my need for comfort is being ignored. All just perception based on my fucked up issues.

I think junk food has become a symbol of my needs. Because I do NEED to eat. So it feels like a need I can make sure is met in the most “loving” or pleasurable way possible. It’s kinda my version of loving myself I think. Oops.

So I guess break that? Start looking at it differently? I need to eat, but I don’t need to eat junk. I dunno, I guess I gotta kinda review my needs and what they are and what they mean. I focus so much on my wants, but I tend to act like my needs are irrelevant.

I think food has become a surrogate for feeling the warmth of love and support. Two things I always try to convince myself I don’t “need” but the hunger for them is constant. So I developed a habit of satisfying that hunger with food. The sustaining nature of the food makes me feel supported, and the exciting nature of the salt or sugar makes me feel loved.

So I guess step number one: admit that I feel a constant need to be loved and supported. Whether that’s dumb or not, I always feel it. And then realize that maybe love and support exists in ways that I’m missing, and realize that junk food is not actually that at all. All it does is make me love myself less, technically.

Yeah, I guess step one is to admit it: I do not feel particularly loved. And other than with Atom and occasionally Susie, I never have. And I don’t want to do things for people that I don’t believe show me adequate love, nor do I want to bother doing things that will get me no closer to feeling loved.

Ask yourself: what would you be doing with your time if you DID feel adequately loved?

LOVE It’s so weird. The hunger is so loud. It’s always with me. When I’ve felt loved, I feel okay. When I don’t feel loved, I don’t. Atom said I made him and dad feel “comfortable.” It’s the same fucking thing. We all showed love to each other and felt calm and complete around each other. When things were good at least.

And we all feel (or felt, in their case I guess) this hunger when we don’t have it.

So I guess I really need to read the self esteem book and the love addiction book. After tomorrow, I read at breakfast and lunch. Make my way through those books.

I just really need to learn how to ignore or live with this hunger. This pain of feeling unloved. How do I learn to silence this pain in another way?

Is the secret to just stop caring about love? Stop worrying about it? Stop obsessing over it? Focus on something other than being loved?

They suggest “becoming your own loving parent.” I guess I’ve been doing this occasionally lately.

Love is deep. The secret is to live more on the surface? When you always try to go deep, you can be disappointed easily. When you go digging, you want to find something.

Sometimes you can go so deep that it’s hard to enjoy things. Intimacy can be hard when you’re more focused on what it means than how good it feels.

Intimacy becomes something that has to make up for all the other love you’re not getting. I mix the two up and it stops being about the actual intimacy and instead becomes a substitute for love in general and my expectations become impossible.

So I fantasize about being perfect in those situations because it makes me feel super loved in at least one way. 

Love and connection are kinda the same right? You either put out love and it’s received and allowed in or you take love into you. It’s like a circuit or a plug.

I’m more comfortable loving things. Movies. Food. Shit like that. I’m allowing in things that are safe. But putting myself out there and having my “self” be loved, that’s uncommon and scary. And I think that’s what I hunger for the most. But it goes so poorly I don’t want to let people in since I can’t seem to get in. Weird.

ATOM Atom and I were never shy about being each other’s favorite. It’s crazy to think he had me since he was 4. We were always friends. He was my first certainty in this world.

The scavenger hunt he put together for my birthday that year. That was so fucking cool of him. What a fucking great brother. Jesus Christ. What an amazing guy.

I can’t believe I walked into a room and saw his dead body. Impossible.

Just remembered when we’d come home from going out at Taber Street and we’d part ways at the stairs to my room and I’d turn to look back and we’d do the metal sign thing to each other to say Goodnight.

He was so smart and funny and kind and he had the best smile and laugh and the biggest joy of the first 30 years of my life was being the reason he was smiling or laughing.

I hate saying it but maybe I just love him more? In the way he deserved and for who he really is/was? And I was asking everyone to love him as much as me, and it’s not that they didn’t love him, but they didn’t love him as much. Not like in a mean way, but kind of a sad way? Like sad that these people didn’t fully realize what they had? That’s not his fault though. It was right in front of their face. And it’s their fault/loss if they didn’t love him enough. They missed out. Still sad because he deserved to be fully loved.

Makes me sad though. Makes me worry that my fear that people don’t fully love me is true. Because if these people didn’t see the full value in Atom, how could they possibly see the full value in me? Makes me worry that the person that loves me the most is already gone. And if that’s wrong and Susie loves me at least as much, then it makes me so sad that someone else didn’t do that for him.

I guess people don’t understand. Someone had to try to save him, and despite my best efforts to delegate someone else, it was clear it would have to be me. They probably think “Atom gave everything to Alex and Alex turned his back on him” but that’s bullshit because I was the only one willing to have problems with him. Do you realize how hard it was for me to have conflict with him? We didn’t do that. We were always on each other’s side. Being in a situation where being on his side looked like the opposite? That was a fucking nightmare for me. I would have happily stopped pushing him if I thought for a second he would save himself, or anyone else was trying, but it was clear that neither of those things were happening so I had to do it. I had to push the guy I never pushed, because no one else was. And I’ll never forgive people for that. It was so hard to push him away when I needed him most. Just like it was probably so hard to watch me go when he needed me most. I don’t blame him for kinda giving up. It must have been so hard.

It’s just so sad that he’s not here because no one/nothing else could fill the gap. He deserved for people to come through and actually help him. Show him the love and support he deserved.

But I guess what we had really was special. Only me and him got to experience being so in tune and so loved by the person you love. That was unique and special to us and that feels big in a cosmic way.

I guess it’s also worth realizing that there’s a jealousy in not being someone’s favorite person. Scott and mom may have been like “you guys love each other so much, you fix it” and they may even be worried that I wish one of them died instead of Atom.

I’m not going to explore that thought. Maybe I’m kinda angry at them in that fucked up way.

I guess a lot of people really didn’t know you as well. Maybe if they did, they would have fought harder too. Maybe this is just a lesson about being your real self. How else is the world supposed to love you?

I really hope I made your life better. I’m pretty sure I did. I hope I was worth it.

Jesus. That’s part of the problem too. The pressure of being worthy of possibly being the best part of Atom’s life. That’s a lot. To be worth that to someone so amazing. It seems impossible. I always assumed Atom would eventually move on to something better. Like we’d always be best friends but he’d eventually not have as much time for me. Now I don’t know how to handle that never happening. Now it’s just me. And I don’t feel up to being the best thing he had. Me? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

I really miss us going to Portland to get tattoos together. That was so cool. Our bus trips. Us flying down to Florida together.

Maybe I won’t get my tattoos touched up? Maybe keep them as symbols of our time together? Just add new ones? I don’t need to get an Atom tattoo. All but one of my tattoos are Atom tattoos.

We were so lucky to have each other. Two people who just wanted to be loved and were observant enough to realize how deserving of love the other was. So lucky. I’m so fucking angry I don’t have you anymore and that you don’t get a better, longer life. You deserved all the love in the world. You deserved to be a star. But I feel so fucking lucky for every second we had together, and for every second you laughed or smiled without me there to see it. I’m so grateful for every second of joy you ever experienced, even if it didn’t involve me.

THE FUTURE I think I’m having a lot of trouble looking forward to anything. I need to find things to look forward to and they should generally not revolve around other people because that’s setting myself up for disappointment and potentially enabling my codependent tendencies.

AS FAR AS OTHER PEOPLE GO Don’t exactly “look forward” to those things, but always “hope for the best."

CHANGE Just scares the shit out of me. At this point, I assume it’s going to be for the worst. I should stop that.

ALONE Feeling loved makes me feel less alone. The feeling I’m always fighting is that I’m alone. And I think I need to accept that feeling. It might not be the worst thing in the world.

CREATION I think I wanna make fake realities. I don’t just wanna make stuff that’s roughly about my life. I wanna make weird, cool movies 9or comics) and inject them with things that say something about how I feel. Be honest creatively.

TOUGH SHIT I think sometimes my anxiety is me fighting a horrible feeling because I don’t want it. Maybe just let it happen. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been trying so hard to climb out of the pit for the last 5 years that I just refuse to admit I’m not ready to climb out yet. Like I’m stuck on the ladder out of the pit, weighed down by recent awful events, and refuse to admit it would just be easier to drop, let the new awful events process, and try climbing out again.

I miss Bob. I miss Atom. I miss my dad. I miss Justin. I miss Shayna too. She was cool.

FEEL IT IN MY GUTS I can feel my instinct constantly telling me “you can’t. You can’t.”

It’s weird to realize that I’m the person Susie wants to be with. She’s so amazing and she’s with me. And she’s the exact kind of person who wouldn’t do that unless she wanted to. And her perseverance despite all our issues shows you how much she must want to be with me? Jesus.

It’s cool that Joe and Jeff still want to be my friend. That’s cool.

I always hear that “I can’t” in my head. I only heard “I can” around Atom. Occasionally with others. Then when things changed for the worse I only heard “I can’t” with Atom. I can’t save him. I can’t go back to my late twenties when things were easier and he was happier. I can’t convince others to help.

I heard “I can” a lot more in my drinking days. I felt so confident. It really did help with my anxiety which is stupid.

[chronocidalrage]

It’s cliché but I want to be loved

LIFE I hate feeling alone because it reminds me of the truth. I’ve always been avoiding feeling alone. Accept feeling alone. It’s okay, because you’ve been alone and you’re okay.

I think if I can accept being alone, I’ll be more okay eating well. I think eating junk food specifically makes me feel less alone.

Like really, if I was okay with feeling alone, would I feel better about not eating? Would I feel better about taking chances? Have I been fighting to avoid accepting that I’m alone this whole time? And the only times I didn’t feel like I had to accept that, was when I was with Atom.

DISCONNECT Is what I feel a fear of disconnection? That I’ll say or do something wrong and ruin the connection?

I can feel Atom disconnecting. Going further into my past. I hate it.

So thinking about this more, I think it’s definitely close to love addiction and fear of abandonment/rejection, but it’s not QUITE that. I think I’m obsessed/addicted to connection.

Probably because I view connection as a sign of my worth. For several reasons. I think the quality and success of a connection is how I value myself in the moment. Broken connection = I wasn’t worth keeping. Failed connection = I wasn’t worth connecting with. Weak connection = I’m only worth so much. But even a great connection, like what I had with Atom, is fucked. Because I never saw it as “I’m fucking awesome and Atom isn’t a stupid asshole so he actually sees it.” I saw it as “Atom is so amazing he can see this lump of clay (myself) and see the work of art it could POTENTIALLY be.” Like he loved me for my potential value, not my actual value. And I think that being the BEST read of myself has led to some really dumb thinking in my life.

So from my perspective, I’m a lump of clay that’s barely worth true connection from his own family or friends, beyond the one guy intuitive enough to see my potential value, but he died because he didn’t value himself so what the fuck does he know?

Because when we’re young, connection quality is a huge indicator of who we are and how we form our sense of self esteem. Since I generally had poor connections (or at least not as deep as I wanted), I viewed my one strong connection as an anomaly and figured my value/self worth was generally low all around. I never got past that and never developed my own sense of self worth. Because doing so would challenge my entire network and support system. Doing so meant realizing that Atom and I were both too big and bright for the world we were born into.

So not only was my best evaluation of myself poor and based on someone else’s behavior, but I never stopped evaluating myself based on connection status/quality. I still do it to this day. Even tiny interactions are all about connection.

And food and movies are the only things that SILENCE my hunger for connection. They allow me to turn it off. I think that’s why I get so mad if I’m interrupted. Also why I get anxious about cooking meals Susie wants or whatever, because now I’m combining food and connection quality and it’s not supposed to work like that.

So I guess I need to start looking at it like this: I want connection because I haven’t been given the proper love and support throughout my life. I’m lonely, but I’m fucking awesome.

It was legitimately hard to write that last part lol. It was hard to write “I’m fucking awesome.” I felt like I had to explain it. Make it make sense. Justify it with evidence. Fascinating.

I guess remember this: You can be both lonely and fucking awesome. Awesome people can feel alone, especially if they’re surrounded by less awesome people.

FOOD I guess maybe it’s time to just be open minded and eat whatever. I’ve been kinda trying to do that anyway lately. I guess do it more, and take more time to cook food and shit. Maybe we can try Blue Apron or something or I can look up random recipes somewhere and try a new meal or two every week.

I guess part of the problem is that I still always want food to be my silencer for my need to connect. And if I’m eating food I don’t enjoy as much, it doesn’t silence that hunger as much, especially if I’m worried that it’ll cause problems with the person who made the food. So maybe that’s kinda why I’m freaking out. I see it as Susie trying to take away my coping mechanism, which is probably why her limits with watching movies bothers me so much too.

So I guess accept that food can’t always be your coping mechanism. It’s food. It’s sustenance. It’s supposed to be fuel, not a painkiller or security blanket.

SELF Just remember that it’s possible to be awesome AND feel like shit. It’s a possible for an awesome person to make his partner angry. It’s possible for awesome people to make mistakes. An awesome person can still have a family that doesn’t fully value or understand them. Should I just assume I’m unappreciated in my time? Assume I’m better than it seems and just accept that things may be worse than I deserve?

I want this shit to stop because it makes me scared I deserve it. If it stops, I don’t have to wonder.

I don’t want to be normal I want to be awesome. That’s why every defeat is awful. But I can still be awesome, I can still feel like a star. I believe it can happen. I believe I can love me.

It’s like I can only see myself as awful or awesome. I’ve only ever been those. The extremes. The two kickball games, one where I was a star goalie and one where I was a complete failure. Anything less than perfection is complete failure.

SELF Confident people don’t obsess over comments that COULD mean something bad.

I’m fucking lazy. I’ve never wanted to accept that about myself, but it’s true. I think it comes from a lack of patience though. I want results and I don’t wanna wait.

So then why am I impatient? Because the longer something takes, the more chances I have to fuck it up.

So I always just want to jump to the reward because I hate the in between period. The anxiety. Will I or won’t I? I hate the tension so I get impatient and want to jump to the reward.

That’s the deal with food too. I’ll want so much out of my day, or my life, and I’ll be tired of waiting for the reward so I’ll be like “SOME sort of reward will help tide me over until I get a real one” and that’s why food helps. It helps silent the shame of still not being who I want to be yet, and how that’s obviously my fault.

But I should see it as a good quality that I can dream and want so much. And my placement isn’t entirely my fault at least. No one gets what they deserve. Not consistently. Our lives are not the result of what we deserve. Some of it is what we’ve earned or deserve, but some of it is just what we’ve been given. What we’ve had to work with.

Maybe I should see myself as someone who’s bigger and brighter than the world he was born into. And sometimes that won’t fit the mold I was made from. There will be problems. Wanting more can be painful.

So instead of seeing the tension in a moment as “I better make it or I’m never forgiving myself for the additional amount of shame I’m going to inherit,” see it as “wouldn’t it cool if I pulled this off?”

I need to rewire my reward center. Make it less about the reward and more about the process. The process is the reward. Being able to cook. Being able to relax.

PRESENT So is the secret to be present? Laying in bed, feeling safe and comfortable with my awesome dog is cool. Do I need more than that? Is it okay to just feel the present moment? Don’t think about it. Feel it. Just “be” more often.

[chronocidalrage]

New Year, New Bullshit.

The problem is that I think I’m the problem. I’m what’s wrong with my life and what’s wrong with the life of my loved ones. I’m somehow not worthy of a more supportive family. I’m not worthy of more supportive friends. I’m a drain on Susie. I’m not good enough to accomplish my goals. I think it’s me and that weight of being responsible for all the sadness in my life, as well as the lives of those around me, weighs me down every single day.

I guess I have to realize that trusting myself does not equal never being wrong. Amazing, smart people are still wrong sometimes. Sometimes Susie doesn’t handle things perfectly and I still think she’s perfect to me.

I guess I need to get comfortable with my mistakes and comfortable believing something in opposition to others.

I guess I need to be okay with being right *and* wrong. I’m waiting for the day when I’m finally “totally right” and that’s not really a thing. Susie and I are both right. Susie is a little too negative towards me and could be more positive towards my behavior, likes, and interests. However, not only am I unlikely to notice/record it when she IS more positive, but it’s pretty much impossible for her to be more positive without enabling my codependency. Maybe if I was being “gassed up” by more people than her, but unfortunately it’s only her.

I think that’s kinda the problem too. To me, a good relationship is me and Atom. Always on the same page. Any issues or disagreements are a sign of a future problem to me, since Atom and I rarely had problems. My family just pretends the issues don’t exist to keep things even, and that’s what I used to do too. Now I don’t pretend those issues don’t exist, but I still see the issues as a sign of a problem. So I’m just constantly feeling “all of my relationships are in trouble” even if they’re not. I guess Susie being so “all or nothing” with friendships doesn’t exactly help either. Makes me think it’s only a matter of time before I’m too much of a problem for her, especially since she was my “initial guide” for modern Alex. I’m accidentally using Susie’s behavior to reinforce my belief that good relationships are always good, despite the fact that Susie and I would still probably describe our relationship as “good” even with the issues we have.

LOVE Really is something. A person can be like a living painkiller. You just go be around them, and the pain goes away. For me, I guess the thing I could best compare the feeling of love to is when I had pancreatitis and they gave me Dilaudid. Just this warm, flushing feeling and then suddenly everything was okay.

So for me, being on my own is kinda like always being in pain. So I challenge myself as little as possible since I’m already hurting all the time. It’s the same when I’m with people but the connection isn’t quite right. I don’t feel the flush so I’m still in pain. Movies and food come closest to feeling like it and I think that’s partially because those were often things I did with Atom but also they’re low challenge.

Painkillers. It’s like the self esteem book says: healthy self esteem is about pursuing joy. Unhealthy self esteem is about avoiding pain. Atom allowed me to avoid pain. Now, very little allows me to avoid pain. Movies and food. It’s not even really that they’re my favorite things, it’s that they make the pain go away.

SELF I really need to divorce my self worth from every moment/interaction. They’re not always linked.

Also, when you feel overwhelmed, think of the warm, flushing feeling.

I’m removing people’s edit permissions to my self worth. I am the only one with access going forward. 

 LIFE I’m really good at creating. It’s been my favorite activity forever and I started it with Atom. I’m really good at it so trying to create with me could possibly feel like playing basketball with a professional? Maybe Tony is the first to meet my level since Atom? Maybe that’s why my attempts to collaborate often go poorly?

And I think I feel guilt about creating with someone other than Atom.

Because creation is what I most associate with Atom. Imagination. Something that he and I understood unlike anyone else we knew. Imagination feels like Atom. So I’m afraid of creating a world with someone else because then imagination might feel LESS like Atom.

Imagining with someone is like a mind meld. Completely unique and intimate.

NYE We watched CATS (2019) again and I think I lost all irony and finally think it slaps. It’s weird. I can hear that stupid Mr. Mistoffelees song and can see Atom laughing at how stupid it is and giving me the “no holds barred” hand symbol thing. I can see it like he’s right here. Like I saw him yesterday.

I think he’d be excited that I’m trying to move on. He’d be happy for me. Like he always was.

FAMILY They’re emotionally stingy.

We know how to give the good stuff. That’s how we get away with a lot of it.

They only give as much as they need to. They’ll give more to others because it’s more limited. They stretch out the love for me.

Susie and I were talking about Bob never being able to see Mary again and she went on about how horrible that would be before I could even say anything. It felt nice. I allowed myself to realize she was talking about me.

I hate everyone because they’re denying the existence of “hurt Atom.” So I’m missing him alone.

We grew up with love that was only doled out as needed. This made us yearn for more. We want to feel.  Then we’re really nervous to rock the boat because we were taught that love is finite.

So I have to be careful about how much I give out and make sure I don’t waste anyone else’s. Atom and I doubted this. Dad wanted to doubt it. Scott learned it wasn’t true with his family but he’s afraid that being too close to me or mom could prove that incorrect.

Love is not finite. It’s not a dying, flickering flame. It’s a sea of Christmas lights burning brighter in the dark. You just have to be looking for it.

I wanna believe love is special and eternal.

Love feels like life. Warmth and wonder. Some people want one more than the other. Some people want both a lot and that’s very hard.

It’s not about whether or not we could have saved him. It’s that he deserved for us to try, and I needed to see that I could count on them when he was gone. And I learned that I cannot.

I always wanna feel the way I did when Atom made Justin hang out with me that time at camp. Or when he yelled at the guys for not hanging out on my birthday when I turned 21. Or when he helped me put gas in my car. Or when he offered to share Midnight with me after Flash died. He always wanted to help me. To cheer me up. He always wanted to be there for me. Always. He always wanted to do the right thing. I miss feeling that loved.

FRIENDS Susie and I love this show more than some other people, because to other people, a loving, supportive group of friends isn’t as foreign or comforting to them as it is to us. We actually see the value in friendship because we’ve never had something quite like that.

[chronocidalrage]

Yet Another Bummer Christmas

SNL We were watching Cecily Strong’s last episode. It made me kinda sad. SNL has always been like family to me. Probably because we all watched that stuff together as a family when I was younger. I’m gonna miss Cecily (just like I miss every cast member when they leave lol).

Made me think of Atom. How I’m gonna lose other people too, not just him. I can’t imagine losing another important person right now.

But I guess I'm always gonna lose people, I can’t control that. So I guess I just have to make sure I don’t lose myself.

FAMILY I want them to admit it may be harder for me on Christmas than it is for them (since their Christmases have been Atom-less for over a decade).

I've been in unexplored territory for a few years now. When Susie and I worked through things and moved on, I kinda lapped Atom and he could no longer be my life guide. I guess that's a big part of the issue for me in recent years, I'm my own guide now and I don't think I'm a very good one.

We were both brave though. It must have been hard to support me as I moved on, constantly moving further away, and it must’ve been hard for me to pursue paths that took me further away from him. We both tried to do the right thing.

It’s the fear of the unknown. New territory. Not knowing how things are gonna go. I want to know how things are going to go because I don’t trust myself to figure it out.

XMAS EVE I forget we used to hang out and go through our stockings every year. Christmas Eve was our time.

CHRISTMAS DAY I’m "passengering" again. Stop.

The Christmas Vacation sweatshirt that I was looking forward to wearing today is too snug. It "fits" but it's small and I'm uncomfortable. I need to really commit to being better. Now.

Big talk with Susie. I worry that I am a trap and a major drain on her life, and ironically that belief is what is a major drain on her life.

The secret to fixing this problem (feeling like a drain on Susie) is to realize that I’m not one.

She wants to say nice things because she wants to, not because she needs to. If it’s given, it’s nice. If it’s requested, it’s not. She doesn’t want to deal with things when my self esteem is wrapped up in it. She wants it pure. That makes sense. She’s afraid of enabling me.

I am constantly reading every second of every interaction from the perspective of “what does this say about my likability,” which sets everything off. Since that’s how I see everything, sometimes I hit the target, the whole “broken clock” thing. I can also be very likable due to my obsession, I know how to be likable because likability is the science I study.

It’s not our fault I ended up codependent on Susie. That was a surprise to both of us.

It’s not that I’m not as great as I want to be, it’s that I shouldn’t always need to be CONVINCED that I’m great.

So I gotta forgive myself and let myself go from feeling like a burden to Susie. That’s the way to stop being one. She’s forgiven me and wants to move on. I guess that’s what I feel like: a burden to Susie, a betrayer of Atom, and a nothing to everyone else.

But think about what you are to YOU. Not just everyone else.

I can tell I have a tendency to be dependent on people, and I don’t like that about myself so I try to avoid people rather than fix the problem.

I feel bad that I’m dependent on Susie, but I am.

And it must be very different to be with me when I’m NOT dependent. When everything isn’t twisted and turned into a symbol of how she feels about me.

That probably affects any potentially nice moments between us too. To me, it’s not just about the nice moment, it’s about what that moment says about her feelings towards me. Good lord, I must be exhausting.

PODCAST SHIT I’m creating characters and telling stories all the time now. That’s pretty cool. I can feel good about that even if other people don't fully get it.

TRY TO SEE BOB Bob Wakeham really might not have much time left. Try to him Wednesday (12/28/22) maybe. Scott and mom may come to MA that same day.

[chronocidalrage]

The Esteem Continues (or doesn’t I guess)

How do I grow to love and accept my flaws? It looks like SELF ACCEPTANCE is what I really need to focus on. The thing I never actually figured out how to do.

How do I learn to enjoy things more than other people who may also be involved in said things? Because it’s okay if I always enjoy the podcast more than Tim and Matt. That’s alright.

It’s weird. Earlier I was kinda “being dad to younger Alex” when I was feeling anxious and it not only helped me calm my “inner child” (barf) or fucking whatever, but it gave me a boost because I realized that young me would think I’m pretty cool in some ways.

Also, I wonder if it would motivate me to be more physical if it meant I could fight and maybe do choreography/action scenes? I’ve never really wanted to be an athlete but I have always wanted to be an action hero.

The problem is that I delegated/outsourced my self esteem to Atom. I could’ve done it myself but I asked him to do it for me. Like having your servers hosted by Amazon. 

I wonder if my favorite things to fall asleep to are actually Asian action movies. I enjoy them primarily for their visuals. They remind me of Atom and therefore remind me of safety.

I remember him bringing Hard Boiled home from Blockbuster. I wonder how he even fucking heard about it? He showed it to me and I thought “why didn’t anyone tell me that action could look like this?” Seeing that movie really changed me.

Anyway, back to the self esteem shit. That’s what I’m struggling with in a lot of ways. Was Atom wrong about me (which would therefore mean I was wrong about me)? Was I the one thing Atom was right about or just another thing he was wrong about?

The last few years have just completely fucked my faith in me and Atom’s judgment. Now I only really trust Susie’s judgment so I get very upset when her opinion doesn’t line up with mine. I assume she’s probably right but sometimes I wish I trusted myself enough to fight it in case my opinion actually makes sense.

SELF I hate inner child shit, it sounds so stupid, but I guess it’s true. My inner child is crying out in pain. “No, that's not true. He CAN’T be gone.”

That part of me is in denial, not because I can’t admit that he’s gone, but because he was a load-bearing brother. His absence threatens the entire structure of my existence.

LIFE Feels easier when I’m high. Things just happen more easily. It’s kinda like the difference between pooping when you actually need to vs. trying to force it out. Natural is easier. My problem is I don’t trust my natural instincts so I’m always trying to do the math of every choice and situation. If I go natural it may be messy at first but better in the end.

I also struggle with being emotional because I think in my mind, adults are no longer emotional, and I’m just SO fucking emotional. I’ve been waiting for the day when I’m suddenly less emotional and things are easier to manage. Like I’m waiting for my emotions to no longer be a factor in decisions. But I think I kinda need to accept my emotions. Even though they won’t always be what I want them to be. I won’t always be cool. I won’t always be strong. I won’t always be the best.

It’s like tensing a muscle. Sometimes it just makes things harder.

I don’t think of Nana and Papa (my dad’s parents) nearly enough. They were wonderful. But I don’t remember there being a lot of emotional connections with them, I just enjoyed their presence, it was simple. Same with Granny (my mom’s mom), not a lot of emotional connections beyond her irritating me. I remember my Uncle John though, my mom’s brother. I remember those connections. Him joking around, sensing the pain behind his eyes, him watching cool movies on TV, him being into science, him playing Sonic with me and Atom, him pretending he was gonna push Granny into traffic in order to make us laugh (you had to be there). Emotional connections last a lot longer, so I don’t think I have to worry about forgetting Atom.

But I think that in the end, I had three examples of good men: Dad (the sensitive dreamer who was taught to be ashamed of being a sensitive dreamer), Bob Wakeham (the jovial, open, group leader), and Jerry Gardiner with his snarky cool.

I’m thinking about Bob Wakeham because he apparently has lung cancer and isn’t doing well. I’m trying to write him a letter and it’s surprisingly hard. If I lose him, that will be it for adult men I looked up to growing up. A very strange and sad feeling.

I’ve always been uncertain. I was thinking back to when Nana and Papa died and I forgot how lost I was then. I had already lost Sarah. I was in the process of losing Cassie, who I honestly believed was my last chance at happiness. I was really starting to feel like my life was behind me. Insane, considering how much has happened since then and how different I feel now.

My natural state is staring at light in the darkness and feeling excited and uncertain. I was only ever certain with/about Atom. Staring at the stars at night, we got to be excited and certain. That was the gift we gave each other: security. Certainty. Until we didn’t. But that never changed how much we loved each other, even if we were mad at each other for messing with the certainty.

HEROES I guess I need new heroes. Like who? Timo Tjahjanto and Iko Uwais (the director and the villain of The Night Comes For us)? One is this great creative guy who just tries to make cool shit however he can. The other is this guy who seems kind and humble but also managed to master this crazy physical skill.

Who would be my parenting hero? Jesus Christ, I honestly don’t know. Has that been the issue? All these years I’ve been looking for a hero, an example for how to be a grown up. I quickly realized, right around the time I graduated High School, that as much as I loved them, I didn’t want to be like my parents. Then in my early twenties Atom and I leveled out. I couldn’t look up to him anymore, at least not as much, but that was fine with me. I loved him just as much as an equal, possibly more in a way. Then I thought maybe Scott but the way he handled the Atom-drinking situation kinda ruined that for me.

Yeah. All these years I’ve been wanting a role model. Because that’s what I do. I find someone who’s doing what I want to be doing and I try to replicate their process to some extent. Again, it’s about trust. I don’t trust myself to figure it out on my own.

Well what kind of adult do I want to be? I want to be funny. I want to have fun. I want to be present and emotionally open. I want to be motivated and creative, but also patient and reliable. I want to be an adult who you can look up to but I also want to feel comfortable seeking selfish pleasure. I want to be strong but strong enough to admit when I need to break down. I want to give a lot but not foolishly. I guess that’s kind of the problem. I’ve never quite met the man I want to be. Probably because it’s so fucking hard. It’s an incredibly difficult balance so no wonder I haven’t found it yet. I should be easier on myself. No one else is pulling this off either, even if some of them are getting some parts right way more than me. I guess Stefan is the closest example I have right now?

Just relax? Let my natural self come out? It won’t be perfect all the time, but the more I use it, the better it’ll become.

[chronocidalrage]

Dexter Holland’s Favorite Subject

SELF ESTEEM I think most of my bad days are just low self-esteem days. Days when I feel challenged beyond my limits. Days when I’m not getting the validation that could offset it, all that shit. Just believe in yourself more and relax, do what makes sense to you. Your opinion on yourself matters WAY more than anyone else’s!

UNCOMFORTABLE I’m super uncomfortable again today and I don’t know why. Nothing feels good. Nothing feels right.

I think I’m annoyed that I’m kinda dreading Christmas. I don’t want to feel alone again but I know that I will. I know I’ll feel let down by Mom and Scott. I know I’ll feel alone. I used to love Christmas so much. What the fuck. It’s not fair. But I can’t have it. It’s gone. Christmas as I knew and loved it is gone. Every year I should gift myself a good Christmas.

I'm also annoyed by how useless I feel at work. But I don’t care enough to make myself less useless. I have to really start learning. Figuring shit out. It’s fine to fuck up but then I should figure out HOW/WHY I fucked up. Don’t do it for the "man," do it for yourself, your anxiety, and eventual confidence.

I feel fat, but movies and junk food are all that really feel good to me. But I have to stop. I have to eat better and exercise and feel good. I’d be so much more comfortable going out there and doing things. Living my life.

I miss Atom. I think I’d like to see Atom. I’d feel better if I saw him. I could be the complete loser I am and feel totally loved. Not gonna happen though. Oh well lol.

I think I’d feel at least a little better if I were making cool shit. Start making shit then! Write. Draw some sketches for the comic idea.

I guess it’s pretty obvious what happened to me today: other people. I had days of avoidance and then I got crashed into other people right away: picking up Susie from the airport, going to work for hours for no good reason, being around Susie all day today (which is great but causes some of my dumb issues to rise because I obsess over her opinion of me).

I think I’m just uncomfortable because of other people. Their opinions of me. What they expect. How little I can expect from them (no one to see Die Hard 2 with this weekend even if I wanted to go, no word from Brendan or Ryan about seeing Violent Night over the previous weekend, expecting the least from my family, Susie seeming fine to the point that I feel so pathetic in comparison to her).

Yeah. This is an “other people” spiral. I think the cure for this stuff is focusing on myself, whatever that means.

Yeah this is the result of me getting a break from the expectations of (and having my own expectations of) other people. I had a nice break for days and then I had to go back to caring about what other people wanted and having to be disappointed by other people not coming through for me. I feel like this when I’m hyper focused on others and can’t see myself through the chaos. I have no real self esteem and my opinion of myself is based entirely on the opinion of others. Most of the foundation of my self esteem was based around the fact that the greatest guy on earth insisted that I was actually the greatest guy on earth. That took a serious hit in recent years. That’s one of the reasons I was so upset when Atom started falling apart. If he’s not perfect, then what does that do to my self esteem? If his judgment isn’t perfect, could he be wrong about me? I guess the secret is to trust myself to know when something is worth accepting or rejecting. I’m not good at that. I always want a co-signer.

I’m always trying to keep track of things. I need to think of EVERYTHING, every possible variable. And my need to do that can get overwhelming easily. Just let shit go? Just "be"?

It’s weird, I can almost feel the difference in my body when I just relax. When I stop caring so much, my body feels lighter.

TOUGH SHIT It’s really hard for me to not think of myself as having already peaked.

How does one enjoy working on something with people if they don’t seem to enjoy it as much? How am I supposed to feel from a normal healthy confident human standard?

What would normal self esteem look like? How does one just believe in themselves?

I sang in front of my singing teacher tonight. It was the first time I comfortably(ish) sang a song in front of another human being in probably 12 or more years. I did okay. My read was that she was being too nice. But she may have actually been proud of me for getting more comfortable in comparison to when I started taking lessons.

It’s weird but I really do look at everything like Susie is above me. That’s how I interpret everything she says and does. As if everything she says and does is the result of her knowing that I'm beneath her. If you imagine two equals running into these minor frustrations, they seem a lot less painful.

But that’s the thing, in the time we’ve been together my opinion of myself has gotten worse and worse and my opinion of her has gotten better and better.

REMEMBER SHE DOESN’T LOOK DOWN ON YOU. SHE WOULDN’T BE HERE IF SHE DID.

The problem is that I love and idolize perfection. My heroes were always perfect. Fictional people. People I could never know in real life and therefore could always remain perfect in my mind. I see good as “perfect and inhuman and always in control.”

Why do I like Batman? He’s perfect. Minus his trauma, he is perfect. His trauma allows me to relate to him on an emotional level but otherwise envy his complete lack of flaws. I saw Atom as perfect. Perfect was good, and I was far from perfect so therefore I was not good.

I think that’s why the night is hard for me. I’m alone with my imperfection. It’s so loud at night and I want it drowned out. I think that for me, love is being treated like I’m perfect. Being made to feel perfect. Because that’s how Atom made me feel. Everything I did or said was good. I felt perfect and since I love perfection, that made me feel loved.

[chronocidalrage]

12/8/22 - 12/13/22

SELF ESTEEM My self esteem is garbage because it’s entirely based on other people’s opinions of me. Or at least what I perceive other people’s opinions to be. I have no true sense of self. I get what FEELS like a sense of self when others seem happy with me, but it’s false. That’s why I felt so good in my late twenties. Not because I actually found myself, but because I surrounded myself with people who reinforced what I wanted to believe.

I need to trust myself to analyze a situation and make the best of it.

I feel weird ever feeling good or happy. It feels wrong. How can I feel good if Atom isn’t involved? It doesn’t seem right.

Is my brain set for: Atom = good and therefore good = Atom? And then less and less things were good with or without him so I got all fucked up?

Then I think the single period of my life made me want to drink for various reasons. And drinking was something that was new and good with or without Atom. It was something good that was interchangeable. Now I’m trying to tell myself things are good again when the only thing that’s was ever reliably good was Atom and he’s dead and he wasn’t even fully good in recent years. So few things are “good” and I never know which way to go. It feels like lacking a compass because I don’t even know what good things look like anymore.

Atom, thank you for making me feel safe when I couldn’t do so for myself. I hope (for both or our sakes), I soon learn how to do that for myself. I hope I can make myself feel even half as safe as you were able to.

The pain I feel, the little sting that slowly grows until it envelopes me and I feel like I can’t move? The feeling I get at a grocery store that reminds me of being there with Atom? That pain is always gonna be there. The pain and the degree of the pain is a result of how sweet the memory is plus how far away from it you are. There’s no way around it. As long as the sweet moments are in your past, they will always hurt.

It’s weird though because the emotions are so vibrant and strong it seems impossible for you to be gone. Like how can I still feel this strongly about someone who hasn’t existed for over a year? Wild, but the feelings really still are that strong.

I have to move on because I’ll never feel that same “flavor” or safe and protected again. Never. It’s simply not possible. But I can feel other flavors of safe. I may even be able to make my own flavor that I can count on. It’s like Golden Bowl. I’ll never have my first favorite Chinese food again, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy other Chinese food or have other favorite meals or restaurants. EDIT: of course high Alex would explain this in terms of food lol.

How do I find my own joy and safety? Just learn how to do more things. Learn to rely on myself through practice.

How do I open myself to new joy? You just do. You just stop obsessing, stop tensing and open up.

SUSIE It’s crazy. Everything from the beginning of our relationship feels like 2-3 years ago at most. Wild how long we’ve actually been together (officially eleven years!). We’ve spent most of our relationship living together at this point. I still really love her. That’s awesome.

I think part of the problem for me is that Susie has changed and gotten even cooler and stronger than she already was and I haven’t. So I can’t possibly imagine how she could be attracted to me as I am.

WATCHING MOVIES With only the light from the Christmas Tree is so great.

I need to have a flexible identity. Instead of seeing myself as someone who IS great, I should see myself as someone who’s TRYING to be great. There will be successes and failures.

[chronocidalrage]

12/6/22 - 12/7/22

ATOM SHIT So I think I carry a lot of guilt, as if it’s my fault Atom is dead. There’s a line of codependents/love addicts stretching from Nana > Dad > Atom > Me. Dad started really depending on me to fill the void in middle school, but then in high school I tried to live and messed up the balance and he never recovered. Years later, I moved forward with Susie and Atom never recovered.

I know it’s not my fault that they couldn’t manage, but how do I live with being the inciting incident?

I also think I’m afraid that if I get my shit together I’ll feel like such a different person that I won’t feel connected to Atom anymore, and/or that I’ll end up more like Mom and Scott and I wanna stay closer to the side of the family that I lost.

PASSIVE Passive. I wait for permission to act. I put other people first because I don’t trust my decision making process, I’d rather follow someone else.

This is also why it’s hard for me to be self-motivated and learn without guidance (I learned how to draw by drawing alongside Atom and taking tips from him). I’m also passive because I’m waiting for someone else to co-sign my decisions. I’m always nervous that what I want is wrong somehow.

That’s why I love eating and watching movies. Because what I want to eat is up to me. It doesn’t matter if someone else doesn’t like it, they don’t have to eat it. Someone doesn’t like what I’m watching? They don’t have to watch it.

I also definitely am afraid to put myself first ever since Freshman year because there’s several examples of that going poorly. I remember now that I was in Bolton when Atom got hit by a car and didn’t find out until I got home. I also think I was in North Carolina when Atom and Kerry broke up and I came home to him being back at the house. Then I was with Cassie when he got arrested. Interesting.

SHIT Only Atom was allowed to see my weak side. I can’t show it to others so I’ve always been exhausted from hiding it around everyone but him. But this means I also associate Atom with my weak side.

My weak side misses Atom the most. Because Atom was his only friend. But my weak side also hates himself for being too weak to SAVE Atom.

Because we all have a Charlie Baileygates and a Hank Evans inside us. The secret to a good life is combining the two. I always try to be Hank and get scared if anyone sees Charlie.

I bet Atom is the only person who didn’t make me feel bad about any of my issues when I was little. So I saw him as the only person I could be weak around.

And Atom was upset he couldn’t be weak around me. But he couldn’t see I just wanted him to live. He was allowed to be weak or whatever he wanted to call it. I only needed him to be strong enough to survive. His belief that he was weak is what killed him, so I can’t let that same false belief kill me.

SIDE NOTE: I’m realizing now that I think everyone else treated Atom like he was weak. I was the only person who truly knew how strong he was. Maybe that was the problem. Everyone else saw him as a weak person who couldn’t possibly fight his way out of the hole he was in. I just wanted everyone else to wake up and see how strong he was and how he totally COULD do it if he wanted to. But instead, everyone else just reinforced his worse fear about himself: that he was weak.

It’s all about my pathetic side. I believe I have a pathetic side, or that my pathetic side is the real me. I didn’t want to date Sarah because she might see my pathetic side. It was only when she was gonna spend most of her time in another state that I felt safe dating her. I could more easily hide my pathetic side.

Then I went for girls who I believed were too naïve to see my pathetic side. Girls who would be blind to it. Abbie happened to my surprise. She was experienced and kinda shallow but seemed to love me which confused the shit out of me. I didn’t have strong feelings for her but I thought “somehow I’ve tricked her. I don’t know if I’ll ever trick someone this well again. Should I just settle for this?”

Then I hung out with Cassie and some friends that night and fell for her. My thinking was this: she could be a sexual/casually romantic friendship. Nothing super deep, but we had mutual friends and interests. She was a pretty girl who was not and idiot who was already in my circle. It was me thinking I could have what I had with Pearse or John maybe, but with a girl.

Then we ended up really liking each other and my pathetic side leaked out and she went back and forth between accepting it and rejecting it (from my perspective at least). Once I knew I’d been exposed I became convinced she’d find out just how much of a fraud I really was. So I sabotaged the whole thing from fear. Who knows if she really disliked that side of me. I may never know.

Then I focused on flirtationships because the girls could never get close enough to see me for real. When girls actually expressed interest in me I resisted because I refused to believe they could like the real me.

Then came Susie. Once again, she seemed like she would perfectly fit into my circles because she already was fitting into them. I thought I could have something fun and easy.

Then things got tough and real early on. But the thing I realized was this: she saw the worst parts of my pathetic side, the anger, the ugliness. And she not only stayed but she fought for me. That’s why I couldn’t turn away no matter how rough things got. She was the first person since Atom to seemingly accept my pathetic side. Fuck, that almost seemed like her favorite part in some ways. In fact, she didn’t even seem to think it was pathetic. I think Atom could tell I felt more accepted too and that’s why he supported things with Susie even during rough times.

But because I find it hard to believe that she could support that part of me I look for any proof that she doesn’t. When things briefly got difficult in 2018 I took it as a sign that I only FELT accepted by her, or that I lucked out due to her own personal struggles.

Now I never wanna push it. I don’t wanna rock the boat. I just wanna keep things even so she doesn’t change her mind. LOLOLOL.

I definitely believe there is a weak side in me that’s shameful and I don’t want anyone to see it. Only Atom was able to see it and not judge it, and he’s dead.

[chronocidalrage]

11/30/22 - 12/5/22

STUPID OPEN HOUSE TODAY. It sucks.

SUSIE I just suddenly realized, I was looking at a picture of Susie and I was like “holy shit, that’s my wife. Susie is my wife, that’s fucking crazy”

What’s sad about me? I think that I’m someone who accepts so little from his reality because he’s far more focused on getting the most out of his fantasies. As long as reality doesn’t get in the way of my fantasy, I’m good. That’s sad.

There’s more to life than this. I just wanna live in the movies and use food to make my body feel alive during the escape. But I can’t just do that. I think I’m afraid of losing any new good thing I find. Every new good thing has to be maintained and I don’t trust myself to do that. Because I was only able to maintain Susie and Ruby and everything else fell apart. So I just try to keep Susie and Ruby in a good “stasis” so I don’t strain myself, because to me, I’m useless.

I need to believe in myself. Believe that I can keep going and learning and getting better, and that the things I’ve lost aren’t all my fault. You can’t maintain a person who isn’t willing to maintain themselves. You can’t maintain a relationship with someone who doesn’t take that relationship seriously enough. It’s not all about you. The frustrating people around you aren’t a sign of your worth. They’re a sign of where you came from and it’s a good thing that you were able to break some of those cycles. You should be proud. Not ashamed.

PRODUCTIVITY Why do I not wanna do things when I’m alone? I’m thinking it’s a “why would I set myself up for failure if I don’t have to?” kinda thing. So am I only being productive for appearances? Validation?

I do nothing but eat and watch movies when I’m alone because that’s all I allow myself. Everything else I at least partially do to get validation from others or maintain my status with others. My idea of being selfish is to eat and watch movies. Because no one else benefits. This shit is only for me and I believe this shit is well within my ability and worth.

Need to start doing more for myself. Allow myself to want other things.

To me selfishness = no validation from others?

Just imagine though: you CAN have the life you want. At least realistic versions of it. You can get into shape and dress well. You can take Susie on cool dates. You can do these things, the problem is that you can’t do them right now or in a relatively short amount of time. So you don’t bother. You have a big appetite and little patience. That’s why I have so much trouble making movies or comics, because I hate waiting for the validation. Even if people don’t know what I’ve made, there’s the objective validation. The fact that I completed something and could show people or tell people if I wanted to. I should see more things as validation. Drawing at all = validation. Writing at all, moving at all. Anything I do validates who I am and I don’t need others to do that for me.

I need to be my own validation. Everything and anything I learn to do is pretty amazing. I should be proud of myself for growing when I do, and changing who I am when I do.

Remember how good it feels to accomplish something. To feel proud of myself for making something, for figuring something out. It feels so exciting to be creating a reality that I want to put into existence. Why do I ignore that in favor of pride I can only get from others? Probably because I never learned to trust my own instincts, I trusted Atom’s instead? So my instinct is to wait for validation before patting myself on the back.

It’s crazy because it’s driving me nuts that the podcast isn’t bigger. Because it’s the first time in years that I said “I want something” and took a chance and put myself out there and made it happen and learned and gained a new skill. A skill that I’m seemingly good at. And I haven’t gotten the validation I believe I deserve. I haven’t made any money, I haven’t made any real connections or fans that didn’t already know me. And it’s driving me fucking crazy instead of me just enjoying having fans at all.

I definitely secretly hoped I could be quitting my job and doing this full time by now lolololol.

This is also why I need my family to apologize. To validate me. But I know I’m right. I don’t need them to tell me.

TOTALLY RANDOM THOUGHT: 90s X-Men really makes me think of Atom. Seeing images of Mojo or Longshot makes me want to text him about them.

LOVED VIOLENT NIGHT Made me miss Atom but I felt like he saw it with me. I could sense him seeing it. I feel like he did see it. I just wish I could talk to him about it.

I think in a lot of ways that’s what I miss most. Talking about movies with him. Escaping with him. That was the last thing we had and I was so devastated when we seemingly lost that too when we saw Rise of Skywalker and he was too hammered to be present.

He was someone to escape with, which was so meaningful to me, because I think that’s how I always pictured my version of “heaven.” Me and Atom at the movies, watching something in the old living room at mom’s, playing with G.I. Joes in the basement. That was heaven to me.

That’s why I obsess with Twitter and stuff. Why I always wanna talk about movies. My last favorite thing I had with Atom. The last trace of feeling truly safe and connected with another person. So that’s what I keep trying to do.

I miss my brother. I miss him so much. No wonder I was such a mess after Rise of Skywalker that time. That’s when I knew he was gone. That’s when I knew, even before he got sick. I knew I had lost him. If even going to the movies together wasn’t sacred anymore. Not even Star Wars, which was always more sacred to him than me. I knew right then and that’s why I was such a mess. I’ve been trying to fill the “lets escape together” void for years now and nothing quite fills it.

I need to stop. That void will never be filled. Not fully. It will never be the same because no one can replace Atom. I said it myself a year ago: he’s irreplaceable. So I need to move on. I need to find new joy.

I just need to move on. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to admit he’s really gone and I hate everything and anything that reminds me he is.

Sometimes I keep Susie at a distance because I’m afraid of losing her too AND I’m afraid that if I move further forward with her I leave Atom even further behind. 

I just feel so lost without you. I feel like a scared kid in the dark again and I don’t know how to manage being a part of this world without you. I don’t feel up to the task. I feel inadequate. I know I technically have been managing without you for a while but it just feels like luck.

I have to move on. I can’t keep these spaces in me open in case Atom comes back to fill them. He’s not coming back. He’s gone. It’s like I’m afraid to improve or get better because then the door is really closed on Atom. As long as I’m still the guy who needs him, he’s still with me. If I’m still the same person I was when I needed him/had him, I feel closer to that period of my life. I don’t want to make movies. Because that version of me never had Atom. It’s like part of me wants to go back, back to when it was just me and Atom wandering through life as brothers. Before Susie. I don’t actually want that, but as soon as I wanted more I lost Atom. And I associate getting better and growing with losing Atom. Every moment I change or improve, the further away he feels.

[chronocidalrage]

Hey Jealousy

Why do I care? Why am I jealous of other people’s success? What do I envy the most? Probably the community. The love. Knowing people love what you do. To have your dreams bring happiness to others. I’m so jealous of people who have achieved that.

Why do I need to succeed in general? For love? To get the recognition? That’s why I need to finish things? Because I only started to get the love and I can’t stop until I get it?

It’s tough though because I don’t wanna do what others want me to do. I wanna do what I want to do, but I want people to love what I do and love me even more for doing it. Silly.

Because I want to be able to be selfish and get love in return. Because I could do that with Atom. We were such good friends and so in tune that whatever benefited one of us probably benefited the other. It was easy. Now whenever I feel torn between selfishness and love, my brain starts telling me “that’s not love. Love is always in sync, so this is something else.” But what are you gonna do? Go be alone? Lose the person YOU love because they don’t “love” you? That’s what it always feels like. It’s like I’m always being asked to choose between happiness and my self respect. Either you stay with someone who [your dumb brain is claiming] doesn’t love you so that you don’t have to lose them but you feel like you’re not loving yourself, or you leave, lose them, and all you have is yourself. It feels impossible.

NIGHT The lights at night make me think of “safe excitement.” Lights are inherently warm and exciting. That’s what I want and that’s why I love action and horror (excitement but it’s safe for me as the viewer). The problem is that safety isn’t always known until afterwards, so I’m obsessed with obvious safety and often miss less obvious safe moments as they’re happening.

It’s weird to think I started losing Atom about 10 years ago. We went through a traumatic change in relationship and he never fully recovered.

If I ever forget why I love Susie, just remember her doing the napkin gag for 15 minutes after Atom died. 

THE NAPKIN GAG FOR THE RECORD: Susie used to do this thing where she’d climb off the couch or bed or whatever super slowly like a sloth and she would keep it going way too long and it was so funny and stupid. 

Then, we had a bunch of people over at mom’s house for breakfast the day after Atom’s service and Aunt Dona was trying to be “useful” and give everyone napkins. She was behind me trying to hand me the napkin by placing it front of my face rather than placing it on the table near me. I just saw this napkin floating into my view slowly and was like “I got it, thank you.” It was so awkward and Susie and I both had to hold back our laughter. And we both immediately thought of how Atom would’ve found it so funny and would’ve been the only other person to even notice it happened.

So then Susie and I go home and I think we got take out and Susie got up to get me a paper towel. I just continued eating and looked at the TV when I see the paper towel slowly float into my view as Susie holds the paper towel out to me in front of my face. I start laughing hysterically, expecting her to just put it down on the table next to me. No. Susie combines her slow sloth act with the Aunt Dona napkin incident of 2021 and just STRETCHES this out for like 10 full fucking minutes. Just slowly crawling on the floor around me with her arm extended and the paper towel in her hand. I would cry laughing and as soon as I composed myself and looked back, there was Susie on the floor, in a completely different location and position than the last time I saw her, still holding out the paper towel to me. 

This went on for a shockingly long time and it’s by far the hardest I’ve laughed since Atom died or even in the last several years probably. It was so fucking funny and I was so appreciative of Susie for making me laugh when I needed it most. 

Did I kill Atom ten years ago by moving on? Cassie was the first time I really considered moving away from Atom. Having a life with someone other than him as my North Star. So I fell apart when Cassie and I ended. I didn’t wanna go back to Atom because I had just gotten prepared for the idea of moving on. So I hung with Dan instead and eased my way back in to my old life. Recreating a life with Atom as my North Star but building up the people around me so I could still have a full life.

That’s why I got so interested in half relationships. I didn’t want anything real. I didn’t want anything that would pull me away. Then I ended up dating Jen and started to see it affect my life but she wasn’t worth it to me. I was bored (very nice girl, we just weren’t right for each other).

Then Susie just happened. I was drawn in like a weird magnet. It just happened. Then when things started to get bad with Atom, I declined to go backwards. I believed in Atom’s ability to adapt. To move on. If I could move on, Atom fucking Harris could move on. He could do anything I could do and more. So I believed in him and invested in the life I wanted.

It got harder and harder as he fell further and doubted himself. But I was moving even further ahead. Too far to go back. And then he got even worse. And in 2018 it really started to look like he wasn’t going to make it. I pushed him to get it together. Be okay. I pushed everyone else around him to get it together. Nothing.

I guess I wanted everyone else to realize they needed to be there for him to make up for me moving on. I couldn’t fix it without leaving Susie. They could. But somehow none of them understood how codependent Atom and I were even though they had always acted like it was obvious before that. Maybe it really comes down to a lack of understanding of codependency and mental health. 

And that’s why Atom always blamed Susie, because technically it’s true. She took me away. And even if Atom supported it and wanted this life for me, it didn’t change the fact that he’d probably okay (or at least better) if she hadn’t come around. It probably felt confusing for him.

But Atom had the chance to pull me back when I had lost faith in the earlier years and instead he pushed me back towards Susie. “You guys are perfect for each other,” he said. I guess I didn’t kill Atom. We both did, me and Atom. I said “I want more” and he said “good, you’re getting more.”

His anxiety was him not wanting to lose me anymore than he already had. But I kept trying to tell him I wasn’t going anywhere. And if he took better care of himself he could have me again, just in a different ratio. But he didn’t listen. I pushed other people to be there for him, to do for him what I made other people do for me after Cassie. But no one listened to me.

Well, I made it past the year mark. I was always afraid Atom and I would end up like our cousins on dad’s side. One tragic death and a tragic suicide exactly a year later. Good for me for fighting through it I guess. I really miss him tonight.

I think I always thought we’d die like Nana and Papa, days apart. Maybe that’s my guilt. We were a story about brothers. We were supposed to be a buddy cop movie.

That’s why I got so upset when things started looking bleak. We were supposed to be together, but we were both just doing what made sense to us.

Because I never agreed to it being one or the other. I wanted both Susie and Atom. I think I secretly assumed Atom would be our Uncle Jesse. The cool uncle living with us and helping with our family lol.

I want so much from this life. But I feel held back by my stupid weak body and poor mental health. I’m not tall enough, not hot enough, not smart enough, not strong enough. I want to be so much more than I am.

That’s why I always fantasize about being tall and skinny. Because I’m so disappointed by how I turned out.

[chronocidalrage]

Thanksgiving Kinda Sucked Again

It’s hard to be grateful for the things I used to have without being angry that I don’t have them anymore.

Was thinking this about Atom one night:

You will always be a main character in my life. No matter what. That’s how strong our connection was, that it can’t be ruined by the last several years or even death. We’re still connected now.

That’s why it’s worth the risk of getting to know someone: you kinda get to keep them when they’re gone.

SHITTY Feel shitty today. Felt especially shitty after I did a bunch of editing and then stopped. I think being fully “in the zone” and focused on something creative allows me a really pure form of escape. People don’t matter. The connections are up to me. The characters do what makes sense. The world makes sense. It’s freedom from my addiction. My standing with others doesn't matter, at least not until the thing is finished and being shown to the world.

So I think sometimes, if I’m avoiding particularly frustrating things/thoughts in the real world, I may not only avoid being creative, but I will also hate stopping said creative project. And if I DO avoid doing the work, it’s because I’m not looking forward to the point when I have to come back to reality. I always hate that part.

I think what I’m currently avoiding, more than anything, is my holiday blues. I used to look forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas so much, but it’s not the same anymore. Not at all.

Two holidays where my whole family used to be all together. Mom made delicious meals, which was her form of love. Dad sat at the table, laughed at our stories and bounced between saying something hilarious or awkward - sometimes both. Scott called or was there with us. Atom and I generally spent the entire day together, probably half-watching something on TV. If it was Christmas I got cool shit and candy, and Atom would enjoy both of those things with me. Maybe we’d sit and play Sonic or Mario Kart when we were younger. Just legitimately some of the best times of my life, and they’re gone.

Now it’s only Scott and mom. If I see Scott on a holiday it would only be Thanksgiving and this year there’s no place to have it. Next year I would have to host it, and I’m assuming that would lead to potential complications. Christmas I’d have to go to Scott. Either way, my mom’s dining room is gone. That’s no longer a thing that really exists, and that’s surprisingly sad to me. Some of my happiest memories were in that room.

I guess I’m just sad about that right now. Makes sense.

BEYOND THE ADDICTION That feeling of excitement I feel sometimes is freedom. The freedom of knowing what you want and doing it, freedom from the obsession of my addiction.

Because even when I’m thinking about THINGS I’m thinking about PEOPLE. People the thing makes me think of, people I’d want to share the thing with. People who may enjoy it, or how it reflects how I feel about someone, so forth.

I think the secret is to feel like you’re TRYING. You’re just thinking of an objective and trying to make it happen. If it doesn’t work, okay you’ll try something else. Instead, I see it as I must DO something. Everything I try to do must be successful. Because to succeed is likable. To lose is not.

RANDOM SHIT but Susie wants my attention tonight and is annoyed by me being on my phone, but she admits it’s technically silly. It was kinda cute. I saw her impartially again tonight and she’s so cool, I’m so lucky.

Sometimes you stop seeing people as they are and instead see them as what they are to you. You can forget what you love about them because you just know you love them.

I’m not present. If I’m present, I’m feeling lonely and out of place. Atom was my favorite because not only did he make me feel like I belonged, but he ALSO enjoyed not being present and we could be “not present” together. I have to be present. Dealing with obnoxious shit that reminds me of reality is often what sets me off.

REALITY BEFORE FANTASY If I go to fantasy it’s hard for me to get back to reality. So if you have “real” shit to do, stuff you have to be present for, do that first.

If you have to work on something, or draw or edit (stuff that I would consider the “reality” of fantasy), try to do that stuff AFTER you’ve done the annoying stuff you struggle with.

Eventually I should probably stop getting high at night and use that time to be more productive.

Maybe I’m specifically scared of the present when it involves something I can’t do, or at least THINK I can’t do.

I can’t flirt with Susie. I can’t connect. I can’t get through to my mom, I can’t improve our relationship. My belief in myself is so low that I only want to do things I’m certain I can do. So I’m always scared.

I don’t want to work out because it’s painful and I know it means nothing because I “can’t” get in shape. I keep going to training because Kenny has become a constant in my life and I’d feel weird not talking to him semi regularly.

Why do people enjoy working out? Some kind of a “see what I can do” kinda thing? Maybe set variable goals?

I’m scared of everything, unless I can be connected, which makes me feel safe. Unfortunately, I’m scared of everything because I think I’m bad at everything, and one of the things I think I’m bad at now is connection. Which means that connection makes me feel so much better about life, but I think I’m terrible at it.

I have to stop being so scared and assuming the worst. And I gotta find reasons to enjoy the things I keep putting off.

That’s the feeling “oh I can’t do that.” Maybe instead it should be “let’s see if I can.”

Because it’s my belief that I can’t do something that is holding me back. And the closer I get to maybe doing that thing, the louder that defeatist belief gets.

It’s fear. I’m always afraid that I’m not capable, at least not with the kind of connection that gives me the strengths I’m missing (like Atom). The trick is to just say “I’m gonna try to do this.”

I think my self esteem took a huge hit within the last 10 years because I was finally like “hey I know what I’m doing” and then Susie showed up and was like “actually you don’t” and pointed out all these problems I had been missing. I started listening to her, and shit seems to work out for her, but everything around me got worse in the process. So it’s like “I have no fucking idea what I’m doing. When I live my life the old way, things only LOOK good, but when I live my life the new way, things make more sense to me but LOOK bad.” It’s just this lost, hopeless feeling.

TURKEY DAY Sad, weird day. I really miss Atom and dad and the house and at least mom’s food lol.

I need to expand. Get into communities. That Discord? Maybe both? Find events to attend. Hang with Tony and get involved in shit. Do improv or whatever, perform songs when you’re comfortable.

I can’t believe Susie and I have been together for almost 11 years. We’ve been through so much together.

I should offer to help out more, I tend to think shit is other people’s problem, since all my shit is only my problem.

I really miss Atom and dad. I miss them so much. I wish I could be with them right now.

I’m glad I have Susie though. I can’t believe she’s stuck with me for almost 11 years and has known me for even longer. It seems impossible that she’d want to be with me this whole time.

I can feel myself already wanting to shut down again and avoid people and stop trying. I have to not do that.

OTHER SHIT Was just petting Ruby and I think I got it. If you only take care of yourself enough to be there with the person you love, what do you do when they don’t need you anymore?

If that’s the only reason you care about yourself or your success, you’ll never survive your loved one not needing you as much. You run out of a reason to care.

So it’s not my fault that Atom couldn’t find a reason to believe in himself and take better care of himself. That’s why it was impossible for me to save him, because the problem was that he didn’t know what to fill his life with without me. I could never be the solution, because I was accidentally part of the problem. It had to be himself or at least someone else healthy needing him consistently. If he had met a sober girl, it would’ve worked. He needed someone to break the idea that being there for me was his only thing of value, and I was the only person who couldn’t do it because whatever I said would be overpowered by him thinking about the problem. That’s why I needed someone else. And the fact that they were all too stupid to see it is the reason he’s gone. If he had friends who knew him better, they would’ve known I was right.

This is the lesson I need to learn. If you only do things for others, what do you do for yourself? I only do things for myself that don’t involve others! Because when other people are involved, I can’t figure out if I’m doing it for me or others. Removing people is the only way to know it’s for me.

I avoid people because I have trouble keeping track of myself when other people are involved. My wants will always be quieter than my desire to meet the wants of others. That’s why I need people gone, because my voice is quiet. I need the space.

Being with Atom was the best of both worlds. We didn’t want anything from each other. We were just ourselves together. We would help if we could but there was no expectation other than to listen. We could hear our own wants around each other and out of respect, we’d always try to help each other out. I wanted to watch a movie, sure he’d watch it too. He’d want Chinese food, sure that sounds good.

It’s hard to be a Love Addict who lives a good and active life. It’s really fucking hard. Because you’re more open than other people. You can go to a party without drinks, or drugs, or you can avoid casinos. How do you avoid people? It’s so difficult to recover from this because the way forward requires you to expose yourself to MORE people. No wonder Atom and dad couldn’t figure it out. They both really wanted me to figure it out though.

Scott and mom are different. They don’t have it. Scott was raised more by mom, Atom and I were more raised by dad. I don’t know what Scott and Mom are in this equation, but they’re not love addicts.

ATOM Cold nights in the winter make me think of you. There was probably so many nights that I was cold and tired and annoyed but I looked at the Christmas lights outside and thought “it’s okay I get to go home and watch something with Atom.” He just made all my fears seem smaller.

I think this happened. We were out for the Christmas village thing. I was cold and annoyed. He made me appreciate it and told me all I had to do was power it out and I’d get to go home and play with toys or watch TV. That “hey don’t worry! If you do this you get to that” kinda thing that he loved to do. I feel like that really did happen and I’m not just imagining it. And that’s when I fully loved Atom for good. He helped me see what was cool about the world. He told me where the good things were, and he relieved my fears and told me good things would happen if I powered through shit. I got to hang out with him in a cool Christmas village and chill out after.

I can remember little Atom now and it’s hard to believe he was ever that small. I remember him showing me how to draw too.

It’s hard because my modern memories started in high school. I barely remember how my brain worked when I was younger than that so I can’t remember every way Atom became the best but I remember always thinking he was.

I think that Christmas village is when I developed my personality. Always scared, tired, and cold, but cautiously excited and curious. Some of my favorite things were cemented too: darkness with dead trees and colorful lights. Atom helped me find that.

Atom was my guide, my lighthouse in the fog. I just hope I was his, and if I was, I wish I had been a better lighthouse in the fog.

I failed to be his lighthouse. And in order for him to succeed as my lighthouse, I have to learn to become my own. He had to have given me the tools to succeed in order for me to respect his legacy.

It’s hard to picture young Atom, because now I can look back and see this beautiful, kind soul and all the pain he was going to feel. I see him and I think of how his time here was too short. I just hope I gave him love. I hope I made him want to be here. I hope I was worth it. Meaning something to the people we love, that’s probably what matters most in the end, so how he saw himself in relation to the people who were most important to him, that’s where he’d find his most comfort. I hope he knew how much I loved him and how much I miss him and how I owe my life to him. He gave me so much more than I could ever explain. I would be a shadow of who I am without him.

Not to lean into my self esteem issues too much, but I guess my point is: if I’m ever going to believe that I deserve the life I want, it’s because Atom believed that first. I don’t think I ever would’ve even considered it.

LAST NIGHT I had a dream I was away for the weekend with some guys, including Dan and Atom. In the dream, I thought Atom died again. But I found him in the morning sleeping in a bed with Dan (nothing weird, it was a big bed and that’s all they had so they bunked up). I ran in and gave him a big hug. He was tired and hungover and slightly annoyed but he hugged me back and it felt real.

DREAMER I dream big. Almost too big. That’s why I’m never satisfied and why I’m never able to meet my own challenges.

I’m doing better but not better enough (in my mind).

Atom and I are/were both dreamers. That’s what we saw in each other.

That’s why he always woke me up to tell me about D&D and why he told me even boring stories from his day. He just wanted to share. Like me.

It’s not our fault. We both wanted the same thing. We both wanted to love and be loved, and we met that need for each other. It’s not our fault we were like that, we were lucky we could do that for each other. We helped each other, us being best friends was never a bad thing. Our lives would’ve been so much worse, so much duller without “us.” It’s just unfortunate that you needed more than I could give in the last several years, and no one else was willing to meet your need in my absence.

That’s part of my sadness now. Now I know that I have to be okay. I don’t have a choice. No one will save me except maybe Susie and I know from experience that one person isn’t enough. I can’t afford to fall apart.

[chronocidalrage]

Creepy Woods and Connection Shit

What is it about creepy woods that makes me feel so much? The feeling of a place that should be scary but totally isn’t. The feeling of fear being defeated. The feeling of being someplace empty and scary with Atom and somehow feeling completely safe and not alone. To be where you should only feel scared and alone, and not feeling that way at all because of a person who’s there with you. Someone to be with you in the loneliest, darkest places you could ever be in. That’s love. So creepy woods makes me think of love. 

And the idea of being someplace beautiful and feeling love seems harder and further away to me. It’s probably been a long time since I’ve felt that way. But loved in a scary place? That’s the last way I ever felt loved anyway. It’s been so long since a place wasn’t scary to me. 

So that means I associate love with fear. When I think of fear I think of love and vice versa. If only feeling loved cures my fears, then in my mind, that means fear is the biggest threat to love. They’re linked. 

I have a problem attaining and retaining people/things I love. But I think that’s imagined. 

When I think of the things I want and the things I love, I immediately feel fear. Because I know they’re so connected. 

I always feel both and I prefer the ones that come with the least fear. 

I’m on the couch with Susie on the other reclining side and Ruby pressed up against me laying with her face on the reclining part. 

What am I afraid of with people? That I’ll lose them before I get them or I’ll get attached and THEN I’ll lose them. 

PYUN I commented this on a Facebook post for the director Albert Pyun since he’s apparently near the end of his life. So sad.

Albert, I very clearly remember my older brother showing me Cyborg when I was (way too) young. The opening shot of the bridge with the incredible narration, the door busting open to reveal a dirty, devastated city street, the shot of Fender and his gang approaching with the fire behind them - I’ll never forget the beginning of this movie. It will always be the first thing I think of when I imagine living in some sort of post-apocalyptic world. More than Road Warrior or the future war from Terminator, this familiar landscape turned terrifying is always what I picture it being like. The movie captured the despair of a world so dark, but carried a feeling of lawless freedom and how amazing love would be in a world that’s otherwise joyless. Maybe you didn’t intend any of that, but I always felt it!

Some years ago I was lucky enough to finally see Nemesis, which I had always enjoyed the ads for when I was young, but had somehow never seen it. I was immediately in love with the mood of the movie, the amazing broken down locations, the kinetic camera work, the larger than life characters, the impressive stunts, and your ability to take any location and make it (and the people in it) look cool and way more expensive than it probably really was. Nemesis is a mix of so many things I love, fueled by pure imagination.

I’ve read that you haven’t been able to finish some recent projects, but I hope you realize that you’ve already done great work that you should be proud of. I certainly would be if I had your filmography, if I had brought these movies into the world. People will love your movies for decades and beyond. Your movies will make people’s days and nights, they’ll show them to their friends and marvel at the characters and stories Albert Pyun dreamed up. People will love your movies forever, or at least until the future of Cyborg becomes a reality. And even then, if someone finds a copy of Nemesis in the rubble of the old world, it would become a treasure. An artifact from the time when giants like Albert Pyun walked the earth.

DENZEL Just desperately wants to be in Goodfellas or something and be part of that crew and it’s completely insane that that’s difficult. Denzel with De Niro and Scorsese? That would be fucking insane and I can’t believe it hasn’t happened.

DOORS Door closed means I’m not welcome. I believe I have to respect that. In recent years I’ve felt so many doors close in my face that I started closing my doors instead. Beating them to it. Peeled the bandaid off. When I have a problem with someone I worry about the door closing.

It wasn’t just that Atom drinking hurt me, it’s that him exhibiting the exact behavior I was against made me feel unwelcome. His behavior told me “you don’t belong here.”

I’m lonely. But I don’t wanna let anyone in and I don’t wanna ask if I’m welcome anywhere else.

CONNECTION I feel incomplete. I feel loved when I’m connected. When I’m in sync with someone else. That’s why Susie or anyone else not meeting me in the middle on even small, unimportant things really fucks me up. I don’t feel comfortable on my own. I feel broken, empty, incomplete.

THE 99 I had fun being goofy at the 99 with Susie. What a silly, basic chain restaurant. She suggested going out for once and I suggested the 99 and it was as funny as we expected. People were doing trivia.

I’m sad all the time because I’m always trying to not think about the fact I lost Atom. I’m literally always sad about it and I’ve been this way since about 2018 when I realized it was gonna happen. That’s when I knew.

I’m always trying to be the person who didn’t need Atom’s love rather than the person who earned it. I forget that I’m not strictly the “person who didn’t need it.”

I feel sad, broken, and alone. And I have since 2018 and I’ve been working myself insane to avoid feeling this way. To deny it. To pretend I’m fine. To try to be Bond, John McClane, Jack Slater. But I’m not, I’m devastated and I’m broken. And I can’t believe it. I was supposed to never feel this way again. Because I was supposed to have Atom.

Growing up I felt like I had almost everything I needed. I had Atom to be my friend and brother, I just needed a girl. A partner. I just needed to be a boyfriend or husband as well as a brother. Then I thought I had both and it blew up. I just wanted both.

Now I don’t have Atom and sometimes I don’t even fully feel like I have Susie (not her fault, mine). I just feel so broken. What would I say to Atom if I could?

I miss you so much. Some days I don’t see the point in going on with such a lonely path ahead of me. But that’s the worst thing I could do to you. Throw away everything you’ve given me. And I need to believe that I’m NOT broken.

What would I want you to do if I had died? I’d hope you still love me forever. I’d hope you’d miss me but I’d want you to move on and be happy and alive and keep me alive within you. To remember me and the times we had and treat people well and show everyone how amazing you are. To enjoy your life. To realize you didn’t need me but I was so glad you thought you did. At least for a while. I’d want you to move on and keep fighting and I would legitimately WANT you to make your life even better than it was because I wouldn’t want to hold you back. I’d want you to have a happy life, full of everything you ever wanted. As long as you still loved me and missed me, and wished I was still with you, that’s all I’d need. Otherwise I’d want you to move on and live the most amazing life, the beautiful life you deserved.

And if it was me who died, I certainly wouldn’t have blamed you. I just would’ve wished I got to say goodbye and I would be so heartbroken I wouldn’t get to see you again and I’d feel bad for leaving you. For leaving you on your own. There would be no anger. No bitterness. I’d just miss you. I’d just hope you were okay.

Alright. I’ll try. But I’m gonna stop pretending I’m okay.

PAIN I think I’ve been struggling because low self esteem is about avoiding pain. And I’ve been through so much pain over the last 5-6 years. Things I always believed were my best decisions, have also brought me so much pain. And I guess I don’t know how to handle that. Because I refuse to believe some of these decisions were mistakes.

But maybe that’s just the way it is. All the best things come with pain. It will always be a trade off. That’s not to say that some things won’t be easier than others. But no matter how easy, your greatest love will also be your greatest loss. Or you’ll be theirs.

I guess I just need to reframe my concept of pain. Because my hatred of it is what holds me back. My fear of pain.

What is the pain that I’m carrying around everyday? Let’s think through it.

I’M NOT WHAT I WANTED TO BE BY NOW. What specifically about that bothers me? That I feel like a failure and that I think everyone else can see it. But no one is aware of the full extent of my dreams but me. Other people don’t look at me and see me as a failure, they don’t think of me now in comparison to what I wanted to be. Only I do. And how miserable about that am I really? Eh. I guess I’m okay with it. I just hope I get to finally be comfortable in my body and make cool shit at some point. I’m not exactly upset that I haven’t done all that already, I’m just getting scared that I’ll never reach that point. I have control over that though. So remember those two things: you STILL CAN reach those goals if you want to, and NO ONE BUT YOU is looking at you and thinking you’re a failure.

I FAILED (AND LOST) ATOM. I didn’t fail him, although I realize I’ll probably always feel that way, he was my best friend and brother and we were supposed to look out for each other. But I DID look out for him, despite how much damage it did to me, our relationship, and my relationship with my friends and family. I fucking tried. I tried even though it was deeply painful. I tried to keep our relationship good while also trying to be a disruptor of his unhealthy lifestyle. An incredibly difficult balance. I tried to get other people to help me, and they failed that challenge, not me. Even if I DID fail Atom, I didn’t fail him as much as most other people in his life did. Also (and I apologize for this), I didn’t fail Atom as much as he failed himself. I’m sorry, I hate saying that but it’s true. And it’s a good point, because even though Atom failed to look out for himself, I know he did try and just didn’t have the proper tools. I don’t judge him for it, it doesn’t make me look down on him, it doesn’t make me think less of him or love him less. I just wish he had pulled through, pulled it off. Just like I wish I had. I guess it’s okay. There’s no true positive to a tragedy like this and it will always be a tragedy in my life and that makes sense. This is the hardest pain to work my way through but that’s by design. I love(d) Atom with all my heart and short of him deciding to fight for his future when it could’ve made a difference, there’s no way this was gonna have a happy ending. It’s just a tragedy. It is what it is and my pain makes sense.

NO FAMILY UNITS. This sucks, and the pain is completely reasonable, but I need to remember a few things: everyone failed me more than I failed them/myself. And that failure is a reflection on them, not me. I’ve always worked super hard to keep units together. Always. It’s not my fault if other people aren’t willing to invest as much as me. I want more, and I deserve more. I just need to find new units and I need to believe in them and believe I’m deserving of them. I deserve more and I can find more in this world. Stop blaming yourself for other people’s limits. And Scott and mom aren’t going anywhere. They don’t want to lose me either. Remember that.

I FEEL LIKE A FAILURE. Failure is fine, the problem is not learning from it. And just because you HAVE failed, that doesn’t mean you always WILL fail.

SO WHAT PAIN IS REAL? That you lost your best friend and brother. That will always be painful and it would be fucked up if it wasn’t. I’m allowed to be upset that things aren’t as I hoped they would be by now, but that’s not an indicator of my worth, and those things are still on the table. If I was truly miserable and unsatisfied with my life, I would’ve completely changed it by now, so obviously I technically like my life.

GREEN DAY THOUGHTS Green Day makes me want to live. I always forget that. I forget that they were kinda the first thing I found “on my own.” The first thing that was just for me. No one showed them to me, no one suggested them, no one I knew liked them, they just connected with me perfectly. Their sound, their look, the visuals of their videos, their vibe, the subject matter of their songs. There’s a part of who I am that connects with all that better than anything and I always forget that. They kinda bring me back to a time when I felt like a whole person on my own.

Still Breathing is a pretty cool song too. Definitely about deciding to live again, and I should remember it when I need it. Not sure if BJ meant it this way, but it’s a valid point that “I’m still breathing on my own.” I’m keeping myself alive. I am capable of sustaining my own life, no one else is making me breathe, I am doing that all by myself.

HEAVEN AND HELL Are metaphorical concepts from the dawn of time that humans have stupidly made literal. I’ve been in hell for years, and lately it’s been self-imposed hell. Suffering.

Your “sins” are whatever you did to end up in hell. Whatever you did that led to your suffering. Loving someone. Whatever.

Then you have to pay for your sins. Learn from them so you can get back to “heaven” (AS IN: a place of happiness with loved ones). If you don’t learn the right lesson, you get stuck. If you think the answer is to not love people, you’ll be stuck. I’d you think you’re still supposed to be learning that you’re a fuck up, you’re gonna stay there. Those are the lessons I’m stuck at.

I feel guilty. I feel bad about putting mom in this little space and I’ll feel bad either way. Either I force her to cram a kitchen in there or I force her to live without a kitchen.

And I’m worried that this will be like Atom’s hair. The flat out no. The impossible situation.

I’m wracked with guilt. Guilt that dad and Atom are dead and I get to keep living. That I may have a good life even without them. That I may be happy again. Guilt about moving mom and taking her house with Atom’s money. About being happy or doing well because of something getting worse for my family.

My actions have involved so much suffering that I don’t feel capable or deserving of happiness. It seems impossible to me. Even if I end up happy somehow, it’ll be at the expense of someone else and there goes my happiness. Guilt.

Food and movies are the only forms of joy I feel both capable and deserving of. Everything with any sort of resistance, I see as either beyond my reach or beyond my worth. That’s why I want an easy yes. I don’t wanna fight for something because that tells me I don’t deserve it.

Why do I always feel so guilty? Guilty as in responsible for pain. Either mine or someone else’s. I just always feel like I’m responsible for pain. Anywhere from annoyance to anguish, anywhere from myself to a stranger I talk to for 10 seconds. I just feel like I’m a dark cloud. Something just going around and spoiling things. Failing to do the right thing, easily succeeding in doing the wrong thing.

I think I haven’t been drawing because it feels weird to sit down and draw in a world without Atom. It feels wrong to be able to enjoy that when he can’t. Because I watched him do it and thought “I wanna do that.” He was my first hero. How can I draw when I lost my original inspiration to do it? Just seems fucked up. EDIT: It’s because I no longer see it as something that will get me connection and I’m having trouble finding a reason to do it for myself.

I’m glad I’m playing guitar and singing more though. This was always really therapeutic for me.

HAPPINESS I think the problem in simplest terms is that I don’t believe I’m deserving or capable of happiness. If I DO achieve happiness, it’s at the expense of someone else. If happiness is available and no one would be harmed in the process, I fail to attain it.

Had a long talk with Susie. She’s right. I need to stop carrying the responsibility for other people’s pain, they’re not carrying responsibility for mine, even when they should.

I think it really comes down to this: I finally stood up to people. Said no when they wanted me to say yes. Fought for what I thought was right no matter how hard, and not only did Atom still die, but my family and Dan never joined me in the fight and still haven’t even acknowledged that I WAS doing the right thing and was doing it alone without proper support.

It feeds into my belief that fighting for myself/what I think is right will always blow up in my face. That it’s not worth it. That advocating for myself or the greater good just isn’t a good idea. I really wish I had won that one.

But instead I should look at it like this: I had my Captain America moment. All odds were against me, I was on my own and I still got up, dusted myself off, and kept fighting. I should always remember that about myself: I kept fighting. I didn’t tell people what they wanted to hear afterwards, I didn’t go backwards, I stuck to my fight and that is brave. It’s not about winning, you won’t always win. It’s about fighting anyway.

THE VOID IS NORMAL Get comfortable with the void inside me. Because without Atom, it’ll always be there to some extent. Because he’s irreplaceable.

That’s the problem. I socialize to connect. To fill the void. And that’s tough. Instead, I should look at it like a normal person: “eat something, play some games, catch up and see how people are.”

HE FOUND SOMEONE I think Atom died happy. He did find love and he died with it in his life. We’d both been avoiding saying goodbye over the last few years because I think we both saw it coming. That last day we saw each other, we were both avoiding saying it. I think during that phone call, we were trying to make sure we said the bare minimum just in case. At least say the important things: that I was sorry, I was happy for him, I supported him and wanted to catch up. That he was happy, that he supported me doing what was right for me, that he wanted me to draw more because I was good. That we loved each other. In a lot of ways, it makes sense. It seems like we knew somehow.

YOUNG SUSIE Susie sent me this picture of her from a few years before we met. She’s drunk at her apartment in New Bedford with Dave and she’s so beautiful. She’s the living definition of love in a hopeless place, someone so beautiful and alive, surrounded by darkness. She’s like a True Romance character. Oh my god that’s how I see our relationship in a lot of ways. She’s Alabama and I’m Clarence. She’s the beautiful, strong, funny, determined girl who has survived so much and I’m the movie nerd who works at the comic book store and can’t believe she loves me and is willing to do anything to earn and protect that love. NOTE: Susie if you read this, I hope you see it as a compliment. I certainly mean it that way.

I think I saw True Romance and thought it was the most romantic thing I had ever seen, for whatever reason. That’s what I’ve always wanted I think. I think Susie may have been looking for Sandy and Kirsten from the OC (although she’s way better than Kirsten and I’m not quite to Sandy’s level yet but I’m working on it).

BEING BETTER Do what you would do if connection wasn’t an option and disconnection wasn’t a punishment. I should find a physical activity I enjoy like boxing or rock climbing.

Growing up, I got to skip getting used to being alone because of Atom. So I’m resistant to the feeling. I hate the temptation of being around people but I’m removed from the “gamble” if I’m alone.

I’m obsessed with connection. I look at everything in terms of it.

Take connection out and focus on your other goals.

The things I want to do are the things I most associate with feeling connected: eating and watching things. Those activities have always worked for me so I go to them.

That’s why I always want Susie to want the same thing as me: so we can connect. That’s why I’m less interested if only I want something. I need to share. Because I was terrified of the world and having Atom showed me how much better and less scary the world is when you’re truly connected. So I only wanted that. I never had to get used to that kind of soul death that prevents you from having that spark of life. I got to feel alive and large because I had support. Settling for less is really hard.

But Atom and I knew we were disconnecting. Me because I was moving forward and wasn’t willing to adjust my path, him because he was standing still and didn’t believe he was able to catch up to me. It’s not that he thought what I said was wrong. It’s that he didn’t think I understood how hard it was from his end. He agreed with me though. We were both reeling from what was happening and trying to make each other understand. We wished the other understood. That’s why we lost each other. What was happening to me was happening to both of us.

My definition of happiness is sharing it with someone else. I don’t really know how to be happy on my own.

THAT’S when I felt most loved by mom: at dinner. She showed me love with food and paid attention to me and listened to stories about my day and I got to share the experience with Atom. When I couldn’t get that “full family” connection I ate and watched TV instead of sitting at the table.

I think I hated being alone. I was fine with keeping myself company but I didn’t like being alone in general. So when I WAS alone I focused on doing things I could ONLY do alone: masturbating, eating junk food. I always wanted to be connected. I hated getting my own room and no longer sharing with Atom. Then I started having nightmares and always wanted to sleep with mom and dad. My cat Flash was an attempt to make me feel less alone. I hated being alone. And I guess I still do.

And connection is like anything else: you have to realize you can’t have it all the time. You have to realize it’s supposed to be a bonus. Not a requirement of life. I mean, you need it, but it’s not like air. You don’t need it every second or you’ll die. You need it like you need food. You need enough to sustain your life but if you overdo it, you run into problems. A treat here and there is fine but excess causes problems. It’s different when you have a family because the whole family needs to connect in order to sustain that lifestyle. It’s mutually beneficial so you’re meeting a need and odds are you’re not doing it alone. The load is getting carried. My brain sees connection as life sustaining so I treat it like I treat food, which I treat like it’s air.