#Also- this fucking college charged me like nearly 2000 a month for a building that for two FUCKING weeks in December LOST HOT WATER

[milo-knight]

ACCORDING TO MY FUCKING COLLEGE I NEVER ACCEPTED MY FINANCIAL AID GRANTS BUT I WAS NEVER NOTIFIED OF EVEN RECEIVING THE OFFERS AND I WAS NEVER ABLE TO ACCESS THE FUCKING PORTAL THAT WOULD ALLOW ME THE ABILITY TO ACCEPT OR DECLINE THE FUCKING GRANTS AND NOW THE WINDOW IS CLOSED (???) AND I AM 6,000 IN DEBT TO MY FUCKING SCHOOL FOR THIS SEMESTER ALONE NOW AND I HAVE BEEN SENDING THEM EMAILS ABOUT THE ISSUE AND I AM FREAKING OUT BECAUSE IT'S TOO LATE TO WITHDRAW FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR AND BECAUSE IT'S PAST THE DATE MY PAYMENT TO THE COLLEGE WAS DUE NOW I HAVE FUCKING LATE FEES TOO EVEN THOUGH I NEVER RECEIVED MY FUCKING GRANTS THAT I EMAILED THE SCHOOL ABOUT BECAUSE I KNEW I WAS ELIGIBLE FOR THOSE FUCKING GRANTS IM ACTUALLY CRYING IM SO STRESSED FUCK YOU UCSC IDC IDC FUCK YOU UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ FUCK YOU TO HELL

[whitehotharlots]

“Literal violence” and the death of the heterodox

I teach college students. This means I assign young people things to read. If the students don’t do the reading--if they consider it too boring or uninteresting or difficult--they don’t do well in the class. I update my reading lists every semester, because what was interesting to students a few years or even months ago might not click with the students of today. Sometimes students love what they’re assigned. Sometimes they hate it. And it’s very hard to tell if a piece is or isn’t going to work until I’ve assigned it and gotten feedback. 

As I’ve gotten older it has become more difficult to relate to young people. This is a completely normal part of life--nothing to be ashamed of or panic about, and I think almost everyone agrees that it’s more dignified to age gracefully than to try too hard to seem hip or with it. And so, over the past few years, as I’ve found it nearly impossible to find good, engaging writing with a broad appeal, I figured it was just because I, naturally, don’t relate to young people as much as I used to.

But lately--certainly since Trump’s ascendance, but perhaps going back as far as the early twenty-teens--mainstream writing has become incredibly predictable. Name any event and I can tell you almost word-for-word how it will be discussed in Jezebel vs. Teen Vogue vs. The Root vs The Intercept. And, increasingly, there’s been very little analytical divergence even between different publications. Everyone to the left of Fox News seems to agree upon just about everything, and all analysis has been boiled down to the repetition of one of a half-dozen or so aphorisms about privilege or validity. There is, in short, a proper and improper way to describe and understand anything that happens, and a writer is simply not going to get published if they have an improper understanding of the world. 

This, I think, is the result of our normalizing hyperbolic overstatements of harm and the danger posed by anything short of absolute fealty to orthodox liberalism. If it’s “literal violence” to express mild criticism and incredulity, people aren’t going to do so. Editors don’t want to risk accusations of “platforming fascists,” and so there’s been very little pushback against fascism being recently re-defined as “anything that displeases upper middle class Democrats.” 

Not long ago, it was commonplace on the left to celebrate the internet’s ability to allow writers to bypass the gatekeeping functions of old media. With mainstream liberalism needing a scapegoat to explain away the failures of the post-2008 Democratic party, however, the tone has shifted. 

Case in point, Clio Chang’s rather chilling piece from the Columbia Journalism Review that seeks to problematize an open platform called Substack.. Substack allows writers to publish almost whatever they want, outside of editorial control, and then charge a subscription to readers. As more and more websites and print media are being hollowed out and sacrificed to the gods of speculative capital, a large number of big-name writers have embraced this new platform. It has also allowed writers to report on stories that are objectively true but inconvenient to the Democratic establishment, such as Matt Taibbi’s admirable work debunking Russiagate bullshit. 

Chang begins with a lengthy description of Substack’s creation. She stresses that no one—not even the site’s founders and most successful writers—consider it an ideal replacement for the well-funded journalism of old. Chang focuses on one particular Substack newsletter called “Coronavirus News For Black Folks” which appears to be moderately successful (the piece cites 2000+ subscribers, and its founder is earning enough to have hired an assistant editor). Even after describing how the platform has given large grants and stipends to other newsletter run by women and people of color, the fact that this one particular newsletter isn’t as successful as others is held up as proof of the platform’s malignancy.

​“Coronavirus News For Black Folks” may be somewhat successful, but Chang implies that it rightfully should be even more successful, and that something evil must be afoot. Simple arithmetic tells us that a specialized newsletter—one pitched specifically to a minority audience and only covering one particular issue—is going to have a smaller readership than a more general interest piece. Rather than accept this simple explanation, Chang instead embraces the liberal tendency to blame a lack of desired outcomes upon the presence of evil forces.

While Chang provides a thorough overview of the current, fucked state of media and journalism, at no point does she grapple with the role that mainstream liberalism has played in abetting the industry’s collapse. This is surprising, as a quick google search suggests she generally has solid, left-wing politics. This omission reveals a problematic gap in left analysis, and bodes poorly for any hope of leftism accomplishing any material goals while the movement remains aligned with more mainstream identity politics. Even as she cogently explains the destruction of media and the hellish future that lay before writers, Chang still embraces the mystical fatalism that liberals have been leaning on since 2010 or so, when it became clear that Obama wasn’t going to make good on any promises of hope or change. She blames our nation’s horrors not elite leadership, but on the presence of people and ideas she doesn’t like. In this case, Substack is problematic because many of its writers are white and male, and some are even conservative:

When [Andrew] Sullivan joined Substack, over the summer, he put the company’s positioning to the test: infamous for publishing excerpts from The Bell Curve, a book that promotes bigoted race “science,” Sullivan would now produce the Weekly Dish, a political newsletter. (Substack’s content guidelines draw a line at hate speech.) Sullivan’s Substack quickly rose to become the fifth-most-read among paid subscriptions—he claimed that his income had risen from less than $200,000 at New York magazine to $500,000. When I asked the founders if they thought his presence might discourage other writers from joining, they gave me a pat reply. “We’re not a media company,” Best said. “If somebody joins the company and expects us to have an editorial position and be rigorously enforcing some ideological line, this is probably not the company they wanted to join in the first place.”

I’m no fan of Andrew Sullivan, but the man has spent decades building and maintaining his audience. Of course he’s going to have a larger readership than someone who is just starting out. This isn’t a sign of anything nefarious. It’s basic commonsense. But there’s no other conclusions that can be reached: things are bad because people haven’t done enough to root out badness. Things are bad because evil exists. The only way we can attempt reform is to make the evil people go away. Anyone who says anything I don’t like is evil and their words are evil and they shouldn’t be published.

Chang doesn’t make any direct suggestions for remediating Substack, but her implications are clear: equity requires censorship and ideological conformity. Providing any platform for people who are disliked by the liberal mainstream, be they too far left or too indelicate with their conservative cruelty, equates to harming vulnerable people—even when those vulnerable people freely admit to making money off the same platform. There is no room for dissent. There is no possibility of reform. The boundaries of acceptable discourse must grow narrower and narrower. Only when we free our world from the presence of the bad ones will change magically arrive.

NOTE: I wrote a follow-up to this piece that I think does a better job of articulating the points I was trying to make.

[andrewdburton]

Death by a thousand cuts

I've been on the internet for a long, long time.

Via local Bulletin Board Systems, I started reading USENET newsgroups — mostly Star Trek and comic book and computer game stuff — during college in the late 1980s. I got sucked into the world of MUDs. Soon after graduating, I heard about this new thing called the World Wide Web, so I installed Mosaic on my Macintosh SE.

Before long, I taught myself HTML and built my first website. Eventually, in 1997, I started my first blog — back before blog was even a word!

I was drawn to the web (and the internet) in part because it seemed so egalitarian. Anyone could start a website about anything, and as long as they produced great stuff and shared it, people would read. I also liked the fact that almost everything was free. It didn't cost anything (besides your $19.95 monthly dial-up service) to access any of this information. The early web was a de facto sharing economy.

Best of all? The web was a wide open space, a blank slate, a platform free from dominance by mainstream media. Little people like me could have a voice.

None of this lasted long.

The Monetization of the Web

Soon, banner ads came along. I hated banner ads when they first appeared. “My site will never have banner ads,” I told my friends. (This was my first real lesson that you should never say never. My friends have been giving me grief about this for more than fifteen years!)

In 1998, Google arrived and changed everything. Until that point, web search was a miserable experience. It wasn't very good and it was overly monetized. Google was the opposite. It was amazing and had no monetization at all.

Hahahahahahahaha. How things have changed. Today, Google is all about ads. And using it is more and more a miserable experience. Look at this mess:

How long until Google has transformed itself into AltaVista?

In time, the mainstream media realized that the web wasn't going anywhere. By the early 2000s, they were treating it as an important part of their operations. By the early 2010s, the web had become the most important part of most media companies' platforms. And if it hadn't, those companies would soon be dead.

Meanwhile, two parallel (but related) trends developed.

First, there was the rise of “software as a service” (Saas). In the olden days — 1995, say — when you wanted a computer program, you went down to Circuit City and bought it. You paid for it once and you owned it forever. As “web apps” became a thing, companies shifted from one-time payments to a subscription model. Today, even big companies like Microsoft and Adobe have adopted the practice of continually charging for their products. (And if they don't use a subscription model, they often “sunset” their software, which is essentially the same damn thing.)

Second, forward-thinking sites and companies learned there was money to be made by disrupting existing business models. Netflix is a great example. Founded in 1997, this company has single-handedly destroyed multiple industries, most notably retail video. And, eventually, Netflix began to disrupt the monolithic television industry itself! Initially, this was beneficial to consumers. Now, in 2019, it's become apparent that oops, nope it's not. (See also.)

Twenty-five years ago, when the web was young, it was all about free. Anyone who could afford a computer and a $19.95/month dial-up connection was free to create and publish whatever they wanted — and free to consume what other people had created. It was like some sort of digital utopia.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Today, the web is most decidedly not free. And it's getting less free with every passing month. Let's be honest: More and more, life online is fucking expensive. It's like death by a thousand cuts.

This morning as I was pulling together the latest edition of the GRS Insider — this site's weekly email — I experienced the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. And that prompted this article. (And delayed the newsletter haha.)

First, I tried to read a New York Times article: “Health facts aren't enough. Should persuasion become a priority?” But I couldn't. I've already read one article from the NYT this month: “D.I.Y. Private Equity Is Luring Small Investors”. It used to be that the NYT was free. Then they instituted a limit on article consumption unless you subscribed, but it was a limit I could live with (something like ten articles per month). Besides, I could bypass the paywall with my browser's incognito mode. Then they got wise to incognito mode, which is fair enough. Now, apparently, you get one free article per month.

Next, I wanted to read this article: “Families Go Deep in Debt to Stay in the Middle Class”. I mean, I really want to read that article. But I can't. It's at The Wall Street Journal and the WSJ has been locked behind a paywall for years.

Crashing into paywalls is a daily occurence now. No — it's an hourly occurrence. I follow a promising link and bam I'm brought up short because I have to pay to access the article. This happens at newspapers, magazines, and even internet-only sites. It makes me grateful for the publications that produce terrific content and still provide it for free. (One example? I find that I'm frequently drawn to articles at The Atlantic. They provide top-notch quality without asking for payment. But for how long?)

Meanwhile, the subscription software model is starting to take its toll too. I completely understand that some apps and services require subscriptions in order to function properly. I pay a monthly fee to have Get Rich Slowly hosted on a webserver. That makes sense.

It does not make sense to me that some of the tools we use to build Get Rich Slowly require monthly (or yearly) subscriptions. There's no ongoing maintenance. There's no draw on the vendor's resources.

It does not make sense to me that my favorite weather app for the iPhone requires an annual subscription. In fact, it's insane. (Yet I still pay it.)

It does not make sense to my that Pzizz, a sleep tool that I've used for over a decade, moved from standalone pricing to subscription pricing. (And hey, Pzizz people, how many times do I have to pay for your product before you give me lifetime access? Because I've paid three or four times already.)

Generally speaking, SaaS and subscription plans aren't necessary — they're just profitable for the companies that use them. And as long as we keep paying, they'll stick to the model.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

The “cut” that's really going to mess with people's minds? The upcoming high price of television.

When Netflix and Hulu and similar companies came along, they offered low-cost alternatives to cable. Cord cutting became an act of frugality. I ditched cable television in 2007 and have never looked back. Until now.

Now, big media companies have recognized that they too can get on the act. They too can inflict one of the thousand cuts.

CBS was quick on the draw. Want to watch the latest Star Trek shows? No Netflix for you! You have to pay $10 per month for CBS All Access — or $6 per month if you're willing to put up with commercials.

Disney is a heavy hitter and they want to get in on the act. Disney+ — coming November 12th — will cost $8 per month. Want to watch the latest Marvel and Star Wars shows? Want to watch Disney and Pixar movies? This is your only option.

By far, the most popular show on Netflix is NBC's The Office, which accounts for a mind-boggling 7% of all Netflix viewing in the U.S. NBC knows a golden goose when it sees one. When its current deal with Netflix expires, it's yanking The Office and using it as a tent pole to launch its own subscription service.

Meanwhile, Netflix and Hulu and Amazon all offer their own original programming. (At least the latter is free for folks who pay for Prime, which is nearly one-third of the United States. Holy shit!) Apple will soon get in on the game and they're using big names to draw viewers: Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and more.

Streaming used to be a cheaper alternative to cable television. As Consumer Reports notes, these days it's a toss-up. And soon, streaming is likely to be the more expensive option.

Note: The one huge advantage to this proliferation of options? Users can pick and choose which content they subscribe to. For years (or decades), folks had been asking for a la carte pricing for cable channels. Well, I guess now we have it.

No Free Lunch

To provide supporting evidence for this article, I started to make a list of all of the software subscriptions I have, my software that's being “sunsetted” and needs to be upgraded (Quickbooks 2016 just notified me yesterday that it's no longer supported), the most common paywalls I encounter, and the television-related payments I make. I gave up. It's a doable thing, but it'd take too much time right now. It's a project for another day.

I know I sound like a cranky old man (again!), but I've had enough. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore! Except that I probably am.

“Don't you expect to pay for services?” Kim asked me as I bitched to her this morning. “How does anybody run a business if it's free? In your mind, their business model should be to not charge the customer?”

Okay, fair point. I don't want to be taken for a choosing beggar.

As somebody who runs a website himself and knows how much it costs (in terms of time and money) just to maintain my tiny corner of the web, I absolutely do not begrudge anyone the desire to make money.

And, in fact, my biggest challenge since repurchasing Get Rich Slowly two years ago has been balancing my desire to provide excellent information without destroying the user experience with monetization. It's a delicate balance, one that I'm not sure I'm achieving. (But hey, I'm working on it!)

My frustration is that there are just so many companies extracting a pound of flesh from me. It's too much.

Yes, I realize most (of not all) of these expenses are voluntary. Yes, I realize this is capitalism in action. Yes, I realize there are often free (or cheaper) options. Yes, I realize we can't reset the internet to 1995. Believe me: I've been thinking about this issue for years now. I understand all of this stuff. But I don't like it.

In the end, my solution recently has been to KonMari my digital life. I've removed most of the apps from my iPhone and iPad, opting to cut those with subscription fees first. When possible, choose software with a one-time fee instead of an ongoing subscription. I try to steer clear of sites with paywalls. I killed Hulu. (But then Kim promptly joined.) Even though I love Star Trek and the Marvel Universe, I refuse to pay for CBS All Access and Disney+. I never will.

But then, I was never going to have banner ads on my website either, was I?

The post Death by a thousand cuts appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

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[kelandry5]

I just want to say, I’m sorry for being depressing lately and I’m sorry I can’t just pretend the way I normally would. I’m trying, but it’s not failing. And I’m sorry if my depressing posts bother anyone, but this is basically my only place to vent. 

This is a bit of a rant and you don’t need to read this, I just need to get it out. There is a lot going on in my life and a good bit of it I can’t even rant about because just thinking about it gives me terrible anxiety.... just still no job and the paypal charges and the dental issues that never end and things between me and my mom and grad school shit and my nana’s Alzheimers and insecurities and this fucking toxic place and my pain and the nightmares and sleep issued and just a lot of fucking shit going on....But I feel like trying to get some things out because maybe it will calm me down and it’s probably better than turning to razors to help me sleep tonight. I’ve done enough of that the past few days...

I still don’t have a job and I just found out there were two $100 dollar charges to my paypal from some German advertisement company???? that should not exist and there is now a case open on the charges but I don’t have 200 dollars lying around to spare if shit doesn’t go in my favor. I don’t even know how it happened but it’s not okay and it has me freaked out and my mom is just like whatever and I’ve changed my password and everything but like that’s still not okay.

And I’ve been applying to jobs for over a year now, granted I took breaks because at times my anxiety got so bad I literally could not, but still. In August I had an interview at Harris Teeter and got a job offer pending the results of a drug test and background check. There should have been nothing on the background check, not even a speeding ticket. I verified with the company that did the drug testing my perscription meds so there shouldn’t have been anything wrong there either. Yet I never heard another word and they didn’t give me a number to contact and honestly I’m too afraid to contact because my imagination likes to supply way too many crazy possibilities but I’m also freaked out as hell because what if there is something I don’t know about. Or what if it’s because the drug levels were lower on the test because I didn’t take my meds that day. I didn’t take them because they make me more reserved, and so far I’ve had a hard time with interviews and not taking them actually helped me be more outgoing and speak, but what if that screwed it up. Or what if there is something in my records I don’t know about. I don’t know how, but what if there is? I wouldn’t even know. So now I’m scared shitless because what if I get another interview and another offer and then.... it turns out the same way. And it doesn’t help that I’m 24 and have no job experience. I mean I do, but it’s all volunteer work or not exactly on the books work. And my main experience I can’t even give references for because the entire senior dance team left the place on a bad note and I know that woman don’t like me... if she even remembers me. And like, I was sort of paid, but it was an exchange of services so it doesn’t even count. But what the fuck does it even matter because for all I know I’ll never get a fucking job. Couldn’t get one before university when I tried either. Am I just that fucking unwanted!? I don’t even know. But I need a job. I need money. And I’m fucking scared as shit.

And my teeth situation hasn’t improved either. I have no fucking bottom chewing teeth whatsoever. Okay, like one tooth. and a screw. That doesn’t really count. Thank you fucking genetics and medication. And I am so sick of living in fear of dental issues and so sick of all the problems they have caused me and so sick of dentists being dick heads. And recently one of the root canal/crowns I had fucking broke off at the gum. Just broke. End of story. Out of no where. Like this shouldn’t even be surprising. It really shouldn’t by now. With everything that has gone on with my teeth, this should be fucking expected. And I should count myself lucky because at least this isn’t something that causes pain. At least this isn’t another three months on way more pain meds than anyone should be taking yet still in too much pain to be awake (and enough pain to be considering suicide just to make it stop) while waiting three months for dental surgery because dentists are fucking assholes. I mean, since it had a root canal, there is nothing for there to be in pain. So I guess I should be counting my blessings. But that doesn’t really help when I know that is at least 2000 dollars down the drain. And I still need like six implants and those are 2000 dollars a piece and that isn’t counting the build up and crown which could be almost another 2000 dollars. Yes, they make you pay 2000 dollars for a fucking tiny ass screw that barely breaks the surface of the gum. True, I could have all my teeth removed and get dentures, but that will just cost money down the line because that can cause all sorts of gum problems. My grandfather had that. (thank him for my shitty genetics). He had all his teeth removed by the time he was 20 years old. But we are now looking into these other type of implants that don’t put in individual screws for every tooth, but those can still cost as much as a fucking masters degree! And by that I mean they can cost as much as 50,000 dollars or more! And that requires finding a dentist to do it first. Which we haven’t really had the time to do.

Partially because my grandparents are taking up a lot of time and resources too. Well the ones on my dads side got a home care person coming four days a week and my uncle on that side helps with them some. But my mom and I are left to take care of my nana with alzheimers. She doesn’t know she has it and refuses home care help or to move and she lives alone. And it’s fucking scary. She can leave the house to go to the grocery store and drive around for four hours before coming home without ever going to the store. She can get lost going to the bathroom in a store. And there is little we can do legally. We can’t force care on her or take her car keys away. As it is, we try to convince her to let us take her where she needs to go and my mom keeps up with all her finanaces and doctor appointments and everything but my mother also works full time for the fucking asshole government so it’s a lot of stress on her which means she take it out on me sometimes. And I try to help as much as I can but it’s still hard. And this week, my nana has shown up at her hair dressers nearly every day thinking she has her weekly appointment and she keeps calling our house thinking we didn’t show up to take her to her doctors appointment because she is convinced it’s the wrong fucking day and don’t get me wrong. I love my nana. Though at this point she’s not really the same and I’ve kind of already accepted she is gone, but I still love her and she is still family, it’s just a lot to take care of and worry about. It’s a constant stress on everyone and it’s just a matter of time before something worse happens than what already has. But thank you laws for being fucking useless in this situation. 

And I’m supposed to be applying for grad schools but at this point I don’t even know if I can afford to go because I can’t get a fucking job and I may have to use what money I have for college on my teeth if worse comes to worst. And I don’t know if I even should be leaving. I mean, within a year my nana might be able to be forced into care or she may not. If not, will I even be able to leave? I haven’t a fucking clue. 

Plus I’m just really torn up inside and I have a feeling a lot of it is due to my anxiety and depression and just being back in this godforsaken place, but I’ve lost a lot of my motivation for what I want to do with my life. Actually, it’s more like I’m afraid, terrified even. I keep thinking what if I’m making the wrong decision. What if this isn’t right. What if I’m not cut out for this. Hell, what if I’m not cut out for anything? What if I am completely fucking useless and hopeless and never meant to be anything? What if there really is no point? What if I’m making a mistake. 

It’s like that even with my engagement. I keep thinking that maybe this is a mistake. Maybe it’s wrong. What if it is? What if everything I’m doing is wrong? What if, what if, what if, what if. And all these terrible thoughts fill my head. What if I’m not in love. What if it’s my imagination. What if I’m just afraid of being alone or something. What if I’m afraid of not having a dream (meaning the job I want because deciding what I wanted to do with my future is one of the big things that got me out of being seriously suicidal and gave me a reason to live and if I lose that, am I even supposed to be here anymore? Is there even a point?)? What if everything is just so fucking wrong? I don’t know. I’m so afraid. And I used to talk to Justin (my fiance) about things but I don’t anymore. I can’t. I can’t talk to anyone. He probably doesn’t even know I still cut. Not that he needs to. It;s better if he doesn’t. Though really, he was the only one who ever knew in the first place. He was the only one who knew a lot of things but I don’t tell him any of that anymore. 

I know some of it is probably due to coming back to this place. I came back after university because financially, it was the best option. It was the best option to come back while taking a year off before grad school. (Except things didn’t work out and so far that has turned in to two years and at this rate it might become three god help me) But I knew returning here would not be best for my mental state. This place was never a home. Never. And there are so many triggers and bad memories and feelings associated with this place. Even the fucking trees along the sidewalk. Even the fucking sidewalk. There is so much negativity burned into this place. There is so much I tried so long to desperately escape. I knew coming back would be hard. I was even terrified of it. I never wanted to come back here. And then after my dad died... it just added to how much I didn’t want to come back. I can’t even find words to describe how much I resent this place. 

I love my puppy. I love my family. I love my mom (though it’s truly best if we are far apart are rarely see each other, but I do still love her dearly, don’t get me wrong), but this place is not good for me. It feeds my demons. It fuels my fears. It’s a place that never felt like home and never will. I found home when I left. This, this place could never be home. And it can never be happy. It’s too tainted. It’s too dark. It carries too much of the hell I once knew and it’s toxic. And I feel trapped. Suffocating. Like I can’t get out. Like it has me by the limbs and it’s holding me here refusing to let me go. Like I’ll never be free again. It threatens to take everything I tried and worked so hard for and destroy it and sometimes I feel like I might let it. And fuck now I’m crying. But literally. I just. It sounds so stupid to be afraid of a place. My mom thought so too. When I tried to explain why I didn’t want to come back here after university. No one listened. And I gave in because they had a point. Financially, it was the right decision. Maybe it was the right one regardless. But then again, my mom doesn’t know anything about my demons and I will never tell her. I don’t want her to know. I’m not really sure who I’m protecting, but I will never tell her. So she can never truly understand why I didn’t want to come back. 

Not that it would matter if I did tell her. It would probably just start a fight and somehow, one way or another, I would end up the terrible child who is unappreciative and just plain downright terrible and useless. And it would somehow end up about all her and my issues wouldn’t even matter and I would just be terrible. Or I would be chased down or things would just get violent or I don’t even want to think about it. It would just end up like any other time I try to talk to her. Please don’t get me wrong, I love my mom. She has done a lot for me and I am forever grateful... but like I said, it’s better if we are apart. It’s better if there is little more to our relationship than occasionally phone calls maybe once a month. Even that can be disastrous. But it’s not her fault. 

Though things have been worse since my dad passed. Of course, he often acted like a referee between us and that’s no longer there so that doesn’t help. But of course, things have been harder on her and with my nana’s situation too, it’s a lot of stress and I get that. I do. And I try to be good and at least do something. I try not to be a completely useless worthless piece of trash. I’m just not very good at it I guess. Or I don’t try hard enough. Or what I think is useful isn’t enough. I’m trying though. I’m doing as much as I can. And I’ve done my best to hold myself together.

But that’s also been hard. After my papa (my moms father) died, I held myself together for her sake. I did the best I could. After my dad died too. But I don’t really want to talk about that right now. My point is, I’m trying. It’s just not enough. I don’t know how to do enough. I don’t know how to not terribly fuck shit up constantly. 

Maybe I’m just stupid and childish. Okay, I am stupid and childish but not the point. Or maybe it is. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything anymore. Everything I thought I figured out, I don’t know. Everything is a mess, I think I’ve relapsed, I’m unsure of everything and worried all of it is one big fucking mistake and I don’t know how to get out of this shit hole. And there is so much more going on I don’t even have the strength to rant about right now. I just feel tired. But I always feel tired. And having mental disorders on top of everything going on is just stupid. Why do I have to be autistic? Why does ADHD even have to exist? Why are are anxiety and depression things? And allergies...don’t even get me started on allergies. Those have been so bad this year and made me sick so many times I don’t even know anymore. I just want to curl up in a bubble. 

I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t even know if I want to know. I just feel like I’m constantly suffocating. And I used to have a song I listened to when I had anxiety attacks. I had a band I listened to when things were rough. And I can’t tell you how many times those songs probably kept me from cutting too deep or doing worse. How much those songs meant to me. But now I’m all conflicted inside. The lead singer of that band killed himself this year. So where does that leave me? I don’t even know how I feel about all of that yet and it hasn’t honeslty sunken in yet. To be honest, I’ve lived in such a hole and been so busy I didn’t even find out until a while after it happened. And it probably shouldn’t affect me. It’s not like I knew him. It’s probably stupid to feel anything. It shouldn’t even bother me. Why does anything even bother me? But still.... something about it does bother me. It bothers me and I don’t know what to make of those feelings. 

But it reminds me that I have a friend I haven’t heard from in probably over six months now. She had a lot of issues and I suppose she could be locked away in some treatment program again and maybe she doesn’t have any way to contact me... but she could also be dead too. Maybe her habits took her or maybe her own hands. How many friends would that make that I lost either of those ways? I don’t even want to think about it. She could be dead and I’m sitting here whining about all my little problems. Hell, the whole world could enter a nuclear war tomorrow and what the fuck am I crying about? But seriously... I’m starting to think.... leaving wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Except my dog wouldn’t understand. And it would cause problems and make a mess and no one needs me causing any more problems than I already am. Sure, it would be the last problem I ever caused...but still, Kiki wouldn’t understand. 

I should be sleeping right now. I have to take my nana to her appointment in the morning again. But... then again... sleeping is scary. When I do sleep anyways. The nightmares have been so terrible lately and so real feeling and so detailed. One time I woke up ready to scream because I thought I had actually been stabbed and felt the pain. Though honestly, that wasn’t even the worst of the nightmares. But I can’t seem to sleep without the nightmares lately. Try as I mgiht, they plague me everytime. I want them to stop. I’m tired of waking up anxious and terrified over something that isn’t real. 

Of course, that’s when I can sleep. My sleep has been more screwed up than usual lately and that’s saying something. Last week I was literally awake for five days with only a couple hours of sleep total. Most of the time it’s awake for three days and asleep for one. Of course, on the weekends and mondays I have to stay up so I can take the dog out between 3:30 and 4:30 whenever she wakes up and then feed her at 5 so my mom can sleep in on those days. I might not hear her bark if I fall asleep and setting an alarm would wake someone else up so I have to stay up even if I didn’t sleep for several days. And taking my sleeping pill isn’t exaclty an option for when I’m having trouble sleeping either. These days, sometimes it just doesn’t work or it makes me tired but I still can’t fall asleep. Other times it makes me tired for far too long or puts me to sleep too long. 

Lack of sleep is probably part of what has been making my anxiety attacks more frequent and depression worse but not much I can do about it. I’ve literally had insomnia since I was fucking born. Not even exaggerating. On the up side, at least I’ve made friends lately that I talk to and it helps some since for the past year I haven’t had any friends whatsoever. And honestly, I’m grateful for it because honestly, there have been a few nights when chatting with them has been the only thing keeping me from cutting deeper or just ending it all. Chatting with them has kept the anxiety attacks at bay multiple times. So even though things are getting worse in life right now, I guess, at least I have something to ease it. Otherwise I don’t know....

I guess on the other up side my neck pain hasn’t been too bad lately. Can’t quite say the same for my hand/wrist issue. But of course, typing, writing, using the mouse, putting weight on it, driving, or using it in general causes it to act up and the more I do those things the worse it gets. It’s rarely at that unbearable point though like it used to do. Still, I might have to go back to the doctor. I remember someone saying cortizone shots were something that had to be repeated. They weren’t a one time deal. I don’t know how frequent it has to be but it’s been three years and I don’t think they did enough of them in the first place. But even with good health insurance I can’t really afford to be seeing doctors right now so I just have to minimize how much I use my hand. Like I said, it still isn’t as bad as before. Just acts up, especially when I’m trying to take a lot of notes or write/type a lot. Like right now....

This was a pretty long rant. And I almost have to laugh because this isn’t even half the shit on my mind right now. It’s not even half the problems. It’s not even all the big problems. And that is somehow funny????? It’s not...but my dark humor over here is amused apparently. Laugh while crying.... fucking genius. 

Sorry, I’ll shut up now. I should really just fucking shut up forever tbh. Just done.