You've Got To Therapize.

I'm going to try and get this all down before it slips away. I'm on my patio with a smoke in my mouth, typing furiously like a caricature of an overrated and not really comparable Hunter S.. Let me start by saying that I had a beer before going to the therapist, which I don't think is a terrible move.

I rolled up on my bike and locked it up and started walking to his office and bumped into him on the corner playing with his kid. You could tell that he keeps his relationship very professional with patients and saves everything for the room so we didn't talk that much and I met him at his office. It was either that or he didn't want me near his kid because he thought I was batshit crazy and just wanted his $200 for the session.

We jumped right in. I told him that I was feeling pretty good since we last met and did the sadness exercise for five minutes and then one more intense version of it while playing Tiger Woods on Xbox whilst imbibing some beers and listening to my sad playlist titled "mixt8p" on my iPod. He thought it was interesting that I could turn sadness on and off like I can. I told him that I noticed when something disturbs me I start to grin. It's creepy. I've never noticed it before. I discussed how it feels like I've always got some guy sitting in the room with me who is sad now. It's just weird knowing that he is there now. He's my elephant in my room. So, still practicing the sadness exercises in short bursts. Only 29 years to let out. The word "manic" was brought up at one point, but more pointed to a manic mechanism to deal with intense pain by smothering it with intense unpain. Pain't, if you will.

We discussed the not eating. He explored whether it was a sort of self-punishment fueled by guilt versus self-destruction. I told him that I just didn't find real pleasure in eating and found it more like fueling, however could see it being some sub-conscious self-punishment. However, after talking about it more, it may be a result of DUI commitments breaking up a routine that I relied on post-divorce for structure. Trader Joe's on Monday. Laundry on Tuesday. Tacos on Thursday. Soccer on Friday. You'll never know what I did on Wednesday. These things kept me afloat while I rebuilt my personality following the divorce. The DUI commitments broke this up and I never reestablished them. This resulted in a feeling of chaos for me. This is this week's homework: Rebuild routine.

Next, we dealt with the ex-wife. He was really impressed that I still have feelings for her. Not in a loving way, but a very deep friendship and trust. This came out when I told him that I called her after my DUI because she is one of the people that I trusted the most. This is the most ironic thing that you've ever heard, but it's true. It's not like she is invited to my birthday or anything, but if we were both stranded on an island or stuck in a Wal-Mart after closing and couldn't get out, we're not going to try to strangle each other. We'd figure our way out of it and then go back to our respective lives. You can't deny all of the reasons that got two individuals to an altar. There had to be something there in most cases. People just change and grow apart. It's okay. He said that it showed that I processed everything that happened and was able to see past the loving relationship and anger and separate that from the friendship that actually was there on some level. He commented that this showed great hope for developing another strong relationship at some point in my life. That was encouraging.

We then talked about the sad clown. I feel that I have a lot to give and share. That's the "HughVoltage Show." That is why, and I apologize, that I will dominate a conversation in some instances. I just have so much fucking shit to say and feel that it has value. This, in turn, brought up the blog and the death of Dick Steele for the old timers. I use an alter ego to express all of these things that I want to share. It's funny that HughVoltage is writing this, right? I killed my last pseudonym as a way to escape him. I created a new one to feed that beast that wasn't being fed and needed to say a bunch of stuff to someone, to anyone who would read it. I asked him if I was schizo or something and he said that it was okay to have an alter ego like this. Also, it's hella easier to say you fucked the neighbor after drinking a handle of whiskey in which she asked afterwards "Do you have AIDS?" because she was from the South and thought everyone in California had AIDS, when your real name is not attached to it. Using an alter ego, you can bend truths and extrapolate on ideas and situations that may not have necessarily happened, but may entertain others. By the way, Sea World really happened and most of this stuff has, it's the arrogant and sometimes reckless opinions that can be attributed to HughVoltage. Maybe he is the one that hates cat ladies. He's definitely the one that proposed the group DAMM (Drunks Against Mad Mothers).

We talked about the girl that reads the blog briefly and he asked if I sometimes imagine what people's reactions will be when I write. Fuckin-A right, I do. There are so many times when I write something down and there is a hidden joke in the word choice that I just hope someone is going to get. In some instances, the one person that would get it. I used to communicate with my ex through my Dick Steele column on a few occasions. Those columns were my peacock feathers. There are actually a few times, too, where I hope someone spits their coffee out on their keyboard while reading. Sometimes it just cracks me up so I've got to write it down somewhere. It's my attempt at getting someone to hear awesome falling in the woods even though they are not necessarily in the woods.

We also got back to the survivor instinct that has taken over. It's most likely related to years 20 to 21 in the city, basically on my own. This is where it really blossomed. There are also a few tinges of family dysfunction in that I looked to some type of Norman Rockwell painting idea of what family should be and didn't see it and just let it go forever. Ummm, let me see, an aunt that is never mentioned anymore who was a prostitute in Oakland and was nice enough to manage to give you an adopted brother who was born addicted to heroin. Yeah, we don't talk about it at dinner, but this never happened on Growing Pains. This was brought up when I told him that I called my dad on Father's Day after dragging my feet a bit. My dad was tending to his livestock and I left a message. Still haven't heard back. He said that I called expecting disappointment and when it happened, it had absolutely no effect. He said it was okay. He said that I didn't have to feel guilty about that.

So, I think that about covers it. He said that it seems like I know what I need to do and I just need to do it. The insight and outlook all seem to be there. I'll be completely honest, I have no idea how me talking for most of the time can make me feel so much better, but I genuinely am feeling better. I smile when I'm happy now and not just when a particularly sad lyric or a particularly bad memory trigger occurs. Rewiring, really. There actually may be a happy ending to this. I believe it now. I also believe that sasquatch exists. You never really know how it's all going to unravel, but it's no reason to ravel it back up. You've just got to sit back and watch it...and be ready for anything. Anything.

Getting Overdoing It

I was going through my Loni archives and came across a document titled "Seven AM." Oh, Loni is my old computer from college. I had two computers, one was called Loni and one was called Burt. They fought consistently until I decommissioned Loni, but moved her hard drive over to Burt. Loni will forever be in the heart of Burt. I think I'm creating small chores for myself this morning as I procrastinate calling my dad on Father's Day. I'll eventually call him, I always do, but it always feels like a chore.

So, I opened the document and it was something I wrote a while back. I suppose it was the first entry in what was going to be my great work that put a veil of fiction over what was really autobiographical passages that used third person rather than first in an attempt to distance myself from the real events. So, here it is. I just read it for the first time in probably at least three years. It totally overdoes it, but I'm trying to write more and I suppose it could be a starting point.

He walked from his apartment door to the walkway to the parking lot. The fifteen steps that it took felt like he was walking on a planet of Jell-O, mounted on top of a carousel while he was wearing Doc Martens with wet socks and one boot untied. He knew that already he was an hour into the longest day of his life and it was only seven in the morning. He went to take a sip off of his coffee cup and realized that he didn’t even have it and there was no way that he could go back through that door. He hoped he would never have to, but knew that eventually he was going to.

Without coffee, frame of mind and cigarettes he dragged his ass to a 1993 Nissan Sentra that was on its last leg and he would be lucky to even make it up the hill on the way to work in third gear, but he went anyway. There was simply no other option.

The ride into work felt like it took two days and it very may well have had he known the way the sleepless nights were going to start blending into each other. Days would have no meaning anymore, weekends would be worse than weekdays as every day was just another interruption into sleep attempts filled with Tylenol PM dreams.

This day would turn into weeks, then months, then a year showing no signs of relief, but tiny short lived distractions from self-indulged pain would at least flip a switch on his brain to off temporarily.

He refused to be a victim, then refused to medicate instead choosing to endure something that he didn’t even understand he could feel at the age of twenty nine.

Someone had snuck up behind him and pulled the rug that he so depended on from beneath his feet and then as he fell, put a knife solidly in his back as they pushed him from behind down a rabbit hole. When he woke up and looked up at the dim light peeking through the top of the hole and stopping three feet from his face he would feel lonelier than he ever had before.

At this moment, he found himself sitting at his desk in an uncomfortable chair leaning forward in a posture that CAL-OSHA could never approve, staring at information simply occupying a screen and offering nothing. It was lunch time, but hunger didn’t happen anymore. Only cravings for cigarettes that never made him feel any better, but could make ten minutes disappear from his life. Plus, as a bonus, could take some time off down the line. Life had become a series of activities intended to kill time and himself in ten minute increments. That was his new purpose. Gone were the days of living his life for someone else. He would never pull a panty liner off of a pair of dirty underwear while doing someone else’s laundry. He would never again have to sit through a pilates class to please someone else. If ever diagnosed with a terminal disease, he hoped that his last days on earth would feel like this, everlasting.

Therapy, working out, doing laundry, and blacking out in exchange for feeling blue filled the nights between the days that lasted forever filled with a green tint of envy and grayness from a cloud that he knew was floating above him most of the time that was there to block out the yellow sun.

That was definitely the worst birthday ever.

Two Hundred Seventy Five Bones For 75 Minutes of The Rapy

I went to therapy yesterday. It was time. The last three or so years were spent expending a tremendous amount of energy to tread mental water in an effort to break even emotionally. I've managed to get pretty comfortable at zero on a mental number line. I don't feel sad, but I don't feel happy. I feel manageable. So, here are some highlights.

We started off just going through some aspects of who I was and got to the point where the therapist asked if I wanted to work with the divorce or my childhood. I told him that the divorce was pretty much locked down and dealt with so we moved to my background starting at the beginning. He asked me what my first childhood memory was and I told him that it was my race car blanket as a kid. It's funny because I've used that line to pick up a girl before and let him know that. The blanket thing carried on to a gray blanket that I had and finally let go of when I moved out of my apartment when I separated with my ex. It's gone. I have no blanket anymore, but my mom was nice enough to make me a new quilt. It's not a security item anymore, though.

He then asked if I've always been a sad a person. I told him that I think I actually have always been a sad person internally, but never let anyone know if I can help it. I mentioned that as a kid my mom had referred to me as Eeyore for being a sad little kid and that I often identified with Charlie Brown. It turns out that I use humor and self-deprecation as a result of an emotional trigger as soon as I feel myself getting sad. Internally, it's an unaccepted emotion that sends me into a flight mode. The way he described it is that as soon as I feel it and recognize that my toe is in a depression puddle, I jump out and away from it and try not to experience the sadness. This results in what some have seen as the "HughVoltage" show. It's almost manic, but is very entertaining externally as I'm pounding the shit out of internal sadness. This has resulted in me building layer upon layer of other feelings on top of the bad ones since I was about five. Fighting sadness for much of my life because I felt alone in the world. Total sad clown.

So, as homework, I was told to connect my mind to my sadness and to try and experience it rather than fight it. I tried it last night and it was super freaky. It went like this. I got ready for bed and tried to tap into it a little bit. I made the connection as I lay in bed in the dark. At first I could feel it trying to creep in and actually feel myself fighting it and then stopped myself after about five minutes and the sadness just completely overwhelmed me. I let it go for a little bit and then just turned it off again. It was really weird and uncomfortable, but I've seen it now and can actually feel it underneath everything now. It almost physically resides two inches behind my face while I smile at you and make jokes. The real creepy thing is that I recognize it now and it has been there forever. I just compartmentalized it and have refused to recognize it for what it is. It's hard to explain. I guess it might be like having a mole on your arm that you never really paid attention to and then you saw some news story on skin cancer and can't stop noticing it.

So, the next thing we covered is going to be a little disturbing for those close to me, but he said it, not me. I've written about the little crazy inner demon that is about five years old and takes things over occasionally before. Apparently, I was right on with that. Here's how it works and I need to preface this with a warning that no one is to blame for this, but it's there. He said that because of my dad leaving at five and having such a young mother, I never had a real childhood because I felt that I had to take care of myself. I never really felt safe or that I could trust anyone to take care of me. This separated me from those close to me including my parents. It created a part of me that wanted to be taken care of, but never believed anyone could. It's why I feel separated even among family and friends and even more so around strangers. I have a hard time accepting help or gifts from people because of this. I try to do everything on my own and have a hard time developing empathy for those that can't keep up with me because I feel that I worked so hard to get where I am and they should have to, too. I see this now. It's why I subscribe to social Darwinism so much. So, I want to be taken care of, but won't let you. I'm a wounded bird.

We then covered the "What makes you happy/when have you been happy?" question. This is pretty standard and I think about it all the time. Music, writing, soccer and being with family were the four topics. There was also a tinge of the work project successes. I genuinely love figuring out complex problems at work. This was encouraging as I thought work was the stem of all my problems. Fuse may be a better word than stem for that one. By not participating in those things as much as I'd like, I get frustrated and self-medicate with alcohol until the feelings subside. This also coincides with an internal voice that tells me that I'm not good at them anyway. Happiness is only experienced through the eyes of others acceptance. If awesome falls in the woods and no one is there to see it, did awesome really matter?

I discussed happiness in the workplace with a friend the other day. I asked him if he liked his job and he replied, "Fuck no." I then asked him why he went everyday and he said to pay his mortgage and other assorted debts. I followed that up with "What's your dream job then?" He said he didn't know. That's exactly where I am. I've been beat into submission so hard by the expectations of work and the status quo that I don't even know what would be a dream job anymore or what makes me happy. I'll say that I want a happy life, but I don't even know what that would be at this point. I want to travel. Well, fuckin' where? I want a girlfriend. Well, what would she even be like? I want things, but at this stage none of them can be defined. It's really frustrating.

The therapist followed up the happy talk with "Have you ever felt guilty for any successes or being happy in life?" Sadly, he totally hit it on the head with that one. Somehow, I've developed guilt for things that happen to me that are good. I never feel that I deserve anything good to happen to me. This explains why I have a hard time accepting relationships with the oppo sex. If a pretty girl likes me, I honestly, have no idea why. This is not good, but I think we will work on this.

We discussed my relationship with my ex-wife and what I liked about it as it lasted a long time. I told him that it was the "nothing" part of it that I loved dearly. I really loved the time that myself and the ex spent doing nothing. That was the true test. If you like someone so much that being in line with them at the DMV or sharing a crossword puzzle on a Sunday morning completely satisfies you and you never want it to end, you've won. Congratulations.

So, let me see, he complimented me on being extremely self-aware of myself and what happens to me internally. I identify things that happen internally and have learned how to control many of my self-destructive tendencies and at the very least can recognize them. It's kind of why I'm seeing him. I know that some things are not right. Sadly, this works against me in some instances because I recognize my fallibility too clearly at times and will attack myself for it.

So I think that about covers it. I go again next week. The ironic part about this whole exercise is that I've always thought boozing was my main problem, but that's actually pretty controlled at this point. It could be better, but it's been way worse as recently as a year ago. Anyway, the therapist is right across from my bar that I walk to from my apartment. So, my self-medication destination and my cry for help destination are 50 yards from each other. Brilliant.

iPhuckin Give Up

Last week, I was treating myself to a VentiNonFatVanillaLatte and a yogurt parfait from Starbucks on the way to work. I got into the fairly sparse line due to the fact that I work so early in the morning that it is almost the previous day when I get there. I say "hello" to my neighbor who gives me her complimentary pound of coffee every week and get my seventeen syllable order put together in my semi-lucid brain and try to link that to my tongue somehow with a wing and a prayer and wait patiently as I approach the barista.

I start to hear this sqeak that I assume is a glitch in the quintessential Starbucks XM feed of music. I'll say this about their music, it doesn't suck as bad as some places like dental offices, but it's not as good as the Bob Hope airport in Burbank. Anyway, it persists and it gets a little louder and worse and it feels close to me. I take a gander about the place and there is this lady that screams of feline female behind me. You can almost see the Fancy Feast cans overflowing from her purse. I look away and as I'm processing her upside down image from my eyeball to the back of my brain, I file away that she had a bird on her shoulder. I think to myself that it's just some residual effects from not being caffeinated and turn around again and sure enough she has a fucking bird on her shoulder.

Who the fuck are you, lady? Bring a fucking bird into Starbucks on your shoulder at 6:45 in the morning. I could understand if it was a seeing eye bird, but she looked like her vision was solid. The thing starts actually squawking at this point and she starts talking to it.

"Oh, baby. Don't bite mommy."

"Be quiet, baby. Mommy is trying to get a coffee."

"Calm down, baby."

Now, I could be way off here and maybe she got pregnant and gave birth to a baby bird, but Jesus Christ. There are bird people now? Bird people have just trumped cat people as my arch-nemeses. Arch-nemesists?

Also, my Motorola Razr was beginning to reboot in the middle of phone calls so I made a move and started researching phones. The counter culturalist that I like to consider myself said no iPhones. I ordered an LG Incite for free through my work and bumped up my data plan and again waited patiently for it to arrive. It showed up yesterday and I set it up for two hours and found it completely unusable as a phone. It was almost there, but not quite. Windows mobile. Sleek design. Shitty performance. Stupid stylus to navigate tiny icons. A completely unusable keyboard in conjunction with the screen. Good Try, LG. Anyway, after owning (phowning?) the phone for three hours, I found myself at the AT&T store begging for anything. I walked out with an iPhone with an oncoming Kool-Aid hangover from drinking that Apple Kool-Aid that I despise so much, but keep gulping down.

Sadly, so far, it's not that bad and I even have an application that acts as a guitar tuner, metronome and chord finder. It's really kind of awesome. So, per usual, I lay on my back and bare my neck to all of those that were subjected to my iPhone hate and I submit. I was wrong. Still, I miss my Razr a little bit.