I'm back to not being able to write--again.
I know, right? Surprise, sur-fucking-prise.
FangBunny says I have a mental block. She's probably right. She's always right about everything else, so I suspect she knows what she's talking about this time, too.
She suggested that I try to think--to really think--about what's holding me back. My knee-jerk response is always "laziness," but she said she'd stab me if I said that again, so in the interest of keeping all my blood on the inside where it belongs, I'm going to try to puzzle through it here. In theory.
(I'm aware that every bit of this is the very definition of First World Problems, and for that, I apologize.)
First problem is that, once again, I'm having to ration meds and will rapidly be out completely. That turns me into a bigger mess than I already am. I don't know when I'll be able to get refills, but I hope it'll be soon.
That, at least, is easily remedied--or it would be if I weren't broke. So we'll set that one aside for now.
The rest of it is just a big fucking quagmire where each part of it feeds into the rest until it becomes practically insurmountable.
If I were the main character in some sort of classical or Shakespearean tragedy, where the lead character's downfall is because of some flaw within him/herself, then mine would be my complete inability to follow through on anything. Macbeth's was his ambition, Hamlet's was his indecisiveness, Julius Caesar's was either his own hubris or his terrible taste in friends, depending on how you want to look at it. Mine is paralysis in the face of...well, anything. If it can't be finished in a single fit of passion, it's not going to be finished--at least not by me.
I'm pretty sure there are multiple reasons for this. The truth is, when I was younger, I never really had to try. (Yes, I realize that's not going to get me much sympathy, but it's the truth.) For the most part, I was able to half-ass my way through everything because I was surrounded by people so stupid that I looked fucking brilliant in comparison, even when I didn't really even try.
But even that's not the whole of it. When I was very, very young, I tried hard. At everything. Even if I was bad at it. I remember hours upon hours of practicing softball in my parents' backyard because I was shit at it when I first started playing. (To this day, if you run your hand up my lower legs, you can still feel all the knots in the bones from where I got nailed in the shins a million times.) I'd say I wonder where that sort of determination and ambition went, but I don't. I already know.
Again, I know some of this is not exactly going to win me any friends here. But that's not the point, is it?
At some point--probably around the age of 15--I flat stopped fucking giving a shit. Why? Several reasons, really. Some of this probably won't seem like it has anything to do with anything, but I think it does...eventually.
All my life (up until that point), I was never really allowed any autonomy. I was almost never let out of my mother's sight, and even when I was, there were always people around spying. I couldn't have friends. The only times I really got out of the house were to go to school and to be dragged various places by my mother. I was a good child. I made good grades. I never caused trouble. I didn't drink or smoke or do drugs or any of that shit (partly because I was never anywhere beyond prying eyes and partly because I'd been bullied and terrorized into fucking submission before I was even old enough to start school). I never gave her any reason not to trust me, but it didn't matter. My phone conversations were eavesdropped upon. (I don't mean she listened outside my door. I mean she would go into another room and pick up the phone and listen to all of it.) My shit was regularly ransacked, in search of some evidence of what a horrible person I supposedly was, under the guise of "cleaning." If I liked a boy and he happened to express interest in me, something I would never find out about would happen behind my back, and he'd inexplicably stop speaking to me. (This happened on more than one occasion.)
This isn't me just talking shit. I had no idea what was going on until my granny took pity on me and told me when I was 15 or so. I was treated like a prisoner, and I'd never done anything whatsoever to justify it. Even now, at my age, I still have violent knee-jerk reactions to people looking at my stuff without my permission. It's not that I have anything to hide. It's just--touch my shit, and I will cut your fucking nand off. It's not yours; don't touch it.
It's the principle of the thing.
So, naturally, I made very few decisions myself. In addition to living with the equivalent of the CIA, I was also driven hard for years and years and years. No matter what I did, it wasn't good enough. I was terrorized, bullied, back-stabbed, and gaslighted until I couldn't even trust my own perceptions anymore. I was either yelled at or given the silent treatment for weeks on end over nothing. What was ok yesterday was completely unacceptable today. It was mostly my mother, but my father knew what was happening, and he did nothing to stop it. It was easier on him to just sit back and keep his mouth shut, so I was the one who suffered for it. That's one reason I have a hard time summoning up any sympathy when he complains to me about how terribly she treats him now. Not so much fun when you're the one on the receiving end, is it?
Anyway, I was pushed so hard for so long that it just broke me. Between having to watch my back constantly, having everything I did belittled, and struggling with the yelling and/or the silent treatment bullshit, I couldn't do it. I was fantasizing about suicide by the time I was 12 years old. It might not have affected most people as deeply as it did me. Surely, a tougher kid wouldn't have been so petrified by it. But I was a sensitive child, and it didn't take much to destroy me, I guess.
I had no agency of my own. I lived my whole life backed against a wall. And because I was not a stupid child, I eventually realized that if it was going to be hell, regardless of what I did, it'd be a hell of a lot easier on me if I just didn't bother. If you're going to be terrorized whether you do something or not, why waste your time doing it if your actions will have absolutely zero effect on the outcome? Fuck it, I'll just lay in bed and read.
(As an aside, I once came into the possession of a "how to torture prisoners and suspected terrorists" guide--don't ask how--and I realized that about 90% of the shit that was being recommended in that particular guide was shit I had lived through until I fucking left my parents' house. Hell, who am I kidding, I still go through some of it now. Is it any wonder that my particular form of psychosis tends toward paranoia when my illness gets out of my control?)
So I learned not to trust anyone, not to ever give anyone any kind of ammunition that could be used against you, how to lie and manipulate my way through the worst situations (Truth: I'm actually a terrible straight-up liar, but I'm really goddamn good at the "I have no idea what you're talking about" or "No, I haven't heard anything, but if I do, you'll be the first one to know" bluffs.). But worst of all, I learned that nearly everything was out of my control, and if I was going to be treated like I had failed no matter what I did, it was just easier and less painful to duck out of responsibility altogether. At least if you get yelled at/hit/silent treatment-ed for not doing something, you sorta deserve it, whereas if you did your best, you didn't really. Negative reinforcement at its finest.
It just so happened that I was smart enough that when I stopped giving a shit in school, I still managed to coast my way through with no problems. I coasted through high school, coasted through college, and half-assed my way through grad school until I lost my mind and couldn't do it anymore.
I'm a classic case of external locus of control and learned helplessness. I know this, but I'll be damned if I know how to fix it.
In addition to that whole crock of shit--or perhaps because of it--I'm also terrified of failure. Again, it's better to not fucking bother than to do it badly, at least in my world. So people think I'm lazy (and maybe I am). I'm not nearly as good at writing as I'd like to be, and while I understand intellectually that the only way to fix that is to keep writing, something inside screams every time I try and fail.
I have only ever wanted to write, but I tie myself up in knots and make myself sick even thinking about it most of the time, much less actually trying to do it. So I don't. Textbook escape behavior.
Another thing is that, at some point when I got older, I realized that one of the only ways I could have any control in my life was through what I suppose is some kind of weird innate sensuality. I didn't know what it was at first; it was something that came naturally. Then, I learned how to harness it and use it to my advantage, and I did it so much that it became second nature. So it went full circle, I guess, and I have no idea how to turn it off.
It was nice at first, knowing that I could make men make absolute fools of themselves for me. For someone who's never had any agency at all, that kind of power is heady. And it probably would've been ok if I had the ability to say "no." But I didn't. It was bullied out of me before I was even old enough to walk. I got myself into shitty situations that were entirely my own making, and then one day, I woke up and realized that all the "power" I thought I possessed was false. I wasn't a strong woman who could hold her own. I was a whore, and all that I had the power to do was make men's dicks hard, and nobody gave a fuck about me beyond that.
I'm educated, well-read, reasonably intelligent, and quite funny if I do say so myself. I can converse intelligently about a number of things--books, poetry, history, economics, comic books, world religion, horses, the sea, psychology, the Interwebs (and that's just off the top of my head). I love trying new things, and I don't mind making an ass of myself as long as I'm having fun in the process. But ultimately, none of that matters because somewhere along the line, I turned into nothing more than a life support system for a pair of tits.
And then work just reinforces that feeling.
I suppose it's stupid to want praise at all, but pretty much the only things I've written that I've ever been praised for were sex things. I'm a slut, and I'm not taken seriously in any aspect of my life, my writing life included. At some point, I earned the label, and it feels like it's all I'll ever be.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not whining that I'm not the type you take home to mama. I don't want to meet your mama. I just want to be taken seriously. That's all.
There's a reason I only ever wear jeans and t-shirts (or sweaters when it's cold) and glasses with my hair up and no makeup when I go places, and it's only partly laziness. I know what kind of attention I draw when I do otherwise, and I don't want it anymore. There's a giant flashing sign over my head that says "HO!" that everyone but me can see, and people treat me accordingly.
I'm tired of it. I want to be good at something other than sex and/or giving sex advice or playing therapist for other people. I want to write something that people will love as much as my porn is apparently loved. *Eyeroll* I want to be something other than a fucking blow-up doll for other people to project their fantasies onto.
But I'm not. I'm just...not. And I'm reminded of it every time I sit down to put pen to paper.
And finally, nearly everything I've ever wanted in my life have been things that are bad for me. (Apparently I was born with a death wish.) Sometimes I have to wonder if this stupid dream of writing isn't just another one of those things that I want that'll ultimately destroy me. It'd be just like me.
Do I want this because I really want it, or do I want it because some part of me thinks of it as vindication and validation? I make jokes about wanting to be rich and famous and party with (and fuck) other rich and famous people, but I think that if I ever wrote something that was published (and I was paid for it), I'd be ok with nobody ever knowing I'd done it. I think.
*Sigh* This is all I've ever wanted, but I'm terrible at it. I'm also facing a mountain of issues that looks insurmountable from here. I need a fucking therapist, and I need job that doesn't chip away a little more of my soul every day I live. But I feel like I'm trapped, and I have no idea how to fix anything.
I just...I wish I could write. I desperately wish I could. But it makes me feel ill to even think about it for the most part. And I guess I feel like, if I don't do it, I can always tell myself that there's hope for the future. But if I try and fail, I'll know that I can't do it, and then there's no hope for anything. Everything I touch turns to shit, and I don't want this to do it, too.
I have no clever ending to this disjointed rambling. I just wanted to get it out 'cause FangBunny thought it might help. So...here it is, I guess.
FML, it's 4:30 in the morning. I'm going to go lay in bed and hate myself some more until I can't hold my eyes open any longer.
