Quarantine log: Day 4269, or something…

My whole world changed on January 28 2020, weeks before everyone’s world changed. My litany of gratitude was a mechanism to help me remember that I am still here. I am not thankful I was raped as a child. I am not thankful that my neurology will never let up, never let me feel free. I am not thankful that our collective species is facing the shock of certain mortality. I am not thankful that there will be a great deal of loss before there is any sort of recovery. I keep up my litany of gratitude because it’s important to remember things that I am thankful for.

As awful as this situation seems there are things I feel very grateful for indeed. I am grateful for the skills I spent over a decade forcing myself to learn which have allowed me to keep helping people in all sorts of ways. I am thankful that I have been afraid of dying tragically my whole life so this is just Thursday for me. I am grateful that our species, as a collective, has an opportunity to examine some of the fundamental absurdities the we have propped up as values to be protected. I am grateful that one of the functions of existence in space and time is that it does not move backwards. This is what is, this is the point we take our next step from. There is value in that, in the immutable nature of what has happened.

I don’t like many memories I have. I don’t like the person I remember being. At least up to about January 28 2020. I have not been perfect every day from then until now, but I have been more aware and more compassionate to my failings. The other day I had an epiphany so basic I was a little surprised that it took nearly forty years to occur to me. If I want to live in a world where good things happen then once I do good things, I do. Seems so simple but it really came as a shock when I strung the thought together. Maybe the people who I am kind to will forget about it once the moment is passed, maybe they will remember the kindness or compassion or generosity and do something kind for someone else. That’s not the point though. Kindness is like art, once you’ve let it out into the world it belongs to other people and there is no telling what they will do with it. Doesn’t really matter what happens after because the good thing happened which proves that good things can happen in the world.

We are being force fed fear in doses impossible to ignore. The civility that used to be expected is now a precious commodity. I was walking on the side walk yesterday and another person was walking toward me. I stepped to the side to maintain an appropriate distance as we passed. I offered a smile and a ‘good day’. The scowl I received in return was more bitter than required and I don’t know why. I was shook by the event. We are all on this planet together whether we like it or not. We are all sharing the same resources. We are all susceptible to the same pathogens. We do not need to agree in order to get along, but we do need to get along in order to survive.

I am choosing hope because I know I live in a world where good things happen and that’s the world I want to leave behind for my children.

Nothing has changed, but everything has changed. I feel like this statement can be applied to the whole planet now, instead of just me. When I found out that I am the autistic, child-rape surviving , superstar that I am it was a huge shock. I felt like, and feel like, nothing in my world changed one bit, however my new perspective has changed absolutely everything. As our species comes to grips with our collective mortality I feel like the same is true, nothing has changed but everything is different.

Suddenly life seems a tad more precious and significantly less predictable. No one can pretend things are fine. No one can escape the new realities of our world. The flu can kill you, that was true a month ago. Now the flu can really kill you though. Living kills you. Nothing has changed. Washing your hands and covering your cough were always important. Now they are essential habits. Our grandparents were asked to answer the call of duty by lining up to die overseas. We are being asked to answer the call of duty by literally staying home and playing ‘Call of Duty.” Seems a little less dramatic in my opinion.

What does this mean for our daily lives? Certainly less certainty, but what else? We don’t know, we can’t know, but we can guess. We can study history to see if there are any stories of what happens to humanity when things get scary. I don’t recommend that, if you get worried easily. We don’t historically cope well with existential crisis, as a species… generally speaking. That said, there is a real chance here to enact some growth. Anyone who has experienced personal trauma can tell you that growth is hard, usually hurts, and is absolutely better than the alternative.

What is the alternative to growth? It’s worth examining, in my opinion. I would say the alternative to growth is stagnation. Stagnation inevitably leads to decay. I feel like this lesson is observable in the natural world. Now ask yourself: would you say our society values growth or stagnation? How about if we re-frame the question, instead of stagnation lets call it ‘status quo’. I would suggest that collectively we are a species that values keeping things the way they were. Except that nothing can ever be kept the way it was, not if it is part of the dynamic, living, universe. Only dead things never change, because they can’t.

So here’s where I find this whole impending collapse of civilization as a good thing. We are a civilization that prizes greed and distraction and I say it’s past time for that to end. The end of the world as we know it happens every time we learn something new. We are all going to learn a lot about being human. What’s the lesson you plan on teaching?

There is a lot of fear in this world. There are certainly things to be afraid of, but there seems to be a disproportionate amount of fear. What are folks afraid of? I know what I’m afraid of and it’s not death by virus…

I think about where fear comes from, and how fear feeds itself on itself. Ouroboros is the name of the snake that eats its own tail. Maybe Ouroboros is one of the names of fear. I’m not a religious man but I am a spiritual one and I believe in power beyond our knowledge. I believe it and that belief gives me comfort sometimes. Sometimes that belief has me feeling like there is a willful energy striving to keep us scared and that energy is winning. It’s a flight of imagination that I easily get carried away by but imagination is a real place even if it’s only in our mind. Maybe imagination is our window into the multiverse, I am only an amateur theoretical physicist but I am certain my theory is sound.

I feel like the same power that wants to keep us scared wants to keep us small as well. A weak creature on a tired planet is easy to tame. There aren’t enough wild humans left. Maybe I’m wrong about that, I hope so. What if it’s a disease that wipes us off the planet? What if it’s a meteor the size of Jupiter? What if the planet Jupiter is actually an elaborate maze containing a monstrous and ravenous alien? What if? What if? What if? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Billy S’spear said that.

I prefer Frank Herbert on the subject of fear -“Fear is the mind killer, the little death that brings total obliteration.”- Like Frank suggests, I embrace my fear, and when I do I find only myself. These are words I said to myself over and over before I knew how desperately I needed ways to deal my fears. Another thing I used to say was that the only way to be brave was to be scared first. Words are great, and simultaneously totally useless. Like my litany of gratitude. Great, I can remember things to be grateful for, I feel no gratitude. I can remember reasons to laugh off fear, I feel scared.

If I spend some time reflecting on what I’ve done in my life, it seems impossible to me now. All the times I’ve stumbled, literally  but also mentally. All the pain, pain I caused myself and pain that I took from others, none of it was enough to stop me. I just kept going, blind, never knowing why it was so hard. Now I know and it’s like everything is different but nothing is different. I still have to face all the challenges, laugh off all the fears. In some ways I feel less capable, the gift of knowledge has made me doubt all my old routines. I was barely coping so how effective were my mechanisms? I’m paralyzed by the fear of what else I may have still to learn. How many more arrows can outrageous fortune have left in the quiver?

I recite my litany of gratitude when I start feeling sorry for myself. Everyone has struggles. Everyone has fear. So what do we do about it? Some people stockpile toilet paper. Some people smoke fifty-seven cigarettes. I did not smoke a cigarette today. I could have, but I didn’t. That’s me facing fear instead of letting fear win. Today I felt like a loser, then I thought about it and realized I won. Maybe it’s that simple, maybe it’s just a matter of changing the words.

Feels impossible, but less impossible then when I started writing this.

One of the things I’ve always believed is that people get what they deserve in this life. I used that thought as a whip to punish myself for being unhappy when I have so much stuff. Now the thought stings for a different reason because what did I do to deserve being sexually abused as a boy so young he couldn’t even conceive of words to form a cry for help? What did I do to deserve only feeling bad things and never feeling good? Kind of confirms the theory of reincarnation actually. I must have been super shitty in my previous trip to deserve all the pain, from deep spirit level pain to the  surface blunt force variety, my last me must have really been awful.

That’s how I feel. Awful. I missed out on every possible positive moment because of someone else’s choices. Trying to heal from this, even as a grown up, is not even… I can’t even imagine what healing would be. The rules apply, I’m not allowed to feel good. I had some therapy today, and they said that it’s possible that I have gotten all the goodness I deserve and that I haven’t been able to see it.

I hate when my own logic is used to help me feel better.

I’m able to understand the concept. I see the way my thought process was taken out of my own reality and forced down a road of really dark and negative assumptions. It all makes perfect sense. My litany of gratitude starts with understanding how I was put together. Before I was building a puzzle with the pieces upside-down and the edges missing. Writing that out, I feel like it’s a line from a movie but I don’t know which one.

It’s very convenient that there is usually an applicable obscure quote for every conversation because coming up with words for talking to other people is hard.

I’m writing this as I listen to my kids playing. The are hurling a large ball at each other, I assume with the goal of knocking each other over. It’s pretty funny. There is a joy to just sitting here and listening to the play. I had to force myself to appreciate it though because my first response was frustration. That is not the man I want to be, children laughing all around is pleasant sound, not noise.

That’s a quote I know well, but not a direct one so much as a reversal of one… very convenient.

I am overcome by some feelings as I realize how nice it feels to be open to my neurology. Before I would have edited myself, censored how much I revealed of my thought process. But it’s way more interesting to explore the paths my mind goes down, and I think a little healthy too.

Maybe the doc is right. Perspective is everything. It’s possible I have everything I ever wanted already. I can think about how mad that makes me, that I missed it and don’t believe it’s real. I can dive in and pay attention to what it feels like.

I can think all I want, I can imagine the entire universe, if I want to feel good I have to be able to differentiate between what is good and what isn’t. I have to accept the positive that is the other side of the negative. Life is about balance. Nature teaches this lesson in so many ways. If I can feel such sadness it only stands to reason that I have the ability to feel joy. If I can feel so very angry then it is only logical that I can feel very happy. I can understand these thoughts. I reluctantly accept that they are valid thoughts.

I have two interesting tools for teaching me how to recognize and dwell in good. One is a visualization thing, the other is a body presence/awareness sort of exercise. I’m cautiously optimistic about how these techniques will work out. After all, rules are rules.

I spend a lot of time thinking. Who doesn’t(and can you tell me how)? One of the things I think about is why I am exposing myself like this to any of my friends or family that might read this. Mostly I’m inspired by a need to get the stuff inside out. I spent too long keeping it all locked up and feeling bad. Nothing is simple though, so I think deeper. My self loathing insists I am after attention and because I believe that I am allowed to feel bad. I don’t have to believe that though.

There’s a trick to believing in myself that I haven’t mastered. Basically I just don’t dismiss the positive thoughts out of hand. They still flutter away faster than I can feel them more often than not, but good thoughts happen and I’m allowed to feel good. Maybe I am talking and writing about the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me for attention because who doesn’t love a wreck? But I’m also hoping that maybe I can help people by showing that it’s okay to say what happened to you or what you struggle with. Feeling alone sucks.

I would much rather that no one ever felt like they heard their pain echoed in mine or that my story inspired their own painful journey of healing. I wish no one ever felt assaulted by their brain or haunted by their past. I wish the world wasn’t what it is. I wish I was writing fiction. But if a single solitary being on this planet ever finds some hope that they can keep going because of this then I have done a great thing.

Some one told me the other day that a life of happiness isn’t as good for the spirit as a life of meaning. I think that’s a pretty smart thought. I can put some meaning in my life faster than I can figure out happiness. There are still more days that I would rather be nothing(I’m not suicidal just impatient), but today I bamboozled a young person to rise to an occasion and accomplish a goal they never imagined they would be able to. They did all the work, but I helped and if I don’t show up tomorrow who will be there for that child and all the others?

So that’s it then, delusions of altruism and pathetic cries for attention drive me to expose all my worst and all my best to all the people. I don’t think that’s all there is though. The way my brain work allows me to observe things intellectually but separately from my feelings. I’ve been getting some therapy to help me deal with the horror that is body memory. Basically that therapy involves feeling the feelings and thinking the thoughts and letting my grownup brain process what my child brain could not. It’s been helping but the process is not within my control so my autistic super powers are being bombarded with feelings. I don’t like all the feelings, it’s too much and it’s too fast.

It’s clear that I need help. I need to have more tools and more support and more objective clarity. I have been creating barriers to make finding a therapist impossible. I need to overcome those barriers and I know I can because they are manufactured by my neurology. I am writing about it because I don’t want to hide anymore. I don’t want to surrender my hope to my fears. I am using this blog to create a sort of digital accountability. Eventually I will get sick of writing in circles and actually get the help. You will know when that happens because I’ll write about it.

I’ll write about how scared I am, still, to acknowledge that what happened is what happened. I’ll explain, or fail to explain, that I have to rebuild my entire identity and that sounds like a lot of work. I don’t want to go back to being who I was but I’m scared to move forward. Fear is the mind killer. I will embrace my fear and find only myself. I will, just not yet.

So where does that leave me? A gaping wound exposed to the light for all to see. A shattered human unsure of what pieces to pick up first. I am at the starting line. Each morning is another  mountain to overcome. This morning I am refusing to ignore what I need to do. This morning I am demanding that my best self take charge. I wish I was nothing, but I’m here still and I’m not going away.

Unrelated, I just read my user profile. It was very laugh out loud… I updated it.

I felt the need to follow up on the last post because I don’t feel like I finished making my point, or maybe I did but I have more to say. I have been spending more time with my children and with a greater sample size I have a more complete picture of what it feels like to be loved.

There is the unrelenting expectation, the ever escalating need, those things are there and I can’t pretend I love differently. There is also a comfort, an ease of sharing time and space. There is a genuine interest to understand and to appreciate the things that inspire or delight someone else, combined with a genuine interest to bring that someone into your own world of inspiration and delight. It is a recognition of safety in another person. It is a blind faith that your trust is not going to be abused.

My litany of gratitude includes knowing that I never hurt my kids or abused their trust or destroyed their precious innocence. It’s complicated but easy, in a way, to sort out my love for my children. My marriage is less simple, more volatile and more important to figure out quickly.

There was a five day gap between discovering my place on the autism spectrum and realizing I am a survivor of child sex abuse. I wish we had more time to figure out the first part before we got slammed with the second. I am going through a lot, but so is she and because she is neuro-typical(whatever that means) she doesn’t get access to the super powered processing machine that is my brain. She signed on for better or worse but this is worse than we ever imagined the worst to be. I am sorry she loves me.

She does though, I know she does because she tells me and I believe her. The problem is that her expressions of love are not things that resonate with me. This is not a new problem, we have spent some time working on it. Now we know that working on it won’t change how I process or communicate. Now we know I’m not shitty and she’s not shitty, we know that I will never be different, we know I will never be able to be what she needs.

She is trying. It’s not fair. I need her to be a person she is not and because she wants to help me she is trying. But I can feel how uncomfortable she is being near me. She would let me take advantage of her but I won’t because having sex with a person who doesn’t want to feels bad. I don’t even know if sex is what I want. I feel lust, physiologically, but emotionally what I am after is love. Passion and innocence can occupy the same space can’t they? But they cannot be manufactured.

Maybe I just need a ‘friend with benefits.’ Logically it makes sense, I get the physical relief I need(?) without worrying about all the emotional stuff. Sounds great, except there is no way I don’t fall in total love with this mythical unicorn woman. If a kind smile and a shared laugh throws me into a pathetic state of unrequited infatuation than kissing and touching would be worse.  Also, assuming I’m honest about what I am going through, what woman would ever want all this bullshit? And again, I don’t even think I’m after sex, not really. I’m after the before and the after. The closeness, the intimacy, the safety and the trust. I want to feel desired, I want to lose myself in the same. I want what I have never allowed myself to have.

My wife reads this blog, so none of this is news to her. She has never hidden her reluctance to fulfill her ‘wifely duty’ as she puts it. It sucks to feel like a chore to be done. I took advantage of her when I didn’t know why I needed sex to feel love. Untangling the knot has made it impossible to do so. Leaving me with nothing but guilt. I’m sorry she loves me, I offer her nothing and she gives me everything.

I’m trying to learn not to hate myself, this hurdle is a big one.

Challenges are opportunities to define ourselves.

Go Leafs! Go!

Three wins for the Maple Leafs in a row, gotta love that. Except how some people love this hockey team is very confusing, which makes sense because love is a confusing feeling. I’ve been thinking a lot about what love means. What it feels like to be loved and what it feels like to love others. My concept of love is very… complicated… and definitely twisted by the magic that made me who I am.

I have no memory of my parents together, if I did it wouldn’t be a happy one. By the time they settled into their own stable and loving relationships it was already too late because I was getting raped on the regular. And because of my autism (and my extreme young age) I processed all that anger and fear and confusion and pain and desperation and loneliness as love.

As I sit now and actively consider the things, I think it was the molestation that formed the greatest part of my flawed perception. Seems like an obvious thought but when your whole world is turned into a swirling mess of confused and conflicting truths it’s important to consider everything, even the obvious stuff. The autism and the divorce made the soil where the seeds of rape grew very rich. It affected/effects every relationship I have or had. I couldn’t/can’t have male friends without having a tumult of confusion regarding my sexual orientation, because even if they aren’t asking me to blow them I probably should or else they won’t be my friend. I couldn’t/can’t have female friends because as soon as I feel any sort of warmth I became hopelessly and obsessively infatuated beyond all reason regardless of how destructive the circumstance may be. I couldn’t/can’t have a mentor of either gender because I do not perceive my having any value outside of being a fuck toy and so I shy away from anyone trying to reach out.

Fundamentally I learned that love is sex. I learned that pain and shame are just part of it and I learned that if I wanted to receive affection I would have to do things I didn’t like. The thing to remember is that none of this was processed actively, repression was a gift that my spirit gave to my brain so that I could survive until I was stronger. Not that I feel particularly strong, but definitely stronger than my four year old self. The problem is that realizing that sex and suffering are not synonymous with love doesn’t provide a replacement.

I am married. I have children. I tell them I love them because that’s what dads do. They tell me they love me and I hear them, but it doesn’t mean anything. Intellectually I understand what is being said, but there is no emotional impact. I spent some time yesterday playing with my kids and trying to pinpoint the feelings I had. My experiment taught me that love is unrelenting and unreachable expectations that escalate with every moment. Small sample size to be sure, but it proves that I have a lot to learn about what love is.

This might be the most useless and circular blog post I’ve ever made. I refuse to delete it though, there are lessons to learn and there is growth to strive for. Nothing can make up for all the time I spent feeling lonely and worthless but that time can be a jumping off point. I am surrounded by people who are determined to convince me of my value. I have access to compassionate friendship and inspiring role models in a way I have never had before. Or maybe I had access before but I couldn’t allow myself to take advantage because of how horrible I believe I am.

I still believe I am the worst and there is literally no point trying to help me because I’m destined to prove my pathetic failing nature, but I’m starting to understand that I might be wrong. I don’t have an answer for what love is, but I’m starting to understand that whatever it is starts with me. I’ve survived the worst part and I am not alone. It’s not too late to feel and I love that.

While Happy Friday is in full effect I also can’t escape myself. The day should have been a total success. Leafs win big and it’s time for the weekend…woohoo? Well it’s two Friday’s in a row where I punch myself in the head, but today can be considered a win whereas last week I felt like an abject failure.

How can you consider self harm a win? A reasonable question, allow me to explain. My emotional state is (for lack of a better term) all ahoo. My protective instincts kicked in to the extent that I was willing to crash and burn this new life I’m trying to build, a life that I am finally beginning take ownership of, to defend a concept on behalf of a colleague who is exceptionally capable of defending themselves. The situation stuck with me all day, and all day I wanted to hurt.

If you’ve never felt the urge to hurt yourself then… cool. It sucks. Let me attempt to find words for the experience. Words don’t really capture it but we’ll make do.

For me it’s a whole body feeling, a vibration or a tingle that is everywhere until you try to find it. Once I start to recognize the building tension it will pick a spot. It’s usually my fists, sometimes my neck or back. The full body vibe along with the relentless and specific pressure escalate each other. After not a long time I feel like my skeleton needs to leave my body. Like I want to tense up all my muscles and shoot my bones out across the room. (I actually think the concept has legs for a macabre/morose super hero who’s skeleton does all the work while the lump of flesh sits at home and feels sad.) I cannot do this, so the only relief is some other pain. I’d cut but that’s too hard to hide and I need to be a perfect good boy. Sigh.

When I was small I watched a movie where a martial artist would punch a steel plate all day every day to make his knuckles hard. This struck me as a valid plan and so for many many years I would ‘harden my knuckles’ on whatever was near, or just punch my fists together until my hands went numb. My wife found that upsetting so I stopped. That was about the time I started punching my head. I had to be discreet about it but it worked, I just bottled the feeling until I could be alone and wabam.

Now I’m surrounded by genuine people who care about me so it’s near impossible to hide when I am upset. I smoked three cigarettes today. Yuck. I spent all day wishing I could shoot my bones across the room. Nope. I struggled to find the patience that I need to be really useful at my job. And one time, not even very hard, I gave myself a shot to the ol’ noggin. I’m proud of that. I had restraint. I felt my feelings, I reflected on them and I learned about myself. It was really hard. Grown Ups is literally the worst game, but I’m in it.

Go Leafs.

I wish I had never been. What a useless thought. Had I never been the I that I am then I might be some different I altogether but I’d still be me. I am stuck with me for life. So what can I do about it?

It is very easy for me to get lost in memories, picking through old shame or faded beauty with a ruthless degree of recrimination. All the people I didn’t kiss, all the games I chose to miss, those fights I fought and those I did not, and all the empty smoke between.

I wish I had never taken up cigarette smoking except that quitting was one of the first times I learned I have strength. I wish I had never gotten into plumbing except that when my shower breaks I just fix it.

So what does regret do? Probably nothing super helpful. It allows us to wallow in unhealed pain. It allows us to feel sad for times where we might have learned a lesson except for the horrible pain of regret that assaults every moment of reflection. It also might inform which moments deserve perusal and which do not. As if not wanting to think about something might be a sign to think about it.

Death for example. Fear of death is something that is so very crammed down our throats. It is literally the only part of life that is completely certain. There are ancient tales of days where the sun never moved (or the night never ended, just depends on which side of the planet the story is from) so even that’s not a hundred percent sure. I like to think we go where we believe we go, and since I prefer laziness as a rule, all I need to do is wait and eventually I won’t be here.

I feel like that’s where I started this post, wondering what to do while I wait for the only certain thing in this life. What to do and what not to do, really.

I DO want to learn more about how to be my very best self. I DO want to live a life that feels meaningful. I DO want to use the power of my heart to unlock all the love this world has to offer.

I DO NOT want to spend another second being angry at myself. I DO NOT want fear to be my guide. I DO NOT want to spend endless thought energy on regretting choices I have made, it’s either a learning moment or it’s past.

It’s all so easy to write. Words on their own have no value. Words aligned with actions all following my intent,  that’s the goal. I am very far from a perfect human but I have another chance every moment. The Toronto Maple Leafs are far from a perfect team but they are not out of the race yet. What’s the point of wailing over what didn’t happen on the trade deadline? Why worry about who is making what amount of money? I prefer to think about how nice it will feel when I watch one hockey player in my favourite jersey hand a big silver cup to another hockey player in my favourite jersey. That is a nice, happy thought.

It was January 28, 2020 that I had my moment of clarity, or epiphany, or whatever. Not that long ago, is the point. Realizing I was child raped doesn’t change anything about me, but it changes everything. Suddenly I don’t know why I think or feel any of the things I think or feel. It’s not fun and it never stops. There are tides of disgust and anger and deep deep sadness. And I can work on it but some how I just don’t believe I will ever feel okay again.

How can I? I was so super child raped. Some people in my life have said it’s brave of me to speak out about it. I guess it’s brave because I’m afraid but I just feel like… FUCK child sexual abuse. FUCK all child abuse really.

I have a soft heart. I’d rather take the path of least resistance in every scenario, if I have the option. That said, I would give so much pain to a person who hurts children, not to ease my own pain or to assert some sort of justice though. I would just like to have a different memory for my body to focus on.

In many ways I am grateful for my repression. I am grateful that I hid from the horror of what happened to me for long enough to break the cycle of abuse. I am grateful that I have learned about the source of my twisted nature before I died. I keep telling myself my litany of gratitude because it’s true. It changes nothing, helps nothing, this truth. It’s like, so what now? I’m not glad I got raped but I’m glad I never raped anybody. I’m glad I don’t think the pain in my bowel is caused by some strange and undiscovered form of cancer that can’t be seen by our current medical technology. I’m glad that I know.

I’ve always liked to tell myself about the pain of healing. Putting ourselves back together hurts. Hurting is one of the best indications that we are still alive. I hurt, so I must be here.

The other day I failed miserably at work. One of the children in my care ran away from me. This was not the failure, the kids will run, and he didn’t go far and he’s fine. The failure was that I hurt myself in a moment of panic, to keep focused on the task of looking. I don’t know exactly what I get from punching my head so hard I can feel it two days later. I know I’d like to stop, I just haven’t figured out how yet.

I’m glad I can watch an awful Maple Leaf loss with a bit more of a rational perspective. Failure happens, so what now?