LJIdol 10.0: Introduction.
On my best days, I know I'm made of meat.
It's a hard realization and while I don't know if it's always been so, it's a thing that's been harder and harder to not know is happening.
The rest of the time, there's an absurdly strong assertion in me that I'm not human and never have been. This assertion tells me that somewhere there's a button and when I find it, the plastic housings holding my face clamped to my head will release and I'll be able to start... something. I'll be able to show my true face, which is not a face.
A friend of mine helpfully told me that that's a kind of low-level depersonalization, usually connected to anxiety. They pointed me to some lovely websites that do that frustrating thing where they let you know that your problem is a problem and also give you context for it, which is one of the most useful things on Earth for me as I start to do that adulthood thing where you reckon with just what the shit is going on in your head. Of course, the website also offered advice that sounded great, but is also the kind of thing that is pretty useless because my brain doesn't do that thing or the way my brain is finding itself set up makes it so that I don't have any real understanding how to do the thing.
It's funny because I always thought I was a superlatively chill person. Then I started actually digging into things and realized I've always been a bundle of nerves because, frankly, there's not a person on Earth I'm not afraid of.
And I only really notice it nowadays because I've started messing about with my brain chemistry. Not capriciously, mind. This isn't one of those "white cisdude sits on a bed smoking and talks about his heavy drug use because that's a shorthand for being interesting" things. As an attempt to have a better shot at getting through college--because college is a hell of a thing after a decade or so of not being at school and also dealing with how your brain is formed in a very sub-optimal way given the needs of the society in which you live, a society where you only sorta speak the language.
At this point in the first season I took part in, I didn't know most of this.
I didn't know a lot of things I learned in the meanwhile.
And, honestly, I don't think I wanted to.
Once you know a thing, you have to deal with it. Even if it's just to sort your head around that thing.
So I found out that I do, indeed, have ADHD. On top of that, my brain is wired along the lines of the portion of the Autism spectrum formerly known as Asperger's Syndrome. It's a weight off my shoulders in a lot of ways because I don't have to worry about what the shit is my problem, but it also means that in the light of the way treating some of my symptoms goes, I have to make a lot of changes and try to figure out how to steer this clunky machine I'm in all over again.
But as I get past the adjustment phase of anxiety attacks and forgetting to eat for the better part of every day, I also find that I can just sit down and write the way I've always wanted to: obsessively and straight through, provided I have something to say and can think of the shape of the thing. I know also that I have to stay away from the computer for the first few hours of my day lest it suck me in. I know that I have to find a way to pull out of that obsession and feed my cat or he will just wind me up and I have lost some ability to distract that wound-up-itude into some kind of calmness by giving myself a taste of the focus I've always wanted. I know that I have to live more mechanically, think more mechanically, become more mechanical if I'm going to thrive in the way I want to.
So I guess what I'm saying is that on my best days, I know I'm made of meat, a perfectly normal human worm-baby.
And yet somehow, it's nowhere near as comforting as the idea that one day I'll find that button, slough off the rubbery plastic that makes up my skin, and emerge some strange steel butterfly.
And I don't yet know how to feel about that.
I call myself Aleph, I'm 34 years old, I write a lot of fantasy-based stories because on some level, the fantastic is how I understand and contextualize my life. I jokingly call my brain defective and have a dream that one day I'll be able to spread my much-studied love of communication to a new generation of people who will not take me seriously because it's hard to explain poetry to someone who doesn't already understand what it's for. I don't go personal often because I can't imagine myself as being interesting, I don't worry about self-esteem because my life got easier once I gave up on getting any of it, and all I want is to sing the song that will free the whole human race from sadness.
And I'm back for as much of season ten as I can manage.
It's a hard realization and while I don't know if it's always been so, it's a thing that's been harder and harder to not know is happening.
The rest of the time, there's an absurdly strong assertion in me that I'm not human and never have been. This assertion tells me that somewhere there's a button and when I find it, the plastic housings holding my face clamped to my head will release and I'll be able to start... something. I'll be able to show my true face, which is not a face.
A friend of mine helpfully told me that that's a kind of low-level depersonalization, usually connected to anxiety. They pointed me to some lovely websites that do that frustrating thing where they let you know that your problem is a problem and also give you context for it, which is one of the most useful things on Earth for me as I start to do that adulthood thing where you reckon with just what the shit is going on in your head. Of course, the website also offered advice that sounded great, but is also the kind of thing that is pretty useless because my brain doesn't do that thing or the way my brain is finding itself set up makes it so that I don't have any real understanding how to do the thing.
It's funny because I always thought I was a superlatively chill person. Then I started actually digging into things and realized I've always been a bundle of nerves because, frankly, there's not a person on Earth I'm not afraid of.
And I only really notice it nowadays because I've started messing about with my brain chemistry. Not capriciously, mind. This isn't one of those "white cisdude sits on a bed smoking and talks about his heavy drug use because that's a shorthand for being interesting" things. As an attempt to have a better shot at getting through college--because college is a hell of a thing after a decade or so of not being at school and also dealing with how your brain is formed in a very sub-optimal way given the needs of the society in which you live, a society where you only sorta speak the language.
At this point in the first season I took part in, I didn't know most of this.
I didn't know a lot of things I learned in the meanwhile.
And, honestly, I don't think I wanted to.
Once you know a thing, you have to deal with it. Even if it's just to sort your head around that thing.
So I found out that I do, indeed, have ADHD. On top of that, my brain is wired along the lines of the portion of the Autism spectrum formerly known as Asperger's Syndrome. It's a weight off my shoulders in a lot of ways because I don't have to worry about what the shit is my problem, but it also means that in the light of the way treating some of my symptoms goes, I have to make a lot of changes and try to figure out how to steer this clunky machine I'm in all over again.
But as I get past the adjustment phase of anxiety attacks and forgetting to eat for the better part of every day, I also find that I can just sit down and write the way I've always wanted to: obsessively and straight through, provided I have something to say and can think of the shape of the thing. I know also that I have to stay away from the computer for the first few hours of my day lest it suck me in. I know that I have to find a way to pull out of that obsession and feed my cat or he will just wind me up and I have lost some ability to distract that wound-up-itude into some kind of calmness by giving myself a taste of the focus I've always wanted. I know that I have to live more mechanically, think more mechanically, become more mechanical if I'm going to thrive in the way I want to.
So I guess what I'm saying is that on my best days, I know I'm made of meat, a perfectly normal human worm-baby.
And yet somehow, it's nowhere near as comforting as the idea that one day I'll find that button, slough off the rubbery plastic that makes up my skin, and emerge some strange steel butterfly.
And I don't yet know how to feel about that.
I call myself Aleph, I'm 34 years old, I write a lot of fantasy-based stories because on some level, the fantastic is how I understand and contextualize my life. I jokingly call my brain defective and have a dream that one day I'll be able to spread my much-studied love of communication to a new generation of people who will not take me seriously because it's hard to explain poetry to someone who doesn't already understand what it's for. I don't go personal often because I can't imagine myself as being interesting, I don't worry about self-esteem because my life got easier once I gave up on getting any of it, and all I want is to sing the song that will free the whole human race from sadness.
And I'm back for as much of season ten as I can manage.