Nod
So, this is the real life of a compulsive liar. There is something about this problem that somehow prevents you from really ever knowing much about yourself. This is an excerpt from a larger email that took a lot of energy for me to write and has since been something that I re-read, over and over.
My mother was the only person who showed me affection through my childhood, which being raised by a badly injured single mother, so poor and always so envious of those who had it better. The people at her work took advantage of her. Growing up I had to watch my mother cry, beset by two problematic children and horrifying employment situations. I watched this knowing that I was responsible and having no idea how to stop what I was doing and utterly without the willpower to control some of these basic impulses. I left this home every morning to a school which often changed by the year, where even teachers had singled me out for comments in class because I could not control my behavior. I made up fantastical stories, massive but often delightful fabrications. In early years I claimed to be from Jupiter. Before I left Elementary school I had a deeper curiosity and understanding of some parts of history and claimed to have been from Brittany.
I claimed to have been a follower of the Pictish faith and a speaker of that language. A descendant of the Oprichniki when I was afraid, the son of a Greek shipping baron when I felt mocked for my poverty, and whatever else may have been needed at the time. This is how I always have been. I was either humiliated, asked to "cut it out" or completely ignored and the topic treated as the quiet elephant in the room that no one acknowledged. But I knew the entire time. I knew that they were aware of what was wrong with me and that someone with some intelligence should have guessed that I was suffering tremendously but nothing positive ever came. I would daydream about these fabrications desperately with my headphones on and the volume all the way up on my shitty cassette player, so that I didn't have to pay attention to the other kids making fun of me. By the time I had reached the fifth grade, there were no more attempts with therapy or school counselors, if my school even had one. I grew up utterly isolated. Not a single birthday party with other children, except for the few that me and Corey shared as he had some friends.
There were no special programs that could help me, and an attempt to send me to Columbia Mental Hospital for a "Special school", a mistake because a teacher thought I was delusional and utterly ignored my mother's pleas, which has left me with an overwhelming fear of such institutions and a terrifying view of any organization with a similar demeanor. This is why being Baker acted after the incident was such a truly, deeply horrifying experience. I was "caught" and sent back to "where I belong". I truly feel as if I understand a large portion of what hell would be like from that one, single night. Being locked away with them was utterly unexplainable. Hatred gave me the strength to lie the next day and thankfully, hatred has an arrow that is always true, even if it's intentions are not. My "peers" where nothing like me and did not have the grasp on reality that I quietly held on to in the back of my mind, always aware of my lies, always guilty, and always afraid of being caught. I never saw a single person around me as anything other than a threat by the time I had reached high school. No one cared what I was reading, or how often I read. No one saw any promise in me. In High School the only kids I could hang out with were Shawn Gauldon and Chris "Chip" Sengelaub.
They knew what was wrong with me. Shawn sadly was forced to abandon me. I cannot recall why. I do know realize however that being an actual friend of mine at this point would have amounted to simply being my caretaker. I was utterly incapable of living any semblance of a normal life. Chip only kept me around to use me, however, and one night when I was confronted about one lie from a person I didn't really know, I told him the truth on the issue and he told me that he always knew and that I was just a piece of shit. That I should be grateful for the painful ruse of this friendship. I agreed. I dropped out. I never got a G.E.D. until right before entering P.B.A. I was utterly incapable of holding down any kind of employment. Another recurring problem is that I become utterly overwhelmed frequently and will simply cease to do any work at all on anything, simply pacing and listening to music, or reading, or watching movies. This continued all the way through P.B.A. and only recently have I developed ways of avoiding this. I can verify this large scale change through employment and school records easily. In fact, for some reason I have always had a hesitation with "taking care of things", yet another unimportant detail which faded into the background of my neurosis. If I had the ability to actually focus and just sit down and do the work, I have no doubt that my life would be drastically different right now.
After all this, I found myself working in the Jaguar dealership across the street from PBA. I actually did wonderfully there at first, but soon depression hit and my lunch walks became longer. Ben Bryant started talking to me, or vice versa. He got me a different job and eventually this relationship attracted me to P.B.A. Ben Bryant has actually been a wonderful pillar many times in my life in a way I cannot easily describe and while he never confronted me about my problems he did forgive me, he always knew, and he said he was sorry for not interrupting my behavior. His is a different and also painful story, it turns out, and he is now unable to complete his degree, just a little shy of completion.
Applying to PBA felt absolutely, utterly unreal. At first I was utterly terrified. The slightest hiccup convinced me that it was absolutely beyond the bounds of possibility. I remember that I thought not being able to live on campus would effectively halt my ability to get into college and I actually left the admissions building weeping once because I could have sworn this was the case. Andrew Reddington is still the single most terrifying memory from the period, even though he was the nicest, most mellow, reasonable guy ever, simply because I envisioned him as the "Gatekeeper" who's financial aid control would either save me or kill me. And that is what it felt like. I had nothing in my life, I had only recently gotten a G.E.D. in an attempt to join the armed forces. I always thought that perhaps they could kill whatever was wrong with me, which I could not even begin to fathom, kill who I was entirely and replace me with someone who could function. I had no real options for a future, but suicide was not yet an option. When Margherite Powell told me that somehow my ass had been saved I seriously pissed my pants a little. Welcome Week was actually billions of times more magical for me, a twenty year old who attempted to act disillusioned, than probably anyone around me. Everyone else seemed to hate it. Everyone was trying to meet people, so people were talking to me. I had not receded into hate and bitterness yet. I will never forget my song and dance thing, which may very easily be the happiest memory in my entire life. Michael Kaiser, who I was a complete and utter dick to, seemed to have understood that it was very important to me and really, really helped me at this time to make it amazing, letting me the center of attention and having people appreciate me for a few moments. I still deeply regret not getting the DVD of this, but I will never let this fade from my memory. I was temporarily popular with people my own age. Because of my problems, previously, I was only able to have any kind relationships with teachers through my formitive years and being comfortable with people my own age is actually extremely difficult for me.
My first nights were in the "Hotel suites" on campus, near Johnson. Magical isn't even the word. I took long walks under the oh-so-beautiful architecture of Johnson, past the pleasant gardens and the fountain and through a neighborhood that I could walk seemingly for days. Jonathon Barahona was my temporary roommate and was very friendly. Everyone seemed very friendly, which was so confusing and frightening and so very promising too. I kept thinking that somehow I would "get caught" being a phoney, even though at this time I had largely told the truth(I did not have contact with my mother during the time), largely by virtue of accident. I swore to myself that I would stop lying. I had no idea how to do that. I had a journal, given to me by my mother, with a beautiful green leather binding with Celtic designs which I've always loved. I had always claimed to write in it regularly but could never force myself to keep a journal. My second night in the hotel suite I remember writing down my declaration to not lie on the blank front page. I had two small freak outs and talked to Lonnie Lawson as fast as I could, not wanting to be cast back into Nod. The freakouts grew after I met Lisa, who reminded me of my mother, but disappated slightly afterwards. However, when the time to meet Andrea arrived...shit went south. The meeting I had built myself up for, psyching myself out, landed not on a day when I was depressed and slightly more focused on my problems, but because it was so near the start, a day when I was happy. Carefree. My mouth ran and ran and ran and like always I had no ability at all to go backwards and admit this once I had already started.
Now here I am. I don't even know what I am. God made my life more miserable, more alone and more frightening than you can possible imagine. I cannot control my own behavior and I grew up never knowing why. I have hurt the people who have tried to help me and everyone that I love so much. Eventually I just decided to adopt the persona of the antagonist because it would at least explain why I did some of the things that I did. I thought it would be better to be thought bitter and hateful than whatever the fuck it was that I actually am. I would rather be hated for what I am not than loved for who I am.
I don't know who or what or how to forgive. The truth is, I don't think I ever really learned to sympathize with anyone. God did this to me and I don't know what is going to happen to me next. I can't sleep anymore. I have no horizon. No end to the suffering and no origin. I don't even get to know why this is happening to me. Even as I flit through these pages of CCCU schools, I know I have nothing. I haven't applied to any schools and I can't and I won't. Nothing feels real, not even my entire life story this past month. I cannot sleep and nothing gives me joy and I remember these feelings and I am aware of what they signify. The days seem endless and they run into each other. Nod is a horrible desert, devoid of all life and memory. You will find the meager bits to sustain you, as long as you learn to live only in the moment, surviving only second by second. Forced to relive what I have done, over and over and over and over. Your own memories form prickly patches upon the ground, nipping at you, forcing you to wince in pain and jerk away from them. The faces of your past become illusions. These people aren't there anymore. But the looks on their faces are etched into the dry, harsh rock for you to see whenever you are foolish enough to look down. Forced to be reminded as to why there are only a precious few near me and that the threat of that endind comes from a force more powerful than I can understand. Not understanding why I was fated to be a monster and forced to see the repercussions, as if watching them on a screen, my own actions.
My mother was the only person who showed me affection through my childhood, which being raised by a badly injured single mother, so poor and always so envious of those who had it better. The people at her work took advantage of her. Growing up I had to watch my mother cry, beset by two problematic children and horrifying employment situations. I watched this knowing that I was responsible and having no idea how to stop what I was doing and utterly without the willpower to control some of these basic impulses. I left this home every morning to a school which often changed by the year, where even teachers had singled me out for comments in class because I could not control my behavior. I made up fantastical stories, massive but often delightful fabrications. In early years I claimed to be from Jupiter. Before I left Elementary school I had a deeper curiosity and understanding of some parts of history and claimed to have been from Brittany.
I claimed to have been a follower of the Pictish faith and a speaker of that language. A descendant of the Oprichniki when I was afraid, the son of a Greek shipping baron when I felt mocked for my poverty, and whatever else may have been needed at the time. This is how I always have been. I was either humiliated, asked to "cut it out" or completely ignored and the topic treated as the quiet elephant in the room that no one acknowledged. But I knew the entire time. I knew that they were aware of what was wrong with me and that someone with some intelligence should have guessed that I was suffering tremendously but nothing positive ever came. I would daydream about these fabrications desperately with my headphones on and the volume all the way up on my shitty cassette player, so that I didn't have to pay attention to the other kids making fun of me. By the time I had reached the fifth grade, there were no more attempts with therapy or school counselors, if my school even had one. I grew up utterly isolated. Not a single birthday party with other children, except for the few that me and Corey shared as he had some friends.
There were no special programs that could help me, and an attempt to send me to Columbia Mental Hospital for a "Special school", a mistake because a teacher thought I was delusional and utterly ignored my mother's pleas, which has left me with an overwhelming fear of such institutions and a terrifying view of any organization with a similar demeanor. This is why being Baker acted after the incident was such a truly, deeply horrifying experience. I was "caught" and sent back to "where I belong". I truly feel as if I understand a large portion of what hell would be like from that one, single night. Being locked away with them was utterly unexplainable. Hatred gave me the strength to lie the next day and thankfully, hatred has an arrow that is always true, even if it's intentions are not. My "peers" where nothing like me and did not have the grasp on reality that I quietly held on to in the back of my mind, always aware of my lies, always guilty, and always afraid of being caught. I never saw a single person around me as anything other than a threat by the time I had reached high school. No one cared what I was reading, or how often I read. No one saw any promise in me. In High School the only kids I could hang out with were Shawn Gauldon and Chris "Chip" Sengelaub.
They knew what was wrong with me. Shawn sadly was forced to abandon me. I cannot recall why. I do know realize however that being an actual friend of mine at this point would have amounted to simply being my caretaker. I was utterly incapable of living any semblance of a normal life. Chip only kept me around to use me, however, and one night when I was confronted about one lie from a person I didn't really know, I told him the truth on the issue and he told me that he always knew and that I was just a piece of shit. That I should be grateful for the painful ruse of this friendship. I agreed. I dropped out. I never got a G.E.D. until right before entering P.B.A. I was utterly incapable of holding down any kind of employment. Another recurring problem is that I become utterly overwhelmed frequently and will simply cease to do any work at all on anything, simply pacing and listening to music, or reading, or watching movies. This continued all the way through P.B.A. and only recently have I developed ways of avoiding this. I can verify this large scale change through employment and school records easily. In fact, for some reason I have always had a hesitation with "taking care of things", yet another unimportant detail which faded into the background of my neurosis. If I had the ability to actually focus and just sit down and do the work, I have no doubt that my life would be drastically different right now.
After all this, I found myself working in the Jaguar dealership across the street from PBA. I actually did wonderfully there at first, but soon depression hit and my lunch walks became longer. Ben Bryant started talking to me, or vice versa. He got me a different job and eventually this relationship attracted me to P.B.A. Ben Bryant has actually been a wonderful pillar many times in my life in a way I cannot easily describe and while he never confronted me about my problems he did forgive me, he always knew, and he said he was sorry for not interrupting my behavior. His is a different and also painful story, it turns out, and he is now unable to complete his degree, just a little shy of completion.
Applying to PBA felt absolutely, utterly unreal. At first I was utterly terrified. The slightest hiccup convinced me that it was absolutely beyond the bounds of possibility. I remember that I thought not being able to live on campus would effectively halt my ability to get into college and I actually left the admissions building weeping once because I could have sworn this was the case. Andrew Reddington is still the single most terrifying memory from the period, even though he was the nicest, most mellow, reasonable guy ever, simply because I envisioned him as the "Gatekeeper" who's financial aid control would either save me or kill me. And that is what it felt like. I had nothing in my life, I had only recently gotten a G.E.D. in an attempt to join the armed forces. I always thought that perhaps they could kill whatever was wrong with me, which I could not even begin to fathom, kill who I was entirely and replace me with someone who could function. I had no real options for a future, but suicide was not yet an option. When Margherite Powell told me that somehow my ass had been saved I seriously pissed my pants a little. Welcome Week was actually billions of times more magical for me, a twenty year old who attempted to act disillusioned, than probably anyone around me. Everyone else seemed to hate it. Everyone was trying to meet people, so people were talking to me. I had not receded into hate and bitterness yet. I will never forget my song and dance thing, which may very easily be the happiest memory in my entire life. Michael Kaiser, who I was a complete and utter dick to, seemed to have understood that it was very important to me and really, really helped me at this time to make it amazing, letting me the center of attention and having people appreciate me for a few moments. I still deeply regret not getting the DVD of this, but I will never let this fade from my memory. I was temporarily popular with people my own age. Because of my problems, previously, I was only able to have any kind relationships with teachers through my formitive years and being comfortable with people my own age is actually extremely difficult for me.
My first nights were in the "Hotel suites" on campus, near Johnson. Magical isn't even the word. I took long walks under the oh-so-beautiful architecture of Johnson, past the pleasant gardens and the fountain and through a neighborhood that I could walk seemingly for days. Jonathon Barahona was my temporary roommate and was very friendly. Everyone seemed very friendly, which was so confusing and frightening and so very promising too. I kept thinking that somehow I would "get caught" being a phoney, even though at this time I had largely told the truth(I did not have contact with my mother during the time), largely by virtue of accident. I swore to myself that I would stop lying. I had no idea how to do that. I had a journal, given to me by my mother, with a beautiful green leather binding with Celtic designs which I've always loved. I had always claimed to write in it regularly but could never force myself to keep a journal. My second night in the hotel suite I remember writing down my declaration to not lie on the blank front page. I had two small freak outs and talked to Lonnie Lawson as fast as I could, not wanting to be cast back into Nod. The freakouts grew after I met Lisa, who reminded me of my mother, but disappated slightly afterwards. However, when the time to meet Andrea arrived...shit went south. The meeting I had built myself up for, psyching myself out, landed not on a day when I was depressed and slightly more focused on my problems, but because it was so near the start, a day when I was happy. Carefree. My mouth ran and ran and ran and like always I had no ability at all to go backwards and admit this once I had already started.
Now here I am. I don't even know what I am. God made my life more miserable, more alone and more frightening than you can possible imagine. I cannot control my own behavior and I grew up never knowing why. I have hurt the people who have tried to help me and everyone that I love so much. Eventually I just decided to adopt the persona of the antagonist because it would at least explain why I did some of the things that I did. I thought it would be better to be thought bitter and hateful than whatever the fuck it was that I actually am. I would rather be hated for what I am not than loved for who I am.
I don't know who or what or how to forgive. The truth is, I don't think I ever really learned to sympathize with anyone. God did this to me and I don't know what is going to happen to me next. I can't sleep anymore. I have no horizon. No end to the suffering and no origin. I don't even get to know why this is happening to me. Even as I flit through these pages of CCCU schools, I know I have nothing. I haven't applied to any schools and I can't and I won't. Nothing feels real, not even my entire life story this past month. I cannot sleep and nothing gives me joy and I remember these feelings and I am aware of what they signify. The days seem endless and they run into each other. Nod is a horrible desert, devoid of all life and memory. You will find the meager bits to sustain you, as long as you learn to live only in the moment, surviving only second by second. Forced to relive what I have done, over and over and over and over. Your own memories form prickly patches upon the ground, nipping at you, forcing you to wince in pain and jerk away from them. The faces of your past become illusions. These people aren't there anymore. But the looks on their faces are etched into the dry, harsh rock for you to see whenever you are foolish enough to look down. Forced to be reminded as to why there are only a precious few near me and that the threat of that endind comes from a force more powerful than I can understand. Not understanding why I was fated to be a monster and forced to see the repercussions, as if watching them on a screen, my own actions.