YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Well, this is new. I first never thought that I would have the courage to actually write down the stuff I try to hide from all the time. Then I never suspected that I would hear Paul Gilmartin read it out loud. Then I never suspected that hearing some parts of my life would trigger an introspective impulse which for me is a rarity. The rest - asking if I could just write things down in a place where I can never expunge the written material leading to me posting on a forum at 1:15 a.m after another profoundly boring shift at my thrilling warehousing job - just sort of tumbled out. I've tried to write my thoughts down but I'm highly suspectible to impulsively destroying anything I've ever used to discuss or relate to myself. I've burned most of my childhood photos outside of the ones my mother and girlfriend are protecting; all of my childhood writings, including the ones that I was told to write out by the staff at the hospital I went to after my traumatic event, are also gone in a poof of smoke. I have a compulsion to remain as a palimpsest because I know I can take on whatever persona and memories are convenient if I simply don't have my own. I didn't realize that this was a problem until I heard Paul remind me that most of my life is consequently bound up in a sequence of half-truths, duplicitious wordplay, and overt fabrication. If I could, I'd like to settle on one person to be and to be rid of my constant temptation to enter a sort of fugue and simply change my social colours like a chameleon. To do this, I need to have reference to something in my past to look for patterns and things that constitute "me".

For the record, I have been diagnosed with identity problems as the result of my father kidnapping me on Valentine's Day and taking me on a terrifying and deeply-repressed "road trip". I'm hoping that I can simply log things like how I'm feeling and know that, even if I do delete the posts, there's always the off chance someone found a snippet or something interesting and kept it for themselves. I guess what I'm proposing is a sort of offering - I don't have a heaping spoonful of awful and icky, but I know I have some and it seems like acceptable currency on the show. I give you aforementioned awkward, awful, and icky; you give me the complete and total inability to simply burn what little I can write about myself. If that sounds like a deal, I also have some cheap Florida swampland and a bridge on offer (I can also be rather hard on myself). I'd like to think that my proposed deal isn't totally awful, but I lack Paul's charisma, character, and spirit and I fear that will make me utterly irrelevant. I'm as interesting as a damp grey sock and about three times more boring. My hobbies include looking at model train sets and realizing that I'm too poor to afford any, playing video games, failing to lift weights I used to be able to in my fitness-disordered days and feeling bad about it, tending to my ever-growing collection of esoteric bland-and-technical literature, and not being covered in bees. I'm also a terrible cook, writer, musician, philosopher, and introspector. I'm like the Inspector Gadget of mental illness, but without Penny and Brain to actually do the heavy lifting for me. I'm not even sure how I've bumbled this far, what with the constant intrusive thoughts and the fighting off my childhood. As a child, I would become a different person when I visited my father - though that figment of me will sometimes try to take physical command of my body, it usually is content to constantly remind me of exciting possibilities in the fields of self-harm, harming others, damaging property, why I suck at everything, and tyrannical domination of state apparatuses. Thank God I was never in line for a throne.

Reading this back, it's apparent that I haven't done the best job selling myself. It's hard to sell someone with broken memories, two broken families, a broken personality, and the best employment this side of guinea pig for experimental chainsaw dental surgery. One day I'd love to have a solid, true memory bank that I can use to be a real person instead of, as my father painfully put it, a sub-human homunculus. I'm working on it. This is the first big step I've ever made on my own and I'm really hoping that the inspiration I get from the show can translate into something worth being inspired about within me. I'm a lot scared and I really hope that it's okay for me to post a little diary-like thing to keep myself on track. I owe recovery to everyone who helped me get this far - including me.

I also do love both giving and receiving hugs. If anyone can relate to my cringe-inducing attempt at story-telling, or has things related to the list of issues below that they'd like to get off of their chest, I promise that I will try my best to help. Together, we can be slightly less limpy and shout "excelsior" before running head-long into uh-oh. Anyone up for a hug from a shambling buffoon who can't even be a person properly? I swear I don't bite.

THE WALL OF SHAME
- Identity disorder
- Inaccurate memories
- Repressed memories
- Catholic guilt/sexual repression/repressed urges
- Abusive father
- Controlling mother
- Struggles with leaving the family religion
- Cultural misplacement from birth (i.e.: "I have never felt at home in Canada", in my case)
- Drug dependency
- Self-hatred
- Feeling misnamed or issues with naming
- Body issues
- Legal conflagration (I'm expecting a fourth legal motion to be filed against me by my father any moment now)
- Lack of introspective capacity
- Anomie, the Durkheimian problem of loneliness brought about by bureaucratized society
- Intrusive thoughts
- Shame from events in childhood
- Unbalanced emotional reactivity; and the ever-popular
- Making long lists to beat myself up with.

Oh, and if Paul sees this, I apologize for being a bit to reply to your e-mail. I was moving house last weekend so I lacked Internet.

Welcome to our little forum, Mr.Chimney. We here wish you the best and are cheering for you and for your greatest today and tomorrow. Please take care.

Hey Mr. Chimney,

First off, you're more interesting than a damp sock. And that's saying something because a damp sock is one of my favorite places to put my penis (just kidding) Seems like all that boring literature you collect has had an impact on you, you know how to write good, how do you feel about what you wrote? Did it feel like a release? Or just depressing?

You sound like you'd be a great guest for the podcast. You seem to be someone in the early stages of re-evaluating yourself and your life and coming together more fully as a person, and I think when you come out the other end you'll be someone people will look up to. I got the feeling reading that that you're a real smart guy. Be interesting to hear more about your psycho-Dad too.

Welcome to our little forum, Mr.Chimney. We here wish you the best and are cheering for you and for your greatest today and tomorrow. Please take care.

Well, it's funny that you should mention it, but you called me having a pretty good day today. I just moved and I'm really starting to feel like I'm settling in. The cat is loving the sunlight and I am loving being able to play with the most intense battlestation that a poor kid in college could muster. My ancient computer has been Rainmetered and retired as the television computer after almost 5 years of service. Not bad for a hunk of junk built out of random parts. We cleaned out the entirety of our old apartment in only about 4 hours. It was a pretty great thing, all told. I just blanked on eating for most of the day until I realized that I was starving, which happened to be in the middle of a jerry-rigged movement of more stuff from my old place into my new place. Bad timing. But along came pita delivery place to the rescue and life was good again.

Also, I got some beer. Always good when that happens. I'm stressed about having taken the day off of work but in the end being able to lift some stress from my girlfriend's back was worth it. So, in my strange little world I guess that counts as a triumph. Go me! Thank you for the welcome!

Seems like all that boring literature you collect has had an impact on you, you know how to write good, how do you feel about what you wrote?

First off, I saw that you are new to the forums too and I'm glad you joined up. When I talk about writing, I don't write anything exciting or literary. I often write essays and opinion pieces on chapters or thoughts within a book I'm reading or an issue I'm seeing. I at current resolve the nigh-eternal feeling of not belonging in Canada by seeking to tear down the justifications for the Canadian state. The stuff I find - the links between Canada's reservation system and the South African bantustans, for example - makes me feel like one walking away from Omelas. The only problem is that I can't find my way out of Ursula Le Guin's constructed city. I know that I could easily live with the people of my ethnic homeland and that ultimately is where I want to go, but I don't have the money or the reason to move. I'd like to pursue graduate studies and I feel as though that is a good excuse to leave, so I'm saving money and looking around. I'd love to go to school in Malta, a country I fell deeply in love with when I visited it. It seems like a good place to begin trying to internalize. I feel a pull away from Canada but I also feel constant naggings telling me to stay in Canada and, I fear, rot. I write in hopes of finding a logical and coherent way out of Canada and into a vaguely brighter land somewhere else. So it's all bland philosophizing and routine interpretations of political philosophy's most nagging questions in the context of undermining the Canadian state for my own nefarious and nebulous needs. Good work me, I guess. I am usually frustrated by what I write because I realize that I'm missing so much information that is simply too difficult to find. Finding new things to read, however, is one of my favourite activities. If there's ever a fear/love thing going on I would have to add one as of my greatest loves the feeling of entering a used bookstore knowing that payday is tomorrow and with a pretty decent buffer built from last payday. From the smell to the way people act, the used bookstore is a temple and attending to its summons is an almost religious experience.

You sound like you'd be a great guest for the podcast. You seem to be someone in the early stages of re-evaluating yourself and your life and coming together more fully as a person, and I think when you come out the other end you'll be someone people will look up to.

I would love to one day be courageous enough to go on the show. I have friends in San Francisco and I'm always looking for an excuse to try out new public and regional commuter transit systems, so I could probably scrape up enough to mail myself out there. Best part of that is that I get the hotel included with my flight. Don't even have to take a cab to it. Couldn't be easier. I'm very new to this sort of stuff. Only recently has it really dawned on me that both of my families are dysfunctional. I've practically severed contact with my father - I intend to change my name to reflect the heritage my father denied me at birth - but I had always idolized my mother and it is becoming more and more apparent that there are problems there too. My kid brother is living in that mess of weight-obsession, workaholic, anomic suburban life and I fear for him because he really needs me. I had to explain sex to him and to warn him about all of the shaming and slander that sex gets in the Catholic high school he goes to (and that I went to); he confides in me constantly about his frustration and loneliness stemming from feeling like so much window dressing. Both of my parents shame him for his weight and I can see it wearing him down. Seeing this new side of things raises a few too many suspicions about how I was raised. Of course, I can't trust my own memories enough to verify or refute that claim. It would make sense given my body issues and sexual repression, both hallmarks of the Catholic-Suburban Order.

I really do want to look into things, but I doubt my memories and I know that part of them are stored away in another part of my mind that I can't access. I get worse and more vivid intrusive thoughts when I acknowledge the existence of these parts of my mind, so I rarely even try to think about them. Sorting out memories is both an obsession and an excellent way to go mad, so I regulate the time with heavy doses of marijuana and alcohol. The one-two punch slows my head down enough to just distract myself with grand strategy games. The cycle from unproductive essaying to try to find an academic way out to giving in and trying to go to places that are too unsafe for me to go to using drugs to get myself back to the beginning is best described by the lyric in Aesop Rock's Fumes (I think that's the song), ''in between tweaks he sweeps at Home Depot and reads". Replace Home Depot with warehouse and you're on the right track. I love blue collar work because it also helps to keep inquisition at bay. I can't tell whether this self-searching is healthy or self-destructive - the desire wavers between the two and I know it is not fully healthy. It scares me, so I resist it.

As for people looking up to me, I do my best to earn it but the one person I know looks up to me is my kid brother and I want to be the best "bad" influence on him ever. I just want to be able to help and I hope that I'll be in a better place to with enough solid memory to build off of.

Oh, and Psycho-Dad. You will hear much of him. Whatever intellect I have is a pale inprint of the tortured brilliance in that man's head. He is a brilliantly-talented man who happens to rather I had never been born. He has made that abundantly clear - whether by linking me constantly to his disgust about paying child support for me or by awarding me "Loser of the Year", he clearly does not want me. I know he has attempted suicide many times and he in fact threatened my mother with suicide (while accusing her of cheating, because of course that makes sense) when they were married. He is very much in the mold of the narcissist, and I honestly would simply rather never see him again. No last words, nothing - just vanish until the man's funeral. I haven't decided if I'll attend that one.

I'm also comforted to know that you're a Kiwi. My girlfriend is part New Zealander and the rap group Home Brew is one of my go-to places for calming music. From one settler state to another, hello and God save Super-Mecha Death Christ 3000! Or the Queen. Whichever is easiest. I'm glad that you're getting back on your feet and I look forward to getting to know you.

I'm British by birth but like to consider myself Kiwi now that I've lived here over ten years. I come from South-East London and have kept punk in my heart. So any reason to smash the state is good enough for me! I know bugger-all about Canada but who cares, smash the state! Your internal quest for knowledge sounds like a good one. And I know what you mean, it is frustrating trying to research something and seeing all the contradictary so-called information on anything and knowing half of it's probably just made up or guessed anyway. But part of that nagging is probably your own perfectionism man. "Damn, it's not good enough, there's information missing," maybe you could put out a call on a Canada expert's forum or something? Ah I don't know, I don't know why I'm trying to solve every problem and over-analyze everything, I knew I'd be like this as soon as I signed up to the forum!

Yeah, used book stores are a temple, I get a little adrenalin rush if I'm driving through a town I don't know and see a used book store I've never seen before. I don't know what I'm expecting, like I'm going to be browsing and find a treasure map or a missing page from the Bible or something. I've definitely raided every store in this town for every second-hand choose your own adventure book there is. Got about twenty now. This year I've only just got back my ability to concentrate on a book without intrusive thoughts about paper cuts in nasty places (that had haunted me every time I tried to read for over ten years, how crazy!) so I've gone mad in the library finding out all the obscure information I can, but mainly stuff linking to various aspects of my illness, and Eckart Tolle type and spiritual stuff on being relaxed, etc.

Thank goodness your wee brother has you to talk to, someone sensible and intelligent in between all the insane influences in his life from his parents and from Catholic-crazy. How does it weigh on you having to be his parental figure? That's pretty heavy, do you cope with it alright? Weight-shaming is something that really bums me out because a lot of people have absolutely no sympathy for people's feelings, they just mouth off about it like crazy. Then those same people will go and drink five energy drinks a day and stuff themselves stupid with meat and chocolate and booze and stay skinny because they're built differently or different metabolism or whatever, it's bullshit.

I'd say it's pretty likely that your memories will sort themselves out as time goes on. One thing I really like about you is you seem to know yourself well, that's why it's good to read your shit. You seem insightful and also like the type of guy who'll maybe sort out fifty other people's problems on the way to sorting out his own.

Haha, no worries! Honestly, my opinions on Canada are not popular ones - I like to point things out like how legally British Columbia has characteristics of contemporary Crimea embedded deep within both itself and its relationship to the rest of Canada, or how both Apartheid South Africa and Israel have sent people to inspect how it is that Canada represses its Indian populations as brilliantly and secretly as it does. I started writing about it publically and have dealt with a lot of hate. I just have to get it out of me, y'know? I don't feel right living in Canada and I desperately want to escape it, burn my passport, renounce my citizenship, and be done with the country forever. Canada is a major source of anxiety for me, in fact - the mere idea of Canada upsets me. The Olympics and its Pyongyang-inspired hockey coverage had me experiencing panic attacks on a date with my girlfriend to a biscotti place. I couldn't sit in there because it bothered me so much. One of my dearest friends (ironically, a member of the Canadian Navy) said that I was allergic to Canada, and he has the reaction if not the rationale for it nailed. Actually, if Canada was the way I'd want it we would have a junior member of the House of Windsor on the Canadian throne to negotiate the treaties directly with the Crown and thus to finally get to the root of Canada's sins.

I still can't handle libraries. My father unfortunately infected those too, and I still feel repulsion by them. But I own roughly one-thousand books, the bulk of which I keep in a warehouse in my hometown by the kindness of an old friend. He owns nearly 200,000 of his own tomes, acquired through estate sales that we rummaged through like fiends. He has some remarkable treasures in that warehouse and walking through it after having smoked is pure bliss (among those treasures is what to the best of our research is every book ever written on the subject of automotive manufacture in our county, including all of the picture books of various sorts of cars. That collection is his pride and joy). That's a huge shame regarding the intrusive thoughts. Did you read stuff online to compensate, or? I'm really glad you can read now, though. Among my fondest memories are cool summer days with ice-cream cones and used bookstores with a group of friends that's still together to this day. I do shoplift from the big box book stores, but I make a point of only stealing works in the public domain or that I can donate directly to the author for. I have to do my research and pick targets carefully. I will never steal from a small bookstore. I know this is stupid moralizing but I can't do it any other way or I'll feel less put together because it will mean that there is yet another compulsive behaviour interfering with my life. I satisfy the itch and my own togetherness with one massive fucking pain in the arse. But at least my collection grows. Yay me, I guess?

My kid brother is an odd case. I'm the only child of my mother's first marriage, but her second marriage brought with my brother, whom I have affectionately nicknamed "the kid". Even at 14 years old he wears the nickname with pride. I honestly can say that he's the best thing about my family. He has his own mental issues, but he looks like a bit of a replay of my own childhood. Intervention in the places I wish I had had intervention has helped both him and I. He knows that he can talk to me and he knows that I know that he needs his space. My parents, by contrast, are either over-attached to him or distant - and all this in the backdrop of crazy-Catholic. My stepfather is deeply reliant on my kid brother as a way to cope with his own depression and shame. My stepfather is still great to my kid brother - it's obvious that they deeply care about one another - but the kid is clearly a crutch. When I found him during his latest suicide attempt, it was the thought of not seeing my kid brother that got him to calm down enough such that we could get him to the hospital. He is definitely feeling better but I know that the underlying causes remain unresolved and that the current effort will eventually fail like the others before it. My stepdad and I sort of share the role, really - he takes care of my kid brother's physical well-being, and I take care of his mental development as best I can. Of course, I am always asked by my parents about how I connect with him, and when I respond with things like "listen to him" and "the phrase change your attitude is not a substitute for comforting or affection or even just quiet listening and support I am met with "it must be because you like video games". In an even weirder loop, my stepdad before my mother and him got married helped introduce me to gaming. But that was before the Church and the Suburb got infused into him through mysterious shenanigans and he lost all of his hobbies and joys.

But I digress. I honestly don't find it much of a burden at all. I know he trusts me and I trust him. It's just an awesome, stable relationship. Now if only I could get my folks to be okay with him coming to visit me in my new town. But honestly, he has grown into a friend and a pupil. Knowing that I'll be there for him where nobody was for me is a huge reassurance both of the fact that I have been abused and the fact that I can be a positive force for someone I care about. The weight thing is one example of that. I went through it, and I know how to deal with it now. So I fast-forward his thinking 10 years and he knows how to avoid things. My parents have an exercise fetish. My mother eats one meal a day and has replaced most of her diet with mysterious smoothies. She is a physician. She should know better. My stepfather ("Dad", because I'm sick of writing that word) is equally adamant and takes my brother to the gym to lift weights. They say they do this because they fear my kid brother's health is at risk, but I think at least some of it is a justification and projection of their own vicious and mutually-reinforcing issues with diet and exercise. Needless to say, I love food and I go to the gym almost wholly so I can stay healthy while eating quantities of the most delicious arterial atom bombs known to man - no more perfect contrast for rationales to go to the gym could possibly exist.

Well, man, I really appreciate the kindness. I know that I've got a whole whack of whoopsies in me, and being able to record things into solid and immutable memory means that I can start building a record of what kind of person I am and what sorts of things I remember truthfully having happened to me. So it's a wonderfully symbiotic relationship. Does any of my Wall of Shame (bold text absolutely necessary) stuff sounds familiar to your problems? Even if we have completely different problems, being able to talk like this means that we have actual proof that we aren't alone. It's about time to try to fall asleep here on this side of Turtle Island, but I'm so glad I spent the time before I could realistically fall asleep responding to you!

Oh my GOD! I just typed out a huge reply to you Mr. Chim and it effing threw me off the page while I was still typing it! I AM LIVID AND ABOUT TO SMASH LAPTOP. I was trying to address your Wall of Shame stuff and compare notes and it was going really well, BUT IT NOT TO BE. this is another problem of mine with fits of rage when something goes wrong or out of my hands or not controled. I need to calm down. Have not had a coffee. I can't believe all that shit I wrote is just GONE INTO THE ETHER. I will come back and try again soon. Jesus fucked.

Bah. That is the worst. For future and if you're on a PC, pressing ctrl+a followed by ctrl+c will copy everything you've written thus far into your clipboard. Very handy save system of sorts. If you muck up while everything is highlighted press ctrl+z and it will come back from the land of the lost. I look forward to reading your thoughts when the frustration subsides. I'm more a tea person myself, but a cup of tea and some relaxing music is a pretty okay way to reset for me.

It was a dumb thing to get angry about, even at the time I know that but I can't help it. Usually have to go for a jog or something to cool off. I had sat here typing for so long and it was so honest and everything that when it disappeared for no reason it was like God suddenly turning around and spitting in my face. And I don't own my own computer so I have to use someone else's when I can.

My main problem at the moment is I feel worthless and like I am wasting my life, I have no job which makes me feel low.

This time I'm just gonna do your Wall of Shame, the ones that would be on mine too.
- Catholic sex guilt/Self-shame of sexual thoughts
I know that's not quite the same thing, and I was never Catholic (thank Jesus) but I always had I think an over-active sex drive or something? Many perverse sexual thoughts following me around constantly, and a feeling of self-hatred from it, "You're a pervert, you're a loser, you're no feminist, etc"
- Abusive father, no, but I do have issues with him, he married a fucking psychopath stepmother and let her fuck with my head
- Controlling mother - Yes. Can't shit without my Mum running along trying to tell me how to wipe my arse. I should point out she's not aggressive with it, but for some reason she's always treated me like a goddamn idiot.
- Cultural misplacement from birth. I guess so, I moved over here, right? I'm not British or Kiwi. British are all football obsessed racist morons and Kiwis are all sexist drunken child abusers. Fuck 'em both.
- Drug Dependency. Yeah, I got issues with dependency, it's not necessarily always the same thing but booze, weed, porn, video games, whatever.
- Self-hatred, yes, totally relatable, probably my main issue. Getting over it, slowly. I don't know if I told you this in the message I didn't send or one of the ones I did, but CBT therapy helped a lot with it (I've got really shitty memory).
- Lack of introspective capacity - Things used to be very unclear, foggy, I think I have it down pretty well now.
- Anomie - I had to look this up, but YES. Definitely. Fuck society, ESPECIALLY BEAUROCRASY. Society's ills have fucked with me like they've fucked with us all. It's why so many people have mental illness these days!
- Intrusive thoughts - Yeah, it can get really bad. From eating shit, to watching my brother die over and over again (He's not dead, imagining it in my mind I mean) to wanting to shout out "I'm a pedophile" or something really racist in a crowd, to some kind of hilarious image of someone on the toilet (or something) that makes me laugh at loud. Then there's an awkward moment of "What's funny, no tell me, no go on let's hear it"
- Unbalanced emotional reactions - Yes, all negative, but I"m getting better.

Well, let's try doing this with categories!

Catholic sex guilt/Self-shame of sexual thoughts
I had the same fear about over-sexuality too, actually! I ended up swiping some of my mother's equipment from her clinic in an effort to stab sexual desires out of myself. My mother's clinic is stacked to the brim with sharp pointies which became tooks for punishing my sexuality. I would think about it constantly; I have unreliable and somewhat reliable memories of thinking about sex from a very eary age, including an episode in the fourth grade where I held my breath and masturbated in class. I passed it off as needing to go to the bathroom really bad and I think I can reliably say that I sat on the toilet confused and miserable for a while. Naturally, I thought this was a "weakness" that could be "expunged", and thus the sharp pointies and the stabbings. I just wanted to be held and loved and I apparently didn't even think myself worthy of that. I actually had much thicker needles that I used once or twice. Thankfully, the scars are small.

Abusive father
Your problems with your stepmom surprised me. My stepmother on my father's side has absolutely no personality. It's surreal. I know nothing about her. This is perhaps because another side of me has those memories and it hurts too much to go to that place mentally, but I assumed that all stepmoms were Stepford-esque. Dunno why I thought that. Did your stepmother take over your father, or?

Controlling mother
Mine too! My mother is huge on appearances to the point where she will still try to wipe things off of my face rather than simply tell me that I have something on me. She also would refuse to go out (which would make us late and thus piss her off even more) if either I or my kid brother are wearing mismatched socks or a poor colour coordination. Though I have put my foot down on both of these she will still sometimes try to enforce arbitrary wardrobe changes and I have to explain once more (and to great upset) that I dress as I feel appropriate. I already have enough troubles identifying with and using my body without having my autonomy stripped away.

Cultural misplacement from birth
Mine started from birth, too. My mother and everyone on that side of the family proudly belongs to an iteration of Dutch people (getting specific is a bit unwise - we're not a big group). The Canadian branch of our people are closely connected to the homeland; we take our people's names, we speak the language of the homeland, and otherwise stand up as distinct. So I've always had that and I fell back on it when I realized that I had no concept of Canadian-ness. I think that's what triggered a lifelong fascination with political theory. Tragically for my connection to Canada, what I learned in university was not flattering. Canada morphed from an awkward, ill-fitting cast that I never fit to a sinister and cynical ersatz production designed to draw vitality from its component parts by constructing a commericial means to attain a false nationality as Canadian. The "real Canadian" goes to Tim Horton's and plays Roll up the Rim (Tim Horton's serves lukewarm dishwater at inflated prices and treats its workers horrendously), drinks Labatt Blue and Molson Canadian (rubbish beers both, recognizable to anyone who enjoys the regional craft beer scene as barely-fermented piss. That sounds really pretensious but if Paul can leave shit in his stuff that he doesn't like I can too), votes Liberal (the bullshit federalist party led by cardboard cutout Justin Trudeau and in actuality run by party familiars with ties to commercial ersatz Canadiana generation), is bilingual (but not in French or English, which is what Canada desperately wants to make believe), travels by Air Canada (the most wretched airline imaginable), and sees the Canadian flag at least 20 times a day (I counted). This became choking and it has never gotten any better. I feel better by retreating into my familial heritage but the fact that all of this nonsense essentially serves to perpetuate Apartheid against the legitimate holders of much of the land Canada claims meant that this choking became utterly impossible to bear. I went to Malta in January with my girlfriend and that tension immediately vanished. Malta is a legitimate nation and a legitimate state. It knows what it is and strives to be the best it can while maintaining a relaxed and communal life. It felt beyond description to simply be in a country without the gnawing tension. I was tempted more than once to burn my Canadian passport and stay there.

Meanwhile, my hatred of Canada has alienated people and upset others. Canada is a reactionary place and it hates hearing the truth about itself. It especially hates recognizing anything about the United States that isn't ultimately self-flattery. For me, being in political science, taking the stance that the United States is a model for Canada to aspire to culturally rather than a national strawman to shadow-box and pretend to be one nation was not popular. It took its toll on my list of friends and while I'm still holding my own on public forums I'll admit that the whole thing is getting very tiring. I often wish I could just ditch Facebook so I wouldn't have a place to complain/start fights.

Drug Dependency
Mine is only one - weed - and only for one reason - a little bit of mental breathing room with which to sort myself out. I almost consider it a medicine because I know of no other way to reclaim that little inch. I do not smoke recreationally and do not enjoy being terribly high. I simply want my brain to slow down a little. I've been smoking almost daily for 10 years now - I started when I was 14. I don't think it has had any negative effects on me but I could be wrong. Either way, I'm stuck with sweet Mary and she's stuck with me. I'm still utterly dependent on it though. Except in Malta, where a pipe of tobacco would wake up a delightfully sluggish and relaxed mind. If there is a good side to this, the song I have forever identified with that trip (Right Here, Right Now by Fatboy Slim - the whole album was one we listened to on our little balcony drinking Cisk and eating the best bread in the universe, but that song in particular) is really good high. It is one of the best pick-me-ups I have. I just wish I didn't have to smoke all the damn time. I don't know if what I'm doing is healthy...?

Self-hatred
This is rather big for me. I'm never doing enough to satisfy myself. If I listened to what I tell myself I should do, I would be getting up after 5 hours of sleep, going to the gym for two hours, reading for the rest of the time before work, then work, home, and immediate bed. I would also rather die than do that. It's a neverending argument that serves to further fragment me. I still kind of hate my sexuality somewhat but I mostly hate myself for not doing enough to finally make my Mom stop calling me fat and getting my ass into gear for more school. It creates a vicious cycle of upset.

Lack of introspective capacity
Totally blown. There are parts of me that just hurt too much to go to. I have constant intrusive thoughts and they grow more and more severe if I get closer to the bad places in my mind. I know that they contain things about my already unpleasant relationship with my father, but I just can't go there. In fact, straying too close can create a whirlpool that only weed can get me out of (that I know of). These thoughts are from a part of me that I don't fully understand but which is formally called an alter (I think). It goes by the shorthand Ghost (the Ghost of my childhood) in my mind and it is constantly bringing up awful things at the worst times. Bridges are tough because of the power and fore with which I'm told to jump off. Big roads are the same. I told my mother about these and she told me that they are just figments and that concentration will get rid of them. It does, mostly, but I can't concentrate on myself and because of that I have nothing to think about and then go daydream, a process usually infected with Ghostly thoughts and which thus usually turn out as thoughts of bloody coups, going abroad only to be rejected, or reliving exciting snippets of my relationship with my father. It's a game show where all the tiles say "go fuck yourself" and Vanna reveals that I've also won a premium "go fuck yourself" from the sponsor, "Eat Shit and Die" Industries. I guess it does mean that good daydreams are especially lovely though. How did you get things down so well? Also, congrats on that!

Anomie
This is in large part I think a function of not having a car and relying on bureaucratic nightmares to get anything done. I have been trying to cancel my Internet with Rogers (another shitty "proudly Canadian" business) for the last three weeks. I just can't endure a fight with a faceless foe for that long. Waiting for answers, sending e-mails to nowhere, finding simple things made complex with miles of nonsense. Without a car in North America you cannot get anywhere because North America is largely a shitheap in terms of urban planning. It really fucks with your head when things that take 30 minutes to drive take an hour by bus. I don't want a car but I want a car and the paperwork to do that is just uuuuughhh no *flop on couch, watch MASH*

I think I kind of did intrusive thoughts. I have had friends confess to the impulse to say racist and/or sexist things in public, and I certainly have had that too. I think it's a bit like how apparently most people will feel some interest in jumping off of a cliff (if you ask Freud, that is). It helps me sometimes with that sort of stuff to think about everyone else restraining themselves. The thought that we're all just acting and we all sort of wig out at home makes it easier to keep a game face on. It's always a game face that I use for those sorts of thoughts. What is your relationship like with your brother? Also, for the record, you did not mention CBT therapy. Outside of the hospital my Mom has discouraged me seeking psychological help outside of a creepy Christian guy, so I know little of how it works. Would you mind sharing more about it?...God, I feel like I'm doing my own interview of you. I'm very glad that you are feeling like you are on the upswing. We do have quite a bit in common though! Yay for mutual damages! Sending you a hug.