Love God

I'm tired.  I slept probably 9 hours last night.  Its only 5:00 PM and I am still just so tired.  Typical depression situation.  I should call the doctor (I think I'm gonna crash, Doctor said he's commin' but you gotta' pay him cash .  .  .  but I digress.)  Seriously though, I'm on my depression medication and I feel really depressed right now.  Sh*t, this is not good (ng.)

I am hanging out here at work, just dealing with a couple of small things here and there.  I just can't work very hard for very long anymore.  I just stop and look into space for minutes.  Then I get distracted by the internet news, then by my thirst, then by my blog.  Crap.

Another worthless weekend.  Didn't even get the laundry done.  Or pick up the laundry.  How can I be so inept?

Damn-it.  It is  happening again.  It is only noon and I feel really sleepy already.  This always used to happen when I was bad of a year or two ago.  Honestly I can barely keep my eyes open.  Why???

Just ate lunch,  again, sleepy, sleepy.  Want to curl up and go to bed.  Again I got 8+ hours of sleep last night.  If I'm not careful depression is taking on the appearance of a grim reaper when it comes to my employment.  Oh my goodness, this is getting really bad.  Maybe I'm just really sick.  Maybe I'm dying and I don't yet know that by which I am doomed.  Headache starting again.

I am trying to psyche myself up to get to the meeting tonight.  Forgot my tie again.  But I have a spare in the office.  I better pack it now lest I forget.  OK, that's done (literally.) Now let's see if I actually get to the meeting tonight.  Weather is warm.  No excuses.  Of course I don't need an excuse to miss the meeting.  Witness yesterday and the day before!  I am really hopeless.

It's about 4:30 and I'm stressing out about going to the meeting now.  I think I am going to go but I know how easy it is for me to flake out.  There is a lot of time left for me to do that.  We'll see .  .  .


Well I did actually go to the meeting.  The last part was really difficult, I couldn't tell what they were talking about, or even where they were reading,.  I was just so tired and sleepy.  No one talked to me.  I don't know if they were just afraid to come near or what.  Given how people recoiled the last time I was at this meeting I wouldn't be surprised if word got around and nobody wanted to come near.  I always feel bad at the meetings now.  The last time I was there was just so demeaning.  Of course my behavior is what led to my status so they had good reason to treat me the way they did.  But it was really difficult to see someone jump back in shock and horror when I told them my status.  It shouldn't be a big deal band honestly I am surprised it made such an impression.  I usually don't get so bent out of shape.  But oh well.  There it is .  .  .

I'm still trying to work through my difficulties getting work done.  I have to go home early today just to pick up laundry that I didn't get over the weekend.  (Such slackness is legion.)   What a sh*t I am.  I really hate myself (IHMS).  I just don't see a way out of this.  One more year of shunning in dfment. If I make it through that alive and haven't been killed by God, then there is the process of reinstatement that will be long and tortuous since I have such little trust in the deacons.  I will be very suspicious of any questions or issues they raise.  I have already been thinking of how to deal with this:

1. Record the Meeting
2. Answer only the question specifically
3. Questions like how did you .  .  .  are responded only with answers like "With God's help", or "By relying on God", or "Because God assisted me."
4. Questions about my misdeads while out I'll just try not to answer by saying "I don't remember" which I probably won't.  or "That was a year ago, I don't see the relevance of my misdeads for which I am sorry."  or "Look, I don't do that stuff anymore, why are you making me remember that?"

I know it will take a number of tries to come back.  I figure 1 month between requests should be sufficient.

Then I walk around restricted for another year, can't answer at meetings.  Of course that is not so bad since everyone knows already that I am suspect anyway.  Anyone coming back from df is considered suspect for a while.

Then they let me answer a question or so but I'm still on the crap list for another year even after that.  Then after all the restrictions are taken off people will still touch me with no less than 5' poles until they see someone else unquestionably spiritual treat me like a human again.  So all that with the normal setbacks I figure will take at least 3 years but probably more like 5 or 6 in actual fact.

Is it worth it, hell yea.  How else will I escape from hell.  It is depressing to think about what the next several years will be like (at best.)  No wonder I am so depressed.  OMG, this is so awful.  Not the worst outcome certainly, but it is really depressing to think about.

Oh, yea.  and I have no one but myself to rightfully blame for all this.  It's really all my fault.  If I just loved God more.

Here Comes That Same Old Feeling

I feel badly.  So what else is new?  I always feel either bad or worse.  The best I look forward to is feeling neutral.  I never feel good anymore.  If I do it is a very local phenomenon.  Like mentally racing someone on the freeway and I win.  Yea!!  Feels good, for a few seconds.  Then I realize how stupid it is to be mentally racing anyone.  And how small my victories have become.

I'd think I would feel good if I went to a meeting or something like that.  But I don't really feel good about it.  I just feel bad because I always leave there black and blue from being beaten up by the words I hear in there.  Always telling me how bad I am and all the things I'm not doing.  Now that I have been to the meetings a few times a couple of people came up to introduce themselves.  Not the first time it has happened, just that it happened 3 times in the same meeting.

The first guy did what I would imagine, when I said I was df he just looked away and walked away.  No drama.  Cool.  The next gal to walk up and introduce herself literally recoiled in horror.  She looked at me like I was a pedophile and stumbled away.  (OK she didn't really stumble away, this is just my way of putting her down to lift myself up.)  The next guy to say something didn't have the chance to act averse.  I was already walking away when his comments registered.  I turned (without breaking stride) and said the words, turned back and continued walking.  Later one of the guys standing there caught up to me and said that this dude was an elder (like a deacon) and that he would eventually need some basic contact information.  I said OK and left.

I haven't been back to that congregation for a 2 or 3 weeks now.  I don't consciously think of these events and then decide not to go back, nonetheless it is interesting that immediately after these interactions, I stopped attending meetings.  Why?  I don't know.  Sh*t.

Well the next meeting is on Saturday AM.  We'll see what happens then.

I stayed in town last night rather than commuting home 1.5 hours.  I do that maybe once a month.  Then I tried to find an escort.  One returned my call but she was in another city this evening.  She is in town tonight though.  Really tried to make it work but I haven't followed up.  I know that it is wrong so I haven't done anything.  Doesn't mean I won't, but I don't want to screw up yet again.

No Friends

Not sure why, but that whole issue of having no friends bubbled up to my consciousness.   Not a huge event, it's just that I had the document open so decided to note it down in text.  It seems kind of amazing to me but it isn't really that uncommon.  Of course I don't think it is all that common either.  No friends.  That's quite a thought.  No one who really cares, no frequent human associates for anything more than secular interests.  While there are people I know with whom I'm on speaking terms, I can't really call them friends.  So many of the people I communicate with are escorts so, while they are perfectly willing to share some conversation, it all costs money.  They aren't really interested in me, they are interested in making money.  It hurts a little to think about it.  I don't miss having friends all the time, just occasionally.  I'm not terribly averse to having friends, but I am not terribly interested in doing so either.  I'd like to have a few really close friends.  I don't and probably won't for many years.  Even if I did get reinstated, who would want to be my friend.  They'd all just give me the evil eye like they did when I wasn't df'd.

I wish I could figure out why people are not comfortable around me.  They really aren't.  I have heard people in the cube next to me getting invited to stuff and I'm sitting right there and they clearly don't want me there.  They tried to keep their voice down so I wouldn't realize what was happening.  I feel badly when that sh*t happens.  How could I not.  I don't think I am always conscious of how deeply that stuff pains me.  I guess it may be part of the defensive mechanism I've built up since it happens so frequently for so very many decades.

I'm feeling that self hate deep in my soul now.  Just kind of down there gnawing away at my insides.  Poisoning my biochemistry.  I really have begun to think that one day I'm just going to discover some form of cancer and I'll say no to chemotherapy and radiation.  I'll just wait for it to kill me and then kill myself when the pain, discomfort, shame gets too much to tolerate.  I know my kidneys are bad.  That might be the mechanism.  I'm not sure I would even try to "get my affairs in order."  

Yup, depression is taking hold again, even while I am on medication.  This is bad.

My Shame

I feel an very sharp sense of shame over my life now.  Failures on all major fronts:

1. Spiritual
2. Educational
3. Secular
4. Interpersonal Interactions
5. Parental
6. Financial
7. Recreational

There isn't a single area where I look at my life and feel a sense of pride.

I used to pray about it a lot.  I still do occasionally.  I don't think God much cares about my sense of shame since I really ought to be ashamed of the pall I cast on his name.  Now that is something legitimate to worry about.

But honestly I just want to hide myself from everyone I know and from those I might get to know.  I feel a deep sense of loss and regret over the choices I made in my life.  And I knew better .  .  .

Yup, suicidal thoughts are coming back.  I keep remembering moments of deep shame, embarrassing situations, public and private failures.  This is killing me.  But it is what it is.  I can't change the past and I need to just keep moving on, if possible.

I mean, logically it only makes sense to kill one's self when there is no hope.  If God is offering no hope now, then nothing would matter.  But I don't believe this is the case.  At least I hope not.

I feel sort of dull, no sharp desire to do anything.  I think that is my depression talking.  I don't ever get excited about anything, there is just stuff to do.  None of it is fun.  I was looking at an advert for New Zealand.  Looked like fun.  I'd probably go if it were not for the fact that I have no one to go with.  It would be just me the whole time.  I don't think it would be fun.  I'd just spend the whole time feeling lonely and sorry for myself.  I am so pitiful.

I guess I pray more than I used to.  Nonetheless there have been times in the past when I have prayed a lot as well.  I don't perceive a long term  benefit from having done so.  I am sure that is because the bad decisions that I was making while I was praying a lot.  It all just seems so hopeless.  But I know it need not be, that is if I do God's will, consistently.

I am such a failure.  Nothing (except eating and sex) is fun.  I do both of them too much.  One of them is off limits by God's standards; so doing it at all is a sin.  The other marks me as a glutton since I have already eaten enough calories for the next months at the very least.  I don't want to see other people because I am afraid that they will see my shame.  Life is good, it is a blessing from God.  However because I have made so many choices apart from God's direction and guidance, my life is unhappy right now, and for quite some time to come.

Yet, in spite of the low probability of ultimate success, I will keep trying to make this work.  I feel like it is like working to fix the starship engines once you are on the wrong side of the the event horizon.  The benefits, unending life, are certainly worth the effort.  It is just hard to keep going when the outlook is so bleak.

I wish I could just snap out of it.  I used to have no patience for people who called themselves depressed.  I associated it with laziness.  Now here I am.  I call myself lazy all the time.

So the depression must be taking hold.  When it gets bad I feel tired and sleepy all the time even when I have had plenty of rest the night before.  Last night I got home early and went to sleep around 5:00 PM.  I got up at 8:00 for 1.5 hours but went back to sleep for another 6.5 hours.  Total of 9.5 hours of sleep.  It is 3:00 in the afternoon and I am about to fall out of my chair for being so sleepy.  This is bad.

Please Don't Stand So Close to Me

Sasha - crazy man chasing a woman half his age.  OK, fine .  .  .  less than half his (my) age.

So an escort that I used frequently stopped by this morning.  She lives nearby and was having trouble sleeping.  I had texted her earlier just to check in and see how she was doing.  When I woke up in the middle of the night I saw she had replied after I went to bed, so I typed in a few responses.  As it turns out she was awake.  So she stopped by   before I left for work.  We just sat and talked and snuggled on the couch (nothing nasty at all.)  While she was sitting there I kept wondering what she wanted.  She never comes over unless I pay her and now there she was not asking for money.

So anyway we snuggled for about 1/2 hour before I had to get up and go to work.  Of course later that AM she texts me asking for 100 USD.  I said OK of course.  It is just so disappointing.  I mean there is no real way I could ever expect her to want to just come over and snuggle.  But the request for funds was just what I would have expected, had I been pragmatic enough earlier in the day.

It just goes to show that I have no real friends.  I just have acquaintances I pay for companionship.  Nothing more.  It is hard being shunned by everyone around me but that is just how things are now.  I don't know if they will ever change in my life time.  So I don't know if they will ever change for me.

Of course this isn't the first time she borrowed money from me.  Once she asked for 400USD.  A few weeks later she asked for 300.  I never talk about it with her.  I promised I would not hound her for repayment.  /so after today, I sent a text saying: As I recall you now owe me 800 USD.  I told her I wasn't stressing about it but wanted to make sure that she recalled the same thing.  Of course she hasn't texted back.

This person, dear reader, is my best real live human friend.  The others are gone.  So my best friend demands 200 USD per hour to be with me.  That's my life.  This is me.  Dumbass Mark.  IHMS.

Typical Day Down Here in Depression City

Not sure what is behind the flurry of posts in the last few days but, well here I go again.

I googled suicide today.  I wanted to know where to shoot to ensure instant death rather than lingering around in pain and not being dead.  On TV they shoot inside their mouth toward the back of the head.  Sometimes they aim at the temple.  Other times under the chin aiming upward.  Personally I think that in the mouth is best since it puts the bullet in the back of the skull near the brain stem.

I don't own a gun.  I don't think that I would choose this method since there are other methods that are very sure and painless.

But why am I thinking about that.  Probably because my situation feels bad and the solution would require extended effort over a very long period of time.  Something that I haven't yet been able to put together.  I've quit attending meetings for the last 2 weeks.  Ever since it snowed.  It will always be something that I can't do.

Nonetheless God doesn't require the impossible.  I have to keep asking him for help.  Oddly enough that is harder than it sounds.

Work is no fun.  I'm always sad that I don't have the influence here that I'd like to have.  I only work on what other people tell me to do.  I don't feel like I have any prerogative.  I tell my boss that I enjoy my work.  That is not entirely a lie since there are many interesting aspects.  However I am never a decision maker.  I recommend approaches and others decide what they want to do.

But I am not hungry.  I go to sleep with a satisfied belly nightly.  I am not aware of some loathsome disease, I can still walk for a few miles without falling over.  I have much of my hair and the majority of my teeth.  Life is not all bad.  It is just that I am rejected by my religion and trying to figure out how to get back has become problematic.

My depression is being held at bay by the medication that I am taking.  However I am not improving.  When walking or just sitting around thinking I constantly contemplate the failures that I have in my life.  So daily, the most exciting thing I look forward to is watching TV.   I used to look forward to going out with an escort but I am trying to wean myself off that.  It is not something that God wants me to do and it leads to sex (Read:  wickedness and ultimately death at God's hands.)

So I am thinking that this is not a good thing for me to do.  Nonetheless since this is literally the only fun thing that I do, it is very hard to resist.

I need to work on my house in Martinsville.  I need to do so many things.  I wish I could just sell everything.  Take the money and pay my debts, then do myself in after spending the rest. It is just not  a pleasant life I lead.  It's not awful, just not very much fun.  But everyone has problems.  If I could get back to being a good JW then all would be OK with me.  That is just a prospect that continues to look impossible.  What to do, what to do .  .  .

Breakdown Process

Where to i begin?  Well I haven't done anything really really bad stupid yet.  God has helped me all along by somehow helping me avoid getting responses to all the requests to my selected "comfort girls" aka escorts.  One actually responded a few times.  Really pretty, tall and close by.  Somehow I just couldn't bring myself to get over there.

But now here I am again.  Tempted, stuck mentally at work.  I feel like I can't do any work now.  I try to start and I just can't focus.  Well, not on work anyway.  I am focusing on escorts.  I am falling.  I am going to do this thing.  I have failed to uphold God's standards in my life again.  What a waste.  Little doubt that I am not going to "make it."  That is so sad.  All the wonders of the universe are possible in God's Kingdom.  And I am about to trade it all in for one sordid hour of pleasure.  No, it isn't worth it.  Far from it.  But the temptation is too strong now for me to break away.  She is just too tall, too pretty, to tempting.  I just can't bear it.  This is really bad .  .  .

I have watched myself fail before, now I am blogging through my failure.  It is so disappointing.  Trading forever for a moment.  But my head is all screwed up now.  I can't gain perspective anymore, not with the prospect of such temptation at my fingertips.  I feel like I have faced something like this before.  When I stand firm I don't feel good afterward,  I just feel damaged.  Like when a fort repels a vicious attach just barely.  They are vulnerable to the next one.  Of course with God all things are possible, but in my case failure has been the rule because, obviously, I just don't love God enough.

It's later in the afternoon.  Between the previous paragraph and this one I read the old posts from March 2017 when I was just kicked out.  It was pretty sad time.  More importantly I prayed a lot for help.  I was surprised that it worked and I didn't actually do something stupid.  Why praying worked now and not before is unknown.  I think it is because I have been reading bible and study publications so much.  This is not something I think I will be able to keep up with.  But if my life depends on it I should.

Of course that has not been sufficient motivation for the first 50 plus years of my life so .  .  .

I think I have just delayed the inevitable.  But that doesn't make sense b/c God doesn't require the impossible.

OK so it is the next day.  I didn't do the stupid thing.  I can't believe God is still working to help me even though I keep doing things like looking at the advertising sites and the emails from the providers I've previously engaged.  I know I can't keep doing that.  I really know that God will kill me if I don't stop that.  He isn't going to constantly stand over me holding me back from making the same mistake with me continually doing things that lead me down the path of doing it.  I still can't believe I didn't do anything this week.  But I am nowhere near out of the woods on this.  I have plenty of additional opportunities to screw up.  Honestly I still don't think I am going to make it.  The history is just too full of repeated mistakes and back-sliding for me to believe I won't do that again.  This isn't to impugn God's ability to assist, it is to realize my lack of resolve to do His will.

I always thought that I'd make it somehow, someway.  I don't believe that anymore.  The history of my failures is too long and deep.  I just know that with God anything is possible.  But God won't drag anyone kicking and screaming for Satan's system of things into his new world.

Once a @!#$ing gain

Another day another post.  Why?  I have no clue.  I prayed a lot yesterday and then again this morning.  I am trying to thank God for the good things he provides rather than all prayers just asking for stuff.  A few days ago I thanked him for the super interesting and complex world of subatomic particles and the cool and strange behaviors at the quantum level.  Today I thanked him for women.

That escort I met a couple of posts ago still haunts my mind.  I know that we will never be friends but she just seems like the epitome of so much of the good things that a woman might be.  She is beautiful, tall, smart, takes care of herself, kind hearted and likes kids.  Wow, what a combination.  But, she is way too expensive for me to form a friendship.  Honestly I'll probably never see her again.  In any case though, if I do God's will then eventually I might befriend a woman like that.  They can be some pretty awesome creatures.

Back at work now.  This post sees me avoiding working on my performance review.  Oh well,  I can't put it off forever.

But just a little longer .  .  .

So the latest depressing thoughts is a continuation of the earlier rant.  So things are going better in the last couple of days, praying a lot, doing bible reading and reading WBTS publications.  I have to wonder how long this will last.  I know it is just a matter of time before it all falls apart.  I don't want that to happen but history indicates that it will.  It is a sad thought.  I want to believe I can change but I have been wanting to change for the last decade or more.  Hasn't happened yet.  Maybe it's today.  As I've said earlier, God only knows.  I keep hoping that this is the time.  But I just know that, statistically speaking, it is very unlikely.

Crap!