LifeStyle · Mental Illness

Battling Anxiety: Living like Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky

I’ve been battling anxiety, and I haven’t been keeping you posted​. 2021 has been nerve-wracking. Overall, I’m frustrated and failing miserably at hiding it. I’m looking to build new friendships with people outside my bubble, but it’s been very taxing. As a result, I want to retreat within myself and blink out of existence for several milliseconds. Is that too much to ask? Just a tiny, minuscule vacation of the mind. So to combat it, I spend countless days binge drinking and nursing regrets. When I’m not doing that, I’m outside people-watching. Jealously living vicariously through them.

Battling Anxiety

My doctors have been pissing me off too. I had to switch OBs earlier in the year because I couldn’t get a call back to save my life. It almost feels like a part-time job. Only, instead of making money, I’m spending money. Medical bills are increasing just for me to play phone tag. I was given a prescription for lupron that isn’t covered by insurance – well, it is covered but requires preauthorization or precertification. Long story short, I’m calling weekly to get a nurse to pick up a fax. No one calls back (I’ve been getting voicemail), and I have to stay on top of them. What exactly am I paying for?

At least my health is stable for now, I’ve regained my appetite, and I’m keeping food down. In keeping with this regimen for battling anxiety, I started daily walks (as much as the weather will allow). Consequently, it helps to lift my spirits. I’ve also picked up the Nikon again, and now I’m going on photography jaunts with my bro to see the world. While I am jealous of people living life, I’m also grateful for the privilege of being a fly on the wall — however short-lived it is. Slainte!

Mental Illness · sexuality

On the subject of ….

Pedophilia. I’ve met a lot of women in my lifetime who were assaulted or molested by an older man at some point in their teens. Society thinks it doesn’t happen, because no one talks about it. But half of these women were lesbians or promiscuous. Consequently, I think the molestation impacted their interactions with men in adult life.  And I think this way because, I at some point in my life, dated the same sex.

The feminine touch didn’t feel as dirty or cringe-worthy.   In the same vein, a man’s touch would make me flinch. I realize this has nothing at all to do with my sexuality.  I wasn’t dating women for love (though I had the capacity to love them).  Lesbian relationships just gave me a safer space.   You see, I have this idiosyncrasy.

I recoil each time a man reaches for me or I ball my fists up because if he touches me, I just know I’m gonna haul off and punch him. I can’t have that level of intimacy with a man without feeling like I want to scrub my skin off.  Because of this, I’m inclined to think being gay has nothing at all to do with sexual preference, and everything to do with feeling violated.

It occurred to me — a few years into my thirties — I wasn’t gay. I was just all kinds of fucked up. Well, I am– all kinds of fucked up. I was that little girl who was violated time and again. I can’t have normal adult conversations about sex and I live vicariously through movies like 40 year old Virgin, and Grown Ups because I envy those adult situations.