Never be bullied into silence

I saw this image on Facebook yesterday, and it was a powerful message for me, not just as a gay man who has been told many times by people to just stay in the closet because people like to keep thinking we don’t exist, but also as a child abuse survivor who was basically told I’m not allowed to tell my story.

My sister had some guy write a review of my book on Amazon, but it wasn’t just a review, it was an attack on me personally. He said that I am lying to my readers about an abuse that never occurred. How does he know? He wasn’t even there. But he told me in his review to change the genre of my book from autobiography to fiction because it’s all lies.

I will never be bullied into silence. I’m not going to remove my book from Amazon, which by the way you can read for free with Amazon Prime or Kindle Unlimited. I’m not going to change the genre of my book to fiction because it’s not fiction. Every story in my book is true, and I honestly don’t care if anyone doesn’t believe me because I know it’s true.

When I saw this image, I knew I wanted to make it into a pillow. Sure, I could put it in a frame and hang it somewhere, but I’d rather make it into a pillow so it has some function other than just something to look at. It’s not going to be a square pillow, it’s going to be the shape you see in the picture.

I asked the person who shared it if there was a pattern, but they shared it from another source, and honestly, how many sources has this been shared from? So I decided I’m not even going to bother finding the original source, I’m just going to copy it into my program Plastic Canvas Design Studio. It does stitches like / but it also does \ so I just used both stitches so I could get an X. And here it is. You may take the image and turn it into your own pillow, or if you would rather just make it and frame it, it’s your choice. But please don’t sell the image for profit.

Advertisement

Moving DiaryofaGayNerd.com to WordPress.com

When I published my book Diary of a Gay Nerd on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, I bought a website and added the domain to the book. My reason for wanting a website was so that I could blog about child abuse issues, issues of LGBT discrimination and book excerpts. Unfortunately I didn’t do as much of that as I had hoped I would. I tried, but it just didn’t work out.

My problem now is that it is almost 4 years since I published my book, and I have been paying for hosting for a website that I hardly ever blog with, and a website that no one hardly ever visits. I actually don’t even know if anyone visits my website.

The solution is simple. I have another website at http://www.xanapus.com and I decided to get rid of my hosting and import all of my blog posts on WordPress.com and map my domain to that blog, so I will do the same with this one.

I have already imported everything, that includes all posts, pages, media and comments to diaryofagaynerd.wordpress.com, so all that’s left is to get rid of my hosting and map my domain. Oh and of course I also have to decorate this new blog so it looks awesome. I would also like to dedicate more time to blogging.

When the domain has been mapped to this new blog, I will blog about it.

Read My Book for Free

Do you have Amazon Prime and a Kindle? If you answered yes to both of those questions, you are eligible to read my book for FREE! Amazon Prime is this awesome membership that allows you to get free 2-day shipping on everything you buy, unlimited music, movies, TV shows and books among many other features all for just $99 a year after your 30 day trial.

When I first published my book in 2012, I wanted to publish it for the Nook, the Kindle and Rainbow eBooks as well as have the paperback version available on Amazon. Kindle has this option for authors who are self publishing to make more money, but only if you sell your digital copy through them. I didn’t want to give people one choice because I don’t believe in the monopoly. Well, after a few years I’ve decided to just go ahead with the deal. This is a great deal for you and me, it’s literally a win/win situation

This is your chance to finally read my book if you haven’t already. You can also tell your friends and family to read it for free if they also have a Kindle with Amazon Prime.

Of course if you do want to own my book, you still have the option of buying the paperback or Kindle copy. You won’t be able to buy the Nook copy, for now. It will be back eventually, I’m sure, but for now, read it on your Kindle.

I am told this does not work on the Kindle app for phones or tablets, it only works if you have a Kindle. Luckily the Kindle is cheaper than ever. You can buy a Kindle, 6″ Glare-Free Touchscreen Display, Wi-Fi – Includes Special Offers for only $79. It’s a great price, and it’s an awesome new Kindle.

So start your one month free trial of Amazon Prime (One Year Membership) so you can start reading my book Diary of a Gay Nerd: Life after Child Abuse, It Gets Better! What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation?

Don’t Shoot The Messenger

I’ve never written a book before Diary of a Gay Nerd, so when it comes to having a social media website to advertise for my book, I honestly don’t know what I’m doing. I do know that I should be advertising my book, like all day, which is the point of having a Facebook page specifically for my book, but I don’t want to shove it down people’s throats. I feel like if people are a fan of my Facebook page, they know it’s a book, so if they like me, then they will buy my book.

I didn’t write it to make money, I wrote it to get my side of the story out. So instead of it being an advertisement for my book, I share pictures and articles that hit a nerve because it may have something to do with how I was treated as a child, teen or adult, and basically to say “See! It’s happening to other people as well.”

Earlier this year I shared an image for women that was basically saying don’t hit your girlfriend or wife. It was an image for domestic violence. I also mentioned in my comment that this applies to women, children and your pets. Don’t hit anyone because no one deserves to be hit. Well, that pissed one man off who I can only assume is either a wife abuser, or the victim of domestic abuse by his female domestic partner. He called me a sexist for standing up for women. Sir, I am sorry if you were abused by a woman, but don’t hold all women accountable for your situation. If you are an abuser, then well, you know where you can go. But don’t call me a sexist for standing up for what I believe, because I think that women should be treated with dignity and respect.

A couple of months ago there was a story about a man who left his child in the car while he was at work. I simply shared the story. I gave no opinion of him as a person, I simply said how sad for the child. Someone verbally attacked me because she thought I was attacking him, and that I should give him a break because people make mistakes and he was probably thinking he dropped the kid off at day care or whatever. Then over the next couple of weeks we found out that he had lied to police and that not only did he leave his child in the car on purpose, but he Googled how long it would take for an animal to die in a car. He was also sexting with someone who was not his wife while his child was dying in the car. But I’m the asshole for sharing the story.

That brings me to yesterday when I shared a story of a man who was yelling at someone because he didn’t like gay people. He kept saying “Cause this is America!” and he used the word faggot and queer several times before kicking a man in a pink shirt in the groin, then proceeded to punch him in the face and on the head before being tackled by a group of people who were only trying to help the man who was being beat up. The whole thing was caught on tape and yet some person shared the story on their personal profile saying she did not find the article on CNN or any Dallas news websites, so it is obviously … Well, let me show you her comment so you can see.

So since they couldn’t find it on any Dallas news website, I decided to look into it, and guess what I found? Go ahead, guess.

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/video-shows-passengers-police-at-dallasfort-worth-international-airport-stopping-an-anti-gay-attack-at-gate.html/

“The Dallas Morning News” blog

“When asked to confirm its authenticity, DFW spokesperson Cynthia Vega says. “Yes, it did happen, and yes, there was an arrest.” We do not know the name of the man taken into custody.Vega is not even sure when it took place: Wednesday or Thursday. We sent the videographer some questions via Facebook earlier today, and await his reply. We have also asked for the police report, and will update when it is made available.”

Sooo…

Look, I am not an expert at knowing what to do and what not to do with a Facebook page for a book, because no one is telling me what I should and should not post. I am on my own here, so if I am doing it wrong I would like to know. I’ve been doing this for almost 3 years and I’ve only had a few complaints. I think I’m doing pretty good.

If you don’t like a story, fine, but don’t shoot the messenger, because I did not write that story, I did not video record the fight or the man being arrested, and I did not stage anything. I shared the article because it hit a nerve. I’ve been yelled at and called a queer and a faggot, so that hit a nerve. I’ve been kicked in the groin by a homophobe, so that hit a nerve. I’ve been punched in the face and in the head by a homophobe, several in fact, and guess what it hit? A nerve! So yeah, I’m going to share the article without verifying it because it looked real to me, and there was no reason to think it wasn’t real.

So CNN didn’t report on this story, okay, so what. I am sure there are literally a thousand stories like this per day that they cannot report on. The local news websites probably didn’t report on it because they are waiting for the videographer to respond to them, hence their crime blog saying they “will update when it is made available.”

If you want to form an opinion of me as a person, or my book as a book, or my Facebook page as a page based on whether I share credible stories from CNN, you are going to have a hard time in life because even the most credible news sources make mistakes from time to time. Fox News reported on a story that turned out to be satire. So tell me again how it’s my responsibility to share ONLY credible news stories again.

If someone wants to stop following me, I can’t control that, but do me a favor, don’t shame me on your profile, because I did not do anything wrong. I shared the story and other credible Facebook pages shared the same story. Are you going to unfollow them too, or was I targeted because you wanted a reason to stop following me?

All I can say to any of these people who hold me accountable for other people’s actions is good luck and have a nice life.

Sometimes you just need to cry

Writing “Diary of a Gay Nerd” helped me to release some, if not most of the horrible memories of my life, but it didn’t make them go away. The memories still haunt me. I feel so alone sometimes, especially when people tell me to just get over it. I’ve heard “Just get over it.” and “Stop living in the past.” Look, I spend most of my time living in the present and even looking forward to the future, but the past keeps creeping up on me and pulling me back. It’s not something I can control no matter how hard I try, and believe me, I have tried.

PTSD and Depression are a very real thing. You can suffer something traumatic and suffer through depression for a year, or perhaps it may take 10 years, maybe 20 or the rest of your life. I knew a woman who died in her 80’s and she was depressed her entire adult life after the death of her daughter. Depression doesn’t have a time limit. The only people who think that there is a time limit are people who have never been through something so traumatic that it put them into a deep depression.

I’ve tried talking with my family about the memories when I was younger, but all they did was talk about how funny the memories were for them. Like when I was 19 or 20 and my parents lived in Quartz Hill. We were talking about something that happened when I was 12 or 13 and my sister FINALLY admitted to purposefully getting me into trouble, and then laughing her ass off when I was getting the shit beat out of me for it. I knew then I couldn’t talk to my family without them finding it funny. It may have been funny to my sister to get me in trouble and then laugh while I was paying the price, but it was not funny to me then, it wasn’t funny at age 19 or 20, and it’s still not funny at age 44. In fact, as far as I am concerned, it will never be funny. The only thing my sister taught me was that I can never open up to her and talk about my feelings, because all she did was made fun of me.

I cry every now and then to let all the pain out and then I am good to go. Just like the picture says, “You can’t be strong all the time. Sometimes you just need to be alone and let your tears out.” You have to let all of your negative feelings out and you have to cry because if you don’t, if you just bottle all of your emotions every time, that bottle will get full and just like a Mentos being dropped into a bottle of Coca Cola, your emotions will burst out of the bottle like a rocket. Don’t let it get that far, just talk to someone and let out some of your emotions.

Do what I do, write a book, or write a blog. Even if no one reads it, it still lets some of those negative emotions out and releases the tension. If someone does read it, and they respond telling you they know how you feel, then you know you are not alone. And speaking of which, if you are reading this, just know that you are NOT alone. I am ALWAYS here if you need to talk.

Twitter – @DiaryofaGayNerd @xanapus

Facebook.com/DiaryofaGayNerd

Rush Limbaugh and Shepard Smith’s insensitive comments about Robin Williams’ Suicide

I feel a bit upset tonight. I was on Facebook earlier today when I saw Robin Tyler post a status update from Lewis Black that said:

I wasn’t sure what Rush Limbaugh said, but he is a jerk and everything he says is negative and insensitive. I looked up what he said and here is the quote from Rawstory:

“What is the left’s world view in general?” Limbaugh asked his audience the day after Williams’ death was announced. “If you had to attach, not a philosophy, but an attitude to a leftist world view. It’s one of pessimism, and darkness, sadness. They’re never happy, are they?”

“They’re animated in large part by the false promises of America because the promises of America are not for everyone,” he continued, pointing to a Fox News report that suggested Williams had struggled with financial issues, and survivor’s guilt after the deaths of entertainers like Christopher Reeve, Andy Kaufman and John Belushi.

“Robin Williams felt guilty that he was still alive while his three friends had died young, and much earlier than he had,” the conservative talker explained. “He could never get over the guilt that they died and he didn’t.”

“Well, that is a constant measurement that is made by political leftists in judging the country.”

Listen to the audio from The Rush Limbaugh Program, broadcast Aug. 12, 2014.

Later he tried to back pedal by saying he was misquoted. This is what he had to say:

“[A]ll of these low-rent, despicable, irresponsible, pathetic, so-called media watchdogs on the left are trying to make it sound like I said Robin Williams gave up because he was a liberal, and he’s hopelessly doomed to misery and despair because that’s what liberals are devoted to. And I said no such thing.”

Really? “Low-rent, despicable, irresponsible, pathetic…” Excuse me? This coming from the low-rent, despicable, irresponsible and pathetic man who does drugs, more specifically OxyContin, can’t get an erection, I know this because he was detained in the Domincan Republic for traveling with a prescription of Viagra that was not prescribed to him. He has been married 4 times and I know this because of this article. So let’s not pretend he is an authority on well, anything.

He has no room to talk negative about anyone and frankly he has the biggest balls of steel to even still be on the radio talking trash about other people. I mean, what good has he done in his life? Robin Williams was a good person and he lived a good life. He made everyone happy every time he opened his mouth, what has Rush Limbaugh done to make anyone happy when he opened his mouth? All he does is talk negative trash about everyone, unless they are conservatives, then he praises them, even when they do stupid things.

Instead of saying negative things about the man, just shut the fuck up! I apologize for my language but I’m at that point where it’s going to come out.

Shepard Smith called Robin Williams a coward just hours after he committed suicide. HOURS! Can you believe that? He later apologized for it, but it’s still out there.

“Something inside you is so horrible or you’re such a coward or whatever the reason that you decide that you have to end it. Robin Williams, at 63, did that today,”

You cannot give your opinion about something that you know nothing about. If you have never suffered through depression or even contemplated suicide, then you have no right to talk negatively about someone who has.

I have suffered, and am still suffering through depression. I have PTSD from my childhood. I have been depressed since I was a child. People who are depressed don’t let anyone know they are depressed, so they put up a front to make it look like they are happy. I’m constantly trying to lighten the mood by cracking jokes or making puns because I want people to think I’m happy.

Suicide is not a decision to be taken lightly. It is not easy, and you are not a coward. If you have thought about taking your own life, it is not something that you just decide to do, then do it. You have to be going through some really bad stuff for a long time and be wishing you were dead throughout that long time. You don’t just decide today I’m going to kill myself. That comes from years of depression and years of people treating you like crap.

I attempted suicide for the first time when I was around 12 or 13 years old. I didn’t just decide today is the day, no this was after years of being treated like crap by my step father. My sister had started treating me like crap when I was 9 years old, and by the time I decided to commit suicide, my baby sister had joined in on the fun. I was also being beat up at school because I was gay and being called names like fag, faggot, mother fucker, asshole… you name it, I was called it. My step father had been calling me a sissy since I learned to walk and when I was 12 or 13 made a comment that “he wished they would put all the faggots on an island and kill them all” right in front of me. My sister started calling me a bastard when I was 9 and a mother fucker when I was 11. Just imagine what I was going through on a daily basis. So yeah, I was severely depressed and severely suicidal.

How did I try to commit suicide you ask? Well, it started out punching myself in the face in my bedroom. Not because I was trying to get a bruise so I could say my family did it to me because I knew I didn’t bruise, but because I was punishing myself every time they punished me. Then I started to choke myself by holding my finger right on the spot on my neck where the airway was. I would hold it for as long as I could. Sometimes I would hold it until my natural reaction was to let go to breathe again, but then I would just keep holding it until I had passed out. I would wake up in the morning and be pissed off at myself because I thought it would work. Of course when I did that, it was while I was laying in bed. I wanted it to look like I went to sleep and just didn’t wake up. I tried that nearly every night for months.

There are other times that I tried to commit suicide that I wrote about in my book in detail, so if you want to read those stories, buy my book.

All I’m saying is, you cannot judge a person based on why they committed suicide, because you simply do not know what is going on in their private lives to make that judgment. So next time you say that it was because of this or that, well you just don’t know and you should get the facts before you say anything. I don’t know why he committed suicide and I will never know.

I am so beyond sad that he died, but I was so happy that this world had such an awesome man entertain us for so many years. It kills me inside that he died and it kills me even more that people have to be such assholes by saying such horrible things about him.

Rest in peace you wonderful funny man. I loved you so much and I will never forget you.

Writing Notebook

I feel like I’m in school all over again, but instead of actually sitting in a classroom, I’m sitting in my bedroom. I joke around that I’m home schooling myself. Well, technically I am.

The book that I am writing is a fantasy fiction novel based on my Gnome Wizard character in EverQuest. Although, it will not be based in that world, instead I will be creating a brand new world.

In order for me to write this with a solid foundation, I have to read 5 books in the “Write Great Fiction” series. I bought these ebooks on my Nook to help me learn to write fiction. But it’s not just reading books, I have to also create my characters. I mean, I could just say here is Joe Schmo and this is Tom Jones, but they are not regular people. The characters that I am creating are all fantastic creatures like gnomes, halflings, elves and centaurs etc. They all have specific talents that only certain races and certain classes can have. Each race and class can also only equip certain armor, weapons and spells and they have to cast the right spells on the mobs in the story. It has to be right, otherwise people will know and put the book down and say this is BS. You can’t put a Warrior in cloth, or silk, or you can’t put armor on a wizard. You can’t make your wizard throw fire balls at a fire creature, it will absorb the fire and won’t do any harm, you have to throw ice at him. I literally have to go by the book.

The character sheet you see is for a game called Challenger RPG. I downloaded 2 ebooks for that free game last night, so I will read those books and see if it will teach me to play that game. If that game doesn’t work for me then I will try the Dungeons & Dragons. I have many D&D books that I will need to read to create my characters from. And no, this is not going to be a Dungeons & Dragons story, but I can use that game to create my characters and to teach me what I need to know. I printed 12 of these character sheets to put in the notebook so I can make notes on each of my characters. I am sure I will make some mistakes, which is why I printed so many. I will print more as needed.

I played EverQuest from 2002 to around 2008 or 2009. I have played a wizard, shaman, warrior, enchanter, necromancer, druid and shadow knight. I have played a gnome, vah shir, barbarian, half-elf, human, high elf, drakkin and halfling. I don’t know what I am doing with many of the classes and races though. Just because I have played the game for nearly a decade, doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. And it has been many years since I’ve played, so I am a little rusty, so that’s why I have the character sheets and why I plan on using another RPG game to create my characters.

I also intend on using the RPG games to create my fighting scenes. I’m not going to use it to create my plot or my story or dialog, I just need a little help with the battles. I do have a good imagination, but it’s not that good.

You can see a Trapper Keeper in the image at the top, but unfortunately I do not own one. If they sold them in the store then I would buy one, but I haven’t seen them so far. I still have lots of notebook paper from many years ago. I kept a notebook for my crochet patterns, so I have some school supplies. I don’t need to buy new notebook paper because my printer can print that out for me, it can also print graph paper which I also intend on printing so I can draw my maps, houses, cities, castles etc. I will need those to help me decide where my characters are going so it doesn’t seem like I’m going just anywhere in the world.

I never knew how much work went into writing a book. This project has opened my eyes to everything that a writer must go through when they are creating a fictional world like I am. Never take for granted what other people go through so you can have even a tiny bit of entertainment.

Never be bullied into silence

I’ve shared many images similar to this on my Facebook page and Twitter along with a 1 liner about how true the image is, but I’ve never written a blog post because I’ve never actually had something that hit as close to home as this particular image does.

When I began writing my book when I was 19 years old on my old Apple //e computer that my ex brother-in-law sold to me (for $750 that I made payments to every week until it was paid off), I wasn’t sure if 1 I could write it or 2 if I should write it. I lost the disk when I had to sell the computer to live. I could only get $75 for it after only a few short years of owning it.

I spent my entire adulthood wanting to write it, but afraid to because if I ever spoke my mind, my family would throw something back in my face, something that is not really that damning to me really. If I said that someone did or said something to me, they would always say that I ran away from home when I was 13 years old and went to studio city. Who cares! They never bring up the reason I decided to run away, that I was following in my own sister’s footsteps. She was gone for 3 days with her boyfriend. I was gone for maybe 2 hours at the most. Who cares about that, but apparently they seem to think that it is such a horrible thing, like they are comparing it to murder.

In 2010 my HIV doctor told me that I probably only had 10 more years to live, I decided that I really wanted to write it and who cares what anyone thinks. I finally published it in February 2012 knowing that if my family ever found out, they would bring up this horrible running away story as if I were this horrible person. My sister had her friend call me names like a drama queen in his “review” of my book. It wasn’t so much a review as much as it was an attack on my character. This coming from a man who has pictures of swastikas in his Facebook photo albums and calls himself a Anti-Zionist. Someone who doesn’t know me, has never met me, has only ever heard stories about me seems to think he knows everything there is to know about me. I’m an onion Baby Jane Hudson. I have so many layers that you don’t even know about. Don’t presume to think you know me.

Anyway, this guy says in his review that I should stop lying to people and change my book from memoir to fiction. You can bully me into silence all you want, but it’s not going to work because my book is my truth. It is how I saw life through my memories and no one can change that. He threatened that I could be sued for slander, which by the way you cannot sue me because you don’t know me and because I changed all the names for “their” protection. It was more for my protection.

I will never be bullied into silence. This is my life and I will speak my truth and there is nothing anyone can do to change that. I don’t care if it means never speaking with my sisters who don’t really speak with me anyway. And frankly, I could give a rats patooty if I never speak with my step father again for the rest of my life. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have a need to write a book.

Oh, he mentions in his “review” that I used Writing Fiction for Dummies to write my book. Well, no I didn’t, but I did buy that book for another purpose. It was always my dream since I was a child to write a book, it just turns out that the book I chose to write about was my life story. I didn’t read that book to help me write my book. I wrote my book without any help, I did that on my own. I wrote it the same way I would tell someone in person. 4 years after I wrote my memoir, I am finally starting to read that book, but I found another series more helpful and I am reading those now. If I still have 6 years to go, I want to write this fiction that I have wanted to write since I was a child and I don’t care what anyone says about it. It’s my dream and I will make that dream come true, just you watch.