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

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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.

Don’t Hit Anyone!

Have you ever been so angry with someone and the only thing that you could think to do was to hit them? Why? Put yourself in their shoes. Haven’t you ever said something that you regret, didn’t mean to say, or that you phrased it the wrong way? Did you want to be hit for saying it? Probably not. Or perhaps you dropped a plate and it was a really expensive plate, but it was an accident, do you really think you deserved to be hit? No, you didn’t, because it’s an object, it’s a thing. I don’t care if that thing cost $10 or $100, it’s a thing and it is insignificant compared to the damage you will do to a child, spouse, family member, friend or even a complete stranger.

I have gotten angry at times from the way people have spoken to me or treated me time and time again, it’s like they push and push and push until you are broken, but the most I’ve ever done was yelled at them to stop, I never hit them. My partner and I have been together for 20 years and not one time has either of us hit the other. We’ve had screaming matches, and it was usually over something so stupid that I couldn’t even tell you what it was about even if I tried really hard. But we NEVER hit each other. We’ve brought our anger towards each other down to about 5% over the last 20 years. We bicker occasionally, but we don’t yell because life is too short and neither of us deserve it.

There was a picture on Facebook of a man holding a dog by the throat against a wall with his fist in front of the dog’s face. Now I ask, what did that dog ever do to that guy that he deserved to be abused like that? Did he eat his shoe? Knock over the garbage can in the kitchen because he smelled something that he wanted? Did he rip a pillow to shreds while he was at work? Probably none of the above. I bet that dog has been abused from day one, not because he did something wrong, but because by pure bad luck he ended up being adopted by an abusive person. And even if that dog did do something wrong, he’s an animal, it’s what they do! Sometimes they don’t understand our customs because they are still learning. You can swat at their behinds and tell them no in a very strong tone, but don’t beat the shit out of them for something stupid.

My point is that it doesn’t matter what someone said or did or if you just had a horrible day, you don’t take it out on the people and pets you love. It’s just not appropriate. If you ever want that person or animal to love and respect you, show them the same courtesy that you want to be shown to you by showing them how much you love them, not by how angry of a person you are. I would bet you would get sick and tired of being yelled at and hit on a daily basis, so why would you do that to someone else?

When you are angry, take a walk, talk to a therapist, vent to someone on Facebook, but don’t hit anyone. There are so many ways of taking out your frustration that doesn’t involve violence. Hitting causes psychological damage to people and your pets. They never forget how you treated them, and I can guarantee you that they will hold a grudge against you for the rest of their lives. 100 nice things will be erased by 1 punch in the face. Just think about that.

If mental scars were visible, the people you abuse would look horrible. If my mental scars were visible, you probably wouldn’t recognize me at all. I may seem like I have my shit together, but inside I’m a complete mess. I have had depression since childhood and believe me, it’s not fun, so just think about what you are doing before you do it.

Think before you yell, think before you hit.

Depression

Do you mind if I vent for a minute?  I wouldn’t normally blog about this because it happens to me a lot, but sometimes I just have to get it out.

Imagine being in high school and the other kids are pointing and laughing at you because of whatever reason.  You don’t quite fit their definition of the perfect human, so they point and laugh.  Well, imagine being 42 years old and people (adults) driving by your house while you’re walking the dog and they slow down as they are passing you and are blatantly pointing and laughing at you.  Not just one person in the car, but the driver and his three passengers.  It doesn’t feel good, I know because that happens to me a lot, in fact it happened to me again today.

There is an apartment building in our neighborhood that just so happens to be a section-8 apartment building, not that there is anything wrong with people who have to be on section-8, but that apartment seems to attract the lowest of the low.  There are mostly gang members and ever since they moved in to that building last year, they have been calling me “Big Gay Al” whenever I ride to the store.  As a matter of fact, I was exercising on my bike, riding 23 miles a day trying to lose weight and it was their “Big Gay Al” that made me stop riding.  It put me in a deep depression and I just gave up on trying to lose weight.  Since then they drive by laughing at me.

What’s funny is that they walk by the house all the time either alone or in groups and never once say a word to me, it’s only when they are in their car when they start spewing all this vile hatred at me.  That to me is cowardly.  I mean, calling me names is cowardly on it’s own, but doing it in a way that they don’t have to worry about confrontation because they have a vehicle to drive away is even more cowardly.

Look, I know it’s not going to be the rest of my life, that these asshats are only here until either their lease is up or until they get so many complaints that they end up getting evicted, but it still hurts that I have to be the target.  I’m sure they pick on other people, but I seem to be one of their main targets.  And it’s not just them, there have been other tenants who have targeted me and they tortured me for the duration of their tenancy in that building.  I don’t know how or why I have become the target though.  Is it because I am bald, fat, gay or all of the above?

I am just so irritated.  I’ve been down in the dumps the whole day because of it.  When I get upset I have panic attacks and all of a sudden I’m really hungry and have to eat whatever I can get my hands on.  I don’t want to blame people for my obesity, but they are certainly a factor.

“It Gets Better!”  I just have to keep telling myself that.

I just want to cry my eyes out because I don’t know what else to do.  I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I know blogging about this didn’t make me feel any better, but it was a step.  I’m sorry you had to read that lol.