LONG BLOG
Another Day In Mania. (A vent/appreciation blog. It's long.)
Firstly, thank you Destructoid. There have been several of you very supportive to me as of late. Even though I know none of you that personally. Sometimes just that little bit of conversation back and fourth in the quickposts has been enough to really help me through a day.
It's been a long time since I've written up an actual blog on here, but today I just couldn't fit it all into a quickpost...or even half of it, really. Despite being a video game site, this place has kind of become a place where I can unwind, be truly myself and just express myself in general. I don't have that many friends, even at my best in my youth I didn't. Largely because I didn't want to. AND also largely because, to be honest, I was an asshole.
In my 30's now I feel pretty lonely on average outside of my daily interactions with my family. I don't have many friends I can see in person around my anymore. And the few that I can are pretty busy with their daily and professional lives. We try to have weekend get togethers when we can. Playing board games, video games, shooting the shit, occasionally going to a concert, etc.
But I gotta keep going back to that bit earlier about being an asshole. I really have struggled in my adult years to NOT be, but I know that in the end, at least half of the time I still am. As a teenager, most especially in my late teens and my early 20s I just fully embraced this. It kind of became my thing. I was the enforcer of my group of friends and associates. I didn't take people's shit, having grown up taking it most of my life. I fought at the drop of a hat and rarely lost a fight, largely because to be completely honest, I enjoyed it. I didn't freeze up or panic when faced with physical confrontation, in fact I relished in it. I used to put a lot of effort into learning self defense, some of it professionally, but mostly self taught. Best of all, to me then anyway, I quickly learned that the ladies loved it. Not the beating the hell out of people part, but the whole not giving a single fuck and "bad boy" image.
Starting at a fairly young age I'd encountered a lot of pretty nasty shit in life, despite having a pretty decent homelife. Regularly experiencing violence, plenty of it personally. Into my mid-twenties I knew I had some anxiety issues, was mis-diagnosed as being bi-polar. Only in more recent years finding out that in actuality I had post traumatic stress disorder. I have a problem still to this day with pretty severe hyper vigilance in particular, it's exhausting anytime I leave the house. For years I'd experience a state of mania that often lead to or ended in violence or me at least trying to calm myself out of getting violent with a given situation. (Hence why I was initially assumed to be bipolar, as this is a much more common symptom of that than PTSD.) This later would ultimately cost me a career and as an indrect result crush one of my life's dreams in the process. (Working in law enforcement, in both cases.) I was just as much at fault as any mental issues however, I just wasn't willing to realize this then.
My friends would jokingly say during some of these times I just needed to chill out with some weed. But, despite what MOST assume about me, I'm completely straight edge in that regard. I don't drink, smoke, do any drug, etc. So any chilling out I've learned to do comes from having to dig down deep through self reflection along with meditation and the like.
I have a lot of this to blame for my lack of getting out of the house anymore, and that's really why I bring it up. I'm a much better person today than I was even last year, but I still struggle greatly to make or keep good friends. So...I come here and do things like this. Sometimes to vent, sometimes just hoping to spark up some conversation, and I guess sometimes hoping to maybe make a friend. I know how pathetic that sounds, which I guess is why I decided to write this thing today. To just put it all out there, maybe feel a little better about myself.
Now I obviously have a passion for video games, or I'd not be here, right? But as anyone here who even remotely knows me probably knows, my biggest and greatest passion is heavy metal. I noticed last year that there are more than a few others here that share similar taste in music. It's so great to discuss music! I'm like an encyclopedia of heavy metal knowledge, and I'm always hoping to share it with others. I've dabbled in bands myself. Already tried (and failed) to be one of this shitty little town's best guitarists out there. That's what I wanted most in life for many, many years. To be the guitarist of some random band that someone looked up to, that someone admired. To completely rock someone's face off one night in a dingey little club and leave them wanting to go out and pick up a guitar of their own, much like I would feel in my early teens. (And what lead to me picking up the guitar in the first place.)
So, if you're tired of me talking about and posting about heavy metal bands in the quickposts this past year...sorry. I get carried away, but I enjoy sharing my passion so much that it hurts.
Now, to get it out of the way, 2017 has been a rough year for my family. A lot has happened, some pretty major tragedies and a whole lot of financial trouble. I got tired of feeling sorry for myself though, and have been actively working to keep my head up and stay focused on the positives to come in the coming months and years. I want to end this year on a high note and go into 2018 on an even higher one. And it may not seem like much, but as I said in the beginning of this, I really do appreciate everyone on here who's helped me through some rough days, being encouraging and friendly. It means a whole lot to me. During some of my shittier days in the past few months it has sometimes been one of the few moments during any downtime I'd find that I could smile.
So in the end, if I come off as an asshole sometimes, I apologize ahead of time. Just tell me, because I don't even realize I'm doing it until later when the regret sets in. I swear I'm not such a bad person anymore. Let's finish this year off together and start the next one while staying on top of life, yeah?
IF you read this far, thank you. I know it's a lot to read, I kind of get this way when I do this. I can't stop, just keep going. Another reason I prefer to try to restrict myself to Qposts, lol. Got a lot to say, and few to say it to, I guess.
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