Dismantling the Machine: Living with a Dying Battery

I had a very busy and social day yesterday.

I write this from a silent house where the other people are upstairs and silent or at least silent as far as my youtube music for concentration and big ass headphones will let me hear. I can sense more the heavy tapping of my finger to keys instead of the tippy taps. I took the liberty to make a french press of coffee using the mystery grind to avoid more noise and find a place to keep myself busy. I brought along my Xbox to keep my occupied, but previously planned plans have a tendency to go meh when things are going well at the expense on how much social tolerance I have. Yet a great many things were accomplished as well as the fears and worries of people close to my heart have dissolved to hope and determination, so the price is well paid. And for more bang for the buck, the right people came out of the woodwork to meet my close heart people to so that potential ring flashers can meet and exchange secret signs, knowing nods and mention the right names to know that they are not alone and greater good can be accomplished. So everything has been done to make things happy and yay. My heart close people even have the option to return from far away exiles to areas close to palate and joy of civilization instead of being the people on the edge of civilization.

And yet, if I may complain for the moment, am exhausted. It was never this bad before, but then again I ended up usually sick and forced to take the time alone where emotional batteries can recharge and my tolerance for the world can be refilled. Everyone to see came about and it was great and all, but social interaction drains me. I can not explain this, especially when most people consider me social and an odd extrovert when in honesty I'd rather see individuals for limited time, small cozy places and with an option of walking out. I was reminded yesterday that I am odd. I always have been odd and chances are even with all the work I am putting in will remain odd. I have issues with control and not having it, social interactions that have to be formal and not on my will, and how people assume that I am normal when I need to leave time to time to take a breath in and to calm myself in order to move on. I use the oddity of my motives to sway minds to my side and to introduce what I call reality.

Most people if given the opportunity will go along and let me if only to discover something new and brilliant they have never seen considering they never had to make due socially or in any other way. I feel the anxiety build and my breathing shortens only to barrel through with adrenaline and that's when my oddity kicks in. Much like Howie and Robin, I have to change the dialogue so that I least can perceive that I can and I realize my minor freaking out is either seen as comedy or just being weird. Fuck it, I simply roll with it. It's a magnificent filter for many things as well as people who are unimaginative. It's as if you told someone they could not use their legs to travel and you start seeing them be all weird and kookie and laughs are had ha ha ha ha.....and then you realize people do this in crutches, wheelchairs and sometimes in ways that you tend to forget because you're busy being fucking normal to understand. What you often times consider odd is someone's everyday challenge and simply have to get over if they plan to do what is needed.

I don't do well in large groups of people. I don't do well with groups of people I do not know or even trust all that well. I do well with people who know me for at least a decade and realize that I can be odd, but if everyone becomes still and my fucking mind stops screaming, I can interact calmly and make sense instead of focusing on who is around me or what can happen if I am not vigilant. Alcohol helps immensely, but I can not be drunk all the time anymore and I would rather have a drink to myself to nurse and perhaps pour down the drain when I realize I don't want it or need it. I have a tendency to medicate with either caffeine or alcohol and I now look at what I enjoy with moderation with apprehension and worry that I don't want it or need it or even want it near me.  I'd like the idea of having A BEER or A DRINK, but I also love the fact that I don't have to drink it or even have one. That I can resolve my anxiety or simply sit with it as the jittery ADD-ish child that it is.



I drank to die. Not to kill myself, but to accept the fate I felt in my very being that will come about once I stopped being vigilant.

Therapy hasn't cured me. it only allowed me to sit still and see if the Jackels exist. It has given me agency to get up and state that I had enough socialization and I'm leaving, so that I may now be typecast as rude rather than odd and hyper. So "Auggie is SO crazy and bounces off the walls" becomes "Auggie is really withdrawn, sensitive, and carrying some heavy shit that prevents him from being among us, his closest companions, because he might go silent, relive a moment that nightmarishly brings up a moment of time that he can never escape and feel guilt and horror over it because he had no ability to prevent it, solve it, or even make the occurrences stop. Auggie has PTSD and he has it fucking bad. If it was milder he would burst into uncontrollable tears and weep until be lost all breath, as he did back then. Now he's simply emotionally distant that he resembles sociopaths, if not for his sense of being overly vigilant and protective of others. He is so far gone that he even wishes to become a sociopath and drop the tattered and ragged remains so that he can least be free of the PTSD moments. So that he can stop caring and he can perhaps exist as the machine he almost resembles. Instead, he's a machine that can not drink anymore. He sits in a room and the peppy Crazy Doc that he just wants to pat on her sweet head and kiss it endearingly while explaining it is a lost cause and she should help better people who have the chance of being flesh and blood. Go along now, sweetie. Heal those who can still feel.

Instead, the machine sits in his pocket of space and time and confesses all in hopes that it at least explains so much or help someone else. I promised myself after Russel passed that I would not let it take me without explanation. I will not let it take me without people knowing what I am going though so at least those around me know I fight daily and struggle with simply breaking even or minimizing my losses. I recharge a dying battery and moments when I am drained I look at the exchange ratio and if lucky, I realize that I got something for it. I made the lives of someone else better for something that is dying.

Friends are up. I have to pretend to be human.

1,497 words at 47 minutes.