Remember I was doing a little writing? Started a novella series but there was no readership at all. None. Couldn’t even get a BAD review.
Well, part of an earlier strategy was to post it on Wattpad and link to buy the rest of the story. Still no readership. Wattpad is flooded with young adult vampire sex stories so what did I expect.
But, I got a glowing review for the one chapter excerpt I posted. That made me feel good.
Look, I told you I have some talent in writing if only people actually, you know, READ, my work. If my stuff is read, and they take time to review it, it’s usually positive. The issue I have been going through was years of no one even reading the work. How the hell people get 1.2k readers and all sorts of votes on Wattpad is unknown to me. Especially when it’s all the same crap. It’s not beyond me to believe that the readership counts are fake — but still.
So, the other week, when I was taking down all social media works (including all Amazon books I published) I forgot about Wattpad and the review came in.
I thanked that reviewer. I was deeply moved that they even cared to write. For that person, I posted the complete novella (instead of just the excerpt). One reader is better than none.
The job is still going. Almost quit the first night, but got back on the saddle the second night and now moving toward a third. It’s a really easy job and I was just complaining because my feet were killing me. Just using muscles I haven’t used in awhile.
Essentially, I’m maintenance. I sweep this soda warehouse for 8-12 hours while guys zip around on electric pallet jacks picking orders. With the summer upon us, soda is big business (apparently) and there is lots of work. No, I mean LOTS of work. People who start this job usually quit and they seek more people all the time. They were surprised I came back but I realize my job is the ultimate in simplicity and I thank God for it. I truly thank the lord for it. He knew this was the job I needed and mentally could do. WITHOUT Zoloft.
You know my aversion to people, right? With this job, I come in and sweep the floor. Maybe even mop here and there. I don’t have to talk to anyone. The full-time workers there have quota’s to make (so many pallets of soda on trucks by a certain time). They get paid per pallet or something like that so they have no time to talk to me. I clean up spills and sweep the broken pallet wood from the floor so they don’t get slowed down.
Easy fucking peesy. $12.00 an hour to sweep floor, plus time and a half for overtime and they often ALWAYS go 12-16 hours a night.
Weekends off.
Like I said, at first, I was going to quit because I was a pussy. My feet were swollen the first night. My legs were killing me. I was looking at getting out at 4am and I was bitching like a bitch. Drove home almost crashing the car I was so sleepy.
After a personal struggle that morning to stop being a pussy, I decided to go back to work the next day and I think it impressed some of the guys. They apparently seen people come and go. I hear them talking about people who didn’t come back. I’m even on a “hi” “bye” thing with some of the guys. It’s social baby steps.
At first, I thought my job was non essential. I’m not trying to make my job any bigger than it is, but I was told by a guy last night that he appreciated the work I was doing because it helps him and the other guys out. When there is soda all over the place and wood and the place is a mess, they can’t get the job done fast as they need.
I walk around at my own pace, sweeping like ‘old Leroy’; mopping when I need to mop, picking up cans, emptying trash. My math is bad, but I think I came up with $150-$160 per night for 11 hour shift (after lunch). That’s overtime (time and ½). Five day shifts and I get paid weekly around $750-800 a week. After taxes and child support (grrr) about $500 a week.
Can I live with that? Fuck yes. It’s free money to walk, sweep and shut the fuck up. I’m working out the leg and foot pains which will turn into firm muscle sooner than later (lugging around steel toed shoes all night).
My first check is next week Friday. It’s already Wednesday of my first week. I don’t lead anyone. I don’t need to talk to anyone. Not even management talks to me. I have no responsibilities other than sweeping a damn floor and I was going to quit???? This is why I keep this journal. I need to document my potential fuckery.
Is it a professional job? Like tech support, or working in a law office? No. My pride was hurting a little in the beginning. But it’s money. Legit, bill paying, child support lowering, cash saving, credit paying off cash flow that I’m getting in my pocket for standing on my feet rather than at home playing video games and bitching about how broke I am because nobody is reading my work. I’m not working on ANY projects so money is just going directly to the necessary things of life. Like my children finally.
Except every now and then. On my second paycheck (around the 9th of June), I’m taking my wife down to Savannah. She liked it down there when I was researching for a book I was writing. I’ll be happy to take her knowing it can be ‘my treat’. I’m off weekends so why not.
Still going to school. Still going to take the paralegal classes.
I’ll push through and adapt to these long hours for a few months before I start it. I couldn’t do it right now if I tried. Way too tired after work.
The good news is I’m adapting. The first night was hell. The second night was better. Tonight will be a walk in a sore park.
Yeah, I know I just entered some writing for today, and I have a report to do, but I forgot to mention some things I found out last night.
I was looking up online the notion that some of our greatest leaders and scientists had equally great mental disorders and still carried on: Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Beethoven, Issac Newton. I usually spend time backtracking and confirming this information and it all seems legit. It made me feel better that, even at my small segment of space on this planet, greater men than I had issues under enormous pressure that should have crushed them. Who am I to be such a pussy?
“ To ease me of this power to think,” …. “Will help me to forget”
Depression and what the mind projects into our consciousness have been going on for a very, very VERY long time. Even if Lincoln didn’t write this, SOMEBODY did and we’re talking a couple hundred years back. So, the idea of depression is brought on by the foods we eat is not the issue. For god’s sake, it’s not like they had cola back then or lots of other sugary things.
But there is a consistency. A connecting thread. Just not sure what it is yet. Or, the thoughts are part of our ‘strength’ as being human and we just don’t know how to control it. What would be the benefit of remembering painful things that torment a man to commit suicide? I have no idea.
I guess I’m saying, maybe … just maybe … we’re looking at how our brains think all wrong and due to the lack of control, we get depressed. A kitchen stove is great for cooking, but if you use it wrong or don’t know how to use it, you will always burn yourself. One thing you can guarantee about humans, we’re never really using our minds for what it was supposed to be used for. Killing others, ourselves and acting like assholes is NOT it.
Here’s to the power of writing: that poem gave us a frozen moment in time we would never have known about.
I hope the things I write here will help others too.
I start work today. Unusual hours of 4pm to something in the morning. From what I hear, they needed more people and they have lots of overtime. I’m to meet some guy named ‘Luis’. Here’s my interpretation:
Mostly Spanish speaking workers with highly rotational employment of idiots that don’t want to do any work. Spanish people got the better hours of daytime hours and lots of Blacks working the night shift. Spanish people there don’t even try to speak English and Blacks there don’t even try. Only White people there are supervisors and managers.
That was the same setup at that warehouse job I had last year. I’ll bet you a $1.00 it’s the same here. I’m going to come in and be the odd man out.
Anyway, the Zoloft wore off. In fact, it faded off yesterday. I have more, but I wanted to document the timing. I took it Saturday night around 10pm, but the effects started on me around 2AM. Couldn’t sleep and overheating. For much of the morning when I did wake up, sluggish and very slow. Also dry mouth and thirsty.
What it did do is silence the extra thoughts. When I say extra ‘thoughts’, it’s my mind replaying memories I deem embarrassing or regretful. Think of something you did awkward at a party, then a year later, out of nowhere, your mind remembers that segment of time for NO reason (maybe a song, a smell or something someone said); causing you to wince or react for the stupidity you believe happened. That’s what goes on with me: a mind forced to replay the sadness, awkwardness, etc, etc. A private kind of hell and my memory is DEEP. I’m being shown things from elementary school that, yes, did happen. Not hallucinations. Not delusions. Memories.
I have explored meditation and attempts at rerouting my thoughts. There is a certain level of thought redirection I can actually do. At one point, I used to imagine this box and everytime a random thought I did not want to come up, I would throw it in the box. Sounds strange, I know. But it worked. I was usually able to catch the thought just as it started, and in the box, it went. Barely any time for my mind to consciously recognize ‘what’ that thought was about. Kind of like willfully forgetting something.
The problem I noticed is those thoughts, in that box, actually, have weight. Incredibly, these thoughts actually back up and clog my system somehow. Many, many MANY times I try this “throw it in the box” routine, after awhile, the box breaks and the emotional residue of those thoughts flood me. Those are usually the worst weeks. The weeks that are darker than dark. When I don’t try the ‘box’ method, I go long stretches of time without being morbidly depressed, but I am forced to view my life’s moments. It’s like they have to happen. Like a running faucet. Stop the flow, it will explode. Keep it running, and all is relatively fine. Not good. Just fine.
The pills kept them in check moderately, giving me a foggy clarity. And if something did pop up in the mind, I was too slow to care.
Right now, my mind is racing. Normally a good thing. Getting more writing done.
I did not take Zoloft last night, deciding to take it today (AM) with some food. Haven’t taken it yet. I wanted to monitor the difference between my rate of typing now compared to yesterday. I’m writing faster and pushing the thoughts of what I want to write much more fluent. Yesterday’s journal entry was slow and full of errors I had to back up and correct. I mentioned long before I could not write on Lexapro. I definitely shouldn’t write while on Zoloft.
With my school work at 95% writing, that’s a problem.
Having said that, does Zoloft affect anything else I do? Working? Driving?
I’m so fucked. Why can’t I just be normal?
I can’t take the pill now cause I need it to write. I probably shouldn’t take the pill to pay attention to a new job. But I need the pill to be a subdued version of normal.
It’s funny. I know exactly when the Zoloft wore off. It was around noon yesterday. I suddenly started getting those random thoughts and memories back and I was waking from that zombie-like state too have an emotional feeling about it. The Zoloft curbed the emotions. By late afternoon, I was writing a little (schoolwork), after much of the day not interested in it at all.
Yeah, I’m going to skip Zoloft today. The thoughts come, but I’m not ‘manic’ like I was last week or super depressed. I think the pill worked ‘enough’ and probably works enough when I need it as opposed to when I don’t. Probably not the way it is recommended to work, but I have to NOT be foggy in the head when starting this job. I might consider taking it AFTER work if the medicine is expected to wear off by the time I go BACK to work.
It’s 3am right now. I was actually up since 2am. I thought I went to bed around 10pm. Maybe 10:30pm. Regardless, I’m up and, well, let me explain a few things.
My wife was nice enough to bring home some Zoloft. It’s an antidepressant. One of the perks of being married to a nurse.
I used to be on Lexapro, which took some time to get over being nauseous, then it would make me a zombie. The anxiety would go away and, if taken regularly, I would never get emotional about anything. Think of like a boiling pot. When the water gets to a certain temperature, the flame under the pot would shut off and the steam would mellow out. That was exactly how the medicine worked.
Unfortunately, it prevented me from getting an erection. Prevented me from doing anything creative (as emotion goes heavily into creative works).
These days, sex with my wife is spotty at best. That’s another story, but it’s what happens when you get married and you’re together for longer than 3-5 years. Either someone is going to cheat, is cheating and the sex between them will slow down. I can’t cheat if I’m not leaving the house and severely antisocial in real life and online. I honestly have no one but my wife. Not that I wouldn’t want it different, just no opportunities and, to be honest, it’s too much work.
My wife on the other hand, well, I’ve had suspicions. In the past, I would be hunting who she’s talking to/having sex with, but I’m distracted by school, at the time looking for work and my own depressive issues. One night she blatantly came home at around midnight from a job that was less than five minutes away from where we live. No calls. No texts until I started bitching about where she was. She eventually called me to say she was working late but that was after … forget it. That was weeks ago and I let it go.
I’m working now. See what happens if I work late.
So, these past few days I’ve been feeling worse and worse. I asked her to bring whatever she could home so I can get a grip before I start work Monday. She brought Zoloft and these are the results with one pill.
As I said, I’m up at 2am. I’m burning up and it’s not just the weather. I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts aren’t as random as they were for days, which is a good thing. However, I am sluggish, making me a touch focused on what I’m doing but slowly. Like typing this: I’m writing slowly like I was tired. But I’m not. But I should be.
There wasn’t ‘much’ of a nauseous feeling, but I’m wise to this stuff so took it at night after dinner. I felt it coming on and went to sleep.
But it wakes me up early. Hopefully, it’s just one night. We’ll see.
Which leads me to this story about a woman that seems to committed suicide recently. Her name was Stephanie Adams. Fell out of a hotel window with her son:
No, I don’t know her. I could have. Something familiar about her. The police haven’t ruled out foul play. All the same, it looks like she committed suicide and took her son with her.
As you know, I’ve gotten really low. Thoughts of suicide plague me weekly. Actually doing it — that is to say, doing it right so that it’s a guaranteed one-way trip — isn’t easy. For instance, 25-stories off a building ‘could’ conceivably do it, but what if she survived? People try to shoot themselves in the head, end up missing and living a painful life.
My first thoughts are usually how devastated my daughters would be. Then things change.
Looking over a swatch of Stephanie’s life (online profile, website, books she published), I can see she was a little ‘scattered’. I used to date women like that. Very pretty, into all sorts of spirituality and classic cases of ADHD.
But she was getting older. She married rich White men. She was going through another divorce and it was bitter. She had no money but like most women, like to give the impression she had a lot going on when she did not. She was drowning in debt, likely depressed and thought this was the way out.
She has books on Amazon and there is like ZERO reviews on any of her work. Mostly horoscope things and self-important stories about her own life. Even I know nobody gives a damn about you individually to read a book about you unless you did something outstanding.
Still, I definitely could relate to the zero attention to the writing material.
Some of her work was up on Amazon since 2009. Christ, at least I got some reviews.
The point is, I understood this empty feeling she may have had toward the end. The difference was she HAD attention and success in her past. She was a model so you know how that goes. You find out exactly how important you are when you get old.
90% of these Instagram Models are in for a rude awakening.
Likely, the gas ran out on her value and you turn around and realize you might not have much talent for anything else. You keep trying to regain a level of success you had before, but it was just a face and body … and that face and body are worn out from depression, stress, divorce. That’s when the mind starts coming up with outlandish creative things that just won’t work.
I wasn’t a model. I had an ounce of success with my first book and I’m constantly trying to snatch at that glimmer of readership. I’m underwater in debt. Slightly drowning.
I could have killed myself.
Instead, what keeps me alive? My children? This law school career path?
She had a son. Hell, she took her son with her. Or at least, we’ll find out soon enough if the ex did it or not. The x probably had a prenup. She wasn’t getting any money whatsoever.
I look at her picture and think she is someone I could have known. It’s in her eyes. Desperate to obtain something. Struggling to keep it together to get there. It’s a look I am familiar with.
Last week, when I was at a low point, my concern was if I killed myself, I had to make sure my homework was in on time. That shows you the level of commitment I had in doing it.
It’s 3:34 AM. I’m getting tired. I’m not mad or distressed. No angry thoughts. Just overheating.
Oh, and I’m alive, an ‘A’ student working toward my bachelor’s degree, got a job I start tomorrow, happily married with the usual manageable suspicions, my son graduated high school and I’m proud of him, I love my children and I’ll be taking the paralegal certification courses soon.
It’s coming around more often and that tells me I need to be back on an anti-depressant. The pills don’t escape me from the reality I have a lot to be sad about, though.
I couldn’t afford to go to my son’s high school graduation today.
I’m such a failure. He’ll do so much better than me. Maybe even without me.
I want to reason “this is why I’m going back for my bachelors”, but he’s only getting one high school graduation.
Almost every day, there’s some White Person saying or doing something just plain evil. If I weren’t trying to focus on higher learning, I would create a separate blog on the asinine events they do just to provoke others. Why those who do stupid tricks aren’t shot dead on the spot is amazing.
Then the news may be magnifying singular incidents. But MULTIPLE singular incidents are, by definition, MULTIPLE.
This guy goes on a rant in a restaurant about Spanish people. Nobody decks him in the face to shut his ass up? Wait what happens if that shit happens around me.
Oh wait. I’m anti-social. I don’t go too many places. So it won’t happen.
The writing stopped. I needed time to pack away and/or destroy everything relevant to that creative end. It wasn’t working. I thought I could have fun doing it, but the truth is, with no one reading — no one reviewing — there is no fun in it. A creative lobotomy — that side of me had to go. It was killing me.
Back to this lifeless, but eventually lucrative, law career decision with no other diversions than to play a video game or two during downtimes.
The career path has led me to explore, before law school, work as a paralegal. For that, I need to be certified and I found a 1-year course at Kennesaw State University that can provide the study and the certification. I was looking at a course at Emory but they expected a bachelor’s degree FIRST in order to take the same course, for the same certification.
I’m still doing fine in AIU with a GPA of 3.92. Environmental science fucked me. I inquired about disputing past grades. Because I did not discuss it with the teacher and open a dispute at the time, it wouldn’t be worth it. My fault. At the time, I did not think it was worth it. But, seeing that I am doing great with my essay’s now, as to say, I should not have had a problem with the previous essays, I’m feeling I should have slapped that bitch for grading me so poorly.
Well, I have one week left in this course, and I have all A’s.
Oh, I had an event with my daughter this past weekend. My daughter told my ex I was going back to school and how well I was doing. My ex was proud of me and said: “I always knew you could do it”.
She’s of that very educated, 6-figure variety. The problem wasn’t that she didn’t support educational endeavors. She never supported my creative endeavors. Not just her. My mother wasn’t interested either. Years upon years of my own lack of faith in myself based on negative feedback from those around me who didn’t even READ my work. My ex made up every excuse possible not to read anything until SOMEONE ELSE read it and reviewed it.
My writing was an uphill struggle. I knew I was talented. Just not supported and it’s in me to have self-hate and resentment about it. Meanwhile, kids like this get full support for whatever he’s doing since 11 years old:
It’s never about “he was a prodigy.” I was a prodigy in storytelling. Writing since 5-years old. Taught a few classes in creative writing. But I’m Black. No supportive family. No money. I can sum it up and wonder if I was ever any good at all and here we are at giving up and just focusing on going to law school. There. Saved you another paragraph of ranting. As for teaching creative writing again, I hate people too much now to even try to be caring in a classroom.
So, here’s the plan: I continue the work I’m doing in AIU. Continue to get the good grades. Get the Bachelor’s degree in 2020 for Information Technology. between now and the end of 2019, I take the Paralegal Course and get certified. This allows me to get work at a law firm with my final year getting the degree. Naturally, I let them know the intention to take the LSAT.
Getting a job as a Paralegal breaks me free of crap temp jobs like the one I should be starting any day now. That’s another story. I got the job but didn’t start yet.
Working as a paralegal is like pre-law realtime, plus being paid.
That’s the plan anyway. Left-side of the brain things work. All this shit about the law, working in law and going to law school will fall into my lap easier than my struggle to be a writer.
Even finding that better course at Kennesaw is an example of serendipitous momentum. I couldn’t get that kind of convenient momentum for my writing whatsoever. It’s hard to explain. It’s the little and big things. The writing was always a struggle with no one caring. Law pursuit? I hold out my hand and all things fall into place.
People are ‘proud of me’ suddenly. Including my mother. Were they not proud when I was writing? Fuck all of them. Every last fucking one of them.
Let the record show I don’t give a rats ass about law and it’s all about ‘people’ and you know how much I don’t give a fuck about people. Fucking lovely. I’m going to be the House M.D. of Law.
And just like that, I feel miserable again. Suicidal and I can’t explain why. The only why I know is I haven’t amounted to anything and I take up worthless space.
I deactivated all social media. Deleted all accounts.
I deactivated all my worthless books on Amazon. I’m not writing anymore. It was going nowhere. No one was reading any of it. I was wasting time and energy.
I’m not going to any of my chldren’s events. No graduations. I’m not seeing them for the summer and I’m shutting off my phone. I can’t afford to go to any of these things. My license is suspended and I’m constantly taking chances. I have nothing to offer them. My son is graduating and I have nothing for him.
I’ve been a worthless and a waste of time to them, myself my wife, everyone.
I threw out everything. With an expectation to take my life if I could. If I knew how. But I ended up just lying in bed all day. School work due tonight. Struggling now to just finish. School is working. Thats the only thing that does so I keep trying. I want to die, but I don’t know how. And since I’m still living, I might as well finish my homework, if that makes any sense.
Nothing makes sense. I feel empty. I just want this pain to stop.
My inability to commit to things prevents me from taking my life successfully. On that I am a coward. I need something to take me over that edge and it’s not in me to be successful at anything. Even killing myself.
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