I just don't know

The last little while I have started to scare myself a little bit as I have been slowly falling back into old patterns of behaviour that I had thought I left far behind.  I keep finding myself doing what I can to withdraw from people, although at least point honestly there isn't much as I don't really have any real regular connections to anyone anymore, but even the few people I used to really try to connect with I have found myself pulling back from & doing what I can to distance myself from them.  I've also been finding that I tend to be more grumpy and easily irritated & have been getting less and less enjoyment for the few things I had been enjoying.  The worst part is that I am more and more caring less about all of this happening & I just don't know what I can do to stop it especially since half the time these days I don't really seem to care whether or stop or not.  I don't really want to lose myself to apathy again as it took a lot and awhile to break out of it last time and I honestly don't know that I'd be able to do it again.  And yet I have no idea what I can do to stop myself I have orchestrated my life to point where there are very few people that care about me & even fewer that could actually do anything to help if they knew & wanted to.  I just don't know anymore, this has been repeating in my head for awhile now so I am hoping that somehow getting it down here will somehow let me see or figure out some way to pull myself out of this.

Added after spending some time thinking about things..

You know after thinking about this and noticing different things and my reactions to them, I think what this might actually be is a reaction to having been feel more lonely & cut off from people then I normally have been and so sort of like an alcoholic that has been really feeling bad or down or whatever is more likely to turn to drinking to try to make themselves feel better or at least not feel so bad I think I tend to turn towards isolation & apathy for the same reasons, I don't really have many outlets in order to really connect with people if I am feeling really lonely or upset so I tend to do whatever I can to try and figure it out on my own which is my case tends to be isolation & apathy in the whole idea of "If I convince myself enough that I don't care then I won't feel so bad" Which is definitely not the most healthy or long term solutions but I still just don't know how else to really start handling it another way.

My Weekend

I am going to apologize here as this is not going to be a happy blog but I think I need to put this down somewhere even if only to get it out of my head & perhaps looking at it at a later point maybe it can help me figure things out or at least hopefully keep me from making the same mistakes twice.

Looking back now this weekend I think has been one of the worst I've had in awhile even if for the most part nothing much really happened.  However I realized that in many ways I have not come anywhere near as far as I had thought I had come in terms of learning to deal with my depression & self esteem issues.  Even though I have a number of people I would consider friends online and some even good friends my interactions with them tend to still be quite sporadic and so therefore quite easy to manage and seeing as at this point I don't have any friends that I see offline on any kind of consistent or regular basis (I might see them once every 4 - 6 months or so something not even then) I think what I thought was progress was really just having been able to remove the issue from my life.  Well lately that had kinda changed as I gotten to know someone fairly well to the point of talking to them pretty much daily and everything seemed to be going well till this weekend which as I have mentioned this weekend I don't really know what it is but I've just really been more depressed then usual and looking back at it now quite lonely as well and without realizing it I had slipped back into a very bad habit of trying to really hold on tight to a friend in fear that I'd lose them for no real reason mostly just out of feeling worthless and paranoid and in doing that I tend to start to smother them without really even realizing it at first and soon all my 'concerns' about them really become almost selfish attempts to make or maintain a connection.  This of course puts the other person in a horrible, uncomfortable and completely unfair position (which is what lead to my earlier post).  Unfortunately my other usual response once I've realized what I've actually been doing is a kind of passive aggressive (as when in that state I avoid confrontation like the plague as I am convinced that I just destroyed that friendship and don't want them to confirm it) ignore/avoidance of the person I wronged.  Well eventually the person I had wronged reached out to me and we were able to set things back on the right course thankfully, although I still feel absolutely terrible about the whole thing.  It did make me stop and look back and try to figure out what happened to cause this to happen after I had been doing so well for so long (or so I thought) which is what lead to the writing of this blog as I realized that it wasn't something I had ever really dealt with I merely had avoided anything that might have caused it for awhile (that being a fairly close relationship with regular interaction) and so now I have to either seriously try to work on actually confronting it instead of merely avoiding it till it's no longer an issue (due to have no frequent close relationships) or continue on with my life without ever letting anyone get close to me again or at least not too close or too often.  I will admit there is a part of me that feels like I should just stop trying as all I seem to do when I try is to hurt others and/or hurt myself, the hedgehog's dilemma I've heard it called as the closer two hedgehog's try to get to each other the more they hurt one another with their spines.  I've mentioned before that I have never had a girlfriend before infact have never even gone out on a date and this experience has made me glad of that as I think if that had ever happened it wouldn't have ended well at all, but it does reaffirm the fact that I am not really meant to be in any kind of intimate relationship with anyone which is something I have come to terms with but still does hurt at times.  It has also made me take a hard look at my motivations and intentions in regards to any of the encouragement and support I try to provide to people and when things like this happen it certainly sets the doubt creeping back in "Are you really doing this for them?" "Do you really want them to feel better or are you just doing this to try to get their attention?" In many ways it just makes me feel hollow inside and lonelier then ever.  I definitely think I have to at least admit to myself I am a lot more lonely then I thought I was and that if I keep trying to ignore it or suppress it it's going to find a way to come back and bite me in the butt just like it did this weekend.  I don't really know how I am going to deal with it but they said that admitting something is a problem is the first step to finding a solution for it so at least I've gotten that far.  What I do know now is that I have to be a lot more vigilant and aware of how I am feeling and making sure I am not letting how I am feeling dictate how I act or react.  Sorry for how long and negative this post has been but I think at this point I just need to get it out of my head so that I can hopefully sleep tonight without it just bouncing around up there keeping me awake.

The Problem of Caring Too Much

I know that the title for this post sounds really cheesy and cliche but for me (and I suspect a number of other people for various other reasons) this can actually be a fairly serious problem.  I like to think of myself as a fairly encouraging and supportive person, I always want my friends & the people I admire to know that I think they are amazing & that I am here to support them.  I think this is a good thing however it can be taken too far to the point where I am not really doing it for their benefit anymore but rather in some attempt to try and make up for the fact that I cannot seem to help myself but trying to "help" them too much when in reality all I am doing is smothering them.  This is when it becomes a problem as it is no longer a kind or generous act even though it may appear superficially to be it is in fact a very selfish act.  This can be particularly devastating for people with self esteem issues that aren't really aware of what they are actually doing (I know I went through a phase of doing this and it was just awful both for me and I am sure for the other people that got caught in it) as to them they are just trying to help and be friendly whereas to the other person they just feel overwhelmed and smothered and so will try to get away from them and create some distance in order to try to get some relief, which the person on the other side will see as a rejection and a confirmation that no one really likes them which pulls them further down the depression hole.  It is a horrible situation which is awful for everyone involved as even though there is no intention to hurt anyone that is almost always the end result.  Thankfully for the most part I've learned to manage and be aware of my feelings and state of mind enough to avoid that situation but there are still times especially when I've been feeling kinda down and especially if I've been feeling really lonely that I'll kind of hone in on a friend especially if they have been sick or having a hard time and really try to "help get them better" which often starts sincere enough but can quickly shift into the more selfish side of things where I am really just trying to use them to make myself feel better.  I still really hate it when I realize that I've fallen into that as it just makes me feel terrible because I've ended up going against everything I hope to do for people which is be a friend and a support to them when in that case I've been much more of a burden then a help.  This is one of the reasons I have a very hard time in general asking anything of anyone really as beyond the feeling of me being worthless & them being important I am afraid that no matter what they thing that I am being a burden on them as I am asking them to spend time/effort/energy on something for me & how dare someone like me do that.  I am trying to work on it but it is one of the areas where I have to admit I have had very little success with.  Anyway I'm sorry this post is a little more down then most but I've been thinking about it lately and I figured that if it could help one person who might be in either situation then it would be worth it as sometimes a little bit of knowledge or a little bit of understanding can make an absolute world of difference!

My Trip to LA

Well this post is a lot later then I intended to post it as I meant to type this up ever since getting home from my trip but it seems to have just kept slipping my mind but I am now sitting down to make sure I actually get it all written up.

As I mentioned in my previous entry I went down to LA at the end of January with my family for a vacation as my Christmas gift, partly because it is warmer down there but also because there are a few people I had gotten to know online that live down there that I've really wanted to get a chance to meet in person and hang out with them a bit.  Originally I had been planning on going down to LA later on in the year but found out that one of the friends I wanted to visit was moving at the end of January and so that moved up the trip but it ended up working out really well as the week that we were gone apparently was one of the coldest and worst weeks we'd had for weather in quite awhile :)  We flew out of Buffalo with a stopover in Chicago but thankfully we didn't even have to get off the plane for it so we were able to get better seats and stretch a bit but overall the flight was fine and we even arrived a little earlier then planned which is definitely a pleasant surprise.  We rented a car and then headed to the condo we were renting for the week which was in Long Beach which ended up being a really nice place.

Before leaving I had ask some of the people I knew that lived in LA if they had any suggestions for places to check out and then went through and looked through them and created a list of places I thought might be interesting.  The first place we ended up checking out was the Getty Villa which was really interesting as it held collections mostly relating to ancient Greek and Roman art and culture which I personally have more of an interest in and even just the museum itself was quite something as it was laid out in the style of some of the ancient structures.  Another place we visited was the Griffith Observatory which was also very interesting especially the planetarium shows we saw.  The last place of note that we went to was Hearst Castle which I thought was amazing partly because I have always found Castles to be really cool but also because they showed a short movie describing the history and construction of it which gave another level to it, unfortunately it was raining during the time we had to walk around the grounds but they were quite spectacular.

I have to say though that my favourite days were the Sunday and the Tuesday of my trip as I got to spend pretty much all of Sunday with my friend Kenny and then on Tuesday I got to have lunch with Kenny, America Young and Teal Sherer.  I originally got to know Kenny through his Knights of the Guild podcast then started talking to him through email, Facebook and Twitter and became good friends with him as he is a super nice guy and we have a lot of similar interests.  It was really nice to be able to meet him in person and just hang out and talk.  He showed me around the city for a bit then we had lunch at Islands which is a restaurant I had heard him talk about quite a bit (which was also really good!) so that was nice then he took me over to one of his favourite hiking spots and finally showed me his house and we ended up watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother before he drove me back to where we were staying but it was an amazing day and I am so glad I got to hang out with him in person for a change :D  I originally heard about both Teal and America through webseries' as Teal was in The Guild and America was the star of Geek Therapy (both are awesome if you haven't seen them!) but actually got to know Teal through the I Hearth Geeks podcast that she was involved with.  I didn't really get to know America till the CMD Geekify liveathon that I have talked about before.  I met them all for lunch at the Universal Citywalk which was interesting in and of itself but I have to say it was probably the best lunch I have had in a very very long time and it had nothing to do with the food (although that was good too :P )  It was so nice to just sit there and talk and connect on a more personal level.  I easily could have spent all day there and been perfectly happy :D It was definitely the highlight of my trip.  I did end up getting to meet up with another online friend right before the end of my trip which was nice as I knew Aaron as we are both fans of a lot of the same things so kept showing up at the same podcasts and other online events.

I really enjoyed my trip to LA in just about every respect.  On a slightly humorous side note I started watching NCIS: Los Angeles not too long after getting back as I enjoyed NCIS but had never seen the other one so it added an extra bit of interest seeing places that we had been appear on the show :) 

A New Year

Well it's been awhile since I have added anything here that's been partly due to the fact that for the most part not a whole lot tends to happen with me these days and partly due to the fact that I've been more on the down side of things the past while and when I get like that I generally just feel like hiding away in some corner and definitely sharing a little as I can even though I know that is worse thing I can do in that situation.  I had thought of writing up a blog a few times when I hadn't been feeling too bad but that was around the holidays and I really didn't want to post anything that might be a downer around then and  I also was kinda hoping that something good would happen if I waited so that I could at least try to add positivity to my entry.  Since even though I want to be honest on here I definitely don't want it to just become a big pit of negativity as that helps no one.  So even though I have had some dark times lately I do also have some good news which I am very excited about so here I sit to finally write up a new blog entry.

As you know from my earlier posts I have been struggling with my issues for quite a long time and there were times when I'd regularly fall into some pretty bleak dark moods.  Thankfully I have been able to try to minimize those in the past year or so with help from friends online and just through personal exploration and discovery or who I am and what exactly are my problems.  Which is why I think this depressed mood I've had since before the holidays has just really had an effect on me even though it's thankfully nowhere near as bad as some in the past have been it's still been the worst in awhile.  I know a lot of people tend to have problems over the holidays although somewhat ironically for me the holidays were actually some of the best parts as I celebrated them pretty quietly with my family which suited me perfectly this year and I enjoyed them.  I think the thing that really worried me and really prompted me to finally sit down and write this up was a few days ago I just went into a pretty down and depressed state and I just couldn't shake it I found myself more down on myself then I had been in quite some time and it ended up really throwing off my sleeping schedule (which usually isn't great at the best of times).  I don't really know how to describe it except being caught in almost a storm of thoughts about how worthless I am, how I am of no use to anyone, how I don't deserve friends, how if I am going to do anything with people I better make sure they get something out of it for having to deal with me (As an aside this is a good example of how when I get down on myself I tend to twist things I legitimately enjoy in my mind to make them negatives, in this case the fact that I enjoy going out for lunch/dinner with a friend and paying for their meal).  I know this may not sound that bad as everyone has insecurities at times, but when it is more like you are in the middle of a crowd at a concert only instead of music all you can hear is everyone shouting these things at you and you can't refute them as they are somehow at the same time you and it just doesn't end and you can't get a break.  I know it doesn't really make much sense but that is the best I can do to explain it.

Thankfully I've been starting to feel better so I am hoping I can try to shake off most of this funk altogether.  Now that is enough about the dark and gloomy let's get to the good news! :D I am going to be taking a trip with my family down to LA from the 19th of January till the 26th of January.  There are a number of reasons why I am really looking forward to this trip first of all it is freezing and very snowy up here & it will be warmer & non-snowy down there :) second of all I have never been to the west coast of the states before, been on trips down the east coast a few times but never the west coast so it should be interesting, but finally and most especially as I am going to be meeting up with at least two friends who I met and got to know online but now will get to meet them in person and hang out with them a bit which I can only imagine is going to be pretty awesome!

So while 2012 ended on a bit of a down note and a little bit of a rocky start I think this trip is going to get the year off to an amazing start as there are quite a few things I am looking forward to in 2013 most of which are actually movies which is kinda odd for me as I am much more a TV person then a movie person but they all either have actors that I really love in them (such as Felicia Day, Amanda Tapping, Robin Dunne, etc) or have people I've come to know in them or are making them (or both) such as in the case of The Concessionaires Must Die, Sass X Acceleration & Quantum Theory.  So it is a new year and hopefully the start of a new chapter in my life so I am going to do my best to try to be as optimistic as I can about it!