It Doesn’t Only Affect You

I wanted to expand a bit on something I spoke about in my last post.  Mainly that depression does not solely affect the person experiencing it.  It can have some seriously detrimental effects on a relationship, no matter how strong it may have been initially.  The worst part of the whole thing is that much of the problem stems from the fact that the person who is depressed is having a negative effect on the people around him, and if you are any sort of introspective and perceptive at all, you will notice these things which will only make you feel worse about yourself.  And the odd thing is, the more the other person loves you, the worse it will likely be.

Recently, I’ve been going through these difficulties myself.  My relationship with my wife has been rough lately, to put it kindly.  We’re frequently sniping at each other, biting each other’s head off, and all for inconsequential things.  Much of the problem stems from me, and I know this, which makes it suck that much worse.  Because of how I’ve been feeling, I tend to be a bit more aggressive and snippy about things.  Due to my general feelings of worthlessness, everything becomes incredibly important, even when it’s really not, and it leads to a fight.  Unfortunately, after a while, only so much of this can be taken by my wife, and after some time, she hit her breaking point.  Well, maybe not breaking, but she’s definitely fed up, and now she also has a much shorter fuse than she did. 

It’s a ridiculous situation to be in.  On one hand, you need this other person to be supportive, because you love them, and you would hope that they could understand what a difficult place you’re in.  On the other, because they are the person you interact with the most, they are the ones who have to endure your constant mood swings, and that can wear anyone’s patience thin.  This in turn causes the other person to start exhibiting similar symptoms to you because they’ve been pushed to that point, and you end up not wanting to be around each other.  Every comment is taken the wrong way, every action is analyzed to death, and they all have negative outcomes.  To pile on to that, whereas I used to have friends I could blow off steam with, there really isn’t much opportunity for that here.  It’s only been making me feel worse about myself, because I know I’m the catalyst for all of this, and I can’t figure out how to break the cycle.

Anyone who knows my wife and I know that we love each other deeply.  Despite all of the anger, hurtful words, and careless actions we have put towards each other in recent months, we do still really love each other.  The only problem is I can’t bring myself to try to talk these things through with her because it just ends up in a fight.  Either I get too touchy or she does, and there never seems to be a moment where we are capable of just stepping back and resetting ourselves so that we can talk like people who actually love each other, instead of what we are now.  There are moments where we can, but they always seem to be sad moments, where it just feels like we’re both tired, and don’t really want to keep going. 

For the most part, I know we’re just going through a rough patch now, and I know much of the blame can be put on me.  I’ve been resistant to any sort of real outside help because I have a very specific way of dealing with things, and right now, I don’t have access to any of those ways.  I have been slowly trying to make adjustments, but it’s a long process, and because of that, I’m afraid things may happen that may cause irreparable damage.  The stupid thing is that while I can calmly make these observations now, in the heat of the moment, and in my day to day dealings, it just doesn’t seem to be so clear.  I just hope that the changes that I need to make can happen at a pace that will give me time to fix some of the damage that has already been wrought, but I honestly don’t know. 

There is also the case that I may be seeing things as being much more bleak than they really are, but I would rather err on the side of caution.  Changes do have to be made, and they have to start with me.  I’ve always said that you can’t properly love someone else unless you love yourself, and unfortunately, I am far from loving myself right now.

More than Being Down

Depression is a tricky thing.  The term is thrown around somewhat loosely when describing feelings of just being sad, or when you’ve been in a sour mood for a while.  We’ve all heard at one time or another someone saying, “Don’t worry about me, I’m just depressed.”  To be honest, if someone were truly depressed, you should definitely be worried. In all actuality, someone who is really depressed would find it hard to say the words out loud.  That’s because one of the hardest things about being depressed is to talk about it.  The stupid part is that talking about it is really the only way to get yourself out of it.

The difficulty lies in the fact that most people don’t want to be seen as complainers.  They want to keep with the status quo, and many people out there would prefer to suffer in silence than be seen as a complainer.  It doesn’t help that a lot of times, the advice offered to people who are depressed tends to be, “Well, why don’t you go and do something about it?”  Or the more combative version, “Well, if you’re not going to do anything about it, then stop complaining.”  There’s a general belief that depression is something that can be shaken off if someone just has enough willpower and determination.  This mindset only serves to make coming out of depression even harder.

The problem with that way of thinking is that if you are depressed, and you believe that all it should take is willpower, then the moment you find that you can’t just “shrug it off,” you find yourself getting driven deeper into the depression because you have “failed.”  The longer you stay depressed, the more you feel as if you aren’t trying hard enough, but no matter how hard you try, depression will not just be shaken off like raindrops off of an umbrella, which just leaves you with more feelings of despair.  It’s a self-defeating cycle to believe that you can beat depression through sheer willpower.  You may be able to distract yourself for a fair amount of time, but the depression will never just magically go away if it’s not honestly dealt with.

Of course, that’s if there is a logical and obvious reason for the depression.  If someone dies, or you suffer some form of great loss, then you have a simpler task of pinpointing a reason for the depression.  It doesn’t mean it will disappear instantaneously because you acknowledged the cause, but it does help to speed the process.  But what do you do if you just generally have feelings of sadness, malaise, being lost, or of being worthless?  What if you honestly don’t know what the cause of the depression is?  How do you approach it?  Where do you begin?

These are questions I ask myself on an almost daily basis.  For some time now, I’ve been feeling more and more lost, more directionless, in my life.  I’ve had numerous theories, and many attempts at getting myself out of my “funk” as I call it, but with little to no success.  I’ve been especially hit with it hard recently, ever since I’ve been living in Japan, but I’m beginning to think that this latest episode is just a continuation of what has been a lifelong struggle with depression.  For much of the time, I feel utterly worthless, and that my value as a person is pretty low at the moment.

For the most part, I’m a functional person.  I manage to take care of my daughter, since my wife is the one who works, and I don’t speak the language here, so it makes sense for me to be the stay at home dad.  I get the chores done around the house, although to be honest, it tends to be the bare minimum.  I manage to feed myself and my daughter, although I know I could be doing that a lot better.  I don’t have a particularly active social life, but when I get the chance, I participate when I can, and I think I can be pretty pleasant company. 

The problem lies in the fact that I do much of this mechanically.  I know which motions I have to go through in order to get things done.  I know how much I need to do in order to get by, so that I’m not living in squalor, or subjecting my daughter to those kinds of living conditions.  I know what to say in social situations to get a laugh, so that I’m not just a static presence in the room.  However, I honestly don’t know how much, if any, pleasure I derive from any of this.  Much of the time, I feel tired, sometimes too exhausted to participate.  However, I still force myself, because I know that if I don’t, I’ll just fall further into this negative state.  This is purely an intellectual choice, because I know if I don’t do something, anything, then I’ll likely just end up in bed all day, and my daughter can’t afford to have me be immobilized.

The thing is though, despite these symptoms being more prevalent in recent history, they aren’t anything new.  It may just be my state of mind currently, but I can’t remember the last time getting through the day wasn’t some form of a struggle.  Yes, there have been times where it was less so, but I can’t truly say with any clarity of mind that I haven’t had a day where I didn’t feel as if I had to fight my way to make it through the entire day. 

The worst thing about all of this is that, as I mentioned before, I have no idea where this stems from.  I’ve been to therapists, I’ve spoken to friends, I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject, but I can’t seem to find an answer.  I’m not sure if it’s because something is missing from my life, there’s something in it that shouldn’t be, or some other option that isn’t within my realm of consciousness that is affecting me this way.  The easy way out of this would be to get some pills and call it a day, but I don’t think that’s realistically a solution.  It may serve as a bandage, but I doubt it will actually solve anything.  Not to say that I haven’t sought them out.  There was a point where it was a consideration, but the psychiatrist felt that it wasn’t necessary, and that therapy would be enough at the time, and really, as time has gone on, I’ve come to the conclusion that a drug-induced apathy would be less preferable to what I’m going through now,  I’ve heard too many horror stories of people who have felt nothing while on anti-depressants for me to even consider it anymore.

Not to say I haven’t experienced true, unbridled joy in my life.  There are moments in my life that I would never give away, never trade in.  Meeting my wife and eventually getting married, the birth of my daughter, and my friends are all points in my life that have a significant positive effect.  However, as much as I hate to say it, they have not taken away this persistent feeling that something is wrong with either me or my life. 

My latest struggle has to do with being the stay at home parent.  I feel inept and at times, downright detrimental to the health of my daughter.  I feel it would be better for my daughter if I wasn’t the stay at home parent sometimes, but as it stands right now, I’m who she’s stuck with, and I’ve got to make the best of the situation.  The hard part is that because of my general feelings of ineptitude and worthlessness, it leads to a massive inferiority complex which leads to a lot of short fuses, bad tempers, and cranky moments that is having some very negative effects on my relationship with my wife.  At times to the point where I feel as if they’d be better off without me.  Non-sensical, yes, but no one ever said depression made a lot of sense.

Like I said before, the hardest part about depression is talking about it.  Much of it has to do with not wanting to complain.  People look at my life, and they see a beautiful wife, an adorable daughter, me not having to work, and yet still having a nice place to live, and they would think that I have nothing to complain about.  Hell, that’s what I think to myself, but that only tends to feed into the self-loathing that comes with depression.  I think “I have all these amazing things, what do I have to be depressed about?” and I beat myself up because I don’t have an answer.  Well, this is my attempt at talking about it, even if it’s not the clearest thing.  I worry that I’ll never break out of this, even after all the different attempts I’ve already made, and it has made me hesitant to try anything else in fear of just failing some more.  But just talking about it helps, and while I don’t really have much opportunity to do that, being so far away from my closest friends, I can still at least put it out there.  Who knows… maybe this will be the start of something better.

The Long Slog

We recently went through the last of the presidential debates, and now are just a couple of weeks away from election day.  All I can say is THANK GOODNESS!  At no point in my life have I been as involved in politics as I have been this year, which is strange because I don’t even live in the country anymore, but for some reason, I just felt like I had to get involved, enough so that I finally registered to vote this year, despite having believed (and honestly I still do) that it’s utterly pointless.

Whomever you ultimately decide to vote for, I’m sure that you are sick to death of all the negative ads, the constant coverage, and the doomsday rhetoric that seems to be coming from both sides if the other side is elected.  Not to mention the annoyance that there are only two sides!  There hasn’t been a legitimate third party contender since Ross Perot (you can maybe include Ralph Nader, but seriously… no).

If you actually listened to the venom being spewed by either side, you would instantly believe that as soon as the other side’s candidate steps into office as the next elected president, Armageddon will happen, the US will completely implode, and life as we know it will end in a fiery explosion.  In truth, unless the US were to be actually taken over by a fascist regime, they are likely to run it at least moderately competently, and within two years, if you didn’t like it, you could always swap over to another set of politicians who will pander to their constituents.  The president as an individual only has so much power, which is actually the beauty of the American governmental system.  No single branch of government can have that large an effect without another one getting in its way. 

But aside from how the government actually works, the election is lame for another reason.  Out of the 50 states that can vote, in any given election, only 8 ever really matter.  Unless you happen to live in one of those 8 states, your state will vote for either the Democrat or the Republican, and by such a wide margin, any individual vote won’t matter.  So 42 states out of 50 are pretty much ignored during the entire campaign process, their concerns falling by the wayside.  Party politics have congealed in such a way that they are diametrically opposed, so unless there is a literal 180 by one party or the other, these 42 states will continue to vote as they always have.  The remaining 8 states are inundated with so many campaign ads, I’m surprised there haven’t been any campaign related riots.  People just sick to death of hearing “This message approved by so-and-so candidate” and deciding to take to the streets, burning candidates in effigy. 

Every 4 years, we are forced to sit through political campaigns that pander to the lowest common denominator, because that’s how they get votes.  You can’t have high minded ideas, because then you’ll be labeled an elitist, and will be hammered by the media, who are trying to push their own agenda.  Also, don’t ask anyone to sacrifice, because the country in general wants to have everything and give up nothing.  The stereotype that Americans feel entitled to things seem to bear out if you were to base it on the campaigns the candidates run.  Everyone wants something, but ask them to give something else up, and there’s an uproar saying the person who said that is “un-American.”  People seem to forget that the US is a nation of immigrants, and first generation immigrants had to sacrifice just to get there.  They didn’t kill themselves so their kids could whine about having to give up their toys.  They did it to give them a chance at a better opportunity for a better life.  What you do with that opportunity is up to you.  So far, it’s beginning to look like a wasted opportunity.

I’m rambling, but trying to keep up with everything that’s being said by the campaigns and trying to keep the facts straight has taken a toll on my mind.  They throw a ton of information, much of it either outside of our realm of understanding, or such a blatant lie, that you have to research like mad in order to make sense of any of it.  I have the time to do much of that now because I’m a stay at home dad, but your average working individual will be way too busy to do that, and will just trust whatever media they choose to view, which is why Fox News is so popular.  It could be utter bull, but who has the time to fact check?  As important as it is to the US to have an informed electorate, the media in general, and the parties in particular are doing everything they can to muddy the picture to make their guy seem better. 

The feeling that I can’t seem to shake is that no matter who the president is going to be, how big of an effect will it ultimately have on my life?  I’ve lived through Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama, and honestly, it hasn’t been much different from one to the next.  Maybe it’s just the way I live (within my means, not relying on credit, and working to earn my money) but prices always fluctuate, the bills always seem to be too high, there never seems to be enough money, and ultimately, you do everything you can to take care of yourself and your family.  Granted, I’ve been fortunate in that we haven’t had any major medical emergencies in the family, or any investments that are subject to the whims of the market, but I think the majority of the country lives like that.  We all struggle in our lives, but most of us find a way.  Has it ever changed drastically from one president to the next?

In closing, do I think this election is important?  Yes, but maybe not for the same reasons that a lot of others think so.  I believe that Obama is the best chance for a proper recovery of the two candidates, but I don’t think he’s the best person for the job.  He’s just the better of the two candidates, because Romney has shown himself to have no backbone, and will do whatever is most popular at the moment, and unfortunately, populist rule will only lead to a clusterfuck of epic proportions.  A proper leader is someone who has a vision, has strong and supportable reasons for the actions he wants to take towards that vision, tries his or her best to convince people to work with them towards that vision, but will find ways to do what they have to do in order to see their vision through.  Obama has been too soft in that regard, as he let the Republicans block him at every turn, instead of bulling his way through at points, but I’m convinced that if Romney gets into office, he will basically be a puppet for the more extreme elements of his party.  Of course, the fact that politicians are a part of this process at all is the problem.  A really great leader is someone who doesn’t seek out leadership, they are people who are put in that position by others because they are seen to have the qualities that people want to lead them.  Unfortunately, there’s no way to have that happen on such a large scale.

The (not so) Amazing Spider-Man

Breaking format once again because I have just recently seen the latest Spider-Man movie, and despite everyone seeming to have loved it, I find myself hating it to no end.  I’m beginning to think I’ve seen a different movie than everyone else, so I’ll just go on a point by point breakdown as to why this movie has absolutely rubbed me the wrong way.  This contains major spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it yet, don’t read further than this, unless you’re the type to not care.  If you either don’t care or have seen it, read on.

Some of these issues might seem nitpicky, but it’s everything as a whole that gets to me, so please wait until the end to bash me.

The first issue I had with the movie is that Uncle Ben and Aunt May are pretty much useless.  They never really establish what kind of relationship Peter has had with them, thereby nullifying any sort of reason for him to have as deep a motivation to BE Spider-Man as he has in either the comics or even the previous set of movies.  Aunt May is a pointless background character at best, who first is a helpless woman who needs to be sheltered (picked up from a train station in NYC when you live in Queens? Really?) who basically gets shouted down by Uncle Ben when she tries to defend herself, then an ineffectual harpie after Uncle Ben is killed.  Even at the end, she’s pointless and contradictory, because after Peter comes home from the beatdown he takes at the hands of the Lizard, covered in cuts and bruises and with a gunshot wound to the leg, she suddenly decides to just hug him instead of wonder why he’s coming home so completely beat up, as if buying her the eggs he was supposed to get earlier suddenly clears up any questions.  They had an incredibly ordinary, and boring relationship, and not something that would have inspired anyone to be a hero.  It would have been simple enough to do.  Instead of having Uncle Ben either yelling at him, or lecturing him over the phone, they just had to have some moments where Uncle Ben was caring and understanding, instead of frustrated at Peter’s typical teenage angst.  It would have shown how different they were as his caretaker, instead of a perfectly ordinary family unit.  They did this really well in the Ultimate Spider-Man series, which this movie had quite a few elements from. 

The next problem is with Peter.  Just Peter as a whole.  I never felt they established what kind of genius he was.  They failed at this in the first movie too, because they gave him organic web shooters, but with all the hype of him having mechanical ones in this movie, I thought they would finally give him the chance to show off his brains.  This was never really the case.  They showed him to have some mechanical engineering abilities, shown at only one point in the movie with that stupid push button wireless bedroom door bolt that just shows more that he’s lazy than intelligent.  From that we’re supposed to extrapolate that he’s smart enough to build a miniaturized extrusion device for a previously unseen and untested material? Speaking of that unseen and untested material, he didn’t make it.  He orders it. FROM OSCORP!  Does no one else see the problem here?  He’s completely reliant on his future nemesis (not that he knows this of course) on one of his most important tools as Spider-Man.  Also, as it is called Biocable, this stuff is never meant to dissolve.  Which means that he’s leaving his webbing just about everywhere.  Considering this material is developed and sold only be one company (I won’t get into how Peter was even able to get his hands on the stuff, considering all prototype material is either never for sale or is prohibitively expensive) it will be easily traceable.  This will lead to the discovery of his identity by anyone willing to put in the time to look which is likely half of NY.  Speaking of his identity…

Anyone else noticed he was whipping his mask off every few minutes?  Once to save that kid, and a few times just to see better.  Whatever happened to trying to keep his secret identity?  This was central to Peter’s character in order to protect his loved ones.  He goes around whipping off his mask and putting his freaking name on a camera that he was using to take pictures of his fight with Lizard… and we’re supposed to believe he’s smart? 

Not to mention the reveal of his identity to Gwen for no reason then to get some tail.  He struggles briefly with telling this girl he’s never even been on a date with his biggest secret, then webs her butt and basically sexually assaults her.  Don’t believe me?  Look at her face after she gets webbed, and watch how she pulls away when he tries to kiss her the first time.  He follows that up by saying “Shut up” and forces his mouth on her.  If you say “but she wanted it” then congratulations… you’ve just uttered the line of every rapist on Earth.  Ask yourself, if some dude who has been shown was able to pick up cars and dodge bullets forced himself on you, would you be able to refuse?  And this wasn’t the only time.  When he sneaks into her room after his fight with Lizard in the sewers, after surviving a fight to the death with a giant reptilian monster, his only desire is to make out with this girl.  Again she pulls away, and again he pushes himself on her.  This is not Peter Parker, this is a stupid horny teenager with powers.

That’s generally the problem I have with him.  In the comics, Peter has always been shown to have this incredible sense of morality and responsibility.  He would struggle with the desire to be a normal teenager and this need to be a hero, but his responsibility would always win out.  However, in this movie, he always takes the selfish way.  He reveals his identity to this girl he likes, he only chases criminals that match the description of the guy who murdered his uncle (not to mention he never actually captures him) and he basically says he’s going to break the promise he made to a dying man because he would rather just be with the girl he loves, not caring about the amount of danger he’s going to put her in.  People complained about the lack of humor in the first movie, and that Tobey Maguire always played Peter like he was about to cry.  While Spider-Man’s sense of humor has improved a bit in this movie, they completely missed who Peter Parker is.  They went too far in the opposite direction, making him stay in his Spider-Man persona the entire time.  The appeal of Spider-Man to me has always been that while he’s funny, he always took his responsibilities seriously, to the point of detriment.  

Some other minor nitpicky things that just put me over the edge is that Peter’s physique never changed from before he go bit to after.  He was always portrayed as a 98 lb weakling before the bite, then he gained some acrobatic like muscles.  Again, this was portrayed very well in Ultimate Spider-Man.  In the movie, no visual difference, except he wears a t-shirt at the end of the movie to show off his muscles.  Also, while the action scenes were good, the movie seemed to render his spider-sense completely useless.  The only time it ever seemed to come in handy was when he was in school to prevent being bullied.  The Lizard snuck up on him in the sewer, he got tazed when he turned the corner and the helicopter took him by surprise, and he took a bullet wound from a single cop shooting at him with a handgun.  I can maybe forgive the tazer incident because he was preoccupied by being shot at from 100 directions, but the other incidents basically said he doesn’t have a functioning spider-sense.  Also, the costume was horrible.  I hate how they keep changing iconic costumes.  They showed with the first set of movies that the costume works on screen.  Their reason for changing it, ostensibly to make it look like he actually made it, but in that regard, they failed.  There is no way in hell a high school teenager could have made that outfit.  They had one scene with him sewing together the mask, and he didn’t even have proper sewing technique.  Finally, never in the entire movie was the most important phrase ever uttered.  They sort of talked around it, with the whole “moral responsibility” lecture Uncle Ben gave Peter before he died, but we never heard “With great power, comes great responsibility.”  Not a major issue, but it just felt wrong without that line.

All in all, the movie was a disappointment to me.  There were too many glaring problems that I couldn’t ignore.  It’s a fun action movie, the fight scenes are nice, and there are some genuinely funny moments… but it wasn’t Spider-Man.  Not really.  It will do well because it will appeal to all the casual fans, but to me, it will never be right.  This sits up there with Ang Lee’s Hulk as a failed attempt at an iconic hero because they focused on the wrong aspect.

Coping out

Yeah, my first blog here in ages, and it’s a pun.  What else do you expect?

Anyway, I’ve been spending most of my blogging time over on my other site, Taking Care of Tiny Tien.  It’s been my primary focus since becoming a parent.  However, since not everything I think of lately has to do with being a dad, I thought I’d come here and deal with the non-daddy things.

This time, it has to do with how do you cope with your negative feelings?  I don’t know about you, but I go through bouts of depression.  It’s not clinically diagnosed or anything, though I’ve been checked.  It’s just being down about things.  Mainly, it’s about feeling lonely, and apart from everything.  Now you may ask “But… aren’t you married… and have a kid?  Why would you feel lonely?” 

I think that’s a common misconception about feelings of loneliness.  Just because you have people around you, even loved ones, it doesn’t mean you always feel like you aren’t alone.  The primary example I’ve been experiencing, and really the reason I’m writing this entry, is that you just feel that you don’t have someone to talk to about the issues you’re going through.  “What about your wife?” you may ask.  Well, how do you talk to someone about a problem you’re having if they are potentially part of the problem?

Here’s the thing.  For quite some time now (I was about to say the majority of my life, but when I thought about it, it really wasn’t true) I’ve tried to talk out my feelings and any thoughts I might have.  I felt it was healthy, because I’ve been through the alternative.  Where you feel that you have to bottle everything up inside, and just suck it up and move on.  When I was back in the States, getting every out wasn’t too hard, because I had quite a few friends I could talk to about things like this.  Whether it was just some nagging thought in the back of my mind, some complaint I had about something in particular, or some random idea that I felt I needed to expand on, I felt that the people in my life were varied enough that I could always find someone to speak to about it.

Now that I’m no longer in the US, I’ve more or less been cut off from my friends.  Gone are the days where I would have a conversation into the wee hours of the morning, just letting my mind free associate.  Lost are the times where jokes would be flying back and forth among a few of us who gathered together just for that purpose.  Now, I am a stay at home dad who only really has his daughter to talk at.  Yes, talk at, not talk to, since she hasn’t mastered that little thing called language yet. 

Also, to be honest, the conversation with my wife has been a bit… problematic lately, as I feel as though there are a lot of things I can’t express to her without upsetting her.  I still try to bring up issues that need to be worked out with her, so that our marriage is at least strong, but it’s getting harder, because there is no outlet for the times where I feel I need to talk to an outside party about things that may pertain to our relationship.  Lately, it just feels like my wife and I aren’t really friends anymore.  Some of it, I’m sure, has to do with the strain of taking care of a new child, but there are other elements at play here that I don’t think I can properly address without having someone to bounce ideas off of. 

There is a community of people here that I do associate/socialize with, but I’m not sure if I can really call them friends… at least not in the sense of how it felt when I was around my friends at home.  With friends that you’ve had for a long time, you build up a catalog of personality quirks that you can only really share with each other.  It requires a lot of shared experience, good times and bad, and just generally being around each other for a long enough time where you learn these things about each other.  That’s why a lot of people have close friends that really come from an earlier stage in their life, because it’s hard to make new friends after a certain point.  It’s not impossible, but it is hard. 

That being said, there are things that you just don’t feel comfortable telling newer people in your life, because they don’t quite fall into that comfort zone.  Since that is currently the situation I’m in, I honestly feel as though I just can’t tell people what I need to say in order to clear my mind and function normally again.  I feel myself falling back into old patterns that I thought long lost, where I just grit my teeth and bear it because I don’t want to disturb the peace.  I had built up such a good system to cope when I was home, and now, it’s gone.  Sure, I could contact my friends through all the social media sites, and things like that, but there’s something lacking when there isn’t a face-to-face conversation.  I feel as though I’m suddenly that awkward teenager again from high school who doesn’t know where he fits in or how he fits in. 

Basically, what I’m saying is that I’m holding in a lot of stuff, and the pressure is starting to build.  I vent from time to time, but it’s always directed at the wrong people, or person I should say, and normally in the wrong way.  I’ve lost the ability to be clear with my words because I don’t have any practice anymore with saying things the way I need them to be said.  Having friends around with whom I can clarify my thoughts beforehand helps a lot, and not having them has caused me to lose my voice in a way.  I have to come up with a whole new way to cope that isn’t full of self-destructive behavior, because right now, that’s what I’m knee deep in.  I’ve come to loathe myself in recent weeks, because I just feel like an idiot who doesn’t know what to say.  In order to move on with my life, I’m going to have to figure something new out… but where to start?  I guess that’ll be my new job…

Addictions are bad, Mm’kay?

For those who know me, you know that I have a bit of an obsessive personality.  When I get involved in something, I tend to dive into it head first, and keep my head buried there until I’ve learned everything I could, or get sick of it.  My current subject of obsession is the MMO game DCUO.  For the uninitiated, that means Massively Multiplayer Online game, DC Universe Online. 

I have been playing this game since early to mid April of 2011, and have been on it pretty nonstop over that time period.  The only time I’ve taken off from the game is when I’ve been away from the house for trips that went multiple days, or when my wife has forcibly dragged me away from it in order to do something else that isn’t related to it.  It’s gotten to the point where I feel antsy when I don’t get on the game, because I feel like I’m missing something.  Just from that sentence alone, you can tell I’m addicted. 

Over the time that I’ve played this game,  I’ve gotten to know a few new people(about as well as you can know people that you meet on an online game) and gotten deeper into the world.  This mostly came about from forming our own league, and my desire to want to actually get to know these people, instead of just mindlessly playing a game.  I actually look forward to interacting with these people on a regular basis.  However, being one of the founders of the league, I’ve taken it upon myself to be responsible for the well being of the characters that have joined the league.  This mainly includes making sure people are keeping in touch with each other, helping each other get stronger in game, and keeping up on strategies when it comes to in-game content.  The problem with this is that I tend to get a bit tense when someone in the group isn’t playing up to my standards, which has lead to some spectacular (or pathetic) blow-ups on my part. 

Sadly, the target of these blow-ups has primarily been one of my best friends from my real life.  In fact, this is the guy who got me into the game in the first place.  Without him, I wouldn’t be playing it, so I don’t know if I should be thanking him or strangling him.  Anyway, the main issue is that I feel bad about getting upset at him enough to yell at him, because it means that the game is taking precedent over the friendship, and that shouldn’t be the case.  However, I’m a perfectionist about things like this, and when things don’t go smoothly, despite having everything explained beforehand, the desire to target the source of the “problem” takes over, and common courtesy goes out the window.

This is generally believed about people who play MMOs; they lack social graces.  This being my first MMO, I never understood why people believed that.  After having been on it for some time, I understand completely.  People who lose themselves in these games (myself being an example) are looking for some sort of success that they might not be able to attain in real life.  Anything getting in the way of that success is an obstacle that must be eliminated.  When you’re trying to beat a raid, and someone on the team isn’t doing their part up to your standards, then they become an obstacle, and you feel the need to do something about it, as they are standing in the way of your success. 

It’s easy to forget there’s a person on the other side with real feelings and emotions, since you don’t see them, so it’s natural to just stomp on them in order to get what you want.  Most times, it’s someone you don’t know, so a lot of times, you can just never deal with that person again.  However, when that other person is a friend, there needs to be some perspective on how you treat that person.  It’s really easy to lose sight of that when you’re trying to do something, and things go wrong.  It’s never right to yell at someone, but having been in this game, and dealing with people on a non-face-to-face level, it’s really easy to just say “screw it” and be a big ass. 

There is a definite need to rein it in.  Being addicted to this game as bad as I’ve been, there is definite need of some middle ground.  If I can’t play it without being an ass, then that means I’m not being a good person, and if this game is making me worse, then I need to stop.  I like playing it, but I like my friends more. 

Late Night Ramblings 7/12/11

I’m likely to do a few of these, as I don’t have any particular topic in mind when I find myself in one of my sleepless fits, so I figured I’d date them… just for the hell of it.

Random thoughts running through my head at the moment:

A) I wonder how long it would take to build a new Tech discipline villain with acrobatics in DCUO with Lex Luthor as the mentor… I’ve already got every other power, discipline, and weapon type done. That’s the last of it to earn the last trophy.  Kind of pointless really, as I do want to stop playing the game for some time so I can claim my life back.  I don’t know if I’d say I have an addictive personality, more of an obsessive one.  I feel like I’m wasting money if I have the subscription and don’t use it, so somehow, everything else gets put on the back burner… although now that Kat is into the game, I don’t feel so bad, since I can do stuff, and she can use it.  Although this might cause some problems when the subscription ends, and don’t want to renew it for a bit...

B) I know why bugs fly into houses and pester people.  We’re an easy source of food, whether it’s the garbage we throw out, the food we leave sitting out, or hell, our own bodies that provide them nourishment.  What I don’t get though is why after all the generations that have existed for any one species, how they haven’t learned that to be seen by humans is death.  They just fly around out in the open, annoying people to the point that they must be squished.  I guess when you can reproduce at the pace at which most bugs and insects can, it doesn’t really matter to have survival instincts.  Of course, I’m speaking more of country bugs.  Everyone who has lived in big cities has seen a swarm of roaches run for cover when the lights go on at least once in their lives.  Maybe not in your own home, but maybe a friend.  On a related note… I think I’ve killed about 20 of them since I started typing this.  They just keep hopping around the desk lamp…  I think they’re trying to play chicken…

C) It’s now mid-July, and I have still not been able to really enjoy any air conditioning.  Why, you may ask?  Because I’m pretty sure the damn thing is busted.  Whenever I turn it on, it’s lukewarm air, no matter what setting it’s on.  This normally wouldn’t be a problem, because normally, it could just be replaced, but 1) it’s not a window unit, and 2) even if we could just replace it ourselves, we’re not allowed to because it’s funded by the Japanese government, so we have to wait while they send someone over, and speed is not their forte.  Guess I’ll have to tough this summer out with my fan.

D) I miss my mom’s fried rice.  There’s not much else to say about this topic.

E) I’m beginning to notice that my back only hurts whenever someone tells me to fix my posture.  Prior to that, I feel fine, but I guess I just look horrible hunched over the way I normally do.  I admit, when I look in a mirror, I do look a bit unpleasant without having a straight back, but I don’t feel any pain or anything.  I only feel it when I try to conform to normal posture, and either I’m overcompensating, or my back is that misshapen.  Either way, it’s always a difficult adjustment period.  Sadly, I seem to always fall back into my “normal” posture, which sets people off again. 

F) I’ve basically come to the end of this rant, and I always find it oddly relieving to just spill everything onto this blog.  No matter how wired I am when I’m up, can’t sleep, and writing this, as soon as all the thoughts in my head are exhausted, then I get tired enough to actually fall asleep.  Guess it really is just my brain being overactive.  I used to think it was just being over-caffeinated, but I guess not.  Anyway… night all. (And for those of you wondering why I’m saying night… please remember the time difference. )