I am going to post this chapter today, though it has been something I intended to do since May. It is December 11th of the same year and I am so sorry. I understand that this note is likely a good way to start this chapter, so I am writing the opening now.

  Today I am feeling better, but it has been ages since I have.

  The following is a chapter which is longer than normal but has been added to over the last seven months.

  When they tell you to be kind to yourself, it really is important. My intent was to post this during a high point and give the novel a bit of a boost. That did not happen.

  The highlights.

  Did you know that prazosin has a side-effect that may intensify your suicidal thoughts? Well keep that in mind because it’s a common PTSD medication so make sure you pass this nugget of information to anyone you know that is having suicidal thoughts, and is using that medication, because the only side-effects they put out that is easy to find are dizziness, headache, drowsiness, lack of energy, weakness, palpitations, and nausea. It took my therapist asking about any medication adjustments recently and then the two of us researching the medication. It wasn’t ultra easy to come by. I am saying this because the dull drone of constant suicidal thoughts became a screaming toddler demanding I die immediately. It was hard to ignore.

  Now onto the puzzle of random information that was my last seven months.

  Anxiety reflex: The Freeze

  I had created a daily activity report document to give myself an understanding of my limitations each day. Now, not all days are the same and the worst days I can lock up and do nothing but fiddle with my videogames and keep my mind from pulling in on itself. My focus can be sharp, dull, or completely scattered. I am currently dealing with the freeze or the lockup. I am having so much trouble focusing I may as well be a damn potato.

  I have gone through this before, but this seems to be the worst I’ve been in for a long while. I am locked up, having trouble with doing anything at all. My routine has just stopped. Showers have become rare, which is a huge pain in the ass because I am bald, and if enough time goes between shaving my head, the hair gets too long to just use a razor, which means I need to use the clippers, which take extra steps to use, which makes it more difficult to shave my head, so it goes without any maintenance and soon I start to look like a bum. Brushing my teeth takes moments, but those moments are beyond my grasp. How? I have no clue.

  One of the things that seems to irritate my mom the most, when I am in one of these funks, seems to be me not putting away the dishes. It takes a lot to do the dishes, not just my dishes, but hers. I load the dishwasher when I have a spike of energy, then I run it and put the dishes in the strainer to ensure they are dry because she believes she can get hepatitis from the tap water if it stands, I have no idea where she gets it, no idea how there would be validity to it, I can find nothing that supports her belief, but I still need to let them dry completely before putting them away.

  I have not been able to get the dishes to their storage areas, but they sit, clean on the counter. Why? I have no clue. Explain that to her when she is in a bad mood and looking for something to complain about. A week ago she complained about it and I finally said, “You know, if it bothers you so much, you could put them away.” The result? She stopped complaining about the dishes on the counter for now. She didn’t put them away, they just continued to sit there until I had the energy to put them away.

  I talk to my therapist about these issues and she is good at explaining their validity, but how do you explain that to everyone else? She has gone to college just to learn this field. Her area of study was specific, her qualifications well earned. Now, take that experience, with the knowledge of various other conditions, her years of cultivating patience and understanding, and expect a high school dropout to even have a glimmer of understanding. Even if I am educated, I am not educated in this field specifically, so my ability to convey a greater understanding of this subject is going to be hindered.

  Earlier in this book, I discussed the fawning reflex, when I was unable to break away from the commands of an intimidating person. Freezing up is similar. Instead of blindly following orders, I am just powerless against my brain's inability to put itself into gear. It’s like the clutch is constantly slipping and I can’t get into motion at all. The inability to get moving gets frustrating, as it gets more frustrating, my mind focuses on this failure and judges itself harshly, and then everything compounds and gets harder.

  The daily activity report helps keep me on task, but sometimes that is too difficult. Remember, this is a document collection that I have been keeping for over a year to support my case, and once I sent in my appeal, I stopped doing it. This was not a good idea. I was doing better once the appeal was turned in, for a time, but that routine of completing the DAR was hard to start and once I stopped, it became far harder than I thought it would be to start up again. It had given me a structure that I should have continued to follow to keep myself on task.

  Yet another thing to beat myself up about.

  —--

  There should be no surprise that my family is a major trigger for my struggles. We have talked about this in depth earlier in this book. There just simply does not seem to be a way to take positive steps forward while I am here. All of the things that put me on guard as a child, in my formative years, are still true here, even if I was not aware of the full extent of those issues.

  Growing up, I knew that my stepfather was hard on me. Decades later I had only thought of this as slightly worse than other kids had to deal with. It did not register as abuse, it just seemed like it was stern discipline. I believe I mentioned earlier that my mom had dismissed the abuse as, “you were a really difficult kid.”

  It’s truly fucked up how everything goes full circle.

  I didn’t have children because I needed the cycle of abuse to end. I didn’t trust myself with being a father. I already had a sharp temper. I was never really taught how to express my upset without blowing up. I didn’t have slow vents, I just exploded. I did not want to deal with the possibility that I would do that to a kid. A kid should not live in fear of their guardians suddenly becoming their attacker.

  My mother got a puppy about half a year ago. When I say she got a puppy, I mean she brought a puppy into the home and promptly told me to take care of it. Now, I live in a tiny room, with my few remaining possessions, which have become precious to me, with the threat of a puppy eating them. He also enjoys playing. She is not a part of raising this animal, she barely leaves her room and has no idea how to actually train a creature. I have a puppy constantly demanding my attention, barking in frustration that I am unable to play with it, eating things throughout the house, needs to be penned in the hallway and my room, or he eats the cat litter, chews the furniture, terrorizes the cats, and uses the bathroom all over the place.

  Puppy Pads you say? He thinks it's hilarious to take them in his mouth and run them through the house, before ripping them to shreds for good measure.

  I yell at the dog in frustration. I love this dog. He is very sweet when he is sweet. He has personality for days. He is smart, which might also account for why he acts so dumb. He is digging through his reality and testing his limits. I have set up buttons for him to communicate his needs. I really want them to help me better understand him, but when he asks to “go potty,” he means, “I want to go outside.” There is no complexity to his buttons, so he is associating two things to a single button. I get that. I should be impressed, but instead, when he asks me for the fifth time in an hour to “go potty,” it’s hard for me to keep my cool, when I just want to stay calm and focus on something that can keep my attention off the horrific world we currently live in and the dark thoughts that inevitably flood my mind in response to such.

  I yell at the dog.

  I hate how he looks at me when I do. I try my hardest to keep from doing it, but some days the anxiety springs up on me too fast, the stress gets to me, and I yell at the dog.

  The dog is with me all day and night. There is a limit. I hate that there is a limit. He is a fun, young puppy. He should be running through the yard. He should be walked four or five times a day. Instead he gets walked into the backyard throughout the day. It’s bright, hot and smoky. It is not the weather I want to be in. None of that is his fault.

  He brings me joy. His youthful energy livens me. There are 23 hours of the day where he is amazing, but for about an hour each day, he drives me nuts. It’s a collection of minutes throughout the day, but they are irritating.

  I understand that this is an extreme state that I am in. I understand that the stress factors are especially sharp. I know that I held my temper back when I was doing better. I am just having a much harder time working on this in my current state.

  I started this chapter months ago. I have only now started getting back the ability to focus on tasks. I have not written since May and it is currently the first day of August. There have been things in those months that have just messed me up. I really don’t have another way of putting it.

  I am sure I have discussed, at length, in detail, ad nauseam, how much the 45th president of the United States has contributed to my mental breakdown. Him getting back into office, I honestly think would kill me. I cannot live like this. Knowing this, imagine how the debate of June 27, 2024 hit me. Now, let me fill you in on the decline details to help you understand why I am only now getting the focus back.

  Back in April my NJ therapist called me up after I left a message with their office to contact me. I was checking in on their website, because my case is in limbo, so I may as well look for more evidence while I wait here, just in case I need to continue to plead my case after this.

  I saw on their website that Mordi, the doctor who had lied about my case in his paperwork, still worked there. The interim manager that had taken the regular manager’s place during her maternity leave had told me that he no longer worked there. The news did not hit me well that, yet again, I was being lied to by this office.

  My former therapist, and that office manager who was on maternity leave, called me back after I called up and asked to speak to whoever is now incharge. With her back in charge, my heart jumped. She knew me. She spent about a year with me. She knew the man I was talking about, she was the one who heard my complaints about his strange behavior and my demand that he be removed from my case. I finally got her on the line. My case can be bolstered. I felt a rush of hope.

  Then that rug was pulled out from under me. We talked twice. One time for her to listen to my complaints, my upset, my current status, and the insanity that has been my norm. She listened. The second time was a few weeks later when she told me she hadn’t forgotten me, but that she was reading through my file carefully, to ensure that they recant any disinformation, mistakes, or lies. I understand this, I mean, my file is about 766 pages.

  A month goes by and I start leaving a message a week or so. I call as often as I have energy to do so. She has left me a couple of messages that I return, but have to leave a message in return so it’s just a telephone tag game. Around the end of May, I began feeling like she may have just gotten my complaints in order to cover the company in every way possible, knowing what the complaints would be, before they have to really get a defense ready. Paperwork can be lost, destroyed, etc.

  They are likely just dark thoughts, but they did the trick. My mind was swimming and my hope was dwindling. I feel hurt, betrayed, lost, and alone. My friends have been giving me the money to pay my rent for over a year. It may actually be longer than that and I just can’t remember. They have been keeping me as safe as possible for years now. Eight years of lost progress and begging to survive.

  It’s pathetic.

  I feel low.

  It was at this point that my family started to turn on me again. My brothers have been tired of me being here since the second day I was here. They do not want me in this house, they have been dropping by to make sure that I know they don’t want me here whenever they are upset, for years now.

  May 6th, 2024

  One of my brothers arrived at the house with the desire to help clean up the yards because summer is coming at us like a freight train. I get that. It needs to be done, my mom and I are not doing it on our own. It is a necessity. I just didn’t have the spoons to help. Because I couldn’t help, my brother and my mom did it all themselves and constantly complained about me. It wasn’t just about my inability to help at that moment, it was a barrage of how lazy I am, how I can’t get a job, how I don’t help around the house, how I am just playing video games and smoking pot.

  Now, I am not able to do everything I want to do each day. I admit that. I smoke pot, at night, after 4:30pm in order to relax and to prevent nightmares and deep elaborate dreams. I don’t have on demand energy most days, however, I do the dishes, walk the dog, feed the animals, clean up the animal waste, cook, clean, vacuum, clean the carpets, empty the trashes, and a plethora of other things, not constantly, but fairly regularly, and I must note, my mom fails to do all of those within any given month. She rarely does something, but it is commonplace for her to start a task, but to leave it unfinished, forcing me to finish that task or simply allow it to remain a mess.

  Knowing that I am able to help day to day, that I push myself each and everyday to my limits, makes their disrespect and criticism all the more hurtful. As I sat upon the bed, watching the puppy, and attempting not to listen to them, I found I was hating myself all the more. I could hear my brother’s venom and hatred for me and I could hear my mother agreeing with him, and stoking his anger to keep him on her side.

  This went on for two days. During this time, I attempted to get up and help and each time I found myself frozen in place. I simply couldn’t get out there and start helping. I had to dissect the problem with my therapist.

  There were factors that were necessary to define in order to understand the issue at that moment. My brother’s voice is very similar to his dad’s. His dad is my abuser. Hearing him talk about me felt exactly like his dad doing so, which threw up my defenses. My mom is lying about me to this person that reminds me of my abuser. I have come to realize that my mom has been using men to hurt me since I was a young child. She might not even realize it, but the result is still the same. She gets frustrated with me, that frustration is vented to a man who she feels is better equipped to confront me to change something to her liking, then said man comes and confronts me with a head filled with overdramatized nonsense. I am listening to my mom charge up my brother’s anger and then she will point him in my direction to get the result she wants.

  When my brother left for a time, he returned squealing his tires, reminiscent of his father’s tantrum driving habit. When he pulled up, it was like I was 10 years old again, hearing my stepdad pull up from work and readying myself for the eventual confrontation he will have with me, if I somehow displeased him, my mom, or one of my siblings, and I locked up. Even though I wanted to help, there was also something inside me that knew, if I went out there, it would simply make things worse. I would be uncomfortable, I would be soaking up sun (this is a negative for my pale skin), and I would have to deal with these two both dragging me down with passive aggressive taunts and barbs. At least in the house, I only hear them talking about me from a distance. They know I can hear them, I have told everyone that my hearing is very keen, but they don’t care.

  I am a grown man. I am currently 45 years old and this is still affecting my life. It feels pathetic.

  I had begun this chapter months ago. May 6, 2024 and I am picking it back up on July 23, 2024 and the reason I began it and the reason I am returning to it are essentially the same.

  I have been unable to function. I am frozen in my life. I am forty five right now and I feel so pathetic to be in the state that I am. Eight years. It has been eight years since I have felt normal. Each day that I am in this state, I hate myself more. There is a shame in my mental health breakdown. I am not a contributor to my country, my community, or my family and that stings each and every minute that I continue on that track, but I can’t do otherwise and it is maddening.

  Today, I started to feel better. I was able to do a few things around the house, I could let the dog out a few times and even sit with him for a bit. I put away the dishes in the dishwasher and did a load of dishes that needed to be washed by hand. The best bit, I was able to shower and I really needed it. I had not bathed in a week. It is extremely hot where I live and I have no AC. I have been sweating all day, each day, in my bed.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I spend about 20 hours a day in my bed. I get up from time to time to use the bathroom and get something to eat. That is about it. I struggle to get the dog out on a walk or even letting him out. I hate myself. Each day my brain tells me that this struggle could be over if I were dead. I do not want to hurt myself, but that doesn’t quiet my brain from continuing its barrage that a forever peaceful rest is an option.

  [Note: There is a suicide text line that I use when I am low: 741741]

  This has been the first day in months that I had to use the suicide text line, just to vent my frustration. What has been the issue you ask? Politics. I am once more triggered. President Biden had a bad time at the debate against the Orange Crybaby Snowflake Turd. It was sobering. The two men on the stage looked like elderhome residents arguing about what was on TV. They made very little sense and afterward OCST was acting like the cock of the walk; It looked grim. I talked to my therapist about it at length last week.

  It wasn’t just Biden forgetting things and stuttering, it wasn’t just watching OCST being a crybaby bully, it was that it was sinking hope that the man never gets back into office. I had hoped that when Biden took office, my body and mind would return to normal. I was more than slightly disappointed that it didn’t, because he never went away. He continued to cause trouble throughout my country. He refused to accept the results of the election, he continued to poison my people. How do you relax your trigger when it is still all around wherever you go?

  On July 13, 2024 there was an assassination attempt on Donald J. Trump. This is merely a point of reference for this year and the current climate around politics.

  The disastrous debate was the start of my retriggered state. I suddenly realized that there was a real chance that OCST could return to office. This terrifies me. This person has triggered a state of being in myself that I didn’t know I even had. Suddenly my country was tearing itself in half. The worst of us felt emboldened and the uneducated have become convinced that the educated people around them know nothing. One of the new parroted phrases I am hearing is, “You think you are educated, but you really know nothing.”

  I have family members that are Moon landing denialist, evolution denialist, and education hostile all while telling me they are Christian and that I am going to hell. Charming right?

  Wait. I got off topic. That’s right. The freeze.

  Look. When I am triggered I slow down to a crawl. I barely move around. I end up playing games to keep my mind from wandering back to the nightmare that I am living through and the thoughts of suicide. Not being able to kick myself into gear and get things done just looks like I am lazy to my family, and I am sure others. My therapist tells me that what I am doing is okay, because it is helping me get away from the darkest thoughts that I have. Sure. She can say that. She has a job and that job likely allows her to live fairly well. She can work. She may even have a kind and supportive family. Her training tells her that this is the answer because this problem requires this answer. I get it, I just don’t have the same situation, which makes the statement frustrating.

  I had gotten a hold of my therapist in New Jersey and told her about how some of the people in her office had sabotaged my case with lies and falsehoods. She told me she was going to look into my files, find the issues and get retractions and rescind those declarations. This lit me up and made me feel like my case might actually make some progress. Well that was back in April. She called a few times and left me some messages, but because I am in a phone deadzone and for some reason my phone refuses to accept that the Wi-Fi allows me to use the phone here, I rarely had the phone ring, so I have been communicating through voicemail with her.

  The last time I got a message from her, all I got was,

  Hi Jesse, it's REDACTED calling again from Omni Health Services. I didn't want you to think I forgot about you, but as you know, going through all that paperwork can take some time, so I have been really thoroughly going through it trying to find any of the references that you had mentioned, and I've been unsuccessful. I'm going to keep combing through to make sure I haven't missed anything, but if I could possibly talk to you about a release to speak with maybe your appeals attorney or someone who can help guide me to the documents reference. I can see if there's anything we can retract or fix. So if you can, I know it's kind of the end of the day on a Friday, but if we can get in touch next week, you can call me at any of our Omni locations in my direct extension is still REDACTED. I'm primarily based out of the REDACTED office now, so you can call me there at REDACTED. And again, my extension is REDACTED. I will be in next week 9 to 5:00 Monday through Friday. So if you can please give me a call next week, and we can talk a little bit more. Thank you. Bye.

  I have been calling about once a week since and I have not gotten a return call. My case is 766 pages long, I get that it would be hard to comb through, but the spike in hope slowly burned out as the days went by without a followup call. As those days went by, my energy also went down. I have pushed myself as hard as I can each day. Some days are better than others, but those better days have gotten further and further apart.

  While in decline, a lockup hoping that my old therapist was going to suddenly save my case and force the government to acknowledge my disabled status, I started feeling better, I started to get a little more done, I even interviewed for two jobs. But, I didn’t get the jobs, my old therapist seems to have forgotten about me, or is now actively dodging my calls. These hits pushed me back a step, then another, then another…

  After a while, everything got worse than before. I missed appointments with my doctors. I have been sleeping too much or too little. I have shut myself away from friends because I feel like I am burdening them with my problems that all seem so easy to overcome. I love my friends, I don’t want to burden them. My family, they seem to hate me. Their disappointment with my decline has not been a secret.

  Today I am having a good day. Today, I am riding the wave that Biden dropped out and Kamala Harris is the likely new Democratic candidate for president. When the man dropped out, my social media started exploding with negativity. I understand, she is not someone we all know a lot about, but she’s also been in the vice presidential position for the last four-ish years. She has been a politician for years before that, she was a California district attorney, and overall, she seems like a left leaning moderate, but has seen firsthand how well progressive policies have been working, and as a new candidate, she has the likelihood of serving two terms, after Biden’s one term. That is a dozen years of progress that is possible. That could really be an amazing win for my nation.

  I am doing my best to keep this burst in energy going, but it’s fragile. A single upset just put me back a little. My mother is having a good day, but, like any time I have a conversation with my her, she can push me to a point of humiliation or anger, this time was both.

  She began talking about all the things she wants to do, and how she needs to get a handle on her medications because she needs to break this pattern. Then she starts talking about cleaning up, this is because her new dog had just been caught peeing on the carpet.

  During a spike, I had cleaned up the living room, which had been overfilled with boxes and pet waste. I had been walking through that maze to keep the cat boxes under control, but I can only do so much in that state, so I needed to clean it. I had cleaned it in stages while my mother was in Bakersfield for my sister's baby shower for a few days, so there wasn’t a chance that she would come out of her room and attempt to pick an argument. There wasn’t a chance that she was going to talk to my siblings about me and have them suddenly appear and attempt to pick a fight.

  There was peace.

  She was driven home by my brother, who looked like he was about to pick said fight, when they both entered the house and saw that I had completely cleaned the living room, shampooed the carpet, moved items that shouldn't have been in there to another place that was more logical, etc.

  I didn’t get everything I wanted to in the two days she was gone, but that was because she was supposed to be gone for three days, but came home early. My brother came through the door, with a stereotypical face that conveys anger. When he saw the room, he got surprised and realized that whatever he was going to jump down my throat about, was going to be invalid in the current state of things, so he simply repeated my mom’s “Wow, the living room looks really good,” then, without saying a single word to me, he turned and left.

  The moment he was gone, mom said, “Why can’t you do this when I am around?”

  She wouldn’t like the answer. Remember, it was peaceful that was the key.

  Even when I was cleaning, something happened that would have normally really broken my calm, was frustrating but tolerable.

  The thing?

  My mom had packed a bunch of stuff into a three by two foot box. I saw laundry on top and figured the box would weigh X. I attempted to lift it and the bottom started to rip, then the load shifted and one of the four one gallon cans of paint she had packed into the box fell and splashed brown paint all over the carpet.

  I cleaned it up, figured that the damage was easy to blend into the nasty stains from the pets, and went on cleaning. Don’t get me wrong, there was a stream of cursing and talking to my imaginary mother about how insane she is to have done that. Without her there, those shouts and curses, was just frustrated yelling that impacted no one.

  I was able to break my frozen state when I was in a place of peace.

  Security, safety, peace, and the knowledge that I was going to remain in that state for a specific amount of time, even if that time was short. Imagine what I could do if I always felt this way?

  This weekend, there was a notice that our power would likely be turned off, in order to help against wildfires. My mom told me about this on Friday. She did this nonchalantly, like it was just a frustration that was coming. I had to get her solar powered battery bank charged, this takes about three days and I had two ish. We don’t have AC, but it was about 106, so I needed to make sure that there was a way to get a fan going to keep her cool. She is disabled, in her 60s, and in poor health. She is one of the vulnerable demographics to an excessive heat warning. I had not thought about the battery in months, which is my fault… I guess.

  The day of the power outage was on a Sunday, but it wasn’t a certain thing, it was a maybe. Because it was a maybe, I sat waiting for it to start, so I could plug the fridge into the battery, get a fan ready, and attempt to keep everyone cool. It was never turned off.

  Because of this, I canceled my D&D game, which is the highlight of my week most weeks. I had to remain on alert and I had put myself in “wait mode.”

  Freezing up, waiting for something, anxiously waiting for the event, without it ever showing up. I have to think about the possibility that my condition is doing the same with my life. I am waiting for the government to help me, after 8 years, it’s no longer really a hope. It’s a “we don’t give a shit if you live or die and we don’t care that you paid into social security, fuck you, die or get better, it’s on you.”

  I just feel lost. I feel like I am losing. I feel like hope is just this tiny pinpoint of light upon a sky of black.

  Fires. Holy shit. Fires.

  On Wednesday, July 24 the sky filled with smoke as the Borel Fire tore through the 178 highway in the canyon and started towards the towns in the area.

  I live with my disabled mother. My mother went into a depression powersave mode. The smoke was heavy on the air and she already has a lot of breathing problems, as she has COPD. The fire grew closer each hour. I myself locked up. I could not cope. There has simply been too much going on. My mind is dealing with repeated waves of disturbing news, issues, problems, it just doesn’t seem to stop.

  On the 24th, I was completely useless. I saw the smoke, but I couldn’t even get myself going on walking the dog each day. I have missed appointments, which is the last thing I have been able to continually do because my case balances on compliance. Nothing has been going right. My bike is still broken, the weather has been unbearably hot, my mother has been miserable, my siblings have been stressful and angry, my sister is having twins, my life is going nowhere, my disability has been tied up in limbo, my therapist in NJ has not gotten back to me in months, political issues have been upsetting (and no I can’t just ignore it, everyone talks about it when I go out and I will not keep my head in the sand), I just see so much hopelessness.

  [Preface: I am not suicidal and I will not commit suicide, that doesn’t mean my mind isn’t plagued with the thoughts of]

  I have been dealing with suicidal thoughts all the time lately. Everything just seems too hard. The interviews I had with the library took a lot out of me. I am trying to get myself back out in the workforce, I apply, I interview, I try as hard as I can. That being said, I am 45. I have a list of accomplishments and experience that does not go well with minimum wage jobs. I apply to them, but in an interview, I am going to have to talk about myself, what am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to tell these people that I just woke up from a coma? How do they make peace with hiring a person who is likely more qualified than they are (I am not trying to be arrogant, I am being pragmatic and realistic)?

  When they ask me about the hours being part-time, what am I supposed to say? Yes, I need part-time hours because I have not worked in 8 years and I am struggling with mental illness. How do I explain my disabled status (knowing it’s a tax incentive for them) and yet come off as not too disabled to work dependably?

  There are also the issues with my mother. She takes any chance she gets to insult me, run me down, or make my life harder somehow. While I am struggling I hear that just because my debt was canceled (because I could not pay my bills for 7 years) anything I previously helped with financially, no longer counts. This was in response to my absence in working on the roof every single day with my brothers and the handyman being brought up once more and my counter that I had bought the paint and supplies as well as did my best to work on the project with my siblings, a decade ago, so the supplies no longer counted, nor did the effort at this point and time. For a cherry on top? “Yeah, that was back when you thought you were better than everyone else,” followed by “I was just saying, credit where credit is due.” The exact opposite from what was happening within our conversation. I give my brothers their due. I know they kicked ass out there, they worked hard, they helped in every way that they could. I was just trying to alleviate the attacks on me with a point that I supplied many of the things they are using now, years ago. I am just asking for some credit. I did help. I did try to help more. I just have limited ability to help.

  I am being asked to get better under circumstances that would try a healthy person's will.

  Today my therapist and I had a talk about my prescribers notes. You see, I am going after a lawyer again, which means that I might as well keep getting as much extra evidence that I can. I asked the office to give me a copy of my file. I am sending the new packet, along with paperwork that the prescribers are being asked to write. Here’s the thing. I read his notes and he marks that he believes I blame others for my issues. Now, this outright upset me. I was ready to storm in and go all “You must explain this sir!”

  My therapist and I chewed this up a bit and here is what she gave me. Essentially, because I am in a house of drama and I need to analyze how the drama is effecting me currently, the things going on around me, the things I need to reflect upon to figure out how to get myself out of the major depression I am in, I have to address the past issues that created the trigger that put me here in the first place.

  That stuff? My abusers. Oh yeah… the people I live around and see regularly, one who lives with me and has made it more than clear they want me to leave, my two brothers coming over and giving me a hard time and reminding me of their dad who used to hurt me regularly. So… what am I supposed to be saying when the abuser is the one who impacted your life negatively when you were a kid and is currently the person you live with, and who is doing exactly the same thing they did when you were a kid?

  I am trying to wrap my head around more than a few major issues and I am also being threatened in similar ways while I am processing. If I am working out a problem, then I am going to have to talk about the problem, and if that problem is still alive and well, how are you supposed to talk about anything?

  Look. If I was stabbed in the chest and later, I was being stabbed by the same SOB, am I not supposed to talk about how that dude stabbed me before? That simply doesn’t make sense to me.

  Oh look… It's September 11th

  What the fuck? It feels like I blinked and a thousand things just flashed by.

  Last night was the Trump v. Harris debate. This has been on my mind for weeks. I have been waiting to hear, “Excuse me. I am speaking,” from Vice President Harris. This debate re-energized me. My batteries were changed, I dunno the best way to convey how much weight this debate lifted from my shoulders.

  Trump lost. He didn’t just lose, he was beaten to a pulp. She took him to school. She showed him what a leader looks like. He was shredded! He chewed him up and spit him out. She humiliated him. I mean, brutal.

  The bully just got whooped.

  The bully.

  It comes back to my trigger. A bully.

  It feels pathetic to have such a flaw in my armor. I feel like Smaug.

  "There was a gap in the left breast of the armor, a place where the great scales were missing, a bare patch in the old worm's impenetrable hide."

  My family claims that I am full of myself, that I think I am better than everyone else. At some point, that might have been true to a degree. I used to mask with a front of confidence. It was thin, but it was there. That confidence made others uncomfortable. Especially my parents and brothers. When I use Smaug, I do so because we both presented a hard impenetrable exterior. When I was locking away my emotions, allowing things to just roll off me, was easier… unless you count my appendix, gallbladder, and hair as a result, each lost under extreme stress throughout my life.

  Putting up a hard front helps. It gives the impression that you shouldn’t be messed with. It’s a defense, but not a weapon. I cannot cut someone with my heir of false confidence, I can merely block it.

  We spoke of the kid in high school that beat me up while my mind locked up. That’s that hole in the armor. The bully. The person forcing me to face them in a physical way. Suddenly I am five again. I am being yelled at by my “dad” while my neck is being rung. The constant pain in my neck reminds me of this “lesson.” I was broken to keep myself in demure to the bully. Don’t talk back, don’t attempt to confront, even if they are in the wrong… especially when they are in the wrong.

  I can put up my defenses, but they are shaky at best. Just a front.

  When Harris confronted the bully that has spent the last 8+ years keeping me triggered. The bully that talks about causing my friends and family distress. The bully who threatens the rights of my friends. The bully who fucking had an administration that denied my social security claim because they honestly do not care at all about the general populace, especially the poor, or those who are challenging his xenophobic beliefs.

  Harris was a knight fighting a monster and she wounded that monster deeply. She suddenly became my superhero.

  You need to understand, Trump is an unchecked bully, who has weaseled out of accountability his entire life. He is a criminal. He is a sexual predator and he is almost completely unchecked. No law affects him. No norm will stop him. He does whatever he wants and because he is rich and popular with the right people.

  Watching him being taken apart by this confident, strong, and well spoken woman, finally countered the dread that came upon me after the disastrous debate performance.

  My country is in such a mess, the attack of September 11, 2001 has not been acknowledged anywhere that I have seen. The flag was at half mast at one of the stores on the mainstreet, but not at the government center. I think that the debate has rattled the republican party, who is generally the party of patriotic displays (though not patriotic actions in most cases).

  There is a change coming. Today I have hope that the change is coming soon.

  Tolkien, J.R.R. *The Hobbit*. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1937, p. 213.