Anything bothering you right now?

[InvisibleGuy]

Is strange but one of the things that has (again) made me realize, with this storm, is how few friends I have irl and how very few people I have to call lol.

I'm laughing at myself, but it is really pretty sad. Anxiety, and the defense mechanisms I have....they have shut a lot of people out. A lot of potential friends. If you don't understand that then I would just have to guess that you and I experience anxiety on a whole different level, and in an entirely different way. I realize everyone experiences this anxiety stuff differently. I get that. But a whole, whole lot of us get it from trauma, from child abuse, from going through and somehow surviving pure hell, often at times when we're not emotionally capable of dealing with it, due to our age or whatever.

Anyway I'm reading fb posts of tons, and tons of friends and family who are leaning on each other, and I don't have very many real friends, and I'm not feeling sorry for myself...please understand it's my own damn fault. What I'm saying is, my anxiety keeps people at a distance. And situations like this make that fact painfully obvious. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. It sucks. It really, really sucks lol.

[JamieWAgain]

Wow IG. I can totally relate. I don't have many friends and it is because I only know how to keep people at a distance. I don't let people in but I want to. It just doesn't happen. It's like an automatic invisible wall that goes up if you try to get close. I can tell that people in real life now are trying to be my friend and I'm falling into a pattern of pushing them away. It's sad but I'm trying really hard with my neighbors, and a few women at work and people from my committee work. I'm trying but it's not easy because most of the time I don't know I'm doing it. Anyway, you are not alone. My little brother-- 6'5 so not so little, but he does this too. You're a great guy with a great heart. That's what matters. (( hugs))

[InvisibleGuy]

Well thank you. I feel like I have a lot of walls too, and Idk how to take them down, I'm so set in my ways now, I'm 47 years old lol. I try to think about dating sometimes....or, just making more friends, just putting myself out there more, just to have more friends and the idea of it just makes me want to run. I won't go into reasons why cos I could fill up pages, and pages, but it all seems to come back to trust issues and defense mechanisms and blah, blah, blah. I'll just stop now before I start sounding like my therapist, ffs. But, she's right. Most of the time, she's right.

A lot of what makes me think about this, esp lately, is my aunt. She's a really awesome, really cool woman, someone I'd be so, so happy to call a friend, and she has invited me over to their place so many times. To just drink a beer, hang out, whatever. And I always say no, I push her away, like I do everyone. She texted me throughout the storm to see how I was doing. Oc I texted her back. But I keep her at arms length.

The funny thing is....she knows everything about me. She knows I ran away from home when I was 16. She knows I had a really, really nasty coke habit. She knows I've been in drug rehabs and psych hospitals.

So. What is there to hide? Why am I so afraid to get closer to her, or anyone else? I think it's because I think I'm too broken. I'm too broken for relationships, for friendships, I'm too messed up, and I don't want to mess anyone else up. I really think, that a lot of the time, that's what keeps me from getting close.

I have issues lol.

[JamieWAgain]

I think you need to be really gentle with yourself. Look how far you've come. You're clean from drugs, getting help for your anxiety, etc and have a regular, steady, good job. You're a great dad and reach out to others here. That's what I see. 10 years ago (?) I was in a psyche ward, attempted suicide many times but now I'm productive, have a wonderful job and have great relationship with both my daughters. I'm gentle with myself. I try to be. If it takes me having walls up for me to survive and succeed then that's ok. I think you're wonderful and when you're ready someday, you'll be ready to meet a young woman and walk through life with her.
Baby steps.

[InvisibleGuy]

^ Thank you. Thank you for the kind words. Your posts are awesome and though we don't always agree I always read your posts, they're really insightful and thoughtful and profound and very, very much worth reading. (((hugs))) back to you and thank you again for the kind words.

[InvisibleGuy]

I fucking hate confrontations. I fucking hate them.

Did I mention that I hate confrontations?

The apartment above me, on the third floor, is cursed. It is fucking cursed.

The college party girls have moved out, thank the gods, and I'm not missing their parties that spilled down into the second floor. I'm not missing her having sex with her female friend. No guys. It was not a turn-on. It was actually very fucking annoying and very sexually frustrating.

Anyway now I don't miss them. But the new couple that moved in is a nightmare. I just went upstairs. They were being loud, fighting....very, very loud. I told the guy that if they didn't calm the [BEEP] down I was gonna call the cops and I was really, really angry, so angry that he backed down. He apologized. Several times.

Ffs?! !?!?!!

Get a clue........act like an adult, ffs.......

[InvisibleGuy]

Now I'm that angry old man that lives downstairs. Shaking his cane. Yelling at those loud kids to quiet down.

Beautiful.

[InvisibleGuy]

God tomorrow is gonna be crazy busy. All this last minute stuff, ffs.

My car battery dies so it's too late to pick up my kids tonight, had to reschedule for tomorrow. It's an hour to my kids' house, then at least 45 minutes to my parents' house. It's just too late.

I have to pick them up and be on the other side of Houston at 9:00am for a golf lesson, then we're gonna play golf. And 9:00am is not a big deal, pick them up at 7:30...but I have to get three teenagers in the car, with their stuff for the weekend, at 7:30am on a Saturday, ffs, that's not easy.

After golf I have to take my youngest all the way across Houston again for a party. Then come back and pick her up and go to a Houston Dynamo game at 7:30pm. Fuq me.

My sister does this kind of **** every weekend with her kids. She'd probably laugh at me if she heard me complaining about tomorrow's schedule. I don't know how she does it every weekend, I really don't.

[InvisibleGuy]

Ffs. Let's hope today goes well. Please, ffs, let's let today go OK. I'm not asking for amazing. Just. OK.

[JamieWAgain]

I hope you had a nice day.

[InvisibleGuy]

@Jamie you're still very much in my prayers, and thoughts, all day today. Please stay safe.

[InvisibleGuy]

What's bothering me right now doesn't even matter. I feel really silly and childish and selfish even thinking about my problems right now, with all that's going on with Hurricane Irma and the people still recovering from Hurricane Harvey (that's not to say I don't have problems, and it's not to say that anyone shouldn't vent about them....that's just how I personally feel right now, that's just me).

[InvisibleGuy]

I think I'm about to delete my facebook account. I mean, a whole lot of people are leaving fb anyway, fuq it.

This is getting complicated though. I don't post there very much, at all. But my dad is on fb now. It's getting complicated because I have to really watch what I post. Not that I have anything to hide, I don't. I just have to watch what I post, about my ex-wife, everything.

Yep. I need to delete my account.

[InvisibleGuy]

There are things my dad doesn't know about and, honestly, it's better off that way.

He doesn't know that my oldest daughter is bi. He doesn't know that I slept with someone I used to work with, and then almost dated another woman who I worked with very recently. He's very, very old school lol and the old man wouldn't be happy with any of those things. You can't talk to him about some things, you just can't.

My oldest daughter came out to me a while ago and my dad still doesn't know of course. She can tell him if she wants to and that's totally her decision of course, it's not my place to do that. But I don't think he'd handle it very well. My daughter and I have talked about how he would react.

He's actually made some very, very ugly comments before about LGBTQ community and I resent him, very much for doing that. I'm in a position where I can't say a whole lot though. I do speak up, but if I say too much, if I get too outspoken he's going to start questioning why. I don't want to out my daughter.

It's issues like this that make me think it's just a really bad idea to keep my fb account.

[InvisibleGuy]

I am just not even going to apologize to anyone for how I feel anymore.

If you don't understand where I am, and where I'm coming from then go see a shrink And what I mean by that is....have some perspective, a little empathy.

I lost my girl, I lost my girl and I watched her die in front of me, ffs. I watched her get taken away in an ambulance. I had to be dragged off of the middle of our driveway.

This isn't directed at anyone in particular, but if you don't have some empathy then stay away from me. Goodbye. See ya.