The Cheese Grates It: Fucked to Start With

This will be a long, rambling mess and probably shouldn't be read by anyone

It has been a while since I've worked on my stories. I may again, I don't know.

I used to have an organized plan, at least as organized as I can get, given that my brain works like a spider on drugs.

I think my thought patterns most closely resemble either the Peyote Spider or the LSD Spider. The web appears normal at first, but on closer examination, it really isn't. 

My brain does not work like yours, oh, Nice Normal People who are so Nice and Normal. And it never will. I was fucked to start with.

Fuckd to Start Wit is the title of a book written by a friend of mine, the late Walt Cessna. He said I was the one who encouraged him to write his book. It is well worth looking for a copy. 

Walt was an amazing photographer and a compelling writer. Problems with addiction tended to sideline him throughout his life. He was a gentle soul. He passed away from complications of AIDS two years ago. The world lost a good person, and, sadly, being the cesspool of horrible that the world is, it didn't know or care.

It will be no great loss when I go. I'm already aware of that.

For years, people tried to change me to make my brain weave normal spiderwebs, to be able to write nice, normal stories for nice, normal people instead of tangled webs of subplots guaranteed to make normal people wail and gnash their teeth and belittle and berate what spews from the hell-hole that is my imagination.

For years, I belittled and berated myself for being unable to be Normal: to work normally, write normally, think normally. 

There Are Drugs. Drugs that can make you less "you," I have been told.

I tried the drugs, and they did not work the way I was told they would. They did not make the depression go away. They made me Manic and Psychotic. Instead of being a functioning weirdo, I was a fucked-up weirdo earning myself a one-way ticket to the Loony Hatch. 

Fuck your fucking drugs.

I know it would be easier for the world if people like me would just play nice, if we would just pass for normal and keep our fucked-up thoughts and emotions to ourselves. Barring that, we could just agree to be permanent patients in a mental health facility or group home, compliantly attending meetings that do absolutely nothing, obeying our masters, completing the tasks they give us, staying out of the way of Normal Society and Nice People.
Fuck "normal society." These days, "normal" is a sociopathic bully who takes to Twitter to rail at his "haters." "Normal" is a monster who pulls the wings off flies. "Normal" is callous and uncaring. I want even less to be "normal" than I ever did before.
With my writing, I tried to remove all the subplots. My writing became boring to me.
When I write something, I am in the mindset of Dr. Frank N. Furter. I DIDN'T MAKE IT FOR YOU. I sometimes share my writing because I'm stupid enough that sometimes I want validation for my shit. That's stupid, and I know it's stupid, but I sometimes fall into that old trap. I'm 53 years old, and I still fall into that trap. I know how stupid and lame and pathetic that is. I know it, and it still happens. This makes me stupid, lame, and pathetic. I know that too.
With my main story, I used to be more "organized" with it, inasmuch as a peyote or LSD brained spider can ever be. I worked on it most days of the week. I had folders and documents for each of the subplots. Then my life went completely to hell, and what little semblance of organization there was went right out the window.
I decided that any writing is better than no writing, and, if I'm able to retire before I end up fucking dead, I might start organizing it then.
I was going to say "dead or in a nursing home," but that second one will not happen. If there is a real threat of it happening, I will off myself. I worked in long-term care for 25 years. I will not end up in one of those places. Like Stephen King said, sometimes dead is better. This is definitely a case where dead is better.
I am in a bad place right now. I earn about minimum wage, which is not enough to survive on. There is no "doing better." My physical and psychological problems insure that. I can do the work I do, but it takes a toll. I'm hungry a lot of the time. I can't eat regularly even though I should because I have diabetes. No, I don't qualify for aid because I won't liquidate my few assets. I want my son to get those when I go tits up. He's going to need them. I do get Medicaid.
A society that treats its working class like a steaming pile of shit is a failed society.
I may be a steaming pile of fail on a personal level, but our society is failing way harder than I am.
The point being, I don't give a flying fuck about anyone's "constructive" criticism to try and make my writing "better." I'm not trying to get this shit published into a book. I'm just trying to express it.
The recent criticism I received wasn't even particularly harsh. Honestly, a fuck I don't give. It was just poorly timed, one of those straws that broke the camel's back kind of thing.
People don't take into account that in a forum like this, people are writing for different reasons. Some are gunning to be TEH FAYMUS AUTHUR!!!!!11!!!!!!!!
I used to believe I wanted to be TEH FAYMUS AUTHUR!!!1!!!!!!!1
I found out that I really don't. What I wanted was affirmation and security. It's better to try and get those from something that I'm not emotionally attached to, because when someone takes pot shots at things I'm emotionally attached to, I tend to go into a tail spin because my life is such a steaming pile of crap in the first place. Because I'm fucked to start with.
Five years ago, I was in yet another really bad place, not so much financially but definitely on an emotional level. I couldn't work on anything featuring original characters. I just didn't have it in me. The only thing I could bring myself to write was Aliens fan fiction in my own weird style. No way I was trying to get that shit published. I was just sharing it with a select group of friends.
To show that you can't trust anybody to hold you up rather than kick you when you're down...
One of these friends told me that people write fan fiction because it's easier to work with "shell" characters than to try and come up with anything original, and that fan fiction tends to be the domain of "broken" people.
Well, she hit at least one nail on the head, but, other than that, she only succeeded in whacking me repeatedly.
I am broken. I was broken early on. I came into this life with a broken brain. When I leave, I will be entirely broken, body and soul.
I think every day about pulling the plug. I am accomplishing nothing. I will never be okay. I don't think anything will ever be good or right.
I think I stay around for a couple of reasons.
One is the fact that my son needs my help. He's broken too. He's high-functioning autistic and has problems with anxiety and depression. He has a degree of agoraphobia. He has never been able to work.
Like me, he "passes for normal." My mother always says there isn't anything "wrong" with him, implying that he needs to just needs to "pull himself up by his bootstraps," "man up," "put on his big boy pants," and all that sort of crap. No, Ma, there isn't anything "wrong" with my boy. He's just a big ole square peg, just like his damn worthless mother. Only he isn't worthless. He's very intelligent and has a desire to do good. He'd be an amazing employee, if there were an employer that was willing to work with his not-normal psyche.
I'm pretty hateful to myself a lot of the time because it is literally impossible for me to be normal.
Writing is an escape hatch for me. I sometimes think about not sharing my fictional works publicly anymore because I really can't stand having people taking pot shots at it when I'm hanging on by a fucking thread and it's my one very frayed life line. On the other hand, I do miss the times when people say nice things about my work. Sometimes that can quite literally mean the difference between a good and bad day.
Which makes me a complete and utter loser. I know.
I'm going to end this bloviated blather with a favorite song. This one's for you, Walt. I hope you're at peace on the other side. I love you.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~