Well this is one helluva mess.

Dear Blogject Posty McPostface Pt 2,

Godammit.

What a stupid title.

Some day far in the future– if I live long enough– I will tell the behind the scenes of the things happening in my private life during the writing of this.

There are layers of complication in this project.

It’s huge and massive which– while I’ve never had small ideas or projects this one kinda takes the cake.

And the multiple audience thing.

And the voice of the piece and the formatting and how do I take this thread from the post 10 posts ago and don’t forget the thread on that post 4 posts ago that’s really a thread from 20 posts prior…

And then the funny? FFS 1994 was not funny. Like at all.

Not funny at all.

A piece of information that I was going to save for later but I think can work dropped in right here (also rough draft bro take it easy on yourself here) is that this period of my life is so unfunny and I spend so long on the meds– I go years without laughing.


I go so long without laughing that I actually FORGET how to laugh at one point in my life and had to retrain myself on how to physically feel and express humor.

^ Wrap your mind around that sentence.

That’s years from now in the timeline.

But it starts here.

Dead emotions.

Hard to laugh when you want to die.

Every day a new trauma or indignity.

The remarks.

Other people’s opinions of your situation and holy shit people– a key part of my story is about how a white male of privilege discovers discrimination because EVERYONE thinks they know what you need.

“Have you tried thinking happier thoughts?” < 1.2 billion people asked me that question

“You need exercise sleep food but not junk food you need really healthy food but don’t eat meat but you need to have a big steak and man up you pussy cat petting will lower your anger levels have you checked your thyroid I know you’re having spiritual battles with principalities of Light and Darkness forces beyond your control are you pooping well how are your bowel movements add lots of citrus fruit you need to chill and play some video games you need to stop playing so many video games rotting your brain teasers will help exercise your brain so you are strong and able to fight these attacks offhandedly I’d say you’re just being a selfish prick up your ears to the sounds of nature and whales help me fall asleep did you have breakfast and you need a new therapist don’t change your therapist and you just need to get laid and stop being a sexually frustrated virgin loser essential oils can help clear your mind of toxins and more church you haven’t been going to church you just need a vacation you need a job you need to work harder and sweat and stop being so weak…”

I could keep writing that paragraph for the next 2 years and not repeat the same sentence fragment once.

But I don’t even want to write about the discrimination part of it because that shit is so huge and exhausting to think about.

And that’s not what this post is supposed to be about. I can’t fit that narrative into the May narrative.

Oh yeah… a day after I turn 17 this episode episode airs worldwide:

Adventures in Odyssey: Episode #268 – Pet Peeves

I don’t remember it but looking at the notes Donna gets a dog.

Jesus they were desperate for storylines.

And is that because of my situation and the mess that Dave became? Or just a tired crew that had been going non-stop for 6 years straight?

And that’s not even what this post is about.

What the fuck is this post about?

*ZAPSPARKLE*

The fuck heck was I just thinking about?

Oh yeah… Dear Posty McPostFace Pt 2.

You suck.

A factor of being 46 years old and struggling in poverty difficult financial circumstances is that often the pain of my current existence is directly related to a situation that occurred in 1994.

This happens often in my life. It’s why I don’t like to think about myself or my life.

The things out of your control that you will never be able to have serenity about no matter how much you pray.

And man I don’t like to think about it or the repercussions of it.

There were also other factors happening during this time that I’ve yet to introduce in the narrative because I don’t want to overload posts but I literally have no idea how or where to start describing this part and I feel like talking about this part will split the focus of the post but maybe that’s a cranky writer in the middle of the night…

Rough Draft

Rough Draft

Rough Draft

Rough Draft

Rough Draft

I had buried this particular thread in my own storyline for 30 years.

An anger starts brewing in me during this phase of The Descent. There is so much I can not control about what’s happening in my circumstances. I’m being shuffled around to doctors and therapists and I’m being WATCHED constantly. Everything I do.

And for good reason the whole damn family is spooked AF.

But there is an element of the family dynamic that is inherently toxic.

There are times where my religious parent will instigate my anger with some arbitrary issue.

It was always a thing that happened in my relationship with this parent but during this part of my life it gets weaponized. The typical adolescent teen struggle with oppressive religious parents who have very strict rules and so normal arguments about typical teen stuff would… I dunno… devolve.

We would have these circular arguments that would go on for hours about somethinganything. And I would eventually get agitated to a point of anger and the moment that would happen it would become a reason to declare me mentally ill and freedoms would get stripped away, or privileges, or I’d be kicked out the house, or I’d have to kick myself out of the house because the fight wouldn’t stop and the only way I could stop it was to leave.

In fairness, I was very difficult to live with during this time.

[In extra fairness I am a difficult person to live with anyway. I am a moody motherfucker– I’m an artist. But also OCD and Depressed… I’m difficult to live with I just am. I can’t help it. I need things a certain way to relax and if it’s not that way I get extremely agitated in environments I have no control over]

It was also very difficult to live in the family I had my whole life and that’s part of the problem here. I’m growing and getting to a point where my religious parents stifling control of everything is causing a lot of the psychological turmoil I’m having. And when I would get agitated and angry about it I’d get needled to the point of going ballistic.

This is the era where I learn which solid objects I am capable of punching through… the scar tissue on my punching hand attests to the times I learned what solid objects I could NOT punch through.

Doors (sometimes pieces of door get stuck in your hand and you need stitches)
Walls (depends where the framing stud is)
Windows (yes)
Bed Frames (no; but xrays will prove no broken bones)

And I begin to suspect that at times I’m being intentionally antagonized in order to provoke a response in me that would give the Religious Parent permission to impose whatever the stricter thing was gonna be.

Now, I also got mad at a lot of shit that was of my own dysfunction. I’m existentially angry at how fucked up my life is and no matter how talented or smart I am I can’t fix what’s happening to me. And this makes me furious.

Existentially furious.

And I can’t be mad at god because godisalwaysgood.

And I can’t be mad at my family because this is all my fault to begin with as I am constantly reminded.

And so my anger goes ever inward.

The self-hatred and resentment of being alive grows.

I don’t want to be a bad kid smoking cigarettes and punching walls.

But here I am smoking cigarettes and punching walls.

And the therapy isn’t helping no matter how much he blinks at me and how many verses we look up and I KNOW THAT JUDAS KILLED HIMSELF AND THAT’S NOT HELPING ME. And yes I understand that Jesus drove out the demons from the insane guy but I don’t think that’s the actual problem here— aaaaarrrrgrhghhggkhsvlerlahwkjrv!!!!

The angrier I get the more proof it is to those in control of me that I’m crazy.

And I begin to think sometimes they like having me be crazy.

One of the biggest arguments we had for years prior to the first attempt was that my Religious Parent repeatedly made it clear that they had zero interest in being a stage parent and shlepping me all around Hollywood and Burbank for me to go to auditions. My being an actor would impose on their life. And I could never argue that point.

I don’t come from a family where they get behind you to help you succeed.

Peyton Manning would have ended up working at a shoe store if he grew up in my family.

But this parent had no problem sitting in their van for half the day while I’m being run around to 10,000 doctors and therapists and blood-drawing appointments.

There’s lots of time spent praying for me on the phone with friends and for some reason me being a professional sick kid and occupying all the time is never complained about the way being an actor kid was.

And I know this parent is going to take offense to this and claim they were doing whatever they could to save my life during this era and that they in no way would have preferred me sick over being an actor.

*stares at camera and blinks*

You suck Posty McPostface Pt 2

I really don’t wanna write about this crap.

Soooooo, I’m just gonna switch back to the other main point of the blog and dwell on why I’m permanently financially handicapped.

One point that had been a sore spot of contention for years was school.

I mention in the last post how I have struggled with chronic insomnia all my life. Well, this was what most was killing me about school.

Ask anyone in my life.

I can NOT be functional at 8 am.

Impossible.

I would have so many nights staring at the alarm clock as 4:00 am became 4:30 became 5:00 became 5:30 knowing my alarm was gonna go off at 6:30.

I would spend most of each period in school pretending to read my text books while hiding my eyes and trying to take quick naps. It never worked.

Spent years of my life like a zombie. Never fully awake. Sleeping half the day.

The Bad Kid Continuation School still starts early in the morning– maybe a half hour later, but the true benefit of this school is it ends by noon and so I can go home and go to sleep.

School itself does not work for someone with my internal circadian rhythm.
And I live in a world that doesn’t give a fuck.

[I often wonder how different my life woulda been if I lived in a time or place that appreciated insomniac artists and how living in the time and place I do now may be the actual problem that causes much of my mental illness– and like that one thought right there is an entire volume of content I’ll never write]

Another benefit to the Continuation School is that there is no curriculum. They give you a packet of work to do. When you finish it you get 5 credits.

And I love this.

The school district I went to had a minimum number of credits needed to graduate. One semester-long class was 5 credits/units. You take 7 classes per day at the end of each semester you get 35 credits.

Well here, they give you the whole semester of work and you can go as fast or as slow as you want nobody cares.

So I made about 100 credits in 12 weeks just burning through the material because fuck you I want out.

And somewhere a decision is made:

Take the California High School Proficiency Exam and get your diploma and test out of high school.

On the one hand… I want to prove to my parents who keep blocking my career aspirations that I. Don’t. Need. School.

I’m not a total idiot as perhaps this blog shows.

And an argument I had made for years was if I had onset tutors I would still be doing school work and I work better at my own speed anyway.

And then the arguments would kick in about how necessary it would be to have the social experience in High School and go to the dances and football games and first dates and whatever the fuck the kids do these days.

And so there was this burning desire in my soul to prove that I didn’t need that.

But, there was also this burning desire in my soul to have first dances and football games and first dates and have all the experiences of growing up that everyone else is getting to do that I’m now missing out on.

I had also… a big part for me of looking at myself in my mirror as I was growing up was always imagining myself getting to wear a cap and gown some day and graduate. Take the SAT’s. Visit the colleges.

That’s such a potent expectation and narrative in AnchorBabyLandtopia™.

And as much as I had hoped to have a career in the Arts… I still just wanted to be a normal kid doing all the normal kid things

But it’s clear that I really actually shouldn’t be in school.

I don’t remember if it was my idea or the counselor’s idea or who instigated it but one cool Spring morning I am taken to some room on some campus somewhere.

And in it’s in this room my formal education will come to an end.

The thing I was always best at in school was taking tests. This helped me during the years when working on the show would set me back in my school work– I could just ace the tests and still maintain passing grades.

As I got older that got harder, not that the tests were harder it’s just the school work was a higher portion of the overall grade and I was losing out no matter how well I did on the tests.

But now… here…. the only thing standing between me and never having to step foot in a classroom ever again is a bunch of multiple choice questions and an essay?

Yes, please.

I attacked that test as only a teen actor suffering from two suicide attempts and having my entire life torn apart possibly can.

I finish the test before anybody else in the room even starts the essay portion.

Burned through that test as every ounce of rage I felt as a life of potential is melting down around me.

Knowing that if I succeed it will mean that I will never get to experience all of those things.

There will be no first dances.

C. Isosceles Triangle

There will be no SATs.

A. The Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell…

There will be no college visits with my parents over summer or spring break.

D. Lexington and Concord

There will be no cap and gown.

B. The Magna Carta

There will be no graduation parties and send offs to the next level or envelopes of cash from proud uncles and grandparents.

A. hypotenus

There will be no freshman dorm.

D. Archimedes

“If you don’t get a college degree you’ll end up digging ditches for the people that do.”

B. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers

I had to be careful a tear didn’t land on my essay paper.

If ever in my life I had performed under extreme pressure and delivered one of my greatest performances, it was taking this test.

I finish the essay and walk to the front.

“Uh… You want to double check your work?”

She says it in a snotty condescending way because she thinks I’m on drugs (I get this a lot now that I’m a Bad Kid– and I am on drugs!)

Btw!! I’m having MolassesBrain because I’m ON THE WRONG DRUGS.

But the reason she thinks I’m on drugs is because the test only started 45 minutes ago and this is supposed to take 3 hours. She thinks I’m fucking around and high and not taking it seriously. She thinks there’s no way someone can finish that test that fast and pass. Her tone of voice oozes condescension.

“You wanna double check your work?”

But I know I aced it.

“No.”

I just want to go home and cry now because a part of my life that I thought would lay ahead for me… that everyone in my family thought “This kid is going to college some day” and I’ll have the university flag at my lake vacation house just like everybody else on the bougie side of my family.

And that dream… is now gone.

The boats have been burned now that I’m on this shore of this strange new world of MentalHealthLand and I will never have the option to return to Normaltopia ever again.

I am on a new path now whether I like it or not.

And I knew that testing out likely would mean that my economic future would be hamstrung unless I could get the career rolling.

And it was.

And still is.

Because in any other scenario, a whizkid actor graduating highschool… *checks notes*…. two years early…

Well, that might be something to brag about. Or be proud of. Or maybe that would gain you an entrance to somewhere. But not in my world or family.

In my case it was a heartbreak.

I will never live up to the family potential.

Did I mention that I come from an absurdly long line of college graduates?

A point of pride on both sides of my family was that the women in my family had been in that first wave of women to be allowed into college way back when. A great Aunt worked for J. Edgar Hoover back in the day when that sort of thing was frowned upon.

Education mattered in my family.

And now that door is closing fast.

And my graduating two years early will not be perceived as a genius move.
But rather one of dropping out of school.

And all the stigma and lost opportunities that carries.

Fine. If I pass the test and graduate… can I start my career now?

Suicide. Addiction. Bad Kid School. Therapy. Legal Problems. Suspended from School . Still Faces. Bad Kid Friends. Losing Families. Anger. Destruction of Property. Parental Manipulation. Discrimination. High School Dropout. Disappointing Generations of Relatives.

The largest, still-intact piece of the mirror tips out of the frame and before I can catch it…

It tumbles slowly in the air…

It touches the ground and

**SHATTERS!!!**

In 6 short months my whole world has been upended without mercy or a moment to even catch my breath.

There is no respite.

Nothing is getting better.

Everything is markedly, dramatically, painfully the worst it’s ever been and getting worser by the day.

And now I’m a high school drop out.

But maybe now that the school burden is no longer overwhelming me… maybe I can catch my breath and gather myself and get better and figure out what to do next.

Or maybe
not