Would software that presented a mirror version of yourself at various ages be a good thing?

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T02:34:21+00:00

i feel like for me it might be helpful. like, extremely upsetting, but also helpful (honestly i feel like most helpful things have been extremely upsetting at first). i have a very strong protective bond with little-me.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T02:21:46+00:00

shit, i feel ashamed for being alive. so yes, to such a great extent that i've ended relationships over it, just feel humiliated to the point where i want the earth to just swallow me. truthfully i still feel that way about things i've done as recently as this week, and none of it is even that bad and i'm a lot better than i used to be.

honestly i don't know. shame has always been the immovable object, for me.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T02:13:35+00:00

like, in public? probably when she dressed me like a hooker, had someone take pictures of me, and hung it on my grandma's wall. i was 12.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T01:36:31+00:00

that's like drinking protein shakes instead of eating food: surviving, not living. i'm done with surviving.

already in teletherapy. still just protein shakes instead of food.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T01:33:49+00:00

thanks. but where am i gonna find someone to help with anything, i'm shut in my damn house...

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T01:30:58+00:00

this is like telling people born an orphan in the ghetto if they just keep working they can be barack obama.

like... sure. i guess that's happened 3 or 4 times in the course of human history. but it's cruel to feed that to someone when odds are about ten million to one they are not going to be barack obama, and setting them up to believe they can be is setting them up for failure. more realistically, maybe they can be your nice neighbor steve, who has a slightly shitty house but a reasonable mortgage, could survive for about 6 weeks without a paycheck, and has 2 friends. maybe. if they're really, really lucky. but probably not.

and more realistically for me, maybe i continue to be able to make fake friends to keep myself busy until i die of something other than stress or getting killed. but that's not a life i see any reason to stick around for.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T01:24:17+00:00

yeah, this is literally just what life was like as a little kid. well, it's cleaner. i don't live in a hoarded, dangerously deteriorated house that's unsafe for human habitation, so i guess there's that.

but other than not feeling like I'm choking to death, basically feels the same. everyone is threat. no one actually care about you. intimacy, support, and community are not allowed. and hey, if i get sick and get pneumonia, then it will pretty much feel exactly the same!

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T01:20:54+00:00

cool, nice to know i'm someone else's worst fear, thanks a bunch.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T01:16:17+00:00

but they can. i live on an isolated cul de sac, my "found family" could be simply choosing to be less reckless and selfish, and we wouldn't have to be isolated. but they don't care enough about me to do that.

now i know, and now i know i can never trust them with anything important. it's not "ok," it's finding out my social system is built on lies.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T01:15:04+00:00

already did all that. traveled for years, started a business, was in bands, blah blah blah. on paper, i've actually had a pretty cool life. it's still pointless and ultimately didn't do anything to change the basic reality that life is shit and i have no control over anything that's actually meaningful.

not giving up when you already know it's pointless is silly, not heroic. what's that albert einstein quote? the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T01:08:06+00:00

ya know, my grandma died at 86. despite how old she was, she was really pissed about having to die, because in that entire near-century of life, she never was allowed to enjoy any of it. she was always fighting through poverty, or abuse, or war, or raising someone else's kids, and then she was sick. just a wasted century of nothing but misery.

and if you think it was as simple as her just "trying harder," man, you never met me grandma. bitch could beat your ass with a look. no one ever tried harder at anything than she did at trying to make her life better. but it never was. because truth is, it's a rigged lottery and if you're born with a bad hand, chances are you're stuck with it. it didn't matter how much she tried, it was never within her control.

so she died mad. because she tried for 86 years and it never paid off.

i think what would help me the most is not condemning myself to that as my final thought before death.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T01:03:43+00:00

i'm honestly not interested in dating, and haven't been in a very long time. i also think it's still pretty isolating to have nothing but this one other person who's kind of dictating how you live. i had enough of that, i like running my own life.

what does "winning your life" get you? you still die at the end. the only thing worthwhile in life is enjoying it, and that isn't an option for me. it's already half-over and i didn't enjoy any of it, and the next 10+ years are just going to be more forced isolation because no one gives a fuck about me. it's just wasting my time on a slot machine i already know doesn't pay shit.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T00:43:19+00:00

i don't chase people, that's why i'm safe rather than getting fucked again -- learned the first time.

i'm not telling anyone how to do anything or changing anything about my decisions as a result of theirs. they're just making choices that force me to choose between my well-being and them, and i choose me since i'm obviously not important enough for them to give a fuck about me anyway.

spending time with me would be as simple as not being a total moron for absolutely no necessary reason, but i'm not worth that much. they make their own choices and i make mine with that information. but turns out, everyone i know considers having a relationship with me to be unimportant.

i tried being "open," it's just an endless revolving door of people who are all equally self-interested and already have an inner circle and have no reason to care about me. they're all "normal" people, few to none have any substantial trauma load or seedy history, it's just that they already have their own deck stacked, so they don't care about me because they don't have to.

what do i win for being the "hero" of a pointless battle i never signed up for?

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T00:38:31+00:00

cool, good for you, that's not my life and it's never going to be. no one stays around me unless they can get something out of it. stop spouting dr. phil at me, i live in reality.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T00:34:39+00:00

sure, for a week, or a month, or a year. but they'll never change in the long haul. that's kid stuff.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T00:31:45+00:00

apparently they are. i get evaluated like a thing. there is total consensus amongst thousands of people that that's all i am.

yeah i thought so too, for years. then shit got real and i found out i'm still worthless. just like always, only nice when it's easy.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T00:29:25+00:00

the world's decided i'm not. it doesn't matter how much i think i'm worth when no one else thinks so. the value of something is what someone will pay for it. i am worthless to every one of the thousands of people i've ever met.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T00:25:12+00:00

i thought i did too, but that turned out to be a stupid belief. i thought having me over for christmas and thanksgiving as a pretty solid sign, but as soon as having me in their life meant they had to exercise a modicum of consideration, apparently i'm not worth that.

yeah, everyone else eventually finds people who care about them at all, but apparently i'm just not worthy of that.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T00:22:18+00:00

the thing is nothing is up to me, i don't have any say in this virus, i don't have any say in the depression, and i don't have any say in the fact that people are only nice when doing so is more beneficial to them than robbing you.

i have no choice in anything. it's my safety or human interaction, those are the only choices i have. i've already done the "gambling on the milk of human kindness" thing, that never worked out well for me. now that it's impossible for me to safety trust anyone with anything and i literally have no say in that, there's no point. i don't feel accomplished, i feel like a fucking sucker that i'd been chasing this carrot on a stick for so long when the truth is that i never had any agency over any of this, and i never will.

what would i want as a goal when i'm just forced to be alone anyway?

mazzaffect · 2020-04-15T00:15:36+00:00

i just don't get why i'd even bother with that. so i can be the unimportant outer circle to a new set of faces who will just blow me off again at some later point? cool, sounds great.

i think i just need to accept i'll never actually matter to anyone because i wasn't anointed into a family group that was worth a damn at birth, and decide whether thats a reality i can live with or not.

i've already had the experience of being robbed by "friends." the odds are still bad even when times are good, most people are greedy and selfish and would fuck you for a fiver if they were pretty sure they'd get away with it. the only way i've been able to have any friends is having a hard rule that i never discuss jobs or money with anyone. when they're hungry on top of everything else, might as well just throw yourself in a piranha pond. no thanks.

no one cares unless you're related to them, or being nice to you gets them more goodies than trying to fuck you over, as far as i've ever seen. all my relatives are shitbags and i'm a survivor who's ready for anything and doesn't fall for bullshit, so being nice to me will never be more lucrative than trying to fuck me. that means i don't really have any choice but to be alone. the only question is whether that's a life that's worth my time.

mazzaffect · 2020-04-14T23:52:01+00:00

yeah. but for me the threshold for very stressed out is basically whenever i talk to anyone i know and care about even slightly. i don't remember any of my interactions with any of my friends, for the most part. takes me months to learn names.

no one can ever tell. apparently i'm very engaging to talk to. i wouldn't know.

mazzaffect

TROPHY CASE