here's a post

toward the end of 2021 i bought a Tascam DR-05 with the intention of recording my ramblings and possibly editing it into podcast form. every time i would sit down to record i'd find myself going blank so i began to write out notes for episodes. eventually i gave up on the idea of a podcast. i felt like everything i was writing either came off as bitter, nonsensical or egotistical. i still feel this way most of the time. 

at one point i ended up homeless. i even debated on centering the podcast around that. except i wasn't having your stereotypical homeless person experiences. just a lot of plopping on different couches and guest rooms and being glued to my laptop. 

i say all this because i still toy with the idea of starting a podcast. there's this feeling that i can't shake that tells me to figure out the best way to tell my story. i ask myself "why?" constantly because i haven't done anything of any real importance. i don't hold myself above anyone else. i don't have any real advice to offer. i've done stand-up comedy but no major accomplishments. i have a lot of experience in mental hospitals, a little in jail, i've spent about 6-8 months of my life "homeless" but not on the street. none of this is anything too extreme, maybe a step or 2 above mundane at this point. yet, this thought is still here a couple years later. 

in 2021 (i think) i made a livejournal to ramble on. it got deleted after i made a post about my dad taking his own life. i got it reinstated but lost my enthusiasm about using LJ because i wasn't sure what the point was if i was going to have to archive everything on my own in fear of it getting deleted again. it's also why i've taken quite a long time to try and get back into journaling. so far so good with dreamwidth, i do plan to post more and get more detailed on things. 

i feel like everything i've posted so far, including this entry, has been an attempt to get my mind back in the mode of journaling and/or sharing my experiences. at minimum, i need somewhere to ramble. i need to spare the inboxes of my friends and acquaintances. most days i wake up and within 20 minutes my brain is a mess. the smallest things set my thought process down a path that i am consistently trying to recover from. i don't remember things feeling better while i was on meds. for the most part, feeling anxiety and other emotions even while i'm thinking/experiencing outlandish shit still keeps me feeling human. it still allows me to feel something even if i have to continuously remind myself what isn't real whether i know that to be true or not.

in late 2020 i removed social media apps from my phone. i only ever used facebook, messenger and instagram regularly but felt that my brain had become too programmed to mindlessly pick up the phone and check for notifications. i had become too used to pointless conversation, gossip, arguing to where i felt on autopilot every day. i still use social media, i get on my computer to do so. i won't argue that it's any better overall because i am still on social media regardless of the device. being able to physically get up and step away from it is a nice feeling and my brain not defaulting to it being available in my pocket is even better. 

i keep telling myself that it would be a good idea to record it and get it all out. to talk about certain experiences and struggles. what TIP court taught me. what ignoring what TIP court teachings taught me. my brain has categorized it as work or a chore and now it no longer seems worth doing. most of life feels this way to me. i struggle every day to see the point. i struggle even harder to come up with new goals or reasons to keep going. i just really don't see the point.

if you read this collection of sentence fragments and rambles, more power to you. i have no idea what i set out to accomplish by typing all of this. at the very least, i spared someone's messenger notifications from blowing up.

there's no punchline

i was getting ready for a show i was booked for this past saturday. i was looking forward to it for the most part but with every show i've had the last few years i was mostly looking forward to it being over with. i got up early and prepped a set. i was actually pleased with it as i went over it mentally. show days for me usually include me waking up earlier than i'd like, drinking 1-3 energy drinks or taking no doz to stay awake and have some amount of "pep" come showtime then usually spending the day completely anxious and ready for it all to be done.

i woke up early last saturday, had a bowel movement and it was mostly all blood. the night before i wanted to stay up and work on the 𝚝𝚏𝚙𝚇𝙴 site and i took a diet pill to stay up. i'm not sure if this contributed to why i was bleeding but those pills have a 50/50 shot of making me feel like shit and i felt like i had gotten lucky that night because i felt good and productive. i rarely eat on show days, especially since i quit drinking. i have this fear i'm going to look bloated on stage so i avoid eating. i did eat saturday, but just a bagel. my gut felt like mud all day and i'd get random sharp pains. i got off the computer a little after reading about the shooting that occurred saturday afternoon. i went and tried to use the bathroom but it was all a combo of gas and blood. i got in the shower to get ready for the show. 

i remember being in the shower and getting very dizzy. i started seeing stars and getting the blackout feeling and don't remember going back to my bed. next thing i knew i was in bed wrapped in a towel and my stepdad was asking me unrelated questions not realizing i was very out of it. once he did he got my mom and she ended up helping me get ahold of the show producer Jared so i could let him know what was going on. every time i tried to speak or process what was going on i'd get more nauseous. i don't really remember much of the night after that because it was just a lot of me laying around with the TV on in the background. i wanted to go to the ER but kept thinking about the last time i'd been there and spent 8 hours laying in the waiting room getting up in 20 min increments to go puke before ever being seen. i probably should have just went but the bleeding did subside after another day. i made a dr appointment to get it checked out, i still feel dizzy off and on. 

all i know for sure is i'm done with comedy. i don't like how i feel on days of shows. i don't like what prepping for shows does to my mind and body. i don't like the 6-8 hour comedown i experience after shows whether i'm sober, drunk, overcaffeinated, no caffeine. none of it is worth it to me especially when i consider my material mediocre at best and continuously struggle to perform it in a manner that suggests i even believe in it 10%. the world can do without even the material i am most proud of.

i've done plenty of shows i should have just blown off. i've blown off shows i probably could have made it through. neither were doing a service to comedy. i used to enjoy comedy. a lot. but i've spent about 10 years chasing that feeling i used to get when i was having fun only to end up feeling disappointed. i've had sets that were near perfect along with sets that were total trainwrecks and came home feeling the same regardless. i sincerely do not miss a majority of people i met through comedy. it hasn't been fun for so long. 

ignorance is bliss

last week i saw an ad on FB for a show called six schizophrenic brothers. i was caught off guard by the family's surname being Galvin. i sent a screenshot to an acquaintance with the joke "wonder if they need a 7th" and they replied hours later telling me they didn't believe in schizophrenia because they're lutheran. i was baptized lutheran but haven't been to a lutheran church since i was a child. i don't know if this is a real thing the religion teaches but this is someone i've known since middle school. i haven't kept in regular contact with them over the years. they had told me about struggles with PTSD and an eating disorder so i find it hard to believe that this person dismisses all mental illnesses. it did bring new light to some of their earlier comments in convos we had over the months. 

needless to say though it did piss me off. i decided upon reading it that i wasn't even going to bother to argue. this person knew enough of my daily struggles that if they were joking, i don't appreciate it. if they are serious, then that means this person assumes i'm full of shit. i told them i thought that comment was fucked up, whether serious or a joke. i said something to the effect of "it must be nice to be able to not believe in something i deal with regularly" and blocked them. i've dealt with this mindset from other people. one of which was with me the night of my first breakdown and dealt with me over the phone prior to me being involuntarily hospitalized in 2007 and saw the aftermath. i stopped talking to this person in 2023 after they said something to the effect of me having full control over what goes on in my head. 

i don't expect my friends to have all the answers. i don't expect that out of doctors. truth be told, i just want to talk. i don't want any answers. i don't think i know everything about my diagnosis but i do feel that i know enough that i can manage it to the best of my ability. i've went through years of therapy, classes, long periods of time on various meds. i'm not trying to say that i've "seen or done it all" but i try my best to convey that i'm not self-diagnosed nor am i someone who uses their illness for sympathy or as an excuse.

there was a time where i was very confused as to what i was dealing with. i've been dealing with it for 17 years now. i recognize patterns in my thoughts and behavior and do my best to be up front about it and work on it. being completely aware of something doesn't automatically give you the power to stop it. i've gone into situations giving myself positive affirmation and keeping the best mindset possible and still had it end up in a complete trainwreck due to some unforeseen thing sending my thought process elsewhere. i realize how vague this all sounds and that's because i'm thinking of around 10 different experiences this applies to and i know there are several more. i'm exhausted by other people but that's because i go into every situation already exhausted with myself. people's frustration toward me when i explain how i feel heavily mirrors what i feel like i'm already going through. 

denying the existence of such a disease is something i fail to wrap my head around. i don't think the schizophrenia diagnosis (2007) or schizoaffective bipolar type diagnosis (2014) completely define who i am. if that's all you take from what i say then i feel you've missed the point entirely. the person with the diagnosis inherently believes things are happening that clearly aren't. it's fucked up to then tell that person that what they are experiencing as a whole isn't real. yes, the delusion i am experiencing may not be real but it doesn't negate the illness as a whole. if you are unable to separate those 2 things then i lack the ability at this moment to explain it further. 

overall i avoid talking to people these days because of a combination of not wanting to include them in what i'm going through mentally and because i don't want to deal with whatever path their comments might send me down. i don't care if people disagree with me. i really don't care if people want to deny the entire existence of what i deal with. i wish i had that same convenience. i envy their ignorance. i was 21 when i got diagnosed and after lots of therapy realized it was probably around 19 when i really started having a lot of the issues that lead me to my first hospitalization. i don't have the energy to force myself to "reel it in" every time someone makes an ignorant comment about "crazy people" or essentially accuses me of making shit up because it's so far outside of what they deal with every day. or they pick one little relatable thing about something i said, most likely the only part of what i said they actually listened to and then accuse me of blowing things out of proportion.

try going from a seemingly coherent thought to looking at a candy wrapper on the floor while your brain processes it as a plastic toy sculpture of an ice cream sundae. you stare at it while the chemicals in your body go haywire leading you to question if everything you've ever known is wrong. you know what you're looking at yet your mind and the chemicals your body is producing are telling you you're completely fucking wrong. an idiot. this is a toy ice cream sundae. does this sound ridiculous? does this sound fucking stupid? because it is. does this seem like a productive thing to experience? this is one of thousands of examples i could provide to you. imagine having to convince yourself you're both right and wrong over something so goddamn stupid yet this is what your brain has chosen to do.

i use the candy wrapper/ice cream sundae experience as my go-to when referencing my illness. it's silly and it lasted about 5 minutes. i had to have my friend come look at the wrapper and tell me that it was indeed what it was. i already knew this but my brain went so berserk with "what if" and "no you're wrong" that something as meaningless as a candy wrapper (or a plastic ice cream sundae) could completely shut down my brain temporarily while i try to grasp the reality of what i'm experiencing. 

now imagine this happening to you when the subject matter is more serious. are you even able to? are you stuck on the fact that i just said one time i stared at a candy wrapper on the ground until i wasn't sure if it was a plastic ice cream sundae? i don't get past this part with most people. they smile and go on with their life like i'm some fucking idiot rambling about unassociated objects. nonsensical sequiturs. surely these 2 things have no connection whatsoever and scott is just losing his goddamn mind. yet he somehow isn't? because schizophrenia is just made up? 

understanding that part requires a bit of parallel processing. i read up on parallel processing and a lot of it reminds me of the thought processes i go through with schizophrenia symptoms. just without the side effects of the illness. it gave me a lot of insight into what i'm dealing with because i wasted so much of my life wondering what is "real" or not in regards to what i am experiencing. things way more complicated or complex than a candy wrapper and my brain telling me otherwise.