I could have done drag shows in Knoxville had I wanted to
pursue a healthy path, but I didn't. I pursued an unhealthy path - a
path of chemicals and molecules and all sorts of things like that.

It's hell being alone like this, and yet I'm the only one who
can change it. Nobody can do this for me, I have to be the one. But
it's just so fucking god damned hard

I don't know how I have the strength to do this,

Goodnight. Goodbye. Peace to you all, until I can find my
own again. Pray not for me, for this is not that dark goodnight, but
the confusing untangling of a blurry, bleary, new-world morning.

Bye.

For most of us, when we're first born into the world,
everything is a confusing and befuddled haze of light and sensation.
We are confused and squalling little creatures when we're first fresh
out of the womb.

Gradually, we begin to reach out and explore our world. Our
eyes are large when we're new to the world - that's so we can soak up
all the sights we can possibly grasp with our tiny little eyes.
Eventually we begin to notice that certain sensations of sound happen
at the same time as certain sights, and then the process of cognition
begins.

There are those who can do none of the above, of course - the
blind and the deaf. But they, too, both "see" and "hear" the world in
their own way, and eventually learn to navigate this reality we call
"life" with whatever senses they do have.

For a time, the world is an awesome place - so bright, so
shiny, so new and loud.... We can't stop gawking at every little thing
that passes into our own personal universe of perception. Our minds
consume the world around us with a hunger, an insatiable hunger which
rather than being satiated by our feeding on knowledge, only becomes
more intense...

...at least, for a time.

Then, we "grow up". The world becomes familiar, dull,
listless....

...sometimes we seek to renew those enticing experiences of
learning and growth from our childhood. Sometimes we do this in
healthy ways, and sometimes we do this in not-so-healthy ways.

I could have done drag shows in Knoxville had I wanted to
pursue a healthy path, but I didn't. I pursued an unhealthy path - a
path of chemicals and molecules and all sorts of things like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with using substances for such
mind-exploring possibilities. I am _firmly_ a believer that such
things should be legal and freely available to those adults who wish
to broaden their horizons. But for me? I used them as a crutch. I
used them as a way to shut off the world.

Whenever I was high on something like cough syrup or
antihistamines, the focus was all on "me". My sex demanded it, my
attention flooded to it, my mind began to wane away...

My world began reflecting the reality inside my head. Heaps
of dishes and bags and boxes and peanut shells, cough syrup bottles
and benadryl and dramamine bottles and - oh, dear god, I just stopped
caring for so long. The pills and the drink, they made the world go
away. I only had to face it for those 7 or 8 hours I was required to
on the phones each day. That, I sustained, somehow miraculously
through all the mental fog and the haze - I was able to help people,
to solve problems, all because I knew I had to do it if I wanted to
keep being able to afford to shut the world off.

This last weekend, I began cleaning up from the after effects
of my most recent cycle of binging and retreating into spaces within
my mind. I found maggots, flies, rotten food - no cockroaches,
thankfully, though I'm sure it would have only been a matter of time.
All the detritus of my world, the reflection of how I felt inside. I
hated myself, I hate myself still, for being this way. But I'm always
so dissociated I hardly ever recognize this. I need to recognize it,
I need to feel it, but it's just so hard....

I think I've been trying to kill myself for the past 8 years
or more. Not outright - I would be more than able to do that if that
was my aim. But I think with each handfull of pills and each bottle
of syrup I'd chug, especially in the last year or so, I so often
prayed that my heart would just stop beating.

It's hell being alone like this, and yet I'm the only one who
can change it. Nobody can do this for me, I have to be the one. But
it's just so fucking god damned hard

I don't honestly remember how to feel anymore, but by god I'm
going to try. I have to. I'm not ready to curl up and die yet. Not
yet, not this time. Not now. I have to try.

So for now, this is just a temporary "goodbye" - it's not the
"BIG" goodbye. Not the final goodbye. I just have to leave this
place. This place i've been retreating to. This world. This online
"Matrix", the place I could go to shut off every single other facet of
my existence.

I don't know how I have the strength to do this, to type this
- it's that "dissociative" thing, I think. But oh my fucking god,
here I go. I'm leaving. It's like I'm being born all over again. I
don't remember this place - the sights, they're vaguely familiar but I
don't have a frame of reference to point to in experiencing them.

The body may be thirty-five fucking years old, but the mind
you'r e about to see - it's never been here before. NEVER.

Goodnight. Goodbye. Peace to you all, until I can find my
own again. Pray not for me, for this is not that dark goodnight, but
the confusing untangling of a blurry, bleary, new-world morning. Oh,
what will become of the world I've seen when it meeths the world I'm
about to meeth...

Bye.

For most of us, when we're first born into the world,
everything is a confusing and befuddled haze of light and sensation.
We are confused and squalling little creatures when we're first fresh
out of the womb.

Gradually, we begin to reach out and explore our world. Our
eyes are large when we're new to the world - that's so we can soak up
all the sights we can possibly grasp with our tiny little eyes.
Eventually we begin to notice that certain sensations of sound happen
at the same time as certain sights, and then the process of cognition
begins.

There are those who can do none of the above, of course - the
blind and the deaf. But they, too, both "see" and "hear" the world in
their own way, and eventually learn to navigate this reality we call
"life" with whatever senses they do have.

For a time, the world is an awesome place - so bright, so
shiny, so new and loud.... We can't stop gawking at every little thing
that passes into our own personal universe of perception. Our minds
consume the world around us with a hunger, an insatiable hunger which
rather than being satiated by our feeding on knowledge, only becomes
more intense...

...at least, for a time.

Then, we "grow up". The world becomes familiar, dull,
listless....

...sometimes we seek to renew those enticing experiences of
learning and growth from our childhood. Sometimes we do this in
healthy ways, and sometimes we do this in not-so-healthy ways.

I could have done drag shows in Knoxville had I wanted to
pursue a healthy path, but I didn't. I pursued an unhealthy path - a
path of chemicals and molecules and all sorts of things like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with using substances for such
mind-exploring possibilities. I am _firmly_ a believer that such
things should be legal and freely available to those adults who wish
to broaden their horizons. But for me? I used them as a crutch. I
used them as a way to shut off the world.

Whenever I was high on something like cough syrup or
antihistamines, the focus was all on "me". My sex demanded it, my
attention flooded to it, my mind began to wane away...

My world began reflecting the reality inside my head. Heaps
of dishes and bags and boxes and peanut shells, cough syrup bottles
and benadryl and dramamine bottles and - oh, dear god, I just stopped
caring for so long. The pills and the drink, they made the world go
away. I only had to face it for those 7 or 8 hours I was required to
on the phones each day. That, I sustained, somehow miraculously
through all the mental fog and the haze - I was able to help people,
to solve problems, all because I knew I had to do it if I wanted to
keep being able to afford to shut the world off.

This last weekend, I began cleaning up from the after effects
of my most recent cycle of binging and retreating into spaces within
my mind. I found maggots, flies, rotten food - no cockroaches,
thankfully, though I'm sure it would have only been a matter of time.
All the detritus of my world, the reflection of how I felt inside. I
hated myself, I hate myself still, for being this way. But I'm always
so dissociated I hardly ever recognize this. I need to recognize it,
I need to feel it, but it's just so hard....

I think I've been trying to kill myself for the past 8 years
or more. Not outright - I would be more than able to do that if that
was my aim. But I think with each handfull of pills and each bottle
of syrup I'd chug, especially in the last year or so, I so often
prayed that my heart would just stop beating.

It's hell being alone like this, and yet I'm the only one who
can change it. Nobody can do this for me, I have to be the one. But
it's just so fucking god damned hard

I don't honestly remember how to feel anymore, but by god I'm
going to try. I have to. I'm not ready to curl up and die yet. Not
yet, not this time. Not now. I have to try.

So for now, this is just a temporary "goodbye" - it's not the
"BIG" goodbye. Not the final goodbye. I just have to leave this
place. This place i've been retreating to. This world. This online
"Matrix", the place I could go to shut off every single other facet of
my existence.

I don't know how I have the strength to do this, to type this
- it's that "dissociative" thing, I think. But oh my fucking god,
here I go. I'm leaving. It's like I'm being born all over again. I
don't remember this place - the sights, they're vaguely familiar but I
don't have a frame of reference to point to in experiencing them.

The body may be thirty-five fucking years old, but the mind
you'r e about to see - it's never been here before. NEVER.

Goodnight. Goodbye. Peace to you all, until I can find my
own again. Pray not for me, for this is not that dark goodnight, but
the confusing untangling of a blurry, bleary, new-world morning. Oh,
what will become of the world I've seen when it meeths the world I'm
about to meeth...

Bye.

For most of us, when we're first born into the world,
everything is a confusing and befuddled haze of light and sensation.
We are confused and squalling little creatures when we're first fresh
out of the womb.

Gradually, we begin to reach out and explore our world. Our
eyes are large when we're new to the world - that's so we can soak up
all the sights we can possibly grasp with our tiny little eyes.
Eventually we begin to notice that certain sensations of sound happen
at the same time as certain sights, and then the process of cognition
begins.

There are those who can do none of the above, of course - the
blind and the deaf. But they, too, both "see" and "hear" the world in
their own way, and eventually learn to navigate this reality we call
"life" with whatever senses they do have.

For a time, the world is an awesome place - so bright, so
shiny, so new and loud.... We can't stop gawking at every little thing
that passes into our own personal universe of perception. Our minds
consume the world around us with a hunger, an insatiable hunger which
rather than being satiated by our feeding on knowledge, only becomes
more intense...

...at least, for a time.

Then, we "grow up". The world becomes familiar, dull,
listless....

...sometimes we seek to renew those enticing experiences of
learning and growth from our childhood. Sometimes we do this in
healthy ways, and sometimes we do this in not-so-healthy ways.

I could have done drag shows in Knoxville had I wanted to
pursue a healthy path, but I didn't. I pursued an unhealthy path - a
path of chemicals and molecules and all sorts of things like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with using substances for such
mind-exploring possibilities. I am _firmly_ a believer that such
things should be legal and freely available to those adults who wish
to broaden their horizons. But for me? I used them as a crutch. I
used them as a way to shut off the world.

Whenever I was high on something like cough syrup or
antihistamines, the focus was all on "me". My sex demanded it, my
attention flooded to it, my mind began to wane away...

My world began reflecting the reality inside my head. Heaps
of dishes and bags and boxes and peanut shells, cough syrup bottles
and benadryl and dramamine bottles and - oh, dear god, I just stopped
caring for so long. The pills and the drink, they made the world go
away. I only had to face it for those 7 or 8 hours I was required to
on the phones each day. That, I sustained, somehow miraculously
through all the mental fog and the haze - I was able to help people,
to solve problems, all because I knew I had to do it if I wanted to
keep being able to afford to shut the world off.

This last weekend, I began cleaning up from the after effects
of my most recent cycle of binging and retreating into spaces within
my mind. I found maggots, flies, rotten food - no cockroaches,
thankfully, though I'm sure it would have only been a matter of time.
All the detritus of my world, the reflection of how I felt inside. I
hated myself, I hate myself still, for being this way. But I'm always
so dissociated I hardly ever recognize this. I need to recognize it,
I need to feel it, but it's just so hard....

I think I've been trying to kill myself for the past 8 years
or more. Not outright - I would be more than able to do that if that
was my aim. But I think with each handfull of pills and each bottle
of syrup I'd chug, especially in the last year or so, I so often
prayed that my heart would just stop beating.

It's hell being alone like this, and yet I'm the only one who
can change it. Nobody can do this for me, I have to be the one. But
it's just so fucking god damned hard

I don't honestly remember how to feel anymore, but by god I'm
going to try. I have to. I'm not ready to curl up and die yet. Not
yet, not this time. Not now. I have to try.

So for now, this is just a temporary "goodbye" - it's not the
"BIG" goodbye. Not the final goodbye. I just have to leave this
place. This place i've been retreating to. This world. This online
"Matrix", the place I could go to shut off every single other facet of
my existence.

I don't know how I have the strength to do this, to type this
- it's that "dissociative" thing, I think. But oh my fucking god,
here I go. I'm leaving. It's like I'm being born all over again. I
don't remember this place - the sights, they're vaguely familiar but I
don't have a frame of reference to point to in experiencing them.

The body may be thirty-five fucking years old, but the mind
you'r e about to see - it's never been here before. NEVER.

Goodnight. Goodbye. Peace to you all, until I can find my
own again. Pray not for me, for this is not that dark goodnight, but
the confusing untangling of a blurry, bleary, new-world morning. Oh,
what will become of the world I've seen when it meeths the world I'm
about to meeth...

Bye.

For most of us, when we're first born into the world,
everything is a confusing and befuddled haze of light and sensation.
We are confused and squalling little creatures when we're first fresh
out of the womb.

Gradually, we begin to reach out and explore our world. Our
eyes are large when we're new to the world - that's so we can soak up
all the sights we can possibly grasp with our tiny little eyes.
Eventually we begin to notice that certain sensations of sound happen
at the same time as certain sights, and then the process of cognition
begins.

There are those who can do none of the above, of course - the
blind and the deaf. But they, too, both "see" and "hear" the world in
their own way, and eventually learn to navigate this reality we call
"life" with whatever senses they do have.

For a time, the world is an awesome place - so bright, so
shiny, so new and loud.... We can't stop gawking at every little thing
that passes into our own personal universe of perception. Our minds
consume the world around us with a hunger, an insatiable hunger which
rather than being satiated by our feeding on knowledge, only becomes
more intense...

...at least, for a time.

Then, we "grow up". The world becomes familiar, dull,
listless....

...sometimes we seek to renew those enticing experiences of
learning and growth from our childhood. Sometimes we do this in
healthy ways, and sometimes we do this in not-so-healthy ways.

I could have done drag shows in Knoxville had I wanted to
pursue a healthy path, but I didn't. I pursued an unhealthy path - a
path of chemicals and molecules and all sorts of things like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with using substances for such
mind-exploring possibilities. I am _firmly_ a believer that such
things should be legal and freely available to those adults who wish
to broaden their horizons. But for me? I used them as a crutch. I
used them as a way to shut off the world.

Whenever I was high on something like cough syrup or
antihistamines, the focus was all on "me". My sex demanded it, my
attention flooded to it, my mind began to wane away...

My world began reflecting the reality inside my head. Heaps
of dishes and bags and boxes and peanut shells, cough syrup bottles
and benadryl and dramamine bottles and - oh, dear god, I just stopped
caring for so long. The pills and the drink, they made the world go
away. I only had to face it for those 7 or 8 hours I was required to
on the phones each day. That, I sustained, somehow miraculously
through all the mental fog and the haze - I was able to help people,
to solve problems, all because I knew I had to do it if I wanted to
keep being able to afford to shut the world off.

This last weekend, I began cleaning up from the after effects
of my most recent cycle of binging and retreating into spaces within
my mind. I found maggots, flies, rotten food - no cockroaches,
thankfully, though I'm sure it would have only been a matter of time.
All the detritus of my world, the reflection of how I felt inside. I
hated myself, I hate myself still, for being this way. But I'm always
so dissociated I hardly ever recognize this. I need to recognize it,
I need to feel it, but it's just so hard....

I think I've been trying to kill myself for the past 8 years
or more. Not outright - I would be more than able to do that if that
was my aim. But I think with each handfull of pills and each bottle
of syrup I'd chug, especially in the last year or so, I so often
prayed that my heart would just stop beating.

It's hell being alone like this, and yet I'm the only one who
can change it. Nobody can do this for me, I have to be the one. But
it's just so fucking god damned hard

I don't honestly remember how to feel anymore, but by god I'm
going to try. I have to. I'm not ready to curl up and die yet. Not
yet, not this time. Not now. I have to try.

So for now, this is just a temporary "goodbye" - it's not the
"BIG" goodbye. Not the final goodbye. I just have to leave this
place. This place i've been retreating to. This world. This online
"Matrix", the place I could go to shut off every single other facet of
my existence.

I don't know how I have the strength to do this, to type this
- it's that "dissociative" thing, I think. But oh my fucking god,
here I go. I'm leaving. It's like I'm being born all over again. I
don't remember this place - the sights, they're vaguely familiar but I
don't have a frame of reference to point to in experiencing them.

The body may be thirty-five fucking years old, but the mind
you'r e about to see - it's never been here before. NEVER.

Goodnight. Goodbye. Peace to you all, until I can find my
own again. Pray not for me, for this is not that dark goodnight, but
the confusing untangling of a blurry, bleary, new-world morning. Oh,
what will become of the world I've seen when it meeths the world I'm
about to meeth...

Bye.

For most of us, when we're first born into the world,
everything is a confusing and befuddled haze of light and sensation.
We are confused and squalling little creatures when we're first fresh
out of the womb.

Gradually, we begin to reach out and explore our world. Our
eyes are large when we're new to the world - that's so we can soak up
all the sights we can possibly grasp with our tiny little eyes.
Eventually we begin to notice that certain sensations of sound happen
at the same time as certain sights, and then the process of cognition
begins.

There are those who can do none of the above, of course - the
blind and the deaf. But they, too, both "see" and "hear" the world in
their own way, and eventually learn to navigate this reality we call
"life" with whatever senses they do have.

For a time, the world is an awesome place - so bright, so
shiny, so new and loud.... We can't stop gawking at every little thing
that passes into our own personal universe of perception. Our minds
consume the world around us with a hunger, an insatiable hunger which
rather than being satiated by our feeding on knowledge, only becomes
more intense...

...at least, for a time.

Then, we "grow up". The world becomes familiar, dull,
listless....

...sometimes we seek to renew those enticing experiences of
learning and growth from our childhood. Sometimes we do this in
healthy ways, and sometimes we do this in not-so-healthy ways.

I could have done drag shows in Knoxville had I wanted to
pursue a healthy path, but I didn't. I pursued an unhealthy path - a
path of chemicals and molecules and all sorts of things like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with using substances for such
mind-exploring possibilities. I am _firmly_ a believer that such
things should be legal and freely available to those adults who wish
to broaden their horizons. But for me? I used them as a crutch. I
used them as a way to shut off the world.

Whenever I was high on something like cough syrup or
antihistamines, the focus was all on "me". My sex demanded it, my
attention flooded to it, my mind began to wane away...

My world began reflecting the reality inside my head. Heaps
of dishes and bags and boxes and peanut shells, cough syrup bottles
and benadryl and dramamine bottles and - oh, dear god, I just stopped
caring for so long. The pills and the drink, they made the world go
away. I only had to face it for those 7 or 8 hours I was required to
on the phones each day. That, I sustained, somehow miraculously
through all the mental fog and the haze - I was able to help people,
to solve problems, all because I knew I had to do it if I wanted to
keep being able to afford to shut the world off.

This last weekend, I began cleaning up from the after effects
of my most recent cycle of binging and retreating into spaces within
my mind. I found maggots, flies, rotten food - no cockroaches,
thankfully, though I'm sure it would have only been a matter of time.
All the detritus of my world, the reflection of how I felt inside. I
hated myself, I hate myself still, for being this way. But I'm always
so dissociated I hardly ever recognize this. I need to recognize it,
I need to feel it, but it's just so hard....

I think I've been trying to kill myself for the past 8 years
or more. Not outright - I would be more than able to do that if that
was my aim. But I think with each handfull of pills and each bottle
of syrup I'd chug, especially in the last year or so, I so often
prayed that my heart would just stop beating.

It's hell being alone like this, and yet I'm the only one who
can change it. Nobody can do this for me, I have to be the one. But
it's just so fucking god damned hard

I don't honestly remember how to feel anymore, but by god I'm
going to try. I have to. I'm not ready to curl up and die yet. Not
yet, not this time. Not now. I have to try.

So for now, this is just a temporary "goodbye" - it's not the
"BIG" goodbye. Not the final goodbye. I just have to leave this
place. This place i've been retreating to. This world. This online
"Matrix", the place I could go to shut off every single other facet of
my existence.

I don't know how I have the strength to do this, to type this
- it's that "dissociative" thing, I think. But oh my fucking god,
here I go. I'm leaving. It's like I'm being born all over again. I
don't remember this place - the sights, they're vaguely familiar but I
don't have a frame of reference to point to in experiencing them.

The body may be thirty-five fucking years old, but the mind
you'r e about to see - it's never been here before. NEVER.

Goodnight. Goodbye. Peace to you all, until I can find my
own again. Pray not for me, for this is not that dark goodnight, but
the confusing untangling of a blurry, bleary, new-world morning. Oh,
what will become of the world I've seen when it meeths the world I'm
about to meeth...

Bye.