Sorry

I'm back......well, sort of. Actually I am pretty depressed. I thought that I probably shouldn't write a blog again tonight, because I didn't want it to be a bunch of "poor me" whining, but then I thought that I didn't want my two readers, in Poland and Equador respectively, to wonder what happened to me; three days in a row with no blog and they may have thought I was toast.

I guess I have been hovering on the edge of depression for a long time, though a lot of factors keep me on the Good Side of the equation. For instance, I once remarked to my niece that the mental and physical balances of one's day can determine one's mood. I think I said something like, "if you have a good night's sleep, and then a nice cup of coffee in the morning, and a good breakfast, your outlook is probably gonna be good". By this I mean the physical aspect - balanced blood sugar, sufficient rest - plays into the mental aspect, i.e. you had a shitty day yesterday but "tomorrow is a new day", and because you got good rest (i.e physical restoration) and good nutrition in the morning, along with the caffeine stimulant we all love, the New Day is bound to be better than the last one.

This has always been my philosophy, that every day is a new day, and in my previous years I once came to the conclusion about myself that I had never once woke up depressed. We all have bad days, and most of us have lived through all kinds of tough times, but I was always, for most of my life, an optimistic person at heart.

I wish I could say that this was still the case, but it is not. I have my Faith, which makes me optimistic in the Long Run, but I am also worn down by realistic experience.

And my realistic experience for the past three decades is that I have basically been alone. I had my parents for a while, and there is no doubt whatsoever that I have been fortunate and blessed in my life in so many ways, but in analysing the social aspect of my life, I have mostly been alone. I am not a loner by nature, just to clear that up, and really I am a friendly person, good conversationalist (I think) and I try to be a good listener, and all those things that makes a person "good company". But I also have the curse of shyness, and believe me, it is a curse, because it makes a person almost incapable of introducing himself or starting a conversation. For a shy person like me, if a person breaks the ice, I have no problem joining in, but to initiate conversation?........almost impossible.

Now, I am far from the shyest person who ever lived, and I did have my share of friends throughout my life. But my shyness has stayed with me throughout my life nonetheless. For others who are naturally outgoing and gregarious, it might be impossible to understand what it feels like to be inside yourself. The shy person wants to converse, wants to be part of things, but cannot break the ice in person, and so feels trapped in a sense. Everything they wish to say, to contribute, is retained and stuffed down inside.

And often, the shy person watches from the sidelines as the glib and facile, gregarious personalities get all the attention. People who on the surface appear to be charming, but whom in reality have nothing to say. This was my experience in high school. I was what you would call a "ghost".

All this is a way of saying that my adolescence, like the adolescence of many, was difficult, because I was introverted. Not extremely introverted, but to a fair degree.

My 20s were different. The decade of the 1980s was very social for me, only within my own realm of friends, but the friendships were many, and seemingly strong, and in those years I was in a relationship. For almost ten years I was in the only relationship of my life. I felt like myself then, like the Real Me. I felt integrated with the world.

But then came 1989, and the events of that year, events I would not even begin to remember until 1993.

And when my memory finally developed, many many years later, I came to the conclusion that all those friends I thought I had, actually did not give a flying fuck about me.

Because many of them participated in trying to throw my life into the trash.

I would suggest a book about a person I have an affinity with, a young lady named Sylvia Likens. She died in 1965 (I think), but when I read a book about her in the early 90s, I felt an affinity. She was just a nice person whose life was thrown into the trash can by some very evil people.

And while my experience was not as horrible as hers, it easily could have been, because I was ganged up upon by neighborhood people just as she was. She was held prisoner by a next door neighbor named Gertrude Baniszewsky, and I was held prisoner by a next door neighbor named Jared Rappaport.

Sylvia was a teenager when this happened to her, and she died, was tortured to death.

I was 29 when Mr. Rappaport kidnapped me, by hijacking me with a gun, and I was tortured, too. But because there was government involvement in my situation, I survived, just barely.

And when I came out of all of this trouble and turmoil in the late 1990s, with the help of my parents, I discovered that the people I had thought were my friends were, in several cases, the people who had participated in the horrible events of 1989, and had acted against me.

It's a long, long story, and I've written a book about it, but I felt like my life was over at the time. I thought that my neighborhood, and my supposed friends, were out to kill me.

No joke, but 100% truth.

As the years passed, I tried to contact the lady with whom I had had a relationship during those years.

I tried, simply by sending Christmas cards and a few emails. I also made an ill-fated attempt at contact in 1995, when I was high on drugs, which ended ignominously.

That was really stupid of me, but the point is that - in looking back twenty years - that nobody - not a single person - was willing to help me in my quest to understand what had happened to me.

Not a single person.

Not any one of my so-called friends, and not the lady with whom I had a ten year relationship.

Instead, I was called names because of the things I was mentioning, the subjects I was talking about. I was told that I was hallucinating. I was told that I was crazy. I was told that none of what I was saying was real. I was told, basically, by several people, that what I was talking about was the result of drug use.

But the years went by. Almost two more decades have gone by. This has been a shitload of time, and it has been one motherfucker of an ordeal. All of those so-called people who once pretended to be my friends have no idea what an ordeal it has been for me.

Nor does the lady with whom I had a ten year relationship in the 1980s.

She has ignored all of this, and has skated on her merry way, while I have twisted in the wind, as if my life didn't matter.

I have been twisting in the wind for 28 years. Try it sometime and see how it feels.

And while I have without doubt had many good times in the interim, it goes without saying that my life has been Profoundly Affected by the events of those years past.

Profoundly Affected. Which is why I identify with Sylvia Likens.

I am not on the verge of a breakdown, so don't worry. But I am on the edge of depression, and I guess that simple things can push me over the edge.

I guess I just wish that I had somebody who really cares about me and wants to be with me. I see that other people have someone in their lives, and I wish I did too. It's that simple.

I've been by myself for almost thirty years, and I am strong, and I know that life is not easy, but I have also tried so very hard to resolve things - to communicate - and no one, not a single person, has wanted to communicate with me.

Not a single person. Not one.

It hasn't been easy, at all.