I am BORED
mind-numbingly bored

no one is about

I don't have any real life friends who can do anything at 10pm at night

I have nothing to write about

cant even log into motherfucking myspace

there has been nothing on my mind lately for which to write about
its simply been procrastination

I have no views I wish to expound upon
I
am
bored

I've even been to http://www.I-am-bored.com
and now I'm bored of that

I've left people offliners

completely bored with that now

cant be arsed with my book, simply because I'm bored
I even listened to a free Berkeley lecture

there's no podcasts today

only big brother is on television, and that was only some woman I don't know whining like a little girl because she didn't want to use someone else's towel

 

I guess she has some neuroses about using dirty towels, cant stand dirt or something
you can get like that you know
it happened to me when I was a teenager, 14

I had severe agoraphobia, and could only bear to stay in the house

the thought of going out to buy a packet of crisps was far too much for me
I didn't feel afraid of going outside,
what I felt was fear of the anxiety attacks

quite rightly so as well, if I got on a bus into the city...a couple of miles out of my town and I would feel deep anxiety

the para-sympathetic nervous response would kick in

I would feel extremely ill and break out in a cold sweat, vomit, and have diarrhea
the sweat's to get better grips on things (clammy hands) and for cooling I guess
the anxiety a sickly mix of adrenalin for strength
the vomit is because the blood left my stomach so it could go to my running muscles
and the diarrhea was so the saber toothed tiger chasing me would not find me appetizing with that smell

simple proof that I'm of flight genes, back from the days of cavemen
sucks lemme tell ya

it's so fucked having a inner primitive mind in an advanced world

 

So I was indoors
and so bored and depressed (this was before the Internet came to the common man) with the lack of stimulation and the 4 channels on tv
so bored that I went insane for a hobby

my schizophrenia was not strong then, it made the pastime a little easier to accomplish though

the point of writing this is; I want to show people how neuroses are fightable
and how easy you can pick one up if you're that way inclined
and how to put it back down.

 

the touching things one came from fingerprints and The Simpsons
I watched The Simpsons episode where Mr Burns starts a casino
and he goes insane in his penthouse watching everyone on CCTV cameras, and stops touching things, living in a sterilized environment

it had an effect
I figured if people left fingerprints everywhere then there was slimy greasy dirt on every thing they touched, and I obsessed about this for my mind had nothing else to think about

so I stopped touching things
used toilet paper on the toilet seat
and kitchen roll on the can opener
and I washed my hands a lot

I could go a month without touching anything anyone had touched, let alone touching another person.

I wont go into all my neuroses, I had quite a collection
hmm what's another not too explicit one?

another one was my fear of spiders;

one night I was sitting in my room, and the biggest spider Id ever seen scuttled under the door
it put the wind up me as it ran about my room, and I picked up a orange cordial bottle and battered it to death
though it didn't die at first, I had to hit it several more times before its thick knobbly-kneed legs stopped moving.

we had a lot of spiders in the house in that year

and I kept coming across them, and began to obsess about them too

it built up and up until I figured that they must get in through open windows
and if the flies are what they eat, and the flies come in through the open windows too, then I should shut all the widows

And ended up in a baking summer with all my windows closed
and had war after war with my family when I heard them opening a window or door and leaving it open

they were tough, they never gave in no matter how much I raved

and I obsessed and obsessed and the fear grew and grew

 

and all this and more up until one day
when my mind was in a strange scary place
my internal world that day scared me

And so I decided to get sane again

which is easily possible

there are three steps to recovering from a problem
1.First you have to admit to the problem.
2.Second you have to turn and face the problem down.
3.Third.. you have to work to get rid of the problem!

Step 3 is by far the easiest of the lot.

 

and you can recover from neuroses
they need not rule your life

all you have to do is take it slow
and do the opposite of the neuroses

I started using the cutlery with bare hands, and then the taps

I remember a month or two into this, sitting on the toilet with the paper around the seat and looking at the family shower
and thinking how id never in a million years be able to use it without sandals on

yet I progressed bit by bit, by doing the sane option, and doing the opposite until nowadays I don't mind touching anything someone else has touched,
I even use public toilets with no paper and it doesn't bother me

and the spiders I just started to kill
killed them all
and still do
fucking spiders

but I'm not scared of them any more

I am by far more dangerous to them than they to me

still don't like them, but that's irritation not fear

the fear left me a while into my onslaught, it was strange
I was sitting watching tv
and for some reason I looked into the air, and changed the focus of my eyes

and low and behold there was a spider, a small spider dangling down from the ceiling.

I caught it in a Tupperware box and looked at it
and it raised its front legs at me in an attack gesture

and it was such a small and beautifully patterned little thing, I just thought it was so plucky to try to take me on
and the fear just went.

the agoraphobia was partly from the anxiety the sz (schizophrenia) was giving me, so that took me facing it down and asking my parents for a hypnotherapist
which got me a lot better, not perfect, but then I didn't have the concentration span to listen to the tape he made for me every single day.

I went back to school anyway

so all these things are recoverable from, you've just got to face them down
you've got to be brave

to keep them up would be to make your life a lot more uncomfortable for years more

and if you don't have any, then make sure that if any arise, you nip them in the bud when they are small

 

alas I had sz and didn't know it, so life just got worse
but you cant have everything can ya? heh
I got better from that too after a bunch more years of Hell, the handiest thing the neuroses taught me was the value of sanity
many people with medical mental health problems regularly stop taking their pills
they cant stand the side effects, and want to feel themselves again
I don't thank god, entirely due to my commitment to sanity that I gained that day when I changed my mind

someone who's acting really strangely with a neuroses, is just someone who thinks too much, and has ended up thinking about the wrong thing

(C)opyright Nick.Eliot[at]Cannotfindserver.net 12/08/2006

 

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