I have ideas for days, sadly

Time to write again, because I really am determined to keep up on this and all my other writings. I have this blog plus I have:

Maybe It's The Bloodwine Talking - Neurospicy 'R' Us - A Little Kink Is Good For The Soul.

On top of that I am working on:

#BertsLight podcast,

and all my facebook pages:

#BertsLight - ByronMakesThings - BloodwineTalking - ALittleKinkIsGood - Neurospicy 'R' Us - BrazierChildren - Oh No, The Liberals Are Coming.

As I am writing this all out, I am realizing that I am quite spread out wide. I have ALL kinds of ambition, millions and millions of ideas for things to write, and draw, and build, and film, and create, and grow, and record, and on and on.

Now I'm sure in the title you noticed that I included the word sadly. Let me explain why that word is in there, and why having so many ideas can be incredibly depressing. When you live your life with your brain always coming up with new ideas, it becomes incredibly overwhelming to know that you wont be able to accomplish most if not all of them. There is never enough time, nor enough money, nor enough energy to accomplish all of them, yet I can't turn my brain off to stop coming up with them. I have sooo many pages in OneNote of ideas, some of which seem super simple to do, and some require millions of dollars and all of my time. Yet the thoughts never stop, so I just keep writing them down. Just feels like the more that OneDrive fills up with ideas, the more I wish I did have so many. 

Looking at all these ideas and knowing I don't have the money, or the skills, or the time, or the resources, or whatever else I need to do them, makes me really hate this world we live in. Nothing happens without money, and people don't want to invest without seeing a working product, but you can't have a working product without the money to buy the supplies in the first place. Then there are things like Patreon and Kickstarter and StartGarden and so on, places and websites that help you to build an audiance and get monetary support for the thing you want to make. They are amazing tools to use, but I have so little self confidence in my ideas anymore that I am instantly overwhelmed by all of it when I even attempt to start filing out the paperwork and such.

I grew up wanting to be an inventer. Edison and Tesla were my heros as a kid, creating both practical and fantastical inventions to make the world a better place. Course when I grew up I found out that Edison just slapped his name on a bunch of the inventions he is said to have invented, as they were invented by his employees, but still. I want to have my name synonymous with change and making the world a better place. Wether it's through art, or audio, or inventions, or charities, or whatever. I want to be able to show the world that I can make a difference, and that I am not just full of ideas with nothing behind them. I want to make the world a better place for me having been in it, and if one of my ideas happens to bring in a lot of money, then I can take care of my family, and have the funding to make even more of my ideas come true.

I just want to finally have one of my many ideas take off and go somewhere. I want to have them mean something to more than just me. I want to be able to grow old and say that not only did I make a difference, but I can actually show you the difference I made. I want to see the difference being made within my own life time. It's not for the fame or the glory, but to show that a difference can be made, and to show that the neurodivergent of this world are worth way more than just being a puzzle piece you fit into your life.

Glimpses of Bert w/ backstory

 As I continue my journey of #DiscoveringByron I have found that I keep catching glimpses of the real me coming through. Be it certain thoughts, or actions, or whatever, the real me is coming back out. I so wish that I could make him come back completely, but I really don’t want to rush it. I am really scared that if I rush it, he will get frightened and run away. Which I know sounds weird, seeing’s as how I am talking about myself, but it’s true.

The real me, the me that I am trying to get back to, hasn’t seen much light of day in a long time. The real me, lets call him Bert, which was the nickname I was given in high school and it stuck with me. The last time Bert felt free to come out was when I was maybe 20 or 21. I was a counselor at a summer camp and was so very excited to be back there. Summer camp was where I always felt the most free to be myself, and where Bert shined the brightest. I always thought it was because I was being called to be a youth pastor, it was a Christian camp, but the more I think about it, Bert shined the brightest there for the simple fact that no one had any preconceived notions of who he was, well, who I was. I could start with a blank slate with people, and if I stayed the summer there, there were new campers every week, and often new staff as well. So it wasn’t just a blank slate at the beginning of the summer, but a blank slate almost every week as well. I could be me without fear of anyone calling me out for past mistakes. No one there knew how awkward I was at school, no one knew how few friends that I had, or that I was neurodivergent at all. All they knew was that my name was Byron, or Bert depending on the person, and that I was just a friendly, outgoing, energetic, love all people kind of person. They got to see the real me and I absolutely loved it. I guess I should say they got to see as close to the real me as anyone ever had. It was God camp after all, and a lot of who I was on the inside was considered sin by the church, so I still hid a lot. Overall though, I was able to just allow my actual personality to come out to play, and Bert thrived.

However the last full summer of Bert ended with Byron being dragged home by my significant other and told that I needed to get my head out of the clouds and find a career and become an adult. That relationship was everything to me, so I followed their advice and tried to focus on just them and work. I let Bert fall behind and tried to just be Byron, an adult with adult responsibilities and no time for the parts of life I used to take joy in. About 6 months later I left that relationship and went back to Chicago to try to finish college. I then met my first wife, and yet again did the same thing. I devoted my life, my work, my everything to her, and then proceeded to just let Bert vanish into the past. He would come out from time to time, but almost always only when I was home with my family. Even then though, they noticed that who I was during those visits was never even close to who I used to be. I spent years being surrounded by people and yet still some how feeling completely alone. So when our marriage fell apart, I did the only thing I could to try to save myself from the spiral of depression and loneliness that I had spent years living in, I moved back home. 

Life since then has been filled with amazing ups, but it’s all been overwhelmed by some insanely down downs. Deaths of loved ones, soul crushing breakups, jobs that controlled my life, constant physical pains, and multiple mental breakdowns all just kept piling on top of each other. Bert just became a nickname that I was called by a few people from my past and sometimes by family. I was convinced that I would never be able to get back to being Bert. That I would never get back to  having Bert and Byron become one in the same ever again. Then, lately, I have seen flashes of Bert coming out of me, and it is invigorating. I didn’t think he really actually existed anymore, and had given up trying to bring him back. So to see that my self-work has been bringing him out more and more, gives me energy to keep going. Gives me something to hold onto as proof that all this work isn’t for nothing. Proof that I am not doomed to forever be the broken Byron that I have been for the past 20ish years. The worst of it seems to have come and gone, and now I can work on being the Bert/Byron hybrid I was meant to be.

I got this.

Need to remove my Jaded/Skeptical filter

 One of the biggest issues that I am coming across is how jaded and skeptical of everything in life I have become over time. The more that life screws me over, or at least appears to, the more and more I expect it to every time. I'm not sure if it is just a self fulfilling prophecy or if I am genuinely cursed to always have life shit on me. It's like I am doomed to always get close to what I want, and then to have the universe either take it away, or take something else which lessens the thing it did give me. I know, that all sounds rather depressing, but this is how my brain works. This is how life has appeared to me for as long as I can remember. I don't want to be so jaded and skeptical of anything good happening, but when you have spent your life actually seeing the other shoe drop on a regular basis, your view of the world gets all skewed.

I am working hard on trying to remove that filter from my world view but it is so incredibly ingrained into who I am, that I am not always sure when I am and am not using the filter. It's become such a default way of existing that I have no idea of how to even attempt to actually turn it off. Every time something good happens I start looking around to find out what's going to kick me down next, and every single time it comes hurtling at me. Sometimes it comes fast and hard to knocks me the fuck down, other times I find out it's been slowly growing unobserved in the background till it no longer can be ignored. No matter how it arrives though, the other shoe always drops and my jaded and skeptical filter always proves that it is needed. 

I used to look at the world in a much brighter light, the filter was there, but I was able to turn it off and search for the good times to come without wracking myself over the next shoe. I used to be able to find the good in things and people, and actually trust them to follow through on the goodness I saw. I used to smile often, and sing, and jump around, and have all kinds of energy and joy when I was around people I trusted. Then I got used and abused and taken advantage of in many different ways. Then the universe started shitting on me constantly, with no remorse. Then my life became a daily battle of just trying to make it through the day without another disaster. Then the filter was always needed and the ability to turn it off became a distant memory. When you live every day on high alert and anxiety, watching your life fall apart, and constantly being told that it's all your fault (even when it wasn't), you become hyper away of all the negativity around you. It becomes the only thing you see, the only thing you worry about, and the only thing you can think about. You become ever vigilant to just how often the other shoe drops in your life, and trying to find ways to make it stop.

Problem with hypervigilance, especially in this case, is that you have spent so long searching for the negative to be able to avoid it, that it is now the only thing you see. Seeing the light, the good, the fun, in the world around you is no longer in your skill set. You have now programmed your brain to use this filter at all times, no matter what, and it might take just as long if not longer to unprogram it than it did to program it. There is almost nothing more frustrating than realizing that in our attempt at survival, you did all the programming yourself, on yourself, that you are now trying to get rid of by yourself. There is no one who can do that reprogramming for you, cuz they have no idea how your individual code works in order to remove the code and the filter. Every single person has different variations of the same code, which means sometimes there are enough similarities in the code to be able to have your reprogramming method work for someone else, but it will never be able to work for everyone. Sometimes, no ones methods can work for you, and you are stuck having to come up with your own through trial and error. The errors are the part that make it so hard to keep trying, because they are so defeating in nature.

So I am trying hard to get rid of it, but it's a battle I have to take on alone, because I am the only one who even kind of understands my internal coding. I am trying though, honest.

Friendship Trauma and relearning

I can't win. I try so hard to do the right thing, and be the better person, and see the good in people, and all the world keeps showing me is how I should just quit. The richest people in the world keep turning out to be incredibly shady, the nicest people in the world keep turning out to be assholes, and the ones doing the most good are usually doing the most harm in private. So what's the point in trying to keep being the better person? What's the point in always having to live this way? Why can't I just flip the switch and be the asshole? Why can't I just choose to be selfish from now on? Why can't I choose to be the worse person for once? Why can't I be the winner for once?

I am just tired of being this way and never having it work in my favor. I've been told my whole life not to do things just to try and get something in return, but I'm tired of always giving and rarely receiving. I'm tired of giving of myself to those around me and having to fight to get people to do the same for me. Being a venting post sucks when no one will be a post for you. Being a safe place for people sucks when they only need you when their life sucks, and then vanish when things are going good. Being a good person is great until people won't be good to you in return. 

We have to stop living in the mentality that we need to give without expectation of receiving in return. Don't get me wrong, that is a wonderful and noble thing to do, but that can't be how we live our lives. Trust me, as someone who has spent their life trying to give without the expectation of getting anything in return, after a while, you get jaded and start seeing nothing but the worst in people. When you have a ton of friends while life is going good and/or you're in a position of power, and then they all disappear when life sucks and/or you no longer have the power, you realize just how selfish and shitty most people are. When you are always there for those you hold dear, and they aren't there when you need them, you wonder why you held them dear in the first place.

As I start unpacking my mind, and my trauma, and my past, and my Neuro-spicyness, I am starting to see an absolutely appalling pattern when it comes to the people I've held the closest to my heart. So many of the people that I thought of as my closest friends, were just using me or keeping me around to be the butt of the jokes. Oh and I know, you're reading this thinking it couldn't have been that bad, yet every time I tell stories about my past to my wife or therapist or kids or one of the few friends i have, i always get the same response, "are you serious? That's not okay that they treated you like that." I know it's not, but what other choice did I have? If I stayed to myself I was told I needed to stop being a loner and go socialize more, but when I socialized people took advantage of my giving nature and my desperation for people to like me, and used me. Time and time and time and time and time again. Which means I am now 40, trying to connect with people, and I have no idea what an actual friend really looks like for me. I am trying to get people to fill a void that I don't actually understand. I keep trying and trying and just keep getting it wrong.

Everything I'm my journey right now is trial and error, and sadly all I keep having at the moment is errors. No, not just at the moment, my whole life. I keep trying to be the person I was told I had to be to be liked and loved by others and yet I just keep failing. So now I need to try to just be me, but I have no clue who that person is. Which makes it hard to figure out who to have in my life. Makes it hard to figure out how to act around people. Makes it hard to just exist without hating myself and wishing I were someone, anyone, else.

But here I am, still trying.

New Year, Real Me

 I am determined to make 2023 the year that I finally am able to just be me. Few masks as possible, dealing with my anxiety and depression as best as I can, and just learning to overall like myself. That last part is the most important part of all of this, it's the part that will determine how the rest of it goes. I have to work through my ADHD, Autism, Anxiety, Depression, Fibromyalgia, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria,  and PTSD from abuse. Yet all of it can't really go anywhere untill I can learn to actually like myself, so I will be willing to put in the work on the rest.

Where do I start though? Honestly, when you have spent the better part of your life thinking that you are always the problem, and having so many people tell you that you are too much, trying to love yourself is incredibly hard. Trying to find things about myself that I like isn't hard, it's trying to ignore the dark thoughts that tell me that I'm not worthy of any love. Not even my own love. I really am trying to get there, I just have all those old voices still in my head telling me I am wrong. Telling me that there is nothing I can do to make things better, nothing I can do to make up for the past, and nothing that I can do to make people actually like me or me actually like me. 

With all of that constantly going in my head, how do I make my voice the loudest one? How do I convince myself that my voice is the most important voice, and not to rely on others voices for validation? I have spent most my life trying to make myself fit the box the world seems to want me in, yet I always fail. That should have taught me that it is impossible to please everyone and I should just focus on being the best me that I can be, instead it taught me that I am not worthy of anything good and that I should just try to make others happy rather than myself. It taught me that wanting to make myself happy instead of others was completely selfish and wrong of me. That the only joy in life was making others happy, even at the expense of myself and my health. 

I don't know how to start this journey but I am going to keep trying. I will keep trying to tell myself that I am worthy, worthy of friends, of happiness, and of loving myself.