Sometimes you are drowning and you don’t even realize it, sometimes you have spent so much time just treading water you forget to swim for the shore. For the last few years I have spent so much time trying to not be a problem I have allowed a lot of things that I normally wouldn’t have ever considered to become the norm. These changes had such a negative effect on my over all mental health that I became very insular and withdrew from the things I loved doing. Many of my friends wrote me off, people I care for deeply disconnected from me, and my grasp on myself slipped away until I was doing things on auto pilot.

During this period I lost all interest in romance, who would want to be romantic with a husk? I didn’t see sex as being anything other than painful and frustrating. I gave up on the things that brought me joy like online gaming and photography. I knew there was something very wrong and I couldn’t continue to “fake it” because I didn’t see a point. Mrs. ZM has been dealing with her own health issues and her own stresses and I felt I couldn’t talk to her about what was going on because it wasn’t fare to dump that on her. I couldn’t talk to my friends because they were all going through their own life issues from medical issues to messy divorces and they didn’t want to hear my shit. So I was looking inward more and more and wasn’t getting any better, life was pretty shitty for this Former Action Guy with a bad hip.

In early April I started having extremely violent dreams, I don’t remember much of them other than I would wake up nauseous, sweaty, and dealing with an adrenaline dump, whatever I was running from was gaining on me and I knew that if I didn’t find a way to deal with this I was going to self destruct. The biggest problem was I had no clue what was going on, which was the biggest issue, its hard to fix a problem that you cant see.

I tried to break out of my comfort zone in mid to late April by getting involved with some different social networking applications and trying to meet some new people, for a variety of reasons this did not work out at all.

So I had another defeat and was feeling pretty lost, my desire to be part of the world was by and large nonexistent, We started remodeling our kitchen and our house was plunged into disarray again, it still is but now as bad as it has been for awhile, but I am still dealing with a house that is in disarray.

Recently I went to our annual big Sci Fi convention Convergence, I wont lie I really didn’t want to go, I am often in pain, I have gained weight and it hurts to walk, plus many of the issues I am dealing with would be present there and I was trying to avoid them. What happened was that I managed to avoid those issues pretty well, a fact that actually made me feel pretty good. I also had the thought that maybe I can get things rolling and I can start making cosplay costumes again, perhaps get into 3D printing. I also found some Facebook memories I wrote myself back in 2016 when I was laying in bed feeling pretty low regarding my surgery and my pain, these reminded me that I am winning my battle and moving forward. Now I am tasked with addressing my issues and addressing those people who have caused me no end of frustration. Likely this will bring about great changes in my life, but I cant continue to feel this way any longer, its destroying me, its destroying my self worth, and its destroying my relationships.

So here goes nothing, once again into the great world go I.