The Confessions Thread

[D.o.S.]

I haven't posted in 6 months, because the day after the last post I made I came out as nonbinary transgender. Since then I haven't hardly played any music (a few times) and I've just been dealing with the fallout and everything surround coming out and also being unemployed and a stay at home parent. It's been pretty intense and brain frying, I feel like I haven't had relaxing day off in 6 months. I really miss playing music and want to jam with people again, but the social awkwardness that comes with this phase of my life is keeping from feeling comfortable reaching out to new people I don't know.

(I'm listening to so much industrial it's like The Matrix is playing inside my head at all times. That's my confession)

[dubkitty]

my version of this is that lately i've been listening to The Fall so much that my internal dialog often incorporates a trailing '-uh' sound a la MES.

[dubkitty]

well, here i am at Union Pool, a rather cute little bar in Brooklyn.
.i'm here to see Wet Tuna at a birthday party gig for Jeff Conklin of WFMU. having done the usual 8-hour drive from Charlottesville, i feel like hammered shit. i kind of wish i'd blown it off and stayed home, but the electricity was out in my neighborhood so i'd have just gotten bored and run my phone down. i'm feeling icky a lot nowadays because honestly, i'm not eating nearly enough. i'm still trying to get rid of my flab from the 2000s. i'm beginning to worry that i'm running myself into anorexia...i'm regularly taking in less than 1000 calories/day, and the nearer i get to my desired weight range (145-ish) the more obsessive i become about it. i don't want to stop, though...i've been working at this for almost two years and have lost over 40 pounds, 20% of my body weight. i'm so tired, though...i'm sick of being broke and struggling just to keep up, and my feel is getting more and more brittle. and i'm going to be in this spot more or less until September when i plan to go on my road trip. i really wish i could just go to bed and hide until then. the way the world is right now makes everything jagged and scary; i have to listen to loud, abrasive stuff just to get charged up to do anything.

[dubkitty]

lately i'm feeling so miserable that i've been positive-visualizing finding somewhere to buy a massive quantity of opiates. i'd wait till next September and take my trip as planned, up to the point when i find that meadow in the Wind River Range with all the mountain bluebirds where i camped back around 2008. then i'd wait till dark, spread out my sleeping gear on the ground, dissolve the drugs in a glass of wine, down them, and go to sleep looking at the stars. "i'm not scared...i'm out of here."

[codetocontra]

I know that fantasy.

[friendship]

I think I'm done with playing music.

Playing, writing, recording, mixing, etc... None of it has been fun for at least a year. I've always gone through slumps, but I've never felt this way before. I'm not excited by the prospect of any kind of involvement in music. I don't even feel frustrated by not feeling joy for it. The feeling I have when I imagine doing it now is like the feeling I have when I have to wash the dishes. And I don't think I'm burnt out; I haven't put any pressure on myself in over a year, and no one is waiting on new music from me. Ive just been "letting it happen," but I'm starting to think I don't want it to happen.

I don't really know what to do because this is the thing that's given my life meaning and direction for since I was 13 years old. Did I grow out of it? Now what do I do?

[dubkitty]

that happened to me in the 00s. it was partially due to the antidepressant i was on at the time. i didn't play the guitar for at least a year, though i occasionally noodled on my Casio. right now my motivation is pretty minimal cos i have a ton of other stuff on my plate, but since it still tugs at me occasionally i think i'll be all right. but atm i have no great desire to work on anything as hard as i'll have to work on writing and/or recording. if there's one thing on earth i despise most (other than Nazis) it's writing lyrics. i'd rather have teeth extracted.

[friendship]

I am also on an antidepressant! But I've been taking it for over a decade. Was it a new one that you were on? Did you do anything in particular to fill the void in time/attention when you stopped playing?

[dubkitty]

yes, it was a new one. i wouldn't want to speculate about your situation because i never want to discourage folks from taking the family of meds that probably saved my life. as to what i did to fill the time, honestly i mostly watched TV which is sub-optimal.

[friendship]

Haha, that's exactly what I'm doing. When I get home from work, I just crack open a beer and let Netflix stream until I fall asleep. I don't feel good about myself but I also don't care enough to do something else.

[dubkitty]

has your depression gotten worse in the recent past? when i find myself not giving a shit about anything, that's usually a sign that i'm slipping into the darkness.

[friendship]

Sort of. There was a death in my family last month so things have not been super great for me since then... but I started having these feelings well before that happened. I probably do need to go back to a psychiatrist and see about getting my meds switched up though.

[dubkitty]

couldn't hurt.

[Achtane]

I dislike my job so much that, when I smashed the fuck outta my car's front end on a pothole earlier, I was hoping it busted a hole in my radiator so that I'd have a reason to call out tomorrow. At least I could easily fix that.

[MEC]

I dislike my job so much that, when I smashed the fuck outta my car's front end on a pothole earlier, I was hoping it busted a hole in my radiator so that I'd have a reason to call out tomorrow. At least I could easily fix that.

You could just say you busted a hole in your radiator and spend your day off in the haystack.