I did something I didn't expect to do today. I went and applied for a night job. I've worked two jobs before, but it's been at least ten years since I did so.

Towards the end of every year, the business doesn't do well and it's touch and go. To compound my troubles, sales this whole year haven't been all that great. Things are looking particularly grim at this moment.

So the worry and stress has been leading me to look for escapes from reality even moreso than usual, but I'm slowly coming to the sobering realization that it may be finally "time to grow up." And that sort of scares the shit out of me.

what does "time to grow up " mean to you ?

For me it means that I actually have to watch what I spend and save money for the future which is something that I've never been able to do properly, at least in any "adult" sense. I feel embarrased for squandering so very much, whether it be money or talent or whatever. The shame has been with me for quite some time, but I'm only now really acknowledging it and beginning to accept what I have to do about it.

atari, i think you're a bit of a lunatic and often a pain in the ass, but regardless, i wish you no ill, and that which you say actually sucks.

my suggestion (honestly, not mocking) would be to cut down your marijuana consumption. if you smoke any kind of good quality shit, at the rate you do, it must be a big line of your budget--unless of course you also sell to recover the costs, but selling is never a smart idea , unless you crave showering with other men for years at some point in the future.

so my other suggestion, coupled with the first one, is would be to diversify your business rather than seeking the comfort of a cashier job. You already have the tools for selling shit online & know how to use them; it could be relatively simple to branch out to different items with a different inventory cycle. think of converting your marijuana budget into some kind of inventory, and that should give you better returns than being a night watchman, or whatever you're planning to do.

anyway, i do not wish to engage in lunatic discussions with you, but i felt morally obligated to offer you some advice, as retreats of this sort often lead to implosions, and we don't want you to become the poster child for amotivational syndrome, whether it actually exists or it's just another name for chronic cannabis intoxication.

yeah, rationalize all you want, but you know i speak the truth-- you need to detox & get back your energy & drive-- & best wishes.

oh yeah, one more thing-- if you're not willing or able to pay a business consultant, your local SBA should have some experts on staff. SCORE is actually a pretty good resource (retired business executives) and they are affiliated with the SBA.

My nephew was born this morning! Very excited right now. So I'm great, thanks.

I don't mean to cut in. This is just the thread I was looking for to share my delight with the world.

I mean, I'm an aunt now. A god damn aunt.

ha ha, congrats aunt floozie

I was an uncle when I was only six months old, for whatever that info is worth.

Thanks for your genuine concern, !@#$%!, but it isn't only the mary jane that sucks the money. It's everything. I have expensive habits and fairly expensive tastes unfortunately. Some thought about diversifying into some other line of products (professional recording gear maybe) and doing google adwords and a site was seriously deliberated at one time when things were better financially, but now the credit for something like that just isn't there anymore. And at one time a franchise situation for a product that coats gravel roads to keep them from kicking up so much dust on vehicles was also considered, but the Virgina Department of Transportation screwed things up on that front. A Quizno's franchise was considered years ago too, but that ship has sailed also. Somebody else opened one and it did well for a little while, but now that guy is losing his ass like so many others in small business. My friend who owns a restaurant and bar is also in the process of going belly up since his primary means of income from commercial real estate has tanked for a long while now.
At any rate, the only good news is that so many others are in the same boat as myself with the coming recession. It seems lawmakers are starting to consider bailing some people out of the mess, and that help can't come soon enough.

Hmm, well so much for the "genuine concern." haha

Hey, I didn't vote for Bush/Cheney who have ruined this economy by selling America's future out and running up astronomical debt.

But yeah, you're right, time to pull up the bootstraps.

I'd imagine he/she is more of a younger sibling in your eyes? I'd find that strange. Of course, how could you if it's all you've ever known.

I have an aunt on my biological father's side who is almost a year younger than me.

I haven't seen or talked to him in years, but yeah we are the same age basically so I don't view him as younger really; it's sort of odd in that sense.

I also have another nephew and a niece who are twins born to another stepsister when I was almost eight, so they see me as older. They were born on the fourth of July, 1976, so they are bicentennial twins hehe.

One of my uncles is loaded (everyone seems to have a rich one, right?) and I am the only male that carries the family name, yet I've never fathered any children; well, none that I know of anyway.

yeah neither do i but adapt or die is how it works. the days of the guaranteed company job are long gone. counting on the government to protect the little guy-- same thing. social reform is a very slow path to personal profits; while i sympathize, i do not intend to commiserate with you. complaining abut bush won't make you a penny.

anyway, inferior goods sell more during recessions-- potatos, matches, kerosene, and.... ??

Overall you're right, time to pull up the bootstraps.

Yep. That is even more out-of-the-ordinary. Puzzled me for a second just thinking about it.

There must be a large age difference between you and your siblings.

Yeah, there is. I have one stepbrother and two stepsisters who are both from my mother's previous marraige. A stepfather is listed as my dad on my birth certificate. So, even though I'm the only male with the last name, it's not my biological last name. I'm a bastard love child from 1968, born in September and probably conceived at or around New Year's Eve that year.* I was more-or-less disowned by my mother and stepfather the day before my twentieth birthday when I asked if my stepfather was my real father or not. My stepfather, a (now retired) Master Chief in the Navy Seabees, kicked me out "for upsetting my mother." I had been living at home off and on and just returned back to Georgia from an unsuccessful stint in Dallas, TX at the time. They live in Mississippi on the Gulf Coast now and that's where I mostly lived until the ninth grade. They returned back to the house they owned in MS from GA after I had gone away to Athens. I haven't had much contact since. And no support from them since I was twenty. I was seriously starting to feel fucked-up that I didn't know if they were still living or not, so I called a few months ago and they are still around.

*Just like the Diana Ross (& The Supremes) song which was released mere days after my birth:


Tenement slum
Ooh, ooh, ooh....aaaahhh

You think that I don't feel love
What I feel for you is real love
In other's eyes I see reflected
A hurt, scorned, rejected

Love child
Never meant to be
Love Child
Born in poverty
Love Child
Never meant to be
Love Child
Take a look at me

Started my life
In a old, cold, run-down tenament slum (tenement slum)
My father left he never even married mama
I shared the guilt my mama knew
So afraid that others knew I had no name

This love we're contemplatin'
Is worth the pain of waitin'
We'll only end up hatin'
The child we may be creatin'

Love Child
Never meant to be
Love Child
(Scorned by) Society
Love Child
Always second best
Love Child
(Different from) Different from the rest

(Hold on hold on just a little bit longer) Mmmmm baby
(Hold on hold on just a little bit longer) Mmmmm baby

I started school
And a worn, torn dress that somebody threw out
(Somebody threw out)
I knew the way it felt to always live in doubt
To be without the simple things
So afraid my friends would see the guilt in me

Don't think that I don't need ya
Don't think I don't want to please ya
But no child of mine will be bearing
The name of shame I've been wearing

Love Child
Love Child
Never quite as good
Afraid, ashamed
Misunderstood

But I'll always love you
Always love you

I'll always love you
Always love you

I hope you don't believe that.

Not all that much consciously, no, but subconsciously, yeah, probably I do.



Anthropology teaches us that the primary factor in the success of the offspring in primates is the love and care of the mother. An anthropology professor I had once stated that this is the case with human beings also.
So, not to get too Freudian and blame my mother, but just sayin'...submitted for your consideration.

Whether you believe it was for love or pleasure, your parents a sex for a GOOD reason. That's why you're here now. For the desire of intimacy and human touch/caressing/whatever. To me, that is enough.

They may not have planned it, but you won the race for a reason.

By not telling me for so many years due to what was obviously their own shame they put some of that into me, I'm sure, but again, I don't feel it on a day-to-day conscious level. I don't think what my mother did by having me illegitimately ("illegitimately" according to society) was all that wrong like they obviously do. But, then again, it does explain a whole lot about possible origins of dualisms in my own personality and certain (very obvious to myself) self-destructive tendencies.

They didn't tell you that your father was not biologically related to you?
dualisms=split personality?

(Okay, this is my way of subtly interrogating), maybe I ought to step back.
I have a curious nature.

Yes, I never knew for sure until I asked on the eve of my twentieth birthday. Everyone has a certain level of psychological schism though. But no, I am not a certifiable split personality with an associative disorder (very few are), although I have been diagnosed before as being chronically depressed.

Some mental health professionals regard heavy depression as anger directed inwards towards the self.

Personally, I think I am just a bit maladjusted like most people and have a touch of manic-depressive bipolar disorder with, to be completely honest, some level of very mild psychosis from years of substance abuse.

But, you go and write that word "psychosis" and people think you're admitting to being a nutcase. I'm not, although I do feel that many who walked in my shoes might be. I feel that I'm a very sensitive person, but I'm also, I think, fairly resilient. I've only just scratched the surface with these posts tonight which are admittedly full of self-pity.

We should all be diagnosed "something". What good would it do, anyway?

It's a shame your depressed..

I'm alright. I need a job though, that's upseting me. I lack all motivation to go and look. I'm not lazy just not motivated. Why do they keep calling me lazy. I'm very active.

Well, it was over a decade ago when I was diagnosed as chronically depressed, and at the time, I probably was. I took SSRIs for a short while. I didn't necessarily wholeheartedly believe in that type of treatment then, but at the time, I felt desperate. Now, I would stongly advise anyone being prescribed such medication to stay away if they can. I haven't seen a psychiatrist since 2001, and have no plans to do so ever again.

That's apparently what the board is for tonight...my own psychological unburdening...since things aren't so great at the moment and I am feeling sorry for myself...haha.

well, sure, you have identified the problem-- as for the solution, self-medication with weed is not exactly a wise choice. say what you want about whatever shrinks you've seen in the past, but the only way i know to cure this (except from being "born again", ha ha), is therapy-- in essence, the therapist fulfills the role of a "good parent" so that your brain can relearn. just like in those mirror box experiments, ha ha ha (see crypto's awesome thread).

but then again, misery can be addictive and change takes a lot of hard work, and chronic depression is well-known territory, isn't it? except that when your options start narrowing down and you're getting trapped, maybe an alarm should go off in your head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYbUCvz1LYE

I cannot afford therapy and clinics that charge a reduced charge provide a poor level of care. Besides, I don't have that kind of time during the day. I do take to heart a lot of Jung's work especially, but have my reservations about much of psychiatry and its labels.

The whole method by which an SSRI works is that it zombiefys you into not being able to dwell on certain thoughts. In my view, the same can be accomplished by denying oneself of free time. So, I'm probably going to start working at night too. I'll be able to save money that way and not have the spare time to do whatever it is that feels good to make myself feel better in the short run. I'll be sacrificing my ego through some hard working, and not be able to dwell on negative things and worrying so much which tends to paralyze one's ability to take action.

Then again, maybe I'll just wimp out, do nothing, and resign myself to a horrible fate in a vainglorious self-fulfilling prophecy.

yeah but depression induces self-destructive, self-sabotaging behavior-- fights with the boss at the night job, getting fired, getting jobs for which you're overqualified (which further depress you), etc.

i was also diagnosed with chronic depression once upon a time but 7 years of therapy cured me of that. the antidepressants were temporary crutches while i got better-- i was prescribed twice, and i was weaned off those within months.

anyway, there are decent doctors out there who will offer sliding scale fees, barter, etc.-- i know someone who used to pay with paintings. i had some debt with my shrink that i paid off by making videos.

your no exit/no solution outlook is in fact a symptom of the depression. you can always make excuses for not trying to get better, and maintain the status quo, but eventually it will come back to bite you in the ass. the longer you wait, the bigger the bite. simple fact.

anyway, best wishes to you.

I've thought about those same pitfalls too and have decided I'll try my best to hang tough through their probable eventuality. Thanks, everyone. I think I'm calling it a night. It's time to turn out the lights; the pity party is over.

sorry to hammer on this, but that's a recipe for a slow-cooked suicide, denials and rationalizations notwithstanding.