Living Undead

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Undead and Unwanted

This is a bit long for an “introduction” to who I am, and if you have somehow found your way to this bleak corner of the internet, I must apologize in advance for what you may find here.

I was driving home around 2am this past weekend after spending an evening running an event for other people when I found myself in the mood for some heavier music than usual while on the road (given that I listen to hard rock most of the time while doing highway driving, that’s a rather narrow jump). I turned on the album “Six” from “For the Fallen Dreams” and found myself waxing philosophical at the lyrics to “Stone” – the opening track:

 "Another day I awake unable to escape 
 Another day I awake my life is losing shape  
 Will I get through this all on my own
 Or will they etch my name in stone?"

and later:

 "(We are) we are undead and unwanted
 (We are) we are the shadows, the taunted
 (We are) we are the ghosts and the haunted
 Will we live through the night, will we live through the night?"

I used to tell people that, for good or for ill, I “lived for epiphanies” because they were windows into the nature of the universe. The older I’ve gotten, the less I’ve enjoyed them as more often than not they have been increasingly negative. Perhaps as a result, I’ve had fewer of them, as well.

But given that I was driving home from volunteering / running a tabletop RPG event for people in another city where undead creatures (souls trapped from moving on to whatever is “next” for them) played a major role, I wondered if the solitary existence of near-exile from the things I always hoped for in life was a form of undeath already. Even though my priorities changed as I got older, there were still things I wanted and longed for. Even though I got extremely lucky here and there and had adventures and unique experiences that make for fun stories, that’s all they are now – fleeting memories of single moments in time that can never come again.

I also reflected on opportunities missed, either due to bad luck, bad timing, or (more often than not) mistakes that fall squarely on my shoulders. 90% or more of everything wrong in my life is my own doing. With the rare exceptions of when I run events for people, or give friends rides to/from work, I am a lodestone on everyone around me. Lately, I have started to isolate myself on purpose, empirical evidence having shown that proximity to me only leads to people learning about my problems, which either drives them away (safer for them, frankly), or makes them feel compelled to try and help. Vortex of blackness that I am, when I cannot dissuade them from this notion, they sink time, energy, and money into helping my living situation.

I don’t throw the word “hate” around lightly (except when stuck behind bad drivers, but I posit that I’m a different person entirely when I’m driving), but I absolutely hate and loathe my life right now. My closest friends resist all efforts to stop wasting their time with me. My family, while mostly understanding what I’m going through, wisely listens to me when I tell them not to invest time or resources into helping – the debts I have to friends and family are already ones I will never ever be able to repay…and if I do expire prematurely, anything having been spent on me will be an even more regrettable waste.

Driving home, it made me realize that, in a way, I am already dead. I’m just going through the motions of life whenever it’s absolutely necessary, or when it’s needed to allay suspicion from those who would mess up their own lives if they thought things were ever going to be imminently worse in mine.

That, in and of itself, is the definition of being undead. Realistically, my life ended some time in 2014, and I’ve just been going through the motions ever since. My online moniker in several other forums is that of an extinct breed of wolf, and I have sometimes quipped about “whether or not I’m already extinct remains to be seen.”

I don’t think there’s much doubt, anymore.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

…But apparently, undead ones still do. I’d honestly hoped that I would never need to come back here, and yet, here I am.

A 2.5-year recap:

I stopped posting here in 2023 because, rather abruptly, I stumbled into a “miracle cure” for the things that were ailing me – purpose.

I began freelance writing in the game industry. A few assignments at first, then more. I even wrote characters inspired by some of the people whose journeys have been dark like mine whom I discovered through here. Then, I attended a convention not long after my last post in the summer of 2023, which led to me getting a dream job that actually worked out okay for my sleep disorder (remote work, several time zones behind mine), and had enough creative work involved that it scratched the itch I had begun to crave for such things. It seemed too good to be true.

By early 2024, I learned that it was. The CEO pulled some shady stuff that led to a bunch of people getting fired for nothing, and then almost everybody else, myself included, leaving the company. It hurt…a lot. Even at its worst, it was still a dream job. But my morals and integrity mean more to me than a paycheck, and so I left.

My peers in the gaming industry told me that I made the right decision – that such things were not taken lightly – that I would land on my feet because I would be seen and remembered as someone who did the right thing when it mattered.

Time passed, and many of the people who left with me got hired elsewhere. I didn’t.

Then, another dream job came along…and the best information I’ve been able to find suggests that I was one the two finalists for the position before it went to someone else, based on arcane criteria posited by the hiring manager after all interviews had been concluded. There was a lot of other stuff going on there that I really don’t want to go into, but it hurt…a lot worse. I cried…a lot.

But soon after, someone in the industry I hold in high regard came to me with an offer. Not quite a “consolation prize” but an opportunity to do something big. I would still spend 2024 living like a refugee in someone else’s spare room, unable to pay anything resembling rent, needing every cent of my food stamps…but this opportunity was enough to live on with no other contracts for almost a full year.

Time passed, I wrote, I worked, and things got better. I lost more weight. I got healthier. My depression never went away, but my creative output plus a little more input from my psychiatrist’s office gave me the tools so that I always felt in control. I started hanging out with close friends in person again.

Then in early 2025, yet another dream job came up that was virtually tailored for me arose…and I absolutely. fucking. blew. it. I didn’t highlight the right things in my cover letter about my skill set. I worried about the wrong things in my interview. And I was eliminated. I didn’t break down crying like in 2024…but this one hit me to the core.

“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.”

– Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

What happened in 2024 was complicated, but after much analysis, I determined that I did nothing wrong. I gave it my all, made no mistakes, and the person doing the hiring simply set parameters that meant I did not qualify. But what happened in 2025…in sports jargon, that was my game to lose…and I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Badly.

I don’t hold any ill will towards anyone who made the decision. I’ve thoroughly analyzed what happened and have determined that my lack of proper preparation and focus is to blame. If I had been more vigilant, more diligent, and still lost? I would have taken it better. But no – this one was all on me.

And that was the start of my current spiral, that has currently lasted for over 6 months.

My creative contracts continued, albeit at a bit slower of a pace…but I also acknowledge that I can’t expect to get picked for every book that comes out. I refuse to pester or hound designers/developers all the time, despite my financial situation. And over the course of the year, my demeanor darkened.

My psychiatrist, starting to worry about me, reasoned that I was legitimately happy when I had the dream job, and even my sleep disorder was getting slightly better then…so she redoubled her efforts to find an answer through medication. She’s had me trying different things…but unfortunately, this meant stopping taking the pills that had me feeling like I was in control. I haven’t had any active ideations or breakdowns…yet…but I can already tell that I’m headed in that direction. I’ve asked her to let me go back on my old meds, and she’s agreed (yay supply chain delays) – I can only hope that this switch brings stability back.

There’s other stuff going on, too, that I don’t feel like bringing up in this journal because it’s complicated, and because I’m actively compartmentalizing portions of it.

But the pace of my writing has ground to a halt, and I have a deadline looming. It occurred to me that if I’m truly returning to the “old ways,” than I should revisit this place. Maybe writing here will spur me into writing elsewhere, if nothing else?

I guess we’ll see. If I’m very, very lucky, it’ll be another few years before I write here again.

“‘Cause I’m alright
Thanks for asking
There’s a million things I’d love to say
But you don’t want to hear”

“Yeah it’s alright
I don’t need your blessings
I’d rather face the wrath of angels
Than the devil in the mirror”

– Thanks For Asking (Five Finger Death Punch)

Vigilance

In short, I haven’t had a lot of it lately.

There has never been a light at the end of the tunnel because I’ve never been in one. It was a cave-in the whole time, and the lack of air caused me to be delusional in thinking that there was ever a way out for me.
– Me, “Delusion”

I don’t know what the short- or long-term implications of this last week’s events are going to be. After coming closer to achieving a dream than I ever have…it all just fell away, today. Now, after crying more in the last week than I have in the last year, I’m not “feeling” as much as I was before. Whether this is just a defense mechanism or heralding the end of “better” times, it’s too early to tell. Regardless…it all feels very familiar.

“How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand… there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold.”
– Tolkien

Either way, I need to be much better about being vigilant, so everything doesn’t come unraveling at the seams…again.

Changes

“Everyone is entitled to their own sorrow, for the heart has no metrics or form of measure.”
RWBY (and my rule #24)

Out of the blue, my cat died while I was asleep.

I know that my depression was so much worse before, and most of the time I hardly “felt” at all…but I don’t think I ever cried this much over any human friend or family member who passed away…and I have to wonder what kind of a shitty person that makes me, now.

I haven’t written here in a really long time, mainly because things in life have been getting better, and I’m so busy at times that I forget to eat/sleep. I even recently said (out loud, to boot) that I had hope for things in my near-future.

I’d give it all up this second and go back to the worst of it right now if it would bring her back. If something “after” does exist, I’d give it all up just to know that she’s happy.

We never really knew how old she was (best guess in the 13-15 range) but she had regular play time 2-4 times a day every day…I thought she’d have several more years and then we could arrange for something gentle…

I don’t know what signs I missed…but I was supposed to keep her safe.

I failed her.

Fork

Sometimes, it’s just impossible to see any way back or forward, nor even anybody you can compare notes with to try and figure out which way to go. Not even which way, but which way to where, and on what possible manner of propulsion? At times like these, even great news doesn’t have sufficient mass to avoid being deflected off into space, and you just stare at a fork in the road, wondering how long the fuel tank will allow you to sit idle, wasting resources and time.

The James Webb telescope is roughly 1,500,000 km from our planet right now. If only I could be so lucky.

Walls

Randomly, sometimes, I will just hit an invisible wall out of nowhere. All momentum ceases to be. Progress and productivity stop dead in their tracks, and hopes fly away faster than you can blink. Even my best defenses, medications, and practiced mantras fail to lead me away from the stark places my mind and emotions are stranded in.

“Onen i-estel, u-chebin estel anim.” A paraphrase from Tolkien. “I give hope, I keep none for myself.” Even that paradigm wears thin. You look outside during a global pandemic and realize you’re surrounded by so many who are active participants (or at best, indifferent participants) in the destruction of others around them.

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
William Butler Yeats

I am “best” at nothing…but my conviction is surely lacking, and I have little hope for anything or anyone.

Maybe someday I’ll get some sort of perspective on the phenomenon – once upon a time, engineers used to think the sound barrier was a literal “invisible wall in the sky,” after all.

…It’s sad at how apt that kind of comparison is to some things today, now that I think about it.

Lanced

I should have known. I even mentioned it, recently, in fact. Rule 14: “If it looks or sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” and Rule 7: “Danger always strikes when everything seems safe.”

The only word I have to describe my mood right now is crestfallen. For the first time in a rather long time, I was actually excited and proud of something. I spent an inordinate amount of time working on fine details and combining through every facet to ensure that the thing I turned in had no mistakes, no ambiguities, no rules bent or broken. When I was finished, I was confident that I had done a really good job. Peers of mine I greatly respect and look up to were impressed with what I had done – something that meant even more than my own opinions about what I turned in…

Let me take a second to mention that I do understand that freelance work is done at the behest of another. Once you’re done writing and paid (a first for me), your words are no longer fully your own.

…But then you see the final product of your labor that received minimal feedback during development has been changed, drastically in some places. Rules are broken that you were told were absolute. Typos and questionable grammar abound in a project you lost sleep over making sure that not even a single comma was out of place in. Mechanics/numbers you wrote, following direct instructions, were changed after the fact but the supplemental material attached to what you wrote still has the original values on them, making the final product look inconsistent at best and sloppy at worst.

Maybe I’m wrong. Crestfallen might not be strong enough of a descriptor for all of this.

The absolute worst part is that I don’t know if there’s anything I can do about it. I don’t even feel comfortable using this as an example of my work going forward. What the hell am I supposed to do when this releases publicly? What do I tell my family and friends? If I grumble and it gets heard, I might never get to do this kind of writing again, but at the same time am I ever going to be able to look at this, my first project, and not clench my teeth and be immediately reminded of my disappointment?

…how fucking pathetic is that? I’m having a trauma reaction to all of this.

We’re all architects of our own private hell. No one can hurt us like we hurt ourselves.
Young Guns, “Bones”

Annual Checkup?

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
Gen. Colin Powell

I suppose I should write something here to indicate that I’m still breathing.

2020 part 2 (i.e. 2021) has largely been much the same as part 1 was. Trying to keep everyone around me sane, pushing my own stuff down to deal with later because I can afford to do so and not everyone around me has that luxury, etc.

Some things have taken some turns for the worse. Others have gotten surprisingly better. I’m writing more, but in a different venue where I’m actually getting paid a little bit – oddly thankfully it’s a small amount, because if it were too much, I would lose my health coverage which I badly need right now…so, yay?

I will try to make sure I post things here more often than once annually going forward, especially on nights like tonight where things aren’t as great overall. Letting things build up too much is not wise. For now, though, I hope anybody who actually reads this is doing better than I am, as I head back into the dark.

(If you are ever in need of something to listen to late at night or during a rainstorm, I cannot recommend the Stellaris soundtracks highly enough)

Data

After my big social media purge (probably up to ~700 people all told by now), I’ve still been trying to avoid it. I hardly log on to Facebook…maybe once a week, at most. I hit tumblr 1-2 times a week just to catch up on some philosophical/cultural blogs I follow, and twitter – pretty much never…1-2 times a year?

But happenstance being what it is, I made a dumb comment on a friend’s FB about something that spiraled way beyond where I wanted it to go. Not too long afterwards, following a botched attempt at an apology for a small social bush-fire I was ultimately responsible for igniting, we got to talking a bit…and as this is someone who’s known me on and and off for 20 years, they also know some of the demons in my head. We’ve chatted a bit about related things, but just the other night, after a (for me) lite-to-normal self-deprecating comment, they posed a really good question:

“[W]hat do you get out of this sort of thing? …what is it doing for you? Think about that expansively. Think about how you do it, where you do it, and the like”

About 7 minutes later I’d typed a small essay, so it was clearly a good thought-provoking question. I decided to add it here, since this is where I write about this sort of thing in my life, right? To try and put it in text so I can stand back and examine it, so…

Most of the time it just feels like a statement of fact based on what is now 2 decades of empirical evidence.

I even once tried to chart stuff in an excel document in a weird attempt to generate some sort of graph that made sense. I did this to see whether or not, when I take a step back in attempting to think about my situation while removing emotional bias, there were actual trends based on year, season, whether I was in-school or not, working or not, gaming or not, etc. It turned into a jumbled mess and was unfortunately lost 2 laptops ago when the HD fried, but even more unfortunately showed that there are a lot of things that I’ve tried – different therapists, solo therapy, group therapy, “intensive” therapy, even physical therapy (in case endorphins could help); medications of different strengths, families, and combinations; cognitive behavioral training, sensory association, meditation…I had started seeing a therapist who did EMDR before the bottom fell out on stuff last year and I had to stop therapy for practical reasons. I’ve honestly tried a *ton* of things…and nothing has worked. I’m on the medication cocktail that (most of the time) keeps me from having major breakdowns, and that’s about it. Until my sleep issues get fixed, I can’t go back to therapy or risk getting “fired” as a client (which, since so few places accept my insurance, those are bridges I know I cannot afford to burn for if/when I do get my sleep issues sorted out).

(And yes, I’m still working with my physician and psychiatrist on ways to work the sleep issues – covid is slamming both of them and their practices hard, though, so it’ll be a bit before my next appointment)
It’s also cost-benefit analysis. There is nothing in this world that is an infinite resource, including mental/emotional bandwidth and scheduled time with professionals. Once I’ve identified that things are not working, and then still try past that, and find I’m getting frustrated by my own lack of progress (up or down) because of it, I would rather see those resources go to people waiting in line who might be better served by them than beat my head against a proverbial wall while others are also in need of help.

In a weird way, doing that helps me cope, at least temporarily. My crisis response is to see who around me needs help – if it’s someone who needs something I can do, I just do it. If it’s someone who needs something I can’t, I see who/what I know to get that person where they need to be for help. It’s come out a lot more acutely since March of this year – it’s pretty much all I’ve been doing, in fact – helping people and running games to help distract people and recharge their mental batteries. It gives me something to focus on that isn’t me…because when I’m alone with myself, I am not a fan of the company and would rather be anywhere else – difficult proposition even without a pandemic restricting movement/travel/social interactions, heh.

There are some things about my life I’ve made a fragile peace with. But there are large swaths of it that I look back upon and hate things that I’ve said, done, and even thought about at the time. I know I can’t go back in time and change those, so all I can do is try to force myself to be vigilant about those behaviors in the future.

As for how and where? The best way to answer that would simply be, “yes.”

I do it everywhere, and all the time. If I see a situation where somebody is in need, and could benefit from help that I can either provide myself or provide by removing myself as a potential roadblock between them and the thing that can give them succor? I’ll typically do it without a second thought.

Putting myself down in the same breath has just become an automatic thing over the last 20+ years, apparently. It’s one part reminder that this is “not normal” and I should not be happy when bad things occur, one part reminder to be vigilant against making it worse, and one part venting my constant frustration at my own behavior(s). Sometimes that frustration is replaced by red-hot anger, yes, but usually always aimed at myself, and unless I’m very unlucky I can usually keep from audible outbursts when in the presence of others.

I once debated whether or not I was developing a martyr complex or something along those lines…but I think I’m safe from that one, at least. I actively don’t want people to know what I’m going through. I don’t want others to spend time or resources (now or after I’m gone, whenever that may be) trying to do things to help that, simply put, won’t help. If I can ever discover a therapy, medication, procedure, or something to alleviate my situation? I will absolutely take it. But beating my head against the wall doesn’t help anybody, and probably makes things worse on multiple levels. I would rather those resources go to people who would benefit from them, until I figure out what would actually help me.

There is an ever-growing possibility that there simply isn’t anything, though. And that’s one of the main things I’ve been trying to get my brain to figure out and make peace with.

“Sick of myself my world my life
Get out of my way this truth can’t lie
I stop myself every second I try
Every minute of time is an hour I die”
Gemini Syndrome, “Mourning Star”

One Step Away

Still alive, if you could call this that.

There hasn’t been much to say. I sleep when I can get my brain to shut off. I eat when I’m hungry. I try to fill as much of my time sitting around in my friend’s house where I am fortunate enough to live like a refugee online trying to help other people or run online games (to help distract other people) so I can avoid sitting alone by myself in introspection. Unfortunately, between 1am and 6 (sometimes as late as 9)am, I am alone, and I cannot get my brain to simply “get tired” enough to sleep.

It is not hospitable territory, and I wish I could think of anything else to do at this exact moment than shed any light on any part of it that anyone may some day read about.

Aside from caving for a short phone call on father’s day (mainly so that my mother didn’t bear the brunt of any anger or frustration vented her way), I haven’t spoken to my father since the spring…and I’m not sure I care, even if supposedly he does. Even if I believed that he was actually apologetic for the bile he espoused, it’s still just another connection I can close so that it will sting others less later.

When later? I’ve been wondering more about that in recent days. Truth be told I don’t think a day has gone by in the last 2+ years where the thought doesn’t enter my head at least once. Either an honest hope that I just don’t wake up; or a sigh and a serious thought about methodology to maximize certainty while also minimizing: pain, time, attention, and discomfort for others. So far, the only idea I’ve had that ticks all the boxes is to wait until my cat passes from old age, then find a glacier to drive to and sit out on a night when it’s 50 below 0.

Not even remotely efficient, no.

In addition to stopping wanting things, I need to try and cease daydreaming about things that can/will never be – first and foremost, the idea of being “saved” from this fate.

There is no “out” for me. My doctors have tried pretty much every medication combination they can think of, and I can hear the frustration in their voice when they talk about keeping pill regimen the same because “for now, at least, we know it’s helping a little and not hurting.” I don’t blame them – like any disease, some examples will present in such a way that just don’t respond to treatment for reasons medicine hasn’t figured out yet. I’m just the lucky schlemazel who is stuck with it, is all.

Part of why I thought about writing here is to remind myself that I need to stay vigilant about not letting other people see things that will only hurt them. Some of my volunteering lately has led me to work with newer people I haven’t met before. The usual “getting to know you” bits have been ongoing, and no matter how tempting a tipsy invitation to tell-all may be, even with the possibility that they might not remember the next day, I cannot let myself do that to anybody.

There was a healthy dose of irony and epiphany last week that was so idiotic I’m not even going to explain it, other than to note its mercifully brief, if moronic, presence.

Something else/new I need to start mentally preparing myself to let go of are daydreams about memories and legacies. Throughout my life there have been plenty of things I wanted….and the things I think I truly wanted the most were not the things I thought or said I wanted the most when I was younger. I was a fool, yes, but simultaneously I had no frame of reference to understand my predicament, then. To have never had something is, I think, preferable to having had it then lost it – or thinking you had it but learning it was a lie. Ignorance would sting less, and leave far more shallow wounds that would be easier to ignore and contribute less towards the desire to just, leave.

“How could he know this new dawn’s light
Would change his life forever?
Set sail to sea, but pulled off course
By the light of golden treasure.
Was he the one causing pain
With his careless dreaming?
Been afraid, always afraid
Of the things he’s feeling.”
– Metallica, The Unforgiven III

I’ve also come to learn in these last two weeks, from three different and independent people, that two other things I wanted at one point in my life or other…I missed opportunities for, sometimes by mere hours. One of them, more recently, I most likely irreparably sabotaged by my own actions. One thing I’m thankful for with doing everything through typing and voice chat is that I don’t have to worry about hiding my facial expressions at the moment…I didn’t have to hide my self-loathing and utter disgust at myself for discovering this. What little wind I had in my sails this week has been bled out, and I’ve just been sitting here staring at the ceiling for the last few hours, contemplating all the other mis-steps I’ve probably taken based on incomplete information, or because I’ve been so consumed with my illness that I haven’t been as vigilant in thought as I should have been.

“We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.”
– Albert Camus

Even in the myth of Sisyphus, the subject for another notable work by Camus, one cannot ignore that the man’s triumph is cut short only when he begins to relax – when he stops being careful. I feel past entries in this stark corner of the internet have covered me railing against myself for that enough, already.

More opportunities missed and wasted.

Finding that odd bit of Dao in a Star Wars prequel, trying to force my mind to, “let go of everything you fear to lose.”

Realizing that even if I broke down and showed this journal to someone who then tried to make one of those things happen…I fear they would be wasted. Any opportunity I get now is one that somebody more deserving, or with more hope for recovery, could use rather than me.

I need to stop thinking about, and using, the word “want.”

…I need to stop thinking about, and using, the word “I”

“One step away,
From having it all.
I stepped so far,
when there’s nothing left within myself to ever break my fall.”
– Free Rein, “One Step Away”

Quantum State

My father has held some rather unsavory views for the past several years. It started off fairly “normal” for an American family – lots of us have that one bigoted relative we have to deal with during the holidays. But over time, my father has gotten much, much worse.

At first, I fought and verbally sparred with him at every turn, to no avail. It didn’t matter if I brought evidence or logic or philosophy or just shouting…the more I tried to steer him away, the more fervently he engrossed himself.

…So a few years ago, as I was exploring trying to find more meditative balance in my own life, I tried some I never would have before. I disengaged. I hoped that over time he would notice that I didn’t really speak to him anymore, didn’t read or respond to his social media pages, untagged myself whenever he tried to pull me into things…but I sorely underestimated how far he had fallen from the honestly brilliant and sharp man I grew up knowing.

Ignorance and even stupidity, I can ignore…even from a family member. But dangerous and public rhetoric that endangers the lives of others is something I believe should be criminal, regardless of who says it.

When I am protecting other people around me, I am uncompromising. I have fortunately also never been pushed to violence since I last played ice hockey nearly 20 years ago. I say this because as I’ve gotten older, my views on violence have become more severe. If there is an active threat to the life of someone I care about, I will do whatever is necessary to make that threat go away; the first time, in a way such that it is incapable of coming back (Slightly off topic but related – I think political assassination is a more civilized way of conflict than sending our youth off to fight wars. Have a problem with the leadership of that country/state/etc.? You go after them directly. Leave the innocent out of it).

Even scaled down to nonviolent threats I am no less inviolate when I am standing between something vile, hateful, and twisted and people who should be shielded from that kind of darkness. Even if…especially if it’s coming from somewhere I should have been guarding against all along.

When all this is said and done, whether or not I still have a father will remain to be seen. There are some things I cannot let stand without doing something about them.