an awful 24 hours

okay. i'm back from the car thing, and i wrote it in my other blog. now i am going to vent, and there are LOTS of bad feelings to vent today, since I got hit with some drug while cleaning the car, and several bad things have happened in the past 24 hours or so.

in the previous blog i started with something like an 'everybody stay calm' message. i should have also said, 'nobody is getting committed to a mental hospital either.' i forgot to say that.

well, i will tell about dennis first, but i am not going into long detail about it (actually, never mind that - i went into long detail anyway). i had asked myself many times what type of physical contact would be permitted between me and dennis. i really did want to have SOME kind of touch permitted, like brief hugging which would only last a second or two, not long. i believe that all human beings are entitled to a minimal level of platonic touch, that it is healthy, that it should be okay to hug anybody no matter what, if only briefly.

i have also wondered about difficult questions, like why is it that i can so strongly want to touch one particular person, but someone else i can hardly stand the touch of? the couple of times whenever i was physically close to martin, it might have been an artificially induced sensation, i don't know, since it's possible to induce feelings like that - i can't say. but he really was a 'chick magnet' to me, as in i felt an almost irresistible urge to touch him if we were standing close to each other, so i always tried to put some object in between us, like the desk. i can't explain why i would have that feeling towards him, whereas touching dennis was very unpleasant, and i have touched other people who also felt very unpleasant and i cannot explain why.

i do understand a couple of problems that happened with dennis. this was all foreseeable, and yet, i didn't foresee the exact details of how it would happen.

maybe i should tell the whole dennis story of why we started talking in the first place. he was always shopping at the place where i work. one time i had to make a pizza for him, and afterwards, i griped and complained about something to the effect of 'i'm surrounded by morons and everybody i work with is incompetent and i hate this place, blah blah,' because i couldn't find the ingredients i needed to make his pizza, and he complained to me that he had had a couple of bad experiences with trying to buy pizzas before and somebody doesn't have the ingredients and it takes three times as long, and the end result is still done badly anyhow. so we started chatting just because i was complaining about my job. so, chatting with him, i noticed he was pretty intelligent and we were able to talk about some subjects with each other.

however, from the beginning, i noticed that he was very focused on talking about computers, and i'm not all that interested in talking about nothing but computers for the sheer joy of talking about nothing but computers. in others words, after a few minutes, i get bored. it's not something i really like. i happen to know a little bit about computers, and i took an online course to learn how to fix them, and i've done computer cleanups many times, so i have enough knowledge that i can struggle through a conversation about computers, and look as though i slightly have a clue about them. so i did that with dennis. but it isn't enjoyable to me. it's a strain and i would rather talk about other subjects besides that.

dennis also doesn't understand the idea of: i am paid by the hour, i am on the clock right now, there are videocameras watching us, my manager is standing right over there, i have been fired from jobs before, i get in trouble for leaving work later than 9:00 because it took me too long to finish cleaning, i am not supposed to just stop what i'm doing and have a conversation about computers for twenty minutes with a guy who talks *SO QUIETLY* that i have to lean over the counter and say 'What? What? What? What? What?' fifty times in each conversation, so that i can't continue talking and working at the same time while i walk a distance away, because i have to be a foot away from him in order to hear him.

for whatever reason, this is a weak boundary that i have. and that's something else i need to vent my annoyance about. a suppressed rage, actually, about the phenomenon of hearing voices and being zapped while i meditate or do any thinking at all. a long time ago, i used to read books about communication skills, psychology, self-esteem, and relationships, and i actually practiced the techniques they taught me, and i was always learning to question why i did something or why i failed to do some other thing. i used to be able to change my own behavior as needed.

in the old days, i would have simply sat down and questioned myself while meditating about dennis. that makes me very angry to think of, because i KNOW that it's impossible now, while being the victim of this attack. but i would have sat down, asked some questions, resolved to change my behavior, and boom, magical change would occur instantly. it used to be that easy. i could quickly and easily control my own behavior merely by meditating a little bit and questioning why i did something. i don't mean i could change EVERYTHING, but i mean, i could easily find a long-term, lasting, effective solution for anything i needed within reason. i would have sat down, asked myself 'why can't you say no to dennis?' and figured out exactly what i needed to do to fix the whole situation between me and him.

however, if i try to do that now, i will get voices telling me wrong answers to all of my questions, and zaps, and twitches, and painful clenches in my stomach, and noises, and change of subject so that i forget what i was thinking, and/or forced falling asleep and forced hypnosis, which leads to dreaming, and visual images. that is what happens nowadays if i try to sit down and troubleshoot a relationship/behavior/communication problem that i'm having. in the old days, i could sit down and fix the problem in a couple of minutes merely by thinking about it and planning a solution to the problem. but now, that is totally impossible. and it makes *ME* look like i'm a crazy stalker (to martin, who OUGHT to have been EASILY RESOLVED a *long* time ago - and all of those bullshit emails should have NEVER BEEN WRITTEN to him after he started avoiding me) or a boundary-less prostitute who can't say no to anybody (to dennis). again, it makes me FURIOUS to remember what life used to be like before the overt attacks began. i was a CLEAR THINKER who was capable of changing my own behavior merely by sitting down for a few minutes, asking myself some questions, noticing my own thoughts and feelings, and planning a new action to take the next time the problem happened. IT WAS EASY.

so, dennis SHOULD be easy to fix, but instead, it's impossible.

so anyhow. this thing happened with matt, a guy who used to work in the deli. one day, dennis was talking to me, and i was feeling the usual irritation about how much time he was taking up while i needed to be working. for whatever reason, matt came up to me and interrupted. he asked me to walk someplace else with him because he needed to show me something, and i forget what it was. but i felt so grateful for that interruption. this enormous gratitude for being dragged away from dennis made it very clear to me: i need to stop talking to this person - he is causing too many problems for me. the relief at being interrupted was that obvious.

so i spontaneously started avoiding dennis. it should have been done much more nicely, because i ought to have been meditating and making decisions the way i used to, but instead, the action was taken suddenly, ruthlessly, and cruelly. i suddenly stopped talking to dennis, avoided eye contact, and walked away whenever i saw him walking around the store, and i gave him NO EXPLANATION for why i suddenly started avoiding him.

and when i say that i did that to dennis, i think about how martin did that to me, and how horrible it is, and how the voices have kept pushing me and pushing me, and how THEY (not me) DON'T UNDERSTAND that *no means no* and that you DO NOT just keep bothering somebody to talk to you if he avoids you. it hurts a lot that martin stopped answering my emails, but then, i was being FORCED to write emails and i was given word-for-word dictation of the things i would say to him. so it is a combination of real feelings (physical attraction, interest, loneliness, friendship - the normal positive feelings you have towards somebody you like) mixed with lots and lots of bullshit (the particular words and topics that i wrote to him in the emails).

so there's a 'how can you complain about what martin did to you, you hypocrite, because you did the same thing to dennis.' but it happened because I AM NOT ABLE TO THINK. i should have been able to sit down and find a better way to say no to dennis, so that maybe we could have had brief chats, but then i would signal the end of the conversation, because there's nothing wrong with having a brief chat or a brief hello with somebody - it shouldn't be a 'give them an inch, they take a mile' situation. you should be able to give them an inch, and they take an inch, and it stays that way, because it is a STRONG BOUNDARY, and you teach yourself how to talk to that person and say no to them. that is the type of communication skill that i used to teach myself in the old days.

well, anyway. i jokingly say that my life is following the jim carrey movies, and that over the past year, i was doing 'yes man' along with jim carrey. because i did something very similar. sometime last year, i suddenly decided that it was my duty to say yes to dennis somehow, and give him my contact information. the martin hypocrisy accusation - 'martin did that to you, and it hurts you, therefore you shouldn't do that to people' - was used against me. so i suddenly gave dennis my email and phone number. (*note, martin is not to blame for what happened with me and him. i apologized previously for not being strong enough to fight back against the criminals brainwashing and controlling me.*)

i was kind of hoping dennis would get the idea: TALK TO ME *OUTSIDE* WORK - do not walk up and pass by my department five times to catch me in another conversation only minutes after we just finished up a previous conversation. i was hoping that i could salvage some kind of a friendship, but only in email, because again, i did not think he was a 'bad person' who i absolutely shouldn't be friends with under any circumstances, but instead, he was a decent person, and i could have a friendship outside work with some limitations. i preferred to talk online and in email, and reduce the amount of time spent saying 'what? what? what? what? what?' over the counter at work while my managers watch me to see if i'm keeping busy.

well, so this winter, the mold poisoning incapacitated me, and i was totally helpless to do anything. i started asking other people for help out of desperation. i slept in my car when it was, like, 2 degrees outside, with two sleeping bags, a coat, and multiple layers of clothing, because the mold was so bad i felt like i was going to literally DIE in my apartment, and that's no exaggeration. i kept PASSING OUT, as in fainting. i thought i would not wake up. i thought it was carbon monoxide, but we don't have anything that can produce CO here. it was the mold.

i don't have any female friends in state college. all my friends are male. i couldn't sleep at eric's house, because eric is my ex-boyfriend, and he still gets aroused whenever we hug each other, and we had fights in the past, big fights, whenever i had to briefly move in with him because i got evicted from my apartment, because he wanted me to have sex with him whenever i was living with him. so i slept in my car in 2 degrees to avoid going to eric's house. peter is wonderful (in meeting new people, i am beginning to really appreciate the miracle that peter is)... which is the reason why he is also married already... so i can't stay at his house. and i knew it would not be right to go sleep at dennis's house, even in 2 degree weather. (i hope i'm not exaggerating when i say 2 degrees. i remember it was only one night when the temperature was down extremely low and i looked it up on the internet and it was some ridiculously low number. it was so cold, i was completely closed within the TWO sleeping bags, and i had on like three pairs of socks and several layers of clothes, and i was so stuffed in the sleeping bag that i couldn't move. and only my nose was sticking out, but my nose was freezing, and i had to have the window open a tiny crack or else the carbon dioxide buildup would use up all the air in the car - i had it happen a couple times and figured out that opening the window was necessary - so it was even more freezing with the window cracked open.)

oh shit. it is POURING RAIN and i left my trunk open to dry out the shampoo. and all the rugs are lying in the parking lot. oh well. i just now went down and shut the trunk. i will let it dry later.

so... this winter disaster... i asked for help. dennis gave me an air filter. it might be a placebo, but i appreciated it. i don't know if it helped or not, but it reassured me. he also gave me some computer stuff, and i DO need it. but i was 'on my deathbed' as i have said, so i couldn't do anything.

finally when it got warmer, and i was able to open the windows, and the mold got a little better, i offered to try helping dennis in return for his favors and gifts. i had been forming the concept of 'give help, get help' with work and chores and projects. i wanted to repay dennis for the things he had given me.

so i talked to him about this concept. i asked him if he would come over and help me clean my house because the landlord was going to have some people look at my apartment. so, he did, and it was very helpful to have someone there while i was cleaning. and i tried to offer to help him in exchange, and to get some momentum going of 'you help me, i help you.' an ongoing trade.

however, he kept on giving more than he was receiving. it would happen again and again. i would help him with something, but it would be trivial, and he'd end up using it as an opportunity to buy me more stuff. for instance: i went to help him look around a graveyard because he has been doing family tree research, and he is looking for the names of certain people, and taking pictures of the graves and he's printing out the whole family tree. so we went out driving. i told him i wanted to be back at a particular time, but it wasn't absolute - there was a LITTLE flexibility, and it wasn't like i had an appointment that very instant so that i had to be home at exactly 1:00 PM. i told him, bring me home around 1:00 with a little leeway. well, to him that meant: bring me home at 4:00. i was there with him for like three hours of leeway. and guess what, HE BOUGHT ME DINNER, even though i was 'helping him' by being a second pair of eyes as we walked around looking for names. we were at the restaurant and i started getting the cash out of my wallet to pay for both of us. i was actually going to pay the meal for *BOTH* of us as part of my way to return the favors. however, dennis jumped up and went to the counter and handed them the money while i was still going through my cash and arguing with him about paying for it. that made me angry. that gave me the 'paying for a prostitute' red flag and i knew right away that 'repaying dennis for the help' was going to be a problem. dennis was in the 'traditional dating/paying for a prostitute' behavior pattern, while i was in the 'paying someone back for a favor, and trading favors back and forth over a long period of time, helping each other improve both of our lives' approach. i did not want sex to be involved.

as i said, i asked myself what type of touch would be okay with him, and i decided that a brief hug was fine. but we had never been comfortable enough with each other to actually do a friendly hug or a casual arm around someone. and i am cautious and shy with touch, so i tend to wait a while even for platonic, friendly, casual contact.

however, as usual, there was the 'can't say no to dennis' phenomenon. so, i went over to his house to eat and watch a movie. this was the part where i did not foresee the exact details of how the inevitable, foreseeable conflict would happen. i knew nothing about the inside of his house, so i didn't know that we would be sitting together on a small couch and that he would want to have his arm around me the whole time we were watching the movie. i decided to try that, for whatever reason, and i leaned against him while watching the movie.

well, a couple things were already causing a problem. he always smells like kerosene. now i know why. his trailer is full of kerosene fumes. i knew that i would be getting sick after being there a while, and i was right. i could not live in eric's trailer with the oil heater and the propane stove - it gave me a LOT of problems. i have to stay away from all fossil fuels - oil, gas, kerosene, coal stoves, whatever. so while we sat on the couch, my heart started pounding, and it had nothing to do with the 'excitement' of the situation - i knew it was because there was something bad in the air. so i asked to open the door. we opened the small window at first, but that wasn't enough, and i opened the door a crack. it got better after i opened the door - i was right, it was definitely because of bad air. my heart felt better. but i could still smell the fumes, and i still felt sick. it was uncomfortable and sickening and i couldn't relax.

meanwhile, dennis did not want to merely have his arm around me, but wanted to also stroke my hipbone with his fingers, because of the way that i was curled up sideways. i decided to find out what this was like, and i tolerated it. but i was sick with fumes already and somewhat nauseated from the food, too, because something in it was the 'bad fat' that i can't eat, it was butter or something, which makes me sick at my stomach. my stomach was sick for hours and hours afterwards.

meanwhile, dennis kept making cynical jokes during a serious drama movie. i thought he would have lots of movies that i liked, but it turns out that there was almost nothing on his shelf that i would even consider watching. he had lots of movies and i couldn't stand any of them. the only two that looked at all tolerable were 'dances with wolves' and 'pirates of the caribbean.' we tried 'pirates,' but the dvd was messed up, and it kept making lines all over the screen, so we did 'wolves' instead.

he also showed me a movie which i instantly knew to say 'no' to. i think it was 'maxwell smart' or something, and it was supposed to be a comedy, and i was vaguely familiar with it and had heard of it, but i usually *hate* comedies, and when i read the cover of the dvd, i knew right away that this was a problem and that we would *NOT* be watching this movie. it was called 'the nude bomb,' and again, it was supposed to be a comedy, where somebody was going to destroy all the fabric on earth, leaving everybody naked. the very idea of the movie irritates me right away, because i am a nudist, and i believe nudity should be *no big deal*. so, in my universe, we do not make comedy movies about what would happen if all the fabric disappeared, because this should be no big deal anyway. it shouldn't be something that we're getting all excited over, and we shouldn't be getting all nervous about it, and laughing and giggling and making it into a comedy, while secretly (or not secretly) being aroused by it. in my world, NAKED PEOPLE ARE *NOT* AROUSING. they merely exist. sexual activity has *no connection* with nudity.

and yes, i know all about the bonobo apes, and i know about their sexual behavior, and if naked people tended to behave that way, i am saying that would be fine, and the bonobo apes aren't overpopulating the world with infinite numbers of children - they express their social, sexual, and physical needs all the time without the inhibitions that humans have, yet they don't always get pregnant. if that is how humans tended to behave, that is fine. but again, 'no big deal' is what sex is to a bonobo. it isn't this secret, giggly, comedy-movie type of thing. 'taken for granted,' 'an everyday fact of life,' etc, is how bonobo apes view sex.

so, right away, i knew i would be disgusted with this movie. i politely said something like 'hmm, that sounds like it would be funny,' or something, and then i went and looked on the shelf for something else.

so we got dances with wolves, after finding out that pirates of the caribbean wouldn't work. and dennis kept making cynical jokes, once again, it often involved nudity and being anxious about nudity. 'he grabbed the wrong gun' (as in, his penis) was one such joke when kevin costner chased away the indian when he was naked. meanwhile, i'm sitting there taking it for granted that kevin costner is naked, and i'm not saying anything or going 'oooh, he's so hot,' or anything dumb like that, i'm just quietly watching the movie. but dennis can't handle seeing kevin costner naked and just quietly shut up and watch the movie. and there were other annoying jokes throughout the movie but i don't remember what they were.

you can feel sympathy for someone and at the same time, i'm not a saint. i can't help liking one person and disliking another. i can understand that dennis is anxious about sex, anxious about relaxing and watching a drama movie, and that he feels deprived of human contact, and just wants to touch somebody. i know how it feels to be starved of human contact, and touch-deprived. i know how it feels to be very badly isolated and alone. so in spite of that, i couldn't help being annoyed with him. this is one reason why i go after married men: they do not give the 'i'm desperate' vibes. 'desperate' behavior is very annoying, while you feel sorry for them at the same time, and i *do* know what it's like to suffer isolation for years and years.

also, again, he had his arm around me and was occasionally touching my hipbone (it's hard to describe, but i was lying kind of sideways). it felt pleasant for about one second, and then after that, felt sickening. i sat quietly and tolerated this. meanwhile, i am suffocating on fossil fuel fumes, and trying to focus on a good movie that i haven't seen in almost a decade.

so about maybe 1/4 of the way into the movie, i suddenly said that i had to leave. i thanked him for dinner, emphasized for about the third or fourth time that i wanted to know more (non-sexual) ways that i could repay him for his help, in an exchange of work. and he gave me the 'duhhhhh... there isn't any work to do' response, even though his life is in the middle of a crisis (he got laid off work and needs to find a new source of income, and to me, that's a pretty important problem that needs to be fixed, and he could use moral support for job hunting, or even just to go file a claim at the unemployment office, because i know from experience that job-hunting is very discouraging) and i KNOW that he has important tasks that need to be done, and urgently. anyway i told him that i wasn't really comfortable in the fumes, which was *true*, and that i needed to go home and get some fresh air, and that i was expecting a phone call too.

so i did leave. i gave him a quick hug, but then he wanted to give me a kiss. i bent my head down so that he would kiss my forehead, for two reasons: 1. i didn't want to kiss him, and 2. i have herpes, which will be passed through kissing.

i really was expecting a phone call. earlier that day i had gone out to get some food. an immigrant named alex approached me. this was most likely a puppet incident, because i was talking about my cat named alex in the blog, and i have talked about immigrants. but i said yes to him and we shook hands. i emphasized immediately that i am doing a 'new' way of meeting people: i help you, you help me. we do work for each other, and get to know each other by working together. and i asked if he could think of anything he needed or work that needed to be done. he said that he did and that we could talk about it. however, i know that i must emphasize repeatedly from the beginning that this is not sexual dating, but is focused on work and friendship, and that i will say so from the beginning. so i was expecting alex to call, or maybe i was supposed to call him - i wasn't sure.

well, that didn't happen. instead, i got in my car, still very sick from the kerosene, and i drove very, very, very far away, for several hours, and i was so far away that it was hard to get back home. i was getting very tired and had to buy some coffee, but my stomach was very sick, and also, i started getting attacked by 'new' voices on the way home. some new guy supposedly noticed me in the territory. i don't know if he actually was new, or if he was just one of the usual voices pretending to be new. so i tried drinking the coffee but then felt like i was going to vomit and couldn't drink any more coffee. it took hours to get home, and i never talked on the phone to alex, and also, i missed a phone call from peter. and i can't call peter back in the middle of the night, because it will wake up his wife and kids, so i always have to wait till the next night.

and the rest of that night, a criminal was 'buzzing' the air bubbles in my stomach and intestines, trying to make me throw up. i was lying in a position where the burps could not come up easily, so they kept buzzing the bubbles and making noises while i was trying to sleep. they would not just leave the air bubbles alone, they had to buzz them and try to make me get sick.

while i was driving far away, i knew i was leaving behind all of the people i know in state college. they want me to view martin (oh, i forgot to even tell about the new incident in the martin disaster) as a special, long-term bond, that i am supposed to keep in contact with him and help protect him and make sure that he is happy and safe. and i knew peter would be trying to reach me, too. and i knew dennis still had all of his problems, and, as i said, he's not a 'bad person,' but he is desperate and his behavior annoys me. so i felt like i had to leave behind all of the people that i was 'taking care of.' like they were my children.

and that is when i formed the apology to martin: that i am sorry for not being strong enough to fight back against the attackers, who brainwash me, control me, and force me to believe lies about him.

well, i still want to mention martin again and what happened with him. first, every time that martin sends me an email saying any kind of 'no,' they are brainwashing me to believe the opposite of everything he says. they are lying to me and trying to force me to believe that no means yes. this is very, very, very dangerous for somebody in my situation to believe that 'no means yes.' i can be thrown in a mental hospital, or get convicted of stalking, if i hear the word 'no' and believe that he's saying 'yes.'

it is a lie which is based on a tiny fragment of truth. martin *did* express a few brief milliseconds of physical attraction and interest in me, through his overall behavior and body language and nonverbals. still, that does NOT indicate that 'therefore no means yes, forever and for all eternity.' it merely means that he experienced a few milliseconds of physical attraction or interest towards me.

so, they are giving me the extremely dangerous 'no means yes' brainwashing every day and encouraging me to write more emails to him, telling me that he needs to hear from me. and, surprise surprise, he DID send me another 'no' email telling me to leave him alone. and surprise surprise, this afternoon they started up the bombardment on me *again* after all that, telling me that in reality, martin needs me and that i have to keep trying to communicate with him. and i can't help believing it, because it *is* based on tiny fragments of truth. the electronic mind control system is real, and martin and i are both victims and puppets under this system, and it is really true that victims need to support each other. based on that tiny fragment of truth, they are telling me to keep trying, and keep trying, and don't separate from martin, and all that, because he understands and he sympathizes with me and he believes me. it all seems plausible because i've seen his nonverbal behavior and his emotions, and there is a lot of conflict. i am *well aware* that he has *reasons* for saying no.

that's my bad day.