satisfactory abnormality

Seems that if i can't be "normal" i'd rather learn to be ok with being abnormal. I have abandoned normality in so many ways. I long since gave up on working (well i was kinda forced to give that up due to hospitalizations etc) but now i'm trying to enjoy my freedom without feeling guilty about it. I just kinda do what i want when i want -- sounds like bliss, right? but it's difficult not to feel guilty about it especially when other people don't have that luxury at all. I don't have much in terms of income but i get by. I'm by no means living "extravagantly" but i do get out and have some fun periodically. the main thing that comes to my mind is my sleep "schedule". schedule in quotes cause there's really no routine about it at all. i just sleep when i feel like it and i stay in bed til i feel like getting up. that alone is an enormous luxury so many will never have. i rather enjoy it, though sometimes i get up feeling tremendously guilty about how much time i "waste" sleeping. but i get my bills paid and my basic chores done. i'm a bachelor living in a mobile-home-bachelor-pad, but it's not a total pig stye, lol. i keep my car running... legally (more than i can say of some folks, lol). i'm my own chef, taxi, security guard, janitor, repairman, bookkeeper, maid, etc. It's lonely, yes, but as my friend recently quoted "with loneliness comes much freedom." no one really harps on me to get anything done on a daily basis. i pretty much get to decide what needs doing and when. my favorite hobby is probably this; i love to write and i get to do a lot of that. social networks are fun and cheap and even somewhat informative. if anything i write more than my friends would like me too, but i don't mind if they don't read it so it's all good. Lots of people have suggested i get a pet, like a dog or cat, but i prefer to just have my one simple fish. my best friends are my computer and my cigarettes, but i do have other friends -- mostly on a 'customer/client' relationship. I'm a regular at the pool hall and some cafes and diners. so i get to socialize a little here and there. i guess the point is (and this has taken me over a decade of treatment to get to this point) that i don't "have" to be normal to enjoy life. and don't get me wrong, it's not always all unicorns and rainbows and i get some real dark depression at times, but i no longer feel like i need everything to work out in order to have some general contentment and occasional happiness.

[Dolphin14]

Sounds like you are living your life just the way you want to. Embrace it, don't feel guilty.

Enjoy

[Hidden in reply to Dolphin14]

i'm just kinda going with the flow i guess. my life is by no means turning out how i would have wanted it to, but it's still going. i'm just trying to learn to be ok with that. doing better at this than i used to anyway

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

also, if i might add: it seems to me that goals are kinda dangerous. goals, which so many people encourage and push, can be a huge disappointment and source of depression. i think it's probably more important to "roll with the punches" as my grandma used to call it than it is to avoid them. cause, for me at least, everytime i try to avoid a "punch" in life and then get hit anyway, then i take it so badly and beat myself about it. that is, i make it worse cause i had planned to avoid it, so failure is now added to the injury.

[Dolphin14 in reply to Hidden]

Good advice from your Grandma. If we don't roll we are doomed.

Makes sense, there are certain things we shouldn't put on a " mandatory" goal list. We never know what life is going to throw our way.

[Dolphin14 in reply to Hidden]

A lot of us have lives that turned out different than we imagined.

Mine took a different spin many years ago.

You make the best of it and let go of what you " thought"

I'm glad you are doing better with it. It actually sounds good to me

[Hidden]

another little quote i'd like to add here is: "time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time". i always liked that one.

[fauxartist]

Well it sounds like you have it all worked out....and I love the scene in 'Young Frankenstein', when the doctor asks Igor whose brain he got for the monster, and he said; ,..'Oh someone named 'AbbyNormal'....

In college we had a statistics class, and I also took quite a few courses in Psychology while I was on a grant waiting list....and the one thing that stuck with me was this:

The definition of what 'Normal' is, ‘is what the state of mind is of the majority of the group. SO....if that's the case... Your normal here.

[Mickey1953 in reply to fauxartist]

I love that movie! I named my horse Abby Normal because of it. Her registered name was Abendrote, which is German, but I called her Abby... until I started training with her. She never did get trained, but became a lovely, eccentric, beautiful pasture ornament for the rest of her life. We should all be so lucky...

And yes, we are all normal here. This is my only outlet at the time; therapy isn't possible for a variety of reasons, though I have been in therapy before. I wish I could find a support group locally, but my issues... it is really hard to trust anyone right now. So I guess I will just go on being normal here. I am starting to feel less alone here, and that is good. I have to be guarded in dealing with the outside world, the few friends I have really don't get it, so I do a lot of journaling, and now, coming here.

[Hidden in reply to Mickey1953]

well, i hope this site serves you well. as for me, seems i just decided to roll out of bed at 11pm, haha.

[Mickey1953 in reply to Hidden]

Lucky you! I have a friend who harps at me incessantly that I need to get more accomplished in my day, do this, do that, don't sleep so much... she is a force of Nature, which is just fine for her. I'm not.

I have stopped trying to explain things to her, she says they are just excuses. No, actually they are reasons, but she just ignores that and goes back to telling me what I should be doing. I'm learning how to deflect and distract, and get her onto another subject. But that in itself is tiring. Holding boundaries is difficult.

[fauxartist in reply to Mickey1953]

I love the field ornament reference...we have one of those too in the house....she goes from being a 'waste of space' when she ‘sprawl’s out in the middle of the puzzle your working on, or is a 'bold fur ball' when she swishes her tail across your laptop screen and you have to pick hairs off. She also does the happy dance when we come home, which is to run like a lunatic up and down the hallway sliding to a stop on the hall rug. Yes...we too have an ornament who we just love to pieces.

I don't trust people easily either, it's my CPTSD and abandonment issues...this place is safe mostly. I think you will find kind people here, and the few you don't, you just ignore and pass them by, there are more benefits than not here.