PhantomLion's Journal

I'm better now. I've changed! What more does the world want from me! Why did you leave me? Why am I still so horrible that it makes me unlovable? Why am I like this?

I am not my body, I am not my flesh, I exist outside of your reality,

but in dreadful harmony with the rest.

Well in light of the recent purge of porn. Even though this blog hasn't been effected my main on tumblr has so therefore, I cannot abide by this blatant and unwarranted censorship. I'll be moving PhantomLion's journal over here:

https://phantomlion.livejournal.com/

Amazing how so much can change inside of a month! It’s been an uphill battle for sure, but things are starting to really look up. I might actually start having some more free time for myself. More time to draw, write and perhaps produce videos. I was never properly prepared for how fucked the world would be, but I have a feeling that this won’t matter anymore. I’m not sure how many people really read these journals or who even cares anymore, but it’s nice to know that I got some positive feedback from my last journal, I really didn’t expect that from anyone to be truthfully honest.

I fully appreciate all the support I’ve received from you guys, it means quite a bit. My battle with depression may be over, but the war is far from won. However, fear not as I’ve come full circle to realize that I’ve been right all along, that it’s always been me vs. The World, and truthfully it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about surviving what the world throws at you, not trying to take it down a peg. By all means thought if you can take the world down a peg, than do so, humanity can use more than a few lessons in humility.

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS JOURNAL MENTIONS SUBJECTS OF DEPRESSION, AND ANXIETY.

Holy shit it’s been a while people. I’ve been mostly active on twitter though, so please follow me there as well.

I’m going to be honest here, I’ve been having an on and off, yet crippling battle with depression for over a year now and recently it’s been really tough and it’s even been crushing me financially, however I believe I can overcome, and I can continue to overcome my depression provided I stay focused. I’ve begun drawing again, which is a good sign, and let me be the first to tell you if you’ve never had a problem with depression, are beginning to experience it for the first time and or know someone who is, indeed clinically depressed, this is no fucking joke, sickness of the mind is real. It may not be a gaping wound but it’s as real as the device you’re using to read this, the air you breathe and the ground you walked on to get here.

I’ve never been a HUGE fan of taking meds to treat depression, why? because over all I don’t make myself depressed, people fucking make me depressed, and if 98.9 percent of people fucking vanished tomorrow, guess what? My depression would be cured, not treated, but cured.

Granted there would be that awkward period where I would be figuring out what the hell is going on and if I should be running my ass to the nearest fallout shelter but upon discovery that only a few of humanity plus myself remain, a cascade of soothing relief would wash over me, and I would whisper at the new world “...finally”.

All that considered I feel like a guinea pig when doctors want to try all these fucking meds to “see what works”, and they don’t really know, all that training, and years of med school and the best these assholes can tell anybody is “see what works best for you”, and from then on it’s like rolling dice, no thanks, but hey if meds work for you then take them, just don’t flip your shit when the apocalypse comes and you eventually run out, forcing you to raid pharmacy after pharmacy, and with no one in the factories at that point to make the medication, you’re FUCKED(or they start cutting medicaid/medicare to the point that you’re fucked anyway), not me though because no matter how depressed I get sometimes, I’m a fighter, always have been, always will be, I will not give up the fight for my survival no matter HOW hard it gets, I may not go out with a bang, but I’ll go out fighting never the less, don’t believe me? Try me, I promise I won’t disappoint.

I have also come to accept and embrace that I may not be entirely sane, and I’m certainly a fucking maniac, but I’m a high functioning maniac, and I much prefer my methods of battling depression than what’s been manufactured by these second hand alchemists that make all these brain-wadding medications, and the overconfident doctors that prescribe them as I said before, my depression largely stems from having to put up with the world at large, and it’s equally depressing treadmill rat-race, so therefore the best treatment for me? Focus. Prepare. Prepare. Focus. Evade. Adapt. Survive.

Managing expectations is also another big one for me, it’s helped me quite a bit. This is a saying that I’ve been using for YEARS to train myself mentally as far as dealing with people and their bullshit is concerned “I can’t control anyone else, but I can control myself”,(before you make a comment Mr. Contrarian-Internet-Intellectual, hear me the fuck out here! You’re reading this in my voice aren’t you?)pretty basic yes, but it implies quite a bit, and if you’re dedicated enough then this is more than possible, in practice what this does for me as I’ve repeated it to myself over the years is prepare me for people’s irrational, erratic, and often overly illogical emotional behavior, remember what I said about managing expectations? that’s where this comes in for me as I constantly walk around expecting people to let me down, and be generally shitty and thus I’m never disappointed, you might have heard about “The Blessings of a Pessimist”, utilizing the attitude where everyone is generally shitty, when you actually encounter someone who’s not, and the interaction is worthwhile and even benefits all parties involved then you may find yourself pleasantly surprised, savor this feeling, for it won’t come along often.

Interaction with people if you’ve got depression, anxiety or both can be a huge pain in the ass so your first thought if encountered by some bigot or douche that can’t keep their big, loud fucking whore cunt mouth shut should be to ignore them, do not feed them what so ever, should be the first line of defense and hopefully the last.

Controlling how you react to people is fundamental to expectation management but mostly self-control, in short: Quick wit > Knee-jerk reaction. Fine line maybe but there is a difference, quick wit vs. knee-jerk reactions often straddle the line between tossing a passive aggressive quote you read on a social media image with a fancy nature background and all out cursing them out, try to channel those knee-jerk reactions in to quick wits by preparing one-liners in your head to respond to people with when they give you shit, and for you RPG fans out there, I know exactly what’s popping in to your head now and you’re probably predicting what my next lines of text will be before you’ve even read it.

That’s right you fucking nerd, prepare a menu screen in your head of your favorite one-liners and quips from whatever you can draw inspiration from, a favorite TV show, a movie or comic book, even a video game! Also try to avoid using curse words, and other foul language like racial epithets and so forth, even if you’re not cursing at them because some people are just easily triggered by the sound of bad words.

Then drum them in to your mind for whenever a sticky situation arrives, so if you absolutely can’t just resist the urge to respond because let’s face it sometimes when people feel ignored that might trigger them just as much, if not more than a response, so if you absolutely can’t help it, prepare that menu screen of responses in your head if you are unable to ignore them for some reason. Depending on your response will dictate how that person will perceive you, just remember, most random dickheads you’ll never see again in your life anyway but another key thing to remember is for the most part “the one that speaks first, loses”, so once someone tosses a random insult at you that might target your race, gender, etc. or judgemental passive aggressive bullshit, just remember, they’ve spoken first, so they’ve lost, but you can just as easily lose at this point as well, just as you might “win”, but try not to think of this in winning or losing terms really, just know that this is where you’re in the best position to pull a mental judo move and use their bullshit against them and to your advantage, as different responses will yield varying results, the following example happened to me recently..

...I’m walking down the street and I casually say “Hello”, because shocker, I actually conduct myself like a civilized fucking adult when out in public, and they respond “I don’t like you”, now before you call her a cunt in your mind, pay attention:

Me: Hello!

Cunt: I don’t like you.

Me: I don’t like me either!

______________________

My Sarcasm-Fu is impressive I know. Alternatively I could’ve responded with;

“That’s your problem”

“I like turtles”

“Shocking!”

“Oh well”

This noise

“You don’t say?”

I think you get the idea, basically, expect people to be shitty and miserable, respond accordingly, most likely they say these things to themselves in private and then say them to you, using you as a proxy to project their own insecurities, these types of people most of the time cannot fucking help themselves, so let’s swing things back around to the subject of depression...

Another good technique for battling depression: Hone. Your. Skills. I can’t stress this enough, if you’re good enough at something then you should be training yourself to be the best that you can at it, so much that you’re desired for it, and there’s no better feeling than people calling upon YOU for a particular skill or craft that you possess that they need access to.

Above all, perhaps the best way to beat depression: Keep yourself busy, and believe me you won’t have time to be depressed! Just know that, for the most part this is usually a temporary fix, eventually you’ll have to take a break and this is where the depression will bite you in the ass and drag you down and make you feel like you’re dragging twice your own weight around making it that much more difficult to function, it sucks ass, expect it to suck, but when you’ve got down time, this is where you’ve got to figure out how to combat depression when your down time arrives, in short; Don’t let your down time become down time! Yeah I know, depression puns, I’m an asshole, but seriously just remember you’re in control of your own life, you CAN take control of your depression, don’t let your depression control you. By medication or otherwise you can battle depression and you can win, no matter what you do just DO something! If you do nothing, then I guarantee you that you will become nothing.

Thank you for reading everyone.

Yours Truly,

Well to the very few who read this I have mustered the energy for another journal this month. I feel like my life is in slow motion. Nothing I ever want to do seems to get done, if my life were a stove I’d have like 20 different “backburners” as people call them when they have to push back certain plans. I barely make time for myself anymore, hell even when I went on vacation I was worried/anxious half the time, that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, I did. I just wish there was more for me where I am right now, I feel I’ve slowed down to a crawl and yet everything moves past me so fast, I barely have time to catch anything if that makes any kind of damn sense.

I’m going to try and post here at least once a month just to stimulate my thoughts a bit. Honestly I just don’t have the time, and that’s largely what this entry is going to be about, time. I don’t have time for anything I want to do anymore, all my time spent is doing adult stuff, responsibility this, need to do that, oh shit I’m sick and or injured, NEED to make time to clear that shit up or recover! UGH! Fuck. Hopefully my schedule has changed up a bit so I might be looking at a bit more free time but I’m getting off of work a lot earlier to the point where it feels awkward, not really a whole lot to do at that time but to go home, I’ll figure it out, I always do.

In any case I feel this burning need, a swelling darkness within that if not properly managed I feel like I might go out and hurt someone. I’m a violent being, I wasn’t always but I quickly embraced violence as something that’s always been a part of me, because hasn’t it? In any case I good reason why I want to randomly go on a beat down spree is because I honestly have very little in common with the people that surround me. while everyone is listening to their damn insipid pop music, repetitive hip hop, or cRAP music, No I didn’t mispell that, I’m mixing the word “crap” with the acronym RAP, yes it’s an acronym, look it up.

I know I haven’t written in a while, I’ve been busy as all shit.

I feel lonely, and while I do have friends they’re segregated between the two lives that I’m forced to live, the life I live as PhantomLion where my friends are spread out all over the globe it seems, and the life I was born in to, the one I’m always trying to catch up with an maintain.

I guess this is what happens when you’re born in to slavery, I may not have shackles, but the bondage exists never the less. So in order to truly be myself I have to live my life in secret. In any case I am lonely, and there are few that have been close to me that haven’t bitten the dust, for I must move on, because I don’t have a choice.

I grow tired of living in my head, while my vessel decays I have barely begun to truly live my life. Is this the true meaning of it all? Simply to travel through time, to be a witness? There are so many things I wish to be, and to do but there are so many barriers and obstacles in my way. I often ask myself “What’s the point?”, and I increasingly have little interest in finding out.

I’m not quite sure if many read these journals, but if there’s anything to take from them, the moral is to not be like me, if you have a chance to get out of a terrible situation, take it, never “play it safe” for the sake of playing it safe, if it feels like playing it safe is the right thing to do, then it’s probably not.

I’m not sure why but I get the feeling that my life is meaningless, empty, and that the only people who appreciate me are few and far between. Pardon my ungratefulness, I know I should be more appreciative of the friends I do have, but for some reason despite having very good friends I wake up every day doing nothing with my life.

I know I don’t write much here, but I am trying my best to make sense of my life and put the piece back together as best I can, as my living situation grows increasingly dire...

...and as predicted, things have now proceeded to get worse. No matter how much I try, no matter how “positive” I try and make things, it makes little difference. Money troubles in short, and to make matters worse our beloved “society” still puts most of it’s faith in people as if they were gods, as if these particular individuals created the very earth, no, concrete that they walk on. gods among men with false power.

I thought gods were supposed to do no harm. Then again, gods don’t have much of a reputation for kindness, not the gods these people worship anyway. What happened to patience? What happened to not letting your fellow man fall down when he is screaming for help to be lifted up? What happened to the good will of humankind? These are the questions that should haunt you casual internet reader, but they might not. Why? Simple, because you take it all for fucking granted, the ground you walk on, the very air you breathe, the bed that you sleep in at night.

Nothing’s changed, more of the same, tired of playing the waiting game. Basically I’m in between jobs as of now, and it sucks, everything just seems to dangle in the balance of what could be, and the possible outcomes don’t seem to be in my favor, and the more I push for the outcome that benefits me the most, the more resistance I encounter.

It’s almost as if this world just wants me to suffer, but one day I will have my due. This world is afraid of me, afraid of what I can do, of what I could become, of what anyone with a free mind could become. My mind is dangerous than most, it’s not a nice place to be, most of the time.

On a more positive note, I’m finding there’s more innocence in the world than I once thought. They say that ignorance is bliss, but is innocence the same as ignorance in that regard? I’m not sure, but I am sure of this, that I was never innocent.

My hatred for humankind is just, and it makes me, what most people would consider, an outsider, I am to most people “not normal” or “something else”, well I have news for you, I’m not you, and I never will be, nor will I ever want to be. I am not like everyone else, and if I truly am outside of the human commune, than I really don’t give a fuck.

There is a silent rage that looms within me, boiling within my gut. An insatiable anger, that can only be quenched one way. Only as such a creature that was born in to chaos can quench a thirst like this. Vengeance...