Blog Start Terror

​I’m pretty disturbed right now.

I’m too frightened to start my new blog, despite having put forth my best effort ever to overcome profound psychological obstacles.

First I had to struggle through a challenging childhood with loving parents who did their best but couldn't overcome their inadequacy. They were so anxious, they were frightened of their own shadows.

My mother’s inhibitions were so profound, she would rather risk serious musculoskeletal injury dragging home six monstrously heavy bags of groceries than learn to operate a big piece of equipment that makes terrifying noises and might crash into random things.

My father’s frustration tolerance was so low, his face made cracking noises like a frozen pond whenever he had to wait in line for more than three minutes.

​I was so uncomfortable in my real world, I spent much of my time inhabiting other galaxies.

I’m going to skip over the struggles of my adolescence and adulthood.  If I included those, my Word file would be so long and pathos filled that when I pressed Save, my laptop would seize up and I’d be confronted by the spinning wheel of death.

Of those years, I will say only that I worked my way through 5.5 serious unsuccessful relationships, 1154 sleep deprived nights, 1 major and 2 minor surgeries, and an obscure neurological disorder. I’ve tried 12 psychoactive medications and seen at least 7 psychotherapists.

I’m very frightened by the spinning wheel of death.  The spinning wheel of death is my nemesis.  Once hatched, it spawns hordes of terrifying offspring who think nothing of feasting on arms, legs and internal organs, with a particular predilection for brains.

The spinning wheel is like the black marble in Stephen King’s 1999 mini-series Storm of the Century.   If you see the black marble in your hand when you open your eyes, the bad guy takes your beloved child from the village and you never see her again. 
 
Don’t watch this!  Unless you really like horror movies.  I never look at them, except accidentally when someone else is watching and I walk by unsuspectingly, and then only for five minutes.

​I better bring you up to date and be done.
​
Recent challenges I’ve faced include:

Despite all this, I feel myself gaining some momentum from talking with you.  You might worry that I’m out of touch with reality. After all I’m not talking, I’m writing. And there’s only me here.  But look, now, as you read this, don’t you feel like you’re talking back to me?  If I’m crazy, so are you.

Stop worrying! This is psychoanalysis. We can experience anything we like and still walk out the door certifiably sane.
 
Right now, I’m still pretty disturbed, but not quite as disturbed as before.  Thanks to our conversation, I’m kind of excited.

Maybe I’ll take my blog live before I lose my courage.
But wait!  What if I can’t tolerate the massive exposure and there isn’t an Undo button???
 
Uh-oh, I’m getting more and more excited and scared.

Hello again.  I know it’s been a while, but I have a good excuse. Turns out I got so excited and scared I swooned.

I debated whether to drop the word “swoon,” which seems kind of outmoded.  Then I was reassured by a google graph that after a substantial period of decline, “swoon” has been on a sharp rise since 2001. Then I debated at length whether to show you a screenshot of the graph:

​Or a drawing:

I obsessed for a couple of days about this, occasionally stopping to eat a bowl of generic rice krispies or take a nap.  Then I made a table:

Unfortunately, the table only clarified that my choices were of exactly equal goodness (and badness).  I was about to fall into a paralytic stupor, when suddenly I recalled the power of free association that I learned from doing analytic therapy.  I gave up thinking about it logically and let my mind wander.  Suddenly I thought of Hegel’s dialectic, which is the only thing I remember from my comprehensive study of the history of Western thought:

Thesis + Antithesis  —> Synthesis

In no time at all I came up with this elegant solution, a combination screenshot/drawing, which I call a “scrawing.” It may not be the prettiest thing out there, but it does maximize graphical goodness. I think.  

I could have shown you my scrawing to begin with, but I wanted to demonstrate the awesome power of psychoanalysis, which can free up your mind to develop a flow that takes you to places you didn’t know you could go, to create things you didn’t know you could create.

Back to “swoon.”
In your staid, traditional dictionary, “Swoon” means “to faint from extreme emotion.”
 
In your hip, up-to-the-minute, online Urban Dictionary, it means “to be so excited about a thing or person that you get all bubbly on the inside.”

Turns out “swoon” is an awesome model for living.  Just when you think it’s about to die out, it adapts and keeps going. It evolves from fainting to bubbling. So, I’ve left swooning in.
 
The trick with swooning is to wake up relatively quickly after you faint. 
Psychoanalysis has been known to increase your wake-up efficiency.
I used to be unconscious for days after a swoon.  Not anymore.
In fact, what with you and my psychoanalysis helping me out, I think I’m finally ready to turn my blog loose and post my first post.
 
What’s the worst thing that could happen? You don’t visit. You visit once, and you never come back.  It’s all the same to me. I’m doing all this for myself anyway.
 
Sorry, I just lied. In psychoanalysis you have to tell the truth.
Isn’t that a b---h?
 
If you don’t visit, I’ll feel bad.
If you do visit and don’t come back, I’ll feel worse
Since you’re here, I’m definitely in danger of feeling worse.

Don’t make me feel worse!
​
I have a real treat for your next visit: a comic with the alluring title Dream of the Magic Remotes, which I’ll be posting in a couple of weeks:

If you want to see the rest of the comic you'll just have to come back.

​Please come back.  I need you to come back.  Will you come back?

​To paraphrase Princess Leia, "This is my most desperate hour. Help me, Square One and a Half visitor.  You're my only hope." *

​If The psychoanalytic Force moves you, you can help me right now with a comment below.
 
*If you want to relive the original, try: www.starwars.com/video/help-me-obi-wan-kenobi