I appreciate that you are trying to help, catzmeow, but I am beyond hope. I guess I'm just not normal. Maybe romantic love and a good marriage are possible for 99% of people out there, but they aren't for me. I'm trapped in religious thinking that I'm surprised permits me to breathe, I have my parents' teaching echoing in my mind, plus I'm just a panicky, depressed nutcase anyway. I'm filled with such repulsion towards everything carnal in myself and I've inflicted so much psychological and sometimes physical pain on myself as a form of self-harm to punish myself that I will never be normal. I'll be extremely lucky if I can survive without ending up in an institution somewhere. I hate myself for being male and for having a sexuality, and the conflict between my strong instinctual impulses and my repression will, I believe, eventually drive me into total madness. The repression will win, having both shame and fear to torment me with. I'll end up as another washout- a parasite on society. So be it. I'm a failure, but I'm a failure who did my best. I'm sorry in advance for anything I end up costing taxpayers.

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)

I can't commit suicide, though, because my religion forbids it. So I live waiting to die. If I were told by my doctor that I had only a short time left to live, I would be ecstatic. I hope, though, that if I don't end up in hell, God will allow me the privilege of dying and rotting, since I resent God so much I don't want to go to heaven either. I'm sorry to be so gloomy.

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)

Force, you seem to be in another downward spiral. I wish there were some pill or some magic potion or whatever that would help you snap out of it. SewerRat once pointed out that you were sane enough during the time when you were working that volunteer job for the local cat shelter (hint: you were actually physically away from your parents a few hours a day at the time). You need to start having a series of small successes, which will build upon one another in an upward spiral of bigger and bigger successes in order to get out of this gawdawful downward spiral that you seem to be trapped in.

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Theodore Lamar Heiks
BA, History/Political Science, Western State College of Colorado, 1984
MBA, Entrepreneurship/Marketing, City University of Seattle, 1993

I feel a bit better now. Thank you for the encouragement, heikstheo.

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)

Force, when people get depressed, it is quite common for them to get in this mode of believing that only "good people" (i.e., other people) deserve to have good marriages, good jobs, etc., and other accoutrements of success. I've been through that mindset myself. You must believe that you are worthy of feeling good about yourself. You might want to go out for a walk, as a little exercise will help you feel better.

Try not to feel too badly about yourself. You struggle mightily with a very difficult disability. If you do end up on disability, remember that the people of this great country have spoken and they have said that that is your legal right. On the other hand, there is something deep within the human soul that wants to be productive and I can personally attest that, once on disability (over my objections, my parents filed in my behalf, naming themselves as designated payees), it becomes very difficult to get off disability. Perhaps, if anyone in government had an actual brain, they would allow a disabled person to remain on MediCare/MedicAid indefinitely even after returning to work if their new job did not carry health insurance. That way, disabled people could work and be productive without fear of being financially destroyed by monthly prescription bills that exceed their monthly income. Unfortunately, public policy on welfare issues has not yet grasped the notion that having a disability does not mean being totally incapable. For that matter, if anyone in government had an actual brain, maybe we would have national health insurance like other civilized countries. But maybe that would just make too much sense for government.

Whatever your parents may have taught you, it is not evil to have a sexuality. Noticing that a female is pretty (at least by your standards) is simply nature's way of facilitating the human male's role in the reproductive act, which is not in and of itself sexist if he loves her, tries to orgasm her, and stays around to provide for the potential baby(ies). In other words, since finding a female pretty seems to help a guy's little soldier stand at attention and salute when he is happy to see her, it is not such a bad thing that he gets what he wants if she also gets what she wants.

While others on this board have been maybe a bit rough on you about this, I'd like to try to tell you in the kindest possible way that if you could get a job and if that job paid enough to get your own apartment, the physical separation from your parents would help you to gain some mental independence from the psychological garbage that your parents have unwittingly dumped on you. But, in making the break, don't burn your bridges behind you. Ask your father about health insurance, raising issues of the maximum age to which his employer will allow you to remain on his insurance, whether you can remain on his insurance if you move out of his house, whether it would cost extra to remain on his insurance, whether there are options for low-cost health insurance, and whatever else needs to be discussed.

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Theodore Lamar Heiks
BA, History/Political Science, Western State College of Colorado, 1984
MBA, Entrepreneurship/Marketing, City University of Seattle, 1993

My parents have already assured me that they will support me for as long as I need support. I'll have to go for a walk tomorrow because I have an appointment with my psychiatrist.

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)