I remember those sort of experiments from my intro to psych class about 30 years ago - had I known where my life was heading I might have paid more attention. It was a boring class with about 500 people in an auditorium and all of the tests were multiple choice so they could grade them via computer. So I mostly blew it off.

It would devastate me if someone made a mean comment about me in reference to mental health. I really need people to think I am a good man, someone who is a net benefit to society - I mean "need" literally - like a junkie needs their next fix. So many of the people who should have loved me failed me in one way or another. They were either just plain mean or abusive or just indifferent. Then I question who has the problem? Me or them?

"Caution: Police line, you better not cross.
Is it the cop, or am I the one thats really dangerous?" - Warning, Green Day

I thought about those lyrics a lot two years ago, because I figured when my family "found out" I was bipolar (so I thought at the time) they would haul me into court and get me declared incompetent. When that happens in my state, your name is put on a registry with the State Police, so if you are ever stopped, they "know" you are mentally ill. So, in the inner darkness of my despair, I figured that would make me a "marked man" and if the police ever had any reason to interact with me they would rough me up or worse, because they could "get away with it" because "who will they believe, a cop or a crazy man?" Who in that scenario is truly dangerous? It all just was one enormous self-reinforcing feedback loop of terror anyway - having the social worker ask on the intake if I was ever violent or homicidal meant in my mind they automatically assumed I was because I was diagnosed bipolar, and "they all are violent" in the view of "normals". So, even if I was the most meek and respectful man ever to a cop, he was gonna seriously hurt me just to "teach me a lesson, your kind isn't wanted here" in my la di da bug up their butts suburb full of wealthy hypocrites. It all seemed so unfair - I always was "such a nice guy" according to everyone, coworkers, social contacts, clients, everyone except family of course, who saw and still see me as a pathetic loser. Now I was suddenly no longer a nice guy, but automatically a menace to society, a threat, because I was bipolar. Such was the runaway terror train that chugged away 24/7 in my mind back then -Thank God it only runs about half that now. The psych nurse at the hospital called it catastrophising - I dunno if that is a real word but it is apt.

Wow, quite the tangent there - sorry to ramble so, I'm physically in a lot of pain as I overdid it today and this surgery is proving a much tougher recovery than the prior ones, I guess I should have expected that because it was by far the most extensive one they did.


I can pretend that I'm not lonely
But I'll be constantly fooling myself
I can pretend that it don't matter
But I'll be sitting here lying to myself
Some say love ain't worth the buck
But I'll give every dime I have left
To have what I've only been dreaming about

Everybody wants something
Gotta want something
What are you living for?
Everybody needs something
Fighting for something
I know what you're fighting for
Cause we all

We all want someone there to hold
We just want somebody
We all wanna be somebody's one and only
We all wanna be warm when it's cold
Yeah yeah yeah

No one wants to be left scared and lonely

We all, we all, we all, we all, we all
We all want the same thing
We all, we all, we all, we all, we all
We all want the same thing
We all, we all, we all, we all, we all
We all want the same thing
Everybody wants something
Gotta want something
Yeah, yeah we all want love - Rihanna, We All Want Love

So yes, you want to know the brutal truth - my quest of the past two years has been very much a quest for acceptance and love and support of the kind I never got from my father or my family. Especially from him, of course, that is why the close bonds I made with a couple of my trainers were so important. You wanna know something weird - one of my deepest desires is to be physically held and embraced by other men. Not sexually. I'm 49 years old, and I need a dad. I had a father, who profoundly ****ed up my life, but is never ever had the least little bit of a dad. I want the kind of closeness I see in some father-son, brother to brother, or even lifelong best friend "blood brothers" relationships.

"Blood Brothers"

We were as young as we were dumb
When we piled in an old pile of junk
It was one for all, and all for one
A bunch of outlaws without a gun
Shootin' bad booze outta Dixie cups
Chasin' every girl that wasn't fast enough
No matter how bad the break or how bad the luck
Or how bad the day we still had us

Blood brothers closer than your next to kin
Thick as thieves and the best of friends
Take a bullet for each other

Yeah brothers like that don't come cheap
You fight, you cry, you lie, you bleed
And you lean on one another
Blood brothers

I got a scar on my cheek from a bar room brawl
Wasn't meant for me but I took the fall
It's a cowboy code it's an unwrote law
When you mess with one you gotta take us all.

Blood brother's closer than your next to kin
Thick as thieves and the best of friends
Take a bullet for each other

Yeah brothers like that don't come cheap
You fight, you cry, you lie, you bleed
And you lean on one another
Blood brothers

Time can fly on by
Everything can change
Until the day we die
We'll always remain
We'll remain
Yeah yeah yeah

Blood brothers closer than you next of kin
Thick as thieves and the best of friends
Take a bullet for each other

Yeah brothers like that don't come cheap
You fight, you cry, you lie, you bleed
And you lean on one another
Blood brothers

Yeah yeah
Oh oh
Blood brothers - Luke Bryan