Explanation dump

All 0 of you are probably asking what the fuck happened between Friday and today.

Let me shed some light for all of your non-existent curious minds.

#1: NOOC rage on a whole new level

As some are aware, I have a few... anger issues. The rage wells up from time to time when the world just keeps spitting in my face and there's nothing I can do about it. My frustration comes out in a burst of anger that tends to be containable, but still damaging to both my psyche and to those around me. On the flip side of this, it can also lead to some more interesting moments in my life, e.g. points where I rage and then the object of my rage turns out to not be a problem at all, or the more famous (and since proven to be a hallucination) cussing out of a Revenant (those guys who also proved to be hallucination in a different sense).

You might imagine, then, that when I catch wind of my best friend's ex using her in a doped up state to buy him shit, I get a little bit fussy.

And by fussy, I mean filled with anger of everyone looking forward to Duke Nukem Forever as they discover that the game is just a turd shipped to them in a rectangle of plastic. (alternatively read as "the fury of the gods themselves", if that's more your cup of tea.)

I learned of this through a trusted friend who invited me to beat the shit out of the ex. I agreed that this would be a rather fun outing to have with this friend, and was saddened to learn that the only day he would be able to come get me for this would be Sunday.

Guess who had an appointment then?

Anyway, I instead calmed myself down (after throwing a few things around my room (read RIP shitty watch)) and got ready for the evening's outings, which brings me to...

#2: Magic the Gathering, a cautionary tale

In my previous post, I said that I was going to "...celebrate the world's best card game..." And I did.

Me and some friends went to the Road to Ravnica pre-release event at a local comic shop. It was awesome.

I chose the guild Izzet which uses blue and red mana to progress science ferociously. They are all about pushing science to and past its limits.

And then I lost at least 43 of my 0 readers.

Look, if you're actually interested in MTG, just say so in a comment and we'll nerd out.

Everyone else: MTG is a great game, but if you're not careful it eats all your money.

But of course, I know why none of you are here.

The appointment.

Here goes nothing...

#3 Of patients, patience, and problems

I arrived at my therapist's office at about 3. I was running a bit late, but that's what happens when your ride has to get ready before you go. The appointment was scheduled to start at 2:50, and I had to call in to say I would be late.

Regardless, I got there, and was immediately ushered into Dr. Traner's office. I always feel at ease in there. While normal doctors have the whole hyper clean rooms with the occasional poster framed on the wall, depicting some interest of their's, Dr. Traner has a nice blue carpet, wood panel walls, and books everywhere. And a lot of it isn't even medical books. He has about one shelf dedicated to medical books, and the rest (which pretty much covers most of the walls) are all novels, mostly fiction. Just about any kind of book you can think of, he has, as far as novels go at least. Sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, horror, romance: he's got it all. Normally, I'd sit in his office for half an hour as I wait for him to finish doing something, just reading one of his many books. Sunday was different however. I wasn't there at his call, he was there at mine.

I sat down on a wonderfully comfortable recliner and look over at his desk to find him staring quite intently at me. It was obvious he was assessing my general mood and health, and normally it doesn't bother me. This time it did.

Before I could collect my thoughts and begin to explain what was on my mind, he spoke up.

"What's bothering you, Matthew?"

I wanted to say that slenderman was, but that wouldn't go down well with him.

Instead, I got to what I called him for. "I wanted to talk about possible causes for... you know."

"Your episode?" He started calling it that in my third session. I never liked the term, but I didn't know what else to call it.

"Yeah. I just find it hard to believe it came from nowhere. And if there is some hidden cause, then we need to find it so I can't have another episode." Side note: the exact words said are hazy to me, but I'll get the general gist down, probably a little bit more eloquently than I did during the actual session.

At this point, he pulled out my file, which was a decently thick folder no doubt filled with observations and possibly transcripts from other sessions. "Matthew, I've been looking over everything you've told me, and I think we can both agree this stemmed from your unhealthy obsession with the 'slenderman''. As long as you haven't revitalized that obsession, I'm sure you'll be just fine."

"But what if it's not the only cause? Here let me show you something." I got up and walked to his desk and pulled up the internet. Before he could ask what I was doing, I had loaded up my blog and was scrolling through the entries. I found the February 7th entries and pointed at them, telling him to read. He did and asked me what he was looking for.

"Read again." He did. He didn't see it.

I pointed on the screen.

Finally he saw it.

"Who's Emily?"

And this is the part where I explain the appearance of that mysterious name to all none of you.

Emily is my little sister.

Was.

When I was three, my family lived in a house with a pool. We loved that pool, especially on warm summer days. One day, I was playing in it while my mother relaxed and my grandmother was over doing... something, I dunno what.

Emily decided she wanted to play with me in the pool.

She didn't have any thing to keep her afloat.

By the time the ambulance arrived, it was pretty much too late; extremely weak pulse, lungs filled with water, blue skin.

My family recovered, but it took years to fully heal. In fact, it was only until late last year that I think my Dad fully recovered, when he expressed that he wanted to write a book about it, about how he coped and healed and all that jazz.

I explained all this and Dr. Traner went into a hyper thoughtful mode that he occasionally gets into. I sat back down, feeling tears push against my eyes, but I fought them back just so I could be coherent when Dr. Traner processed the info.

Eventually, he said "It is possible that you may still be traumatized by what you saw, and the fear caused by that event came back up and attached itself to this 'slenderman'."

I wanted to tell him that I was starting to feel the paranoia again, but he was back in the concentration mode.

After a while, he looked back at me and asked "When did this occur to you?"

"While I was playing a game, I dunno. I just think of random stuff every once and a while." It was truth, but not the whole truth. I failed to mention that I only thought of it because I was getting obsessed with tales of tall, dark 'men' again.

He then suggested something rather interesting.

He told me to start recording my random thoughts, which I could then send to him.

It took me a second to process, but I agreed. If I can get these random thoughts to him in an easier manner, then shouldn't I? He's clearly one of the only people I can trust with my thoughts. I certainly can't trust myself, and he's a trained professional.

The session ended about half an hour later, after working out some of the logistics of actually making this work.

Which brings us to modern day once more, seeing as nothing interesting happened between then and now.

So you may be asking what this means.

What this means is I am going to start a vlog for the benefit of my therapist. I know he reads this blog still, and I'm sorry Dr. Traner for not telling you about getting back into the slenderverse, but can't I still indulge in a few good stories?

Yeah, he won't buy that...

Anyway, yes he reads the blog, but the blog isn't my pure thoughts all the time. If I just started recording random thoughts when I have them, and possibly a few interesting things to show Dr. Traner things that may help him help me, then I could get over this paranoia and get over this once and for all.

When I get a camera, I will post the first few videos here, using my old NOOC channel as the archive. Gotta get some use out of it, and I'm not too keen on letting the general public see my most private thoughts.

Dr. Traner, I'm sorry I didn't mention that I would also tell the blogosphere about the videos. It really only occurred to me to do so when I got home, and it might help.

Well, I really have nothing left to say...

So we're done here.

-Matthew

(PS don't expect the videos for a while. I have to wait on another paycheck, and I don't work many hours. Although my birthday is coming up... which is something else I wanna mention: MY BIRTHDAY IS COMING UP. AWWWW YEEEE. October 8th. Tell your friends. It's gonna be awesome.)