Deconstructing Vincent Joseph

     I've been a Christian since 2001 June 27th to be exact) and since then I've tried to surround myself with people who I want to be like and keep away from all that I shouldn't have in my life...well I've tried and tried and tried.

     My friends and the people I associate with has been very important because of the bad apple theory, one bad apple can ruin all the good ones around it, and I've carried that in my social media life and I've tried to be both a "good apple" to those who need to see one around me and in the barrel with good apples. 

     The good things about that theory have been evident: I have successfully learned what being a drunk or a drug addict is before falling for any of that, my social media life has been respectful and always at a higher standard, I've at times learned how to keep up with certain things that I couldn't learn with people who are even at my level and I accepted God in my life at a time when  I could have accepted any amount of terrible things. All that was because I got rid of toxic people and influences from my life and tried my best to stick by the people and things that were better than...well, me.

     Then there is the part that is a big ol' pile of...confusion.  There's the paradox that this creates. So being around people who are better than me has had enormous positive side effects on me BUT at a point that started becoming toxic too in a way. I'm not successful, I haven't ever, in my entire life, even known how to try to be successful yet most of my friends have been born and bred to be a success story, they are all inspirationally great in at least a few ways. 

So I become the bad apple to them, which is evident to them when things come up like we go out to eat or they invite me somewhere that requires ID and I do my normal thing and lose mine while they are outside waiting, leaving me to have to walk out and sadly tell them to go without me because I lost the one thing I need at the moment. Situations like that come up on the regular with me and it's not that I don't get to do things necessarily or that I have to do more to keep up with anyone else; it's the part where I have to walk the long lonely walk to go and tell them that I can't go. That walk becomes harder each and every time I have to walk it. 

     So i walk that walk and the part about me is sad and my friends go on...and I go back somewhere alone...feeling like a full failure. And nothing else. It washes over me, it replays over and over, often I create how much I think they're better off without me. They're having more fun because they're good people and they got rid of the bad apple...so I must be the bad apple, right? Right?! And it only gets worse from there. Now this exact situation only happened once but similar things have occurred many times where I had to back out in order for everyone to have a better time or to actually enjoy themselves. 

     And since I have a literal mind that refuses to change that way of thinking, I look at the math of life: if I am the one that they have to wait for, and I am the one that friends have to pay for and I'm the one that usually doesn't understand things common to them and I am CONSTANTLY the one who doesn't have ANYTHING that they all have (families, lives, the importance of others) I do that math and the answer is I'm the problem. 

     So if I'm the problem, then I should take myself out of their equation to make their lives better and I sit alone and beat myself up over and over and over...and over and over. And it was just pointed out to me that when my friends come to spend time with me or try to cheer me up, while they've been in the real world and have been just doing what they do, I have been mentally destroying myself for so long that I don't even think of myself as human anymore.

So they are like, "Hey, haven't seen you i a while. You okay?" all cheerful and calm. And my response looks like I've been in a Taken movie standing opposite Liam Neeson's character. From my point of view, I'm coming out of a terrorizing situation and trying to calm down (slowly because I have trouble changing moods even when it's proven to me that I should) but to the friend, nothing is actually wrong and I bring them down in my slow reaction to their positivity. That in turn makes them not want to be around me or not really be able to handle my intense sadness/negativity...and when they leave or step back, I repeat the mental beating with more vigor than before. 

     This has grown from a small issue that I can let go of to a painful bitter ball in the pit of my stomach to this intense evil hatred that lives inside me. I know I need to change this, I know I need to accept that things are not the way I see them usually and I know that some of the damage that I saw and currently see as irreversibly broken are i fact possible to be repaired...somehow. Somehow...somehow...somehow; that words seems so far away and almost a fantasy of a dream. Someday (another far away word) I hope to understand how to use this deconstruction to fix some of this stuff.

     My goal with this and with my videos on YouTube and with my art and my prayers and my bible reading and my future therapy and my transitioning and everything else i try to do is all to find a way to be okay. I thank anyone who reads this and I hope it encourages you in any way at all. Let me know if it does, I could truly use that if it's true.

Memorials and Conspiracies

     I want to take this time to talk about an American tragedy that is on my mind a lot. Yesterday was September 11th 2017 and of course is the anniversary of the 9/11 plane crashes in 2001 (as if I needed to clarify, I know) There are two sides to this event that I think about and consider a lot.

     The first part of this that is in my conscious thoughts regularly is the tragic and enormous amount of lives lost that day. I think constantly about the people who were on the surrounding floors and what they must have thought as things kept getting worse and worse by the second and the people who must have tried to call loved ones. It makes me think about what each decision could mean for me or someone around me, It also makes me think about how quick things could go from okay to not great to horrible to over.

I've always had death or fragility in my mind, even as a kid and that has made me feel kinda like Haley Joel Osment from 6th Sense. I wasn't a constant buzz kill but I can remember random times throughout my young life when I kinda took in the moment and thought, "This could be over in a moment if that car accidentally ran off the road and hit me and my friends right now." We went on a trip to Penn's Landing when I was in...I think 3rd grade and I gave a homeless guy 3 dollars. My thought was if things went down really bad that day at least he'll remember getting 3 dollars from someone. So 9/11 solidified that thought and made it so much more real to all of our lives. My generation made fun of the 50's when they had drills in case a bomb hit yet here we are in 2017, my store manager had to give instructions in case a shooter came in to the store. There are definite negative sides to thinking that way and I'm sure I'll go into that another time but for now I'm focusing on the more positive ways I was affected by 9/11

     And now for the other thing that haunts, entertains, intrigues (in a horrible way) and terrifies me. The 9/11 story we saw live, the dreaded thing that we never imagined could happen was NOT exacted as we were told. I know, I know...every kook and crazy talks about this and they all have crazy theories about why or how it really went down. There are way too many things left unanswered on purpose to just accept what was said through the media and our government.

     You've probably heard all the different theories and rumors and ideas of what was true and what was false if you have put any thought into this issue so I don't want to waste your attention with that but I do want to say that while I cannot say exactly what DID happen, I know for a fact that what NIST (National Institute of Science and Technology) tries to hide is that they knew more than what was ever revealed and I do not have the ability to stick my head in the sand and pretend things like Tower 7 was a logical reaction to buildings near it getting hit by planes.

     I am not going to say that our government definitely perpetrated everything and killed our own people, I could absolutely believe that we as a country were not fully on alert when things were going on in front of some of us, leading to certain people doing things like setting bombs in the buildings and making it seem like they were doing other things.

At that time, I believe most of us didn't think this country could actually be attacked on a large scale. We were unsinkable in our minds and I could see even politicians feeling that way even after finding out there was a possible attack coming. And like the Titanic, we learned how the mighty could sink.
I'm also not ruling out the possibility that our government had some part in the events either. It's plausible that they knew in advance and could have stopped it in some way and the things we were told weren't entirely true.
     I've watched countless documentaries and read so many articles on this topic both for and against the conspiracies, so far the for the conspiracy theory videos are much more convincing.

Thank you for reading.

I have absolutely no idea what to do

.    So my life right now is a mess: I have so much anxiety issues that seem to be adding more and more problems each day, I don't work enough to sustain a human life, my stress level is way too high even before much happens and I quickly get to a point where I'm not able to handle even normal things, I have gender dysphoria, every day my confidence goes down and the little failures hurt more and more, I'm growing bitter in ways in can't seem to stop, I have literally the worst luck with anything that involves luck of any kind, bad things just happen to follow me around no matter what I do, I'm loved by friends and very cared about but I often feel I have no one in my corner in the way that most people in my life don't even know what it's like to not have and I think about death and suicide much more than I ever should.


     Anxiety and stress.

So I wake in the morning and if there is absolutely nothing going on and I have nothing to worry about, I'm fine and there's no stress. The problem is I don't recall ever having a day like that, ever. Going to work is stressful in itself and even on a really slow day, my stress levels are at a breaking point. Then a second day in a row multiplies that plus whatever things that don't work out our get stressful that day and buy the end I feel like I barely make it. Then a third day in a row of working or doing anything stressful literally leaves me shaking and unable to think straight enough to make normal decisions or follow through with everyday functionary actions. I sometimes feel like crying over things like having long lines as a cashier or dropping things 3 or 4 times in a row. And that's when I start just messing up everything I touch, as if I turn into a giant clutz.


     Luck of the draw.
If it can go wrong, it will and not only does it go wrong but it will humiliate me in the worst way possible. And it's not just a thing here or there, any time I do anything that involves luck in any way I have to prepare to either get ahead of it or expect to get whatever I want to not get. Like if I only work one day in a week, but I need it to not be a Wednesday can you guess which day I'll be scheduled? Some things I can get ahead of like that, I can request off that day. But if I leave it up to chance, 10 out of 10 times it will be whatever I don't want it to be. And then there's things like card games... If I'm playing settlers if caftan, I can count on having absolutely none of the one item I need at the end of the game. I usually start strong and just hit an embarrassing block that I can never get past. These are just a few examples, another would be getting my state ID. I went 6 times before I was able to get it. 6 times. It was insane, they found rains why things I Christy didn't fit the requirements even though I brought exactly what they told me to bring. It gets maddening when everything and anything gets stopped all the time.


     Then... The worst part of me, the thing that embarrassed me and hurts all the time. Love.

I was born into a "family" of strangers, people all thrown together who regularly found themselves at each other's throats or leaving someone high and dry without care for anyone but themselves. I do not mean all of my "family" out in fact most of them when they're sober, the fact if the matter is that most of the people related to me are drunks or drug addicts or have been at one time.

The influence is strong with those ones. My biological father (who I hope reads this some day and realized just how terrible a person he is and how much he hurt at least me) was at absolute best a scumbag from the darkest depths is selfish garbage. That is me being way being nice, I try not to curse as a regular form of expression and that human doesn't deserve me breaking that personal rule.

As for my mom and her side, I've always had a huge intangible space between me and almost all of them, I don't blame most of them for things not done perfectly or even done wrong. I honestly believe my mom and her brothers and parents never or rarely did things out of hate. They weren't saints but deep down they cared about each other for the most part.

With the good stuff said, I felt very separate from everyone related by blood to me (with the exception of my Uncle Ron, Uncle George, Uncle Mike and my cousin Ryan) and I don't recall a time where I felt like we loved each other, which left me starved for love and affection.

     And with the most subtle of transitions to another post if this topic, that brings me to romance. Ah the language of love, eh?

I've had some awesome moments, like when I took a girl's hand and we danced outside a fancy restaurant while people were talking about how sweet we looked. Sounds amazing... And it was a great moment, well it would have been better with someone who deserved it. I say this not as a bitter ex or in a malicious way, but as someone who can recognize the truth about someone that I used to have tinted glasses toward...she was an idiot. There have been a few other notable moments with other not worth mentioning idiots, cheaters and psycho, but very few girls that were genuinely with any attention.

Overall I've been very sad about the lack of returned affection in that area with one caveat, I have come out transgender within the last 2 years and that could be why nothing has ever worked out. I wasn't meant to be with any of the girls I dated because my destiny could be to become a woman who can do a little too help others in the same situation. (I completely understand that I can't become a true female, so you can hold any comments about that. I get it and don't have delusional thoughts that I can. It's just easier to say it than to constantly say 'i can become the closest facsimile to that of what I see myself as in my broken mind).

If that were to work out like I hope it does, I can in the future be accepted as Layla and live my life encouraging the people around me without feeling like I'm faking or lying about who I am at all times. I honestly believe that after going through transitioning and accepting that life and leaving romance behind, I can accept that the love that I'll receive is the love from friends and will only be platonic. I actually realized while typing this why transitioning is so important to me: I hate who I am and I hate that I'm not loved romantically but I am loved very deeply by friends. If I could find a way to love myself then u can accept that love of friends for what it is as opposed to now where I feel like it's a weak consolation prize. No offense to any of those friends, I love them all back very very much. (If you're in this group, I'm pretty sure you know)

     So here I am...A mess, trying to fix as much as I can while I feel like I'm on a  quickly sinking ship. I'm afraid of failing, I'm afraid of succeeding and I'm afraid to be in the middle of those options.  So pray for me if you pay, send happy thoughts if that's what you do, donate time money or luck if you have any to spare and inspire others in my honor if you can.

Thanks for reading.

Today is the Only Day That Matters Right Now

     Today. An odd word, really. Seems like nothing special, were all use it all the time...right? The truth is in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't mean very much afterwards but in the moment, it means everything. In most ways, yesterday and last year are insignificant to our needs or wants or hopes and dreams. We've already lived that day out and it's nothing more than a memory. Not to say that memories aren't important, sometimes that's the only thing keeping people or places with us. Memories are very important for our mental state, but survival happens today for some of us. Maybe not in some cinematic 'i have to jump from this bridge that ship before it explodes' kind of way but we survive in harrowing and very seemingly very small ways.

     Jim Carrey had a stand up bit that is hilarious and also very deeply true; he said life is all about impulses. We all have impulses every minute of every day. "Do I run this razorblade across my tongue or do I shave normally and go to work?" Carrey used as a funny example (it's on YouTube, check it out. He's a lot funnier than I am) and it's funny to use crazy examples but there's so much truth in that philosophy. Every moment, were have a ton of little options that could be detrimental or they could be just normal routine stuff or could make life better in some way. Or life or someone else's

     I guess now is as good a time as any to get you why I'm writing this. I have impulses regularly that are not good...no, I'm not saying I'm crazy and hear voices but I am saying that I have mental issues that make it very easy for me to see myself as worthless, bad for everyone around me no matter what I do and generally a curse on anything I touch. I know logically I'm not supposed to think that way, I fight abortion hard and defend second chances for people whenever I can; it's very important to me that when I see the chance to show someone that they can be better, that I do it or when I see a way that life can be protected, it's not taken lightly. I do all that with vigor until it comes to myself. To give you insight into time when I'm alone, when no one else can see me: I have trouble looking into mirrors, most of that is because I have this distorted view of me. When it gets so bad that it takes you actually time, like I actually think about how bad I am to friends and to co-workers for serious amounts of time, that's when it's something that needs real attention.

     There have been big things that happened throughout my life that led me to this thought pattern, some of those were my fault and some out of my control. I'm not trying to make myself a victim for the most part, I've made a lot of dumb mistakes that caused long term problems for me (my dating history is a perfect example) and I am also in fact trying to say that my entire thought process needs to change. I want that to change, really badly.

     I recently nearly made the worst impulse a reality, one that would have taken away my 'todays' forever. I'm not happy about thinking that way but I can't lie or act like it didn't happen. That day is now not important, because it's not today though and I'm trying to keep this thought in my head more and more. Right now, this very second...Yesterday isn't important. Only today is and only today should be when bad things happen or when you make decisions you regret.

     Learning from yesterday and honoring good things about yesterday is good, today is the only day that matters though. Today you can make choices count, today you can change things, today you can survive.

     Remember yesterday, survive today and have hope for tomorrow.

The Introvert/Extrovert In Me

     So I often feel the need to write when I'm in immediate negativity, which is why this diary is heavily leaning on the sad side but I do have good things in my life and Saturday was a decently (yes, I made that word up. No, that wasn't a typo. Yes, you can use it) good day.

     I went to Center City with some friends and we had a really good time just goofing around. I have become a hardcore introvert over the last few years and being out in public usually makes me want to be invisible, let alone making a scene. So getting to go out and sing and dance and make silly jokes and be outgoing and not care is a very rare thing for me. I got to do that in Philly. And more importantly, I had fun doing it.

I've had a few times in the last few years where I've been out with people and pretended to be somewhat outgoing and while I looked like I was doing fine, internally I was either freaking out and trying to find a place to hide or I just plain hated what ever was going on. That's never been because of whoever I was around, but the blunt truth is I'm so not comfortable being the 'life of the party' type. I'm not saying I was the life of the small party but I didn't feel the burning need to become invisible or miserable for not wanting to be wherever I was. That's pretty big for me.

     To put my internal works into protective, ten years ago I could have maybe 10 days out of a month where I had good days. Days when I felt outgoing and was able to step outside of my head. And skipping ahead to this year, I can think of 2 days where I even came close to being able to step outside of my discomfort. Yesterday was one of those days and the year is almost over, we're in August.

     Another good thing about yesterday is that I kinda felt like I have my friend a good day too. Maybe I'm being self centered and I'm wrong about this (although I hope that's not the case) but it feels really good to know I've helped my friends when in a way that they actually need. I feel very useless in society lately so to actually feel like something I did was actually useful, that's really cool.

     I was supposed to be somewhere else, doing something else and that had me really bummed so it's cool that while I was missing out on something I really wanted to do, I turned that into a really good day and a lot of fun. The only downside was the heat but I'll take being sweaty and having fun over being comfortable with the temperature and miserable.

It was a good day. I needed that.

This is where I live

     I try very hard to fight through the negativity in my life, I try to smile my way past those everyday things that happen and I try to remember my goal in life (make other people's life better, event if it's one person at a time in even very small ways) and it honestly seems like every time I take a step in that direction, something happens that COMPLETELY destroys anything I've put together. Completely. Sometimes it's my fault like I make a bad choice and just make things in my life worse and the rest of the time it's like I just get a bad hand in life and I lose.

     I fully acknowledge that I make wing choices and do things that lead to failure. I take responsibility for things that I do that result in my life's non success, not just failure because failure refers to losing our logically bad or wrong things. I have been taught by a lot of people throughout my life that it is cowardly to not take responsibility for my mistakes, sins and won't choices. I also know that sometimes wrong choices aren't "sins" but rather just the not right thing in that moment, like if o choose to either l write something in pen and make a writing error. I made the wing choices in not using a pencil but I didn't do something bad, I just could have made a better decision.

     Then there are luck based situations, for lack of better words, that I just lose with most of the time. Things like: I go to the train station early and the machine that dispenses tickets didn't accept dimes and then the train comes early. I know that everyone faces these situations, but I have this weird curse where logic plays weird games with me more than normal. I have things happen like I'll pull on a paper towel and logic tells me the pretreated line will be where it rips... For normal people; my curse causes it to rip in such an odd way like it'll rip right around where I'm holding it.
   
This is a silly example but imagine every time you ever rip a paper towel, it rips in the worst way possible, how maddening that can get over time. That's where I live. Now imagine this weird logic happening with a lot of areas in life, like every time you hang a picture on your wall something catches the nail to make it uneven, no matter how many times you re adjust it. That's where I live.

These things wouldn't be so bad if there was something big that made hassles worth the trouble but I don't have much of anything to hinge my troubles on; I don't have a girlfriend/wife/prospect of a love interest, no kids, no career that makes it all worth it, no passion that I can't afford and nothing I'm looking forward to really. Knowing there's nothing that I come"home" to makes all these weird things feel ski much more...aimed...yeah aimed sounds like the best word, these things feel aimed at me.

     In fact, the only thing that I even have to look forward to is the thing that is going to alienate me from an amount of close friends...I have no way to end this because at the moment I'm at a loss for words. So I'm asking for prayers and hoping there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I hope things stop getting worse at some point

     Hope you have a great day.

The Good and The Not So Good

     How's your day, you ask? How's life, you question? What's going on, you...inquisite? I know that's not a word but you asked, you shouldn't make up words.

     Ok so I will answer your questions. So here it goes: Good, good.
Well that's what I say when I don't want to say that things aren't great or tell someone my actual goings on. The truth is things are tough. I've been dealing with a lot and most of them are things that aren't going away or things that can't be wished away by saying, "I'm here for you. You got this." In fact, most of the things I'm going through, I need either a massive amount of money or people to be actually around for semi long times.

     I'm not saying that encouraging statements are wrong or that I don't appreciate them when people who can't do more or don't know what to do say them. Please don't take that for me saying I don't appreciate the thought. But the honest truth is that I'm struggling. Usually I'm struggling with internal stuff like figuring out my gender identity issues or dealing with the fact that I have such bad luck that EVERYTHING that could go the opposite of my way does. Ev. Ry. Time.

     These are usually what I am thinking about or dealing with when you ask me what's up so you now know when I say I'm good that really, I'm not exactly good. BUT...

     But there is another side, a side that I sometimes don't acknowledge because my identity gets lost in misery sometimes. I look at myself as the sad or unfortunate one, kinda lie the Toby Flenderson version of Neo. (I know you like my photoshop skillz)

   Hahaha, anyway back to my point: I do have some good things that I think about and that I have in my life:

First thing that I cannot express how great it is would be my friends. My friends are my family, I'm not going to name everyone because I would leave people out by accident but you know who you are. I have lots of people who mean lots to me, these are people who have saved my life and continue to be a support system when I need it. They also on occasion use my services whether it's babysitting or helping out in some other way, they help me feel needed even in little ways.

     And there's another thing that makes me crazy happy that is a part of who I am. It's big and cold and has blue and red lines and it contains some of the coolest people and...it has...rubber...on it... Ok, I'm out, it's an ice rink. It's also hockey. I love it so much, I think I was born with skates, the Dr just hid them when I skated out...hmm...maybe I should curb my imagination. Nah, deal with it.
   
     Hockey has been my saving grace from summer every year since I became a fan, anyone on my FB knows of my countdowns from the first day of summer till the first preseason nhl game of the season...that's right. I can't even wait till just regular season, I go crazy for the first preseason. And as a Flyers fan, that usually means a game I can't go to but still keep up with the score as if it's a pivitol playoff game. Hockey was the thing God used to bring me into church in a way and it has been one of the biggest uses for me to socialize with society. One of my favorite memories was when the Flyers won game 7 vs Boston in 2010: we went to the Wells Fargo Center to watch the game being played in Boston. There were 20,000 fans there and we all enjoyed the win. Afterwards, as we exited the parking lot (which took us over an hour to just get out of the not that big parking lot) fans were high fiving each other, going around to random cars and talking about the game and sharing drinks and stories. The comradery of the sport is much fun.

     And art. Oh art, you make me swoon. Photography, drawing, painting, music, creating videos and short films...there's so much to talk about in this...this writing. This is another one of the best "goods" that keeps me sane and helps me on a regular basis. I don't acknowledge it because that's vain or something but I love knowing that I'm good at something and for it to be photography or drawing, that means a lot to me. It's so therapeutic to put what's in my head on paper or into a YouTube video is immeasurable.

     So although I, at times, don't see it I have some awesome 'good' and some terrible 'not so good' that is always on my mind. Sometimes I need to remind my face about the good stuff. That's kinda hat this letter to myself is all about.

Have a wonderful day