Depression

I have never suffered from serious depression. I should be depressed materially speaking. I am alone. I am crazy. I have little money. I have no girlfriend and doubt I will ever marry (I certainly have no prospects) or have a family. But I am happy. I am fortunate that my psychosis is not supplemented with depression so that while I might end up in the psych ward again I will likely not kill myself.

But thinking more about my life, this is not entirely true. I had a short period of time where I used to be extremely depressed in the past. For a short year or so before I went crazy I felt very lonely without a girlfriend or meaningful relationships and fought depression with booze and sex. It did not help. They were just distractions. And then I had my year of hell. But now I am happy.

What changed to make me happy? Two things happened. (Well three, I went through hell). One, I went crazy. And two, I became religious. Perhaps there is something about being crazy that makes one happier, but that does not seem right. But I think my being religious helps me be happier. I have come to the conclusion that making a good confession is more helpful psychologically than any other factor in my life, or else, something about the ritual has such a very strong placebo effect that it is extraordinary. I am not consumed and oppressed with foreboding and guilt and regret. And feeling that I am not alone, even though I am so very alone, but have a God and the saints to give me comfort and friendship is very helpful. Also avoiding strong addictive physical stimulations such as sex and alcohol also seem to help me be happier. I have a measure of peace now, more than I have ever had and I am generally happy. I do not have as much pleasure as I used to have, but in the dead of night when all is quiet I do not feel miserable or wretched, I can sleep without booze and am content and happy. And while I have daily cares and worries, all I have to do is look at a tree or up at the sky or at a bird and I will have joy. Even the homeless can look up at the sky and at the clouds or at the moon or at the stars (even in the city we can see a few of the stars).

I am materially okay, not in need. This is an important factor, so I am not on the street or in danger of being on the street (for now, but not forever). But this was also the case when I was miserable.

The picture is Danica crying because I was thinking about depression because of her. I learned that she is having a sad time in her life. Nobody reads this blog and she probably will not see this so I hope she won't mind me using her so very beautiful picture here.

At one time in my life there was a boy who had a crush on me, but I was only interested in women, but I unwisely was friendly with him, and he once overdosed in my company on purpose, perhaps over me, or just out of depression, I am not certain, so he was on the floor of my room as I waited for him to wake up. I do not know if he truly meant to try to kill himself, but he survived. It was such a strange time in my life, chaotic, my time of misery before my year of hell. Our relationship did not end well, but it did not end in suicide for either of us. I am such a wretched person.

So my cure in general for my own depression was to make peace with God and go to confession (as despair and guilt was a large part of my sadness). However this only works if one believes in God and no longer wants to do those things considered to be sins and is willing to change one's life and one can not force this. And this does not work if one is already at peace with God and is still depressed or if sin is not in part the cause one one's depression. I also think reducing the amount of sensory pleasure also makes me happier and less depressed, though this does not make sense at first. The hangover is always worse than the high is good in a way. I do not know if secular therapy is helpful for those with depression. I go to secular therapy and it does not help me, but my problem is psychosis and not depression. Medicine is helpful for me and I like going to therapy because I don't have many friends and it is fun to talk to people but it is no cure. But I imagine it is helpful for depression for those who do not have other meaningful relationships where one can be honest and cut to the heart without being afraid to show one's weakness and one's ugliness. I would think that talking about one's wounds must help if one's depressed, but there is no absolution so the guilt remains. And there are wounds where there is no guilt at all which still bite and cut so what happens to such wounds as these? I know my wounds were mostly of my own making. I was guilty and was not innocent. I was not solely a victim like a girl abused.

I do not know if anti-depressants work or if they are only distractions like alcohol (though I doubt they are as destructive as alcohol). I only know that some psychiatric medicines work to some degree because my psychosis is helped by the medicine I take (usually!).

My life is not as tragic as most people's, so I do not have as many wounds or as many reasons to be depressed. My greatest wounds were my guilt and then the terrors of the demons from my year in hell (which to me was as harsh abuse as most suffering from the hands of men).

I am not a teacher> I am only a fool. I have no followers. I hope to have a quiet peaceful life followed by a happy eternity in heaven. But many believe that such an eternity does not exist. For the past four months I have been well. And if there is no after life I hope to have the same quiet peaceful life.

But I have been crying a bit lately. But my tears have been happy tears for the most part, or meaningful tears. Crying over my sins or the sufferings of Our Lord or with happiness at the grace of God or His redemption. Perhaps these are fantasies. But I would not give back these tears.

I am so very alone. I have my parents but they are not a wife or children. And soon they will die. I hope to have peace and I wish you all have peace as well.

For a while before my last relapse I was feeling very lonely and I was not always happy. I also was drinking a bit which was likely on part the cause. I would think how my life had no meaning without a wife and a family of my own, and while I was writing my stories about a relationship I did not have in reality, this added to my sense of sadness. At times I would want nothing more than a wife and children. And most men are made for family. Yet I will likely never have this and certainly do not have it now. It is one thing to be sad because one loses a lover, but it is another to know that one will likely never have a lover again. But now even though I am so alone, I am happy now (but not always).

Anyway I am no teacher> I was just thinking about these things and hoping for the best . . .

Miraculous Medal

So today is the feast of the Miraculous Medal in some Churches. I remember when I was new to the faith I bought a Miraculous Medal and wore it to Church one day. I thought to myself in my bouts of despair that God would not allow one who wore His Blessed Mother's Medal to go to Hell. And then the first Sunday I went to Church while wearing the medal I had my vision and was frightened and I never wore a Miraculous Medal regularly again.

The vision was an interesting event in my life. Though I am no saint, I can claim a vision from God, or perhaps a hallucination. I have talked about it before. Quickly, while at the Latin Mass, at the moment of the elevation of the host, as the server was ringing the bells, I saw the host glow like a light bulb very brightly and felt interiorly like dirt, nothingness, evil, vile, as if I was possessed by a thousand devils and the devils were manifesting themselves before the presence of God. It was a very important moment in my life. But I still do not wear a Miraculous Medal though I am no longer terrified of them.

I carry a Miraculous Medal in my wallet now. It is embedded in a prayer card to Gemma, a little one, I got from a Passionist Monastery. O Mary Conceived Without Sin, Pray For Us Who Have Recourse To Thee.

I wonder if I am a good person. I don't do a lot of things. I think of God a lot and I like going to Church, but I am not doing many things. I am not a missionary or a crusader. I do think of God. The heroes were the men who fled to the desert and ate rocks and thought of God, coming to Church once in a while or receiving visiting priests to give them the sacraments. They did not Do much either. But their prayers were of great value. I do not have a lot of interaction with other people, and as a crazy person, I am not a man of eminence. I am a little person.

I follow people on the internet and some of them seem good. But who can one trust? Anyone? Would not all truth-speakers be banned from the internet? Are there not algorithms used by Google and Facebook to suppress all truth and only allow errors of various degrees? And if truth is stated it must be expunged (unless it is used as bait to lure the youth into other greater errors)? As we live in a world full of the snares of the devil only the innocent and humble can be saved. Only the humble will find truth. Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.

Do you want to be innocent?

Sometimes I feel as if I am the only sane man left in the world. Or one of a few. I have temperence for some of the people I know from Church, but everyone else is crazy. Knowing of my own limitations I wonder if everyone is crazy or if they are just evil or afraid. We live in a world of snares. If Abba Anthony saw all the snares and wondered who can be saved with all those snares, how would it look today if we could see as Anthony saw? If the answer is still humility, the power of humility must be greater now that the snares are multiplied. Do we need more grace today than in previous times? Life is not more difficult, but human respect is far stronger, and people do not want to believe. Everyone says to you, do not believe and I will give you fruit and we take the fruit and are glad, but at night we die and find out that the fruit we took was poison.

Do you want to be innocent?

Ronan and Tom?

I hope to see both Ronan and Tom in Church today. They both told me they would be there. They were old friends but a little less than a year ago they got in a fight and stopped being friends. I hope they make friends again. Today would be a good day. It would be nice to go out to dinner with both of them after Church tonight. I hope so.

. . .

They were there but they did not reconcile. The friendship was not saved. And father was sick so we did not have Mass. We prayed the Rosary. Oh well.Peace be upon them.

Just A Thought

When I had a girlfriend named Stephanie I had a thought come into my mind out of nowhere. The thought was "Sex is for children, not for pleasure. It is wrong to have sex for pleasure and not for children." It was the first thought that I had that was remotely Christian while I was living in sin, so I remembered it as an important moment in my life, though I did not follow the thought to its end immediately and in fact not for another year.

My Neighbor

There is a woman who owns the house next door to mine. She is Hispanic, about my age, she has a daughter. She likes talking to me for some reason. She once told me, a few weeks ago, that I was her best friend. I was surprised. I think perhaps she was lying. My parents don't trust her. My father said something very strange to me, that she might want to marry me, though I am not quite sure why she would want to marry me, he suggested some sort of attempt to get more government assistance. I do get a small disability stipend every month, but that wouldn't be much of an incentive to marry me in my mind. People think strange things, including my father. I never saw her with the father of her daughter and I never asked about him.

She asks me if I have a girlfriend, have I had girlfriends in the past, if I am looking for one. To which I responded truthfully. Though I did tell her I was looking for a girlfriend, which is bending the truth, as I have no hope of ever finding one, but if one came along according to my desires who I could trust I would accept one, almost anyone, something that is probably impossible. I told her it was hard to find a girlfriend, and she said "really?" And I said it was hard to find a good one. I haven't actively looked for a girlfriend since I both went crazy and became religious. I fear it is beyond my abilities to have a normal relationship with a woman. Man. Wife. Children. So I just figure it will never happen. I don't know what women think of me now. I think for two years while I was working at Barnes and Noble from 2005 to 2007, young women found me to be attractive. I say that because there were a good number of girls (and one homosexual man) who were interested in me or apparently had crushes on me. But I have no idea what they might think now that I am older. I do not think I look much older or ugly, but my hair is thinning and I am a little overweight.

Now I stay away from women for the most part. Other than my neighbor. There are the two wonderful girls at Church, the beautiful Cecilia and the lovely Helena, but I do not talk to either of them often because I imagine they would be looking for a better man than me. I think I am a good man, but not in a conventional way, and not able to raise and support a big family. I am a broken man with narrow shoulders. I just hope to have a peaceful life in quiet solitude. Hopefully have a place to live and a place to go to Church to my liking.

This blog has some readers though I do not promote it. I don't know how many people return regularly. Blogger does not give a lot of information about my readers so I do not know much about them other than I get a few visits per day.

So I have thought a little about what my life would be like if I married the woman who owns the house next door. She is not beautiful but she is in good physical shape for her age. She wears heavy make-up around her eyes, the last time I saw her it was blue. There is nothing remarkable about her appearance. Her hair is dark brown but she dyed it blonde so that a lot of it remains brown and a lot of it is blonde. It looks totally unnatural. So much so that I wonder how she would think such a look would be attractive. But she is a woman and all women are beautiful. I do not even know her name. It may be Rita. She wears tight pants though she covers herself. The pants would have to go. She told me that she has God in her heart so she is happy and I told her that I am also happy. Something which is true. I think she is Catholic because she sends her daughter to the Catholic School near my house and she went to the Blessing of the Animals on the Feast of Saint Francis. She may go to the local Spanish Mass at Church. I saw her that day and she asked me why I wasn't there and I told her it was because I did not have any animals to bless. I guess I could have brought my fish in a pitcher. She knows I like to pray and go to Church.

A thought about the idea that women enjoy sex more than men do. And how they can have a great deal of pleasure, and as often as they would like to and yet remain unhappy. When the lights go out and they are alone at night they cry and want to commit suicide. If pleasure would mean happiness . . . But it does not. I would rather think the opposite that the happiest man would be the one who has the least pleasure, as long as his sufferings were not too great or if he was able to bear them. It has been four months and I am very happy and have been since I returned home. I am at peace with God. Or so I hope. Perhaps I hate him but do not know I hate him, but I feel I am at peace and that I love him. I do not have any doubts and I have not had any doubts for eleven years. I do not know the vast universe of belief but I believe it is in essence true.

Julian is my friend. It is strange because that is my pen-name. But my best friend is named Julian. He lives in a nursing home and hopes to soon move into his sister's apartment. He is blind and sick with diabetes and bad kidneys. I visit him and talk to him. I met him at Church. He is the most extreme believer one could ever hope to meet. He is a sedevacantist and a Feeneyite. He is a follower of a monastery in upstate New York that condemns almost every other priest and Bishop that they know about to the point that they do not have a single Bishop in the world who they agree with and follow. They think there has not been a Pope for sixty-one years. There are some Catholics who reject the changes that occurred in the Church since the Second Vatican council, and I am among them. But I am a moderate. Some have come to the belief that it is impossible for the Pope to do what was done. Yet it happened. So they come to the conclusion that in doing what was done, the Pope automatically ceased being Popes so none of the changes counted as it were because it was not really the Church, and the Church now has no head (and no Bishops except for a few vagantes). "Ipso-facto" so they say. I find the position to be absurd, but I love a number of people who believe it is the case. But it causes strife. Julian loves talking about the Church and I love talking about the Church also, but I am cautious to avoid disagreement. He does not believe modern priests are really priests and he does not believe they can forgive sins or that Jesus is truly present in the modern Churches. So I do not try to tell him that I believe Jesus really is there, even though I think the priests are wrong and do not go to their Masses. In a way what I believe is worse. He thinks God is not present in the modern Church, but I believe he is still there but when he comes down to the altars he is tortured and abused by the people there. So I go to adore him and hope to love him and kneel before him to show my love. So while I do not go to the modern Masses often, I like to go before the tabernacles and pray, and I go to Benediction and to pray before the Blessed Sacrament exposed, which is really a treat. I believe Jesus is there and that I can see him and talk to him and adore him in the quiet without showing my approval of the modern Mass and the beliefs of the modern Churchmen. Julian is not as extreme as they come because there are some priests whose Mass he goes to and who he confesses his sins to. There are some men who are so extreme that there are no priests to whom they will go and they will not go to any Church at all and they will never confess their sins to a priest and will ask God himself for forgiveness and hope to be forgiven without the sacraments, which is a very grave thing to do if one believes one must confess one's sins to a priest to be forgiven as we do. They are called home-aloners. I have met them on the internet but never met one in person. How would I meet one? If they never go to Church? The only way to meet one would be on the internet where they argue with the other traditional Catholics (though they are almost always banned from most websites when their true beliefs are discovered) or to meet them at a conference about traditional Catholicism. The most famous of these believers is named Gerry Matatics and he gives conferences and talks where he tries to convince people to stop going to Mass because there are no more priests left that we know of whose Masses are pleasing to God, and it is better to have no priest than to have a vagante priest who is not sent by the Church or a heretic priest of the whore of Babylon, the Vatican II sect.

I am a very religious person and I have spent a lot of time reading about it and talking about it. Most people would think I am strange. While I was in the hospital they asked me, I have no idea why, "Is Jerusalem the capital of Israel?" And my response was "Well Trump says it is." And they thought that was a clever answer and they let me be. I don't know why they would ask me that. I guess they knew I opposed Zionism and Judaism as a traditional Catholic, but I thought it was a strange thing to ask in a psych ward. Who the hell cares when one can not think straight and was possibly hallucinating and heavily medicated.

I love watching birds. In the hospital from my window I could not see a lot of birds but sometimes they would fly by and I would be happy. Today as I was walking to Saint Benny's there were some crows, but when my mother was driving me to get my haircut through Forest Hills Gardens I saw more crows than I have ever seen before in my life. Some were on the ground and some were flying across the street in front of our car. So many crows. Birds of ill omen. When I see crows (and black squirrels) I see them as a sign that there are a lot of devils around and that the world around me is full of wickedness. I see them as a sign. But I do not think my own soul is wicked so I do not fear. There are usually a lot of crows on the south side of Jamaica Avenue. I see them when I walk to Saint Benny's. They cackle at me. So I don't tell Julian how I go to Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction at Holy Child and Saint Benny's. He would not agree. But I love to. That is the best thing I have started doing since I got out of the hospital (something I did not do before). Perhaps I should look and find out when they have Eucharistic Adoration at all the Churches close to me so I can go as often as possible instead of only on Thursdays and Fridays. Wouldn't it be nice to look into the face of God, and to have him look into my own face, for an hour or two every day?

I pray the Rosary and now the Way of the Cross and sometimes parts of the Little Office and sometimes just looking and saying short prayers or being quiet. I prefer the quiet to any prayers, except for the Latin Mass on Sundays. But I do love the quiet so. It would be wonderful if the little mission where I go to Mass on Sundays had traditional Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction every day! I would go even every day. But we are just a Sunday Mission. I like to think about religion and about God. I do not know if anyone would find that interesting but I do. I really do. I am happy with my life now. I am content. I have peace. They say suffering makes saints. So perhaps I should pray for suffering. But I fear I will not be strong enough to bear it. Bear it away. In the peace of God. Let us pray.

My mother found me a lovely prayer. It is called The Holy Hour and it is a little booklet with a picture of Gemma on it and is a meditation on the Garden of Gethsemane as Gemma used to pray it. It was while praying it that she received the wounds in her flesh. I have been praying it on Thursday evenings. For an hour. It is a lovely prayer. I have quiet. I cannot meditate well so when the time comes I just look at the pictures of Gemma. As if one can see in her face the Crucified Christ, or at least she is so very beautiful. I have the idea that in looking at beautiful things one becomes beautiful and that in looking at ugly things one becomes ugly. So looking at holy people one becomes holy and looking at sinful people one becomes sinful. So I always look at my pictures of Gemma so that I can become like her, or worthy of her.