Where have I been lately?  Why have I disappeared off the face of the Earth?

To be frank, as of last week Sunday(not three days ago), I had a complete and utter mental and emotional breakdown.

I’d been seeing someone for a couple months at that point, and I went up there to visit, see a Mythbusters show, generally have a good time.  Yes, long distance relationship, I know how this usually goes.   So, I go up there, and it feels like everything is just fine.  A week later with no real particular warning, I was abruptly dumped with reasoning that didn’t feel..  well, right.   After having been single for as long as I was, to be unexpectedly released from what I thought was a happy relationship after our first time meeting made something fragile in my head shatter like a tipped-over Ming vase.

In my head, I was left in the mindset of feeling unattractive, undesirable, generally unwanted to the point of believing that humanity in general wanted very little to do with me.  On at least one occasion within the first 48 hours of this occurring, I came very close to wanting to kill myself.  It took a few days to bring myself from this mindset, but what did remain was a rather crippling social anxiety.  The idea of dealing with people made me feel sick.  The idea of going to work and being around that many people resulted in me spending an entire night in a state of dry heaves.  To this date, I still haven’t been back in to work because of this.  I’ve been discussing things over the phone with a private psychologist, and I like to think that I’m slowly working my way back to a point where I can be comfortable around multiple people.  At the moment, I’m on my way to Tacoma to visit a couple friends.  The psychologist in question thinks that it’s best for me to try to acclimate myself to being around a couple people first and go back to acting normal in that regard before I try to get myself back to work again.  Hopefully, I’ll be back at that point by Monday, which is my current goal.

That, in a very drama-laden nutshell, is why I’ve been incommunicado lately.  I’m not looking for pity or responses by posting this, but I feel that this is the best medium for me to try and explain exactly where I’ve been and why no one has heard from me in almost two weeks.  The security blanket for me right now that is the internet makes it easier for me to do so, at least.

I’m an antagonistic cunt.

I have probably ruined a lot of friendships in my life due to my abrasive, acidic attitude.  There are a lot of people that I could probably know a lot better if I could just be a nicer person.  I wouldn’t feel so fucking alone all the time if I were able to conduct myself in a fashion that did not involve being surly and violent, argumentative and disruptive, or drunk and belligerent.  I have spent far too much time developing a persona in which I was a loud, angry asshole because some people thought it was funny, and because (in truth) I am far too insecure to allow people to get to know me very well.  Underneath the haze of alcohol and the constant swearing, I am a very emotionally fragile person.

For my behavior, all I can say is that I’m sorry.

There are likely far too many people that I have caused some level of trouble for me to apologize to everyone personally.  All I can do is post this and hope that it’s read.  I’ll do what I can to adjust, but it won’t be quick nor will it be easy.  But I will be trying to do what I can to be a more reasonable person from now on.

While my thought process wasn’t quite along those lines, it still got me thinking.  With as much time as I spend around Xbox Live as of late, I hear more and more people that exhibit…  well, patently disgusting behavior.  Racism towards blacks, jews, severe homophobia..  things we’ve all come to expect from online gaming around a public group.

Working from John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Dickwad Theory, we also know that (normal person) + (internet) + (anonymity) = total dickwad.  What I wonder, though, is whether certain behaviors tend to branch out of one particular social group.  Are the lower-class white kids more prone to racism, while the richer amongst us are more general dickbags?   Who’s really more prone to throw the n-bomb like it’s a comma, black people or white people?    Or is this all just a load of  pointless thought process, and every group on the internet is equally responsible for everything?

It’s all kinda hearsay based on personal experience right now, but finding out certainly would be interesting.

I’m rather happy to say that I’ve finished fall quarter, though, and ended up with a 3.73 GPA.  Not good enough for the President’s List, but I’m fairly sure that at least qualifies me for faculty honors.   It’s nice to see what happens when I finally decide to apply myself.  Even under all the stress of moving and working at the same time, I’m more than pleased with a 3.73, even if I did spend the first hour after seeing that going over what I could have done to better it in my head.  C’est la vie, I suppose.

Work is still going well.  My work quality improved notably with my stress level decrease, according to ze people that keep track of such things, and I’m raging a lot less than I used to.  I’m finding the urge to be more social, and god forbid, I might have the time and willpower to start on other projects after the holidays are over and done with.   For now, though, maybe I’ll focus on this a bit more.  I wish I had something a bit more interesting to say other than a general life update, since a lot of people don’t particularly care about the doldrums of my life.  Once I start getting more involved with my chosen major, though, maybe things will be a bit more interesting.  But, until then. 

I suppose I should start with a bit of a personal introduction, just in case.  Hi!
…..  alright, seriously.  I’m Dave, 29 and an undergraduate at Cascadia CC, aspiring to transfer to the University of Washington.  I’m pursuing a bachelor’s in cultural anthropology.  Right now, I’m working in the gaming industry, in what’s probably the best job I’ve had in my decade or so of work experience.  Ideally, I’d like to remain in the industry after I finish school, which leads to what I want to do.   I’d like to engage the gaming community somehow once I’m done.  The gaming culture itself is still actively growing and forming, and I want to be part of that as more than just an observer.

The name is a bit of a stretch, but it seems to me that more than a fair share of gamers do nothing but get angry at video games, to the point that they play every game just to rage.  But, at the same time, they keep playing.  Playing all the time, they end up being a bit of a slave to their rage.  Thus, Rageslave.

I’ll do what I can to keep this updated, both with just general information relating to shit that’s going on with me, and if I can help it, some sort of general information relevant to the subject at hand.  But, until that point, pleasure to meet whoever may wander across this.