Where do I begin with this? First, I guess I should mention that it is currently 4 am at night and I’ve had a very restless night due to the A.C. not being set to a cool enough degree for my skin to feel settled and safe. I grew up with no A.C., and since that was accompanied by a raging alcoholic and drug abuser (still love ya mom but facts are facts), warm indoors makes me unsettled. Especially since I am currently on a T-break for the past week or so (for all you abnormies who don’t participate in marijuana, a T-break is basically what you do; not consume weed) and so my anxiety and body that can’t lie in any particular direction without going numb woke me up. And I am wide awake. I set the A.C. to cooling, but I am plagued with thoughts so I am writing them down. Felt right to do so.

My therapist and I have been meeting for quite some time, and recently I asked her how I can even begin to feel comfortable in spaces that bring me tremendous anxiety and triggers (for those who don’t know, I have Borderline Personality Disorder and General Anxiety Disorder, which mean every place gives me tremendous anxiety and everything gives me triggers). My therapist’s advice is advice I’ve been given in the past, by other therapists and psychologists and it is a theme that is told repeated in my life; fake it ’til you make it. If you do that, according to all of them, eventually you’re brain will be wired in that way and you won’t be lying to yourself, you’ll just BE. So, of COURSE I listen to that advice. Especially when it was coming from my emotionally unavailable and distant father (love ya dad but if this weren’t true, you wouldn’t have moved further away from all of your family after your divorce) and especially when it was repeated by every single therapist, counselor and psychologist I’ve spoken too in my almost 10 years since moving to Orlando in 2018. However, I am an extremely flawed human. I get TOLD we ALL are, but facts remain that I had an entire group of people cancel a game of Fiasco on me Sunday and I can’t help but tie that into literally every other human experience I’ve ever had in my life and the proof is that I remain the constant. Because of my flawed nature, I have let the idea of “faking until I make it” be instilled into my brain and thus messed up and ruined a lot of relationships (and by a lot I mean all because barely anyone reads these if any and none of them are people I’ve acquainted myself with. If they do, they aren’t telling me about it)

The idea of “faking it until I make it” is what is supposed to help instill confidence in me so I don’t feel so nervous and unsafe in public spaces. However, it also seeps into how I’ve treated others in a multitude of ways. The earliest I can think of in my professional career was when I was working as a murder mystery actor in New Orleans. Because I was lying to myself to feel confident, I would do a lot of improvisation without communication to whomever was leading a particular party and it caused some of them some grief. As I sit here at 4:30 am thinking and reimaging exactly what occurred, unfortunately the memory is vague. However, the feeling that got relayed to me later was that I was stepping on their toes and causing them anxiety. It was seen as sexist and rude, which was never and has never been my intention, but that confidence to trust my partner and have fun at a murder mystery party is what caused that. Funny enough, that event was the first event that ever received a 5 star review and absolutely no one who was a guest had anything negative to say at all. Lying to myself, however, caused a riff between me and that individual and while I have said sorry in every way imaginable, it doesn’t matter. My behavior wasn’t tolerable.

It seems that whenever I lie to myself to project confidence, it causes my behavior to be rather abnormal, rude and overbearing. Another instance of when lying to myself bit me in the ass in working as a PA in a production company working on a short film. I feel extremely bad about this one because the individual who invited me to work on the set was someone I played DnD with on a regular basis with at the time and while we were more coworkers than friends (btw, if you are reading this, I am sorry for all the uncomfortable moments I had with you that made you feel unsafe and distant with me. I tried adamantly to be your friend and grow that bond together, but unfortunately my disorder created a riff that still causes you to not add me on socials and causes you to not want to communicate with me outside of the DnD group that has sine dissolve) I 100% betrayed them and made them look bad in front of the production company head by being just too confident and forward while helping out. I never received any negative feedback from anyone I worked with one that set directly, but the facts remain that I made a lot of people on that set extremely uncomfortable. I was not only lying to myself saying that I am worthy of being in that space, but I also was lying to myself and saying that I forge meaningful relationships that are intimate and passionate and full of life. However, this came off as creepy as I was hugging a lot of people on set. Not only that, but someone said to me, to mince words a bit “you want to see if that soul patch gets bleached when eating pussy” by someone I was attracted to and I didn’t pursue that because I was working and actually nervous (remember, I am lying to myself to project confidence, but I was still on the inside extremely nervous) and being around them caused me to feel aroused and we had a moment where I was helping them to their car and they bumped into me and felt my arousal. To be frank, my dick was hard and I was helping them put something in their truck and they bumped their ass into me.

I could probably talk about a lot more than these two moments. However, I want to take a minute to address that part of me that wants to make excuses for what happened in these moments. I want to say to myself “oh, that person was a nervous wreck who couldn’t perform outside of their lines to save their life” and “that person was clearly, CLEARLY hitting on me”. However, that doesn’t matter. The murder mystery company I was working for fired me as I moved to Orlando and used these complaints to do so, and the production studio head told me, to my face before an improv class, that they will no longer want to work with me because of these complaints as I gave them their credit card back I accidentally kept in my wallet after the shoot date.

But, as I go back and replay these events over and over again, I can’t help but ask would the alternative really been better? Would it have been better for my relationship with the murder mystery company to NOT improvise and just stick to the script at that party? Would’ve it been better for me to just not hug anyone and also follow through with the person who hit on me? It’s makes me laugh but also I hear so many stories, articles and personal grievances from what feels like everyone, everywhere regarding men’s behaviour. However, these two stories themselves were contrasting in that one one (very brief and not very descripted) story, I was letting loose and having fun and in the other (much more vivid and detailed) story, I was trying to bridge a gap between what it means to let loose and have fun and what it means to be a professional who cares about their coworkers without being sexist or rude. Men I know when I tell these stories just say that I should’ve just fucked both women. I believe that I was in a lose-lose situation and even if I would’ve taken those opportunities, I would’ve fumbled in another way or it would’ve been bad sex because of just how anxious I am or I would still be seen as a sexist pig of a man who’ll take advantage of everyone I ever meet. Thinking about what could have makes me want to kms. Thinking about what did happen makes me want to kms. Realizing that I am a stupid fuck who wakes up in the middle of the night because of these moments and current ones just like them makes me want to kms. I got a therapist appointment Tuesday so maybe I’ll understand it then. If not, I still appreciate you reading this and I hope you have a wonderful day- DL