I'm not well connected, well known, or influential in the world. And I doubt I ever will be. I won't be as popular as many of the voices that speak out for and against so many things. But I do have a voice.
(Gay) Mormon Guy
I'm autistic, ex-bipolar, and attracted to other guys (gay/SSA/whatever). More importantly, I'm a son of God and faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). My life is usually amazing. This is my story of hope, happiness, and faith.
Sunday, April 14
Even though it be a cross that raiseth me
Tuesday, December 19
Wherever Life Takes You
Sunday, December 17
Remembered resolutions. And peace.
Sometimes I forget why I began writing here at (G)MG.
I get caught up in feeling like I have nothing important to share. I find myself lost in the everyday of life. I feel unworthy, immature, unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
Either that, or overly melodramatic. Far too emotional, far too tossed by simple, meaningless things that shouldn't be an issue but somehow are. I have a great family, lots of success, and yet I am absolutely emotionally wrecked by things that seem so... mundane.
I look out at the world and see so many people who are better than I am. More connected, more accomplished, who have worked to create towering structures that seem built to last forever.
And what do I have? A handful of fleeting memories, a resume I can't remember. A handful of sand so fine it pours through my fingertips.
And so I don't write. Because I don't want to waste your time. Because I don't want to waste my time. Because I assume that if you spent it elsewhere, you'd be better off.
And maybe you would be.
But that takes me back to why I started writing here at (G)MG.
It wasn't to write to you. It was to write to me. To write to the person I was in the past. The kid who prayed to die each morning and night because suicide was a sin. The teenager who woke up socially more than a decade late and found himself, albeit surrounded by people, completely and totally alone. The teenager who made a New Year resolution every year to make a single friend that could fill the void inside. The freshman who lost himself in being busy and reaching out to people. The missionary who lost himself in God, but in quiet times still felt isolated and alone. The brooding college student who finally realized his mundane, everyday, seemingly simple dreams of friends and family might not come true. The young man who tried to give himself over to God but found the pain just got worse and worse and worse, as more and more issues cropped up along the pathway to making his dreams come true.
I started writing here at (G)MG because I saw someone else who was going through the same thing I was. Do I judge myself? Yeah. A lot, in fact. But I'd rather hear from myself, see the story, feel the pain, than just have silence. Because at least I'm still there. And writing here is one of the few ways I can keep track of the thoughts I have in life.
I was singing in the choir for the church I attend with my family today. I remembered why I started writing. And I felt prompted to write again.
Maybe that means that some of you won't find as much meaning here. That you'll go elsewhere.
That's ok. I'm writing to the kid I was before, to the person I am now. If it makes a difference, that's awesome. Hopefully it does.
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On a wholly different note, I finally got a diagnosis of one of the issues that makes me feel most isolated. It's not from autism. It's a memory condition called Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory, and I'm working on a Ted Talk / blog post that encapsulates the concept and its impact on life. Long story short, everyone remembers things for different lengths of time due to natural encoding processes in the brain. There isn't a major issue in that, until the length of time is significantly longer or shorter than the norm. People who remember for significantly longer tend to live emotionally in the past, and spend their lives in fear of bad experiences that leave traumatic scars... because those scars last forever. On the upside, they also can treasure positive memories for close to forever. People who remember much shorter can see the remnants of their memories and connections, feel the loss, and are aware of it. It feels incredibly isolating, as if a portion of their selves is constantly being ripped away. They also struggle to build anything that takes a significant amount of time, as their motivations and goals can change from day to day. On the upside, they are mostly immune to the PTSD and long-term trauma that haunts everyone else. Well, except for the trauma caused by feeling constant isolation.
The condition seems to give insight to almost everything in my life that still seems weird. My patchwork resume or course transcripts that jump fields with no rhyme or reason. My inability to remember and struggle to reach out to people in my past. The absolute, crushing, yet utterly confusing isolation that heightens when I'm surrounded by people who love me. The extreme jealously I have for so many people who seem to connect with others more easily than I do. My desire for connection, and the freedom I have to connect deeply and personally. My ability to be wholly present. The ease with which I walk away from traumatic experiences, and the struggle to hold on to any kind of memory. The struggle to create any kind of habit that doesn't involve changing my environment.
As I do more research and thought, I'm hoping to come up with a framework that I can share with others, and use myself, to better my life and improve my outcomes. Working on it. Slowly.
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It's sort of awful that I write most when I'm somber and brooding. Where's the bright, upbeat, everything is awesome part of David's life?
This is mundane. Personal. An issue that is completely inside my head.
I guess part of the reason is that life isn't meant to be awesome. At least not the awesome of everything-is-going-fine-and-it-always-will. The greatest meaning in life is growth, and, for me, growth comes from new and difficult experiences. There is holiness in all things... even overwhelming physical, emotional, social, or any other kind of pain. There's meaning in watching my dreams break, in giving myself over to God, in feeling totally and completely alone. Because each of those can have the power to finally change something deep inside me, bring me closer to God, and make me into a better man than otherwise possible.
I'm made of stubborn stuff. Strong-willed, with a sense that I'm in charge of my own destiny. So it makes sense that the tools God uses to shape my will would need to be just as hard, or even harder.
I do still pine for the things I want most. For the most painful aspects of my life, I find myself grieving, running, or blissfully unaware of the pain. It's ironic that the same condition that rips away my connections can also help me forget they were ever there. Holidays are hard. Comparison is the thief of happiness, and holiday parties, family gatherings, and everything else brings my sandcastle life to the surface. Even worse is that no one seems to understand how much it hurts. Not that I would really want them to, since I don't have a solution yet. I think that one of my therapists, and maybe a couple people in a group therapy thing I did, were able to feel some of it, years ago. The therapist completely broke down and just cried. I had to change therapists. The people in the group became suicidal and hospitalized themselves. The group broke. If being able to empathize with me caused that, I don't really think I want people to understand it / feel it if there isn't also a way for them to make it less somehow. Pain without some type of outlet or way to manage it? That's just... awful. Or life. Maybe that's one of the roles of this - a constant source of emotional / social pain without a solution. Lol.
It's real though. If I combined all the worst frustration and longing that I feel from being gay and not being able to pursue the people I love / my inability to create the family that I wanted most, the frustration of being single in a world that says love is the only way to find happiness and meaning, the cultural feeling of "otherness" that comes from being autistic, and the intense suicidality and depression from being bipolar... all of it together still wouldn't equal the pain of losing my memories and connections and the isolation that causes.
And if I am experiencing pain like this, pain so bad that I literally found myself wanting to die at my neighborhood Christmas breakfast, then it's possible that there are other people who want to die, especially right now during Christmas, because of the same isolation. People who, like me, don't see any way out.
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To you - my younger self or any who feels the same, I want to share something that I have chosen to believe.
Yes, life can be difficult. Painful, isolating, tougher than I could imagine. There may be moments when I just want to give up. Where there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and no hope for tomorrow. There may be no solution to my problems, no one who seems to understand, no way to get away from the pain.
But there is One who does get it. God gets it. And I've chosen to believe that it's in the hardest, most painful and difficult moments of life that He is also most present. When I lose a loved one, or see them wracked with pain, when I feel isolated and misunderstood and life itself has no meaning, when everything I've built crumbles around me and I see no way forward. That is when God is there. When He reaches out His hand and asks me. Not just to follow Him. Not just to keep His commandments. But to trust Him. To believe in Him. To take the sorrow and pain and isolation and loss and everything that is wrong with life and put it on the altar of sacrifice along with the gifts and talents that were already there, believing that He does make it better. That life does have meaning even if I can't see it. That my work makes a difference, and following Him will bring the best outcome out of any other possibility.
I choose to believe in God. To trust Him. To follow Him. And I choose to believe that every aspect of my life is a gift from Him - a stepping stone to greatness, meaning, purpose, and peace that He will help me climb. His shelter is strongest in the storms, and His light shines brightest in the darkness.
During this Christmas season, to all those who mirror me. To those who feel isolated and lost and alone, even or especially surrounded by things that seem to fix it for everyone else: may God be with you. May you come closer to Him, and find some semblance of peace in His love.
Sunday, April 30
Emotional Memory: Demons and Angels of the Past
Today I had an experience that has made me think. I was singing with a friend in their ward - the song was "Scars in Heaven." I made eye contact with someone crying while singing, and where I had previously been able to sing without getting choked up, I was suddenly hit with an enormous wave of emotion. It felt like I was about to be crushed by emotional trauma. Visions of memories from my past - things I hadn't seen or remembered since they happened - all came rushing in. Finding people abused, discovering deep emotional pain in conversations, uncovering literal scars in others. Learning about suicides. Watching people die or cower in fear. A portion of the emotions and pain that I had felt in my entire life, pouring out of a door that opened just for a moment and let in a blast of cold before being closed again, proof that there was far more.
Saturday, February 11
Save 100 lives. Watch 100 die.
Yesterday I threw away 1800 pounds of food. Two nights ago someone I knew died. And in both cases, if I had been better... maybe it wouldn't have happened.
Sunday, February 5
Life Update (I started a nonprofit)
I started a nonprofit.
- Someone finds super cheap food, food destined for the trash, or food is donated by individuals or organizations.
- A volunteer Food Hero processes the food into something with at least a 2-week shelf life (usually longer) in their home kitchen. We have dehydrators, zipper bags, and other food processing equipment available to borrow for anyone who needs it, and teach classes on food preservation.
- Volunteers can keep up to 20% of any donated food they process.
- Food gets labeled according to Utah law, then dropped off at a Rescue.Food kiosk.
- Anyone in the community can get super-low-cost or free food from the kiosk. Money spent goes to buy equipment, supplies, and more low-cost food to rescue.
Tuesday, August 16
Step 1: Honesty
I've been attending an Addiction Recovery Program meeting each week, and the experience has been far more positive than I expected it to be. In hopes that I can encourage any of you who have ever had addictions... I'm going to try to process the steps as we go through them.
Step 1
Honesty
Key Principle: Admit that you, of yourself, are powerless to overcome your addictions and that your life has become unmanageable.
Part of the reading in this step asks to highlight the feelings, conditions - essentially triggers for addictive behaviors. It wasn't all that hard to identify, as I felt angst and edgy.
And, at its core, my trigger is loneliness. Isolation. Aloneness.
And my life is chock full of triggers.
Spending time with my family makes me feel isolated and alone. Spending time around other people does too. Spending time with my ward. Spending time at an addiction recovery program meeting. Seeing people at the gym. Driving in my car. Shopping at the grocery store.
Relationships and connections are omnipresent. Pretty much everywhere I go, I see other people, with people around them. And while I know that their connections may not be perfect, deep inside I still feel like they have more than I do. And that is isolating. It's isolating to have a positive conversation with someone and realize I'm going to forget all about them within a few days. It's isolating to see people surrounded by people they can rely on and to know there are people in my sphere... but I don't feel them. Even seeing cars with multiple people in them makes me feel alone.
Trying to befriend people is even worse. One of my core beliefs is abandonment. I honestly believe, deep inside myself, that every single person I try to befriend will abandon me. Abandon being ghost / disappear / completely stop communicating with me with no response or reason or prior notice. That means that every single moment I think about a potential friendship, I am literally fighting with myself. My mind tries to convince me that I'm not worthwhile as a friend. I'm too weird, too awkward, too messy, too needy, too much in all the wrong places and not good enough in all the right ones. Maybe I'm useful for a minute or two. Maybe I can meet a need or solve a problem or be there for a crisis. But as soon as possible, I believe everyone I try to make into a close friend will jet. And it means that even thinking about new friends, I feel alone.
I get that is messed up and pretty broken. I am probably the one doing more abandoning than anyone else, considering autism and forgetting everything about people and fearfully avoiding social situations. I might be an awesome close friend to the people who get me and understand me, but enroute to getting there I end up almost always waiting for someone else to take the initiative, because of absolute terror... or drive a steamroller through social norms and leave only pain.
Altogether, anytime I stop to think about my life I feel alone. Thankfully I do have God in my life. And if I turn to Him, I can feel connected and ok. I started a note on my phone. I'm calling it "texting God" - not really texting since He doesn't have a number, but a note file where I can write the things I would write if He were my ARP sponsor. My mentor. One of my best friends. A sort of written version of the "keep a prayer in your heart" mentality that can keep me going throughout the day.
What did I write today? Today was good. And rough. I felt alone at work but it was busy and gave me something to do. I felt angst and anxiety after work so I worked out and some of it went away, but some stayed. I felt alone, and then had a good conversation with someone, and then felt even more alone. I messaged my best friend and told him I was grateful for him for not abandoning me. I thought about creating a dating profile. And then shot myself down. I wouldn't date me. Why would anyone else? I told myself if I can meet a handful of personal life goals, then I can create a dating profile. So it'll probably be a few months. Which is ok I guess. Trying to get close to people always wrecks my self esteem, so I should have some time to prepare. Or heal. Or improve and become more resilient. Or something. And as I write I feel angst yet again. I don't know when the gym closes. It closes at midnight. I can just publish this and go workout and then hopefully pass out after.
Other honesty? Addiction is real. Also, the ARP meetings are really really worth it. I'm going to sell that hard. I think everyone should go to one at least once. If you've ever faced an addiction, go with an honest and open mind and engage. Or just go and listen and say nothing at all. Anyone is welcome, nothing is expected.
Step 1
Honesty
Key Principle: Admit that you, of yourself, are powerless to overcome your addictions and that your life has become unmanageable.
To be totally honest, most of my life is unmanageable without God. I just have to remember, over and over, to turn to Him, trust in Him, lean on Him, counsel with Him, talk with Him - have Him be my counselor, my sponsor, my confidante, my friend. And together we'll figure life out and make it work. And be awesome hopefully.
Tuesday, August 2
(Un)Worthy of Friends
At my Addiction Recovery Program we had some extra time for questions... and I asked for advice on how to make friends.
Tuesday, July 26
(G)MG: History - 12 Years & 600 Posts
The anniversary / birthday / whatever of (G)MG was this past week. This marks the 600th post and 12 years of writing.