***THINGS THAT SCARE ME***
It seems as though you can’t go anywhere on the internet
without seeing inspirational memes telling you to “do what scares you”. I’m not
talking about overcoming phobias like spiders and snakes. I’m not talking about
watching the scene in Tales From the Hood where they stick straws up Crazy K’s
nose. I’m not even talking about the idea of being flirted with by the demon
chick Lucy Butler from Millennium. I’m talking about bigger fears than that.
I’m talking about the little things in life that everyone else takes for
granted. Since I spent most of my day zombie-walking around and watching WWE
Raw, I figured I’d salvage the early dark of morning by writing a blog entry
about what scares me more than having a bucket of tarantulas poured over my
head. Starting with…
***MARKETING MY BOOKS***
Since I love to write so much, it should stand to reason
that I’d want to commit to this career full time, which entails marketing the
shit out of my books. But to hear other authors describe how much they have to
do, you’d swear they were having a 24/7 root canal. I must confess that I’m
only dimly aware of what marketers go through on a day-to-day basis. Being
social media savvy, dealing with trolls, giving interviews, and being away from
your family are only some of the responsibilities I’ve heard. At least two of
those things scare me more than the rest, and I don’t even know what the other
steps are. They say “treat this like a real job”. Well, I’ve had a writing job
before and it lasted less than a full day. During that internet job, I was so
fucking stressed out that I snapped at my family members while wrapping my head
around how to write one stupid article about my Coby MP3 player. So many
rules…so much shattered creativity…Is it any wonder that I went postal? What if
the actual job of marketing makes me even angrier with the people I love? What
if it makes me angry at total strangers? Ugh…
***SCHIZOPHRENIC ATTACKS***
Speaking of stress, have you ever wondered why I don’t write
blog entries about my schizophrenia anymore? It’s because from 2015 on, I’ve
been living a stress-free life. The less stress a schizophrenic has, the less
likely he is to experience hallucinations. Being stress-free is important no
matter what Penn & Teller say on Showtime. It’s part of the reason why
schizophrenics qualify for social security. If they had stressful employment,
they’d fall to pieces within seconds. It’s not about being a “snowflake”. It’s
biology. It’s psychology. It’s natural fucking brain chemistry. If you feel
uncomfortable at the idea of your tax dollars paying for a schizophrenic’s
living expenses, maybe YOU’RE the one who needs to have your head examined.
When a schizophrenic experiences hallucinations, you don’t know when those
hallucinations are going away. Sometimes they go on for days. Sometimes they go
on for weeks. Months. Half a year. There’s no timetable for recovery. And in
case you’ve ever wondered why I write so many angry songs and stories, it’s
because schizophrenics are easily irritated. I throw screaming fits whenever
the phone rings or someone’s knocking at the door. Brain chemistry, people.
***LEAVING MY COMFORT ZONE***
They say the comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing
ever grows there. So what happens when you venture outside the comfort zone and
you fall on your ass? Do you still grow? Was the lesson worth the pain? Will
the hallucinations come more frequently because of your colossal failure? Is
coasting the answer? I asked an old college friend about this and her advice
was to leave my comfort zone a little bit at a time. Don’t rush into making big
decisions. Take time t think about it and edge slowly towards the outer
reaches. While that sounds like great advice to a healthy-minded person, I on
the other hand have no idea what slowly testing the waters would entail. Okay,
so I leave my comfort zone and market my books. Then what? Do I join one new
social media site at a time? Do I film one You Tube video and allow it to be
complete shit? What is it? Maybe if I had a mentor to show me the way…
***TALKING TO BEAUTIFUL WOMEN***
As I write this next paragraph, I’m going to try my best not
to sound like a desperate creep. That’s not who I am. In fact, the reason I
stay away from women to begin with is because I DON’T like making them feel
uncomfortable. Even saying hi to someone might be enough to make them turn the
other way. Maybe it’s my lack of social skills. Maybe it’s my looks. Maybe it’s
my economic status. But whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it’s not what women
want. Having my actions rejected in a harsh manner would hurt much more than
staying in the shadows and being my shy self. It might even result in a…I don’t
know….schizophrenic attack! (Gasp) It’s true! I could be so embarrassed and
humiliated at rejection that my hallucinations laugh at me for three months
straight. Good god almighty…
***PUBLIC SPEAKING***
I mentioned shooting You Tube videos earlier in this blog.
Well, that would mean having an audience. Even though the audience isn’t right
there in front of me, knowing the judging eyes are watching me is frightening
to me. Sometimes when I’d give presentations in school or college, I’d stumble
over my words because I was too fucking nervous. Well, I think I’ve come up
with a nice gimmick that will set the record straight. Before any public presentation,
I will hold out my hand, place two Xanax tablets in them, say to my audience,
“You’re making me do this!”, and then swallow them with Perrier. This is what
it takes for me to feel comfortable around these people. It’s about time they
feel the way that I feel every time I get up there. Yeah!
***CRYING IN FRONT OF PEOPLE***
If you’ve read my first draft novel Beautiful Monster or
Jenna Moreci’s fully-published book The Savior’s Champion, you know how powerful
of a gesture it is to be able to show weakness in front of another person. It’s
a sign of trust. It’s a sign of love. But being vulnerable in front of others
is yet another thing that scares me. What if after the crying spell is over
they want to talk about the incident some more? What if during these new
conversations…you guessed it, a schizophrenic attack happens? Talking about bad
shit doesn’t make a schizophrenic feel better. It makes him feel worse. I
haven’t cried since 2007. Don’t make me break my record. Please?
***BEING AROUND AGGRESSIVE PEOPLE***
When I say aggressive people, I don’t mean psychopaths who
wield knives and punch people in the face. I’m talking about socially
aggressive people. The loud ones. The crazy ones. The ones who invade your
space and think nothing of it (even if they’re trying to be “friendly”). These
people annoy me. They also scare me. I had to sit next to a drunken moron at
Pain in the Grass 2016 and he fit this bill to a fault. I was secretly hoping
security would arrest him for public intoxication, but I’m not aware of his
fate at this moment. And then there was a guy who walked into Quizno’s bragging
loudly and vulgarly about how he was going to get a sandwich with all these
certain trimmings on it after a hard day of work. Shut the fuck up! Take your
sandwich and fuck off! And don’t get me started on the drunken Seahawks fans I
had to ride a night train with in 2008. I could have strangled every last one of
them with my massive hands. Lesson of the day: be humble or fuck off!
***TRAVELING***
Ever since I took a “vacation” in 2009 to Pennsylvania, I’ve had this fear of
traveling because of all the things that could go wrong. What if my airplane
ride has a drunken lunatic or a loud baby onboard? What if I forget my
medicine? What if I have to sit for six hours straight and have a painful ass
and spine afterwards? As much as I love my international friends, there’s no
way I’m getting on an airplane for god knows how long just to see them. There
better be soft beds and soundproof booths on that flight or there’s no deal.
Traveling wouldn’t be so bad if I could just teleport from place to place, but
that’ll never happen, because we’re too busy building our own Space Force.
Ugh….
***CONCLUSION***
So basically what all of these fears boil down to is that I
need to take good care of my schizophrenic/autistic brain. I don’t drink
caffeine. I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t do drugs. And most importantly, I
don’t do stressful shit that could send me down a dark path. Is it wrong? Is it
right? Does it even matter? Is coasting the answer? Am I eventually going to
have to be forced into making these big decisions in my life? I could be
screaming into the abyss here, but…I’m going to keep asking these questions for
as long as I have to. I’m Garrison Kelly and…fuck it.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“Sick and tired of living with this grief. Done with all the
sorrow and the pain. Asphyxiated, can no longer breathe. Anesthetized until
I’ve gone insane. So carry all this baggage when you leave. Swallow all those
bitter pills you take. Blame it on the world, blame it on me. Tolerated too
much of your game. A change of weather comes around too much. A sign of a
deeper cut. Lying dormant on a bed of nails. Without warning, violently erupt.
So bleed the molten river from my veins. Collapse upon myself, disintegrate.
Shame upon the world and shame on me. Hate the player, but don’t hate the game.
So condescend and patronize my lead. Persecute the innocent again. Rain down on
the world and rain on me. Ticking like a bomb that’s got your name.
Temperamental, unpredictable. The sky turns black when I exhale.”
-Death Angel singing “Volcanic”-
