A Better Alex, stage 2: ASC Journal

[apollolux]

Update: Today is not nearly as bad, as I've taken a day off from the medication and have the same amount of food. I'm now 99% certain it was a side effect of the Prozac being unbuffered rather than a sudden change of diet triggering some sort of withdrawal symptoms like my doctor initially claimed.

Nevertheless, I need to figure out something to eat tonight. Probably rice and potatoes again, it makes a tasty paste when whipped together with my existing blend of spices.

[apollolux]

Flow of thought:

Hm. The more I read sites like The Rational Male and Girls Chase the more frustrated I become and disappointed in myself that I wasn't able to convert my one-itis to a sexual and romantic partner. The more I read them, the more convinced I am that all her signals pointed to being interested in me but she resisted or outright refused my advances, and the more angry I get at myself for either not "advancing properly" or not handling the resistance "properly."

If it was simply a matter of technique I could improve myself through reading and hopefully practice, but it seems to be much deeper than that, likely at the attitude/vibe level, and makes it even more apparent to me that I need to internalize being alpha and being a sex magnet, or at the very least being irresistibly attractive sexually if not an outright magnet. ASC seems to be doing an ok job at reducing my concern for how others react to me, but it's not yet reached the point of complete, "unshakeable" confidence as advertised.

I need to plan how to proceed from this point. I wish while I wait to properly afford AM6 I could do EPRHA longer without feeling like all my productivity will be lost due to my attention being solely on handling the emotional stuff it brings up. Hm.

[apollolux]

==Second 32 days done==
The second 32 days are done. I lack focus and feel completely unbalanced and uncalibrated.

I don't feel like I have deep friendships anymore, and the friendships I do have feel forced, like they're just humoring me and my issues because they have to entertain my presence involuntarily or something. I've been told I come on way too strong and intimidating, and that this is supposedly a bad thing. I no longer have any idea how much of this imbalance is Prozac, how much is ASC, how much is original me internally, and how much is external incongruence due to internal conflict.

Even though I'm keeping up with schoolwork I feel unmotivated to do much of anything. Every time I look back to see how far I've come I feels like I haven't made much progress. I just read an article on Good Looking Loser about looking back on the last 12 months and remembering how much fun you had; I only remember one occasion out of the last 12 month that I legitimately felt was fun, and it was my one-itis treating me to a birthday dinner back in April.

Reading sites like The Rational Male and Good Looking Loser reinforce how much I suck right now and how much my life sucks. It's really hard to not doubt myself and my efforts when I'm not getting positive external results, and I'm now beginning to doubt how truly successful I was previously. I have no job, I have no money, I have no girlfriend or sex partner, I have no deep friendships I can rely on anymore, I have no home, and I'm finally starting to doubt my decision to give up full-time work in favor of finishing school full-time.

People have told me I should be more present, but I feel the only thing keeping me alive right now is giving a post-degree good future a chance, since the pre-degree past and present suck. I get numbers but no conversions, and I feel that's an apt metaphor for my life right now.

[apollolux]

Breaking format to report I might have had the breakthrough I was looking for. At this time of my life I very much needed such a thing, too.

Today (Monday, since I don't count change-of-day until 6am for silly childish reasons) was the first day in about a month I had went to the gym to do any sort of workout. I basically forced myself to go since I felt I needed to do it in order to regain some semblance of my former self. I got in 50 deadlifts (set of 20, than 12, 10, 8) of 60 lbs dumbbells before I lost whatever motivation I had, but I did it and I'm still at 60/arm, so I might even be able to raise it 5 lbs next time since the on-campus gym actually has dumbbells all the way to 90 or 95 lbs.

I did pull-ups and chin-ups a few minutes ago at the apartment (I have one of those Iron Gym door-frame easy-attach/remove pull-up bars). When I took the bar down I looked at myself in the mirror and flexed. I don't know if it was the distance from the mirror or a possible cloudy lens in my glasses, but for the first time in my life I saw in my reflection abs.

When I saw my reflection I felt my face tingle as I said to myself softly "it is achievable" and started crying tears of relief and possibly happiness. I'm starting to cry again tears of relief as I recount this.

It is achievable.

I needed something in my life to give positive results to reflect the efforts I've put in. I think I might now have hope again that putting genuine effort into something can give positive results, I think I just needed something tangible to show me it is indeed achievable.

It is achievable.

A far cry from just a few hours ago when my anger, frustration, sadness, and futility led to severe apathy and negative indifference on the train ride back from class. I feel I can now breathe again because...

It is achievable.

[apollolux]

Well then. Today was an interesting day.

I woke up later than I had planned due to excessive fatigue, so I wasn't able to go swimming today. I then had an appointment with my psychiatrist and updated him on the last month of being medicated. He decided to increase my prescription from 20mg to 30mg.

On the way back, I receive a text from my organization's vice-president saying the other officers and him have reached a consensus and decided to ask me to step down as president. I'm pretty sure the feelings about it will hit me later, but for now I know why they're asking and I acknowledge that I'm likely too unbalanced and possibly too intimidating to keep people around.

I'll converse with them shortly.

[apollolux]

==9 days done, month 3==
I'm so angry at myself right now. I lost my entire offline journal because I did not pay enough attention to my Mac reporting the startup disk is full. When this happens, whatever text file I'm editing at the time it says "zero bytes available" is wiped completely. This has happened to me once before, and this time the journal was the victim.

I am livid at myself and that has brought up renewed rage at my one-itis for some reason even though I know both logically and emotionally she did not cause my computer problem. I had started writing the summary entry for day 7 but didn't finish it, and all my documented progress or lack thereof for the past FOUR months is lost.

I have to figure out a more reliable journalling solution (probably for my iPad) that doesn't necessarily require an always-on connection or a local text file, but can do some combo of the two for automatic sync for when my device is on wifi or something.

[ArcticFox]

==9 days done, month 3==
I'm so angry at myself right now. I lost my entire offline journal because I did not pay enough attention to my Mac reporting the startup disk is full. When this happens, whatever text file I'm editing at the time it says "zero bytes available" is wiped completely. This has happened to me once before, and this time the journal was the victim.

I am livid at myself and that has brought up renewed rage at my one-itis for some reason even though I know both logically and emotionally she did not cause my computer problem. I had started writing the summary entry for day 7 but didn't finish it, and all my documented progress or lack thereof for the past FOUR months is lost.

I have to figure out a more reliable journalling solution (probably for my iPad) that doesn't necessarily require an always-on connection or a local text file, but can do some combo of the two for automatic sync for when my device is on wifi or something.

Pen and paper?

[maxx55]

For me personally, I just document pretty much everything online, on the forum. It's convenient at least.

Good luck with the rest of ASC, I hope the resistance you're dealing with ends soon!

[apollolux]

I have to figure out a more reliable journalling solution (probably for my iPad) that doesn't necessarily require an always-on connection or a local text file, but can do some combo of the two for automatic sync for when my device is on wifi or something.

Pen and paper?

I used to use pen and paper. With the amount of detail I put in, though, and the need to edit it quickly to rearrange in chronological order it's much easier to do it digitally. Also, I'm much faster typing on a keyboard (and much more legible on future rereads) than writing with a pen.

[apollolux]

For me personally, I just document pretty much everything online, on the forum. It's convenient at least.

Good luck with the rest of ASC, I hope the resistance you're dealing with ends soon!

Thanks, and I hope whatever's happening is simply resistance that can be overcome.

[ArcticFox]

I have to figure out a more reliable journalling solution (probably for my iPad) that doesn't necessarily require an always-on connection or a local text file, but can do some combo of the two for automatic sync for when my device is on wifi or something.

Pen and paper?

I used to use pen and paper. With the amount of detail I put in, though, and the need to edit it quickly to rearrange in chronological order it's much easier to do it digitally. Also, I'm much faster typing on a keyboard (and much more legible on future rereads) than writing with a pen.

Evernote should fulfill that need

[apollolux]

Evernote should fulfill that need

The one bit I really want costs money I'm not willing to pay. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Breaking format to note that I had a particularly interesting dream last night/this morning. I dreamt I was Lex Luthor in a board meeting listening to Lionel give a speech, followed by watching him seduce a secretary before I woke up.

To my recollection I've never dreamed before I was a villain. This is an interesting development for me, the possibility that I might actually be a Lex Luthor type of person. Hm.

[apollolux]

My club's treasurer gave me a copy of Mark Manson's Models as her attempt to give me some sort of actionable advice that's more than simply "love yourself" or "work on yourself," so I'm reading that right now. Even only on chapter 3 "Power in Vulnerability" I'm already seeing things I was doing right and wrong naturally long before I started listening to subs and stuff I'm doing after then.

I definitely need to see this book through, as so far it's the most objective of the materials I've read up to this point.

edit: Well then. Seems chapter 4 "The Gift of Truth" has the most poignant bit of advice for my situation so far up to this point (emphasis mine):

Unconditionality

[ ... ] Those guys are being honest about their intentions and their feelings, but they're not getting anywhere, are they?

But once again, they are not being honest about their intentions. They may compliment a woman and buy her things, beg for her attention, but their intentions are conditional. They're not genuine. They're only giving praise and affection under the assumption that they'll receive it in return.

[ ... ] When you lavish gifts and praise onto a woman who has not done anything to earn it, you are sub-communicating a desperate need for her attention and validation -- a willingness to sacrifice your self-respect and wealth to win over her affection.

All this time I thought I was being genuine, but indeed I was being conditional about my praise and affection and apparently it's been like that for a long time. Explains a lot, really, and I'm fairly certain it was due to a learned lack of confidence in myself.

I hope that ASC does enough of the job of (re-)building confidence and restoring authenticity to tide me over until I can start AM6.

[Dzemoo]

the rationale male is a dangerous book, it helped me loose my gf or should i say free myself from her