My life as a ghost

2008-09-01T08:04:00.001-07:00

I've mentioned "Casper The Friendly Ghost" as one of the contributors to my username GaSPer. If I recall correctly, from a time when I watched the program as a young lad, Casper was a youthful ghost, a bit overweight, who tired of scaring people and wanted to make friends instead, but found it difficult due to his history and the ingrained prejudice of the human beings he encountered.

There is a personal resonance for me with some elements of Casper that I find disquieting.

From a very early age, I have felt that I didn't fit in with the environment around me: scared of almost every new experience, no matter how small, as though it held a formless dread: each one, the harbinger of unpleasant consequences. With advancing years, the perception consolidated, until it was like I was some alien observer looking at the world around me as if through a pane of glass, isolated, unable to connect and unable to be connected with. At other times it felt like I was a specimen trapped under a glass microscope slide, to be gawked and laughed at. Eventually I began to feel as insubstantial as a ghost and having as little influence and connection with the world. However, at the same time, I was also aware of being physically present in the world and "things" (often unpleasant) would happen to me and I would be helpless, unable to prevent or mitigate them and could only stoically endure. This duality was very confusing.

In keeping with the ghostly metaphor, my life became almost timeless: the years would speed by as if in the blink of an eye and I would stand there bewildered, wondering where that time had gone and what the hell had I been doing during that period. Yet, conversely, some quite short periods of time would extend excruciatingly, where hours seemed like days and I couldn't wait for them to be over, despite knowing that it would take me a step closer to my grave.

There have been times when I saw myself as more of a Rip Van Winkel than a ghost: I closed my eyes one day and when they were next opened, 14 years had passed as if in a dream, for example. Yet it wasn't a dream, it was a nightmare.

Can you imagine what it's like, Dear readers, to look back on one's life so far as a sequence of decade-long sleeps that each seemed like nightmares you could not wake from; that you didn't really do anything during those times, never experienced the things that everyone else seems to take for granted; that you are acutely aware of what you have missed, yet it seems like life is almost over and you begin to panic because you can't see how to make up for lost time as your health is failing, everything takes so much longer to do and anyway, you are still trapped in the same ghost-like state?

I'm not sure about you, but such a thing is unimaginable to me. How could anyone allow something like that to happen; why didn't I do something about it; didn't anyone see what was going on and step in? Beats me why things weren't different, but that it is how it was.

I feel much of the time as though I'm disconnected from myself; that I'm experiencing someone elses life, from a distance, like some vicarious observer. Yet, perversely, there are times when I'm definitely inhabiting my body and it's exquisitely painful: the juxtaposition of those 2 experiences held in my mind is very unsettling.

I should imagine Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde might have understood at least a little of what I am experiencing.

How does this relate to Social Phobia, I hear you ask? Well, that's a little difficult for me to say. Maybe the feeling that I was so different to everyone else resulted in an avoidance of social contact. Perhaps I was scared that people would find out how "defective" I was and heap scorn, derision and ridicule, so I withdrew to a position where they wouldn't get a chance to see the real me. The possibilities could be endless. Hopefully some things might clarify during the course of my blog.

I think I'm actually reasonably sane and not completely unhinged, yet bewildered why this is so in the presence of my experiences. I suspect I have a resilient core of hope that things will be better if I can just keep enduring the bad times: like waiting for a storm to pass, knowing that the sunshine is not that far away; however my storm seems to be taking ages to dissipate.

After reading through some other blogs, I realise some are struggling with issues I consider much worse than mine and I feel ashamed for making a fuss; yet at the same time I'm fighting to acknowledge my issues as important and worthy of consideration. Damn these dualities!

In the beginning there was...GaSPer

2008-08-31T01:38:00.000-07:00

Hello Dear Readers,

I've finally summoned up the courage to create my own blog; not because I think I have a sperm-in-rectum's chance of conceiving a witty, amusing, informative or otherwise worthwhile document (there's way too much competition from genuine prosaic witers for that), but because I'm hoping that sharing my experiences will result in others coming forward with similar issues, to demonstrate that I'm not so bizarrely unique, to alleviate the isolation and loneliness and maybe identify approaches to my multifarious issues that I may not have considered previously.

Why choose the username "GaSPer", do I hear you ask?

Sorry to dissapoint you, but it's definitely not an association with auto-erotic asphyxiation, so get those images out of your mind.

If you are struggling with pronunciation, think Casper (Van Dien) or Casper (the friendly ghost) with a G, rather than G-arse-per. Although I fantasize about being thought of as Casper Van Dien (which I am in no way, shape or form, dammit!), Casper the friendly ghost seems more appropriate for reasons I will go into another time.

GaSPer is, however, a clumsy acronym that seemed clever at the time:

Ga(y) = my sexual orientation

SP = Social Phobic (one of my major issues)

er = a sound expressing hesitation, due to too many other issues to list in an acronym, including but not limited to:

Sleep Apnoea
Chronic Fatigue
Fibromyalgia
Gastric Reflux
Hyperhidrosis
Meniere's symptoms
IBS
etc

The "asper" part of GaSPer is also significant in that I could identify somewhat with Asperger's Syndrome, until a specialist said that I didn't have the required characteristics.

Interestingly, gasper (as in g-arse-per) does represent my struggling for breath during sleep apnoea episodes, so is sort of appropriate, but in no way could be considered an erotic experience (unlike deep-throating which I'm unlikely to master as I have a strong gag reflux, but I digress).

Social Phobia is my main mental health issue: the others are more physiological, but do have an influence on my state of mind. In my case, it manifests predominantly as extreme anxiety in enclosed spaces with more than a few people (especially where I can't easily escape), plus fear of humiliation (which could perhaps be called Social Faux-Pas-bia) amongst other things. The result is that I'm somewhat more isolated from human interaction than the majority of the population. You could think of it as shyness taken to extremes.

However, it's also a 2-way street: whilst I tend to shy away from others, I also find others tend to shy away from (shun?) me too. Who can blame them, really? The prospect of interacting with an unfit mature gay man in his late 40's, who is experiencing multiple health issues (mental and physical) resulting in little energy or enthusiasm to engage in the activities most guys take for granted, doesn't sound particularly appealing, especially when one considers that there are plenty of fitter fish in the sea. Yet at the same time, I have similar needs for friendship, touch and intimacy as the next guy. It sure is a dilemma and I hope to explore at least some of these issues in subsequent posts.

So, stay tuned, Dear readers, for more thrill(ing/less) editions of the musings of GaSPer.

Hmmm, gas-per sounds a bit French, n'est-ce pas? Perhaps I subconsciously want to be a Frenchman: gotta love those "reality" French dramas such as Clara Sheller and the gorgeous guys: ooh la la! ;-)

GaSPer [Ga(y)S(ocial)P(hobic)er]

My life as a ghost

In the beginning there was...GaSPer