Sometimes I worry that I’m actually secretly bad at writing and no one wants to tell me that, specifically in the sense of communicating meaning and intent. I’m writing another post about some more Passion stuff which requires me to re-read Figuring Myself Out and I’m feeling now like it’s complete nonsense. It made a ton of sense as I wrote, edited, and published it; I was really proud of it! Now it reads stupid as fuck and I wonder if it even makes sense. Do people even understand what I’m saying? Do I sound like I’m just completely inept at communicating?

I think this comes from, of all things, the movie A Beautiful Mind. My shitty father took me and my sisters to see it when it came out. “It’s a movie about a brilliant mathematician, it’ll be inspiring!” You. Fucking. Dumbass. It’s a movie about a man’s struggle with untreated schizophrenia! It showcases how he thinks he’s communicating genius ideas but in reality the people around him see and hear complete nonsense from him. I’m sure it’s a fascinating and problematic look at mental health, but it’s definitely not a movie I’m going to ever watch again. I was 13 when I watched it. As an excitable Michigander with ADHD, I talk FAST. When I was young I talked even FASTER. My mom often commented how impressed she was. My friends often found it difficult to understand me. And that was the problem. People often didn’t understand me because I spoke too quickly. And then I watch a movie about a an excitable guy who people cannot understand. And for YEARS I thought I had schizophrenia based on this one thing. I was a dumb teenager, but even so, it had an effect.

Now almost three decades later I find myself still struggling to be understood. Sometimes my wife picks up the complete opposite meaning of something I was trying to say to her. Or she reads something I wrote that I really wanted her to understand and she comes away just simply not understanding it at all. Is it me? Is it her? A bit of both?

I just don’t know.

But then my BPD posts seemed to have been very well understood by someone else in my life.

I can never tell. This is probably insecurity more than anything. Sometimes I wish I had a comment system enabled on here so people could leave me feedback, but I have no desire to manage the inevitable bots and trolls!

Ah well. Back to writing this other post and hoping I do well enough. I’m also working on a post about my neurology appointment.