Yes, I’m Having a Crisis Yet Again
So I’ve put up a post everyday until last Saturday. True, sometimes I posted past midnight and often I put up nothing but a photo, but I did manage to have at least one post for everyday since the first of the year. It was a weird little commitment I made to myself.
I’m probably trying the patience of my readers here. The shutdown of Lavabit has created a bigger crisis in my life than I expected. Since I never store important documents, including emails, on other people’s hardware, I thought it would be as simple as getting a new email address and logging into various services like the one here on WordPress and updating that bit of information.
I should probably confess something here that I didn’t intend to get to for a very long time. About a year and a half ago, I was hospitalized for suicidal ideation. A complicated set of circumstances brought it on and I didn’t want to discuss it outside of the context, but, for better or worse, it’s part of the context of what’s going on now and I can’t talk about my current situation without referencing it. The short version, is that I never wanted to get married or have children. I wanted to have a significant career of some sort. I failed. I’m going on fifty and I now realize I’ll never achieve the things I wanted to achieve. This has led me into a depression although I didn’t have a history of it. I did have a history of anxiety and I am a little bit quirky. So I take medication now, and at least I’m no longer thinking about suicide. But I’m still struggling with how to make a life for myself that I can actually enjoy more often than not. I was enjoying getting some of my opinions out there.
I just don’t like the things other people like. They don’t give me satisfaction. I wish I could go shopping and feel good. Hell, I wish I could believe in Jesus, enjoy watching teevee, enjoy sports, accept the fact that women are supposed to act as if their vagina is a non-renewable resource, think people look better photoshopped, worry about what celebrities are naming their babies, and all sorts of things that are just a blank for me. In short, I wish I could be just a little bit more like other people. Life would be easier for me. I wouldn’t have much to blog about, but that’s okay. Facebook is sufficient for most people.
I’m not ready to hand over my whole life to the owners of Google. I have a lot to say about many things, but I just wanted to maintain a modicum of privacy. As I’ve said before, I wasn’t using Lavabit for their encryption or security. I was using them simply because they weren’t tracking me and selling my information to advertisers.
So now I don’t know. If I can’t find another email provider that allows a little bit of privacy, I’m going to take a significant part of my life off-line. What will remain on line will be under my own name, but I won’t have any opinions that aren’t acceptable to the majority. I’ll have to cease speaking out about atheism, politics, sexuality and women’s issues.
I can’t even begin to explain to everyone the pain I’m going through right now. I feel a little bit crazy right now. Am I overreacting? Everyone else is seems so happy with Facebook. Why don’t I like it? What’s wrong with me? Why am I not like everybody else?
fojap 
You are not alone. I am 60, single by choice, a loner, and don’t have teevee….along with many of the other traits you cite as those that make you “different- –the opposite of “normal.” Life does go on whether we want it to or not. I’ve found that it’s better (for me) to try to make the best of it than it is to dwell on how my current life isn’t at all what I expected it to be at this point. I understand that you aren’t able to draw that conclusion right now. Just know that you aren’t the only one and you are not alone….and hang on!
Thanks for being supportive again. When I told my mother that my email address was no longer valid, she said, “Why do these things always happen to you.” A friend said the same thing. I said that it’s because I’m a “wobbly cog.” I’m slightly out of step with society, not terribly, just a bit, but it makes these things slightly more likely to happen to me.
I know I’ll straighten out the email problem and everything will be back to normal, at least for a while. The email problem itself is relatively minor, it just reminds me of how much I don’t fit in and it’s always created a bit of friction in my life.
I know there are paid mailbox services out there, I’m just having a problem locating one because if I search on the internet for email services everyone lists Gmail. It doesn’t have to be entirely free, just less expensive than a static IP address.
I had to laugh when you said that your mother wanted to know why things always happen to you…my daughter says the same thing. I have a lot of trouble with my PC and identity theft and she says I’m a “magnet” for strange and curious issues. Good to hear you are still working toward a solution..do keep in touch. my “throw-away” email is suzysomething992*at*gmail.com If you are uncomfortable about communicating on gmail, let me know and I’ll give you another address.
hang in there! I know you will find a solution!
Have you ever considered that there may be loads of people out there who spend their time on facebook, watching TV, and spending their money on shopping sprees, who aren’t happy either? You don’t need these things to be happy yet so often I see people do things to fit in, I see people pretend to be someone they’re not, to try and win friends they won’t truly gel with or because they think they’ll be happier if they were a different person. Some of the happiest people I know are completely themselves and completely comfortable with that fact. They respect other people but aside from that, do want they want and are happy to be different from the mainstream.
Now, I know depression is a particularly pernicious condition but you are richer, both financially and mentally, for the time you’ve spent blogging. This may be small comfort given that you feel you might not be able to share an opinion for a while but that’s not really my point. My point is you don’t have to fit in to stand out, and you don’t have to stand out to be happy. Who knows? Perhaps this is an opportunity? Perhaps you can funnel those frustrations into something deeper or more creative.
I’m sure you’ll be fine.