I came to the realization recently that for the past couple of years, I've been writing articles grappling with my individually developing mental illnesses, and more broadly, issues relating to my emotional health that I struggle with on a daily basis. To put it much simpler, fucked up and kinda sad articles about how fucked up and kinda sad my thoughts sometimes are. You know, I heard you're not supposed to use the phrase "in layman's terms" anymore. It's offensive to the laymen. You ought to be respectful and considerate of the feelings of your nearest layman. Be a layman advocate. Get out into your community, reach out to local laymen you meet. More like "lame man", right? I like that a lot, that actually could be the name of my autobiography. "In Lame Man's Terms" - The putitonmybill.org story. Uh. Sorry.
This had started back in Fall 2021, where I wrote a really embarassing diatribe about anti-maskers during the pandemic. Just kind of exhuming some impotent feelings, spilling myself onto a public forum, with the full knowledge it wouldn't even make a difference in my own life to be writing at that time. Anyway, you could say this was me processing my newly developed misanthropy. Just really bitter, ineffective nihilism channeled through bitter, ineffective words. Working through the grief of the covid pandemic and related losses, like we all were.
From there, I actually wrote stuff I really felt proud of. That first article wasn't really anything deeper than surface level, honestly. But as circumstance led to me actually having serious, new things I was dealing with, it almost became therapeutic for me to put them into words on an obscure, if not completely anonymous, public forum. I like to think that for as personal as these pieces were, they were more amorphous, and read more like musings, as if the subject at hand only served as a seed for my thoughts to grow from and branch off of. As if I were so desperate searching for a deeper understanding of what was happening to me that it led me down really weird, intangible, almost unrelated roads, yet the mighty and boundless cloud of neurosis remained overhead, unflinching. Because that reflects the reality of what was happening as I wrote. That's what happens when I write in general, I think.
Coping with fear of death was a big one. Is a big one. At first it was just cynical, somber thoughts about the submission to death as an inevitable and spontaneous force. Having no choice but to come to terms with the life you've carved out for yourself at the end. Facing that deafening noise. In a prettier world, maybe by the end of that article I'd have resolved to accept fate for what it is.
Instead, I went on to develop hypochondria a few months later. Health anxiety. Feel something weird in your arm for a second, and let it gracefully blossom over the next few minutes into a panic attack. It's almost like a super power, being able to delude yourself to the point where it changes your day-to-day life drastically. They probably wouldn't let me join the Justice League with that power, though, I don't know. As my anxiety attacks became more and more real, I had to write about them, too. And make some comparisons between my anxiety and the Tony Hawk's Underground 2 soundtrack. Because of course I had to. That's what I am. Mental illness and Tony Hawk games.
Somewhere in between those two articles, I had one about my best friend in the whole wide world, my inner child. Spoiled little brat, I spend so much of my time watching and glorifying him. Trying to justify what he'd grow into. It might be my favorite article I've written yet. Little Billy and his bike, conquering everything the world threw at him. In the face of existentialism, fatalism, and anxiety, you could easily argue that I use my inner child as a human shield just as often as I nurture and learn from him. I also wrote about my speech impediment, insecurities, and how the things that define us the most are the things we make the greatest effort to conceal from the people around us. Trauma, fears, cracks in our self-esteem.
And most recently I wrote about my experiences with dissociation. On a grander scale, I think that article was a nice reflection on all of the past articles I'd written about my mental health. Kind of like the article you're reading right now! It's December, so I guess you could call this a year-end review of what this site has looked like. Not really just this year, though. For that, I'd probably need to average more than two articles a year. But we can use this space to talk about what else I've been creating this year!
It's never a bad time to plug your shitty music project! living room doom, either in all lowercase or all caps lettering ONLY!!!!, is the solo project I've been producing tracks on for the past year, or three, or six. The less I say, the better, I think.
Oh! I completely revamped the structure of this website some time around March! It's more minimalistic, creative, design-heavy, and the background is black now instead of white, among some other graphic changes. Like OJ Simpson, the new site is slick, black, and ready to attack!
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I'm not going to apologize, he's the one who killed people!
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Lastly I'd like to mention, I guess for clarification and the peace-of-mind of you, the precious reader, that my mental health is doing better. There, you can finally rest easy. You can stop refreshing the news each day, worriedly anticipating the headlines about internet creator Bill of putitonmybill.org fame dying in a self-detonated makeshift bomb explosion outside of a Chipotle, after announcing to gathering bystanders via megaphone that he'd like his smoldering remains to be donated to the local daycare, so that the bright, happy, unimpeachable children would know what a charred human femur smells like. Just kidding - there's no way a news publication would find me interesting enough to make a headline. I reiterate, my mental health is doing better.
As usual, thank you so much if you're a viewer of the site, or any of my work! I know you can't see me through the screen, but I'm literally on my hands and knees at your feet, praising you for being here, reading these words. I'm sniffing your toes now. You can't stop me either, because I'm doing this hypothetically! This article is like a dream that starts off kind of deep and emotional but starts getting really weird for no reason. Really, you could use that description for everything we're making here at putitonmybill.org!
Jesus, okay, now I'll apologize.
Look forward to a couple more articles on my deteriorating neurological state in 2024, along with more music, and eventually videos again! AND hopefully we'll be starting some brand new streaming content! If I can pull my little grotesque shrunken head out of my ass and get back to work, that is!
Thanks for visiting! Come back soon!