Email Roundup

Here are some paraphrased questions I have been asked via email lately. I am a dufus with email and it incites my social anxieties so I thought I would answer them here instead for all to read. I get so many emails that I am going to take down that link on my blog and have given up on trying to respond to them all.

You took down anonymous comments. I can no longer comment on your blog. Why?

I have found that nine times out of ten that anonymous comments are negative, cowardly and hurtful. My honesty about my mental illness and addictions invites derision. It takes five minutes to sign up for a blogger account if you want to comment or you can always email me. I might not answer back, but I do read them.

I was dismayed when you went commercial on your blog. The advertisements are distracting. I urge you to take them down.

I get this email a lot. My income is $837 dollars a month. I am allowed to make an extra $600 dollars a month working part time without penalty. Because of my schizophrenia, paranoia, and social anxieties, I cannot work a traditional job for long without life getting fucked up. I put up the advertisements in an effort to better support myself and to increase the quality of my life. I have made over $600 dollars so far with them. So you can see that it is well worth my time. I hope you will overlook the ads and enjoy the written content.

Do you make this stuff up? Your life seems so interesting and you say you have social anxiety, but you have a vibrant social life. My life consists of going to work, coming home, watching TV, and going to bed. The same is for my wife.

If I made this stuff up, I could write about wildly more interesting things than the conversation du jour of I and Rosa – conversations and interactions filled with intrigue, sexuality, and adventure. You are reading little vignettes of my life – the little interesting ten percent I wish to share and enjoy writing about. The other ninety percent of my life is usually me sleeping, smoking my pipe, browsing the internet and voraciously reading books in my lazy boy lounge chair. I am sure you don't want to read about all that. I also think my writing about my life with dialogue makes things seem far more interesting than they really are.

I found you via schizophrenia.com. I notice you do not write a lot about schizophrenia compared to the other blogs on there. Is there a reason why?

I have read some of those very same blogs like you and find they are tiring. Some of these blog authors seem to obsess about their illnesses and pontificate endlessly about their medications and doctor visits. It comes across as obsessive to me. I have schizophrenia, but I try not to let it define me. Yes, I do deal with it and it's symptoms on a daily basis, but I choose not to write about it often. I don't want the blog to become another whiney, let's bitch about our mental illness blog. If I wrote about my schizophrenia all the time, this would be a very dark and brooding journal. It is a personal choice of course. You may find those other blogs your cup of tea.