Sometimes I think about stuff. And also things.

My name's Cody. It's not short for Dakota. My name used to be awesome, because nobody could ever think of any other Cody they'd ever heard of, apart from Wild Bill. I've had various nicknames over the years, some awesome, some not so much. The most frequent names I've had are "Code-man" and "Code-ster." In the fourth grade, I tried to get peeps to call me "CJ," but I quickly learned that forcing a self-given nickname doesn't stick, and it's sort of awkward. A lot awkward, in fact. Also, 1990 happened. Suddenly tons of peeps were named Cody. And now my name isn't as awesome as it used to be.


I promised myself upon creation of this little corner of the inerwebs that I wouldn't hide or sugar coat anything. That's probably because I'm mostly doing this for me, since I don't have any reliable outlets that don't involve consuming hours upon hours of my day until I've realized that I hadn't accomplished a single thing, and it's too late to do anything about it. So here goes.


I have depression. I won't say "suffer from" because I'm sick of being a victim. It's constant, and chronic, and I quite often use it as a crutch to squeeze out what little of my family's sympathy reserves are left. At this very moment, I am able to own my depression; I know the differences between what's real and what's twisted by my perceptions, and I have control of my mind and how it interprets information. But it's also only 5 A.M. I've been up since roughly 3:30. I'll probably end up drained and going back to bed sometime between 10 and noon, and wake up late-afternoon, hating myself and the world because later in the day I will be a victim and I'll find reasons to blame others for my misfortune. It's a pattern will repeat itself for weeks.


I also promised myself that I wouldn't open with something so heavy. We see how well that worked out.


I don't intend to always post heavy stuff; I'm more interested in creating a place where I can allow my thoughts to flow freely and unfiltered. It turns out that people think you're strange or annoying when they ask a question and you give them the history of why your answer is the best one on the planet.


And yeah, I teeter on a precarious fence between unbridled arrogance and crushing insecurity. It's not enough to know that I'm awesome; I have to prove it to everyone around me or my confidence shrivels up into a husk that reeks of shame and failure.


Most of the time, though, I clog the air with verbal diarrhea because I'm entirely socially inept. I like to think of myself as a savant, of sorts. On the internet, I can freely monologue without interruption. Most of what you've read so far has spilled out of my mind with little editing. I've only used the backspace key and handful of times because I'll see something and be like "oh man! I totally could have said that better!" or I have extra words that don't belong, thus giving me the illusion of having greater command of the English language. I don't have that luxury in speech. In fact, in social situations, I'm more like Allie's simple dog.


I have the compulsion to elaborate on that, despite the fact that Allie tells her story just fine, and it's a more than adequate analogy. I do that in social interaction. A lot. Elaborate, I mean. It drives my family nuts.


That's the other reason I'm doing this; I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to express myself to my own family these days. It's certainly not their fault. I just need to learn how to spend less time in my head.


I suppose that's enough for now. But don't worry, I'm not always going to be so soul-crushingly self-flagellant.


P.S. It's also entirely possible that, after reading this single post several times throughout the day, that I'll burn myself out after a few new posts, and reading them several times.