The Less Preferred One, Suicide, Blame, and Not-Quite Stalking

1. Started watching an episode of The Secret Life of Us.

2. Heard the Umbilical Brothers mentioned on the show.

I wonder if they're going to be guest-stars.

I haven't seen them in a long time.

3. Saw from IMDb that the Umbilical Brothers are appearing on the episode.

That's cool.

I look forward to seeing them.

4. Saw that David Collins, of the Umbilical Brothers, is in the cast of an upcoming Australian Christmas horror movie starring Dee Wallace. 

It's called Red Christmas.

That might be interesting.

5. Related to Justin's (Sullivan Stapleton) former girlfriend, Celia (Edwina Wren). On her video diary, she talks about how Justin seems to prefer her parents to her, and her parents seem to prefer Justin to her.

I have felt that way many times, and it's caused me a lot of anguish. It's made me feel lonely, rejected, used, and unwanted.

I'm sensing it less these days, so I guess that's good. 

I don't think the change is due to perception only. Some parts of it are probably in my imagination—self-esteem stuff. But I think other parts were reality—that I really was less preferred.

6. Felt disgust and anger at Celia's mother, Jean, (Joan Murray). She bitches at Celia while Celia's making her video diary. Okay, and that's fine. All mothers bitch at their kids sometimes. I'm guilty of it. My parents are guilty of it. Their parents are guilty of it.

And I'm sure Jean didn't realize her daughter was very depressed and that she'd soon commit suicide. But then Jean has the nerve to try to blame Justin for the suicide.  

I guess she was trying to cover up her own blame. After she bitches at Justin, she bitches at her husband, because she has this idea he's been secretly blaming her.

I understand she's grieving, and is transferring blame. But she does it in such a cruel, unhealthy, and unfair way. I find myself thinking that maybe she DOES share a large portion of the blame.

And that's another thing. I don't like the mindset that suicide is caused by mental illness, and no one is to blame. I think sometimes people are to blame. I don't think one person is usually the cause—even if they did something hurtful like ending the relationship.  

My feeling is it's usually about the person being rejected and hurt by multiple people.

I was going to say, I'm just guessing on this. But I think some of it comes from personal experience. Iv'e never attempted suicide. But I have had times where I feel quite awful about myself and the world.  I don't think it happens when I have a conflict with one person. It happens when I feel rejected and neglected by multiple people. It happens when I feel I have no one on my side.  

7. Wondered why some people endure the pain and get through it and other people kill themselves. 

I don't know.

Sometimes it might actually be a mental illness thing. But a lot of times, I think it's just differences in personality and differences in what someone can handle.

It could also be that some people (like me) are much less bold when it comes to the actual killing part.  

So yeah. You know, I never thought of it that way. It might not have been my strong inner courage and perseverance that has kept me alive. It might be the simple fact that I'm scared of guns, drug overdoses, excessive blood, etc. 

I know it's kind of true. Because sometimes I think of the worst things happening. I question whether I'd kill myself. I try to think of methods, and then I kind of decide I'll just keep living.

The thing is, we're all going to die at sometime. So my feeling is it's usually best to not take things into our own hands. Why go through all the fuss? 

Plus, as they say, It gets better.

That's actually not exactly true. It gets better for SOME people. For other people, it keeps getting worse. But I think people might as well live, so they can see whether or not they're one of the lucky ones. 

8. Learned that Celia might have actually been mentally disturbed.

Justin talks about how she'd call him about twenty times a day; then sometimes not say anything on the phone. I'm not sure if that's before or after he broke up with her.

I guess that's something I hadn't thought of before.

Maybe some suicidal people are ignored and neglected, because they're very difficult.

9. Started to feel all mentally conflicted, because I was relating to Celia before.  

She was less preferred by her parents and boyfriends, and it turns out she was very annoying.

Have I been less preferred, not out of some type of unfairness, but because I'm a blah person?

I guess I've always pictured suicide victims as being lovely people who were treated unfairly by the world. But I should remember that's not always the case. Sometimes they might be the type of people that I try to avoid. They might be like the people who have angered me and disturbed me—the ones I've told not to contact me anymore.   

10. Wanted to say, in case I gave off the wrong impression, that I never blamed Justin for Celia's suicide.  I think he might have been the cause but not in a blame-worthy way.  People can't help if they fall out of love and want to move on. 

I didn't realize, though, that it was Celia's behavior that made him want to leave her. I thought he just fell in love with someone else...or grew tired of her. Which is fine. 

Well, it's not fine. But I know it's a natural thing that happens, and often no one is to blame.

11. Tried to figure out if I'm a relatively unlikeable person.

Or am I a cool, weird person who's not readily appreciated?

12. Figured it's probably a little bit of both, but now I'm worried that it's more the first than the second.

Oh well....

It's not like this is the first time I've worried about this.

I think I've done so less in the past few years. I've kind of taken on the attitude that I'm a good person, and if people don't like me, it's their problem. Well, it's my problem too, because it hurts me. But I have felt it was more a lack of appreciation on their part than a lack of worth on mine.  

But now The Secret Life of Us episode is making me feel my old low self-esteem type thingies.

13. Decided to try not to get upset about this.

I might not be a popular person, but I like me. I mean I really do. I find myself to be entertaining and interesting.—fascinating, actually. 

I do know that a few people love me. They might not like me all the time, but they like me some of the time.

If I'm not liked by many, who cares? Maybe I don't have what it takes to be adored.  But I think as long as I don't cause people great pain and annoyance, I'm okay in this world.  

In other words, I may not light up the world for many people, but I also don't think I'm making the world a bad place for people. Hopefully.  

14. Started to watch an episode of Farscape.

In this episode, like pretty much all episodes, the Moya crew is in mortal peril. 

That's actually getting kind of old. 

15. Went to palg1305's Flickr account.

Tonight I'm looking at his Southeast Queensland Album.  I guess that would include places like Brisbane and the Gold Coast? 

16. Thought that this photo of Moreton Bay was beautiful. 

17. Started having the "Moreton Bay" song in my head.

18. Went to IMDb to see which cast member of The Secret Life of Us I'll be looking at on Instagram and Twitter today.

19. Saw that it's Nina Liu.  

I think she was on season three. She played the lesbian coworker of Miranda.  And then she and Miranda got together and have a romance.  

20. Failed to find Nina Liu on Twitter or Instagram.  

21. Wished there was a tame-version of the word "stalking".

I usually just use the term "Stalking", but now I'm feeling maybe that isn't appropriate.  

I don't like saying "looking", though. In a way, I think it sounds creepier than stalking.  

Is there any other word that would describe spending time exploring someone's social media account?

22. Saw from this website, that an alternate term is "Creeping".  I think I've heard that before.

I prefer stalking to creeping.

I don't know.  For me, "creepy" has a very negative connotation. It makes me think of scary men in dark alleys doing things in public which I'd prefer they do in private.

But I know some people see the word "weird" as being very negative. They think I'm insulting myself with my blog title, but I see it as positive.

23. Found this article. It uses the term "research", and has all the ways you can tell whether you're stalking someone or researching them. 

So I'll say I was planning on RESEARCHING Nina Liu on Twitter and Instagram.

But my plans failed.

And I'm not going to work on researching anyone else, because I want to watch Coronation Street. 

24. Decided "Research" doesn't work for me, either. It sounds too serious for looking at the social media accounts of TV show actors.  

Well, I guess it would be fine if I was doing some kind of psychological study.

But I'm just doing it for fun.

Really!  I wish I knew of a good word.

25. Thought of a word I sort of like!

Explore.

How's that?

I could say. If time permits, tomorrow I will explore the Instagram and Twitter account of Dan Spielman. 

Yeah. I like that.