Wil Wheaton's Blog, page 24

I’m caught in a rip current, and I can’t seem to swim out of it

After months and months of feeling pretty good, like I’m doing a great job healing myself and making a lot of progress overcoming and processing my childhood trauma, I’m having one of the hardest weeks of my life.

There was this kid I knew when we were child actors in the 80s. We were never friends, but just like me, he didn’t want to be on any of the auditions our mothers forced us to do. His mother was the most openly abusive monster I have ever seen. More than once, I saw her hit him in public. Literally every time I saw him, she was yelling at him, berating him, putting him down, and being emotionally abusive. Literally every time, hundreds of times, for about a decade.

I always felt so sad for this kid, and his siblings, who were obviously being abused and used by their mother. His mother was so unabashed about screaming at him in casting offices, even little 9 year-old Wil knew that he was probably being physically and emotionally abused at home.

I hadn’t seen or thought about this person in thirty years, but the other night I saw him on my TV from a movie he did in the 80s, and all of these traumatic memories of my own abuse were triggered. I remembered things I had totally forgotten, things that I hadn’t thought about since they happened 35 years ago, and I just started to sob, because I realized that if little 9 year-old me knew what was going on, certainly the adults who should have protected him knew, and they did nothing.

Just like the adults in my life, starting with the two people who I should have been able to rely upon more than anyone else in the world to protect me.

I was a kind, gentle, enthusiastic kid. I was super creative, with an endless imagination. I was honest, I was honorable, and I always tried to do the right thing. I really love that little boy, and I wish he was my own son, because he deserves so much better than he got. I just wanted to be loved and praised by my parents, which I don’t think is unreasonable for any child. But my father made it really clear from my earliest memories that I wasn’t good enough for him. He bullied me, he humiliated me, he hit me, and I lived in absolute terror of him. By the time I was a teenager, and had plenty of experience with bullies, I recognized how weak and pathetic he was, and I traded my fear for contempt. I didn’t respect him, I didn’t trust him, I would never confide in him or seek advice from him, but I still desperately wanted him to love me. I desperately wanted him to approve of me, to give any indication at all that I mattered. He was, and is, such a bully, such a narcissist, so selfish and so cruel, that that was never going to happen. My mother must have known how cruel he was to me, but she protected him and enabled his abuse. She gaslighted me about it for my whole life, as recently as the final communication I had with her. I’m working to accept the reality of who they are, and even though I won’t ever speak to them again or have anything to do with them, the absence of loving, nurturing, caring parents is always going to be there for me. It hurts, a lot. It feels kind of like the whole world.

So when I saw this kid, back in 1988 or whenever it was, I was reminded of being that sweet, gentle, curious, smart, clever, kind, child I was. That child who didn’t ever get affection or approval from his father, who learned that he could only get approval and affection from his mother when he was letting her use him to chase her acting dreams. Something happened, and it’s like this emotional dam I’d built to contain the sadness and fear I lived with when I was that child just totally burst.

The enormity and totality of my father’s abuse, my mother’s manipulation, and how unhappy, sad, and afraid I was poured over me in a torrent, and I felt like I was drowning. I still do. I’m caught in a rip current, and I can’t seem to swim out of it.

So now I have these two profound emotions swirling around in my head: I feel, in full color and as vividly as if it is happening to me right now, the overwhelming fear and sadness I lived with as a child. I was so afraid my dad would be mean to me, or that he would hurt me. I was so afraid that my mother, like my father, would not love me if I didn’t do what she wanted. Endlessly, I begged my mother to let me be a kid, and she refused. I did everything I could to earn my father’s affection and approval, and it was never good enough for him. I feel those things with the helplessness and confusion of a child, but I also feel white-hot anger at those awful people for hurting that child — for hurting me — so much, and so callously.

I love that little boy. I love his kindness. I love his compassion and his empathy. I love how creative he is, how much he loves to make up stories. I love how important it is to him to be kind, to treat people the way he wants to be treated. I want to protect and nurture and love that little boy the way he deserves. I want to go back in time, and protect him from the people who are SUPPOSED to be protecting him, who are using and hurting him, like he’s their property, and not their child.

When I remember being that child, I feel so angry and afraid, I could join the Dark Side, and that’s not something I like to feel.

I’ll get through this, because I am stronger than my abusers. I am better than the man who was my father, and I am working to heal from and overcome how manipulative my mother was. Some days are easier than others, but the last few days have been really, really tough.

It feels like the whole world, and if you understand what that means, I am so, so sorry.

stay awhile and listen

“After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world.” – Mary Oliver

In “On Writing”, Stephen King tells us that if we don’t make time to read, we don’t have time to write.

I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. In a way, he’s saying that if you don’t love to read, you probably won’t love to write. At least, that’s one of the ways I interpret it.

When I was a teen and in my early 20s, I did my best to make myself go out to the movies every week. I saw everything that I could see, sometimes twice, so I could study and learn from it.

I did not enjoy any of it. I hated being in theatres full of people who had no respect and basic courtesy for their fellow audience members, and most of what I saw bored me.

It took me years — maybe decades — to realize that while I like some movies, I don’t love film, the way my friends who are successful directors and actors do.

Actually, more than realizing it, I admitted it to myself, because I knew it all along. It’s just that I believed my mother’s gaslighting when she would tell me that it was MY dream to be an actor and to work in film and television, not something she forced me to do against my clearly and repeatedly-stated wishes.

So I’ll watch some movies when they are on DVD or streaming, and I’ll probably take myself to actually see something with an audience once or twice a year, but I don’t need to do that to breathe, which is the level of love and devotion I think we need to have for art, if we’re going to make our living and find our emotional fulfillment as an artist. I don’t have that love for acting or filmmaking. I just don’t. It isn’t there, even though I’ve worked in that industry for my whole life.

Which brings me back to On Writing.

For the last year, I have been in a cocoon. I have been withdrawn from public life as much as I have been since I started my blog twenty years ago, and I’ve been equally withdrawn in my personal life. I’ve spent a little over a year processing and trying to heal from my abusive childhood, and that has been a full-time gig for me.

Let me just take a minute to loudly and gratefully acknowledge and own how privileged I am, that I have been able to afford to work less than most people, while I get to spend almost all of my time doing therapy and healing as best as I can. I will also be proud of myself for having the courage to do this work, and to stick with it when it’s been incredibly difficult and painful.

Okay. Back to On Writing: since I finished writing and rewriting my first novel, I just haven’t made the time to read for pleasure. I’ve only read when it’s narrating an audiobook,or part of my homework for school. I’ve tried to make time to read for pleasure, but my brain just refuses to focus and build the author’s world in my imagination. It’s been frustrating, but part of my healing process is to practice mindfulness, to accept what I can’t change and focus on the things that I can change. I’ve known that I’ll eventually become a capital-R Reader again, that it’s just a matter of time before I can begin to emerge from this cocoon, so while it’s felt like something that should be a priority — I’m a writer, right? — it clearly wasn’t something I had room in my life to make a priority.

This morning, one of my internet friends showed me this collection of short speculative fiction stories at Amazon Prime called Forward. They are included in my Prime membership, to read on Kindle without charge, but they are ALSO available from Audible at no charge to Prime members. Each of these stories can be read or listened to in about an hour.

I was intrigued. I am a fan of many of the authors and narrators, but could I set aside a whole hour? Doesn’t that seem like a silly thing to ask myself? That’s my reality, though, at this moment in my life. I wanted to carve out an hour, but could I?

As I very slowly and cautiously emerge from this cocoon, I am making an effort to invest some time in my physical health (again, very grateful that I have been able to focus so singularly on my mental health, without my physical health suffering). I’ve done little things like walk my dogs, but for close to a year, I haven’t done any other meaningful exercise. I haven’t jogged, I haven’t even practiced yoga. And my body is starting to tell me that I need to take better care of it. I listened, and I don’t make new year resolutions, but back in December, Anne and I committed to walking at least every other day, with the goal of doing a 5K in the future.

To slowly work my body back into a place where it can do a 5K and not collapse, I walk every day, even if it’s just around the block, because I’m middle-aged, and it just takes longer for my body to work itself back into good shape than it did when I was younger. But I haven’t taken a long walk, by myself, until today. Today, I put on my headphones, picked a book to listen to, and took Jason Isaacs and NK Jemisin out with me. I literally did not want to come home until I finished listening to him narrate her short story, “Emergency Skin”. My legs were all, “bro, we’re getting tired” and I was like “shut up and keep walking. I need to know how this ends.”

My artistic spirit feels nourished and inspired, and my body feels good. I could easily have spent that hour doing nothing but goofing off, but I made a deliberate choice to do the personal work I need to do on my body and my mind, so I can live my best life.

I still have a TREMENDOUS amount of pain to heal, and while today is a pretty good day, I know there are rough days ahead (and also other good days), so I’m choosing to be present and grateful for that.

Over the last year, I’ve worked really hard to heal myself and unpack a lot of pain and trauma. I’ve made a lot of good progress, but it’s come at a cost. I’ve forgotten how to read. I’ve forgotten how to have fun. I’ve forgotten how to be joyful. But it’s slowly and surely coming back to me.

And I now have at least five hours of what looks like great reading/listening ahead of me, that I hope will inspire me to write my own stories.

PS: speaking of audiobooks, I had the privilege of narrating Andy Weir’s The Martian for Audible, and it debuted at number one when it was released last week!

At Last, Accountability

For the first time in his cruel, racist, abusive, mendacious, privileged life, Donald Trump has been held accountable for his actions. A majority of Congresspersons, representing a majority of Americans, have done all they can do to protect and defend our country from Donald Trump’s crimes. The American people have spoken, and the American people believe Donald Trump abused his power and obstructed Congress, in violation of the laws of our nation.

The trial of Donald Trump is over. Donald Trump is undeniably guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. The evidence is overwhelming and indisputable.  As President of the United States of America, he violated his oath of office, he broke the laws of our nation, and he has been held accountable by the American people.

Now, a new trial will begin. It is, in many ways, more consequential and more urgent than the trial of Donald Trump.

This will be the trial of the Republican Party, and the result of this trial is as important, if not more important, than the trial of Donald Trump. The trial about to begin is no longer about a single man and his crimes. This trial is about nothing less than the future of America, as a Republic, and as a Western Liberal Democracy.

following the footsteps of a ragdoll dance

For as long as I can remember, I have had insomnia to some extent. It is very hard for me to fall asleep, and I struggle to stay asleep. It’s not uncommon for me to wake up four or five times a night.


 


Because that doesn’t make existing in the world difficult enough, my natural Circadian rhythm wants to stay awake until 2 or 3 in the morning, and it doesn’t want to get out of bed until 10 or 11. I have *always* been like this, and no amount of exercise, natural or prescription drugs, meditations or pacts with the devil have been able to change it. If I get into bed at what I think of as the time normal people go to bed, like between 9 and 11, say, I will stare at the ceiling, toss and turn, and get frustrated until sometime after midnight, when my brain finally gets on board and lets me fall into my version of what passes for restful sleep.


 


It’s frustrating and has been demoralizing for pretty much my entire life. Thanks, anxiety!


 


Well, about two years ago, I started using a cannabis tincture before bed. It’s 3:1 CBD:THC, and it’s been a h*cking miracle. I still stay awake until after midnight, but rarely am I awake past 2am, and I almost always stay asleep for a full 8 hours. It’s been such a life-changing experience for me, I’ve struggled to avoid becoming an obnoxious evangelist about it.


 


I wondered if I was developing a tolerance, or if, with my history of alcohol dependence, I was engaging in risky behaviour, so earlier this week, I decided to take a break and see what my physical and emotional response was.


 


I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I did not experience a single physical or emotional withdrawal symptom. This is in sharp contrast to when I quit alcohol, which featured about two weeks of really tough days and nights (that I am so proud of myself for getting through! Coming up on four years! Go me!)


 


But a couple days ago, on the same day I had my time collapse thing, the insomnia came back as hard and as relentless as ever. It came out of nowhere, and it was like HEY MAN I AM HERE AND I AM GONNA MAKE THE MOST OF IT! YEAAAHHH!!


 


It was a rough night, and by the time I gave up and got out of bed at 5am, I had only managed to struggle through about two hours of fitful sleep.


 


And because that wasn’t annoying enough, during the brief time I was asleep, something happened in my neck, and when I got out of bed, I was in excruciating pain. I could hardly hold my head up, and turning it to either side wasn’t going to happen.


 


I reacted to this in a mature and adult way: I got really, really mad about it. What the fuck, Wil’s Body?!


 


Around 630, I texted my chiropractor, and asked her if she had any appointments to help me. Around 8, she said she could see me at 930. I put myself together as best as I could, and dragged my exhausted, miserable, wrecked-neck self to see her.


 


Anne does Pilates in the same building, and when I got there, I saw her instructor, who looked at me like, “Why are you here? You don’t do Pilates and even when you did, you were never here in the morning because you suck at mornings.”


 


“I’m here to see [my chiropractor],” I told her, “because I wrecked my neck when I engaged in the extreme sport known as ‘sleeping’.”


 


We laughed about that, because I am a goddamn delight, even when I feel like a hot wet bag of crap that’s ten months past its sell date.


 


My doctor came out of her office then. “What did you do?” She asked me, “your neck is … kind of bent to the side.”


 


“Well,” I said, “Let me tell you all about it.” I stood up. “I went to sleep last night.”


 


She waited for me to continue.


 


“That’s it. I went to bed, and when I got out of bed, this happened. Because middle age is AWESOME.”


 


We all laughed about that, because it’s true. I went into her office, she worked on me for a little bit, and I went from a 9 on the pain scale to about a 5. “So there’s this thing that can happen,” she told me, “where we go to sleep, and our head ends up in a strange position for some reason, and a disc in our necks can just slowly slip out of alignment.”


 


“That’s bullshit,” I said.


 


“It is, but it happens. And it’ll probably take about two full days for it to unwind itself.”


 


I thanked her, and on my way home, I stopped at a cannabis dispensary to get something to help with the pain. The woman who helped me suggested I use the same tincture I use for sleep, because the high CBD is good for reducing inflammation, and recommended this topical spray that’s kind of like if Biofreeze had some cannabis and arnica in it.


 


I wanted to give my body a full six days to reset my endocannabinoid system, but I also didn’t want to take prescription painkillers, so I used a a 25mg dropperful under my tongue as soon as I got home. I also sprayed the topical stuff (apothecanna, if you care) on my neck and shoulder. Within about twenty minutes, my pain was reduced to about a 3 on the pain scale.


 


I’m telling ya’ll, this stuff is a goshdarn miracle.


 


My pain abated enough to let me go to sleep, and for once my wonky brain was a team player. I think I slept for close to an hour, and woke up feeling not great, but not awful.


 


I took it easy for the rest of the day, and by the time the evening came around, I felt good enough to go to the Kings game with Anne.


 


Sidebar: I love hockey and I love the Kings, even when they’re terrible. We are lucky to afford season tickets, and I cherish going on hockey dates with Anne. I honestly don’t care if they win or lose, because the game isn’t what’s awesome about going to the game together.


 


So we were creeping down the goddamn 110 with everyone else in the world (who, incidentally, don’t know how to drive), and we were cathing each other up on our day.


 


“Did T tell you I saw her this morning when I went to see N?” I asked her.


 


“Yeah,” Anne said.


 


I related my conversation with the chiropractor. Anne laughed and said, “I told T almost the exact same thing. I think we may have used close to the same words, even, and she says, ‘you know, I just love how you and Wil are totally buddies. All of us who have been around you both can tell that you hang out, that you are best friends, and we can see how much you love each other. There are, like, married couples who are partners and who love each other, but they aren’t exactly friends like you two are.'”


 


I felt my heart grow three sizes. “Oh my god,” I said, “We are TOTALLY buddies! You’re my buddy! You’re my best friend! I love that so much!”


 


“I know we talk about it from time to time, but I want to say it out loud again: I love that you are my best friend, my partner in crime, my co-conspirator, and my favorite person in all of the universes. And I love it so much that people who know us both can see that.”


 


“Yeah, we don’t suck,” Anne said.


 


“We totally don’t suck,” I said. “And I love you the most.”


 


“I love you, too.” She reached over and put her hand over mine.


 


I never would have thought it could feel romantic to sit in traffic … and yet.


 


Have a great weekend, nerds. I hope you get to spend it with your buddy, like I do.

caught in the crossfire of childhood and stardom

I occasionally get these memories that are so vivid, it feels like time collapsed for a second, pushing the past into the present, before it retreats back into the sea of time.

This happened last night, while I was watching The Toys That Made Us, about LEGO, of all things.

I was always a good student when I was a kid. I worked hard to get all As, I did my homework the instant I got home, I participated heavily in classroom discussion, and I never goofed off when it wasn’t recess.

But in fifth grade, something changed. Suddenly, everything was incredibly difficult. I couldn’t focus in class. I didn’t want to do my homework right away when I got home. I still got As, but I had to work harder for them than I ever had to that point.

Except in math. I just did not get fifth grade math AT ALL. I couldn’t wrap my head around it, I couldn’t remember basic things like multiplication tables, and long division may as well have been hieroglyphics.

I’ve been trying my best to remember what was going on at home then, and I have a big blank page where those memories should be. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say there is a dimly lit tableau that I can’t see when I look directly at it. It only gives up shapes and colors, mostly obscured by shadows. I know that, by this time in my life, I had been telling my mother that I didn’t want to go on auditions or be an actor. I remember telling her, almost every day, “I just want to be a kid”, and I remember her dismissing that. She constantly gaslighted me about how I really did want to be an actor. She was so manipulative about it. She would tell me how selfish I was, because she’d sacrificed her own career to support mine. Please note for the record that when I was SEVEN FUCKING YEARS OLD, I did not say, “Mother, please abandon your tremendously successful acting career so that I may have one of my own.” Please also note that, as I got older, my only request, ever, was to please let me be a kid and stop making me work. Until I ended contact with them, they gaslighted me about this whenever I brought it up.

So I can’t remember if anything particularly memorable was happening at home then, something which would have made it hard for me to focus and concentrate when I was in class, but I suspect that I was becoming aware of just how much of a bully my father was to me, and how little my mother seemed to care about it.

In any case, it was fifth grade, and I was struggling like crazy to understand math. I was barely passing my math tests, and when I should have been getting tutoring, or being helped by my parents, my father was busy bullying me, and my mother was forcing me to go into Hollywood three or four days a week for auditions after school, which I hated.

This is where I stop for a moment and I tell you that it’s okay for you to have enjoyed the work I did when I was a kid. It’s unlikely that many of you have seen my work before Stand By Me, because it was mostly in commercials and a few movie of the weeks on television, and one entirely forgettable feature film. I’ve written about how unhappy I was as a child actor, and that’s caused some people to share with me that they feel guilty for enjoying the work I did then. I’m here to tell you that it’s okay, and I’m glad that you did enjoy it. That means it wasn’t a waste of my time, and it means that I was good at being an actor, which I can feel proud of.

Okay, as Joe Bob Briggs says, back to the movie.

While I was watching this thing about LEGO, time collapsed and I was in fifth grade. My teacher Mrs. M., made me stay after school one day to do all this math homework that I hadn’t done, because when normal kids were doing homework, I was sitting in traffic to or from Hollywood. Oh, and as it turns out, in the car is not the place to do schoolwork, especially schoolwork that a kid is struggling to understand.

The way I remember it (and this is an unreliable memory, because I am a writer and sometimes my brain invents things), I didn’t even know I was going to be kept after school until the final bell rang, and she told me to stay in my seat as my classmates got up and got ready to go home. She told me she’d called my home and told whoever she spoke to that I was catastrophically behind in math homework, and she wanted to keep me after school to finish it.

This didn’t feel like a teacher giving me the extra attention I needed to master arithmetic. This felt like I was being punished, which really sucked for me because I was a good kid who worked hard, and who just. Didn’t. Get. It.

If she had worked with me, if she had tutored me, if she had sat with me and refused to give up until I understood the things I was struggling with, she would have been my favorite teacher of all time.

But that’s not what happened.

No, while she sat at her desk and graded papers, I sat at my desk and struggled to get through was was probably a dozen pages of math homework, which feels insurmountable when you’re eleven and can’t seem to understand fundamental arithmetic for some reason.

Any question about the ratio of punishment to meaningful help was answered when she made me drag my desk out of the classroom and onto the terrace in front of it, facing the playground where all the after school daycare kids were playing.

Now, maybe she thought it would be nice for me to work outside, in the late afternoon sun (I know this happened in winter, because the light was golden and the sun was low in the sky by 3:30), and fresh air. But all I felt was humiliated and embarrassed. You know who eleven year-old me knew had to stay after school, sit at their desk, and do class work after everyone else has been released for the day? Fuck ups. Bad kids. Stupid kids.

And it wasn’t just humiliating, either. It was offensive, because it wasn’t even my fault that I was struggling in school so much. It seemed like I was constantly begging my mother to just let me be a kid, to stop making me do this thing I didn’t want to do. I didn’t have to words or maturity to express that the responsibility of learning lines and performing for strangers every day after school was giving me paralyzing anxiety and the early stages of depression, but I’m pretty sure that’s what was happening to me.

Last night, while I was watching this delightfully nerdy dude talk about the LEGO system (if you haven’t seen this documentary series and you’re of a certain age, I can’t recommend it enough), time collapsed for a nanosecond and I was sitting at my desk, in 1981 or 1982, feeling utterly, completely, entirely humiliated, and defeated.

I can see the beautiful, golden sunlight of the late afternoon sun. I can feel the warmth radiating off the walls behind me. I can smell that unmistakable stink of a fifth grade classroom at the end of a warm day, and I can feel in every cell of my body how humiliated and embarrassed and sad and awful I felt at that moment, thirty-nine or so years ago.

I had to pause the show I was watching, grab my journal, and write out as much of this memory as I could, because the alternative was to just cry for that kid, who I want so desperately to go back and protect. I wish I was his dad, because I want to believe that I would have given him the support, the love, the encouragement, and the help he needed to work through something he was clearly struggling with.

And I wouldn’t have bullied him, because I’m not a dick. I’m especially not a dick to my own child. I also wouldn’t have let my spouse bully my child while gaslighting him and forcing him to work when he doesn’t want to, but I’m not my parents. Thank god.

But the world — at least the world I lived in — was profoundly different then. I was in a Lutheran school, with a principal and a fifth grade teacher who never met an authoritarian idea or practice they didn’t fully embrace. It’s no small wonder my father, a relentless and cruel authoritarian, and my mother, who I don’t recall ever sticking up for me, sided with this teacher. I’m sure they all thought that just forcing me to endure humiliating frustration (remember, I didn’t just have a ton of math pages to do; I had a ton of math pages to do that I didn’t understand) would teach me a valuable lesson about the Calvinist ideals of hard work and bootstraps.

I can’t recall how many pages of math I did. I do remember that I didn’t get much help from my teacher, and that it was dark by the time I was picked up to go home. I wish I could remember a single thing about that ride home, but I can’t, and I can’t even talk to the people who could help me remember, because whenever I would ask about things like this, I got gaslighted, or told I was being too dramatic. Hey, at least I didn’t have to go on an audition that day!

It’s unsurprising to me that I haven’t touched on this memory since the early 1980s. It’s painful, it’s upsetting, and it just pain sucks.

But wow did the time streams collapse into a brief singularity of memory last night, putting me right back into that desk, on that afternoon, all those years ago. It hurt then, and it hurts now. But I’m healing as best as I can, doing my best to work through the pain.

Maybe that’s why I got this particular memory as clearly and powerfully and immediately as I did last night. Maybe some part of my brain knows that I’m ready to shine my own light into that tableau so I can remember more clearly.

Maybe I am.

The golden apples of the Hesperides

One of my biggest regrets in my life is that I didn’t go to college. When I was 18 and desperate to get out of my parents’ house, I moved to Westwood, where UCLA is, and moved in with Hardwick, who I’d known for a little bit, and who was already attending.

I planned to enroll in two years of Extension, and then apply to the university after. I have no idea if that is even a thing that a kid can or could do, though, because the instant I started filling out my Extension forms, I panicked.

What if I didn’t know how to be a college student? What if I failed? I was certainly going to fail. I was a stupid actor. I knew that. Mrs. Lee told me that in 9th grade, and my dad has spent my whole life making it really clear to me that I was worthless (fun sidebar: when I was 19 or 20, I read The Portable Nietzsche. I thought a lot of it was bullshit nihilism, but some of it resonated with young me. I wanted to share that with my dad, whose approval and affection I craved, desperately. When I did, he told me I was “being a fucking intellectual” and “nobody likes a fucking intellectual.” I was so humiliated and kicked in the balls by that statement, I never pursued any further reading of philosophy, or mentioned it to him, again). I didn’t even have real public high school experience beyond one awful semester when I was a Freshman. I had no idea what to do, and I was so afraid of failure, I never turned the forms in.

Here’s how sheltered I was and how unprepared I was as a kid, crawling into adulthood: I thought you had to be in a fraternity if you were in a college. I didn’t know any better, and my dad was in a fraternity (which explains SO MUCH about what a jerk he was hashtag not all frat guys), and TV and movies were heavily focused on that whole thing, so I just extrapolated from what information I had and … well, garbage in, garbage out.

For years I told anyone who asked me about it that I had to withdraw because I was getting work as an actor. That’s partially true. I was getting work as an actor, but it wasn’t enough to justify not going to a single class. The truth was, I was terrified of the uncertainty. I felt like the only thing that mattered, the only thing I was any good at, was being an actor. And even then, at 18, I knew that it wasn’t my passion. I wasn’t ready to admit to myself that I was living my mother’s dream, and trying so hard to do the only thing I was good at because I hoped it would make my dad love me, but when I met other actors my own age who hadn’t been pushed into it by their parents, they had a totally different energy around them. They had this incredible and wondrous knowledge of theatre and film and acting technique, that they’d devoured and studied. They had the artistic calling, of art for its own sake.

I had the fear of failure, and the growing awareness that I didn’t love the one thing I was good at. And, I have to be honest: I wasn’t even that good at it, then. I was OKAY, but not great. I knew that, and I knew that I would get better when I understood technique the way those other young actors did, as opposed to leaning on the instincts and experience I already had.

When I got older and eventually went to drama school, where I studied Meisner Technique for years, I did get better. I’m good at it now, I like being on the set now, and I’m proud of the work I’ve done, even the stuff that isn’t that great like The Liar’s Club. That work and those years of study actually contributed to me finding my own path, and discovering the confidence to be a writer and storyteller. I learned when I was in those workshops and scene studies that the performing wasn’t what I loved; it was the preparation, the deconstruction of the scene and the character, the work that went into getting to know who the characters were and why they were in this scene, what was at stake, and what all their obstacles were. As a writer, now, I use all that training I had for scene preparation, when I’m creating a scene from scratch. It’s awesome.

But, way back in 1990, I was just afraid of so many things, and I wasn’t supported in the ways I needed, so I let that fear consume me, and didn’t attend a single class. I have always regretted that.

A few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to take an online course, not for credit, but just for knowledge. I looked at TONS of courses, and decided that I would take a writing course. I have a lot of practical experience writing essays like this one, narrative nonfiction, and short opinion pieces, but I have no formal writing education, beyond reading some books. This is not to say that reading some books hasn’t been helpful! I have learned a TON about structure and character design and pacing from books. I’m a competent fiction writer, and I credit the books I read with helping me understand my own writing process a little better.

But I decided to take a writing class, anyway, because I thought I would get some insights that would help close up the gaps in my knowledge. I spent a lot of time looking around online, and decided to take Brandon Sanderson’s course at BYU. It’s a series of 11 lectures and a Q&A, that was recorded in 2017. I’ve been watching one lecture a day, taking weekends off, and tomorrow I’ll finish.

It’s been a fantastic experience for me. I haven’t learned as much new stuff as I thought I would, but even more importantly, I’ve had many of my instincts and experiences confirmed and validated by someone I respect and admire, who is successful in my field. The new things that I did learn have been PROFOUND for me. Like, huge, epic, explosive revelations and insights that I did not expect at all.

The biggest revelation hit me this afternoon, as today’s lecture was wrapping up: I doubt myself way too much. I’m smarter and more capable than I was raised to believe I am, and it would serve me well to trust my instincts more. I should listen to my OWN voice when I’m creating, and not invent voices that criticize me, humiliate me, or minimize my accomplishments.

I got a lot of good, useful, practical, experience and knowledge from Professor Sanderson’s class, but the most profound thing I got out of it wasn’t even directly related to what he was teaching, which I believe is what going to college is all about.

I don’t know what it’ll be, but I’m going to start another course when I finish this one. Maybe something in history. I’ve always been interested in learning more about the American Civil War and Reconstruction, and that seems really, grossly, horrifyingly relevant to this moment in our history.

I’m really grateful that I can pursue knowledge for its own sake, and I’m even more grateful that I’m not afraid to do it.

The Purge.

Earlier this year, I made some significant and substantial changes to my life, continuing the process of growth and reflection that I started when I quit drinking almost four years ago. (Sidebar: it’s remarkable how much clarity I got, and shocking how much pain I was self medicating for so much of my life. I’m so grateful for the love and support of my friends, my wife, and my kids, who supported me when it was clear that I needed to get alcohol out of my life. Be honest with yourself: if you’re self medicating emotional pain and/or childhood trauma like I was, give some serious consideration to working on the root issues you’re using booze to avoid. I’m so much happier and healthier since I quit, and that’s almost entirely because I was able to confront, head on, why I was so sad and hurting so much of the time. I’m not the boss of you, but if you need a gentle nudge to ask for help, here it is: nudge.)

Anyway.

As I was cleaning up my emotional baggage, working on strategies to protect myself from my abusers, and practicing mindfulness daily, I realized that I had a ton of STUFF just sitting around my house, cluttering up my physical living space the way my emotional trauma and pain was cluttering up my emotional space. So I made a call, and hired a professional organizer to come to my house, go through all my bullshit with me, and help me get rid of all the things I didn’t need any more.

This process was, in many ways, a metaphor.

We spent several days going through my closets, my game room, my storage spaces in my attic and shed, and eventually ended up with FIVE TRUCKLOADS of stuff I didn’t need. Most of it was clothes and books and things that we donated to shelters, which was really easy to unload. I acquire T-shirts so much, I regularly go through my wardrobe and unload half of what I have, so it’s easy to get rid of stuff without any emotional attachments.

But there were some things that were more difficult to get rid of, things that represented opportunities I once had but didn’t pursue, things that represented ideas that I was really into for a minute, but didn’t see through to completion, things that seemed like a good idea at the time but didn’t really fit into my life, etc.

I clearly recall giving away a TON of electronic project kits to my friend’s son, because he’s 11, he loves building things, and he’ll actually USE the stuff I bought to amuse myself while I tried to make a meaningful connection to my own 11 year-old self, who loved those things back then too. When I looked at all of these things, I had to accept and admit that 47 year-old me isn’t going to make that connection through building a small robot, or writing a little bit of code to make a camera take pictures. I can still connect to that version of myself, but I do it now through therapy, through my own writing, my own meditation. For the longest time, I didn’t want to let these things go, because I felt like I was giving up on finding that connection I was seeking, but what I didn’t realize (and didn’t know until I made the decision to let it go) was that I didn’t need STUFF to recover something I’d lost and wanted to revisit.

I think that, by holding on to these kits and similar things, I was trying to give myself the opportunity to explore science and engineering and robotics in a way that young me was never given. Just about everything I wanted to do, that I was interested in when I was 11, was pushed aside, minimized, and sort of taken away from me by my parents. My dad made fun of everything I liked, and my mom made me feel like the only thing I should care about was the pursuit of fame and celebrity. Without parental support and encouragement, I never got the chance to find out if any of these other things would be interesting enough to me to think about pursuing them in higher education. Yes, for some reason, even when I was a really small kid, I was already thinking about where and when I would go to college. I never took even a single class, because I was so afraid of so many things when I was college age, but that’s its own story, for another time.

As we went through just piles and piles of bullshit, it got easier and easier to just mark stuff for donation. That drone I used to fly for fun, that I kinda sorta told myself would eventually be used to film something I wrote? Get rid of it, that’s never gonna happen. The guitar I kinda played a little bit when I was a teenager, but never really learned how to play properly? Give it to someone who is going to love it and play it so much, it lets them express their creativity in ways I was never able to. All those books I bought to make me a better poker player? Gone. All the books I bought to learn how to program in Python, Perl, Java, and even that old, used, BASIC book I picked up because I thought it would be fun to finally write that game I always dreamed about when I was ten? Give them all to someone who is actually going to do that, instead of just think about it.

It was, at first, really hard to get rid of this stuff, because I felt like I was admitting to myself that, even though I could paint all these minis (like I did when I was a teenager), even though I could study all of these books on Python and Arduino hacking, and probably make something kind of cool with that knowledge, I was never going to. I came to realize that having these things was more about holding on to the possibility that they represented. It was more about maintaining a connection to some things that once made me really happy. When I was a kid, I LOVED copying Atari BASIC programs out of a magazine and playing the games that resulted, because it was an escape from my father’s bullying and my mother’s neediness. When I was a teenager, I LOVED the time I spent (badly) painting Space Marines and Chaos Marines, because it gave me an escape from everything that was so hard about being me when I was 14. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I spent hundreds of hours trying to learn the same five songs on the guitar, never mastering a single one of them. My time would have been much more wisely invested in learning the scales and chords that I declared were more boring than picking my way through the tablature for Goodbye Blue Sky.

And that all brings me to the thing that was simultaneously the hardest and most obvious thing to donate: all my Rock Band gear.

Did you know that the first Rock Band, which I and my kids and my friends played for literally a thousand hours, came out twelve years ago? Beatles Rock Band is a decade old this year. Rock Band 3 is ten years old, too.

I hadn’t played Rock Band in almost five years when my friend asked me what I wanted to do with all these plastic guitars, both sets of pretend drums, and all the accessories that were stacked up neatly in the corner of my gameroom.

But a decade ago, Anne and I would send the kids off to their biodad’s house, or to their friends’ for a sleepover, have some beers, and play the FUCK out of Rock Band, almost every Saturday night. My god, it was so much fun for us to pretend that we were rocking all over the world, me on the drums, Anne on the vocals. Frequently, we’d get the whole family together to play, and we’d spend an entire evening pretending to be on tour together, blasting and rocking our way through the Who, Boston, Green Day, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Dead Kennedys, and others. It brought us all closer together, and was incredibly valuable for our bonding, at a time when we really needed that.

And I was holding onto all these things, these fake plastic guitars and who even knows how many gigs of DLC, because I didn’t want to lose my connection to those days. Part of me hoped that we’d all get together and play again, like we did when my kids were in their teens, like I would when I hosted epic Rock Band parties at Phoenix Comicon, or PAX, back before the world was on fire.

But when I looked at those things, neatly stacked up and untouched except by dust for years, I knew that we weren’t going to play again, and that I didn’t need these things in my house to validate the memories.

Back in those days, when Ryan and I would spend an entire Saturday afternoon and evening trying to complete the Endless Setlist on Expert (we never did, but we got to Green Grass and High Tides more than once), real musicians would smugly tell us that we were having fun the wrong way, that we should be learning REAL instruments instead of pretending to have already mastered them. I would always argue that the whole POINT of Rock Band was the fantasy. Can you imagine telling a 100 pound kid that he should be playing real football instead of Madden? Of course not, and yet.

But it kinda turns out that some of those smug musicians were right. As I packed up those plastic fake guitars and drum kits, put them into the truck with my real guitar, I had a small twinge of regret, that I had been focused on the fantasy, instead of developing a skill that I could still use today (the last time I attempted Rock Band, maybe four years ago, I couldn’t get through a single song on Hard, much less Expert. My skills had faded, and it wasn’t worth the effort to restore them). And then I stopped myself, because that’s EXACTLY the kind of thinking that stopped me from following my dreams when I was a kid. What was important to me ten years ago, what’s still important to me today, was the time I spent with my wife, with my kids, with our family, with my friends, pretending that we were something we weren’t. We were doing something together, and that is what matters. Today, I can’t recall anything specific about all the nights Anne and I played, though I know we worked our way through hundreds of songs together. But I can clearly recall how much fun it was.

Ryan and I still talk about the time I accidentally turned the Xbox off, when I meant to just power down my toy guitar, after we’d been trying to play the Endless Setlist on Expert for five hours.

Over the years, I had accumulated all this stuff that I was unwilling to let go of, because I felt like that would also mean letting go of the memories that were associated with those things. I felt like getting rid of things without following through on their intended use was admitting defeat, or being a quitter.

But after a year or so of daily, intense, therapy and reflection, after ending contact with toxic and abusive people who were exerting tremendous control over me, these things stopped being the keys to unopened doors, and they just became THINGS that I had to constantly move around to get them out of my way. Because I didn’t need them anymore. I don’t need to paint minis like I did when I was 15, because I’m not 15. I’m not living with an abuser and his enabler. I’m not working for a producer who makes it clear to me at every opportunity that he owns me and has complete control over whether or not I’ll have a film career. And I don’t need to paint those minis now, to honor and care for the memory of the 15 year-old I was. The best way to care for him is to care for me, so that the pain he endured is not for nothing.

I didn’t need ANY of these things, and once I realized that, unloading them and getting them to people who DO need them felt as freeing and empowering as writing a goodbye letter.

I kept a few things that were still useful, or brought me joy. Books, mostly, and of course all my dice and games. Lots of records, even some cassettes. It felt GOOD to admit that I’m never going to learn guitar, or build an Arduino-controlled anything. It felt GOOD and empowering to know that I’m a writer. I get my joy and explore my possibilities through storytelling and character development. THAT is what I love, and by getting rid of all this old stuff (and its emotional baggage) I created space in my life to be the person I am now, a person I love, in a life that is amazing.

I still have some emotional clutter, which is to be expected and isn’t a big deal. The really cool thing is that I have physical and emotional space, now, to deal with it.

This is my bio as of 01 October 2019

Wil Wheaton loves to tell stories. He’s been doing it his whole life.

By age ten, he had already been acting for three years. In 1986, at age 12, he earned critical acclaim as Gordie Lachance in Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me; at 14, he began his four-year turn as Wesley Crusher on the hit TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

Since then, Wil has appeared in dozens of films and TV series, with recurring roles on TNT’s Leverage, SyFy’s Eureka, and the hit webseries The Guild. He is the creator, producer, and host of the wildly successful webseries Tabletop, credited with reigniting national interest in tabletop gaming. Most recently, he played a fictionalized version of himself on CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, one of the most highly rated and watched sitcoms of the last decade.

An accomplished voice actor, Wil has lent his talents to animated series including Family Guy, Teen Titans, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. His video game credits include four installments each of the Grand Theft Auto and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon series, as well as Fallout: New Vegas, DC Universe Online, and Broken Age.

His audiobook narration of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and was one of Goodreads’ 10 Best Narrator and Audiobook Pairings of All Time. He has also lent his voice to titles by John Scalzi, Randal Monroe, and Joe Hill.

When he isn’t acting, narrating, or podcasting, Wil Wheaton is writing. 

A lot. 

He is the author of Just A Geek, Dancing Barefoot, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, Hunter, and Dead Trees Give No Shelter, plus a forthcoming novel, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything. He has contributed columns to Salon.com, The A.V. Club, LA Weekly, Playboy, The Washington Post, and the Suicide Girls Newswire.

In recent years, Wil has earned recognition as an outspoken mental health advocate, chronicling his own journey in his blog and as a public speaker for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. His about his struggle with chronic depression and anxiety garnered national attention.

Wil lives in Los Angeles with his badass, irrepressible wife Anne, two rescued dogs, one cat, and two vintage arcade cabinets. If you’re not a robot, you can reach him at: wil at wilwheaton dot net.

 

So I’m Finally watching Deep Space Nine for the First Time

When Deep Space Nine was new, I was still working on Next Generation. I recall feeling this strong sense of sibling rivalry (entirely my issue, never created or encouraged by anyone else) that got in between me and my ability to watch the show, and give it the chance it deserved. Also, by 1993, I was 21 and feeling like it was time for me to get a break away from Trek and its emotional baggage. Over the years, I’ve wondered what, exactly, I missed, but I never made it a priority to find out.


 


With the passing my my friend, Aron, last week, I thought that I could remember and honor him by finally watching the series he gave so many years of his life and career to.


 


I know that DS9 is uneven, especially in its early seasons, just like we were, and I didn’t want to invest time into whatever their version of Angel One or Justice was (or, the gods help us all, Shades of Grey). Luckily for me, my friend, Max Temkin, has written a guide to watching the best of TNG in like 40 hours, and a similar guide to watching DS9 in like 80 hours (because, Max says, there are just too many good episodes of DS9 out there to get it down to 40).


 


So I dug up his guide, and read it. I took note of the context he thinks we should have before we start watching the show, including its time of production, its relationship to TNG, and some details about the characters that are useful to know before we really meet them.


 


Max tells us, “Deep Space Nine … is chock full of full, flawed characters with world views more diverse than their forehead prostheses.”


 


After we have that information and perspective, he picks out the episodes he feels are the best from each season, not just in terms of enjoyment (there are plenty of entertaining episodes of TOS that don’t exactly advance the character arcs, such as they were in 1966, like Arena, for instance) but as they relate to the things he feels makes DS9 the best of all the Star Treks: the Cardassians and their relationship to Bajor and the Federation, the Dominion, the character arcs that made Kira and Sisko so memorable and beloved by fans for thirty years.


 


I know it makes for better drama and a more interesting story if I say I was skeptical going into it, but I wasn’t. I was purely excited. I trust Max, and I trust the legions of DS9 fans who love it for what I’ve come to know this week are extremely good reasons.


 


Max’s guide tells us to watch the following episodes from S01: The first four, including the two-part pilot, which has the distinction of being the only truly good Trek pilot in the history of the series. Episodes 11, 13, 19, and 20.


 


I binged the first four on Netflix. This is significant because I *hate* binging shows. I prefer to let shows sit for at least a day between episodes, so I can digest and reflect upon what I watched. I believe that when we binge shows, we trade enjoying a meal for not being hungry any more … and yet. I loved the characters so much, I loved the look of the show, the tone of the show, and the stories they told in those four hours so much, I couldn’t stop watching.


 


Last night, I watched Episode 11, The Nagus. It’s the introduction of a character which could have just been broad and silly comic relief, but which I understand becomes a beloved part of the show. I’ve never been a big Ferengi fan; if you’ve read Memories of the Future you know why: they were so comical and broad in TNG, all I got out of them was buffoonish misogyny. There’s still some of that in the writing (it’s still the first season, and the writers haven’t let Quark and Rom and Nog grow into who they will become), but the actors pull the most interesting and complex nuances out of the scripts, to make their characters so compelling, I wanted to dive head first into the rest of the series, just to get to know them.


 


I told Anne that I was watching Deep Space Nine for the first time, which surprised her. I love Star Trek so much, she thought I would have watched it already. I told her how I had all this emotional baggage that got in between me and watching the show, but the therapeutic, emotional work I’ve done the past year has let me heal a lot of stuff, and stop carrying around that emotional baggage. So watching Deep Space Nine is extra special to me, because it lets me watch Star Trek, and it lets me LOVE Star Trek, in a way that I hadn’t been able to for essentially my entire adult life.


 


I love TNG, and I love my cast. They are my real family, and I will cherish the memories I have from working with them. And that means I can’t just watch TNG the way a fan does, without any complicated memories related to, you know, MAKING the show.


 


But I can watch Deep Space Nine and just see characters. Yeah, I know some of the actors a little bit, but for some reason, I can compartmentalize this time around. And that’s a wonderful revelation and a wonderful gift, for me.


Aron’s performance is sensational, by the way. But if you watched DS9, you already know that.

Be The Person Your Dog Thinks You Are

Hey nerds, check it out!!

It’s almost time for the Wiggle Waggle Walk with Pasadena Humane Society, and Anne and I are raising money to support the animal shelter that gave us Seamus and Marlowe!

We’re selling these T-shirts through my Cotton Bureau thing to raise money for our Wiggle Waggle Walk team. 100% of the profits from this sale will be donated to PHS, so they can continue to help animals find their forever homes.

This adorable design was dreamed up by Anne, and brought to life by Riley at Stands, who I’ve worked with on other super awesome stuff, including the , and Roll Model T-shirts.

Can I just take a moment to publicly thank Michelle and Riley at Stands? They are awesome humans, who insisted on doing this work for us for free, because they love animals as much as we do, and they are committed to putting more joy and love into the world. One of the best things about my privileged experience in this life is getting to work with people who are awesome, kind, good people, and I’m grateful to Michelle and Riley for choosing to be two of those people in my life.

If T-shirts aren’t your thing, and you still want to support us, you can contribute anything you can afford directly to our team and it’ll significantly add up. Seriously, so many of you can potentially see this — like it’s over three million, according to WordPress — if just half of you donated three bucks, we’d raise a crapzillion dollars to help the future Seamuses and Marlowes of the world get good care and a chance to find their forever families. I think that would be awesome.

But, honestly? I hope you’ll get one of these T-shirts, because this campaign is about more than supporting PHS. This campaign is about putting something joyful and positive into a world that needs all the joy and love it can get.