oldest child usurped by middle child?

Still trying to unlock the self-hatred puzzle - where does the demon come from? Maybe if I can understand how it got there, I can eventually get rid of it.

Today I fed the demon by yanking on that eyebrow hair until I think the whole middle of my left eyebrow must be bald.

Each time it grows back, but, man, some days it's WEIRD looking. Some days it looks perfectly smooth, healthy, happy, more or less the same as the right eyebrow. Then other days it looks just GNARLY - half the hair sticking straight OUT, and some pointing straight DOWN.  Just bizarre, like old man eyebrows. It seems to just KNOW what I'm feeling, like some kind of antennae, or a radar. Or maybe 'indicator' is what I mean. A pointer, that shows me when my energies are run the 'wrong' way, as in, not congruent with where I need them to go. Or something. Analogies and metaphors SNAP from the stress of being STRETCHED so hard.

***
It occurred to me that the 'self-picking-on' behaviors come from being picked on. I mean, kids don't NATURALLY pick on themselves, right? They learned it from somewhere. They sure as hell weren't BORN that way.

So, working backwards: What causes the eyebrow picking, or any of the other 'picking on' behaviors?

Well, bad thoughts. Specifically, thoughts that *I* am bad.

When there's something I need to do, such as getting more money to pay bills, and I have no money, and I have insufficient work to procure MORE money, then I get in this vicious, self-hating cycle that's hard to get out of.

What's wrong with me
Why won't I look for a job
I've DESPISED every job I've ever had, except music

(hm, I think maybe I've never stated, or understood, that so baldly before. Interesting. Keep going.)

Jobs are STUPID. They're BORING and people make you FEEL BAD ABOUT YOURSELF for not wanting to do their STUPID BORING THINGS that you COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT and THEY DON'T PAY YOU ENOUGH TO MAKE IT WORTH IT ANYWAY.

I think that last bit needs to be A BIT LOUDER:

THEY DON'T PAY YOU ENOUGH TO MAKE IT WORTH IT ANYWAY.

When people ask me why I quit architecture? That there, the line just above this? THAT's the reason. The real reason, the true reason, the honest reason.

I know people, mostly men, who cry big crocodile tears about how sorely used they feel, nose to the grindstone, wah - but when all's said and done? They fucking got PAID for it, and paid well. THEIR deal with the devil? Actually paid off. They got some actual, physical, measurable, TANGIBLE return for that soul they sold.

Me? Not so much. I suffered, and struggled, and toiled, and beat my head against the wall, and pushed that damn boulder up the hill (and got flattened when it rolled back down again) over and over again. And for what? So that, at the age of 47, I could live in a tiny rented house where the utilities and other miscellaneous things necessary to survive 'modern' life (an internet connection, in this case, I count as a NECESSITY rather than a luxury, given how much it's been both lifeline and umbilical cord, not to mention my own person university-at-my-fingertips, lo these 10 or so years of my personal self-reconstruction-from-scratch.)

Am I looking for help? Yes. Constantly.

Do I get it?
Tiny scraps, crumbs, just enough to remind me, continually, how STARVING I am to have even my most basic human needs met.

Maslow? He got NOTHIN'. I mean, picture that pyramid being like a triangular spaceship hovering over my head, just out of reach. I ain't even reached THE BOTTOM LEVEL yet. (Just had a horrible thought: What if, like in a video game, I RUN OUT OF TIME before the screen flashes 'GAME OVER'? That's my biggest fear. Or one of them - if my adrenals aren't fried to little crispy bits from the generalized anxiety around here, it ain't fer lack of TRYin'.)

***
Just glanced at the title of this entry and realized I haven't got anywhere near that part of the story yet. Have to pin this much up on the 'wall' and have a look at it, see what else needs to be said.