I am such an easy mark, I am disgusted with who I am.

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I went online today to purchase concert tickets. I thought I was buying them from the actual venue. I was impulsive and I was excited about being able to get to see one of the bands I grew up listening to.

Then I made the charge on my debit card. A charge of $300 for two tickets.

Then I get the email, and I realize I purchased two scalped tickets from a website that the BBB knows nothing about. Of course, the website swears up and down that they will refund the money if the tickets turn out to be rejected by the venue, but how can I trust that? Especially with a "no refund, no cancellation unless the tickets arrive late or are rejected" policy in place?

I am impulsive. I am far too impulsive for my own good. Being impulsive is not smart. And not smart is stupid. I am stupid. I am an easy mark. An easy target. A pathetic piece of f*****g s**t. An oxygen thief who steals breaths from people who do smarter things with their lives.

I always was an easy target for scams. I thought I had outgrown that. Guess not.

As it turns out, the concert itself has sold out according to the venue, so I guess going to a scalper was the only way I was going to get tickets anyway. I just can't believe I thought I was ordering from the actual venue BECAUSE I WAS TOO f*****g ret*d TO READ THE FINE PRINT ON THE WEBSITE, AND I WAS TOO f*****g IMPULSIVE AND GREEDY, NOT LETTING ANYTHING GET IN THE WAY BETWEEN ME AND WHAT I WANTED, and that impulsiveness will be the end of me, I am convinced of it. That ret*d impulsive nature of mine.

I am going to the liquor store right now. Maker's Mark Hot Toddies will be my companion this evening. Hell, maybe I'll go to one of the legal recreational Mary Jane vendors in town while I am at it. I already f****d myself pretty badly, why not go all the way with it? It's not like somebody with my intelligence has much of a right to live, anyway.

i got suckered into an internet purchase that cost me $100. the "fine print" had to be scrolled down to, while the too-good-to-be-true offer was right there in bold beside the order form. i'm not stupid. i made a mistake, one that that company counts on. please don't blame the victim - you. it's a common reaction, but unnecessary and unhealthy. the fault lies with the predatory merchants. chalk it up to a lesson learned. i hope you get to see your concert.

Yeah, but there is a difference between being an easy mark once, and being a perpetual easy mark.

I bring suffering and embarrassment to everybody around me. I am a disgrace to my family. I am a disgrace at my place of employment. I am a disgrace in my 12-step circles.

Basically, there is only one way to cure my idiotic impulsiveness. Whether it be a bullet to the brain, or a jump from a very large height, the end result will bring countless amounts of genuine relief to everybody I know IRL.

When I get sucked into a scam like this, when I let my impulsiveness completely take over and I let other people take advantage of me, I am the one to blame. If I gave the predators nothing to play with, there would be no play between me and them. I deserve every bad thing that happens to me. I always have. I always will. Because I let it all happen. Because I invite the predators into my heart. Because I am blinded by material goods. Because I am a f*****g moron who deserves to die.

I did not buy the bourbon or the Mary Jane.

I think I probably should go to bed.

I did beat myself up with a belt for about an hour. Gave myself some nice welts and bruises.

Whenever I fall for something like this, it all comes back to me. Every time I got suckered by bullies and predators into doing things I would not normally do. Every time I let them coerce me into extremely vulnerable positions. Every time I let them coerce me into sexually degrading situations. All of that came back to me tonight, thanks to a foolish impulse buy I made from a ticket scalper. By being an easy mark tonight, it reminded me of all of the other, far more significant times I was an easy mark.

I am going to take a nice shower before I go to bed. Hell, I might even take the time to trim my beard and shave my head, it's been well over a week since I last did those things. I let things go awry when I got sick. Tomorrow, I will return to the office and do the best job I can while I am there.

I need to work on my impulsiveness. And I need to work on my PTSD issues. I recognize that.

I need to lay my weary head to rest. I hope that one day I can fall asleep and not have to worry about picking myself up the next day. I hope that one day the gods might show me mercy and euthanize me in my sleep.

This is more than just a standard depressive episode, I fear. I fear this is the unraveling of everything I have worked so hard for. I fear that my impulsive nature will be the very end of me, and I will cause nothing but harm for everybody around me as a result of that.

I no longer want to go to the concert.

I just want to bury my head in my pillows and cry for several hours.

I just want to not feel anything for a while. I want to anaesthetize myself. I want to feel something, anything, other than the nonstop life of working at a job where I earn cash to buy things that I do not need. I need to purge my spirit of consumerism. Material goods and music were the only things that kept me alive when I was growing up, because at the time, they were not hurting me, and they were the only things in my life that were not hurting me. Now I feel a need to run in the opposite direction of trying to make myself feel better by showering myself with gifts, video games, Blu-Rays, comic books, fine whiskey, pornography, it's all the same for me at this point.

I don't want to die. But I don't feel to keen on living because this is the only way I know how to live. I take blows silently, and I promise myself immediate gratification at the end of the day, because GODDAMN IT, I am entitled to make foolish choices with my money and my body and my mind. I always have been destroying myself in the name of immediate gratification. And the funny thing is, I keep doing the same things over and over again even though they stopped working over a decade ago.

I have tried the geographical cure, and that did not work for me. I took all of my dysfunctions with me.

I have to start walking a different road. Any spiritual road away from where I am now. No, I am not going to turn to organized religion, because I tried that road before as well. I was looking for a Father in the sky who would absolve me of responsibility for my own life. That did not work well, obviously.

I need to be my own man. I need to be my own Father. And I need to show myself the love and concern that nobody else can give to me at this point. I need to give myself paternal attention. That is not abusive. Or patronizing. Or enabling. But solid as a rock, I need to give myself a foundation for a better life that I was denied by my own family. Nobody else can do this for me. God cannot do this for me. I need to show myself the same kind of love and concern that I would show to others who wrote what I wrote above. Beating myself with a belt is the opposite of that.

I am truly insane, but I never had a chance to turn out any other way. But I have to take responsibility for my life now. Self-pity and self-loathing were what I was taught. I have to teach myself other ways to think of myself.

I need to actually feel everything that I have been running away from for my entire life. Either blaming the predators or blaming myself, that's not actually dealing with the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is that my spirit is in an excessive amount of pain and sadness. And I have to deal with that myself. I have to comfort myself in ways that are not superficial or based upon immediate (but short-lived) gratification.

This is unsettling territory.

thanks for the update. sounds like you've given yourself the talking to you needed. you have a good sense of what is going on. mistakes are generally not crimes against humanity. they are what make us all human. i hope you get a good night's sleep and keep your recent attitude. i have an alcoholic father, so, i, too, had to become my own parent. i don't know what you think of self-help books, but this one helped me: "the self-esteem companion" by mckay and others.

I doubt I will be getting any sleep tonight at this rate.

I probably should not be going to the office in a few hours from now, anyway. My boss sent me home yesterday morning because I was coughing up a storm at my desk, and I still am coughing up a storm now.

Yeah, I have my moments where I fly completely off the rails, as evidenced above. They are not good for me.

With my emotions, I tend to be far more reactive than genuinely thoughtful. My gut instincts kick in, and my gut instincts are ALWAYS counterproductive.

Whenever I do something, I do not believe in half-measures. That is also extremely counterproductive for me most of the time. But I suppose I could apply that "all-in" mentality towards building myself up.

I guess the one thing I want to accomplish in terms of goals for myself seems damn-near impossible for me to obtain. I want to reach the point where I feel comfortable in my own skin, on my own merits. I want to say that I care about myself as the human being that I am, and actually mean it. I want to feel like I am good enough in my own eyes.

I'm sorry you went through that, but I'm glad you found some clarity.

You are not alone, I have been quite disgusted with myself for being 'taken in' so easily too, but really this is still the jungle, full of opportunists, so being hoodwinked going to happen at some point.

I think there is a difference between gut instinct and impulsiveness, and that depression and anxiety interfere with both.

When healthy and well, I have a fairly accurate gut instinct, but anxiety amplifies it and distorts its accuracy, so while unwell, I must question the messages from my gut, as they are influenced by fight/flight.

I make bad impulsive decisions when depressed, its all a part of escapism from the pain I think, it makes a person desperate and take risks.

You can get to your healthy destination KagamineLen, this is a speed bump you misjudged on the approach and some things fell out of your luggage and that is ok. The money you lost will be inconsequential by comparison if you reach your healthy place.

I have to question my judgement when I am feeling ill with pneumonia. That is the lesson I learned from this experience.

Hopefully, the tickets I get will work when I get to the venue at the date of the concert.

I am feeling ridiculously worthless as a human being. A friend keeps telling me, "Thoughts are real, but thoughts are not reality."

I feel depressed. And this is far deeper than my usual depressive episodes. This is entering the territory of complete and utter existential angst. I feel like I have no real reason to be walking and breathing on this planet. And I honestly do not know how to shake that feeling. People can tell me otherwise until they are blue in the face, but my gut reaction is to dismiss those words. And I know that none of this is healthy or normal.

There's really no reason for ME to be walking on this planet, either---but I don't care--I walk it, and do the best I can!

Who knows? Maybe they will accept your online ticket! And all this fussing about yourself will be for naught.

If they don't, just chalk it up to "lesson learned."

I know this is hard to do---but you have to move on from this in order to recover from your pneumonia.

Mistakes are made in life--that's just life, really.

You might be $300 poorer--but some of the people in Bernie Madoff's scheme (some of whom were sharp businesspeople themselves) became millions of dollars poorer.

contact your credit card company and they can reverse the charge.

I should have thought of that!

It was dumb of me not to think of that--but I'm not going to think that I don't deserve to walk on this earth because of this. I'm a little embarrassed--but that's it!

You didn't kill somebody. You didn't steal somebody's money. You are a worthy person, and I wish you would have a better view of yourself.