Matt Refghi

I spent so much of my early life isolated, bullied and suppressed that I had to develop self-dependency, and a strong sense of humor just to get by. By the time I moved out and discovered true peace at age 19, the experience had helped me forge a type of psychological armor – one that had been thoroughly field tested. Ultimately, whatever happened, I knew I would make it out just fine.

“Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.” – Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones.

There I was, watching an innocent Oasis juice carton fly across the kitchen in slow motion, only to explode on impact as it hit the wall on the opposite side of the room. Growing up, you could say that my parents had a bit of a dysfunctional relationship – the atmosphere at home was a pretty stressful one. Arguments between my parents were common – throwing things, not so much, but it would be inaccurate to leave those details out.

When I was off seeing a movie recently in a theater, I happened to catch a trailer for Backrooms, a horror movie based on a fictional location popularized on 4chan. Put simply:

“The Backrooms are usually portrayed as an impossibly large extradimensional complex of empty rooms, accessed by exiting reality.”

Watching the trailer itself will give you a better sense of what I’m referring to:

In 2022, I made the decision to apply for an Information Technology (IT) Team Lead position at the educational institution where I worked – if I got it, it meant I would work as part of the IT department, rather than Continuing Education. This was a difficult choice to make as someone with a strong sense of loyalty – I’d been with Continuing Education for more than a decade – I was used to the team and was quite comfortable. By even considering joining IT, I was revealing a significant change in mindset. You see, while in Continuing Education, though I had worked on IT-related matters, the role also had me spending a good chunk of my time working on social media, marketing, and advertising.

If you saw my phone, you might think that I had a problem:

161 Days Sober

The story is a simple one – back in late January of this year, I woke up one morning and felt sick from the previous night of drinking. I was never really a big booze drinker – in fact, it was typically always modest in portion and highly infrequent. And in almost all cases, when I went beyond one drink, it was because I was in a social setting.