Trying to buck up

Wishing I felt happier.
Wishing I could experience joy.

But then it never seems ok to wish for these things when:

I never go hungry
I have a roof over my head
A man who loves me
A family who say they love me
A dog who bites me less every day
An income

so  I try to buck up
but instead feel a fuck up

washed out

pain
in a hole a deep one
pain I'm alive
I guess
some say I'll be missed
for all they call me
i'm already missing
heartaches for want of feeling loved

want to be worthy of this life
want to do something worthy in this life
not this beigeness
this dull numbness that washes everything out
not this in between slashed with agony
not this

stuck at a loss. removed from myself at a distance again. unsure what to do with myself. it's frustrating. so much I could be doing but I remain in stagnation.

blah.

it's such a non-state.

nothing going in nothing coming out.

solid state.

In the club

Warning drama follows: Argh a nice morning ruined by my poor choices. OK so I was already having a bad day and I guess the lesson is that when I am tired, when I have been disturbed in the night by my lovely brain and its propensity for  freakish sideshows (my dreams are permeated with feces, what the hell anyway), that my decision making is definitely narrowed in it's vision of what is wise and what is, clearly, not. A good example of when my desire to fix things should be held firmly in check as it clearly fogs my assessment of situations. AKA back the fuck off.

I know I am trying to learn to be kind to myself, but all I want to do right now is swear and stuff (i was going to say shit as a kind of colloquialism but given my dreams perhaps not the best word).

I am so pissed that i am not doing better, that I remain immersed in depression particularly, true there has been improvement but not to the extent that I am wanting, the extent to which marks health, to me.

Primal scream therapy and an extended round of beating on drums or cutting wood or getting out the old bow saw and cutting big logs and just exhausting this rage I feel inside. ARGH.
I am shaking probably the caffeine isn't helping and so since i haven't been writing I decided to write cause it's like lancing a wound or draining a wound of all it's infected bits. Lots of pus. lots.

Had a really really great talk with a good friend last might, one who really gets it and helps to remind me that I have experienced some difficulties, that the work we did was not your usual caseload and thus must not be measured by the usual standards of what constitutes a normal caseload. What we dealt with, generally on a daily basis, crisis after crisis, threats to people threats to ourselves (when I got my first death threat my boss and I laughed about it, I felt proud like I was finally in "the club"). Trying to ascribe normalcy to situations beyond imagination, beyond "life at home". Trying to find some meaning some measure of what you're doing is helping in a morass of helplessness, what if the recruitment center told you the truth what if the posters told you, showed you what you could really expect. Crazy-making, situations that are all piss and blood and shit in every way, like the pool of money, the scraps of hope almost but not quite entirely obscured by the filth of people doing to people

ARGH.

Impulse Control

So I have completed 12 sessions of neuro-feedback and have been kicked to the curb with my last EEGs showing enough improvement. Went through some feelings of abandonment and have experienced an unwelcome return to the raging self-doubt. I think I have improved impulse control except for hallowe'en (and every other category of) chocolate.

Impulse control
want something don't take it
want to say something
swallow my words
want to touch, push punch
restraint

want want want
don't don't don't
won't won't won't

program successfully installed.

stuff about earthquakes and stuff

been pretty angry last couple days, was trying to find words to describe how i was feeling that didn't involve the word volcano or boiling, or anything purply or metaphoric. sometimes it's hard to find the word(s) that really capture - er, me.
at times i think I'm addicted to therapy, shamefully self-indulgent, but I also think it is ok for me to be seeking nurturing.
I like that i have some empathy towards others, it's a good sense to have but sometimes it is overwhelming, I can barely stand to see other people and I can often pick up on their sadness, loneliness, desperation, or is it just my feelings bouncing off of them. it's hard to know, I feel confused and just plain rotten sometimes. with no clue what it's about .
i see that we are humans but we are also all electrical beings we all generate electrical fields, all living things do, even plants, it's just sometimes very tiny and hard to measure. I think this energy is what is behind when animals are reacting to stuff we haven't noticed: like building storms and earthquakes.my dog reacted to the earthquake the other night, me not so much.

i think we are all so dulled sense-wise, too much input, too inundated, I think a lot of us are just plain overloaded and any overloaded circuit cannot function as it was meant. Same for us human or animal types.

Settling my contents

had a good walk in the storm with a friend t'other day, good to be in the ions, it's links in with my own electromagnetic field and shakes me up and when the contents settle, I feel different.

My brilliant cousin was indeed correct in her sage advice.

So I listened to her. Everyone should. She is wise and kind and frickin' hilarious!

Laughing with, not at.

skin

I feel terrible, a slick skin I cannot crawl out of, or peel off, feeling low, ugly inside, poisonous, talentless, so lost, seeking my place and seeing everywhere nothing, despair stalks me, surrounds me chokes me off. my skin is starting to vibrate maybe with release. I haven't been talking much about my sadness, it's always there, my sidekick.in some miasmic comic book story.

sigh.

I'm not

up. dog got me up.
twice tonight.
saw the stars.
so many
one dove my way.
saying see me
nothing more
not a sign to keep on
not a sign to stop
waiting for a sign
but maybe I'll stop

tired of these mid-nights
so alone
not believing there can be more
still impressed with how less

glimpses tease
then torture
I was never crazy
it was all in my head
things look better
so I must be better
but
I'm not

In Victoria training my brain

Donned my partici-pants last night and walked around the inner harbour. The world comes here I noticed. Then again why not? The seas draws us, our earth mother fluids beckons, seeks our immersion. We live cyclically birth to death. Start to finish, step by step. Seeking where we started, striving to reach our inner core, our earth's core.
The world is with us and we are with the world.
We seek out places of transition,borders, edges, the liminal. Our bodies questioning even as our noisy, distracted minds ponder anything and everything but here...and now. Our bodies take us to look, we miss instead. We pass by the small, the miraculous, the heartbreaking, it all gets dismissed and rendered inutile (ok, that's probably not really a word).

Time to rise up, wash up and get out there I guess. Look around a bit. Feel the currant of all things passing around and through me.

Possibles

Possible titles for my new submission:

Crisis Clinic
Inundation Outflow
Trepanadation
Suicide Notes
bomb Swelter (what the hell, it's a brainstorm)
field effect
intermission
interstitial
remnants
soft boil
Post (after, behind, following, subject to, consequently, as a result)
Traumatic (injurious, harrowing, horrific, terrifying)
Stress (Prosody, pattern of rhythm and sound, strain, tension, hassle)
Disorder (confusion, chaos, disarray, upheaval)
PTSD aka Post Upheaval Upheaving Upheaval
Stuttering Psyche Batman


...

Eating Doubts

nighttime. Awake.  In my head eating doubts. Old shit new shit batshit. Reading a book that at times connects and gives me ideas, thoughts of 180 (degree) actions. It occurs that the connections are for the longings for difference. This long death of a life I am living. And worse, killing those who espouse love for me. Killing their love. Killing their want of life. Certainly draining my own away. It falls away. Little pieces dropping here and there. Feeling empty, the kind of empty I generally fill with food or shopping or playings spider, for hours. On that odd occasion I complete the game it doesn't matter. That strikes me as evidence that I will never get better. I've not the courage to find and do what I must for any chance of happiness. I am afraid if I go where I need to , the hurt I create would be beyond repair. A hurt of the undeserving. The ones who are juat trying to be happy, be content. I am not content. I am not on the right path unless I have somehow strung a line with a carabiner so at minimim I'm riding a long still in touch. I am meant to be me - an artist I think, but at root, me. Sometimes I feel endlessly assailed by the outflow of others sometimes I ponder my eerie disconnect. An inneffectual, life. I consume and mostly just excrete.

permeation of anxiety

not doing much, did reconnect with my psychologist, which was a relief to detox some of my most recent self-inflictions. Was quite spent upon my return home from the eastern adventures. Dreams continue to be vibrant and enticing. I wish I had a way to record them audio visually, I think it would be quite interesting. There is a great deal of art, sci-fi entwined with people from my past and present, situations reminiscent of past and permeation of anxiety. I hope to continue ith massage and neuropsych soon.

The Danger of Dreams

can't think of anyone I want to talk to, the guilt of talking when it's all down is too much most of the time, but I need to talk so I'll talk to myself, hopefully without too much harsh judgment, I'm fucking tired of being tired, I hate being unhappy, I'm full of hate, I feel hatred when i hear people talk about focusing on the positive, what's the point when i have no sincere enjoyment of fucking anything? I'm  sick  of it all, tired, tired.
my dreams are fricking amazing and all i want to do is stay in them, that to me is dangerous and completely unrealistic cause if I was dead I don't think I would be dreaming anymore. I think tho that I am trying to dream harder and harder and to stay there, when I reach this deep sleep and am awakened mostly what I feel is resentment and disappointment.

Seeping Dreams

why do I remain haunted by stupid shit that happened over a decade ago? These aren't even life threatening or harmful to anyone, but they were missed opportunities, places perhaps where my fears limited me, or I allowed them to. doomed to live an insignificant life. Why am I so obsessed with being famous? Would it mean I was worthy ? Is that it? Why cannot i just be happy with what I have, feel satisfied with what I have accomplished? What haunts is a feeling of not living up to my potential, a familiar experience to many I imagine. Dreams lost, drained away, seepage into the surrounding soil of our lives detritus.

Will

Pondering the spirit and it's sublime companion hope. Sublime because hope is a slippery slope, it can sustain you with crumbs and is evil.
The spirit is independent of the external I believe, when all has been said and done to a person it is the internal that decides the next course of action.
Belief in oneself, reliance, faith in whatever internal strengths remain after all has been said and done.
Without this, there is no hope. I think in order to sustain my will to live, this internal will must need exist independently of anything and everything else, it must not be subject to the external. I must  be able to feed my will and take this nourishment, for me to survive, for me to prosper. When I look around the world and all the things being done to people, to animals, to the earth herself, I cannot but believe anything else.
If my spirit is resilient, I will abide.
If my spirit is fragile, it is only a matter of time.

First Wasp Sting of the Season...plus a dying bird

Lamp shade I made of approx 420 cable ties (aka zap straps)

"I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink. I'm so-o-o ti-i-ired my mind is on the blink"

Quick someone get me some cheese!

Just writing for writing's sake. Vulnerable today: bad weather, headache and nursing my first wasp sting of the season. Hurray for everything!

I think it's a case of a post-upward trend after so long in melancholia that a return to the disconsolate stuff feels logarithmically worse. Did I mention I loved math??

Walking a neighbour's dog who is temporarily out of commission - er the neighbour, not the dog - and the dog mangled a wee baby towhee. It was gasping for breath, all of its interiors now exteriors and I couldn't bring myself to put it out of its misery. I felt very cowardly. And a friend told me a profound story about the importance of struggle for our growth and I cried and cried.

So all in all an abstruse kind of morning. (I was just reading a blurb that encouraged writers to use more synonyms for depressed - sign me up!).

So not much going on, preparing to drive east for visiting family and traveling to the Netherlands thrown in, this will be nice. I am only leery about being away from home for so long. I expect we shall be grateful upon our return for what we have together.

I look forward to feeling more gracious.

Smacking of Imperialism

Been quite a while and as per usual, not feeling well, feeling low, that looking at myself from a long distance low that I cannot explain but I guess must accept in the moment and hope it passes, when I have felt like this previously and felt similarly stymied, writing seems to have unearthed, unplugged, transformed the latency. It's frustrating (except that frustration is a powerful feeling and I do not feel any commensurate deep feeling, more frozen, stagnation, paralysis). I have completed 8 sessions of neurofeedback and my before and after qEEGs are promising aka they show improvement but I was wondering a couple things. One: I have not participated in any talk therapy for awhile and it is import to talk  and/or express my thoughts feelers in some fashion, this could account for my current state and two: perhaps it's all part of the peri-menopausal party I seemed to have inadvertently become embroiled in. My menses are powerful strong, heavy, it's bloodletting on a cult-level, surely enough volcanoes have been appeased by now?

Having a voice is crucial to well-being, I believe this. I simply have not been voicing my voice I guess. This passive therapy is perhaps too passive. I feel no sense of accomplishment. No sense of taking/asserting my power. It is a bit bewildering although I do believe the science is sound on an - ironically- intuitive and empirical (hate the word though - it smacks of , oh I don't know, imperialism!) level.

Blah.

C'Mon Brain!!

Feeling off again, think the neurofeedback hope has receded (ok, slammed shut) and I am back to baseline. So in some ways it's good to have a reminder/grounder that there is work ahead and it's no switch. Instead I anticipate, more realistically, there will be gradual changes. But it gets me pondering the myriad sources of the damage they unearthed (unbrained - with tiny little shovels and pickaxes). A life time's worth of hard things that I have encountered, terrible stories, my hard drinking days in the early military (surely I did some damage there), bad diet (how much glucose does my brain need anyway?) lots more. They say the eeg is not diagnostic, it doesn't answer why, it just says "Hey, look! There is damage here. There is sub-normal activity here and here and maybe you might want to check out these areas as well". OK, now we see what we are dealing with, I asked them "So am I faking?"that always gets a laugh.

They say that CBT does encourage the same process except that it just does not work as quickly. Nonetheless,  eventually the new neurons will grow. I've been cbt-ing for many moons now, a joke's a joke. Neuro feedback is best for the most stuck, the least CBT-responsive, the most at risk. I guess.

I am feeling unmotivated (mired) this morning. I have a lot of art to make, arrange, organise for a new event that promises to be be fun and fruitful and full of networking and reconnecting possibilities. I think sometimes as I approach a deadline this rebellious factor rises up in me as a way to take power  but really I am just taking power from myself. I wonder if therein lies the true nature of procrastination. When I examine it, there is definitely an element of rebelling, of stubborn clinging to a position (even if said position is not particularly useful/healthy/helpful) until my fear of embarrassment surpasses the fear of losing power and I do the work "It's the last minute!"

Inertia. Procrastination. Outsiders call it laziness, cowardice, poor time management. Insert negative spin adjectives here. I have brain damage. Yippee except not really something to celebrate except (so many exceptions, so little time) for the validation, the ease away from the self-judgment, sort of. That is the huge gift of the eeg. So, come on brain!!! Let's get building and growing!

There is no thee

feeling bad, have been inconsistent with my effexor. Starting to crash I think. I've been so high with the promise of neuro feedback, the elusive hope, the eeg and loreta (brodman area mapping) that has finally given me the indisputable evidence that my brain has some abnormally low wattage! ha.

Akin to the xray of the broken arm, the subsequent epiphany "That's why my arm hurts.". My limbic system is hardwired in fight or flight. Hope has had me riding high. I'm gonna grow me some new neurons.

And now I feel really low, today in town it seemed everywhere I looked I saw beaten down women and I felt so angry and helpless, ghosts walking among us. So sad, heartbreaking, they were all once little, filled with promise, and instead they got beaten down, This world is so vicious, so cold.

I'm back to feeling really vulnerable all of a sudden. Really wanting to not be in this horrible place that holds nothing but hurt. There we go, the tears, I cry easily still, how can there be a god, who would believed there could be an all-powerful being - that is not doing - is this just some grand experiment, a bet somebeing has made?

I don't feel so well, I feel weakened. Too many people being hurt, and it's just getting worse.My soul would cry out to thee, but there is no thee is there?

There is no thee, and if there was, I would not place my trust in said thee because they are clearly using their omnipotence for evil.

It's us. It's just us and I fear we're all we've got and I'm pretty much out of faith in the mounting evidence of horror.

I have been rendered inert. And so have millions more, probably billions. Maybe there'll be a big asteroid.

Compassion Gets Compromised

Thoughts I thought I should write down, can't sleep, seem to be sneezing and waking my husband so up I get.
Recent comments/discussions replaying. The topic of suicide. A friend of someone dear to me is conjectured to have completed, in the face of their own loss. The dear one is mad at said dead person. I have encountered that anger (from others) many times in my experience. I wonder about its true nomenclature. Anger and grief are close allies inherent any loss. Anger is after all just a feeling, not an act. But the phrase "mad at" it's directional, a vector of feeling, and one perhaps not so kind. Anger and fear are allies as well. My own perspective is one of curiosity as well as judgment. Who knows why really a person chooses to die, I only know what draws me to this. And some of the reasons I don't take death's hand are because of how my dear ones will respond. Yet I feel such anger myself that others have the "nerve" to be "mad at" someone who has no doubt wrestled in silence with great difficulty (or calm certitude). "mad at" the "giving up". People hope against hope that someone they care for will not die but to actively seek death brings its own new subset of complex feelings. We all try to understand but when it comes to hurts of the minds our compassion gets compromised. Depression has been described to me as a rebellion against a world unbalanced by hurt and by some seen as a political act. i can see that somewhat but it's also a mind that's suffering, like a troubled other, more understood organ. Depression's capacity however is infinitely more destructive. Our minds oversee everything, our minds are in charge of absolute every function of the body so when there is trouble in the big house any other part of the body can be affected, infected. So I see it as more cancerous than cancer, more insert adjectified illness here than said illness. We do that don't we; turn nouns into verbs all the time.

Another recent discussion wrt dreams: me telling someone about a particularly scary, fanciful, bizarre night excursion. The listener started to analyse my dream, with great confidence it seemed to me, that theirs was the definitive meaning.  So my response is not to tell them any more of my dreams. I was particularly resistant to their interpretation, I hadn't asked for it yet it was not merely offered but insisted upon. A gesture of caring, of fixing. It was frustrating but I guess they were just trying to help. Someone else's version of what will fix things rarely does it because they do not have all of the pertinent info at hand, don't have access to the big picture, they are not the expert, yet off they frequently go, I know cause I do it all the time. And they have also decided I am to read a particular book and I have just need to either keep an open mind and read it, because there is always something new to learn or say no thank you. It's an odd catch, I would love to feel fixed as in, some semblance of normalcy but what does that mean, is there peace for any of us? Or just different levels of denial. But I do not wish to be someone's project. I really feel appreciative of someone who is willing to listen without then launching into fix mode, that is a rare skill.

The above notwithstanding I am worried, I am eating my feelings like crazy, stuffing whatever I can find that is foodlike into my mouth. Feeling bloated. Maybe I am very afraid about this upcoming neurofeedback stuff. That's understandable, I am human after all (despite what seems like evidence to the contrary) and like everyone else I fear the unknown, fear what I cannot control. It's kind of a leap of some magnitude. I won't say faith because that word is too loaded.

Sticking to my lines

Dreading the nice weather, more pressure to go out and do regular human being things - human doings. I see with indifference that it's so beautiful out there, flowers, new growth, lively birdsong everywhere and my dread deepens. I can't recall feeling this way, so heavily, before. The rain and cold lets me off the hook internally for my inaction, my sedentary state.

Not feeling the joy, the hope springs renewal rhetoric. I used to get so excited about Easter, for the chocolate not for the faith.

Detached, uninterested, flat. I don't care.

The effort to keep face, wondering if I'm fooling anyone. Everyone hopeful that I'm well. So I mostly stick to my lines because it is easier. People expect improvement, get frustrated when things don't change or for any reason really.

I don't care. I just thought "Because I cared too much and look what happened?" but that sounds so drama queen so false so insincere.

But I did care. too much. And I know I still do, so I clamp it down. Jed Clampettdown.

Yet another nothing new under the sun moment. It hurts to care, I wonder at my capacity for hurting. Yes, feelings hurt means I am alive. But feeling null - am I just pretty much dead inside, that's the closest, I've hit on something here. Irony, here come thy tears. I've been watching the walking dead, no stretch at all that I relate, to the dead ones.

Yet there is some small part I can hear it way down saying "but Kelly, when death comes for you  you're not going to want to go". Is this true, or will I continue to seek it, passively, hoping, like a stranger in a crowded room, it will notice me and take me under its comforting wings?

I don't know.

A hunting I will go...

Lots of stuff has gone by, happens there's lots to write about when one hasn't blogged for many moons. sadness, anger, tiredness, verification/validation of the theory that me being tired + me being more vulnerable to triggers. Being pre-menopausal (unsure how pre) my periods are non-periodic. And heavy. so much blood loss, I found myself pondering the cultural impact on this regular bloodletting on women. And health too, is menstruation also a regular detox? a regular test of our bodies ability to regenerate? Curious. Powerful stuff to contemplate. Anyhoo.
Working on socialising, reaching out remaining astounded/impressed with the resilience and intensity of my depression. Talking with friends about our inner critics (I called it our inner terrorist) wondering  how to hear it better, I was thinking that I needed to go looking for it in order to train myself to detect it. So a hunting I will go.
I am making some nice connections, taking more risks (relatively anyway) socially.
Have connected with the neuro feedback clinic and will be starting there soonish I guess, curiouser and curiouser.
Still drifting, blowing with the wind. All the while..

Peace and kindness to all those who suffer - it is where we meet.

Cramps and threats of kindness

 A couple things have come up, neither new, One of the "but everyone has problems" approach to "Helping" was is supposed to make me feel better, this externally enforced epiphany that "I'm not the only one you know" For the record: I get it, ok? Then there was the inadvertant triggering ensuing from someone unhidden kindnesses, equals floodgates open! The vicious threaaat: Careful or I'll do/say somethin nice to you

Throwing down the Gauntlet

Went to see a massage therapist yesterday, she was very good, deceptively simple moves which shifted my body - especially my head neck and back - profoundly, had little sharp things - electrical impulses really - running out hither and yon, good things, and left me altered. I am so disconnected from my body. We were discussing how only very recently as a culture we are turning to the wisdom of the body, the memory bank, the autobiography that is our bodies. That we are all walking miracles and how most of us ignore our bodies or  -I chimed in - forget we have them. Reminded me of my experiences of moving through this world as a ghost presence. I cried a steady stream, pure release. There are such gently kind, quietly helpful people with such capacity, it is astounding. She is one.

Went to a couple art openings on fri night, decided to go for it and wear a ton of colour - one of the shows was all about celebrating colour and I confess I have rather embraced the artists' penchant for black attire. Although a couple artist friends and me have considered the fun of using the opening nights as a palette for self-expression and we had made a quasi-pact about deliberately dressing edgy or  - in my case - non-cool. So I went for it. Go big or go home as it were.

My go-to Pink skirt (ok fuchsia) with bright orange liner (consignment store!), a pink, brown green and white flowery spaghetti strap top (not as hideous as it could have been - Winners!), a bright green jacket, pale blue, green yellow and brown knee highs and brought it home with an awesome multi fabric/fibre scarf, bright orange feather-cuff gloves and black granny boots. Frickin' awesome! And the best part was the reactions of people around me! My friends were laughing - with, not at - strangers were a curious blend of interest, amusement, obvious discomfort and nausea.

So one of my pieces  - this one - won an award (a certificate but who cares?), very very exciting for me and I got called up to the front of the crowd (one of the male presenters seemed quite taken aback, particularly with the orange gloves) and could not resist being the ham said thank you and also "I didn't want to wear black!" and that "I'm gonna call my mom!" the last 2 comments eliciting laughs, so a bit of fun and real pleasure for me to feel, nice. And artist friends genuinely happy for me. Extra nice.

Now from left field, I have decided to undertake the neuro-feedback portion of the evening and have set all of the wheels in motion for same. So with this and some more massage therapy (interestingly, she asked if I have ever sustained a head injury!?!?) I am clearly ramping up this whole healing adventure. And dressing up on fri was me throwing the gauntlet down. Take that Universe. Your mother was a hamster.

Colours

awake, let the dog out. I love the moon, so bright, there is a heavy frost, winter is clinging.dark dreams are clinging, leaving bad tastes in my brain.watching curiously from so far: what will happen next? where will my thoughts go? how about sleep??? I'll give it a whirl.
whirling dervish thoughts, colourful yes, but under that candy coating, dread. Flail the colour away, there remains only dread.

Neuro feedback

So instead of mindlessly playing game after game of spider, I thought I'd try writing instead, some stream  of thought stuff, who knows what might happen? Put a call into Veteran's Affairs case worker, to see about the neurofeedback program, 2 days a week in Victoria for 5 or 10 weeks, not sure which. Essentially it looks like a shower cap gets put on my head with probes on it attached to my "Brain" (using the term loosely) and then to monitor my various emanations (hee hee) and see what happens as my various emotions alter, give rise, etc. Curious really, perhaps a cool art project will transpire. Who knows? Can't hurt, worst I can do is cry right?

Nothing like a little more shame and humiliation to put me in my place. See, I did some work for awhile  with this particular clinic several years back, it's run by a former colleague, the one who did my initial assessments, who said that my IQ was 107 and that treated me "less than" (or at least it's how I felt, perhaps my imagination, d-uh, think so Kel?) because of what the test score said, guess I was no longer seen as a quasi-equal, guess I'm still pissed about that. Said IQ test consisted of one 2-sided paper. The 1st side was all definitions a la RD's "It pays to increase your word power", I sucked at this part. The 2nd side was all logic problems, like "what comes next in this series" and "peach is to apple as frog is to...". I got 2 of about 20 wrong. And upon seeming stymied by these confusing results (aka how could I suck at one and rock the other?) he dismissed my logic part as "good guesses" and pronounced me average. Oh well. I have a very large ego after all, probably could use some more down-to-earthiness reality checks. What being grounded really means. Ick.

A Fetid Calling...the stranger, stronger, older laws of the universe

The mind protects us, it is so dedicated to keeping us moving and carrying on. As i walked today I was wondering who do i think about the most and the truth was of course, myself, sort of, all else is a fog, but it is very easy then to recall the names and stories of the others, the clarity and sadness which swiftly ensues.

I feel sickened by the ubiquitous presence of violence; willed violence, condoned, paid for, sought out celebrated, violence. Millions watch "Sports", modern bear baiting, want the fights to break out, cheer them on, deify the "tough" guys. Use words like heroic to describe a golf shot. Once again, I reiterate, we need new words, the good ones have had their meanings mined and depleted, all is surface, glitter, deflection, soulless. The onslaught of violent culture wearing down our defences, we create new, more complex ones.

My mind doesn't want me to think about the unthinkables. So it white washes, evens out, erases. All is illusory clean slate.

I stay in the fog, moving ever so slightly, testing the grounds, the waters, all directions become hazardous, all become one. It's safe in this haze, stay still I think. I am like a cat who sees nothing, therefore delude myself as safe. I cannot be seen, I want to be invisible, I dread not being seen, I want to be worthy, I fear being worthy. I feel a coward.

Others I have met, they keep going, why? I want to scream at them, why? I whisper, confounded. How can they? So hurt, so violated, so abused, how? why? But they do, they move. Does movement etch away the memories, does new skin form as the scars are worn away, washed away, by tears, by writing, by thinking, by fighting, by moving?

Am I just so enamoured of my heroic martyr-state? That I do not want to give it up? Have I found my fetid calling? Playing the mentally ill, celebrating it? Proud of it? Clinging to it? Is this the real truth of me? Clamouring for attention whilst hiding in my bed. All these apparently counter-intuitive cannot co-exist states are negated, trumped, by the stranger, stronger, older laws of the universe.

There is movement.

Sentry Duty

Thinking about dissociation (is that redundant??). How much more common it is, how much more beneficial it is, contrary to mainstream thought. I consider daydreaming a mild form of dissociation. A rest, a break; from reality and that the harsher the reality the longer the break, the more "intense" the dissociation, a proportional relationship. So I was discussing the two most "severe" dissociative states in which I have been witnessed and that since I at least could recall the therapeutic interventions under which the dissociation occurred, it followed, to me at least, that perhaps these were the sort of therapies I would be better to undertake more frequently. Not so, apparently, as in either case, there was no new information gleaned, I have no recollection of the trigger(s) or of anything else which occurred during the dissociation (indeed each constituted a complete memory blank), therefore, what is the benefit? Damnit. It was put to me that unless, and apparently until, I am able to process the "least" (all things being relative) traumatic, the more traumatic will remain safely blocked. Here is the issue for me, in order to put the "least" to rest - so to speak - I must render, emotionally and otherwise, more sharply the details of each. These "leasts" are not my stories, these are what I have heard, have witnessed on another's behalf. So I must needs process in such a way as to strike a balance between the therapeutic benefit (to me) and the maintain confidentiality/micro-minimise any identifying information necessity (protecting the client). I do not believe these are my stories to tell, that I have no right to feel traumatised by them, yet, the undoubted intense impact is there. I have a right to my feelings and in the many hundreds of witnessing I have felt horror, despair, helplessness, anger, anguish, shock, disbelief, shaken, afraid, sadness. I have been left questioning anything I previously ever thought true, that is whatever foundation lay beneath me has been forcibly removed. I know now, to my inner core, that anything and everything awful and evil is possible. That the potential and reality of a person's worst imaginings can come true.

I can see the people hanging from telephone poles, from the trees, I can see the ravages of a gunshot to a face, I can see the rescue gone fatally wrong, I can see the wild dogs mining the mass graves for a meal, I can see the trucks driving through - and over - the crowds.

What I also - to my marrow - know now is the resilience, the honour, of the human spirit, that the capacity for kindness, love, compassion can remain, can outweigh the thought of revenge. That people can still find a way to remain human and humane despite the horror around them, threatening to pave them over. But this is not me, I am instead mired in the horror. In the sadness. I am standing sentry over these stories, they are not mine, yet I will guard them.

George Takei...a pretty funny guy

my mood is plummeting, I don't know why, I've been for 2 walks today, lots of those much lauded negative ions about crashing against the shore, found some beach treasure, alas, no avail. I am considering whether yesterday morning's uber high has demanded payback and the sub-axis dip is merely restoring balance.

blah.

just plodding along, not accomplishing much, lots of ideas with none of that all important transition to action. Or perhaps it's more of a mutation at this point, so irregular, unseemly even, not my most recent usual.

I have to say it was a very big high. Large. Writ large, even, with possibility. So much so that  mistakenly ascribed said situation all manner of redemptive attributes.

Meh.

So it is said.

On another note, George Takei is a pretty funny guy.

Write and Let Write...it's all moot anyway

Just rx'd my first nasty comment on a blog I wrote.

Wow. Quite vile.

I do not understand what is the purpose of such virulent hate.

I do not claim to be a universally gifted writer (or anything for that matter) but I guess I was writing under the credo: write and let write (to kinda coin a phrase). I did not presume every one person who managed to find (let alone read) this blog would be happy with it. I guess I did assume that there would be no nasty backlash.

Oh naive moi.

So many things I'm thinking I could say, should say, I want to say but I am most taken aback by the anger of the comment. I know I have so much anger too and I remember learning from those wiser than me who perceived anger as an umbrella feeling.

Umbrellas are simple things that provide a deceptively simple service: cover, protection, shield, barrier, isolation.

Our anger can mislead others into making snap and erroneous judgments about the nature of our essential selves.

Anger can spark our own fears, set us on defence and trick us into missing an opportunity for connection on a more meaningful level. Anger deceives us all.

Under this anger lurks fear, hurt, agony, sadness, grief, loss, confusion, feelings of being trapped, lost stuck. Hopeless. Like a wounded animal that has known only pain in its entire existence, such is the nature of the anger-infused umbrella. A dis-guise of hatred, trained on me. What is more likely, trained at whatever target it could find. Such is the desperation and, I think, purpose of driving anger. Anger wants to be dispersed, it wants out, it wants to be leeched out, when it is released only then can it dissipate. It's why I think anger is almost always on top, it really knows how dangerous it is, so it seeks it's own destruction. Our brains are like that description that someone applied to cold-war era (ok, contemporary) Russia - riddles wrapped in mysteries wrapped in (bacon!) conundrums in enigmas... ad thesaureum!

Levels upon levels of cross-signals and feedback loops and "tells"  - our brain simultaneously guides and misleads - and we are too ill-advanced to fathom how it is that paradox can and does exist. We are barely on the cusp of comprehending that these seemingly implausible (and annoyingly ubiquitous) binary states merely exemplify the bewildering intricacy of now.

Oh boy, my purple prose detector has buried the needle. Ha!

Anger is a feeling not an action - but I seldom hear anyone say "I feel angry", instead I hear "I got angry". I am trying to embrace my anger in order to tap the self-knowledge it likely masks.
So anger and agony co-jostle craving a purge. It's what my writing provides for me alone, anyone else I cannot say.

I may indeed merely be the 4-letter word ascribed by said comment leave-r. All could be moot.

But I think not.

Flood Warning

woke up with another bad headache, it's ridiculous how I always spend time pondering whether to just try and sleep it off, that NEVER works, so anyways I did take some meds. Maybe the higher effexor dose is too high.

I just completed a pre-blog survey and unsurprisingly, it was triggering for me. I think the most accurate emotional descriptor I could use is blocked (haha first I wrote blogged, thank you Mr. Freud [sorry, Prof/Dr.]) and with blocked there is no movement, no sensation, have to dig to get at things, I think this writing becomes akin to digging out what I am feeling. Because the longer, even the faster I write (with concomitant typos of course) I get to feeling faster, and the tears come the blissful (sort of) flooding, the
ebbing, I have constructed a sandbag facade and have worked years to have it take hold and hold fast but I can still,eventually get the feelings to crest above and beyond. Despite this concrete(wet concrete to be sure) evidence of sadness, I STILL question, why, how come? Why so much, have I not reached the end of tears? What the hell indeed. I'm still and maybe forever, on flood watch and when I write it's inevitably flood warning. I should not read the news for starters.

I have been googling funny things, things, images, quotes that make me laugh and I feel like it such a pathetic waste of time, but it makes me laugh, where I often wonder at my ability to appreciate humour anymore. It's one of the first things I lost, or rather mislaid, because it returns in bits, I see it first in my response to others'  humor, but once in a while now I say funny things, I used to be known as being funny, Now I feel like I am just a perpetual drag, the dearth of incoming phone calls that are for me (and not computer  generated).

No one calls me. I feel so lonely, I feel a failure at just being human (ahh here they come, the tears) The trigger of acknowledging how lonely,I feel, and I do it to myself I know...

There was a pause, there, I had a pretty "good" (funny, yet commonly used adjective, weird I think) cry, then sudden cessation. And I feel ashamed, I was completely alone, no dog, no husband and I felt like  I needed to hide, I pulled my shirt up over my face, who was I hiding from, yeesh.

Now my husband and dog are back from their morning walk and I was hosing off the dog, he is a gift and a challenge, a good challenge, I forces me to focus to stand up for myself. I'll walk him this afternoon, it will be low tide, perhaps I will beach comb.

Meta

Self-referential.
Yup.
It's another catch-22 methinks: how then do we know ourselves unless it is in relation to others. We can only see what we reflect off of others, what others mirror back to us. I think. I was tired to day, awake in the night. Off to the GP (not guinea pig) and a recommendation for an increase in effexor. Then to the pharmacist who said"Oh, it's good that you're checking your BP..." cause I do that, and I guess it's one of the side-effects, so voila instant discouragement set in and I cried and the pharmacist was very kind, which somehow made it worse. She asked if she could do anything, I shook my head, wanted her -someone, anyone - to just take it all away. I just want to feel like my daily aspiration is not just: baseline. Argh.

The Aftermath

Gains and setbacks. eating my feelings, got into the traditional holiday devouring-everything-in-sight tradition and am just starting to decompress and sense some balance returning (I am a libra after all, strange how balance is also indecision). It's just change isn't it, no matter the context good or bad there is a change, a shift in my unsteady state. Some thoughts worthy of epiphany status, some just old, ancient even, companions. Connecting with a new friend, sharing collegial and human experiences finding common grounds, this is helpful, helps challenge the dominance of isolation, evidence of me fighting back, taking a stand against myself as it were. Finding that somethings that I thought were paradox are not, some seemingly  co-existing impossibilities simply attest to our complex natures. The taxonomy of good and evil, can't do it, cannot have just two labels of black and white, can't.
We are levels upon/beneath levels of behaviours, capacities, resolutions, results.
When I eat my feelings  there is no satiation there is only compacted numbness, so dense it is ironically unfelt, hence the zombie/coma status. Only when I am called upon to raise my thoughts, my eyes, dare I say my hope, I must first break through this density, this blackhole of self where time shifts - where the present the here and now is subdivided incalculably - as soon as I name it now it is become past - the present maybe can never be registered on time, we are too slow to notice, is everything then too late, are we all doomed to act in the aftermath?