boundary assailants

Struggling, trying to let go, trying not to cling to the desire of hurting back. Feeling so hurt, shocked, reeling, unsure how to handle. So many feelings, deep sadness, betrayal, injustice, rage, where to go with it. Processing with goal of no further hurting yet also to proceed with clearly demarked and protected personal boundaries. The realization that some people will no longer be allowed near me, for my own protection. Has taken me a long time to get here and I just feel so sad at the inevitability of it, I cannot change anyone. I can only and barely change myself.

It hurts to learn that people I look up to, love, think so very little of me, think I  am certain  things, without checking with me. Feeling misunderstood to a startling degree. Open to learning aka what if all the things they said about me are true? Then I am as awful a person as I feared. So why does it feel so wrong? Confusing.

I want people to tell me the truth, I don't think I'm very self aware. It sure hurts though, can they all be so right, so convinced of their rightness?  Hope not.

Currently Self-stoppered

Sitting here feeling low. No motivation (ok I did just email my therapist, it's been  maybe 4 months since I last saw her). I'm long overdue for submitting some writing to my supervisor. Psychiatrist wants to change my meds to an MAOI rather than an SSRI or SNRI. I would rather quit them. The idea of Marijuana use has been more in my thinking. Not smoking but drinking or eating, add it to salads or Smoothies???? Brilliant.

This numbness is nothing. Is this how I am protecting myself. When I do feel it's just anguish; for myself, for others. And lots of guilt and shame for not using what gifts I possess to help the world. There is so much need right now, as ever and I do not know where to direct  any excess energy I might have. I am fearful of letting people down. I feel like that is all I can do, what a skill set. I want to help yet I'm not helping myself much in any soul-restoring way.  Nothing seems to feed me, I am inertia, I balk at movement.

Depression sucks. Although the internal argument rages: I'm faking it, I'm not trying hard enough. No one I will allow myself to speak to.  I could talk for days and days I know, just an endless stream of thought, feeling, once unstoppered. Currently self-stoppered.

I want to feel better, some say i should express gratitude and that that will help me feel better. Maybe I am not sincerely grateful. I have all these external trappings, yet remain depressed. Can I be truly grateful if numb? My feelings are jockeying for position. The sadness I feel wants to be heard first before anything else, it wants, understandably, to be honoured with acknowledgment. It wants attention.

I am still waiting to be rescued, noticed in a way that finally instills self-love. Hence the rush after performing. I don't think I'm a good candidate for choir, I'm very needy and am not always in control of that, so I can see where I could become problematic. I feel so much anxiety when I am there, I love to sing but know my neglected self wants attention so much I will cause problems.

I guess I need to call and talk to the group about this, somehow.

Awww, the feelings are almost here,I'm glad I wrote, even if it makes sense only to me, it's helped me connect to me. So good for me for writing.

threat from within

 So my feelings are here I'm not sure what it's about just sitting here in tears welling up wanting to connect but not wanting to call anyone because I don't want to bother anyone these are the times I feel alone  these are the times when I feel for an end alien I'm sitting in my chair of comfort surrounded by it's soft arms it's like a little cave I sink in I hide  but I need the tears to come I felt nothing for a while now some sort of safety in numbness I don't know what to do the world is so much pain and I sit here not doing anything just feeling the same wanting to rescue everyone And I can't I have so much privilege I want to give it all up but I don't think that's possible so the alternative is to go and use my privilege for someone else's help such a helpless feeling but I am not any threat of death except that my own hand there's no war here except inside, no one is bombing me no one is threatening me, just me. The threat comes from within.

reeling for 45 years

Seeking grace amidst disappointment and I guess a sense of betrayal, these are dangerous feelings for me. Ever since the first great betrayal - that I remember - I have not responded well to real or perceived betrayal. It cuts me very deeply. The test now is how I respond, I have great doubts in my ability to be gracious. I worry that I am not cut from that cloth. So now I'm thinking of who I can seek for advice as to how best to handle it. I feel the parallels between when i was asked to leave that and, and really, deservedly so, much to my regret and shame. I remember a few days later thinking. Thinking hard about hanging my self from a playground. That was 11 years ago. The original one was close to 45 years ago and I can still feel the reel, the numbness from it being too big and awful to take in.

The high road is harder, it's daunting especially when I really want to say stop with the fucking betrayals already. Just stop.

Don't feed me shit about how all this makes me stronger, wiser , I can't see it. Just feel more scarred, more cut, more bloodshed. Hope I don't contract an emotional infection. All these open wounds, can't keep track of all of them.

Argh

Hatred as Default

 I have been trying to quit Twitter, as with everything else I quickly became addicted and just felt
Heartbroken, so much potential lost in misunderstanding and anger. So many angry people, it's so overwhelming I just could not take it all in. I learned just how protected my life has been and is, living on this island in this very homogenous population doesn't test me often. People who aren't white, who'd have less economic means than I, people, with more severe physical and mental limitations,not getting the support they should, if we really were a universally caring society, if compassion was our #1 motivator, would we all be dead? Has our drive for survival led us to default to violence rather than peaceably resolved hurt and disappointment. Are we just all about survival of the species to the extent that we wilfully erase our fellow humans because they look different, are we just an extreme herd mentality, is this what informs and feeds our racism our hatred.

Despondency is a clinging mist if I ever breach(too active a verb, how about glimpse) my depressive cloud immersion. Does my body think I need depression like I need Water, is depression really just an internal revolutionary act, does depression force me to stay safe. I do kinda get clobbered pretty much every time I venture into the world.

Hope as a Pilgrimage of Interior Illumination

so i'm sitting here feel lost, need to talk, I am alone, so I guess it's just us. No fancy links, or images, or entertainments, just us

recovering from latest pan-gastrointestinal system meltdown, feeling physically weak, although to my credit I drove myself down to AF beach and just dove into the ocean for a wonderful swim, I'm thinking ocean swimming is pretty sweet after all , I miss the Ontario lakes of my child hood.

Not so much new although I endeavoured to act like a regular human being an participated in the recent local art symposium about cultural mapping. So much seemingly new information encoded with a blend of new knowledge and exclusive jargon. Very interesting, lots of incredibly energetic people with innovative thinking and "ways forward". I am sincerely glad I attended. yet the after affect, the side affect if you will, of being in such close physical, emotional and spiritual proximity to so many people, with my ears tuned in and empathy unable to filter the many competing - and justifiably so - factions.

Some authentic, compassionate people, I think I could be safe with, potential friends whose parallel challenges keep us forever isolated from each other and others. Looking inward, thinking hard, straining for insight and "outsight".

So much pain inside, tears while I swam, the ocean reclaiming, me remaining hidden in full view. The rawness of the ocean welcomes me it's a flirtation with danger, I know, but it soothes me so.AM i heading towards an edge, a brink? I don't know I am pleased that I spoke up in many ways these past few weeks. So much injustice in the world and all of it needing time and care yet everything is rushing around accelerating into madness. the water slows me down of necessity and compels me deeper. It is good there were many others there.It's vast embrace  calls to me i belong there when I do nowhere else.I want to belong, I do have things to offer, even if it's just my ever-listening ears, yet would I find connection if I left this world, I rather doubt it and the concomitant trap enrages me.

Hoping by writing I could reach my tears again. I'm very tired. Always it seems.

I want to be feel I matter, that i am worth this life, what will it take? It seems an impossible goal, I am almost 53. Do I take myself up on the challenge of a pilgrimage? And spend the rest of my days in anonymity seeking and destroying connection to this earth?

Madness and sadness. Enveloping, caressing, seeking ingress. Am I allowing it in or out? I don't know. Illumination escapes.

So many people putting their faith in a god. I seem obsessed with this idea and need to keep these kinds of thoughts to myself.

Still Unpacking my white privilege

Shitty

Twitter is my latest addiction and I got into trouble. There's so much I don't fully get about my white privilege that is quite obvious to women of colour, I feel really fucking stupid and horrible that I hurt some women in my ignorance. When I re-read my words I do sound high and mighty. Fuck. Just tired now. Tired of fighting, of being wrong coupled with feeling unjustly labelled (that's my pride speaking up). All of this intersectional thinking is confusing because,because I am white I have all this unearned privilege which seems to overshadow every time I have felt hurt. I need to find my voice and I also need to NOT oppress anyone when I do speak. Feeling ashamed, chastened.

The Small Stain of My Existence

My numbness envelopes me. Channelling cocoons with no commensurate butterfly.
Non-transformation.

I have lived in fear since I became conscious. Fear of being wrong being different - yet at times celebrating my weirdness. Confusing.

So still am I.

The waves of shame slam into me, force my head under.

where next, how next? I am just done now? Is there no making left? Some ideas came, left unrealised. My head hurts me with its recriminations, accusations, judgments. The y are endless, tireless, devout. Killing me cruelly, little nicks, vast chunks of me fall away.A phantom lingers, in and out of bed, wearing a path into the house landscape.

So much potential, thwarted, wasted, eroded. So little left to offer. Doesn't that mean it's time to die? What positive do I bring to this world? Just something to worry about. The relief that would come when I finally die, that is what I believe. Grief then relief. Because people must move on and live their lives. I will be a small stain perhaps.

My brain is wasting away, losing power, losing the power of deduction. Losing logic.

I would be all sadness save I am numb.

Waiting.

stupid fucking shit

Feeling sorry for myself just found out that someone that I keep inviting to come and visit is going to visit somebody else. I don't get a lot of visitors and honestly I'm torn between wanting to have visitors and wanting to be alone. The great paradox.

Trying not to make it into a statement/evidence of my inherent badness aka why would anyone want to visit me? Still, it's my default. Willing myself not to call someone and complain, that is, ask what is so awful about me that I rarely receive visitors. After all, I'm the one who moved so far away, it was my choice. I feel hurt though. This in my bones feeling of unworthiness, of unloved-ness.

Hey write a song about it!

What did I do?
To hurt you?
You say it's not about me
Why don't I believe?

I crawl further into my rancid skin and weep for the sorrow that is me.
No reprieve.

Can I look into the void, won't it just show me the reflection?
Won't I be misled?

I don't feel close to fine (thank you I.G.).
Instead am clothed In a dipole, shocks and shards piercing , impaling, swirling within and without.

Little me cries

it started with a metaphor, honestly

Too far away from the sea
To keep an open heart and mind

We've willfully forgotten to be kind

It's harder to be kind, it takes effort and you have you check in at an internal check stop, you have to change direction you have to step out of your history to see yourself in someone else

i keep thinking about a song, one of social conscience. It can be done and done well it seems.

I stripped some more wire today and maybe I will start to weave my next thing.

Therapy was long and arduous this week, entered into the realm of admitting to things I feel great shame about, things I actually did wrong (that I didn't imagine). These tales wanted to come out. So more will follow and perhaps these toxins also will be finally released harmlessly.

A woman can hope.

Toes as Scouts

rain and wind  - storms without as well.

Yesterday was therapy and art therapy, me tired. Yet, for the first time, I think I finally succeeded in grounding myself, bless my little feet of cocktail sausage toes for their infinite wisdom. They are my advance scouts (is that redundant?). It was soooo slow, the movement and it moved throughout my body, this slow, settling calm. Unreal and, finally, real. How quiet, lovely.

And we laughed and caught the moments whenever I went to my standby, my head, forever the explainer of all things (known or unknown so it would seem) and this was very good practice of being present. Then it was on to the art therapy (insert dramatic music).

Painting, to Enya (she [art therapist] had my favourite CD of Enya). Now I usually am too distracted by music to really connect to making art, but I went for it, I guess the word for yesterday was "Try" (and thank you dear old friend CH for your message: "If you don't know what to do, do something, see what happens". So I did, almost 3 hours of talking, painting then dialogue with what I had painted. Skeptical, quasi-detached then fully committed and connected, it was a moving and helpful experience. She helped me identify when the creative "block" happened, and at first I didn't know, but now I do, I was in full flow and then felt the world slammed shut in my face and the message I heard was "We don't want you". Sadly, a familiar message, harsh and powerful, felt like truth. No one said this, what they said had nothing to do with me, I know that in my head, yet my little sweet self who only wants to be loved despite her/my strangeness, decoded "you do NOT belong". Yessirree, that there's a block.

So there is movement. Despite my jadedness,  it did feel good to talk to the paintings and see what I had inadvertently made, there was a glorious yellow bird (well, pterodactyl) soaring, there was a recumbent (yes, super-chill) dragon helping me understand the possibilities and limits of fire, and some walls and a sweet little turtle swimming in joy. It was all me, all of them, all with messages and encouragement and reassurance and support, yet all from me. Glorious indeed. Thank you L.

Then this weekend I am going to  a friends to maybe make music, but at least talk art. So feeling most fortunate.

Music and Art are crucial for my survival and sur-thrival (ok, made that one up)

OK

Brutal Black Comedy.

morning
rain  and mist, winter on the island. I do love to live here. possibility surrounds me, opportunity keeps knocking, maybe I'll answer. The kicker is it's up to me to knock on my own door, it's not that I don't hear myself, i"m not sure why I do not answer. I wonder if it's the fog of meds. Don't know.  I feel mostly detached. It's a brutal black comedy when my therapist oh so gently invites me to sense wherein in my body is the source of the pain. What sensations am I feeling. It's like I'm not even in there.  She is very kind and encouraging. Yet I am a ghost haunting this poor organic missive.

I am looking forward to being in the water, how I have missed it. And like my art friends say, maybe it's where I need to be for now. I love the support, the freedom it gives me, the power I feel. Already my arms and legs are stronger. It's helping my shoulder too, which is gratifying. It is a challenge to be around so many other people, all in the same water, but that is where we all exist ultimately isn't it?In the water we are all a massive misaligned battery, imagine what we could generate if all at the same pave and thrust, none of us know our real power, or perhaps a lucky few. Channelling that into creative thought and action and creation, how wondrous would that be for us all, what an earth we could be? Like that planet on star trek TNG where the people live for hundreds of years and they spend their vast time as apprentices; learning an art, a craft, and these pursuits are valued.

Get strong I guess. Get stronger. There's a storm here.

Peace in.

Scrape the Mould off the Cheddar

in trouble again, just an endless line of self-bait and switch. Now I'm binge watching, I mean I'm still bingeing, tv shows. what a waste of time, what others wouldn't give to have the precious left to them, time I squander endlessly, 10-12 hours then to bed, ill sleep, rise, repeat.

I guess this is me choosing the easy thing, poor impulse control sure, how about don't get hurt? I'll spin it that way. I'm full to brimming with hurt, and haven't been releasing it. Except in ill-chosen bursts fuelled by the catch basin of anger. Filling my days with some small brights spots, walking the dog, without said dog I would be in bed or sitting 24/7.  I guess this is depression, I guess this is being on meds that keep me safe.

I want to be safe and I understand why that it, yet I am lifeless and dull. Not showering as much. Drinking more. Yes, that's right because I don't have the consequence of instant brutal headache as with previous meds. sigh.

Writing to reach into my feelings , ease them into the air. Typing instead of picking, jabbing, cutting, tearing. It's all the same source, all the same driver. It's like seeking out the correct printer driver. I can feel them there, beneath my skin, swarming, vibrating, seeking and exit, now I've disturbed the hornet's nest.

I could just start walking and it would be the same source. Numbing. the great ebb and flow. sines waves of feelings, of activities and utter stillness.

where is the drive that others have seen?commented on? admired even?  it's blanketed , it's in sedimentary layers of protection.

deep in my head I lurk, waiting for the danger to pass. danger lurks within too. it seems I must enter into this great ecosystem or die. It will kill me, we all will die, yet this current choice of the slow death is outside the growing forces of the universe. I am instead the unnatural scum, the dust settling, the mole to be scraped away. "Scrape the mould off the cheddar Manuel".

Time to shower then walk my dog.

peace out, or rather in, for a change.