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Some Days the Nightmares Win

March 27, 2015 //
1

Disclaimer: This post is about emotions. I sometimes work through them more easily with words, in text, that I can see reflecting the experience back at me. It is a way of getting perspective. This post, though, may be a downer – I say that before I even write it, because I am having my own experience, and I feel what I feel in this moment. I am so very human. So…do yourself a huge favor, take a moment for ‘informed consent’; if you are in a place emotionally where someone else’s pain and struggling may wound you, throw off a good vibe you are enjoying, or change your experience for the worse, I recommend skipping this one. Hey, if nothing else, the writing is likely to be of poor quality, and angst-y, and rife with spelling errors and weird grammar fails – who needs that on a Friday morning? I’ll understand, I promise.

Still here? Okay…

Some other morning, a coffee.

Some other morning, a coffee.

I woke crying this morning. I fell asleep crying last night. In between, I found myself ambushed by Demons in The Nightmare City. This is not an emotional space I want to occupy. I am frustrated by my lack of resilience, my lack of emotional regulation, and my lack of perspective. I feel sad. I feel angry. I feel resentful and let down. I feel. Yeah. I definitely feel. I feel mistreated, and mislead. I feel set up and I feel sabotaged. I feel hurt.

“That’s a whole lot of feelings there, lady, what gives?” I’m a human primate. I am an emotional being more than a rational one – it’s a balance. Today it isn’t balancing as well as I’d like. Stress kicks my ass, being hurt kicks my ass, abrupt change kicks my ass – and it takes me a little time to recover, even with some support. Emotions are not criminal actions. Assaulting people with them is, I hear, avoidable. That sounds like fine thing to me, and I turned the little sign on my door this morning to ‘do not disturb’, meditated a while, had a shower, meditated some more… I still don’t want to be as disturbed as I feel, right now. The sign didn’t do much to help with the feelings, but by design it may prevent anyone else from walking through the mess I woke to, within, this morning.

Meditation, mindfulness practices, good basic self-care are all going a long way to improve my experience of me, very nicely. I feel a momentary hurt, recalling with sadness how quickly encouragement turned to criticism, a few months after I began this journey. I was taking a moment to feel proud of my progress, and I was feeling pretty impressed with new tools and practices being effective at helping me on a level nothing else ever had… I got called ‘smug’. I was incredibly hurt. Admittedly, I had been foolishly trying to explain or share the experience with someone else… maybe they hadn’t asked? (I suck at that – put a person in front of me and I will probably just start talking. Are you aware that your executive function manages that for you?) It hurt, nonetheless, and since then I am self-conscious about feeling encouraged by progress, and reluctant to share positive feelings about it in conversations. (Sticks and stones? Fuck right off; words matter.)

I feel confused. “Emptied out”. I feel overburdened by unmet emotional needs piling up over time. I feel like I am not making the progress I could be, right now. It’ll be okay, I think – I hold on to that tightly. I’ve got the hotline number in my pocket, just in case it gets too hard.  I lost a beautiful niece to suicide this year, and I see how it hurts my cousin every day she is without her daughter; I won’t put my traveling partner through that, and I can take the steps to avoid it. Despair is a motherfucker – it is part of our human experience.

...and another...

…and another…

I can’t be certain that the intensity of my emotions this morning reflects something ‘real’ or necessary; they are only emotions. For all I know, this is a 100% bio-chemical experience with no grounding in events or experience. Does that matter in the moment? Well, sure. It matters the way anything true ‘matters’. One true thing is that my emotions are this intense, and unpredictably so. Another true thing is that my emotions, and lack of top-down control, are incredibly uncomfortable for some people to live with. (I don’t get a choice, myself; this is my experience and I live it.) Unfortunately, in a live and unscripted real-life environment, I also don’t get much compassion specific to the ‘invisible’ issues associated with my TBI or PTSD. I rarely fight for it; if it isn’t there to be offered, begging for it, pleading for it or wishing it were there will not make it appear. Compassion can be taught – but that phenomenon also requires an active learner. Change is, but forcing it on someone isn’t appropriate – and generally isn’t effective.

My traveling partner encourages and supports me – he frankly provides a level of emotional support that I can only describe as ‘super human’ – but the environment in the household, generally, is unhealthy for me. I feel aggravated and moody about looking for a place of my own, because I’d honestly prefer to continue living with my traveling partner – he’s wonderful to live with [for me]. I am painfully aware, though, that living with me can be hard on him. Right now so much of what I am working through touches on sexuality, gender, individual identity, boundary setting/management, and relationships with others that it’s harder to treat each other gently in moments when we need it most from each other. So…yeah. I need to be on my own a while – not a break up, not even a separation, just a different living arrangement. It still sucks to hurt over it. I hope by day’s end I am embracing it in good spirits.

I leave other household members out of this, generally; I am writing about my own experience and the other people in it are entitled to be free of public scrutiny of their values and choices filtered through my chaos and damage. But…I am not willing to continue to over-compromise my needs, or undercut my values to keep peace, and the time I spend in the arms of my loves is too precious to taint it with OPD, or games. As a population of individuals, we don’t want or need the same things, and at 52 I have no time to waste on fighting to get the most basic emotional needs met; we are not all equally committed to that endeavor. I don’t yet have the emotional resilience to hold enough in reserve to continue to take care of me when common place bullshit goes sideways, and often find myself without any emotional reserves left to care for me, myself, by the time I have a moment to do so. I feel positive about the choice to get my own place…and for the moment, sad that it is necessary at all.

You know what I don’t feel? I don’t feel guilt or shame over the choice to move out, it needs to happen; I don’t thrive in an environment in which my emotional quality of life is poor. Hell, right now in this moment… I’m okay. (Thanks, Dearheart!) My tears have dried. I’m not feeling social, but I’m not enthralled by Demons in The Nightmare City.  (If I knew that I would have the kind of nightmares that I had last night, in nights to come, I’d never sleep again.) I don’t have the headache that followed me around all day yesterday, which is a huge improvement.  My coffee tastes good – I feel a pang of sadness sweep over me when I realize I won’t have an espresso machine in my kitchen for some time to come after I move; it will be a frugal lifestyle, focused on painting, meditation, and love. Wow. Suddenly that sounds fucking amazing – and all over again I wonder why this hurts at all. I enjoy solitude. I dislike drama. I have musical and culinary tastes that are not shared in the household at large… and I miss a good French press in the morning; it’s a lovely ritual to prepare coffee that way, time it carefully, enjoy the outcome at leisure… I miss living a gentle life. (The most humorous thing about that is how little time I have ever spent living that kind of exceptional quality of life – across years and relationships, I can’t really pin down more than a total of about 18 months that qualify as ‘gentle living’ in 52 years!

I’ve already found my way to a better place. It’s nice. No rushing, either; I’ve made changes to my schedule, effective this week, intended to dial down some of the fatigue-related stress, and don’t have to rush off so soon on Friday mornings. Have you actually read this far? Are you okay? Thank you for being interested, curious, or concerned enough to come all this way with me – whether just this morning, or over these past couple years. I appreciate it. You help me feel heard.

Yeah. Some days, the nightmares win. Today they didn’t. 🙂

Because love matters more. "Emotion and Reason" 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic details and glow 2012

Because love matters more.
“Emotion and Reason” 24″ x 36″ acrylic on canvas w/ceramic details and glow 2012

Today is a good day to put down some baggage. Today is a good day to practice good self-care. Today is a good day for self-compassion – first, not last. Today is a good day to enjoy this amazing woman I am becoming without competition, dread, or games. Today is a good day to treat others well, and understand that they are walking their own path; their story, and experience, are not mine to endure, to manage, or to criticize – and participation is a choice.

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Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Big 5, women, Words

In Accordance With the Customs of My Tribe

March 26, 2015 //
2

Have you ever taken a moment to consider ‘polite’ versus ‘rude’, courtesy, manners in general, and what ‘consideration’ means in a detailed and nuanced way? Have you similarly considered how relative to our individual culture, clan, tribe, family, community, ‘scene’, or region these things all are? It’s these subtleties – and mismatches in practices and expectations – that result in fairly predictable ‘incompatibility’ issues that occur in my own experience. I think about these a lot.

Surely, if we all wish to treat each other well, and we all go forward ‘doing our best’ to treat others well moment-to-moment, and we are all similarly aware that people around us also hold the intent to treat others well, and are doing their best…surely the outcome is that we all feel well-treated? (Are you giggling? Are you frowning? Do you see where I am going with this?) Even if those things are simple truths – that we each wish to treat each other well, and are all doing our best to do so moment-to-moment – we likely won’t see the outcome of ‘everyone feels well treated’; as defined, the premises do not lead directly to the proposed outcome, at all. Good treatment is relative to cultural practices, our own expectations, and how we experience our experience. The understanding that we have treated others well, is similarly biased – and biased in our own favor, generally, because we believe we have ‘done our best’ – whatever that may have been.

That’s a hell of a gap. How do I bridge the gap? How do I treat others – all others – well, with consideration, with courtesy – universally recognized, no fail, always a win, courtesy is what I’m looking for here – and get the result that each person thus treated by me also feels well-treated? I am pondering this because of a longer-term association I have in which I feel fairly chronically mis-treated in willful and overt ways, lacking in any shred of courtesy or consideration – a circumstance in which I am also quite certain that this associate has no understanding at all that the day-to-day interactions are experienced by me as ‘mis-treatment’ in the first place. In some cases, explicit statements by me indicating that some specific behavior/action/language is unacceptable or inappropriate have been disregarded, in others they have been actively dismissed and argued with, but in most instances it is not clear that the conduct is intended to be abusive, lacking in courtesy, or intentionally hostile.

Sometimes well-meaning people are clueless asshats… But… sadly… sometimes they are not actually well-meaning people, based on their practices, choices, and actions. Practicing good self-care means building healthy relationships; abusive or unhealthy relationships do not support my emotional needs.

Words have definitions, and we are each having our own experience. What I consider ‘courteous’, ‘respectful’, or ‘considerate’ may not be quite the same as what another person finds defining about those concepts. Still… I think there are some cross-cultural behaviors that spell out universal ‘good treatment’ – or, I do until I try really looking at practices in other cultures. It’s complicated. “They mean well” is a phrase that matters; the intention of someone’s behavior is what let’s us ‘let it go’ more easily when customs clash. “They mean well” is a band-aid, though, a temporary fix; we build relationships. Choices and compromises over time, clear expectation setting and boundary observing conversations adjust our shared understanding of ‘good treatment’, ‘consideration’ and ‘courtesy’ – but only if we have those conversations.

So…I sit here considering all manner of things to do with manners, and where I got which idea that what notion amounts to ‘polite’, ‘considerate’, ‘supportive’…and how can I best express to others who matter most to me what I want and need – and what counts with me as ‘considerate’, and whether that is reasonable. Eventually, if words are said, ideas are shared, boundaries expressed, terms defined… and I still feel mis-treated… then what? Learning those boundary setting practices, the firmly drawn line in the sand, the opportunity not to compromise and instead politely decline additional mistreatment are similarly guided by custom, ‘manners’, and expectations of consideration… How do I treat others well who do not treat me well? It’s an important question for me to approach, and I approach it with great care. (Let’s get “why would I want to treat such people well?” out of the way; because it matters to me to be someone who treats others well. It’s not about them, it is who I am.)

Sometimes I can see where the path leads, but the way is not easy.

Sometimes I can see where the path leads, but the way is not easy.

Today is a good day for hard questions. Today is a good day for the very best self-care. Today is a good day to skillfully treat others well. Today is a good day to continue to honor and respect my values, in the face of mistreatment, without anger; we are each having our own experience. Today is a good day to change the world.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5, Words

And Then There’s Love

March 25, 2015 //
0

Seriously, love is a thing. I didn’t always think so, and now that I do, well… it isn’t always a perfect Barbie Dream World experience, at all, and requires substantially more actual effort than I understood when I only dreamed of love. I’m speaking specifically of romantic sexual love – Eros. Nothing feels quite as ridiculously amazing as being loved, loved well, and adored romantically by an attentive affectionate lover with shared values, good communication skills, and the will to put reciprocal effort and time into the art of love.

Sometimes this is the face of love.

Sometimes this is the face of love.

Now, I’m no expert on love, frankly – I may well make more mistakes in this area than is commonplace – but I have been a devoted student for some time, and I’ve learned one or two things I am happy to share:

1. We are each having our own experience, which may feel very shared in a given moment, but are quite distinctly separate; however much in love, we are individuals.

2. Good treatment begins with treating myself well, by setting explicit boundaries, knowing my limits, communicating clearly and simply and remaining aware of the fundamental humanity of all involved – mistakes will be made, feelings will be hurt, boundaries may be trampled, and promises may be broken. At the end of the day, love is, and people are capable of change and growth.

3.  It’s not truly possible to force change on love; people change with their choices, their circumstances, and by way of their will. See items 1 and 2. If you are finding that love ‘needs’ a lot of change… that may not be love.

4. Criticism is a poor way of expressing a request, but commonplace; taking criticism personally generally prevents hearing the request, and failing to set boundaries about being criticized in lieu of being asked for an action or a change undermines love over time. Use your words wisely; love is listening.

5. Love really enjoys encouragement, kind words, emotional openness that also respects boundaries, consent, gentle frankness, laughter, and touch. Love enjoys being heard.

6. Love is undermined when we take it for granted, treat it as an entitlement or guarantee, speak harshly, violate boundaries, demean or diminish with our words or actions, speak with derision or contempt, disrespect it, or fail to treat it with consideration and importance, or… hey wait – honestly, if you’re doing these things, how is that love at all? Seriously. If you are treating another human being this way, maybe stop calling that love.

7. Emotions are very nuanced, and people have a very personalized experience of their experience (see item 1); making assumptions about someone else’s feelings or understanding of circumstances is a first-rate way to improve one’s rate of learning – the number of times you’ll be wrong will definitely result in plentiful opportunities to learn a lot – but it is a poor way to treat love.

8. Expectations are not ‘real’, and they don’t count as ‘plans’; mismatched expectations are a poor fit for love. Fortunately, this is an easy win with explicit, clear communication – as with assumptions, we can simply choose not to take this path. Trust me that building ‘love’ on expectations and assumptions is like trying to walk the average cat on a leash.

9. However challenging, getting love right is… beyond words, really, which is likely why so very many people write so very many words on the qualities of love; it’s worth communicating, and damned difficult. It’s worth the effort to invest in love every day – and that doesn’t require a partner! We invest in love when we are not in a relationship, too, with good self-care, enjoying what matters most to us as people, taking our own heart for a joy ride, solo, and savoring the small joys of life – when we do, love finds us so much more easily, than when we slog through our experience tragically grieving the lack of love.

10. Calling it love doesn’t change what it is.

...with what matters most. "You Always Have My Heart" 8" x 10" acrylic on canvas with glow.

…with what matters most.
“You Always Have My Heart” 8″ x 10″ acrylic on canvas with glow.

Today is a good day to love.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5, Words

Enough To Get By On

March 23, 2015 //
0

What is ‘enough’, anyway? Is it ‘everything’? I think we all know ‘enough’ has never been expected to be ‘everything’. Is ‘enough’ some measure more than I’ve got?

Half empty? Half full? Why does the size of the glass matter if the contents meet my needs?

Half empty? Half full? Why does the size of the glass matter if the contents meet my needs?

There’s the thing, isn’t it; ‘enough’ varies depending on the intensity of the need being fulfilled, the difficulty fulfilling it, and our own wisdom and perspective, too – we can’t recognize ‘enough’ unless we’ve gone without, perhaps, or somehow directly experienced the contrast between ‘feast’ and ‘famine’, in some way. ‘Enough’, in my own experience, tends to require just that amount of whatever thing (or experience, or emotion, or resource) is required to meet the need adequately, nothing more. ‘More’ would go beyond ‘enough’, and thus the expression ‘more than enough’.

This morning is enough. I’ve not asked the dawn of this new day to be perfect. I’ve nothing specific in mind for the coming week. ‘Enough’ will do, nicely. The weekend? Realistically, it was ‘enough’ in many respects. Could it have been improved? Well…damn…it’s a bit late to be thinking that over, right? The weekend is behind me now. I think I’ll just put that question off to the side, over here, with this dusty list of questions that didn’t seem worthy of the time to answer them, because answering them would change nothing. I’m all about questions, but I do strongly prefer the questions that provide their greatest value in the asking. 🙂

It's about where the question leads, not about the answer.

It’s about where the question leads, not about the answer.

My weekend camping trip was completely and entirely perfect, inasmuch as I did learn what I needed to know about my readiness for longer – or wilder – solo hiking/camping trips; I’m not ready. No, not really, not yet – just not quite ready. Simple things went sideways early on that resulted in the decision to shorten my trip a bit, primarily challenges with building a good fire in the damp conditions (I need practice on that specific skill, and on fire building in general), on top of forgetting to bring coffee (or tea), and over-looking my bee sting kit (which I didn’t forget, but chose not to bring – the swarm of bees I encountered was a very serious wake-up call). Aside from a bit of general embarrassment over my lack of readiness, making the wiser self-care decision to come in from the woods early was as easy as a phone call. My traveling partner took time out of his day to come get me, and I spent the remainder of the weekend in a fairly ordinary way – and it was enough. I like ‘enough’.

It isn't about rare wildflowers previously unseen by human eyes for me; it is about simple sufficiency, and the simple beauty of any flower.

It isn’t about rare wildflowers previously unseen by human eyes for me. It is about sufficiency, and the simple beauty of any flower, simple questions, too, and ideally simple answers.

What will ‘enough’ be today, I wonder? What questions will light my path most beautifully? What experiences will I enjoy, cherish, and invest my heart in? What experiences will teach me a profound lesson about life, or love? What will frustrate me as I deal with cravings and attachment? What will uplift me as I succeed in beating back my demons? On which small choices will I build my future? Will prior other choices appear as hurdles today? What can I learn from now? Which moments will become moments of long-standing joyous recollection?

This guy is probably not concerned with so many questions.

This guy is probably not concerned with so many questions.

Today is a good day for ‘here’ ‘now’ and ‘enough’. Today is a good day to savor each moment, and each experience, to either learn the lesson presented, or enjoy the journey simply because it is enjoyable. Today is a good day for love, loving, and investing will and wholesome intention into mindful love; what could serve love more skillfully than being awake, aware, and engaged in the moment? Today is a good day to enjoy the journey; change is, and it isn’t necessary to force it along.

The journey is not without challenges; the challenges do not detract from it's beauty.

The journey is not without challenges; the challenges do not detract from the beauty of the journey.

 

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Categories Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, women

Something, Something, Regrets…

March 18, 2015 //
3

I am awake. Nightmares. I drifted happily back to sleep in the arms of my traveling partner sometime in the wee hours. I didn’t check a clock. Sometime after, nightmares got at me. It happens. My brain is efficient about attacking me from within; it reaches deep into my consciousness for the deepest fears, the worst doubts and insecurities, and has no regard whatsoever for the hour of the day – or night. I woke weeping.

It doesn’t matter one bit what the nightmares were ‘about’; they are an experience of pure emotion, there are no ‘facts’ involved. Realistically, they are not ‘real’. I suspect that lacking substance they try harder…or something that feels similar but isn’t quite that.

It’s shortly after 4:00 am now, and there’s nothing at all about sleep to which I would choose to return right now. I’d like not to just sit here feeling sadness and regret, though, or as though my life is slipping through a sieve very quietly, and everything I enjoy, everything that meets my needs, everything that feels so good…is just slipping away, as if I have had my share, used up my turn, and now…something else…or something that feels similar but isn’t quite that.

It is not yet dawn, the day hasn’t really begun, and I am grieving losses quietly, weeping in the darkness. A year ago I would also be seething inside, resenting the intrusion of subtle emotions and the lack of ability to regulate, control, or manage them. I would escalate slowly, becoming a spring-loaded emotional train wreck; a brutal surprise for an unwary lover first thing in the morning. By the time anyone else thought to wake and great the day, I’d be at some invisible breaking point, wounded and ready to attack. This is not that. It’s not that moment. It’s not that experience. I approach it rather differently this morning – sure, tears, regrets, and a profound sense of loss and…a clock ticking. Aging is. I will never be young again. I will never know again some of the moments I have known before…. but I knew them once. I did have my experience over time, and it is mine, and it can’t be taken from me. Grieving is not a bad act, even when we grieve things that are intangible; lost dreams, lost passion, lost… something… are still losses. Pain hurts, even emotional pain hurts. I cry when I am hurting. This morning I am also here with me, compassionately so, comforting myself in my grief, reminding myself ‘all’ is not lost and that life is, and love is, and a future that is not yet, also is.  The tears fall, sure, and while that may be regrettable – and uncomfortable – it’s okay to grieve losses.

This morning I grieve knowing that the grieving, itself, does come to an end. Regrets are what they are, and I will perhaps always feel some pangs of regret over meaningful losses, reluctant changes, and the things that just didn’t go as planned, hoped for, or intended. Attachment is a tough puzzle. I give myself time, this morning, to grieve in an honest way over meaningful losses. It hurts, but denying myself the honest opportunity to grieve hurts too, and becomes a festering wound over time. I don’t need that. I’ll take grieving and moving on, thanks.

Half empty? Half full? Why does the size of the glass matter if the contents meet my needs?

Half empty? Half full? Why does the size of the glass matter if the contents meet my needs?

Later today, I head for the trees for a few days. I need some real downtime, and although having spent a week quick sick leaves me a little drained, and feeling weaker than I otherwise might, my heart needs this time, and I can take it easier in so many small ways and still be out there, under a canopy of tiny new spring leaves unfolding to fill the sky, wrapped in sweet wildflower breezes and stillness. Perhaps the contentment and joy I seek is to be found under the stars, or along some little-used trail in the forest, or some forgotten corner I have not yet explored? I know that I carry the seeds of my contentment with me everywhere…I know, too, that sad yearnings, and regrets, are soothed with new joys and the pleasure and delight of the moment, if only I can stand firmly within it…or something that feels similar, but isn’t quite that.  I’m still working out the details of what I want of life…and even though these damned tears blur my vision of the future, I’m still aware there is one. That’s progress, right there. 🙂

I’m okay. Nightmares are a shit way to start a day, but it happens now and then. Tears dry. Moments pass. Emotions are – and reason often has to catch up later. Given time, I find my way ‘home’ to a different perspective, aware of other things. Aware that I woke without a headache this morning. Aware that my arthritis isn’t bad, and my freedom of movement is better than usual. Aware that today I head for the trees, and the feeling of eagerness to be out there in the stillness with my blue jay and chipmunk neighbors. Aware of love. Aware of this gentle moment of now that is actually quite sweet and calm and still, itself. We are each having our own experience. There’s nothing about that to imply it is a static or unchanging experience.  My experience of now is already substantially different from my experience of waking some short time ago.  Soon, a shower, a routine, the start of a new day… a new experience, different from that last one, already in the past.

Today is a good day for perspective, and a good day to walk on. Today is a good day to take care of me, and trust that emotions are part of the process. Today is a good day to practice good practices. Today is a good day for acceptance – easier when things that feel wonderful are involved, sure, but every bit as needful when it is time to accept something that hurts (maybe more). Today is a good day to embrace now, as it is, and to be reminded that seeking is not always about finding…or not about finding what we thought we sought.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, grief, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Spring, The Big 5
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