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I, Me, Mine

September 2, 2013 //

It is a pretty morning, and Dave Matthews sings songs of love and life while I sip my morning coffee. My loved ones are home from their weekend getaway, and returning with them, the tension and stress of everyday life, notably absent while they were away. I am considering that, and perspective, this morning.

Much of my PTSD is related to family and romantic relationships, and associated with trauma over time, and small ‘inconsequential’ things that somehow destroy my sense of balance and calm very suddenly. Fears that overcome me are often based on some historical detail that results in my utter uncertainty about whether or not I am still ‘rational’, whether my here-and-now experience is ‘real’. The rapid swings between paralyzing panic and trapped-animal rage result in wildly unpredictable behavior – most of it unpleasant. One of my highest priorities right now is really getting that under control. Strangely…’getting it under control’ is turning out to mean ‘accepting myself’, and my feelings, and not exerting so much control; giving up on forcing myself to comply with some arbitrary standard of performance in the face of my own suffering. In the past, the ferocity applied to ‘forcing myself to be okay’ resulted in splitting headaches, problems with my blood pressure, anxiety and panic attacks, and fits of uncontrollable crying that would sweep up out of nowhere, leaving me feeling like I had, on top of everything else, failed to ‘control myself’.

“Myself”. My self. My self. My self. Damn. Who am I? Where does my experience begin, where does it end? What is the boundary between what is me, and what is someone else? You’d think an adult would have this one mastered by 50. Well, sometimes the answers to my questions, the understanding I seek, the resolution to a challenging problem, are inconveniently buried in the basics. So, this weekend, in addition to being about ‘perspective’, is about applying an understanding of perspective, an experience of perspective, to the question ‘who am I?’

Sorting out the difference between what stresses me, and me stressing over other people’s stress, turns out to be more complicated than I expect. I’m learning to ‘make room’ for my feelings, and learning to accept myself. I’m also having to learn to take those new tools, and accept my loved ones, and ‘make room’ for them to have their experience, without that urgent need to intervene, ‘make it right’, ‘force it to work’, or ‘fix things’ sweeping aside the very things that make us individuals sharing a relationship – our unique and individual experiences that we are having, and choosing.

Sometimes words by themselves are not enough for me to gain real clarity. Maybe I don’t have the right words, or enough words, or maybe I don’t choose them well, or define them with sufficient clarity. I have painted a number of self-portraits over the years, and studies of my state of being in the abstract. This morning it occurred to me to take a look at them all, as a body of work with a story to tell – a story to tell me.

“Portrait of the Artist’s Tears” 1984?

My shoddy bookkeeping tends to indicate this is my oldest surviving self-portrait. A small work on watercolor, my recollection is that I was hesitant to make my unhappiness with life too obvious, for fear of making it a great deal worse. The cries for help just kept coming…

“All I Am” 1985

Slipped between sheets of rice paper, stored in a box, shoved into the back of a closet for many years, “All I Am” stayed quietly hidden, along with my truths. i struggled with myself, with my experience, with my PTSD – although I didn’t know then, what I struggled with. I knew I wanted something else, and I knew my relationships were a core concern…

unfinished “Brownie” 1986

I clung fiercely to the illusions I loved most, hoping that somehow wishing hard enough would be enough…

“Waiting for Morning” 1986

It wasn’t enough, and I didn’t yet have the tools I needed to find peace, or clarity, and my cynicism and ancient pain overwhelmed me. Futility became an everyday experience, and romantic love did not exist in my experience in any recognizable form…

“Marriage” 1987

Grim, bleak landscapes figured prominently in much of my work by 1987, and expansive vistas of far away places. I wanted to get away, but I lacked certainty about what I was running from, or to. It wasn’t all tears and trauma, and even our worst trials may be interrupted by some wonderful moments. Marriage didn’t treat me well, and love was pure fiction as far as I could tell, then, but…

“Lovers” 1991

I found love for the first time, later on. It, too, was a momentary interruption on a very scary ride through life, then. It was something to hold onto for later, and that would mean so much…

“Joy” 1995

“Joy” is still my singular favorite self-portrait, because it speaks to me of that moment of wondrous realization that love exists. It was a mundane enough moment, at the dining table, watercolors out, painting simple sketches of moments and feelings, and suddenly… joy, desire, love, passion, and a feeling of being filled with something powerful, something beyond me, and something that was – and is – profoundly positive and transcendent of pain, and chaos and damage. If I had any thought I could ‘take it with me’, this is a painting I’d want buried with me – it is the best of all that I have within me.

Life is complicated stuff, and I have rarely been able to ‘hang on to’ the best bits. I struggled for years, and did what I could to ‘keep it to myself’, even suppressing as much pain as I could through Rx psych meds. The next self-portrait I painted was from within an altered state so profound that I got lost, all the pieces of me separating as mists and fogs, dissipating and leaving me alone, and naked with who I had become…

“Separated from Self” 2010

I began making profound changes to, well, almost everything, shortly after that point. Life as it was couldn’t be borne much longer, and it was obvious, even to me. I can’t take credit for being a willful adult being making reasoned changes… I’ve got to be as honest as I can on that one. I began grabbing any foothold and laying waste to my moment, to my status quo, hanging on to what felt like a change for the better with real ferocity, and discarding anything that hurt… and of course, circumstances, life, and the free will of others in my life threw assorted changes into the mix, too.

“Communion” 2010

I experienced profound love – that magical, amazing, wondrous sort of love often promised, rarely found. Of course, life rarely limits our unexpected circumstances to the ‘magical, wondrous’ variety…

“A Ratio of 13 to 1” 2011

A sudden, unexpected, unsought career change resulted in anger, insecurity, and… freedom. I was suddenly free to make radical new choices about that pesky ‘who am I?’ question, free to redefine myself, willfully, as I came off the psych meds and regained my soul, and my intellect, and began to develop a sense of self that didn’t rely on any evaluation but my own. Damn, that sounds awesome when I read it. Actually, it sucked. It sucked a lot, and it was one of the most difficult things I’ve undertaken, and more than 2 years later I am still working on it – although it is now as much a joy and delight, as a challenge. There will never be enough ‘thank you’s’ to give to the dear ones who have been there for me throughout this incredible period of growth.

“Taking Another Look at Me” 2011

I have re-examined myself from a number of angles since then…

“His Bitch II” 2012

Who am I as a lover? As a partner? What is sex to me, now? Can I put my demons to rest?

“Agent of Chaos” 2012

Can I ‘get it under control’? Can I ‘figure it all out’? What’s wrong with me? I continued to struggle, and somehow the things I expected would help me… data… analysis… writing in my journal… seemed to be making it all so much worse. I was ‘spinning my wheels’ and not getting anywhere… I stopped writing. I stopped painting. My soul seemed to be stalled. Hormones. Relationship challenges. Choices and actions that didn’t align to values I thought I had. The chaos and damage were taking over, the wreckage in my head was becoming the experience in my life… I felt utterly lost.

“Broken” 2012

At the end of 2012 I painted “Broken”. I was trying to say… something. Trying to explain what it felt like on the inside, to communicate something I couldn’t quite seem to put my finger on… and as 2012 became 2013, I found out about the brain injury I had received as a tween. (I still don’t remember it in any concrete ‘this is my experience’ sort of way… but the crack in my forehead refutes any desire to wish it away now.) The new information, and beginning therapy more appropriate to my experiences and needs, kick started 2013 as a year of growth – and real healing.

These are who I have been. I am somewhere new, now, getting to know this amazing being that i am… facing my world, my life, my experience with real hope, and real healing… I look at these self-portraits now, and it is tempting to be frustrated that I wasn’t listening to me, but I am done punishing myself for what has been, and waltzing endlessly with my demons.

I painted “Perspective” this weekend. It isn’t as much a self-portrait as a meditation, a reflection on a bigger picture, a useful skill, a necessary step in the process of ‘knowing’ – or unknowing – what is, and what is not, and what may be. I am 50 this year, and there is a lot to celebrate, to observe, to experience. Soon… a new self-portrait.

I am learning that ‘who I am?’ is not a question to be answered with words. 🙂

Tags Art, art imitating life, be the change, listen to a story, love, mindfulness, ptsd, self-portraits, TBI, tell me of your home world, who am I?

Categories Art, Brain Injury, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Uncategorized

Independence Day Now

July 4, 2013 //

My ‘independence’ is old enough to vote…now that’s a weird thought. In 1995, after 14 years, I ended my first marriage on July 4th. It was – and remains – a very important moment in my life. I could probably write volumes about the years that lead up to that moment, the years that followed, the changes that were required to get to that point, and the changes that were required to succeed after it. I’m not going to. Not today, anyway. Today, I will write about my independence now; what it is, and what it isn’t [yet]. I guess it is only fair to provide a TRIGGER WARNING: this post contains subject matter and points of view that are frankly feminist in nature, and may be disturbing for some readers.

Take a moment for another perspective?

I make jokes about Independence Day, because the U.S. holiday of July 4th, the anniversary of ‘our nation’s independence’, is not truly celebrating the freedom of ‘the nation’ – it mostly only celebrates the existence of our independent government, and the nominal freedom it provided to the white male population. I know, I know, some of you are already groaning in protest. (One of my partners did – and I consider him a committed feminist, himself.) Think it over, though – women were no more free after the birth of our nation than they were before it, and neither were ethnic minority elements of the population – I can’t even call them ‘citizens’, because at that time they were not recognized as such. So…how again is 4th of July a celebration of my freedom or independence? Women didn’t get to vote until 1920. Um…what? (I can’t say I’m all that secure in my rights, either, considering that even in 1920, it was not a unanimous vote (it wasn’t even close to unanimous), and there are likely elected representatives today who would quite willingly disenfranchise women again, based on how many legislators seem to think they are within reason to keep trying to jam laws down my pants that limit only women’s rights and freedoms: abortion, birth control, emergency contraception .) Sometimes it really does feel like there is a ‘war on women‘. I seethe with the frustration and feeling of helplessness and cultural dismissal some days.

So yeah…mixed feelings about ‘Independence Day’. For me it seems a bit like a Druid celebrating St Patrick’s Day. lol. BUT – the 4th of July is my ‘Independence Day’, in spite of all that, because it is the day I walked away from domestic violence. It represents the earliest stirrings in my heart and spirit of real self-worth, of real conviction that I am not chattel, and not obligated to live someone else’s values or vision for the future. (I did not know then how much further I had to go to free myself, or begin to heal.) I read Gloria Steinem‘s ‘Moving Beyond Words‘ for the first time – I still regularly recommend it, and I cherish the correspondence I exchanged with Ms Steinem that year. I began to invest my attention in being female – a humble beginning, and I had no idea how far I would have to go.

I’m hoping to communicate something specific here, today, and I’m not sure I have the words, the will – or that I am the one truly ‘called’ to say it. It needs to be said, by someone, and I need to feel heard – so I guess I’ll make the attempt. I want to communicate simply this: there is an association between ‘rape culture’, domestic violence, and the concept of consent. Does that seem an obvious truism? Are you having a ‘well, duh!’ moment? I sure hope not… because it is that matter of consent that I suspect of being at the heart of a lot of our suffering, as women (and as men – I love you guys, I don’t want you to feel left out, and I know you face challenges and heartache, too, but I’m writing about my experience today – please don’t take that personally).

I am still working through years of emotional baggage, and damage both physical and psychological, related to abuses that created, fostered, and later capitalized on a poor understanding of consent, and what my consent means – and I just turned 50. I know my poor relationship with, and understanding of, consent itself is directly tied to early experiences where my lack of consent, or clear refusal, was violated – and that years of manipulation and further abuse were both possible due to that damage, and worsened because of it. It’s ugly, and about as easy to fix as picking a single strand of brunette hair from a vat of molasses. At least I finally feel like I am understanding…something. I still have a lot to learn.

I woke gently this morning, and although my thoughts have been quite serious on the anniversary of the end of my first marriage, I am enjoying the day. So much so, that first thing I playfully took a look at life from another perspective this morning…

Life from another angle…child’s eye view of my garden.

Things look different, from another perspective…

I admit to struggling with understanding beloved male friends who respond to feminist protestations about rape with objections that ‘men are raped, too’ – as if that makes women being raped ok, or not worth objecting to, or as if they will not move to change the world, or their own position, because… well, damn… I’m not sure why. Thus, my struggle. I mean… yes, men do get raped, violated, abused, and yes, sometimes their perpetrators are women. I don’t see that those details make women facing domestic violence or rape any less objectionable – I object to all of it. Rape is not ok. Violence is not ok. Ignoring someone’s boundaries or disregarding their lack of consent is not ok. Does it matter whether it is a woman being victimized or a man? An adult or a child? Isn’t it all worth objecting to, and fighting against? Rape statistics are ugly.

Rape and domestic violence (actually, a lot of violence of many sorts) share something relevant to this discussion – they both violate the consent of the victim. Clearly. There are no excuses. It isn’t ok to mutilate someone’s genitals to control their sexuality, or to punish infidelity. It isn’t ok to hit someone because you don’t like their tone of voice, or what they said to you. It isn’t ok to force unwelcome sexual contact on another human being under any circumstances at all, ever. EVER. By anyone. For any purpose whatsoever. There is no justification, no excuse, no mitigation. It isn’t ok to torture someone to ‘teach’ them (A rather disturbing amount of parental behavior in some families falls into this category; test that theory by re-examining any such behavior in the context of being inflicted on an adult human who is a stranger to the perpetrator). Behaviors engaged in to exact non-consensual control over another human being are similarly not ok (I know, that starts getting complicated when parents need to manage children, or the penal system needs to manage the incarcerated, doesn’t it?). I’m spelling it out because I’m only learning to understand it for real and apply it to my own experience in life with regard to the treatment I tolerate from others! At 50 that’s damned embarrassing sometimes – other times I just cry about it, alone.

… just in case you need a breather from the serious stuff

I’m spending a lot of time these days figuring out consent. I find myself looking back on some events or relationships and asking myself ‘Oh hey, was I the bad guy there? Did I violate that person’s boundaries? Was their experience that they were forced to do something they didn’t want to do?’ I find it harder, strangely, to look back and admit that I was victimized, to recognize that an event was not ‘a gray area’ at all, and that my lack of consent or explicit refusal was clearly disregarded. In my 20s I tended to use the ‘gun test’ – “___ wasn’t at the point of a gun, therefore I was not forced.” Rape apology at its most basic: exclude the event by changing the standard. I had also figured, for years and years, that ‘frequency invalidates legitimacy’ – that because I had experienced sexual violence more than once, that it couldn’t have been sexual violence – because that’s rare, right? 😦 Right up there with ‘slut shaming’ for being both wrong and inappropriate.

It’s all very complicated and I cry about rape a lot these days. They are clean, honest tears. They honor my experience with real compassion, and acceptance. I am learning to treat myself well, and to understand that ‘getting over it’ and ‘moving on’ are not just words on a page that can be said out loud with a confident satisfied tone and magically become real, or true. I know that with certainty – because I have done it, and it didn’t work at all. I’m not ‘over it’, and ‘moving on’ is something that means facing my experience and healing. I am strangely as proud of being in this place with myself as a child tying my shoes by myself for the first time – I feel hopeful, and I feel free. That is what makes this my Independence Day now.

mindfulness in the garden; the value of finding stillness

Tags don't rape me bro, finding peace, flowers, gardening, independence day, mst, ptsd, rape is not a metaphor, TBI, the death of the apologist, war on women, WPLongform

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Uncategorized, women

Morning, Coffee, and the Language of Love

June 27, 2013 //

One of my favorite experiences is the simple delight of a leisurely morning, so much so that I wake each day fully 2 hours before I have to leave for work, with no agenda beyond having my morning coffee and some time for me, enjoyed on my own terms. That my partners do so many things, and make so many small choices, to ensure I have more of these mornings than not, is most certainly one of the most loving things I regularly enjoy. This morning was one of those delightful leisurely mornings, although it was not in any fashion ‘routine’.

For one thing, I spent much of the morning in my rose garden, sipping my latte – which was a different flavor than what I generally favor first thing – and contemplating the work to come. My weekend begins on Friday. The roses need dead-heading, feeders need replenishing, there are some shrubs I plan to have removed that need to be marked, and I gently considered the fall pruning of trees and shrubs with an eye for future summers; the aesthetic result matters to me. I hardly noticed the drizzle that came and went, and it was well into an hour before I realized time had passed at all.

The blueberries are excellent this year!

I still had time to enjoy a second coffee, and I enjoyed the robust hit to my taste buds of a favorite morning choice – a double shot of espresso, a little milk, and a hint of vanilla. Yum. I lingered over my espresso while I watched fish swim. My anxiety about sick fish has mostly receded, and it seems I identified the issue quickly enough for early treatment to prevail.

A good day ahead of me, now, and a lovely morning behind me. I’m eager for the weekend…eager to be in the greenhouse…content to be 50, female, and in love. From this perspective, life feels pretty damned splendid.

…there are seedlings to plant…

…But life doesn’t wait for the weekend, and neither should a good time! Heading to the old-time-y candy shop down the road over lunch with my colleagues.

Enough sugar on hand to fuel a universe entirely populated by hummingbirds!

Tags blueberries for breakfast, espresso, holistic living, life and love, love and roses, mindfulness, ptsd, swimming with the fishes, TBI

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, gardening, Healthy Living, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, Relationships, Turning 50, Uncategorized, women

Longing

June 24, 2013 //

It is an unusual Monday. I woke feeling cross and dissatisfied, irritable, almost angry – and my entire being went looking for fight. Well, that’s the feeling of it, when the day started. I allowed myself the respect and consideration of really feeling it, acknowledging the presence of it in my experience, and an honest admission of awareness that emotions can be quite illusory, and transitory, and that the thinking I use to prop up those emotions can be deceptively well crafted to support continuation, rather than resolution. Yay me… I’m still feeling cross.

Roses blooming. My emotions are not relevant to their experience.

As I walked to work contemplating my feeling of discontent and dissatisfaction, it quietly became more honest, more vulnerable, and a more accurate expression of unmet needs and longing. Longing. (I am finding satisfaction in the word, as an expression of my experience this morning. ‘I woke with a sense of longing’.) I spent the walk to the office musing about longing. I re-phrased a variety of recent expressions of discontent, dissatisfaction, loss, frustration, and moments that fell short of expectations, turning them into frank expressions of desire and longing. It is an interesting exercise in self-expression that takes garden-variety everyday bitching and renders commonplace moments of unhappiness into something more profound – and constructive.

From my perspective, longing doesn’t feel as ‘negative’ as dissatisfaction – or as hopeless. Longing feels poignant, deep, even necessary. Longing feels respectful of prior joys and experiences, and honors what is valued and loved. Longing reminds me of what I want and why I want it, without attacking someone dear to me as though they are an obstacle in obtaining my desires. Having said that… I find myself puzzled by longing. Is it a ‘now’ thing? Is it a trap that combines past and present, but delivering nothing of value, merely holding me in thrall to desire? I am still a student of life, of love…and there seems always to be more to learn.

One very nice thing about longing… my own longing for a thing, person, event, or experience is not an attack on someone else. It is sometimes challenging [for me] to express ‘dissatisfaction’ or ‘discontent’ without seeming to attack someone else, as though they are the source of my emotional experience. ‘Longing’ seems bigger than that…with a presence in my experience that is clearly ‘of me’ and ‘for me’, part of who I am, and an expression of what I value and what I need.

There’s more to think about here, more questions to ask, more connections to make, more experiences to parse and correlate, more to understand and explore…more life to live…and time to write another day.

A footnote, of sorts: for so very long I experienced longing for a greenhouse of my own. I have such fond memories of the greenhouse attached to my grandmother’s house, so many years ago. I don’t believe I ever really said so, beyond the occasional remark about it being ‘a cool idea’ (not a very precise expression of longing). In a sense, this entire post is the period at the end of a ‘thank you’ to a man who adores me so much that he often knows my heart’s desire long before I learn the words to share it with him. 😀

Thank you, Love.

…Oh, and I no longer feel cross; I am experiencing a sense of longing, and enjoying the satisfaction of understanding myself just a bit more than I did yesterday. 🙂

Tags gardening, holistic therapies, I'll be in the greenhouse, longing for your touch, love, planting the seeds of the future, ptsd, sowing the seeds of love, TBI

Categories Brain Injury, gardening, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Metaphors, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Roses, Turning 50, Uncategorized, Words

Good-bye, Old Friend

May 23, 2013 //

So many metaphors…hard to choose just one. (detail from “Anxiety” 2011)

I’m saying good-bye to an old friend.

A steady rain falls this morning, like a lifetime of tears falling in a day; the sort of respectable rainfall that farmers count on, and that quickly turns a pleasant walk into a test of endurance. I like rain. I especially like rain from a warm, dry vantage point with a hot cup of coffee. I’ve got my coffee, the rain, and if I want to reach into my heart and touch something that hurts, I have my share of tears, too. I also have a headache. The headache is part of this particular good-bye.

You see, after more than a decade, I am finally saying good-bye to prescription anxiety medication. Aside from this headache, and a few somewhat surreal days, it hasn’t been too difficult. I was most concerned about some potential that I’d suddenly be taken over by the level of anxiety that was my everyday experience before I embraced Big Pharm’s tempting sales pitch. A decade is a long time to take a drug, and I’m not surprised that the experience of withdrawing from it is more profound than the assurances and platitudes the literature provides; nearly all the research I’ve been able to access is based on clinical trials of short-term use (6-8 weeks), and none of it is based on a decade or more of continuous use. Actions have consequences. A decade is a long time to take a drug. There is too much information available, and a lot of recent reporting, regarding how business interests have resulted in a substantial amount of medical research being suppressed, or actually manipulated for a desired outcome, and similar sorts of things that frankly scare the hell out of me every time I look in my medicine cabinet. I’m painfully aware, too, that doctors are people, not gods, and just as prone to fraud, deceit, greed, error and simple incompetence as anyone else. I am serious about embracing a genuine experience of who I am – of being myself. Really being myself. So, the time had come to back up my recent progress with real trust that my experience is improved, and that I am more whole than I had been, and am capable of continuing to grow and improve my experience, and heal my ancient hurts. I decided to take care of me in a different way. Big Pharm didn’t fix my issues, and couldn’t – they had 10 years to make it happen. lol. My turn. For real. I’m learning, healing, growing…and I am happy to see 50 without having to take mind-altering drugs to endure my experience, pacify my fears, or ‘make me presentable’ for the rest of the world. The headache today is worth it.

…not going to dwell on it… (detail of ‘Broken’ 2012)

I’m still human. I still feel anxiety. I still have things to work on, to work out, to understand more clearly. I have more to learn. I still have PTSD, and I’m still learning new skills for managing that experience more effectively. I still have a TBI, and I’m finally learning things that address that part of my experience directly, and that matters more than I ever know how to describe.

There’s always another lesson in life’s curriculum, isn’t there? My morning thoughts and contemplation are interrupted. I am finding that my concentration is limited for now, as I say good-bye to this ‘old friend’. I’m not sorry to see it go. But it is a complicated good-bye.

…each having our own experience. (detail of “Emic” 2012)

It is sometime later, now. The serenity of the morning didn’t last, and while that is disappointing, I’m finding that I am ok, myself. Anxiety is what it is, and I’m ok. My own experience, right now, right here, is one of relative calm; concerned, aware, and finding significant perspective in the beauty of a rainy day, and the many shades of green I see. Some experiences have more value than others, and for the moment a rainy day trumps anxiety and ‘what if’ scenarios.

Respect…consideration…compassion…reciprocity…openness…my ‘Big 5’ only look easy on paper. I’m finding that getting there is still a destination, and the journey requires an everyday commitment to mindful choices, and awareness. I want it to be easy. I accept that both effort and will are required; this is not about easy.

I’m tired and my head aches. That’s worth it, too. I’m giving myself my self for my 50th birthday.

“Who am I? Wait…I had something for this…” (detail of ‘Kronos’ 2002)

Tags I'm not a superhero, it's a verb, learning to swim, mindfulness, perspective, turning 50

Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Turning 50, Uncategorized, women

I, Me, Mine

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Independence Day Now

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Morning, Coffee, and the Language of Love

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Longing

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Good-bye, Old Friend

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