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Vulnerable to Attack from Within

July 2, 2018 //
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What a delightful weekend! I probably couldn’t say enough about it in the time I have available before a new work day begins. It was… awesome. Fun. Warm. Merry. Chill. Exciting… so exciting. It was also characterized by disrupted sleep (see “exciting”), and a lot of stimulation (an art show, a road trip, a weekend with my Traveling Partner…). I’m quite entirely made of human, and having the issues I do, a weekend – however delightful – full of exciting moments, color, light, music, and did I mention the excitement? A weekend such as this one just past often – too often – results in some sort of major freak out or melt down of some kind. No kidding. Yep. I have “mental health issues”. Definitely. It’s one little detail that is a reminder that I put so much time and attention into my self-care for reasons, not because it is a hot new trend.

Flowers need no excuse.

The drive back to the city started well, and traffic was well-behaved, although more than usually dense. Average speed was a comfortably ordinary 70 mph. Somewhere about 2 hours (a bit less, I think) from home, a bad snarl and some congestion developed rapidly ahead of me. Like… bad. Cars were spinning out, into the median, in one case, onto the left shoulder in another, and the third skittering across three lanes while other drivers used breaking maneuvers, and attentive skillful driving to both keep moving forward, and also, not hit anyone else. No collisions. I’m making a point of reminding myself of that. I “drive ahead of myself” a good way, and saw things going awry in real-time. The driver directly ahead of me began to lose control of his SUV. I let up on the gas after tapping my brakes gently (just enough to flash the brake lights) to alert the driver behind me, and slipped between the SUV as he slid sideways out of the lane, and the car to his right, which was crowding the fast lane out of panic as the driver ahead of him braked hard, very suddenly. Oooh… so close. As traffic finally slowed to a full stop, I looked in the rearview, and around; no collisions. I’m still very surprised by that. No indication of collisions further down the road, either. What the fuck? I began to seethe as it became more clear that this was likely the result of aggressive or frustrated ass-hattery, custom made by some clueless fuck knob. My fury began to build as the traffic crept along. At some point, I lost myself in my anger. Oh, “nothing bad happened” – by which I mean I did not attack anyone, hurt myself or anyone else physically, nor did I directly or indirectly confront any individual, or group of individuals…but oh wow. The invective. The yelling by myself in the car. It was… not okay. I’d fully lost my dignity, my resilience, my sense of self… I was… gone. Lost in it. Taken over by my metaphorical demons – who finished the drive more or less without me.

I got off the freeway at the first opportunity. It helped to do so; it slowed everything down just a bit, and reduced the feeling of “crowding”. Unfortunately, at that point I was also quite triggered, highly reactive, and the state I was in was less than ideal for driving, at all. I had no understanding I could have stopped driving. I wept much the remaining drive home. “I just want to go home!” I wailed, weeping. Purposeless, frustrated, impotent tears poured down my face, even completely blinding me briefly (I had to pull off the road to wipe the sweat-salt from my eyes). I got home shaking, angry, sad – so sad. Filled with drenching hopeless sorrow. My brain straight up attacking me from all sides with my deepest insecurities, disappointments in life, and leaning in hard on anything positive, and all my good feelings and recollections – a bit as if I’d come home and been confronted by a fucking dementor, honestly. It was pretty horrible.

I numbly started doing things that felt routine, feeling pressured by those experiences, and a little forced. Going through the motions. I made a point to let my Traveling Partner know I was emotionally unwell, and that I would be offline. (It does not do well to stay online in such circumstances, not for me; I use words. lol) I simultaneously gave a quick heads up to friends that I was having a tough time, but also that I did not require support; just in case shit went crazy wrong with me during the night and spilled over into the morning, I at least wanted people to wonder if I were okay – but I didn’t want to be fucked with right then (the terms in which my thinking colored all such thoughts in the moment). Then I got to work taking care of this all-too-human creature that lives my life.

A sunny summer day in the garden, tasks, routines, patterns of light – better moments.

I took a shower. I had a big class of water. I medicated (cannabis for the win, here*). I meditated. I watered the garden. I started some laundry. I began to redirect negative thoughts to their positive counterparts; ruminations about traffic were redirected to how pleasant the drive was in other respects, and what a pleasant day it was for driving, generally, and that there were no actual collisions, for example. I reminded myself, too, that once I was dealing with a storm of emotions, not only must the storm be permitted to pass, but then, as is often the case with the weather, there’s some clean up afterward needed. Our emotions have their basis in actual chemistry. Feelings of rage? Yeah, that’s like being on a fucking drug that causes that experience. It takes time for the drug to wear off, even though the moment is past. Sorrow, too. Each blue, emotionally disarrayed moment got some support, some consideration, some care and attention. It did pass. All of it passed. I felt better before I’d been home for even 2 hours. The recovery period was shorter than the emotional event. (That’s real progress!) I went to bed a bit early; I hadn’t slept well over the weekend, and all by itself poor quality sleep is enough to put me at risk of losing my emotional balance and resilience, if allowed to go on.

During the night the phone rang. Connectivity was poor at the location my Traveling Partner and I spent the weekend together, and he’d only just gotten my message. He called, concerned, to check in with me and see how I was. I answered a ringing phone during the night (I rarely do), because I went to bed expecting he might call. Partnership is lovely. I heard the warmth and love in his voice, and he heard it in mine. I was definitely okay at that point. I woke this morning, feeling rested, content, loved, and comfortable in my own skin. It’s a new morning.

A picture from a lovely summer morning hike yesterday; where will today take me?

Hell, I considered not writing about this experience, that’s how good I feel this morning – but here’s the thing; this experience is not one I’m ashamed of. I didn’t “fail” here. I managed things pretty well, actually. Somewhere, out there, there is an alternate version of this experience playing out that may not end as well, or may feel “permanent”, lacking any hope or perspective. I put these words on paper, sharing this moment, not only as a later reminder for myself that all this progress isn’t “a cure” (I need these practices, this level of self-care and self-awareness, to maintain my quality of life day-to-day.) I also put these words on paper because someone else may need to hear that there is hope, and it is possible to do better, and it is possible to find some relief – it’s within reach. There are verbs involved, no lie, but the incremental change over time has been… huge. Wonderful. A vast improvement impossible to overstate. It could have been much worse. I’m okay right now. That’s a big deal. It’s worth sharing.  🙂

Oh, hey, look at the time! It’s time to begin again. 🙂

*Note: It is unfortunate that cannabis is not yet fully legal, and that it is not more widely available, and easily, affordably available to more people. It is actually fairly stupid we make it so difficult for researchers to research it. Literally nothing offered to me by doctors, anywhere, has been as reliably helpful for my PTSD as cannabis has been, and for the most part side-effect free. Psychiatric pharmaceuticals were less effective for me, had horrific side effects (that included impairing me artistically, cognitively, sexually, emotionally, intellectually, and destroying my health), and didn’t actually result in an improved quality of life for me. I don’t write much about cannabis, itself, mostly because I’m not sure how to do so skillfully, and feel uncomfortable with the unsettled legal status it has in a broader sense. Having said that, I’ll be frank; when I talk about “medication” and “medicating”, if I am not more specific, I am most definitely referring to cannabis, and no, I don’t particularly care that it doesn’t come in a pill. 🙂

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, gardening, grief, Healthy Living, inspiration, loneliness, Love, medical marijuana, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

My Fulcrum

June 28, 2018 //
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I woke in pain this morning. Ah, but, I am also undeniably well-rested. That’s something. I scrolled through my feed too early, not quite awake, and fucking hell, the news is not very pleasant. On the other hand, there’s also quite a lot of hopeful news, and, historically, a lot of forward momentum, too. So… I guess that’s something to hold onto. Back and forth – finding “balance” is its own challenge. Like a pendulum or a see-saw, my experience, mood, perspective, and general sense of both wellness and self, shift, swing, adjust, wobble… It’s kinda crazy up in here. You, too?

Where is your fulcrum? What do you pivot on? What supports that search for balance, and soothes your stress? For me, it’s “now”. Just that, and it’s pretty basic, uncomplicated stuff. I come back to this present quiet moment, right here. If “now” is also really super shitty (and not the national or global heart-wrenching what-the-fuck-is-going-on “now”, we’re talking about our personal right here, this instant, “now”) I may need to walk on, get some distance, and work from some other slightly future “now”, when I get to it – more often than not I simply need to let go my attachment to something or other I’ve begun to cling to emotionally, and be truly present, myself, in this “now” right specifically here where I am, myself.

A flower. A moment. There is effort in tending my garden with care.

I woke in pain. Yeah, that sucks. Could be worse pain than it is. That’s something. Perspective is a big deal. I don’t focus on other moments of worse pain, though, that’s sort of backwards, as it happens. I sit gently with my thoughts, contemplating entirely other things than pain, at all. There’s the art show tomorrow night. That’s a thing. I’m excited about it. I consider the work I’ve selected, and what all I may need for the evening, generally, and the pain slips from my consideration for a time. I share a moment of conversation with a far away friend over my coffee. I water the container garden on the deck in the lavender light of dawn, before the summer sunrise. Perspective helps me find balance.

Carefully selected work waiting to be seen.

I sip my coffee, already past that irksome moment when I observed I’d yet again allowed myself to run out of “easy options”. I smirked at myself, leaning on the counter for support, hurting, painfully aware (literally) that the state of things is entirely my own doing, for me to manage. There’s plenty to make coffee with; it all requires effort. Effort, I point out to the woman in the mirror, is not a swear word, and is, in fact, a goal. Making more of it results in greater emotional and physical wellness, and connects me more fully to the things that matter to me most. There are verbs involved, and don’t I know it! I pull myself upright with a sigh, and make a pour over. My coffee is very good this morning. Better than convenient. Better than easy. Made with love. There’s a lesson in here somewhere.

Back and forth with myself all morning. Finding balance. Using perspective. Making an effort. Practicing practices. I smile and sip my coffee.

…Then sneeze, spilling coffee in my lap, and rather hilariously also sneezing it all over my keyboard. Damn it. Already time to begin again. 😉

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Categories Art, art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

This Is An Original

June 27, 2018 //
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I carefully flipped through stacked canvases, and pictures in my archives, considering this one, then that one, understanding that as a last-minute additional to an upcoming art show just days away, I’d likely have little space. The choices matter. (Don’t the choices always matter?) After selecting several canvases, in a couple of sizes, and deciding on bringing along some work on paper, too, I set all that aside in favor of a quiet evening of housekeeping, meditation, and self-care. It was a pleasant evening, well-spent.

I stayed away from the echo chamber of public comments on the internet. I avoided the outrage-machine of news media. I managed to mostly avert my eyes from social media, generally. “Nothing to see here…” It’s difficult, over time, to continue to read filtered, reprocessed, repeated bullshit and slogans, often then repackaged as “new” editorials and memes, shared and re-shared repeatedly; repetition is learning. Eventually, that shit starts to stick in my consciousness. Fuck all that; I’m an original.

Carefully consider your opinion on some controversy (I’ll wait); how much of “your” opinion is truly the result of independent thought? How much research did you, yourself, actually do on that subject? Most people just repeat some stew of “comfortable thoughts” with which they agree, that they heard or read somewhere, or trust from their childhood education. It’s terrifying (to me) how little real thought people give what they say they believe. Our implicit understanding of the world is every bit as questionable as our explicit knowledge, and every bit as worthy of being directly questioned, with real rigor. Making an aggressive sincere attempt to “prove ourselves wrong” – based on the likely-to-be-true assumption that we are more than likely wrong about something – ensures that we understand what we say we believe. Most people don’t. Most people just fucking wander around insisting on shit they do not even understand. Such a thing can cause great damage in the world – and to real actual human beings. We can do better.

I challenge you, today, to overturn a sincerely held belief for which you have no legitimate, factual, evidence-based, support – in other words, an unsupported opinion. Pick one. Any. Just do it. Found one? Probably one you don’t care too much about, or which holds little controversy? (Minimum risk to your emotional comfort, I get it.) Okay, now go explore the “other side” of that controversy. There’s probably more than one other side, actually; false dichotomies shore up a lot of bullshit opinions. The goal here, as I see it, is to learn enough to hold a truly nuanced opinion that undermines our “us vs. them” thinking entirely, forcing us to see the world as a small dirty rock hurtling through space, one which we must share with others, because there is nowhere else (yet) to go.

This isn’t really an “easy” practice. I mean, just as an example, if you’re a male human being, you most likely still have an opinion on abortion (although why you would think your opinion should have any sway in the world of women, I do not know)… but do you actually hold a nuanced opinion that accounts for the real-life experience of actual women? Like… all of us? From everywhere? Do you have your own first-hand experience of having had to make the choice whether or not to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy? Quite probably not. Plenty to explore there, opinion-wise. (Are you mad, already? This is just an example… take a breath.)

If you feel emotions rising just listening to someone’s opinion, particularly when it does not agree with your own, there’s a very real chance you are not acting from a place of reason, at all, but instead reacting to shit you accepted as a given, and memorized, so long ago you know longer recall where those “opinions” came from – definitely question that sort of knee-jerk emotional reaction to the world. lol That’s not a reliable approach to understanding those around you, at all. Myself, I find that if my emotions attempt to lead the conversation, it’s a great time to shift gears and ask more questions; there is much I do not know.

I do know three things I can count on pretty solidly, though…

  1. Very few things in life break down into two neat categories; most things are not properly definable as dichotomies (without seriously lying to oneself).
  2. I can do better today than I did yesterday.
  3. I can begin again.

Ready?

Our choices can change the world. It’s time to do better. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, forgiveness, Free Will, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

One Breath, Then Another

June 25, 2018 //
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Just keep breathing. One breath. Then another. Another follows that one. “Easy”? It isn’t about that. It is merely a continuance, in the background of all the other things. 🙂

Yesterday was pleasant. The day before, similarly so. Between then, an event, an artistic gig, time among friends and strangers – all mixed up together as a single experience, seen through the lens of a camera. It was fun. The weekend, generally, was fun, pleasant, relaxed, and even productive.

There’s a metaphor here, somewhere…

Throughout all that, the awareness of missing my Traveling Partner lingered in the background, as if a single thread in the life’s fabric has been twisted or pulled a bit askew from the pattern. I’m even okay with that; the presence of his existence in my experience is certainly worth being aware of day-to-day, even when I don’t see him every one of those days.

Another work week begins. Like breathing. One after another. A series. Ongoing. I’m not bitching. I’m just saying, the weeks they come, the weeks they go. There is no particular effort required to ensure that time passes.

Yesterday, I didn’t write. I did not notice that, yesterday. I noticed today, but can’t go back to write “today”, yesterday, however arbitrary time itself may be. I don’t know how to do that. 🙂

None of this really “matters”, in the sense that it is what it is, and there is no need to change it. These are just words. Time. Timing. Days. Weekends. Events. Places. People. It’s Monday. There is a world of choices in front of me – the words are just convenient labels with which to communicate.

It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, Words

That’s Not a Feeling

June 23, 2018 //
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I slept in. Woke gently, and although I still feel fairly groggy, the day is off to a pleasant start. Sipping coffee in my news feed, my consciousness is being tormented by a common turn of phrase that irritates me. “I feel like…” followed by words that do not communicate either emotion, or sensation, and therefore – not feelings. C’mon, People, do better! Use your words with some skill. Fuck.

How about “I have the impression that…” if what you are communicating is, um, a largely unsupported subjective impression?

Or, if you are communicating something that you feel pretty sure of, but are aware maybe you don’t have all the information, a handy “My opinion is….”?

Maybe I can interest you in a lovely precise “I’ve observed…” to precede your anecdote?

There’s also, tried and true, “I think…”. Yep. If you’re sharing your thoughts, it’s wonderful to make that quite clear, because you know what? “I feel like people just don’t know how to…” is not a fucking emotion!

“Well, that’s just how people talk, though.” Fuck that lazy bullshit. Words have meaning. Do better. Are you not grasping the idea that the sloppy use of language, undermining the meaning of words, and even gas-lighting the entire fucking nation by way of the media’s sometime also similarly shitty use of language is part of the bullshit we’re all struggling with? Seriously.

This is not hard.

I feel rested. I feel a bit groggy. I appreciate my morning coffee. I feel the cold iced coffee on my tongue. I enjoy that sensation (and don’t have to say “I feel” anything at all to communicate that impression; I can actually use words that are about sensations and feelings, themselves). I recognize that people can be less than ideally clear when they speak (which is certainly more true than saying “I feel like people aren’t very clear”).

Just… yeah. Fuck. Please? Stop using the language of feelings to attempt to communicate your thoughts. Firstly; people may not understand you. Secondly, it’s not accurate. Thirdly, it undermines language, generally. Fourthly, it’s a lever that allows influence over your consciousness. Lastly? It’s just not well done. Do please share your actual feelings and sensations. Do share your thoughts. Just stop mixing them all up like that into some surrealist word salad. Do better.

End rant. I’ll just head for coffee #2, and begin again. I’ll be over here, able to distinguish the difference between my thoughts and my feelings. 😉

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Logic & Reason, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, Words
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