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Can Someone Please Get an Adult?

July 12, 2018 //
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It’s morning. I’m tired. Of course, this is amplified in intensity because I definitely needed the sleep I definitely did not get. I sigh and choke down more coffee. It’s going to be a long damned day.

I take a deep breath, relax, and think back on my appointment yesterday. There’s a lot to unpack from that one, and I won’t be doing it (all) here (now). I smile back on one fairly cool win and good moment; I did not get lost getting home (last time I did). I was, um, fairly mistaken about where, in the context of the rest of the city, and, you know, maps, this location actually is, and so last time, when I chose to “just drive home”, I got turned around on a sequence of one way streets I’d forgotten about, and ended up quite lost. Not this time. I looked at a map. 😀 To be clear – I could have used my GPS, and considered doing so, but… rush hour. I don’t find it as uniformly helpful during rush hour. It knows the roads, it does not know people. So I GPSd the suggested route, looked it over carefully, and “just drove home”. It took precisely the amount longer that I’d expect for the greater distance. Win, indeed.

Therapy can be easy to the point of wondering why the hell I am there, or difficult to the point of wondering how the hell I’ve been accepted as an adult all these years. It’s a process. Like a lot of folks, there’s an additional emotional burden to bear in the midst of the cultural shitstorm that has become American politics and society. It’s particularly weighty for me as an individual; I already “have issues”. No lie. I have mental health concerns. I have been, even, fairly easily described as “mentally ill”. Am I now? Unknown. It’s not something that should have stigma, but it does. It’s a hard label to wear comfortably while also working full-time for a living doing something I’m respected for, living alone, managing my affairs on my own… all the adulting. I was able to take a break from therapy for about a year. No kidding, the current presidency on top of family “stuff” has pushed me back in. lol It’s okay. (I can laugh about that. Healthy.) There’s just more work to do; it’s just one more beginning.

I know, I know – asking for help when we’re ill (mentally, emotionally, cognitively, or physically) can be hard; it can feel like an admission of failure to adult properly. Don’t let that get in the way of getting help, though. Maybe you did fail to adult properly – but fucking wow is asking for help, particularly for our mental health needs, totally the absolute adult thing to do when help is what we need!! Go for it! You matter. Please. (And good luck)

I headed home with a plan, and a follow-up in three weeks.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night. Too much coffee? Too much therapy? No way to know, but definitely not enough sleep.

Another work day, then another, then a weekend… all filled with adulting. Fucking hell, I’m so tired…

…Well, back at it, I suppose. Can I get a new beginning over here, please? 😉

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Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Despair, Free Will, Frustration, grief, health, Healthy Living, loneliness, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Sleepless Nights, Summer, weight loss secrets

Shifting Gears

July 9, 2018 //
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I’m not the only one who does it – who lives a fairly different life during the work week, than I do on the weekends. It’s not the frequent road trips, or the specific nature of the job, or even the art. It is a difference in thinking, and a difference in context. Much of the work week is consumed by employment; hours spent wholly on someone else’s agenda, rather than on my own. This leave, often, only the weekend “for me”. Such is the way of our exploitative labor-culture. :-\

…Yeah, I’m bitching about it. It’s pretty crap-tacular, and does not benefit the laboring wage-earner nearly as much as it benefits the wealthiest citizens in the shareholder and executive classes. Early on a Monday morning, thoughts still tangled up on art, I feel more than a little inconvenienced by having to maintain “gainful employment”, no lie.

I sip my coffee and consider the 10 canvases that resulted from a great weekend in the studio. I needed that. 🙂

I spent time in the garden, too. Another living metaphor.

So this morning, after waking too early, after checking off a small handful of self-care tasks, I check the weather. I dress. I check traffic. Right; new highway closures, lasting through August. Fuuuuuuuuuuck. Well, so far the traffic map is all green. That’s promising… I keep half an eye on that, attempting to determine whether I’ll benefit from earlier hours for a few weeks. (An easy solution.)

…I end up “exploring the world” via Google Maps, and lose about 20 minutes of life time to that. lol I did find a couple nearby parks and trails to explore in the process…so… I guess, potentially worth the investment in time. 🙂

I listen to the Monday morning commuter traffic begin, just beyond the window…

…It’s already time to shift gears. The start of a new work week. It’s time to begin again. 😉

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being

The Legitimate Practice of Good Self-Care

July 6, 2018 //
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I’m sitting here rather numbly with my morning coffee. I sip it now and then. I’m not exactly groggy, but my brain hasn’t quite fired up yet, either. I’m in that limbo between engaging the world and sort of just… coasting.  I’m tired. My mind is foggy. I still have shit to do today that some portion of my consciousness really wants me to focus on, even though it is well before 5:00 am, and too early to actually do any of it. My acid reflux resents my morning coffee, today. My arthritis pain objects to being up, at all. I feel annoyed with myself, in a vague unsettled way. I feel the discontented, uncomfortable, frown on my face – I know the look; it’s on every toddler, ever, who was being directed to do something they don’t care to be doing. The frown before the tantrum. Fucking hell. This? This morning?

I have another irritated sip of coffee.

I really wanted to sleep in this morning. I would like to spend the day relaxing in the garden, or painting in the studio. Like most folks, I have to work for a living. One more day, then the weekend. I’m ready for it. I’m aware that my feeling of “too much to do” is more a matter of “anything to do that isn’t for/about me just at the moment”. It’s a feeling that signals failing myself on self-care, in some way.

I sip my coffee and think over my self-care of late, and find I’ve wandered into a quagmire of small oversights and compromises labeled “2018”. Well, shit. It’s not a real thing to “make up for it” – time has passed. We become what we practice, and when I fail myself on my self-care over time, I pay for it in mornings like this, and feelings of being burdened, overwhelmed, overworked, overtired… and I’m over it. lol 🙂

I take a deep breath, then another, and sit more comfortably. I clear my developing “to do list” and begin again – with me. What do I need to feel rested? To feel satisfied that urgent matters are handled? A very different list begins to take shape, and I start to see where my compromises have developed, and what they are costing me in wellness, in rest, and in accomplishments. Too much drama and craziness in a particular portion of my social network has taken a toll on my energy and my emotional resilience. I need to “reclaim my time” from the soul sucking vampires of OPD (Other People’s Drama) and media content. I could use a break, too, from “reruns”; content so familiar and well-loved that I lose time and bandwidth to it, without really watching/listening anymore. Distractions from… from what? Life? I don’t really want to be distracted from that. I begin to feel lighter and a bit more free, merely acknowledging the concerns. It feels good to “be heard” – and possibly especially by the woman in the mirror.

I think about a colleague who has grown dear to me over time. She’s “putting in the hours” – but I caught her crying at her desk, overwhelmed, and overworked. Her choice? Not if she is being obligated, or pressured, clearly – but perhaps it just hadn’t occurred to her that her actual life has value outside the office? She’s young. Committed. Earnest and passionate about her craft. On my way out, I rather sternly insist she call it a day and go home, get some rest, and remind her that life is not about what we do to earn the money to live it. Fuck, I’ve been there, though. You, too? Working harder than necessary, for less than the respect due, fully knowing it isn’t going to be valued – only expected, going forward. Fuck that bullshit. The contract says 40 hours. You get 40 of my fucking hours. I have my own life to live, and the time left over is already heavily compromised. Not enough work getting done in those 40 hours? Guess what that means? The job takes more people. Period. When we attempt to shore things up through pure human effort at the expense of our own wellness, we’re not actually fixing anything at all – and we won’t be appreciated for it, only exploited. 😉

Take care of that fragile vessel. I smile and sip my coffee. Self-care is a pretty big deal. I didn’t really “get it” until I was living alone; having to fully handle 100% of my self-care, myself, was a new thing – and I didn’t realize how much there was to do, or how much I was handing off to partners, to friends, to therapists, to strangers on buses… Self-awareness is an important starting point for really good self-care. When we yearn to “be heard”, it’s often that person in the mirror who is not listening. Getting past the guilt we so often feel when we do attempt to care for ourselves is probably the first real challenge in practicing good self-care. “Who am I to put work aside and leave the office “early” (after 10+ hours), when I could do more…?” Yes, well… there are unfortunately quite a few employers, and people, who count on us to abuse ourselves with our guilt and misplaced sense of obligation; it makes us so much easier to exploit for personal gain.

I make a frowny face as I finish my coffee, and remind myself to practice the same exceptional self-care I encourage my colleague to practice. I’m quite human. Feeling numb, tired, and a bit overwhelmed is a warning – failing to heed it, and really take care of myself, would be fairly stupid, at this point in my life. I make a plan to disconnect from the internet, social media, content reruns, and drama – and instead, spend the weekend “here for me”, at home and in the studio. In doing so, the things with some urgency that remain on my “to do list” seem rather less overwhelming, and more just a couple things I need to get done. It’s an improvement. It’s enough.

I’ll probably always be practicing; I need the practice. We become what we practice.

It’s time to begin again. 🙂

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, weight loss secrets

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

Begin Somewhere

July 1, 2018 //
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Begin. Begin something, somewhere.

It’s a metaphor.

Beginnings are funny things… sometimes they are also endings. 🙂

Try. Fail. Learn. Grow. Begin again. Repeat as needed.

Regardless of other outcomes, each time we reflect on failure, we grow. Each moment of our growth develops our wisdom. As our wisdom deepens (or doesn’t; we have choices) we become more who we truly are.

We become what we practice.

Are you ready to begin, somewhere? The world is waiting…

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Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Summer, The Art of Being, Uncategorized
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