The problem is that anger doesn't go away. Neither do hurt or frustration or fear. Old injuries of the heart and the mind may no longer stab you in the neck with their searing pain the way they did when they were fresh, but they don't go away. I think they collect. Piled on top of one another in a jenky heap of rusting, rotting pieces and parts. Sometimes the pile shifts and some pieces break free. They bounce around, scrape your insides raw, and then ricochet back into the pile.
I need a garbage barge, or some composting worms or some shit like that. My reservoir is threatening to overflow.
How do you stop being angry? Don't say yoga. Everyone always says yoga. Fuck yoga. Booze causes too much collateral damage and laughter is more like a band-aid than a cure. I need Oprah. Or God. Same diff.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
Left of center
There really isn't anything all that alarming going on with me. In fact, its all quite hum drum. Yes, there is sadness and times is hard and all that, but the actual situation I live with lacks the drama of even a Hallmark mid-week movie.
Some days are better than others. The best medicine I have discovered yet is to take a long walk in the cold air. The first 20 minutes are pure torture (not because I'm out of shape, thankyouverymuch), but because when my feet hit the open road, my mind takes advantage of the quiet and starts kicking it crazy style. I run through scenario after scenario...one more desperate than the next... in an attempt to offload the day's emotional detritus. My brain likes to throw out the baby with the bathwater. In order to process stress of any intensity, it has to work through all sorts of imaginary shit in addition to the real shit which is currently up in my face. After the first 20 minutes of mental bulimia, there is a sort of a calm. And by calm, I mean a less frightening internal dialogue that eventually spins itself out into dust and fumes. Keep walking.
I'm not worried(except when I am worried).
That's the nice thing about only being somewhat mentally ill. Perspective. I'm starting to own this as my challenge (oh dear, I'm becoming empowered) and I do think that there is a way to live through this without it running over me.
The dancer, the joker, the leader, the lover, the mother, the manager, the counselor, the freak. All the things that I am are touched by the fact that my brainworks are just to the left of normal.
I'm ok here on the westside. When it gets really dark, just remind me about that time I made you say "dzam...."
Some days are better than others. The best medicine I have discovered yet is to take a long walk in the cold air. The first 20 minutes are pure torture (not because I'm out of shape, thankyouverymuch), but because when my feet hit the open road, my mind takes advantage of the quiet and starts kicking it crazy style. I run through scenario after scenario...one more desperate than the next... in an attempt to offload the day's emotional detritus. My brain likes to throw out the baby with the bathwater. In order to process stress of any intensity, it has to work through all sorts of imaginary shit in addition to the real shit which is currently up in my face. After the first 20 minutes of mental bulimia, there is a sort of a calm. And by calm, I mean a less frightening internal dialogue that eventually spins itself out into dust and fumes. Keep walking.
I'm not worried(except when I am worried).
That's the nice thing about only being somewhat mentally ill. Perspective. I'm starting to own this as my challenge (oh dear, I'm becoming empowered) and I do think that there is a way to live through this without it running over me.
The dancer, the joker, the leader, the lover, the mother, the manager, the counselor, the freak. All the things that I am are touched by the fact that my brainworks are just to the left of normal.
I'm ok here on the westside. When it gets really dark, just remind me about that time I made you say "dzam...."
Friday, November 27, 2009
Cereal for Dinner
There is darkness creeping in. I have felt it hanging out around the raggedy edges of my well-being for a while now and have tried defending myself from the incursions of its slippery cold tentacles.
Shifting emotions render me incapable of trusting my own reactions to the mundane. A slight injustice might trigger rage, which I try to quell by clamping down tightly the space between my heart and throat. Yet some bursts through and I must move through space in an attempt to dissipate its power. The smell of Rice-a-Roni from a neighbors kitchen as it filters down to me, standing alone in the dark, elicits an embarrassing upwelling of sadness and longing.
I had high hopes for the aftermath of the paxil withdrawal. Hopes that I would be one of the people who find themselves stronger, happier, more stable than ever before once they kicked. So far, this is not the way things have played out for me. After a brief first act starring energy and happiness that I never quite trusted, the numbness, the distraction, the apathy have all returned to center stage.
I don't worry about this so much for myself as I do for my family. For Dan who wants nothing more than to have me back as the me that was me before things started crumbling. And for my kids. I don't want them to know this person.
When I think about my children and how this could affect them, I think about various books or movies where a child's recollection of living with a mentally ill mother are narrated. It goes a little something like this...
"When Mummy would have her spells, she would take to her bed for days. She liked it to be dark and she would play the same melancholy songs over and over on the record player. In the evenings, after we had finished our supper and had our bath, we would be allowed to visit Mummy in her bed. She would cuddle us close and put her nose in our hair and tell us we were the most darling children in all the world. Sometimes she would read to us from one of the magazines that she kept at her bedside, and sometimes she would tell us stories of when she was a little girl and performed in the ballet. My brother and I would try our best to mind our manners, and we asked her lots of questions so she would keep talking in that dreamy far-away voice she used. Eventually, though, I would say something fresh or my brother would rumple the bed-clothes with his wiggling and Mummy would start to cry. She would cry and cry and hug us and cry and Daddy would have to come and take us away."
I made that up. Its not nearly as dramatic as all that over here, but the point remains that I don't want my children to have even their own versions of these sorts of memories. Memories of a mother who was lost and labile.
I have to get a handle on this before it comes to that.
Shifting emotions render me incapable of trusting my own reactions to the mundane. A slight injustice might trigger rage, which I try to quell by clamping down tightly the space between my heart and throat. Yet some bursts through and I must move through space in an attempt to dissipate its power. The smell of Rice-a-Roni from a neighbors kitchen as it filters down to me, standing alone in the dark, elicits an embarrassing upwelling of sadness and longing.
I had high hopes for the aftermath of the paxil withdrawal. Hopes that I would be one of the people who find themselves stronger, happier, more stable than ever before once they kicked. So far, this is not the way things have played out for me. After a brief first act starring energy and happiness that I never quite trusted, the numbness, the distraction, the apathy have all returned to center stage.
I don't worry about this so much for myself as I do for my family. For Dan who wants nothing more than to have me back as the me that was me before things started crumbling. And for my kids. I don't want them to know this person.
When I think about my children and how this could affect them, I think about various books or movies where a child's recollection of living with a mentally ill mother are narrated. It goes a little something like this...
"When Mummy would have her spells, she would take to her bed for days. She liked it to be dark and she would play the same melancholy songs over and over on the record player. In the evenings, after we had finished our supper and had our bath, we would be allowed to visit Mummy in her bed. She would cuddle us close and put her nose in our hair and tell us we were the most darling children in all the world. Sometimes she would read to us from one of the magazines that she kept at her bedside, and sometimes she would tell us stories of when she was a little girl and performed in the ballet. My brother and I would try our best to mind our manners, and we asked her lots of questions so she would keep talking in that dreamy far-away voice she used. Eventually, though, I would say something fresh or my brother would rumple the bed-clothes with his wiggling and Mummy would start to cry. She would cry and cry and hug us and cry and Daddy would have to come and take us away."
I made that up. Its not nearly as dramatic as all that over here, but the point remains that I don't want my children to have even their own versions of these sorts of memories. Memories of a mother who was lost and labile.
I have to get a handle on this before it comes to that.
Friday, November 20, 2009
The flow
Clenching teeth churning gut.
The discomfort is comforting in a way that is discomforting.
Patterns well worn by practice. a stereotypy of controlled rage.
you won't fucking understand and I won't fucking make you understand.
the abyss where expectation ends.
The discomfort is comforting in a way that is discomforting.
Patterns well worn by practice. a stereotypy of controlled rage.
you won't fucking understand and I won't fucking make you understand.
the abyss where expectation ends.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Non-smoking section
I have come to the realization that there is something missing from my life and that something is smoking. I don't smoke, never have, really, but I've tried a lot. I remember the first time I tried smoking I was in the back seat of April Lassiter's car. I was probably in 10th grade. A ciggy was being passed around and I stepped up to the plate. Put the fag to my lips like it was no big whoop and took the hugest drag. At this point my only experience with inhalables was with pot and I knew from that scene that the bigger the hit, the better the ride. I quickly learned that this concept was not universal and exploded in a fit of coughing and gagging and hacking. So cool.
The next time I remember smoking was sometime in college. Even though two of my best friends were chain smokers, I never really had the inclination to join them. But, I was at a concert once with my boyfriend Dave and suddenly had the crazy urge to smoke. We bummed a marlboro red from someone in the crowd and I puffed away. That is until I became light headed and nauseated and faint. Again with the coolness.
So given my apparent inability to handle my smoke, why do I mourn the dearth of cigarettes in my life? I think it is because pretty much everyone I have loved and laughed with since the 90's has been a smoker. When there were smokes going around, there were also drinks, gossip and laughter. Memories of Lisa, (with her ridiculous habit that filled mason jars with nasty butt water), sitting on the fire escape, or the back porch of our house. In the dark, she would tell stories by the glow of the camel light. Memories of the drink club crew where I was the only non-smoker. Sitting outside in a little posse of comrades in cancer stick. The conversation never halting beneath the smoky haze. I admit, at times, I felt isolated by my inability to pick up the habit. Like an outsider, inside hanging with the children while the cool kids sneaked drags behind the garage. However, the smell of cigarettes makes me crazy nostalgic for those times, for those people. For the opportunity to breathe them in...their words, their energy, their second-hand smoke.
The next time I remember smoking was sometime in college. Even though two of my best friends were chain smokers, I never really had the inclination to join them. But, I was at a concert once with my boyfriend Dave and suddenly had the crazy urge to smoke. We bummed a marlboro red from someone in the crowd and I puffed away. That is until I became light headed and nauseated and faint. Again with the coolness.
So given my apparent inability to handle my smoke, why do I mourn the dearth of cigarettes in my life? I think it is because pretty much everyone I have loved and laughed with since the 90's has been a smoker. When there were smokes going around, there were also drinks, gossip and laughter. Memories of Lisa, (with her ridiculous habit that filled mason jars with nasty butt water), sitting on the fire escape, or the back porch of our house. In the dark, she would tell stories by the glow of the camel light. Memories of the drink club crew where I was the only non-smoker. Sitting outside in a little posse of comrades in cancer stick. The conversation never halting beneath the smoky haze. I admit, at times, I felt isolated by my inability to pick up the habit. Like an outsider, inside hanging with the children while the cool kids sneaked drags behind the garage. However, the smell of cigarettes makes me crazy nostalgic for those times, for those people. For the opportunity to breathe them in...their words, their energy, their second-hand smoke.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Mirror's edge
I've been feeling good lately. Really pretty fucking good. Gone is the feeling of walking through my day with cement shoes two sizes too big. Even the leash feels looser, longer and more forgiving. There is a kind of bubbly giddy feeling that catches me off guard sometimes. Its a little taste of euphoria, generally without context and with unknown etiology. The fucked thing is that every time it happens, I get to enjoy the feeling for only a moment or two before my brain steps in and... BUZZKILL. My mind quickly draws the contrast between this sensation and the dark slogging feelings that were the status quo until just recently. Hot on the heels of my brain's annoying interference comes the fear. Gripping fear.
I am dancing. I am dancing on the edge of a mirror and it feels good. It feels good and I can't resist checking out my own action, but once I stop and take in my reflection, the spell is broken. Where do I rest my eyes if I can't look back into the darkness, forward into the hazy unknown, or at myself in the mirror?
I am dancing. I am dancing on the edge of a mirror and it feels good. It feels good and I can't resist checking out my own action, but once I stop and take in my reflection, the spell is broken. Where do I rest my eyes if I can't look back into the darkness, forward into the hazy unknown, or at myself in the mirror?
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Dance Therapy
Last night was, hands-down, the best night I have had in a long while.
Dan and I went to see Rusted Root at the Aladdin Theater in town and had so much fun. Real fun! With laughing! and dancing! and no sign of the irritable and melancholic basket-case that has been haunting my person.
The paradigm shift started that afternoon when I decided to paint my nails. I never ever paint my nails, but I was inspired by the promise of a night on the town to put on some deep dark extra-shiny blue polish. The process of getting the polish on was a bit of a disaster (man I suck at manicures), but the results were transformative. Suddenly I was bad-ass and confident. Thank you, Sally Hansen.
Dan and I had dinner before the show and talked like friends talk. This should not be remarkable, but it is. Instead of fretting about our financial situation, we fantasized about how great it would be if we could just happen to come into an inheritance sometime very soon (sorry, g-mas). Instead of kvetching, we shot the shit and laughed. I could tell the night was going well when I started making snarky remarks about people's outfits. I can be a relentless wardrobe snarker. It is one of my best and worst qualities. However, it takes a certain amount of energy and interest in others to actually put the snark into action. The fact that I had that energy and interest last night was refreshing, and the dude with the faux-rasta beret and the chick with the bleach writing on her jeans provided the perfect entry level material for de-icing my considerable skills.
As soon as the show started, I was at the stage - front and center. I was there to dance. I've been a fan of Rusted Root's for 17 years and they are hands-down, my favorite band to see perform live. Losing myself in their music is my best medicine. Holy shit did I dance. Killed it. Had lengthy periods of "chi dancing", which is when my brain disengages from the process and the music flows through me like love. And I didn't hold back for fear of being laughed at by other people. I had the confidence of 100 Baryshnikovs going on in my little 2X2 square of dance floor. However, I can't say I was a complete island of self-contentedness. I did find myself wondering if the band noticed me. If they appreciated both the joy that their music inspired and the skill with which I transformed that joy into movement. The performer in me wanted to be recognized by the performers on stage.
At the end of the set, the lead singer tossed his guitar pick right toward me. It took a bounce and hit the floor between me and the guy next to me. I paused. I wanted it, but in the way that someone who is too cool to want it would want it. The guy picked it up and said, "its yours". "Thanks", I said, and I took it from him. It is my first piece of stage swag, and I'll keep it somewhere special. Not because it was touched by a rock star, but because it represents a night where I was recognized for being me. I'll remember how that felt most of all.
The last song they played was "Beautiful People", and I cried. Not crazy-hysterical tears, but tears of healing, of longing, and of gratitude.
Dan and I went to see Rusted Root at the Aladdin Theater in town and had so much fun. Real fun! With laughing! and dancing! and no sign of the irritable and melancholic basket-case that has been haunting my person.
The paradigm shift started that afternoon when I decided to paint my nails. I never ever paint my nails, but I was inspired by the promise of a night on the town to put on some deep dark extra-shiny blue polish. The process of getting the polish on was a bit of a disaster (man I suck at manicures), but the results were transformative. Suddenly I was bad-ass and confident. Thank you, Sally Hansen.
Dan and I had dinner before the show and talked like friends talk. This should not be remarkable, but it is. Instead of fretting about our financial situation, we fantasized about how great it would be if we could just happen to come into an inheritance sometime very soon (sorry, g-mas). Instead of kvetching, we shot the shit and laughed. I could tell the night was going well when I started making snarky remarks about people's outfits. I can be a relentless wardrobe snarker. It is one of my best and worst qualities. However, it takes a certain amount of energy and interest in others to actually put the snark into action. The fact that I had that energy and interest last night was refreshing, and the dude with the faux-rasta beret and the chick with the bleach writing on her jeans provided the perfect entry level material for de-icing my considerable skills.
As soon as the show started, I was at the stage - front and center. I was there to dance. I've been a fan of Rusted Root's for 17 years and they are hands-down, my favorite band to see perform live. Losing myself in their music is my best medicine. Holy shit did I dance. Killed it. Had lengthy periods of "chi dancing", which is when my brain disengages from the process and the music flows through me like love. And I didn't hold back for fear of being laughed at by other people. I had the confidence of 100 Baryshnikovs going on in my little 2X2 square of dance floor. However, I can't say I was a complete island of self-contentedness. I did find myself wondering if the band noticed me. If they appreciated both the joy that their music inspired and the skill with which I transformed that joy into movement. The performer in me wanted to be recognized by the performers on stage.
At the end of the set, the lead singer tossed his guitar pick right toward me. It took a bounce and hit the floor between me and the guy next to me. I paused. I wanted it, but in the way that someone who is too cool to want it would want it. The guy picked it up and said, "its yours". "Thanks", I said, and I took it from him. It is my first piece of stage swag, and I'll keep it somewhere special. Not because it was touched by a rock star, but because it represents a night where I was recognized for being me. I'll remember how that felt most of all.
The last song they played was "Beautiful People", and I cried. Not crazy-hysterical tears, but tears of healing, of longing, and of gratitude.
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