Detached (?) Observation

I don't know how to explain "crazy." I imagine it's a very individual experience, personal. I can tell you sort of what it's like. It's like every television in the world turned up to maximum volume inside your head, all with different shows and most of them horror shows. It's knowing you are in grave danger, but not knowing where the danger will come from or what kind of danger it will be - but you know in your heart there is danger and it's terrible and it's imminent. You know because you've been there before, the memory of it is just behind a cloud, and it felt exactly like now. It's a thunderstorm in your head - with lightening bolts crashing through your brain and you think you will certainly die this time but you don't, you hear the thunder and seconds later the lightening flashes again burning grey matter and it's a miracle you don't die from it, because it seems so unbearable. Crazy is emotional torture. It's grief/terror that tells your brain you will never recuperate and your soul believes it. I've heard that people can pass out from extreme physical pain. Crazy is so emotionally painful I pass out from it - dissociation. I had 3 good days recently - I only felt depressed some of the time and the rest of the day was relative contentment with maybe 2 pockets of happiness. On the evening of the third night I felt a migraine coming on - intense pressure screaming at the insides of my eyes and waves of nausea. I remember thinking that I would take a migraine any day rather than the same amount of time spent in crazy. Any time. In fact, being physically sick or hurt is laughable compared to crazy. I have felt some pain - a broken arm, surgery, migraines, child birth... the child birth was pretty painful and minimally comparable to crazy. Imagine painful child birth for months. That's what crazy feels like emotionally. I seriously don't know how I can take it, except that I know I actually can't hence the dissociation. What really fucks with me is that sometimes I'm in crazy and I KNOW the feelings are not based in reality. Sometimes I can literally scream at myself above the noise and my soul hears me and simultaneously I know I am in danger and I know I am safe. No amount of screaming at myself when I'm in crazy can turn down the television noise, end the thunderstorm, or birth the child. I am terrified of my own crazy, and I have explained it here in sensory terms. Crazy is partially sensory, but it is more how you would FEEL if these things were actually happening to you and you knew it. It doesn't physically feel like millions of televisions screaming in your head, crazy emotionally feels how you might feel if you had millions of televisions screaming in your head. Wouldn't you be scared? Confused? Disoriented? Imagine how you would emotionally feel if suddenly there was a thunderstorm in your brain, and you could hear and see the lightening blast your grey matter. How would you feel? Terrified? That's how crazy feels - like the most horrible, terrifying event you can imagine is actually happening, but you know it isn't, but your soul believes it is and your body and brain respond electrically and chemically to that knowledge and you FEEL like you would if it WAS happening because you BELIEVE it is, while KNOWING it isn't. And there's no way to stop it. And it lasts for months so that you forget you were ever happy. You forget how good spaghetti is. You forget how to sing along to the radio. You get so lost in crazy, you tell yourself to feel the warmth of the sun on your face because you know you love the feel of the sun on your face but you can't enjoy anything because the terror/grief is so awesome it eclipses every bit of possibility of actually feeling the sun on your face let alone enjoying it. I challenge you to try to enjoy the sun on your face the next time you have a million screaming horror shows playing in your mind at top volume and lightening scorching your brain.

Eating My Way to the Bottom

Imagine a huge ice cream sundae. Perhaps, if you know the ice cream parlor Bridgeman's, you know of the Lalapalooza Sundae. It's huge and I ate one once. I forget how many scoops of ice cream, but it doesn't even matter because once you are full and driven to continue eating you just simply eat. When I was eating my way to the bottom of that sundae, I lost my sense of taste. I lost my sense of fullness. I just ate because I wanted to be done. It's such a stupid thing to do, yet there are food challenges all over the nation and television shows and obesity. Just because something is stupid and meaningless doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Depression has no bottom. Just as I think I see the bottom, assume there are only a few painful bites left, the depression expands as if it is eating me and my life and not the other way around. A profound experience unfolds as depression eats my soul; I find my soul is infinite. I'm not about to launch into a philosophical/spiritual discussion of the eternity of the soul. Fuck that. Whether or not I turn to dust, get reincarnated, or enter the pearly gates I find that while alive, life is eternal. As such, depression knows no bounds and the eternity of being eaten alive by this deadly psychological phenomenon is profound. I can only take so much and not take my own life.

But I don't. Instead, I stand on the edge of the bottom looking down farther while I fall until with breathtaking precision my body shuts out the pain and the drive to survive makes me take a few more bites. Empty, stupid, meaningless eating of life in a banquet that has no end. I long, desperately, for an end. I need an end.

Just one more thought. Insanity is sometimes defined as "doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results." I feel like each breath I take is just that - an exercise in insanity. Perhaps all of humanity is insane as we inhale, over and over, with the fullness of expectation only to exhale and there is emptiness. I don't know if this thought is dark or if it is beautiful.

Middle of the day, exhaustion sweeps over me, nap time. Close my eyes, think and feel at the same time, tears. I realized I am in the midst of a great depression, trying to wait it out like a swimmer in a riptide might tread water as they get sucked out to sea. I quit swimming for shore. I'd like to quit treading water but I can float in a salt free lake for as of yet undetermined amount of time so even if I quit randomly moving my legs and arms I'd still be breathing. The ocean is buoyant.

Perhaps I'll realize someday I'm sinking, just like today I realized I'm depressed. Perhaps someday I'll suck in some air and find my lungs filled with stinging sea water. I know what will happen, people don't just drown. They fight. They kick and they flail and they get themselves to the surface with every last ounce of energy they can possibly summon. I am a natural swimmer, and I can seriously float. Once, in South Carolina, I went out to the hotel pool and floated. Wendy came out to have a smoke and thought I had drowned, until she saw me breathing. She watched until she got bored, and I floated until I got bored. I think I fell asleep. Sinking isn't an option.

The thought is depressing.

I suppose this is why I drank. I still don't understand why I'm not drinking now. Alcohol is a nice lead weight tied to my soul and it would pull me down, down, down and I have no desire to use it. Buoyancy. Big, pint size screwdrivers, half vodka and half orange juice used to go down so easy. Right now, the thought of one is appealing but I lack the energy and the motivation to go get the damn vodka. It all sounds rather acidic, as well, and I think I would substitute 7-up for the orange juice. *body involuntarily remembers puking vodka screwdrivers*

I have a house full of pills, a garage full of guns, all locked up. Buoyancy.
I have friends and family to call, to hold me, to tell me they love me. Buoyancy.
I have doctors - a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a pulmonologist, a gp, a cardiologist - all of whom will do their utmost to better my health. Buoyancy.
I have a job I love to go back to, if only to burn out on and leave, but there it sits and waits. Buoyancy.
I have chihuahuas. Buoyancy.
I have a retirement plan, insurance, a savings, an IRA, a stellar credit score. Buoyancy.

I can't sink and all I want to do is sink because I am so tired of treading water. But even when I stop treading I float. It literally hurts my heart to breathe .... physically because my heart hurts and emotionally because my heart hurts. Yet breathe I do, and another, and another. Buoyancy. This is, no doubt and all irony, Hell.

Wild Child

It began with a trail in the woods. I walked the trail, exploring it, and chasing nothing but looking all the same. It became a labyrinth, and the trail became trails, and I walked them and groomed them until they were tame. Still, I found nothing and looked harder. I branched off into the woods, followed the white pine, and made a nest in the undergrowth. I caught a glimpse of that something I was not looking for, a Wild Child, who sensed me and ran deeper in. I'll branch off again, I suppose, and call her over. I'll build her a fort and knit her a doll. I'll make tea. Tea? To what end, this tea party with dolls in the wood? Wild Child perhaps ought not be tamed, cannot be tamed. Gregarious human nature with social rules and niceties, all to make safe the contact we require, has not been required yet these 47 years by Wild Child. Desired, maybe, not required, for she still runs barefoot in the woods and looks for nothing, having all she needs in wind, earth and rain.

What place have I in society?
What place has L.A.?

Once I saw God's Face

Experiencing suffering that pushes humanity beyond its reasonable limits awakens the soul to reality. When humans experience this reality it's like seeing the face of God. No one really returns once they see the face of God. I know I didn't.  But I live, and because I live I have the opportunity (perhaps the responsibility) to know God. After all, I saw His face. He is a snowflake today, and the fur of my dog, and the kindnes of my husband when he brings me coffee. He is also the salt of my tears and the tremble in my hand. It is my right and it is my responsibility.... and it is my joy as well as my sadness to know Him in these things.

Angry Compassion

"Pain accompanies compassion" I said, and the sentence bounced around in my skull while a hot flash of anger surged through my body literally making my cheeks burn red. I needed to decelerate, but the concepts keep echoing so I also need to explore them.

I'm making a doll for L.A. It's an attempt at connecting with her and showing her some kindness. It's a compassionate act. It's not empathy, because I don't think I can handle feeling her pain. So how is compassion different from empathy? Empathy is feeling the suffering of others, and compassion is the active relative of empathy - it seeks to alleviate the suffering of others in a loving way. Ouch.

Compassion rises out of some very real and primal feelings. I have lacked compassion for myself, and in fact have startled myself on occasion with my callous disregard for my pain. For example, when watching a woman on tv fight off a would-be rapist, I felt disdain for her, thinking "why fuss so much? It's not like he's gonna kill you, it's just sex." Once (or many times) when feeling sad or frustrated because I am too tired to go out, I become outraged with myself for not having the strength to get beyond my petty issues like being forced to eat dog shit after swallowing cum as a toddler. Seriously. That's a distinct lack of compassion. And now suddenly I am faced with the possibility of having compassion upon myself and in fact cognitively recognize the importance of having compassion upon myself and I am outraged....I think because in order to feel the compassion and work to alleviate my own suffering I have to acknowledge the suffering and perhaps even feel it a little. Ouch.

But kicking myself in the ass and telling myself to get the fuck over it is simply ineffective.

Punishing myself for feeling is also ineffective.

Immersing myself in the pain in a muddled empathetic/pity laden decomposition of stability is also ineffective.

Compassion serves to alleviate suffering, and so there is an acknowledgement of suffering and thus I feel pain. The pain is so intense and so deep I ground myself with rage. I suppose this cycle will someday be ineffective, but for now it is the reality I have. My cheeks were burning in anger because I cannot yet feel the pain.

Revenge vs. Compassion

I watched a movie in which 4 teen boys were brutally sodomized. Two grew up thugs, 2 were relatively successful. They had a chance to exact revenge upon their perpetrators, and through an elaborate set up accomplished just that! At one point their plan hinged upon a priest who had befriended them in their youth lying under oath in a court of law. I adamantly expressed that I wanted him to. I felt strongly that he should. I was sure I would. Lying under oath is something that I didn't think I would ever do, but in the context of this movie I was sure, absolutely positive that I would. I figured God would WANT it for there to be true justice. And then I got angry, because I can never exact revenge upon my perpetrators. I felt rage because I am powerless. I have felt rage all my life, it seems. What do I get, when I cannot get revenge?

I thought of Mandela's quote, the thing about how he knew he had to leave the hatred and bitterness behind or he would remain in prison. Those boys in the movie, they succeeded in getting revenge but the thugs ended up dead shortly after and the other two led empty lives. The revenge did nothing to assuage the searing pain that is betrayal. I thought of my own betrayal, the little child with the searing emotional pain that was so intolerable she never walked through it to the other side. Would revenge mean anything to her?  For a moment I saw her - wrapped up in her pain - and I felt compassion. That is what I get in place of revenge, the opportunity to feel compassion. I don't hate the man who brutalized me, I feel more of a general hatred and if I try to push myself to find an object for that hate I become the object I hate. I have hated myself forever. I have been exacting revenge upon myself forever. I have never, ever forgiven that little child for not being able to stop the pain, for feeling that overwhelming betrayal, and for giving in to the terror. But today I felt compassion for her, because it became clear to me that a little child's capacity to cope with and make sense of astonishing betrayal is quite minimal. And this little child that was me did an amazing thing - she survived by dissociating. Furthermore, because of dissociation, I have crafted a life that gives me this opportunity - the opportunity to feel compassion.

Betrayal becomes a dark shadow in a person's life - and revenge does nothing to kill the shadow because a shadow is inseparable from the flesh. If you have a body, you will at times have a shadow. No amount of sex, booze, or self-hatred will dispense of the body's shadow. I suppose I could have lived in darkness all my life and never have to see the shadow, but how is that different from being a shadow? Today I looked at my shadow and realized that it is something with me and will always be with me as long as I am flesh and blood on this planet. I am okay with that. Sometimes I won't have to see the shadow, sometimes it will seem like it's all I am. But I know revenge won't get rid of it.

That leaves me with compassion. I have some for the little child. I remain indifferent to the perpetrator, and ambivalent to the other main figure in my life. But I can entertain the idea of compassion for both. I won't push myself too hard on that front. I will, however, practice compassion for self. Self is temporary, as it is, and so with limited time on this planet I might as well give my self credit for the incredible feat of survival. And there really is no reason to be afraid of my shadow - it is an echo of pain and terror too great to bear as a little girl but maybe not for a grown woman (in bits and pieces, when well rested, with tea and warm bed available, and a chihuahua to pet...)

If I don't let go of the bitterness and hatred, I will remain imprisoned by my shadow. I'd rather walk with my shadow, and tell the girls inside that it's okay to step into the sun every now and then.