You'll Seldom hear me speak if politics, because in whole, I think the process is broken. I'm self-proclaimed anti-politics. I did vote for Obama, the first time, but for me it was more about the experience of voting than anything.
However, on the brink of this somewhat imaginary fiscal cliff everyone is suddenly worried about, all you can find on the television are round table discussions between people wearing expensive suits.
These reptiles are so removed from what the actual American population needs, that I have to walk away after a few topics.
Healthcare and services for the people-"let's cut funding to social security and Medicaid/Medicare." one of them admitted smugly that he has the same benefits as his brother that works on electric lines. Really? So you applied for free healthcare, why? Sell you're Armani and pay for a year of blue cross. Let someone else have those benefits you don't need. How'd he even qualify?
Gun control- "let's have everyone store their guns in a gun club, so they can just practice shooting there." ok, so when someone is breaking into my home, I can just hop in my car, drive down to the club and grab my gun, come back home and defend it. Great idea. How many weeks after opening this gun club is someone going to break-in and have everyone's guns? Just to file off the serial numbers and hand sell them to criminals. Genius.
Immigration - here's where I finally walked away. "immigration is a fairly simple problem to solve compared to these other issues." well we've only spent decades trying to figure out a fair and just way to control the flow of immigration and still be the great country with open arms that we're supposed to be. That should be simple to fix.... It's not hard at all to decide if a family that's lived here for thirty years should leave. It's not hard to figure out if someone truly wants to better their life by living here. You're not going to do the jobs, that you complain about them stealing. And you'd never work for the amount of money they bring home. Simple to fix.
Of course all of this was moments after a presidential speech, which they picked apart and reworded everything he said, to make him look horrible. It's not that I'm a huge fan, but he's trying, and these shows all have their own agenda, if he says something positive, they have to twist it, to make it look like he's picking fights. They completely misquoted him, twice, when he was admitting that both parties needed to change but that they were passionate because they cared for the country.
Now if I may rant for a moment... America has a money problem? Ok, here's where we start. Don't attack the middle and lower class. How about this:
Tax professional athletes, not in the minor sports, they don't make all that much. But football players bring home millions yearly. Tax them on a personal level or in a general way that spreads evenly. It's my belief they won't consider things like this because they believe America needs sports to boost morale. I'm not talking about cutting the sports, just having them help their country.
Have each Brad Pitt and Ridley Scott give 10% earnings to the country, to the debt. I like these people, Hollywood is important, but it's also got more money than it knows how to spend. A year of taxing films and actors, we'd be well on our way to erasing debt. One year of these people's lives. That's not a big sacrifice.
Or the rich can worry about hoarding, while other countries make plans to invade. One EMP and all of those 1's and 0's you have been hoarding in the bank. Vanish. We're all set back to 0.
Please excuse the rant, just listen to the country, the people, not these people that live in "their" America, which is nothing like ours. Yet, they sure are opinionated on how WE should suffer to fix it all.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Monday, December 24, 2012
I write, as if someone were to actually read it. Really it's just digital trash, maybe more convenient than a bookcase of journals, but either way, someday it'll all be lost, forgotten. This may have some dark undertone, but I'm actually just laying here typing, because I can't sleep. Often, the best insights and revelations are discovered when I'm just typing without thinking ahead. Self-discovery is an important thing, so is honesty. I type things people don't know, things I can hardly accept myself. In my years on this earth, the only thing I can say with certainty, is there is no certain path. I do, however believe we are fated, pushed rather, to sway certain ways. Sometimes you can feel deep inside when you've found yourself in the wrong place. You'll never feel at home in that situation, you can carry on and try to ignore all of the things happening; internal and external, or you can try to make right what is wrong. Even within the rules of fate, there is much freedom to be had, it's just that certain parts of your life were meant to be. It doesn't mean every meal, and every day were predestined, merely that we have a place, a place that's home to us.
Home does not always mean a building, your comfort may be in the arms of a lover, writing music, painting, something that fills the light half of your heart and makes you feel complete. Some people feel like they grow out of these things, or something finds them separated from their love.
A mans memory is a funny thing. You can look back, and know certain parts of your life were perfect, you didn't know it then, but it's obvious now. A bittersweet thing, to remember a perfect night, you can recall the smells, thoughts and emotions, things you took for granted in the moment.
Some of us are stuck in those moments, ghosts in our own skin, a living memory, doomed to question how we could have changed things, the great If. We may be blinding ourselves to some great life, because we don't dwell in the present.
At any given time, the soul, the mind can leave the body, if one is longing for something enough, they are there, not here. It may be in the present, like longing for a loved one, that's far away. Or it may be in the past, wanting for a moment that has already faded. Some people live in a world of regret, their great If, is something they never ventured. Fear is a funny beast, much like societies and modern ideas of moral upholding. A heart wants what it wants, no man, no law, no belief can change it. That basic understanding has slowly shaped our country over the past 60 years, but it's always something thought of in shame, years of hiding or lying to avoid backlash... I'm getting off track here, the main point is society always thinks something is wrong, until enough people want it, then it is societies view. Let's get back on topic, and let's cut the niceties.
Where is my heart? My mind? My soul? Well if you're internalizing those questions, be wary, it takes a brutal honesty to find the answers. But I'm asking about myself, and they're not easy answers. The biggest piece of my heart, which I will never have returned belongs to my wonderful children, a joy only a parent can know, and a sadness only the estranged can know. Small, fragile pieces of it are left in distant evenings spent with those I've loved. I could recall for you in detail specific moments, I could recount exactly who I should be with, I could make this a proclamation of love, but aside from the fact that it is (somewhat) unrequited now, that's not really what the point is. I have loved, I have lost. At least I loved, and can remember those stolen kisses, sweaty palms, because you just had to at least hold her hand... Memories that fade.
My heart is in music, in art, and if you ask me why, I'd have a two-fold answer. Firstly, I've loved everything about music and art since childhood, and I'd be driven mad if I couldn't express it in some form. The worst years of my life were when I stifled my artistic side. Secondly, I have to. Music is the great bandage, the perfect distraction, that holds what's left of this heart together. I fill every void with artistic expression, which doesn't hold well, it's imperfect, yet it's the only thing that keeps it beating.
I have more points to make here, but I want to sidestep, momentarily, just to speak about our wandering spirits. Our hearts, minds, souls, really comprise of mostly similar things, and one could argue that the heart doesn't love the mind does, but the heart will ache, the soul and the mind become restless. These terms, could be intertwined or disagreed upon, but the fact is, no matter your belief, scholar, poet or spiritualist, we all recognize the being, our consciousness, no matter where it comes from, personally I believe it healthy to accept all three. Getting off the beaten path once again... If someone were reading this, I'd want to show them something. They'd learn a lesson here: how to bring your spirit back to here, back to now. Sometimes it's fleeting, for the concerns of the day, or the memory that hurts really wants our attention. But if you close your eyes, and breath, I won't go through an entire session here, meditation, self-hypnosis, anxiety control, reality testing... They all teach similar processes, the end result is to realign your spirit and your flesh. To be here now. You have to, and most can feel it when they are restless, call your spirit back. You've spread it thin, and left bits of it in silly places, small concerns and regrets, places you fractured yourself, and left a part of you there. It happens daily, just drifting thoughts place us elsewhere, not a single soul is exactly where they want to be all the time. But if we call it back, release those tensions, fears, regrets, and even for now, lost love, longing... Bring it back to you, feel the warmth around you, as you bring yourself back, you'll notice small pains in the body, and minor things like that, possibly unpleasant background noise. Why do you notice them? Because you're here now, you were ignoring those pains, those car horns, but they're part of your now. Revel in the moment, the completeness of the situation, in fact, put this down and quit reading, just tk enjoy the senses.
It can be fleeting, can't it? One stray thought and we're releasing energy that belongs here and now. The trick is to call yourself back daily, and for extended amounts of time. Soon, you'll be in the moment more often, rather than spread across space and time. This is a step to becoming lucid, a lucid dreamer has to recognize now, when they are awake, to recognize now, and the inconsistencies of the dream world when asleep. I'll write a lot about lucid dreaming on one of these adventures, it is after-all my nickname and my sons namesake. Just know that(off topic), lucid dreaming is one of the most rewarding things a person can learn, and if we don't question our surrounding when we're awake, why would we when we're asleep?
It's reality testing, but it also calls us to the moment, somewhere most of us rarely exist in. I tell my brother to "count the yellow cars" which means make some silly list of things and count them daily, this forces you to interact with the world. One day you'll be counting a car and watch it fly away... You're not awake.
If I were to babble much more about this, I'd get into "totems" reality testing objects. At first you'll have light-switches, watches, cell phones, paper... Things that do not function in a dream world; next you'll probably, I you become an avid lucid dreamer, have a personal item, a "totem" a physical object like a coin to test reality... The words won't sit still or it will defy gravity. Mine, became a permanent fixture... My tattoos signal when I'm awake or asleep, if they won't sit still then I'm not awake. When I first chose to make this my totem, I became lucid and took all the ink, swirled it down my arm, out my fingertip and into the air, swirling it a liquid sphere, quite an experience. My next tattoo session, I'm getting in bold text, "wake up" tattooed on my left finger. I'll check it daily, to make sure it says wake up, if it doesn't, then it's time to wake up... Mentally, not physically. You'll get there, then you'll understand.
This was another rant that really went three directions, but that's what happens with thought. Go flip the light-switch, or check what time it is. Be awake, even if you're asleep, and be here and now.
Home does not always mean a building, your comfort may be in the arms of a lover, writing music, painting, something that fills the light half of your heart and makes you feel complete. Some people feel like they grow out of these things, or something finds them separated from their love.
A mans memory is a funny thing. You can look back, and know certain parts of your life were perfect, you didn't know it then, but it's obvious now. A bittersweet thing, to remember a perfect night, you can recall the smells, thoughts and emotions, things you took for granted in the moment.
Some of us are stuck in those moments, ghosts in our own skin, a living memory, doomed to question how we could have changed things, the great If. We may be blinding ourselves to some great life, because we don't dwell in the present.
At any given time, the soul, the mind can leave the body, if one is longing for something enough, they are there, not here. It may be in the present, like longing for a loved one, that's far away. Or it may be in the past, wanting for a moment that has already faded. Some people live in a world of regret, their great If, is something they never ventured. Fear is a funny beast, much like societies and modern ideas of moral upholding. A heart wants what it wants, no man, no law, no belief can change it. That basic understanding has slowly shaped our country over the past 60 years, but it's always something thought of in shame, years of hiding or lying to avoid backlash... I'm getting off track here, the main point is society always thinks something is wrong, until enough people want it, then it is societies view. Let's get back on topic, and let's cut the niceties.
Where is my heart? My mind? My soul? Well if you're internalizing those questions, be wary, it takes a brutal honesty to find the answers. But I'm asking about myself, and they're not easy answers. The biggest piece of my heart, which I will never have returned belongs to my wonderful children, a joy only a parent can know, and a sadness only the estranged can know. Small, fragile pieces of it are left in distant evenings spent with those I've loved. I could recall for you in detail specific moments, I could recount exactly who I should be with, I could make this a proclamation of love, but aside from the fact that it is (somewhat) unrequited now, that's not really what the point is. I have loved, I have lost. At least I loved, and can remember those stolen kisses, sweaty palms, because you just had to at least hold her hand... Memories that fade.
My heart is in music, in art, and if you ask me why, I'd have a two-fold answer. Firstly, I've loved everything about music and art since childhood, and I'd be driven mad if I couldn't express it in some form. The worst years of my life were when I stifled my artistic side. Secondly, I have to. Music is the great bandage, the perfect distraction, that holds what's left of this heart together. I fill every void with artistic expression, which doesn't hold well, it's imperfect, yet it's the only thing that keeps it beating.
I have more points to make here, but I want to sidestep, momentarily, just to speak about our wandering spirits. Our hearts, minds, souls, really comprise of mostly similar things, and one could argue that the heart doesn't love the mind does, but the heart will ache, the soul and the mind become restless. These terms, could be intertwined or disagreed upon, but the fact is, no matter your belief, scholar, poet or spiritualist, we all recognize the being, our consciousness, no matter where it comes from, personally I believe it healthy to accept all three. Getting off the beaten path once again... If someone were reading this, I'd want to show them something. They'd learn a lesson here: how to bring your spirit back to here, back to now. Sometimes it's fleeting, for the concerns of the day, or the memory that hurts really wants our attention. But if you close your eyes, and breath, I won't go through an entire session here, meditation, self-hypnosis, anxiety control, reality testing... They all teach similar processes, the end result is to realign your spirit and your flesh. To be here now. You have to, and most can feel it when they are restless, call your spirit back. You've spread it thin, and left bits of it in silly places, small concerns and regrets, places you fractured yourself, and left a part of you there. It happens daily, just drifting thoughts place us elsewhere, not a single soul is exactly where they want to be all the time. But if we call it back, release those tensions, fears, regrets, and even for now, lost love, longing... Bring it back to you, feel the warmth around you, as you bring yourself back, you'll notice small pains in the body, and minor things like that, possibly unpleasant background noise. Why do you notice them? Because you're here now, you were ignoring those pains, those car horns, but they're part of your now. Revel in the moment, the completeness of the situation, in fact, put this down and quit reading, just tk enjoy the senses.
It can be fleeting, can't it? One stray thought and we're releasing energy that belongs here and now. The trick is to call yourself back daily, and for extended amounts of time. Soon, you'll be in the moment more often, rather than spread across space and time. This is a step to becoming lucid, a lucid dreamer has to recognize now, when they are awake, to recognize now, and the inconsistencies of the dream world when asleep. I'll write a lot about lucid dreaming on one of these adventures, it is after-all my nickname and my sons namesake. Just know that(off topic), lucid dreaming is one of the most rewarding things a person can learn, and if we don't question our surrounding when we're awake, why would we when we're asleep?
It's reality testing, but it also calls us to the moment, somewhere most of us rarely exist in. I tell my brother to "count the yellow cars" which means make some silly list of things and count them daily, this forces you to interact with the world. One day you'll be counting a car and watch it fly away... You're not awake.
If I were to babble much more about this, I'd get into "totems" reality testing objects. At first you'll have light-switches, watches, cell phones, paper... Things that do not function in a dream world; next you'll probably, I you become an avid lucid dreamer, have a personal item, a "totem" a physical object like a coin to test reality... The words won't sit still or it will defy gravity. Mine, became a permanent fixture... My tattoos signal when I'm awake or asleep, if they won't sit still then I'm not awake. When I first chose to make this my totem, I became lucid and took all the ink, swirled it down my arm, out my fingertip and into the air, swirling it a liquid sphere, quite an experience. My next tattoo session, I'm getting in bold text, "wake up" tattooed on my left finger. I'll check it daily, to make sure it says wake up, if it doesn't, then it's time to wake up... Mentally, not physically. You'll get there, then you'll understand.
This was another rant that really went three directions, but that's what happens with thought. Go flip the light-switch, or check what time it is. Be awake, even if you're asleep, and be here and now.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
I've felt suicidal lately. Why talk about it openly? Because I don't want to feel this way, talking about it alone, makes it less likely to happen.
I'm really sick, mentally and physically just unraveled. I'm usually a positive person, but even in my darkest days, I usually knew the path out. It was always obvious where I fit, and what I needed to do to get there. It's not that way right now, I can't see any obvious direction but down, the calling I usually feel is hushed, and the world, for the first time really feels hollow, lonely, and just a place I'm not sure I want to occupy. All of the morals, and goodness in people seems vacant, society as a whole seems lost, and shallow. It's not a world I'm proud to be a member of. This isn't a jab at any specific person or people, in fact I dearly love so many people that may read this, and you're wonderful, but in my head, you're just memories, there is no tangible good that I can place my hands on.
I'm used to clinical depression, as much as anyone can be, it just feels different this time, I dug myself into a hole, and I don't remember which way is up. If I could more eloquently phrase my words, if I could better express this emotion... But it jumbles out like some cliché, depressed crap that seems to pollute the Internet in every corner. Maybe that's the problem, we've become jaded to hearing each others woes, and it's become hard to truly sympathize with our fellow man.
I want to manage to express this, because it's foreign to me to feel this bad. It's not my goal to get feedback, or sympathy, just to express this and get it out there, and maybe in the process, expel it from myself, or at least begin the process.
Let's start here, just some of the facts, things weighing on me that could be culminating to form this dark cloud, though I couldn't easily point to any one thing and say,"that's the problem", because while there is a lot of negative forces working against me, I feel like it's more the fact that I don't remember why I should feel better. To what end? When I get better, what is waiting there? What life am I trying to preserve, or strive for?
Despite the fact that these separate things may or may not equate to this feeling, I want to get it all out there, in the harsh, unforgiving truth, the reality of what has happened.
My family has been clinging together, for support, and to live the way we should. Our mother has mental illness, as do I for that matter. We chose, for her good, to help her retire and move her close to family, with promises of a better life. I sit now, in a small dwelling, in a small corner room, surrounded by things I couldn't fit in my usual "studio" space. I awoke to ants today, because I fell asleep with an empty glass that had soda in it last night.
Every source of water here is messed up, washing machine is completely broken and everything else leaks. There are several other problem just with the living situation, but I am thankful there is a roof over my head.
To really dig into the root would be to discuss mental illness, and the corrosive effect it has, and the mind deteriorates so does everything surrounding it. Just two years ago, we wanted for nothing and celebrated life everyday, and oh how things have changed.
My mental illness, the best any healthcare professional can surmise, stems from several near fatal head injuries, and possibly some inherited family issues. So to speak it in their jargon: acute anxiety with agoraphobia, clinical depression, severe insomnia, possibly post-traumatic stress disorder. To state it plainly: daily anxiety attacks, I can't leave my home, I don't fully know whats wrong with my head, so they just throw medicine at it, yet think I'm a junkie half the time because I look the way I do. My brain, will not shut off on it's own. Over-critical thought, jumbled ideas that run in circles, which causes anxiety and insomnia. So, well... I'm fucked up. I feel judged constantly, which just adds to the depression. Family, I'm sorry that I drink sometimes, I'm sorry I haven't quit, and I'm mainly sorry that I don't really want to quit. It's always caused problems, but I've been much more responsible, and try to keep myself in line, I even try to make a conscious choice that if I know I'm going to drink, I don't mix it with my medication. Aside from drinking some, I live a pretty normal and moral life.
We can't discuss the families decline without addressing my mothers mental illness as well. I don't enjoy making these things public, but I cannot bare to hold them in any longer. My mother is a gracious, kind and gentle person, an intelligent nurse that, at least nine months of the year, is a pretty stable person. Yet, she will not stay on her medication, which has been an issue for more than thirty years. We have to take our mother to a psychiatric unit, where she stays for up to a week, every eight months. Right now, I am tasked with dealing out her medications twice a day, in hopes that she will stay on them and get better. In thirty years here's a list of medical terms that have been thrown at us, as doctors never agree what or how to treat it, starting from my first memories: manic depressive, bi-polar, graves disease, hyper/hypo-thyroid, dementia, psychosis, vitamin deficient, schizophrenic, depressed, and the list would dwindle down to mixtures of those . I can't stress enough, I love her and it breaks me, every time we have to commit her. These "episodes" range greatly in form, but cause money issues, and a general corrosion of quality of life for everyone involved. We have stunted our lives, frozen in time it feels, trying to deal with this, and hating the idea of many of the "solutions" we are presented with.
So, there is a very sick woman, just down the hall, very confused, debt like we never thought possible.
Now, I keep saying we, and while I understand, sympathize and even envy, the we I've known for several years is about to dwindle by one. In a few weeks my brother and his fiancee are getting an apartment a few towns away. I am happy for them and the choice to make a life together. However, I don't yet see how this will change my life, and my mothers. Can I help and handle her illness, should I? Or should I seek my life, and worry about what's wrong with my world and take steps to fix it? Can the two happen at once? Can I care for her, and start preparing to enter some new life? Or do I have to get away, to better myself? I feel unfair and selfish when I dream of something more. I feel shame that I could move on.
This issue alone, encapsulates enough I could write a book, on the worries, and odd childhood.
Between mental illness, past addiction issues, and some less than proper choices in my love life, I can build a tree of regret. These would be the roots and the dry, barren branches would be the minor issues that were born of just a few key problems.
I miss my children, I can't use anything but the less than adequate word unfair, for what has happened. I miss them every second of everyday, and my heart will never be whole if they can't see me more. It's a situation I feel powerless in. I am an awesome father, and I was doing everything I could, they were happy, life was good. Without divulging or saying anything that could be misconstrued as trash talk; my heart feels a weight, a yearning to be with my children, and there is nothing on earth that can patch that hole.
This is where I stop typing, to wipe the tears streaming down my face.
I was fucking up my life, starting about five years back, missing my kids, and unhappy I'd make bad decisions, or I'd blackout drinking. I hurt the ones I loved, pushed some away for good because they couldn't bare to see the destructive path I was on. I could be handed the world, and I would find a way to fuck up every good thing in my life. Bands, friends, love, family. I was unhappy and didn't even know it until I decided, after a few traumatic events, I broke down and rewired. I quit drinking completely for several months, became celibate, and got a psychiatrist. I didn't know I was depressed until the first time I felt it ease up. I got serious about music, and photography, but then I still fucked up, not as often or severe, but I still lost things I cherished. I've found myself in this current state of suspended animation; there is no forwards, and there is no turning back. I spend a great deal of my day laying in a bed, twitching for hours. Not to sleep, just sick, pure and simple, stuck on a broken record of regret and shame. That's where I am now, a single small light in the corner of the room. I type to keep my hands busy, while my legs twitch uncontrollably. I ignore the pain in my chest, and the labored breathing, the tightness in my muscles, the numbness in my hands and feet. The frequent shooting pains in my head and neck, stiff, clenched jaw. I count the hours until I can take medicine, for a minor, brief distraction and calm... If I feel it today.
Like so many things I write, they start with a direction and just unravel.
I WANT to live, but I have to remember why.
I'm noticing an alarming trend, musicians getting severely depressed within days of releasing material. I think that we pour so much into it, channel our emotions, use it as a coping mechanism, or just distraction. And once it's finished and out of our hands, everything comes crashing in. The realities we were able to suppress, to voice in music, is suddenly very real, and our way of coping has left. What we offer you as entertainment, sometimes it's our cautionary tale, one we can't ourselves heed.
I'm really sick, mentally and physically just unraveled. I'm usually a positive person, but even in my darkest days, I usually knew the path out. It was always obvious where I fit, and what I needed to do to get there. It's not that way right now, I can't see any obvious direction but down, the calling I usually feel is hushed, and the world, for the first time really feels hollow, lonely, and just a place I'm not sure I want to occupy. All of the morals, and goodness in people seems vacant, society as a whole seems lost, and shallow. It's not a world I'm proud to be a member of. This isn't a jab at any specific person or people, in fact I dearly love so many people that may read this, and you're wonderful, but in my head, you're just memories, there is no tangible good that I can place my hands on.
I'm used to clinical depression, as much as anyone can be, it just feels different this time, I dug myself into a hole, and I don't remember which way is up. If I could more eloquently phrase my words, if I could better express this emotion... But it jumbles out like some cliché, depressed crap that seems to pollute the Internet in every corner. Maybe that's the problem, we've become jaded to hearing each others woes, and it's become hard to truly sympathize with our fellow man.
I want to manage to express this, because it's foreign to me to feel this bad. It's not my goal to get feedback, or sympathy, just to express this and get it out there, and maybe in the process, expel it from myself, or at least begin the process.
Let's start here, just some of the facts, things weighing on me that could be culminating to form this dark cloud, though I couldn't easily point to any one thing and say,"that's the problem", because while there is a lot of negative forces working against me, I feel like it's more the fact that I don't remember why I should feel better. To what end? When I get better, what is waiting there? What life am I trying to preserve, or strive for?
Despite the fact that these separate things may or may not equate to this feeling, I want to get it all out there, in the harsh, unforgiving truth, the reality of what has happened.
My family has been clinging together, for support, and to live the way we should. Our mother has mental illness, as do I for that matter. We chose, for her good, to help her retire and move her close to family, with promises of a better life. I sit now, in a small dwelling, in a small corner room, surrounded by things I couldn't fit in my usual "studio" space. I awoke to ants today, because I fell asleep with an empty glass that had soda in it last night.
Every source of water here is messed up, washing machine is completely broken and everything else leaks. There are several other problem just with the living situation, but I am thankful there is a roof over my head.
To really dig into the root would be to discuss mental illness, and the corrosive effect it has, and the mind deteriorates so does everything surrounding it. Just two years ago, we wanted for nothing and celebrated life everyday, and oh how things have changed.
My mental illness, the best any healthcare professional can surmise, stems from several near fatal head injuries, and possibly some inherited family issues. So to speak it in their jargon: acute anxiety with agoraphobia, clinical depression, severe insomnia, possibly post-traumatic stress disorder. To state it plainly: daily anxiety attacks, I can't leave my home, I don't fully know whats wrong with my head, so they just throw medicine at it, yet think I'm a junkie half the time because I look the way I do. My brain, will not shut off on it's own. Over-critical thought, jumbled ideas that run in circles, which causes anxiety and insomnia. So, well... I'm fucked up. I feel judged constantly, which just adds to the depression. Family, I'm sorry that I drink sometimes, I'm sorry I haven't quit, and I'm mainly sorry that I don't really want to quit. It's always caused problems, but I've been much more responsible, and try to keep myself in line, I even try to make a conscious choice that if I know I'm going to drink, I don't mix it with my medication. Aside from drinking some, I live a pretty normal and moral life.
We can't discuss the families decline without addressing my mothers mental illness as well. I don't enjoy making these things public, but I cannot bare to hold them in any longer. My mother is a gracious, kind and gentle person, an intelligent nurse that, at least nine months of the year, is a pretty stable person. Yet, she will not stay on her medication, which has been an issue for more than thirty years. We have to take our mother to a psychiatric unit, where she stays for up to a week, every eight months. Right now, I am tasked with dealing out her medications twice a day, in hopes that she will stay on them and get better. In thirty years here's a list of medical terms that have been thrown at us, as doctors never agree what or how to treat it, starting from my first memories: manic depressive, bi-polar, graves disease, hyper/hypo-thyroid, dementia, psychosis, vitamin deficient, schizophrenic, depressed, and the list would dwindle down to mixtures of those . I can't stress enough, I love her and it breaks me, every time we have to commit her. These "episodes" range greatly in form, but cause money issues, and a general corrosion of quality of life for everyone involved. We have stunted our lives, frozen in time it feels, trying to deal with this, and hating the idea of many of the "solutions" we are presented with.
So, there is a very sick woman, just down the hall, very confused, debt like we never thought possible.
Now, I keep saying we, and while I understand, sympathize and even envy, the we I've known for several years is about to dwindle by one. In a few weeks my brother and his fiancee are getting an apartment a few towns away. I am happy for them and the choice to make a life together. However, I don't yet see how this will change my life, and my mothers. Can I help and handle her illness, should I? Or should I seek my life, and worry about what's wrong with my world and take steps to fix it? Can the two happen at once? Can I care for her, and start preparing to enter some new life? Or do I have to get away, to better myself? I feel unfair and selfish when I dream of something more. I feel shame that I could move on.
This issue alone, encapsulates enough I could write a book, on the worries, and odd childhood.
Between mental illness, past addiction issues, and some less than proper choices in my love life, I can build a tree of regret. These would be the roots and the dry, barren branches would be the minor issues that were born of just a few key problems.
I miss my children, I can't use anything but the less than adequate word unfair, for what has happened. I miss them every second of everyday, and my heart will never be whole if they can't see me more. It's a situation I feel powerless in. I am an awesome father, and I was doing everything I could, they were happy, life was good. Without divulging or saying anything that could be misconstrued as trash talk; my heart feels a weight, a yearning to be with my children, and there is nothing on earth that can patch that hole.
This is where I stop typing, to wipe the tears streaming down my face.
I was fucking up my life, starting about five years back, missing my kids, and unhappy I'd make bad decisions, or I'd blackout drinking. I hurt the ones I loved, pushed some away for good because they couldn't bare to see the destructive path I was on. I could be handed the world, and I would find a way to fuck up every good thing in my life. Bands, friends, love, family. I was unhappy and didn't even know it until I decided, after a few traumatic events, I broke down and rewired. I quit drinking completely for several months, became celibate, and got a psychiatrist. I didn't know I was depressed until the first time I felt it ease up. I got serious about music, and photography, but then I still fucked up, not as often or severe, but I still lost things I cherished. I've found myself in this current state of suspended animation; there is no forwards, and there is no turning back. I spend a great deal of my day laying in a bed, twitching for hours. Not to sleep, just sick, pure and simple, stuck on a broken record of regret and shame. That's where I am now, a single small light in the corner of the room. I type to keep my hands busy, while my legs twitch uncontrollably. I ignore the pain in my chest, and the labored breathing, the tightness in my muscles, the numbness in my hands and feet. The frequent shooting pains in my head and neck, stiff, clenched jaw. I count the hours until I can take medicine, for a minor, brief distraction and calm... If I feel it today.
Like so many things I write, they start with a direction and just unravel.
I WANT to live, but I have to remember why.
I'm noticing an alarming trend, musicians getting severely depressed within days of releasing material. I think that we pour so much into it, channel our emotions, use it as a coping mechanism, or just distraction. And once it's finished and out of our hands, everything comes crashing in. The realities we were able to suppress, to voice in music, is suddenly very real, and our way of coping has left. What we offer you as entertainment, sometimes it's our cautionary tale, one we can't ourselves heed.
Past life fascination. People get caught up in their past lives, and unlocking the mysteries. Personally right now, I'm more caught up in the recognition of past lives, I've lived in this lifetime. I've been at least twenty different people to countless lives that I became close with. There's obvious things: father, musician, artist, photographer, sideshow freak, lover, skater, stoner, guy with the goatee/tattoos/dreads/piercings, and a million other vague descriptives. Then there are the chapters and layers of life, at points I was very different things to different people, and they had very different, though not fully developed understanding of who I was(am).
This is, of course true of anyone, but why don't we think it's odd when we change so completely? You can wake up one day with a new name, a new set of friends and a new purpose. Isn't it at least slightly sad that we left the old life behind though? I enjoyed some of those lives, I miss them, and I cannot, no matter how much I try, ever reclaim them. What if I'm not happy with this chapter? When can I start the next?
This is, of course true of anyone, but why don't we think it's odd when we change so completely? You can wake up one day with a new name, a new set of friends and a new purpose. Isn't it at least slightly sad that we left the old life behind though? I enjoyed some of those lives, I miss them, and I cannot, no matter how much I try, ever reclaim them. What if I'm not happy with this chapter? When can I start the next?
Saturday, December 8, 2012
It's funny that I'm an optimist, trapped in such a negative situation, that optimism isn't working.
My anti-social behavior is worsening, because I can't get my license back right this moment, one person is too ill, and may be more anti-social than I am, and the other just doesn't invite me to do anything anymore.
My conversations online whittle down to nothing, because I guess no one wants to hear the honesty of what I'm going through. So, I write music, try to hold my head up and pretend things will get better.
The reality is, with the current situation I may have a matter of weeks to find a place to crash, because the money for bills is gone.
"can I get my medicine refilled?" I asked, "when I get paid."
A. That leaves me without medicine for at least a week.
B. Your mental illness has caused you to no call no show for two weeks... There's not going to be a paycheck, or a job for that matter.
Yes I'm an adult, and need to get my shit together, but how do I magically go get my license back, take my meds so I can get a job, to pay for meds I have no money for? It's a cycle that's been going on for too long, I have to break out of it and figure something out. Yes, this is just me ranting at myself, it just saves me from saying it to others, because it scares them away.
My anti-social behavior is worsening, because I can't get my license back right this moment, one person is too ill, and may be more anti-social than I am, and the other just doesn't invite me to do anything anymore.
My conversations online whittle down to nothing, because I guess no one wants to hear the honesty of what I'm going through. So, I write music, try to hold my head up and pretend things will get better.
The reality is, with the current situation I may have a matter of weeks to find a place to crash, because the money for bills is gone.
"can I get my medicine refilled?" I asked, "when I get paid."
A. That leaves me without medicine for at least a week.
B. Your mental illness has caused you to no call no show for two weeks... There's not going to be a paycheck, or a job for that matter.
Yes I'm an adult, and need to get my shit together, but how do I magically go get my license back, take my meds so I can get a job, to pay for meds I have no money for? It's a cycle that's been going on for too long, I have to break out of it and figure something out. Yes, this is just me ranting at myself, it just saves me from saying it to others, because it scares them away.
Things get messed up so easily. For years I've been stuck between two cities. Springfield, where I've lived for a couple decades, and New Orleans which I usually visit every year.
Now, I have literally found myself stuck between the two cities... A 7 hour trip to either one from where I now rest my head.
There's a plan forming, to help get things settled here, and if I've not made a life in Dallas that I can't justify leaving behind; I move to New Orleans and live the life I feel I'm supposed to live. I'll be half-homeless, and I'll have to store my belongings somewhere until it's stable, but I'm willing to sacrifice a lot to find myself where I'm supposed to be in life.
Now, I have literally found myself stuck between the two cities... A 7 hour trip to either one from where I now rest my head.
There's a plan forming, to help get things settled here, and if I've not made a life in Dallas that I can't justify leaving behind; I move to New Orleans and live the life I feel I'm supposed to live. I'll be half-homeless, and I'll have to store my belongings somewhere until it's stable, but I'm willing to sacrifice a lot to find myself where I'm supposed to be in life.
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