And actually, like, interact with the world, writing things, etc. I have actually figured out how Discord works and everything! Frankly, I feel pretty safe telling the maybe 1 ghost who reads this blog that my screen name is AkyTrope, come find me if you like!
Saturday, August 12, 2023
Sunday, April 18, 2021
Reassurance to An Old Friend
and other ghosts there might be, out there...
I'm alive! And pretty alright, never did get help for that depression but I'm working on finding my bootstraps. Found a nice boy, shacked up with him, kinda forgot the rest of the world existed but maybe that'll change in the near future. No predictions as to whether I'll start seriously writing here again.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Grief, and other ramblings
I know, I know, it's been a forever since I've posted anything to this blog.
Truth is... I've been hiding from myself. I'm still dealing with all sorts of emotional fall-out from my mother's death, and whenever I get confronted with pain my instinct is to run away, shove the pain down into a little closet in my mind and barricade the door. Not exactly the healthiest response to grief, I know (and have been told by countless people), but... it's going to be a long road to reclaim that pain and actually deal with it.
The ironic thing is, when you shove pain away from yourself and refuse to feel it, you also end up cutting yourself off from joy, and every other emotion, until you're left as a depressed husk of yourself. I've been trying to reconnect myself to my pain, in fits and starts, but at this point the pain has been shoved down into that closet for so long it's hard to find, and mostly what I've been dealing with is trying to dismantle the barricades I've put around it.
Right now, the barricade I'm dealing with is anger. Have I mentioned that my anger and rage absolutely terrifies me? Because it really, really does. My mom always had anger issues, and she would make a point of telling me "I can control my anger, which is why I allow myself to feel it". But when she was always yelling and screaming at me it was hard to see how her anger was 'controlled'. Keep in mind, even when she was dealing with MS, her body atrophying and her brain refusing to cooperate with her, she was still intimidating and terrifying as hell. She was always a very strong person, even to the end, and I was never strong in the ways she was. For the longest time, I thought that meant I wasn't strong, because the only model I could recognize as strength was Mom; able to browbeat anyone into submission, able to beat up anybody who tried to hurt her, able to intimidate absolutely anyone. So I decided I would never be like that, hid my anger away and just vented about whatever made me angry, reasoning "well typing words about a thing isn't scary, that's a good way to deal with anger".
Keep in mind that while I was growing up, most of my energies were spent in major, heavy-duty shields to protect myself from my parents pain (mom's illness, migraines, depression over being so reduced by the illness; dad's hurt that his wife was slowly being atrophied, having to take care of her, depression of his own), and also trying to carry mom and make her feel better. So my emotions were very shallow, simply because I didn't have the energy to support them.
Hell, when I went through boot camp (dealing with severe lack of sleep, strenuous activity, dealing with all the drama from my flight mates and having to shield myself from their suffering), I was so much healthier mentally and spiritually because after dealing with my mom, boot camp was a piece of cake. I had so much energy it was surreal, but at least that energy went to helping me support myself through all that strenuous bullshit.
Then I went to tech school (where you actually start learning about whatever job you signed up to do), and I had more energy than I knew what to do with. I had the ocean right next door, warm weather and happy skies to play with, and the worst emotional fallout I had to deal with was various people being frustrated about "oh come on I want to get to my real job already, I'm tired of school". So I could suddenly really connect with my spiritual power, and I was happier than I'd ever been in my entire life.
Of course, having enough energy to feel joy also gave me enough energy to really feel other emotions. Such as anger. I'm not naturally predisposed to anger, so I thought I didn't have to worry about it, but near the end of my time there I met this guy we'll call Knight. He was severely emotionally damaged, so of course I tried to help him, but he would constantly ask for help and then refuse to let me help him, which helped build alot of frustration on my part. I got transferred to Germany as my first active duty base, and he would continue the same cycle of asking for help and then refusing to let me help him, complaining endlessly over silly problems while refusing to tell me about his real problems, calling me either at the weirdest times and then apoligizing for calling me at the middle of the night (my time), or calling me at a decent time for me and then complaining over how he was losing sleep since he had to call me at the middle of his night. So I blew up at him, screaming at him and then telling him not to contact me again because I was sick of his shit. I thought that was the end of it, except he would text or email me constantly, begging for forgiveness, and I just kept getting more and more frustrated at the whole situation.
Pertinent fact: I am a witch, and I am very connected to air and water. Not so much earth. So I'll ground my emotions and energy to the sky, instead of earth. Which is a really big problem when those emotions happen to be anger and frustration, and when I'm connected to the sky of a coastal region, and I ground those emotions to the sky. What I managed to stir up with that anger was a hurricane. Specifically, Hurricane Sandy.
You can imagine why I'm absolutely terrified of my anger now, feeling that I can't ground it (because I can't connect to the earth, I'm not going to burden any plant with that toxic emotion, and I'm terrified to ground it through fire or water because that would be immensely destructive as well and I don't need any more guilt).
And I have alot of anger about mom's death. Not the fact that she died, no, I'm actually glad she doesn't have to suffer through having the core of her identity (being strong, being independent, being intelligent) being whittled away by her disease. No, my anger is over the fact that she had to suffer through that disease at all, that she had to have a longm drawn-out death because she refused to leave me motherless while I was growing up, and then wanted to see me one last time before she went. She told me the doctor said she had two months to live, and I immediately booked a flight to see her, and when I got home I discovered that she was dying and I had only an hour with her (when she was unresponsive, couldn't talk, could hardly breathe) before she could slip away. The day she messaged me telling me she had two months was her last coherent day.
What's worse is that, after I grew around 17 or so, she was fairly open with me about wanting to suicide. And of course I was alright with that, she had the right to determine that she'd had enough pain and wasn't going to stay any longer. She also said that she would absolutely write me one last letter, tell me all the things she wanted me to know, say goodbye before she went. And I never got that, I never got to hear her tell me goodbye (though message or voice), never got any closure from her. The only reason I knew she could hear me say goodbye to her was I was babbling all sorts of things I wanted her to know, and then when I ran out of things to say started reading her a short story from Mercedes Lackey, our favourite author, and she slipped away before I got two pages in.
And it hurts so damn much that I can't have her in my life anymore. I'd grown to depend on her and her magic mom powers to be able to come to her with any emotional problem, have her explain me to myself, and give me advice that was always right.
And I feel so much damn guilt over the whole situation. I feel so damn guilty that the moment I left, I apparently withdrew my magical support from her, and never gave it back. I feel so damn guilty because if I hadn't been born to her, she likely wouldn't have suffered though MS at all. See, Dad told me (after she died), that I was diagnosed with autism as a toddler, and Mom was so upset about the prospect of me not being able to live life as a functioning being she made an open-ended bargain with the universe, for me not to have autism and be able to function, and the price was apparently to have her identity and strength slowly whittled away from her by this fucking disease. Oh, did I mention that the only reason she had me in the first place was because she believed in taking hints from the universe? She'd managed to get pregnant two or three times before me, and aborted those fetusi because she didn't want any kids. All of her pregnancies happened while she was birth control, and she got really paranoid about making sure her birth control was solid. But then I came around, and she was basically like "Okay fine universe, I get the hint, leave me alone and I'll have this damn baby already, sheesh". I don't know if it was the universe at large ensuring her pregnancies, or if my soul was so determined to have her for a mother for my incarnation that I made her make a body for me, and I'm kinda scared that the second option is the answer.
I'm not sure why it's taken her death for me to start ruminating on the injustices of her life. But my connection to the universe and my own spiritual power is severely strained as a result. How can I connect to the universe when I'm so angry at it? How can I connect to the universe and risk my anger stirring up havoc?
No, I haven't asked for the reason for all of this, because I'm afraid Dad's answer is right and I really don't need that certain guilt piled up on me. No, I haven't tried looking for her soul because she'd beat my ass for trying and I respect her wish. Yes, I've gone to grief counseling, but all I received were unhelpful answers and platitudes so I stopped going after the second visit. No, I can't really go to therapy since I have no insurance, probably couldn't afford it, and even if I could I need to save my money for as long as possible.
It doesn't help that I've been living with my dad since I got separated from the Air Force. This is still a very unhealthy environment for me, and I can feel myself regressing to how I was as a teenager; artificially depressed (since this house still has alot of psychic negativity in the atmosphere, and I just don't have the energy to clean it out), unable to do anything (since we're out in the middle of nowhere and I don't have a driver's license), and just all around miserable.
I think going to visit my sister will help, though. She lives in a city (so there's things to do besides internet all day), she lives by the ocean (who I know loves me and is willing to help heal me), and she's much more emotionally intelligent than I am so it'll be so wonderful to have her support.
(yes, this optimistic note of an ending is deliberate. Don't want to depress myself over my own venting, after all)
Truth is... I've been hiding from myself. I'm still dealing with all sorts of emotional fall-out from my mother's death, and whenever I get confronted with pain my instinct is to run away, shove the pain down into a little closet in my mind and barricade the door. Not exactly the healthiest response to grief, I know (and have been told by countless people), but... it's going to be a long road to reclaim that pain and actually deal with it.
The ironic thing is, when you shove pain away from yourself and refuse to feel it, you also end up cutting yourself off from joy, and every other emotion, until you're left as a depressed husk of yourself. I've been trying to reconnect myself to my pain, in fits and starts, but at this point the pain has been shoved down into that closet for so long it's hard to find, and mostly what I've been dealing with is trying to dismantle the barricades I've put around it.
Right now, the barricade I'm dealing with is anger. Have I mentioned that my anger and rage absolutely terrifies me? Because it really, really does. My mom always had anger issues, and she would make a point of telling me "I can control my anger, which is why I allow myself to feel it". But when she was always yelling and screaming at me it was hard to see how her anger was 'controlled'. Keep in mind, even when she was dealing with MS, her body atrophying and her brain refusing to cooperate with her, she was still intimidating and terrifying as hell. She was always a very strong person, even to the end, and I was never strong in the ways she was. For the longest time, I thought that meant I wasn't strong, because the only model I could recognize as strength was Mom; able to browbeat anyone into submission, able to beat up anybody who tried to hurt her, able to intimidate absolutely anyone. So I decided I would never be like that, hid my anger away and just vented about whatever made me angry, reasoning "well typing words about a thing isn't scary, that's a good way to deal with anger".
Keep in mind that while I was growing up, most of my energies were spent in major, heavy-duty shields to protect myself from my parents pain (mom's illness, migraines, depression over being so reduced by the illness; dad's hurt that his wife was slowly being atrophied, having to take care of her, depression of his own), and also trying to carry mom and make her feel better. So my emotions were very shallow, simply because I didn't have the energy to support them.
Hell, when I went through boot camp (dealing with severe lack of sleep, strenuous activity, dealing with all the drama from my flight mates and having to shield myself from their suffering), I was so much healthier mentally and spiritually because after dealing with my mom, boot camp was a piece of cake. I had so much energy it was surreal, but at least that energy went to helping me support myself through all that strenuous bullshit.
Then I went to tech school (where you actually start learning about whatever job you signed up to do), and I had more energy than I knew what to do with. I had the ocean right next door, warm weather and happy skies to play with, and the worst emotional fallout I had to deal with was various people being frustrated about "oh come on I want to get to my real job already, I'm tired of school". So I could suddenly really connect with my spiritual power, and I was happier than I'd ever been in my entire life.
Of course, having enough energy to feel joy also gave me enough energy to really feel other emotions. Such as anger. I'm not naturally predisposed to anger, so I thought I didn't have to worry about it, but near the end of my time there I met this guy we'll call Knight. He was severely emotionally damaged, so of course I tried to help him, but he would constantly ask for help and then refuse to let me help him, which helped build alot of frustration on my part. I got transferred to Germany as my first active duty base, and he would continue the same cycle of asking for help and then refusing to let me help him, complaining endlessly over silly problems while refusing to tell me about his real problems, calling me either at the weirdest times and then apoligizing for calling me at the middle of the night (my time), or calling me at a decent time for me and then complaining over how he was losing sleep since he had to call me at the middle of his night. So I blew up at him, screaming at him and then telling him not to contact me again because I was sick of his shit. I thought that was the end of it, except he would text or email me constantly, begging for forgiveness, and I just kept getting more and more frustrated at the whole situation.
Pertinent fact: I am a witch, and I am very connected to air and water. Not so much earth. So I'll ground my emotions and energy to the sky, instead of earth. Which is a really big problem when those emotions happen to be anger and frustration, and when I'm connected to the sky of a coastal region, and I ground those emotions to the sky. What I managed to stir up with that anger was a hurricane. Specifically, Hurricane Sandy.
You can imagine why I'm absolutely terrified of my anger now, feeling that I can't ground it (because I can't connect to the earth, I'm not going to burden any plant with that toxic emotion, and I'm terrified to ground it through fire or water because that would be immensely destructive as well and I don't need any more guilt).
And I have alot of anger about mom's death. Not the fact that she died, no, I'm actually glad she doesn't have to suffer through having the core of her identity (being strong, being independent, being intelligent) being whittled away by her disease. No, my anger is over the fact that she had to suffer through that disease at all, that she had to have a longm drawn-out death because she refused to leave me motherless while I was growing up, and then wanted to see me one last time before she went. She told me the doctor said she had two months to live, and I immediately booked a flight to see her, and when I got home I discovered that she was dying and I had only an hour with her (when she was unresponsive, couldn't talk, could hardly breathe) before she could slip away. The day she messaged me telling me she had two months was her last coherent day.
What's worse is that, after I grew around 17 or so, she was fairly open with me about wanting to suicide. And of course I was alright with that, she had the right to determine that she'd had enough pain and wasn't going to stay any longer. She also said that she would absolutely write me one last letter, tell me all the things she wanted me to know, say goodbye before she went. And I never got that, I never got to hear her tell me goodbye (though message or voice), never got any closure from her. The only reason I knew she could hear me say goodbye to her was I was babbling all sorts of things I wanted her to know, and then when I ran out of things to say started reading her a short story from Mercedes Lackey, our favourite author, and she slipped away before I got two pages in.
And it hurts so damn much that I can't have her in my life anymore. I'd grown to depend on her and her magic mom powers to be able to come to her with any emotional problem, have her explain me to myself, and give me advice that was always right.
And I feel so much damn guilt over the whole situation. I feel so damn guilty that the moment I left, I apparently withdrew my magical support from her, and never gave it back. I feel so damn guilty because if I hadn't been born to her, she likely wouldn't have suffered though MS at all. See, Dad told me (after she died), that I was diagnosed with autism as a toddler, and Mom was so upset about the prospect of me not being able to live life as a functioning being she made an open-ended bargain with the universe, for me not to have autism and be able to function, and the price was apparently to have her identity and strength slowly whittled away from her by this fucking disease. Oh, did I mention that the only reason she had me in the first place was because she believed in taking hints from the universe? She'd managed to get pregnant two or three times before me, and aborted those fetusi because she didn't want any kids. All of her pregnancies happened while she was birth control, and she got really paranoid about making sure her birth control was solid. But then I came around, and she was basically like "Okay fine universe, I get the hint, leave me alone and I'll have this damn baby already, sheesh". I don't know if it was the universe at large ensuring her pregnancies, or if my soul was so determined to have her for a mother for my incarnation that I made her make a body for me, and I'm kinda scared that the second option is the answer.
I'm not sure why it's taken her death for me to start ruminating on the injustices of her life. But my connection to the universe and my own spiritual power is severely strained as a result. How can I connect to the universe when I'm so angry at it? How can I connect to the universe and risk my anger stirring up havoc?
No, I haven't asked for the reason for all of this, because I'm afraid Dad's answer is right and I really don't need that certain guilt piled up on me. No, I haven't tried looking for her soul because she'd beat my ass for trying and I respect her wish. Yes, I've gone to grief counseling, but all I received were unhelpful answers and platitudes so I stopped going after the second visit. No, I can't really go to therapy since I have no insurance, probably couldn't afford it, and even if I could I need to save my money for as long as possible.
It doesn't help that I've been living with my dad since I got separated from the Air Force. This is still a very unhealthy environment for me, and I can feel myself regressing to how I was as a teenager; artificially depressed (since this house still has alot of psychic negativity in the atmosphere, and I just don't have the energy to clean it out), unable to do anything (since we're out in the middle of nowhere and I don't have a driver's license), and just all around miserable.
I think going to visit my sister will help, though. She lives in a city (so there's things to do besides internet all day), she lives by the ocean (who I know loves me and is willing to help heal me), and she's much more emotionally intelligent than I am so it'll be so wonderful to have her support.
(yes, this optimistic note of an ending is deliberate. Don't want to depress myself over my own venting, after all)
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Approx Half-way In
So, this NaNoWriMo thing... So far, I'm very happy for this experience.
Made a bunch of new friends, I'm able to talk about writing-type things with a huge variety of people, group encouragement is definitely awesome (especially in chat rooms, where the official purpose is kinda "encourage everybody to actually write by running word wars- where people all start writing for a break of time, like 10 minutes, then come back and say how many you got, not for competition but for a little kick in the ass of "Write right meow!" in manageable chunks of time- but in reality managing to hang out and shoot the shit and brainstorm as well as doing wars, which is awesome!).
I've already figured out that this novel I'm pantsing is never going to be able to be published without copious re-working and re-writing, which I'm not enamoured enough to do... It's not so much for bad writing, which can be edited out, but for the fact that it decided to be a rip-off of Alan Dean Foster's Flix series, and then morphed into a truly hideous rip-off of Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series, which is really fun to read and invoked copious amounts of Rule of Cool, but plagiarizing somebody else's ideas is definitely not a cool thing to do, so yeah. I'll probably make a few passes at editing, just for the learning experience and improving my own writing, but this will never get published and I'm actually cool with this.
At least I got to play with a few experiments; writing in second person, keeping the Main Character's gender obscured, writing a sex scene in second person while keeping said MC's gender obscured, writing in first person with that character's gender obscured...Oddly enough, it's easier for me to write in second person than first, though third person is alright (and it's a classic for story-telling, so I might stick with that for my attempts at a publishable work).
Mostly, what this has taught me is that when you just focus for a bit, writing actually isn't all that difficult. You're supposed to write 1,667 words every day, but I find myself pretty easily managing to hit 2.5k or more (as long as I don't let myself quit just because I hit the quota, which is surprisingly difficult to do. Guess I'm lazy to the bone...) And it's been pretty much pure fun playing in the sandbox, so that's awesome as well!
I already have an idea for what I'll do for next year's NaNo (if not sooner), because a cute little plot bunny came to nibble on my brain during a dream some time ago, so I'll have to do some research, world-building, and maybe even make a loose outline before I go again, and maybe then I'll actually have written a book worthy of editing and trying to publish!
Also, after seeing a bunch of people asking for naming advice, that inspired me to go research phonosemantics (which is actually really cool), and here's a good, succinct source for that (which actually required stupid amounts of googling). Honestly, after running an analysis on my chosen name (yes, I have quite deliberately chosen a new name for myself), it rather suits me as a person well, so there's another brink in the construction of this name this suits me ^.^
Made a bunch of new friends, I'm able to talk about writing-type things with a huge variety of people, group encouragement is definitely awesome (especially in chat rooms, where the official purpose is kinda "encourage everybody to actually write by running word wars- where people all start writing for a break of time, like 10 minutes, then come back and say how many you got, not for competition but for a little kick in the ass of "Write right meow!" in manageable chunks of time- but in reality managing to hang out and shoot the shit and brainstorm as well as doing wars, which is awesome!).
I've already figured out that this novel I'm pantsing is never going to be able to be published without copious re-working and re-writing, which I'm not enamoured enough to do... It's not so much for bad writing, which can be edited out, but for the fact that it decided to be a rip-off of Alan Dean Foster's Flix series, and then morphed into a truly hideous rip-off of Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series, which is really fun to read and invoked copious amounts of Rule of Cool, but plagiarizing somebody else's ideas is definitely not a cool thing to do, so yeah. I'll probably make a few passes at editing, just for the learning experience and improving my own writing, but this will never get published and I'm actually cool with this.
At least I got to play with a few experiments; writing in second person, keeping the Main Character's gender obscured, writing a sex scene in second person while keeping said MC's gender obscured, writing in first person with that character's gender obscured...Oddly enough, it's easier for me to write in second person than first, though third person is alright (and it's a classic for story-telling, so I might stick with that for my attempts at a publishable work).
Mostly, what this has taught me is that when you just focus for a bit, writing actually isn't all that difficult. You're supposed to write 1,667 words every day, but I find myself pretty easily managing to hit 2.5k or more (as long as I don't let myself quit just because I hit the quota, which is surprisingly difficult to do. Guess I'm lazy to the bone...) And it's been pretty much pure fun playing in the sandbox, so that's awesome as well!
I already have an idea for what I'll do for next year's NaNo (if not sooner), because a cute little plot bunny came to nibble on my brain during a dream some time ago, so I'll have to do some research, world-building, and maybe even make a loose outline before I go again, and maybe then I'll actually have written a book worthy of editing and trying to publish!
Also, after seeing a bunch of people asking for naming advice, that inspired me to go research phonosemantics (which is actually really cool), and here's a good, succinct source for that (which actually required stupid amounts of googling). Honestly, after running an analysis on my chosen name (yes, I have quite deliberately chosen a new name for myself), it rather suits me as a person well, so there's another brink in the construction of this name this suits me ^.^
Saturday, November 1, 2014
NaNoWriMo!
Yes, I am partaking in this madness (2176 words in two hours, right at 0200, go me!). I decided to completely pants this year based on an old post I did, just expanding it and seeing how it turns out. Funny, I hadn't even thought about the context I wrote that in, but in that little "I'm sorry" prefacer paragraph I was all "oh noes, I'm going to give up on NaNo"... and now here I am, expanding on what I wrote last year. Irony is fucking awesome sometimes. And no, I don't actually regret (much) not taking part in last year's NaNo, I had a bunch of shit going on emotionally and it just wasn't a good time.
I just realized I haven't talked about this, so I'm going to talk about it to you lovely imaginaries, see if that makes me feel any better. One of the things that was fucking with my head last year (well, actually, for about the past two and a half years) was constantly worrying about my mother suiciding. See, she had MS (nerve degenerative disease, made lose the ability to walk without leaning on a wall, or a waking stick, or my dad; lose the ability to think coherently when the temperature got about 80 degrees Fahrenheit; lose feeling in her hands and feet), which is a terrible wasting disease that slowly steals your body from you. And she was a very strong woman, took pride in being capable and independent and able to beat up anybody who bothered her, so this was about the worst thing that can happen to her. And of course I had to grow up with her while she was dealing with this every day (plus near-constant migraines, just because life felt like shitting on her), and neither her or me (or my father) have any moral objections to suicide. Really, your body and life is your own, you get to make your own choices, and if you feel you've overstayed Life's welcome then why not check yourself, right? So she gave me a speech, about when I was sixteen and brought it up, that she was seriously thinking about it but promised me she wouldn't until I'd left the house. She gave me another speech when I was eighteen that she wouldn't go without writing me first. So I spent pretty much every fucking day after Basic wondering, in the back of my mind (and then the more forward parts of my mind) "Is today going to be the day I check Facebook and discover that suicide letter from her?"
No, I never did, she died differently. Because drinking made her feel better (she could pretend "Oh, I'm not wobbly and falling on my ass because of MS, it's because I'm drunk", and it also helped somewhat with the migraines), she drank pretty much constantly. And developed cirrhosis. And then decided to fight the disease because she wanted to see me one last time. So when she finally got around to fucking telling me about this (basically right after a visit to a new doctor dad found her after telling her previous quack to fuck off, and the new doctor said "sorry, this is terminal, nothing we can do about it but dull your pain somewhat"), she said that the doctor gave her two months to live (and this happened in April, four months before I separated, two months before I was to be told when exactly I was going to be separated, btw).
So I panicked a bit, bought the soonest flight home I could (which was that Monday, the 14th), rushed home with my uncle (mom's brother who picked me up at the airport), got to talk at her for an hour (because she was too far gone to respond or move or anything, just breathe in painful-sounding rasps; the day she told me she was terminal was apparently her last real coherent day, according to Dad), managed to run out of babble and just started reading to her a short story from our favourite author (Mercedes lackey), and then she died.
At least I got to fulfill her last wish, right? At least I got to stop worrying about when that suicide note would appear in my inbox, right? At least I got half of her decent life insurance policy, right? Fuck all that, it still bloody fucking hurts.
I can't see a cheerful story about how some cancer patient was diagnosed terminal but made a miraculous recovery without getting angry. Sure, the idea of "the doctor gave her six months, but it's been two years and counting!" makes a great headline, but the converse "doctor gave her two months to live, but she only made it a week!" is also too fucking true.
Actually, I'm angry about alot of the shit in this situation. Mom was a good person (not terribly nice, but GOOD), wise and smart and willing to help out pretty much anybody. She got her most of her body, mind, and identity stripped away from her by a stupid disease, died painfully, and... I am so fucking angry at the Powers that Be for doing this shit to her. She didn't deserve it.
Dad told me a story, when I came back home (after I finished my leave, went back to Germany, dealt with outprocessing bullshit, then came back actually separated), about how when I was little I was diagnosed with autism, and this freaked Mom out pretty fucking badly, so she bent her will and decided to make sure that her little daughter wouldn't stay austistic, be able to lead a wonderful and productive life. So apparently the Powers that Be thought that was a good deal, so they gave Mom her daughter, and took herself away. This story kinda makes sense to me (because ever since I realized I had some power as a witch, I kept trying to make Mommy feel better but she wouldn't have none of it), but I really wish it didn't, because I feel I'm really not worth it. Lots of guilt in that, combined with the fact that Mom had two pregnancies before me which she aborted, because she didn't want to have a child at those stages of her life, and I sometimes feel that things would have been better if she had just aborted me too.
This story and the NaNo participation announcement are linked, I promise. I got more into the social swing of NaNo, joined the facebook group, fun times right? Well, one person asked "Hey, does anybody have ideas for a terminal illness that would give a person less than a year to live? Something other than cancer or HIV/AIDS, please"... And of course I had the perfect fucking answer: Cirrhosis. So I started going off on this huge, long rant, realized that it was way too much shit to bog this stranger's day down in, so I ended up editing my response a few times to get most of the feeling out. But I still felt like writing it, so congrats imaginaries, you get to see a little bit more into my fucked-up emotional landscape!
I just realized I haven't talked about this, so I'm going to talk about it to you lovely imaginaries, see if that makes me feel any better. One of the things that was fucking with my head last year (well, actually, for about the past two and a half years) was constantly worrying about my mother suiciding. See, she had MS (nerve degenerative disease, made lose the ability to walk without leaning on a wall, or a waking stick, or my dad; lose the ability to think coherently when the temperature got about 80 degrees Fahrenheit; lose feeling in her hands and feet), which is a terrible wasting disease that slowly steals your body from you. And she was a very strong woman, took pride in being capable and independent and able to beat up anybody who bothered her, so this was about the worst thing that can happen to her. And of course I had to grow up with her while she was dealing with this every day (plus near-constant migraines, just because life felt like shitting on her), and neither her or me (or my father) have any moral objections to suicide. Really, your body and life is your own, you get to make your own choices, and if you feel you've overstayed Life's welcome then why not check yourself, right? So she gave me a speech, about when I was sixteen and brought it up, that she was seriously thinking about it but promised me she wouldn't until I'd left the house. She gave me another speech when I was eighteen that she wouldn't go without writing me first. So I spent pretty much every fucking day after Basic wondering, in the back of my mind (and then the more forward parts of my mind) "Is today going to be the day I check Facebook and discover that suicide letter from her?"
No, I never did, she died differently. Because drinking made her feel better (she could pretend "Oh, I'm not wobbly and falling on my ass because of MS, it's because I'm drunk", and it also helped somewhat with the migraines), she drank pretty much constantly. And developed cirrhosis. And then decided to fight the disease because she wanted to see me one last time. So when she finally got around to fucking telling me about this (basically right after a visit to a new doctor dad found her after telling her previous quack to fuck off, and the new doctor said "sorry, this is terminal, nothing we can do about it but dull your pain somewhat"), she said that the doctor gave her two months to live (and this happened in April, four months before I separated, two months before I was to be told when exactly I was going to be separated, btw).
So I panicked a bit, bought the soonest flight home I could (which was that Monday, the 14th), rushed home with my uncle (mom's brother who picked me up at the airport), got to talk at her for an hour (because she was too far gone to respond or move or anything, just breathe in painful-sounding rasps; the day she told me she was terminal was apparently her last real coherent day, according to Dad), managed to run out of babble and just started reading to her a short story from our favourite author (Mercedes lackey), and then she died.
At least I got to fulfill her last wish, right? At least I got to stop worrying about when that suicide note would appear in my inbox, right? At least I got half of her decent life insurance policy, right? Fuck all that, it still bloody fucking hurts.
I can't see a cheerful story about how some cancer patient was diagnosed terminal but made a miraculous recovery without getting angry. Sure, the idea of "the doctor gave her six months, but it's been two years and counting!" makes a great headline, but the converse "doctor gave her two months to live, but she only made it a week!" is also too fucking true.
Actually, I'm angry about alot of the shit in this situation. Mom was a good person (not terribly nice, but GOOD), wise and smart and willing to help out pretty much anybody. She got her most of her body, mind, and identity stripped away from her by a stupid disease, died painfully, and... I am so fucking angry at the Powers that Be for doing this shit to her. She didn't deserve it.
Dad told me a story, when I came back home (after I finished my leave, went back to Germany, dealt with outprocessing bullshit, then came back actually separated), about how when I was little I was diagnosed with autism, and this freaked Mom out pretty fucking badly, so she bent her will and decided to make sure that her little daughter wouldn't stay austistic, be able to lead a wonderful and productive life. So apparently the Powers that Be thought that was a good deal, so they gave Mom her daughter, and took herself away. This story kinda makes sense to me (because ever since I realized I had some power as a witch, I kept trying to make Mommy feel better but she wouldn't have none of it), but I really wish it didn't, because I feel I'm really not worth it. Lots of guilt in that, combined with the fact that Mom had two pregnancies before me which she aborted, because she didn't want to have a child at those stages of her life, and I sometimes feel that things would have been better if she had just aborted me too.
This story and the NaNo participation announcement are linked, I promise. I got more into the social swing of NaNo, joined the facebook group, fun times right? Well, one person asked "Hey, does anybody have ideas for a terminal illness that would give a person less than a year to live? Something other than cancer or HIV/AIDS, please"... And of course I had the perfect fucking answer: Cirrhosis. So I started going off on this huge, long rant, realized that it was way too much shit to bog this stranger's day down in, so I ended up editing my response a few times to get most of the feeling out. But I still felt like writing it, so congrats imaginaries, you get to see a little bit more into my fucked-up emotional landscape!
Friday, October 10, 2014
A Tale
It is a bright, crisp winter day, and a certain child wanders out from her home to explore this landscape made clean. She laughs in delight as the snow falls on her bare skin, little flecks of cold making her feel alive again. A gust of wind beckons, and she finds her wings, sweeping herself up into the air, floating amongst the snowflakes being tumbled by the restless air.
A man cloaked in shadow and a woman clothed in blood stroll across the snow, but are stilled once they see this girl flying on wings of copper. They are stunned by the flashes of sunlight those wings redirect into their eyes, but quickly recover, crying out "Oh, little angel, aren't you so pretty?
The man's voice is deep, remeniscent of an oil slick floating above water. The sliminess of his words wriggle their way into the girl's ears, transforming the meaning of his innocent words into something much nastier: "Hello little whore, come and let me use you".
The woman's voice is high, the cry of a peacock given words. In her mouth, the harshness of her voice stabs the girl's ears, to say "Come, and I shall feast upon your flesh, and leave you broken"
The girl sings in response, to drive their voices out of her mind. Her song is not words, but notes, but the meaning of joy and freedom shines through. With her song, the wind raised her higher, into the clouds above the forest ahead of the adult pair.
Their minds fixated on the capture, they sprint towards the forest, their footprints swallowed up by the falling snow. As they ran through the forest, their forms dissolved into a miasma of shadow and blood, to form a pool of filth overlaying the clean snow. No matter how they tried, they could not touch the ground or trees, nor rise back into their human shapes. Eventually, their essence froze, then shattered under the weight of a falling tree branch into a perfect circle of shards, soon buried by the snow.
Another child at play frolicked into the forest, to his misfortune, for he soon found those frozen shards of those two denizens. Delighted by their garnet hue, he picks them up to place in his pockets. Those shards never melted again, not even in the heat of the forge, but ever since that fateful day he grew obsessed with owning beauty. This passion lead him to rise to leadership, enlisting his peers to slaughter their neighbors, and he soon established a kingdom rife with rebellion and misery. All his days he carried those shards close to his heart, though he did not have long to appreciate them. His death, however, lasted long indeed; as each of those shards tasted his blood, the woman rose up and devoured his heart entire, the man sank and inhaled his shadow, and they split his soul amongst them. Satisfied, they departed the kingdom their influence created, to hunt for more beauty.
As for the girl? She flew and sang for the rest of her days, and legend circulated about her prowess. She could fly forever without setting foot to ground, she needed no sustenance but rain and snow, her heart reflected all joy like copper reflects light, and her song held the key to eternal life. However, nothing ever came of these rumours, for her power was simpler and deeper. She simply embraced joy and let the light of the world fill her, until her very wings were what weighed her down, and she became one with the sun.
A man cloaked in shadow and a woman clothed in blood stroll across the snow, but are stilled once they see this girl flying on wings of copper. They are stunned by the flashes of sunlight those wings redirect into their eyes, but quickly recover, crying out "Oh, little angel, aren't you so pretty?
The man's voice is deep, remeniscent of an oil slick floating above water. The sliminess of his words wriggle their way into the girl's ears, transforming the meaning of his innocent words into something much nastier: "Hello little whore, come and let me use you".
The woman's voice is high, the cry of a peacock given words. In her mouth, the harshness of her voice stabs the girl's ears, to say "Come, and I shall feast upon your flesh, and leave you broken"
The girl sings in response, to drive their voices out of her mind. Her song is not words, but notes, but the meaning of joy and freedom shines through. With her song, the wind raised her higher, into the clouds above the forest ahead of the adult pair.
Their minds fixated on the capture, they sprint towards the forest, their footprints swallowed up by the falling snow. As they ran through the forest, their forms dissolved into a miasma of shadow and blood, to form a pool of filth overlaying the clean snow. No matter how they tried, they could not touch the ground or trees, nor rise back into their human shapes. Eventually, their essence froze, then shattered under the weight of a falling tree branch into a perfect circle of shards, soon buried by the snow.
Another child at play frolicked into the forest, to his misfortune, for he soon found those frozen shards of those two denizens. Delighted by their garnet hue, he picks them up to place in his pockets. Those shards never melted again, not even in the heat of the forge, but ever since that fateful day he grew obsessed with owning beauty. This passion lead him to rise to leadership, enlisting his peers to slaughter their neighbors, and he soon established a kingdom rife with rebellion and misery. All his days he carried those shards close to his heart, though he did not have long to appreciate them. His death, however, lasted long indeed; as each of those shards tasted his blood, the woman rose up and devoured his heart entire, the man sank and inhaled his shadow, and they split his soul amongst them. Satisfied, they departed the kingdom their influence created, to hunt for more beauty.
As for the girl? She flew and sang for the rest of her days, and legend circulated about her prowess. She could fly forever without setting foot to ground, she needed no sustenance but rain and snow, her heart reflected all joy like copper reflects light, and her song held the key to eternal life. However, nothing ever came of these rumours, for her power was simpler and deeper. She simply embraced joy and let the light of the world fill her, until her very wings were what weighed her down, and she became one with the sun.
As a Veteran
No grand, terrifying secrets shall be revealed in this blog post, so don't get your hopes up. With that said, it's amazing what random little shit sticks with ya, being a veteran.
I honestly don't consider myself a real veteran, because I never saw combat, I never deployed, I never even served a base mission. I was stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, under the 1st Combat Communications squadron; and as a combat com squadron, our entire job was to wait around on stand-by until we were called on to deploy and set up communications for some new little base in the sandbox. The stand-by was filled with makework (I've bored numerous aquaintences about my rants about fucking re-organizing our bay full of equipment every three months)... Like helping other people pack their shit for their deployments while they ran around getting their paperwork done, packing new boxes of shit to send to deployed people because they forgot something or leadership decided to add something to the requirements, or when leadership was feeling too overwhelmed with the paperwork to brainstorm make-work for us we would literally sit around in the office and bullshit (or sitting around outside in the smoke pit bullshitting). But all of that was fucking make-work, practically useless or completely useless shit to do while we waited to be able to do our real jobs, and I feel highly inadequate because I never actually got to go and do my real job before I got kicked out.
And no, I didn't do anything particularly naughty and troublesome to earn the boot. I just painted a big red target on my forehead due to paperwork (of the "failing a test summarizing everything I'm supposed to know about my job by five questions, because if you put a radio in my hands I can make it work but fuck if I can memorize the frequencies of each specific outdated radio the air force has ever had in the past 50 years" kind). And since Congress came down and said "kick out airmen, we need to save money", that put my commander in the position of saying "Well, I like ya, I think you're a good airman, but I can't justify waivering that test requirement when I'm going to have to kick out a bunch of deserving people who haven't failed that test"... So, that's the story.
But it's the little shit that sticks with ya, after you're out. Like the fact that you self-medicate with ibuprofin and water no matter what ails ya. Seriously, you know the saying "you get what you pay for"? Yeah, if it isn't serious enough to land you in the emergency room, you get a bottle of ibuprofin (a cute little perscription bottle of ibuprofin pills that are twice the size of what you get in over-the-counter bottles) and told you're not drinking enough water. And because you've scheduled that appointment to get that cute little perscription of ibuprofin, you've pissed off leadership for skipping out on work, so you learn it's not worth it and stop going (unless you're a dirtbag). Or if you're feeling bored, sad, want to party, the answer is always the same: alcohol! Alcohol is good for any emotional state. And then you get soooo confused when one of your civilian friends calls another one of your civilian friends an alcoholic for drinking multiple beers or a bunch of shots or mixed drinks every day, because for 3/4 of the people you know that aren't married that's their normal "get home from work" activity and you were probably like that yourself. Oh, and you've forgotten how to cook because you're used to eating out (or going to the dining facility if you were cheap) for every meal because as an unmarried person, you were stuck in a dorm with two kitchens for 150 people and it just wasn't worth the bother.
After a couple weeks of civilian life roll around, you start laughing because you haven't had to spend three hours listening to the weekly briefing of different levels of leadership repeating "Don't drink and drive, have a plan, have a back-up plan, and if your plans fail call AADD (airmen against drunk driving), call us, don't call the level of leadership above us you have our number and don't bother them, but seriously call us, or call a wingman because you should have your recall rosters on you; rah rah warm fuzzies about morale and how great we as a squadron and we as an air force are; you should volunteer because volunteering is awesome and looks good on your EPR, here are all these volunteer opportunities going on around this time; and seriously don't drink and drive, have a plan!" Yep, every fucking week we had three hours of listening to that. Then, after a month, it starts to sink in that "holy shit, I can actually unglue myself from my phone!". That recall roster I mentioned a few lines above? It had the names, phone numbers, and addresses of everybody in your shop; you were literally required to carry that and your cellphone on you at all times in case one of your wingmen had to get ahold of you for any reason, in case leadership decided to spread a message, or just call everybody into work.
No, I don't remember half of the cool shit we were taught in Basic training, like how to dismantle and rebuild a M16 in two minutes. But if there's every an accident, I will always treat you for shock (elevate legs, keep warm, keep awake) no matter if you seem to display symptoms or not, and if you ever get a sucking chest wound I know just what to do (cover the wound with a piece of plastic so it creates suction). I know how to bandage a wound, when and how to apply a tourniquet (and afterwards I will find a sharpie or something so I can write a big T on your forehead along with the time I applied said tourniquet), and I could probably improvise a splint out of anything. I was also taught the symptoms and remedies for heatstroke (and the two other illnesses leading up to heatstroke) and frostbite, but fuck if I remember that. However, I still remember how to roll and fold articles of clothing precisely and make perfect corners while making a bed (not that I ever would, because fuck that shit). And drill, I will probably never forget how to do facing movements and marching movements.
Eh, no more word vomit about the military experience comes to mind. I'm glad I did it, I might even do it again if I felt myself severely in need of a job, and I'm grateful for what the Air Force has done for me and the fun times I've had with the people I got to meet... But I am so fucking glad to be out.
I honestly don't consider myself a real veteran, because I never saw combat, I never deployed, I never even served a base mission. I was stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, under the 1st Combat Communications squadron; and as a combat com squadron, our entire job was to wait around on stand-by until we were called on to deploy and set up communications for some new little base in the sandbox. The stand-by was filled with makework (I've bored numerous aquaintences about my rants about fucking re-organizing our bay full of equipment every three months)... Like helping other people pack their shit for their deployments while they ran around getting their paperwork done, packing new boxes of shit to send to deployed people because they forgot something or leadership decided to add something to the requirements, or when leadership was feeling too overwhelmed with the paperwork to brainstorm make-work for us we would literally sit around in the office and bullshit (or sitting around outside in the smoke pit bullshitting). But all of that was fucking make-work, practically useless or completely useless shit to do while we waited to be able to do our real jobs, and I feel highly inadequate because I never actually got to go and do my real job before I got kicked out.
And no, I didn't do anything particularly naughty and troublesome to earn the boot. I just painted a big red target on my forehead due to paperwork (of the "failing a test summarizing everything I'm supposed to know about my job by five questions, because if you put a radio in my hands I can make it work but fuck if I can memorize the frequencies of each specific outdated radio the air force has ever had in the past 50 years" kind). And since Congress came down and said "kick out airmen, we need to save money", that put my commander in the position of saying "Well, I like ya, I think you're a good airman, but I can't justify waivering that test requirement when I'm going to have to kick out a bunch of deserving people who haven't failed that test"... So, that's the story.
But it's the little shit that sticks with ya, after you're out. Like the fact that you self-medicate with ibuprofin and water no matter what ails ya. Seriously, you know the saying "you get what you pay for"? Yeah, if it isn't serious enough to land you in the emergency room, you get a bottle of ibuprofin (a cute little perscription bottle of ibuprofin pills that are twice the size of what you get in over-the-counter bottles) and told you're not drinking enough water. And because you've scheduled that appointment to get that cute little perscription of ibuprofin, you've pissed off leadership for skipping out on work, so you learn it's not worth it and stop going (unless you're a dirtbag). Or if you're feeling bored, sad, want to party, the answer is always the same: alcohol! Alcohol is good for any emotional state. And then you get soooo confused when one of your civilian friends calls another one of your civilian friends an alcoholic for drinking multiple beers or a bunch of shots or mixed drinks every day, because for 3/4 of the people you know that aren't married that's their normal "get home from work" activity and you were probably like that yourself. Oh, and you've forgotten how to cook because you're used to eating out (or going to the dining facility if you were cheap) for every meal because as an unmarried person, you were stuck in a dorm with two kitchens for 150 people and it just wasn't worth the bother.
After a couple weeks of civilian life roll around, you start laughing because you haven't had to spend three hours listening to the weekly briefing of different levels of leadership repeating "Don't drink and drive, have a plan, have a back-up plan, and if your plans fail call AADD (airmen against drunk driving), call us, don't call the level of leadership above us you have our number and don't bother them, but seriously call us, or call a wingman because you should have your recall rosters on you; rah rah warm fuzzies about morale and how great we as a squadron and we as an air force are; you should volunteer because volunteering is awesome and looks good on your EPR, here are all these volunteer opportunities going on around this time; and seriously don't drink and drive, have a plan!" Yep, every fucking week we had three hours of listening to that. Then, after a month, it starts to sink in that "holy shit, I can actually unglue myself from my phone!". That recall roster I mentioned a few lines above? It had the names, phone numbers, and addresses of everybody in your shop; you were literally required to carry that and your cellphone on you at all times in case one of your wingmen had to get ahold of you for any reason, in case leadership decided to spread a message, or just call everybody into work.
No, I don't remember half of the cool shit we were taught in Basic training, like how to dismantle and rebuild a M16 in two minutes. But if there's every an accident, I will always treat you for shock (elevate legs, keep warm, keep awake) no matter if you seem to display symptoms or not, and if you ever get a sucking chest wound I know just what to do (cover the wound with a piece of plastic so it creates suction). I know how to bandage a wound, when and how to apply a tourniquet (and afterwards I will find a sharpie or something so I can write a big T on your forehead along with the time I applied said tourniquet), and I could probably improvise a splint out of anything. I was also taught the symptoms and remedies for heatstroke (and the two other illnesses leading up to heatstroke) and frostbite, but fuck if I remember that. However, I still remember how to roll and fold articles of clothing precisely and make perfect corners while making a bed (not that I ever would, because fuck that shit). And drill, I will probably never forget how to do facing movements and marching movements.
Eh, no more word vomit about the military experience comes to mind. I'm glad I did it, I might even do it again if I felt myself severely in need of a job, and I'm grateful for what the Air Force has done for me and the fun times I've had with the people I got to meet... But I am so fucking glad to be out.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Housekeeping
Hello, imaginaries!
I just had a panic attack about the standard "omg has it really been that long since I've written anything?", and then I started reading through some of my old posts and realized "shit, 2/3 of these are just completely retarded", so I decided to do a little housekeeping and purse the posts unfit for human consumption.
It's funny, I used to have this hard, iron-clad rule to myself of "anything you post, no matter how retarded, needs to stay up so you can be true to yourself about exposing all your honesty, even the bad shit", but I've had to re-evaluate another iron-clad rule to myself recently and it got me thinking "well shit, I am allowed to change my opinions, even the stuff I make rules to myself for", so, the retarded posts got deleted. Some of them had a germ of a cool idea in them, so I might expand on those ideas later.
Don't worry, the meaty, super personal posts are still there, if you want to go looking (those are filed under "personal bullshit", feel free to skip them since that label is accurate), and I've kept all my scribble posts intact (basically the posts labeled "scribbles" are snippets of scenes I've written).
Recent news- I got a fire lit under my ass about writing, and I am going to start taking it seriously. Not going to pursue a couple book ideas I have (because I've realized I can make a fantastic outline of how I want which events to unfold, and then not be able to flesh it out to save my life), but write short stories for anthologies and collections and whatnot. I actually just had this epiphamy, that I could just envision a scene (like I do in my scribbles), and then just expand and flesh it out and figure out what comes afterwards! So, I guess I'll keep you imaginaries posted on any progress I might make XD.
But yes, this ends the self-obligated post to tell you all what I'm doing, instead of just letting posts mysteriously disappear into the void.
I just had a panic attack about the standard "omg has it really been that long since I've written anything?", and then I started reading through some of my old posts and realized "shit, 2/3 of these are just completely retarded", so I decided to do a little housekeeping and purse the posts unfit for human consumption.
It's funny, I used to have this hard, iron-clad rule to myself of "anything you post, no matter how retarded, needs to stay up so you can be true to yourself about exposing all your honesty, even the bad shit", but I've had to re-evaluate another iron-clad rule to myself recently and it got me thinking "well shit, I am allowed to change my opinions, even the stuff I make rules to myself for", so, the retarded posts got deleted. Some of them had a germ of a cool idea in them, so I might expand on those ideas later.
Don't worry, the meaty, super personal posts are still there, if you want to go looking (those are filed under "personal bullshit", feel free to skip them since that label is accurate), and I've kept all my scribble posts intact (basically the posts labeled "scribbles" are snippets of scenes I've written).
Recent news- I got a fire lit under my ass about writing, and I am going to start taking it seriously. Not going to pursue a couple book ideas I have (because I've realized I can make a fantastic outline of how I want which events to unfold, and then not be able to flesh it out to save my life), but write short stories for anthologies and collections and whatnot. I actually just had this epiphamy, that I could just envision a scene (like I do in my scribbles), and then just expand and flesh it out and figure out what comes afterwards! So, I guess I'll keep you imaginaries posted on any progress I might make XD.
But yes, this ends the self-obligated post to tell you all what I'm doing, instead of just letting posts mysteriously disappear into the void.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Well... hi there
Gods, it feels like it's been forever since I've written here. No real excuse, I just kinda forgot this blog even existed. All those ramblings on "gosh, what is this blog even for? ... I dunno" really drove the point home in my mind that, well, if I'm going to be silly enough to blog without a purpose, then why should I be blogging at all?
But I do want to start up (again) with the working on my writing, showing my life to whatever random people (nobody) would be interested in seeing what the bits of my life are like that I share, etc. I do feel that a chunk of my life purpose is to provide a living example- here's who I am, see how I'm unconventional and live an awesome life and find awesome people to love me anyways, etc.
Fuck it. The real reason is I need something to convince myself that I'm being productive while I'm being held at loose ends indefinitely here. Why? Well.... Hold on while I dump a bucket of word vomit, feel free to give none of the shits, etc.
So on my 2nd anniversary of being part of the glorious USAF (January 17th), I got told that due to the force shaping (aka kicking people out because Congress wanted to shrink the military budget), I was going to get the boot. Still don't know exactly when I'm going to be gone, I'm not able to start completing any outprocessing actions (outprocessing = mounds and mounds of paperwork for arranging shit like how much pay you're entitled to, taking care of unused leave, getting a last free medical checkup, etc), so I'm left in uncertainty mode- all I can do is put as much money into savings as possible and think up distractionary techniques.
No, I don't have a 'real' plan- since I sincerely doubt it's a good idea for me to decide on anything permanent while I'm in this much stress and mostly spending my days drunk. My plan is to crash on a friend's couch and do the housework for him and his roommate until I can figure out a better. Assuming I ever figure out a better, instead of drifting around looking for things out of life besides the career ladder. Honestly, I don't see myself wanting to go the career path; I'd rather grab a job (clock in, do work, clock out just sounds so much better to me) and write on the side (assuming I can ever get myself to write, that is).But of course everybody in my work environment is trying to give me advice for the career path because they all think that's the best thing that a person could strive for, and.... nah.
So, yeah. Right now I'm focusing on saving money, spending as much time with my boytoy (hereforth known as Bastard- his mother was a hamster, and even if his father had wanted to do the right thing by her, it wouldn't exactly have been a legal marriage, so... We have that kinda playful jibing relationship) as possible before I have to leave him, and drinking the stores of mead I've collected over here in Germany while I can (this last because us military stationed over here can drink at 18, per host nation law, and I'll be sent to the states before that magical 21st birthday).
Gods, Bastard... It actually kinda scares me how much in love with him I am. He isn't perfect, but he's the kind of awesome that transcends mere perfection. I wish I could describe him without sounding absolutely trite, but my tongue/fingers get all twisted up and I start reciting "thoughtful, sweet, gorgeous", which obviously does no good at all. Bah. Trust me, he's amazing, I'm not sure what I'm going to do without him as emotional support (seriously, he gives top quality cuddles, plus I can literally tell him anything and everything and he'll accept all of it), and...
Well, I don't want to end life right now- I want as much time with Bastard as I can get. After a couple days in the states, though, I really don't know how badly the suicide ideation is going to hit me (recently, my suicide ideation has become disassociated from my depression, which feels freaking weird from both angles), and it's going to be easy as hell for me to go through with it then. I'll have made up a will sometime before I leave (hey, getting all I can out of the AF before I go), I'll have switched over to veteran's group life insurance which will pay out for suicides (and how weird is that, when I researched that and actually found that to be true, that literally made my day, that I could die of obvious suicide and not have to worry about the claim being rejected), and I already have a tiny scalpel blade, but it will be SO easy to find better knives, or a gun, in the states, that I can just have laying around in my area because I want them. Fyi, military doesn't work like that, at least not if you live on base- you're not allowed to bring weaponry onto base. Bad juju there.
Lately, suicide hasn't been about "I hurt and I need it to stop". The thought of suicide translates emotionally to joy for me- "Yay I get to flee all these bullshit concerns!" if I had to put a thought pattern to it, but all I think of when daydreaming about a bullet to the brainpan, squish, is straight joy. And I am okay with this. And I can't say this to anybody besides Bastard without having to worry about them freaking out at me, telling other people on my facebook, possibly finding a military-affiliated friend who would feel duty-bound to report me to leadership, who would then mandatorily sentence me to counseling, put me under surveillance, all sorts of negative consequences... And as a civilian, I don't have to worry about that! It's a beautiful realization.
Meh. Suppose I should end on a positive note, but the word vomit bucket is suddenly running dry, so... You can probably expect a bit more in the way of updates at least, dear imaginaries?
But I do want to start up (again) with the working on my writing, showing my life to whatever random people (nobody) would be interested in seeing what the bits of my life are like that I share, etc. I do feel that a chunk of my life purpose is to provide a living example- here's who I am, see how I'm unconventional and live an awesome life and find awesome people to love me anyways, etc.
Fuck it. The real reason is I need something to convince myself that I'm being productive while I'm being held at loose ends indefinitely here. Why? Well.... Hold on while I dump a bucket of word vomit, feel free to give none of the shits, etc.
So on my 2nd anniversary of being part of the glorious USAF (January 17th), I got told that due to the force shaping (aka kicking people out because Congress wanted to shrink the military budget), I was going to get the boot. Still don't know exactly when I'm going to be gone, I'm not able to start completing any outprocessing actions (outprocessing = mounds and mounds of paperwork for arranging shit like how much pay you're entitled to, taking care of unused leave, getting a last free medical checkup, etc), so I'm left in uncertainty mode- all I can do is put as much money into savings as possible and think up distractionary techniques.
No, I don't have a 'real' plan- since I sincerely doubt it's a good idea for me to decide on anything permanent while I'm in this much stress and mostly spending my days drunk. My plan is to crash on a friend's couch and do the housework for him and his roommate until I can figure out a better. Assuming I ever figure out a better, instead of drifting around looking for things out of life besides the career ladder. Honestly, I don't see myself wanting to go the career path; I'd rather grab a job (clock in, do work, clock out just sounds so much better to me) and write on the side (assuming I can ever get myself to write, that is).But of course everybody in my work environment is trying to give me advice for the career path because they all think that's the best thing that a person could strive for, and.... nah.
So, yeah. Right now I'm focusing on saving money, spending as much time with my boytoy (hereforth known as Bastard- his mother was a hamster, and even if his father had wanted to do the right thing by her, it wouldn't exactly have been a legal marriage, so... We have that kinda playful jibing relationship) as possible before I have to leave him, and drinking the stores of mead I've collected over here in Germany while I can (this last because us military stationed over here can drink at 18, per host nation law, and I'll be sent to the states before that magical 21st birthday).
Gods, Bastard... It actually kinda scares me how much in love with him I am. He isn't perfect, but he's the kind of awesome that transcends mere perfection. I wish I could describe him without sounding absolutely trite, but my tongue/fingers get all twisted up and I start reciting "thoughtful, sweet, gorgeous", which obviously does no good at all. Bah. Trust me, he's amazing, I'm not sure what I'm going to do without him as emotional support (seriously, he gives top quality cuddles, plus I can literally tell him anything and everything and he'll accept all of it), and...
Well, I don't want to end life right now- I want as much time with Bastard as I can get. After a couple days in the states, though, I really don't know how badly the suicide ideation is going to hit me (recently, my suicide ideation has become disassociated from my depression, which feels freaking weird from both angles), and it's going to be easy as hell for me to go through with it then. I'll have made up a will sometime before I leave (hey, getting all I can out of the AF before I go), I'll have switched over to veteran's group life insurance which will pay out for suicides (and how weird is that, when I researched that and actually found that to be true, that literally made my day, that I could die of obvious suicide and not have to worry about the claim being rejected), and I already have a tiny scalpel blade, but it will be SO easy to find better knives, or a gun, in the states, that I can just have laying around in my area because I want them. Fyi, military doesn't work like that, at least not if you live on base- you're not allowed to bring weaponry onto base. Bad juju there.
Lately, suicide hasn't been about "I hurt and I need it to stop". The thought of suicide translates emotionally to joy for me- "Yay I get to flee all these bullshit concerns!" if I had to put a thought pattern to it, but all I think of when daydreaming about a bullet to the brainpan, squish, is straight joy. And I am okay with this. And I can't say this to anybody besides Bastard without having to worry about them freaking out at me, telling other people on my facebook, possibly finding a military-affiliated friend who would feel duty-bound to report me to leadership, who would then mandatorily sentence me to counseling, put me under surveillance, all sorts of negative consequences... And as a civilian, I don't have to worry about that! It's a beautiful realization.
Meh. Suppose I should end on a positive note, but the word vomit bucket is suddenly running dry, so... You can probably expect a bit more in the way of updates at least, dear imaginaries?
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Bullet in the Brainpan, Squish!
Sun shines bright
Peaceful nights
The Wheel turned high
Every reason to smile
Heart filled with ice
Mind disconnected
Body without grace
Energy feels hollow
Everything going well
Pressing problems solved
So why oh why
Does Death beckon so sweetly?
Peaceful nights
The Wheel turned high
Every reason to smile
Heart filled with ice
Mind disconnected
Body without grace
Energy feels hollow
Everything going well
Pressing problems solved
So why oh why
Does Death beckon so sweetly?
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Little Scribble
The trees are sparse, punctuating the land here and there, never in more than groups of five. Their branches are still full of autumn leaves, now covered in ice; the storm came early. The ground crunches under your weight, the snow covering the fallen leaves thickly. The sky is overcast; occasionally the sun's rays burst through, reflecting off the snow and clouds and causing the landscape to blind you in endless white light which never quite warms you like you need. Underneath one particularly alluring tree, you see an shape, just an odd corner of stone poking out from beneath it's snowy blanket. Curious, you wander over and start to uncover it; revealing a gravestone, inscription so faded you cannot read it by the blinding glare of the endless light, the light that is so showy but without the real substance of warmth. You realize you're becoming more and more numb the longer you stay, but can't find it in your heart to leave. Indeed, this place lives in your heart, is your spirit's landscape; it is where your mind lives whilst in the throes of your depression. You have not figured out all the symbolism within this place, but you know the snow has been your attempt to bury all the pain, and when the cold became a pain of it's own you tried to bring in sunlight to warm your heart. But you still want the snow to numb the pain, so the sunlight never melts away the ice, only serves to blind you from discovering what you buried in this mental graveyard. You know this place stretches to infinity, as there is endless snow, but you are only able to see this one little grave with its birch guardian for now.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Elemental thoughts
Air.... is vast. Air is our breath, the element we can live the shortest without, the
medium most our far-ranging senses are tuned to (we see by light, hear
by sound waves, smell by particles, all carried by air). Air's home, it's source, is the sky; sky envelops the earth, helps redistribute the elements (the water in rain and snow, the fire in sunshine and lightning, the earth in sandstorms and tornadoes). Sky is the cushion between the earth and space; it becomes the gateway to the cosmic infinite, the thousand lights of inspiration. Air keeps everything circulating, moving things when they get old to a new place so they may be new again. Air... refreshes.
Fire...is fierce. Fire is our spark, the element we associate with ambition and creativity (which drive us to all of our memorable feats). Our manipulation of fire is the root of our difference from other species, the root of our civilizations (because of fire, we are able to survive the cold and thus explore much of the earth, and mold and run the tools we use to shape the world to our liking). Fire burns the old to make room for the new, taking energy (from fuel) to lend (as heat, as light) to some new purpose. Fire sterilizes, cauterizes, yet fertilizes (volcanic erruptions creating land, forest fires leaving room for more plants to grow, etc). Fire is destroyer and creator, bringer of both life and death, movement and vitality and light. Fire...transforms.
Water... is deep. Water is our blood, our source, our most essential nutrient. Water covers most of our planet and fills the skies with clouds, too little (drought) and too much (floods) cause us to die but we are utterly dependent on just the right amount of water to survive. Water shapes our landscape (everything from the routes of the rivers and coastlines to what plants grow in what places) and frees us from our own weight. Water... cleanses.
Earth... is solid. Earth is our foundation, our source of food, our playground for exploration and survival. It forms our landscape, acting as both cradle and challenge, gives us stability. Earth accepts everything we give it, and gives life to everything. Earth lets us grow, lets everything grow (including those forces not so friendly towards humanity), provides us with countless treasures and countless dangers as well. Earth... grows.
Fire...is fierce. Fire is our spark, the element we associate with ambition and creativity (which drive us to all of our memorable feats). Our manipulation of fire is the root of our difference from other species, the root of our civilizations (because of fire, we are able to survive the cold and thus explore much of the earth, and mold and run the tools we use to shape the world to our liking). Fire burns the old to make room for the new, taking energy (from fuel) to lend (as heat, as light) to some new purpose. Fire sterilizes, cauterizes, yet fertilizes (volcanic erruptions creating land, forest fires leaving room for more plants to grow, etc). Fire is destroyer and creator, bringer of both life and death, movement and vitality and light. Fire...transforms.
Water... is deep. Water is our blood, our source, our most essential nutrient. Water covers most of our planet and fills the skies with clouds, too little (drought) and too much (floods) cause us to die but we are utterly dependent on just the right amount of water to survive. Water shapes our landscape (everything from the routes of the rivers and coastlines to what plants grow in what places) and frees us from our own weight. Water... cleanses.
Earth... is solid. Earth is our foundation, our source of food, our playground for exploration and survival. It forms our landscape, acting as both cradle and challenge, gives us stability. Earth accepts everything we give it, and gives life to everything. Earth lets us grow, lets everything grow (including those forces not so friendly towards humanity), provides us with countless treasures and countless dangers as well. Earth... grows.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
I'm not actually dead!
And to prove it, have a bit of scribble... Written mainly because despite realizing that there's no way I'm going to actually fulfill this year's NaNoWriMo challenge (yes, I had 3/4 of a year to prepare and I still have no idea what basic plot I'd like to play with, much less anything else), I should keep writing anyways, and maybe turn out something decent over a longer period of time than a month, or something.
"Oi, you there!"
What with all the noise on the street (engines roaring, birds cawing, bells chiming, sea crashing), it's amazing your ear decided to pick that one voice out of the din. Normally you trust the things your senses notice, but you're already doing your best to be inconspicuous, so you continue on in your nonchallant way.
"Alex, stop!"
Your blood freezes. Nobody has called you that in years, entirely due to your obsession to hide your identity. Abandoning the apparently useless persona of a normal citizen, you break into a dead sprint at the sound of your name. You leap fences and dash down alleyways in an automatic attempt to evade pursurers, in a route intended to bring you to the startport in a more direct way than you were originally trying to detract attention from. You don't actually hear any pursuers, and when you risk looking back you see no weapons, cameras, people... anything. The entire area is deserted.
Obviously, you miscalculated. You see no choice but to press forward at the same break-neck pace, hoping to outrun the danger. You're in good health and you see no gas emmisions, but all the same you get woozy, and within a few steps you stumble and sprawl to the ground, unconscious.
A few men, in the neutral suits that scream 'Government Enforcers', appear from inside the surrounding buildings.
"These people never want to cooperate", one remarked dispassionately as they pick up the body and dump it into a transport.
"Always have to do this the hard way", another agreed while fastening a series of straps. "Recruit, here's a lesson for you: they never listen to reason. If we hadn't already arranged for the flight responce, we might have lost it altogether- it was quick. Quicker even than normal, amongst these".
The apparent leader of the oeratives cuts in with "Of course it was fast- that's why Oversight wants this specimen back so badly. Now shut your yaps and do your jobs".
Without further comment, the body was secured, and the transport set on its way to the body's final destination. All concievable security measures were in place: alarms, cameras, human guards, drugs to impair consciousness, restraints, etc. Nevertheless, none of these seemed to matter, since halfway through the journey, Alex disappeared. The restraints fell to meet the table, alarms started a blaring cacophany, and the guards all decided they would rather shoot themselves then face the punishment that would surely be meted out- let the pilot be the scapegoat, rather than they.
The transport arrived, per the timetable. Pilot and Leader go to help the rest deal with the body, and discover the disaster. There was much shouting and blaming and venting of tempers and fear, but eventually the pair got their heads together to deal with business. Leader indeed made the pilot into the scapegoat for the mess, and proceeded with brainstorming the next plan to bring Alex under their control.
"Oi, you there!"
What with all the noise on the street (engines roaring, birds cawing, bells chiming, sea crashing), it's amazing your ear decided to pick that one voice out of the din. Normally you trust the things your senses notice, but you're already doing your best to be inconspicuous, so you continue on in your nonchallant way.
"Alex, stop!"
Your blood freezes. Nobody has called you that in years, entirely due to your obsession to hide your identity. Abandoning the apparently useless persona of a normal citizen, you break into a dead sprint at the sound of your name. You leap fences and dash down alleyways in an automatic attempt to evade pursurers, in a route intended to bring you to the startport in a more direct way than you were originally trying to detract attention from. You don't actually hear any pursuers, and when you risk looking back you see no weapons, cameras, people... anything. The entire area is deserted.
Obviously, you miscalculated. You see no choice but to press forward at the same break-neck pace, hoping to outrun the danger. You're in good health and you see no gas emmisions, but all the same you get woozy, and within a few steps you stumble and sprawl to the ground, unconscious.
A few men, in the neutral suits that scream 'Government Enforcers', appear from inside the surrounding buildings.
"These people never want to cooperate", one remarked dispassionately as they pick up the body and dump it into a transport.
"Always have to do this the hard way", another agreed while fastening a series of straps. "Recruit, here's a lesson for you: they never listen to reason. If we hadn't already arranged for the flight responce, we might have lost it altogether- it was quick. Quicker even than normal, amongst these".
The apparent leader of the oeratives cuts in with "Of course it was fast- that's why Oversight wants this specimen back so badly. Now shut your yaps and do your jobs".
Without further comment, the body was secured, and the transport set on its way to the body's final destination. All concievable security measures were in place: alarms, cameras, human guards, drugs to impair consciousness, restraints, etc. Nevertheless, none of these seemed to matter, since halfway through the journey, Alex disappeared. The restraints fell to meet the table, alarms started a blaring cacophany, and the guards all decided they would rather shoot themselves then face the punishment that would surely be meted out- let the pilot be the scapegoat, rather than they.
The transport arrived, per the timetable. Pilot and Leader go to help the rest deal with the body, and discover the disaster. There was much shouting and blaming and venting of tempers and fear, but eventually the pair got their heads together to deal with business. Leader indeed made the pilot into the scapegoat for the mess, and proceeded with brainstorming the next plan to bring Alex under their control.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Blargh
"I tried so hard, and got so far
But in the end, it doesn't even matter
I had to fall, to lose it all
But in the end, it doesn't even matter"
I've had this song by Linkin Park stuck in my brain for the past couple days, to the point where I have it playing continuously on repeat, and thought I'd try to figure out why it's so stuck.
I know it's a cliche careless listener trait, but that lyric is the only lyric out of that song that I really resonate to- the rest of the words have their own message, but for me they're essentially padding for the rest of the song as far as personal resonance goes. For those who don't know this song, essentially it's speaking about a betrayal in a relationship, but that doesn't really speak to me. I've been lucky enough to not run into unpleasant personal situations- most of my struggles have all been internal rather than external.
But anyways. After taking a look at that chorus in words, I realize I'm interpreting it in a positive way- a sort of reminder that this great big game we call life isn't worth putting too much worry and pain and negative into to try to "win", because in the end it really doesn't matter. And that even when the wheel turns and you lose everything, in the end that isn't going to matter either. And that's a philosophy I can definitely get behind (or rather, apparently I have already gotten behind this philosophy... and shut up gutter brain I don't mean it that way). There's alot of freedom in not caring about things. Of course there's things you gain when you care about things (stability, passion, joy), so it really comes down to your personal balance.
And yes, I realize this post is full of suck. No, I don't particularly care.
But in the end, it doesn't even matter
I had to fall, to lose it all
But in the end, it doesn't even matter"
I've had this song by Linkin Park stuck in my brain for the past couple days, to the point where I have it playing continuously on repeat, and thought I'd try to figure out why it's so stuck.
I know it's a cliche careless listener trait, but that lyric is the only lyric out of that song that I really resonate to- the rest of the words have their own message, but for me they're essentially padding for the rest of the song as far as personal resonance goes. For those who don't know this song, essentially it's speaking about a betrayal in a relationship, but that doesn't really speak to me. I've been lucky enough to not run into unpleasant personal situations- most of my struggles have all been internal rather than external.
But anyways. After taking a look at that chorus in words, I realize I'm interpreting it in a positive way- a sort of reminder that this great big game we call life isn't worth putting too much worry and pain and negative into to try to "win", because in the end it really doesn't matter. And that even when the wheel turns and you lose everything, in the end that isn't going to matter either. And that's a philosophy I can definitely get behind (or rather, apparently I have already gotten behind this philosophy... and shut up gutter brain I don't mean it that way). There's alot of freedom in not caring about things. Of course there's things you gain when you care about things (stability, passion, joy), so it really comes down to your personal balance.
And yes, I realize this post is full of suck. No, I don't particularly care.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
A Scarlet Letter
The last time I saw my inspiration, it had formed a trio with my mind and my wits and they were singing Christmas carols as a round in the pub... that was last week and they still haven't come back. So, I'm gonna try having a few friends feed me prompts to keep this little blog breathing a bit of fresh air. Apparently, today's topic is the scarlet letter.
Now, all I know of this book is only a bit more coherent than a quarter-finished pointalism painting, but the impression I got was the protagonist commited adultery by sleeping with a preacher, and was punished to public shame and bullying by way of a scarlet 'A' she had to wear on all of her clothes. At the time, I was miffed because I never noticed the preacher she slept with being punished (though there's plenty of room for me to be wrong, it's not like I actually read the book), but now I have another idea...
What would life be like if we had to visually declare our shames everywhere we went? Not necessarily for crimes (that's what public records are for), and the idea of exposing all our secret things gets rather complicated, but things society at large declares as shameful. Bigots of any flavor. Homophobes. Hypocrites. Control freaks. Creepy "Nice Guys (TM)". Right-wing fundamentalists. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone like that had a warning label on them?
I do have a rather liberal mindset, so a conservative person would probably come up with a different list of the people they'd like to put a warning label on. And the beauty of this is, they could and it would make life easier: everyone is warned away from the people they wouldn't want to associate with.
Of course, you really can't put all of a book's contents on it's cover. And trying to is a really bad idea- the best you can do is a paragraph summary, which completely misses all the detail and emotion and everything that makes the book worth reading. So the progression of this little idea ends up in a very stupid place, one that would make any libertarian terrified of the future (well, moreso than a cynical person already is).
All the really interesting things in life are only found when you look deep; and passing by the things that look weird and ugly on the surface leads to an unfulfilled life.
Now, all I know of this book is only a bit more coherent than a quarter-finished pointalism painting, but the impression I got was the protagonist commited adultery by sleeping with a preacher, and was punished to public shame and bullying by way of a scarlet 'A' she had to wear on all of her clothes. At the time, I was miffed because I never noticed the preacher she slept with being punished (though there's plenty of room for me to be wrong, it's not like I actually read the book), but now I have another idea...
What would life be like if we had to visually declare our shames everywhere we went? Not necessarily for crimes (that's what public records are for), and the idea of exposing all our secret things gets rather complicated, but things society at large declares as shameful. Bigots of any flavor. Homophobes. Hypocrites. Control freaks. Creepy "Nice Guys (TM)". Right-wing fundamentalists. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone like that had a warning label on them?
I do have a rather liberal mindset, so a conservative person would probably come up with a different list of the people they'd like to put a warning label on. And the beauty of this is, they could and it would make life easier: everyone is warned away from the people they wouldn't want to associate with.
Of course, you really can't put all of a book's contents on it's cover. And trying to is a really bad idea- the best you can do is a paragraph summary, which completely misses all the detail and emotion and everything that makes the book worth reading. So the progression of this little idea ends up in a very stupid place, one that would make any libertarian terrified of the future (well, moreso than a cynical person already is).
All the really interesting things in life are only found when you look deep; and passing by the things that look weird and ugly on the surface leads to an unfulfilled life.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Sketches of Beauty
There is beauty in order
Stable structures stretching to infinity in complex patterns...
There is beauty in chaos
Ever-changing structures interacting in complex ways...
There is beauty in ice
Brilliant forms reflecting and spreading light.
There is beauty in fire
Wild forms growing and creating light.
There is beauty in light
Letting seeking eyes see the world.
There is beauty in darkness
Giving tired eyes a rest from the world.
People speak of opinions and black and white
And varying shades of grey
But that implies a much simpler world than we live in
For we live in an explosion of color
And those whose opinions are red-orange and yellow-orange
Will argue just as vehemetly
As those whose opinions are orange and blue
There is beauty and poetry in everything, if you know how to see
If I were a better poet, I would invite you in to wander in my world
Look through my eyes, dear explorers, see the joy...
But alas, I can only sketch
And let you fill in the detail with your own eyes, own experience
Though I suppose that is a perfectly valid form of writing in itself
To direct your mind along a path, let you see what you notice
Stable structures stretching to infinity in complex patterns...
There is beauty in chaos
Ever-changing structures interacting in complex ways...
There is beauty in ice
Brilliant forms reflecting and spreading light.
There is beauty in fire
Wild forms growing and creating light.
There is beauty in light
Letting seeking eyes see the world.
There is beauty in darkness
Giving tired eyes a rest from the world.
People speak of opinions and black and white
And varying shades of grey
But that implies a much simpler world than we live in
For we live in an explosion of color
And those whose opinions are red-orange and yellow-orange
Will argue just as vehemetly
As those whose opinions are orange and blue
There is beauty and poetry in everything, if you know how to see
If I were a better poet, I would invite you in to wander in my world
Look through my eyes, dear explorers, see the joy...
But alas, I can only sketch
And let you fill in the detail with your own eyes, own experience
Though I suppose that is a perfectly valid form of writing in itself
To direct your mind along a path, let you see what you notice
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Wrackspurts
An amusing form of local life around the Shyenia resort
located on Mar's northern hemisphere. The closest botanical comparison
to Earth species is the venus flytrap; however, wrackspurts show much
more ambulatory characteristics, possessing the ability to withdraw and
expend from their root system at will. Essentially, they will burrow
into their root system until they detect vibrations from the surface,
then errupt suddenly and stun their prey with their toxic needles. Over
the course of a a day to a month, depending on the size of their prey,
they shall drain the animal of blood.
This is the art of taking a random-ass word and running with it.
This is the art of taking a random-ass word and running with it.
Friday, February 22, 2013
"Well, go see someone!"
Try talking to me about my depression. I dare you. Actually, I don't, but here's what that conversation looks like. For my dear imaginaries, the main reason I'm writing this is so when people try and start this conversation with me I can just link them to this post, since I'm kinda sick of trying to type this all out articulately at various times when I'm in various mindsets.
"Well, go see someone!"
Um, well, see, there's a problem with that. Several, actually.
A) I'm in the military. Which means I do have an option for confidentiality (chaplains, and of course there's the speech over how they won't shove their religion down your throat to help you, which I do actually kinda trust), but I'm still putting my career (and essentially my future, since I don't really have prospects for a plan B if I get kicked out just yet. We can discuss this in a later post) in the hands of a random person who would feel bound to do anything necessary to keep me from killing myself on their watch. These options could range to breaking confidentiality and relaying this secret of mine up the chain of command, or they could order me to the doctor and shove pills down my throat, or they could declare me unfit and get me booted out.
Admittedly, I'm not quite sure how a chaplain would handle this situation, and it does kinda depend on what I tell them- there's a sliding scale between absolute truth: "Well sir, I've known I was bipolar well before I joined the military, and I've had suicidal ideation since I was around 7 years old, but I lied on every psych eval to get in the military since I didn't see another option for myself to have a future, but I recently realized that I don't like my brain that much so I want to take shameless advantage of the military's benefits to fix this life-long problem I lied to the Air Force about", half-lie: "Well sir, I recently found out from my parents that I was diagnosed with bipolar at an early age, and it's made alot of things come clear for me- I've always assumed that I was normal, but I did more research and holy shit but my brain is actually rather fucked up, and I think I'd like to see what it would be like if I didn't have random depressive spells, maybe see if I could be an even better, more productive Airman" and shameless lie: "Well sir, I've recently developed suicidal ideation, and thanks to friends not leaving me alone I haven't given into the impulses, but it's gotten to the point where I honestly scare myself and I want to take shameless advantage of the military's benefits to fix this problem". Problem with the truth is that I could very well get kicked out; problem with the half-lie and outright lie is that everyone involved would make incorrect assumptions about the sort of treatment I would need and probably end up fucking me up worse.
B) Treatment options. The two main options are therapy and medication.
Therapy: The is probably the safer route. I could probably go to a chaplain, spill everything that's bothering me, let them help me work out issues, or let the chaplain refer me to a therapist who could help with said issues. The problem with this is... professional therapy wouldn't actually help that much, permanently. I already have a cadre of friends I use as therapists, I meditate daily and I'm slowly researching therapy techniques, psychology, all sorts of things in that general body of knowledge to help myself out. I'm already getting alot of theraputic value at no risk to myself, so to involve risk to my future for better therapy when I'm already getting enough to keep me alive? Hell to the no.
Medication. Aka having some random-ass doctor feed me a bunch of chemicals designed to fuck with my brain that doctors haven't quite gotten the science down on. Meaning there are all sorts of horror stories about how different chemicals affect different people for different reasons and the doctors haven't figured out why yet, and I'm terrified of being a horror story. What's worse, bipolar II (my issue) hasn't been studied nearly as much as bipolar I, bipolar hasn't been studied nearly as much as depression, what works for depression makes the depressive side of bipolar even worse, AND the medications for bipolar are all designed around treating the mania first, depression second. Which sucks for me because I LIKE MY HYPOMANIA, and I know I won't be able to convince any doctor that letting me keep my hypomania is a legitimate option.
C) I am managing alright already. I have made loads of progress on the therapy front; Basic was hell but it also forced me to confront alot of what I hated about myself, so now depressive spells just entitle lac of energy rather than loads of self-hate, I was serious when I said I have a good group of friends as therapists, and I've been meditating daily and doing my best to resolve issues as they come up. As far as intellectual and emotional understanding, I'm pretty damn far ahead of alot of healthy people. I've been paying conscious attention to my mood, the sort of things that trigger certain reactions, practicing emotional regulating techniques to keep bad spells from getting worse and great spells from getting too out of had, and I'm much more regulated than I've ever been. For the chemical front (which is the dominant factor of this whole issue), I've started taking fish oil supplements based on some research I found (multiple sources confirming this, yes it's casual internet research but then again I can't really do much harm to myself with this) that suggests that the omega-3 proteins can help ease depression while boosting/ignoring maniac effects (differing opinions), which is certainly my goal. And yes, I've been incorporating ways to protect my life from suicidal ideation- not letting myself research best ways to kill myself (beyond what knowledge I've already gathered, and I know half of which is probably inaccurate), not letting myself buy rope, not letting myself leave my room when I'm depressed unless I'm in the company of friends or going to work (aka not letting myself climb the stairs and jump off the fourth floor), etc.
And yes, I do know that my bipolar is all about the chemicals in my brain, therapy won't really change the fact that I get major depressive and maniac spells, so if I want to stop feeling depressed I need to seriously fuck with my brain chemicals. Which I'm terrified of doing. And adding the possible damage to my future as a condition for fucking with my brain.... yeah, hell to the no. I'll stick with what I have and occasionally rail against Fate for putting me in the position to where I'm no longer allowed to consider killing myself as an escape option. Life sucks and then you die, and all that...
And no, I haven't figured out why the hell I'm feeling the need to talk about this shit on this blog. If you figure it out, let me know XD
"Well, go see someone!"
Um, well, see, there's a problem with that. Several, actually.
A) I'm in the military. Which means I do have an option for confidentiality (chaplains, and of course there's the speech over how they won't shove their religion down your throat to help you, which I do actually kinda trust), but I'm still putting my career (and essentially my future, since I don't really have prospects for a plan B if I get kicked out just yet. We can discuss this in a later post) in the hands of a random person who would feel bound to do anything necessary to keep me from killing myself on their watch. These options could range to breaking confidentiality and relaying this secret of mine up the chain of command, or they could order me to the doctor and shove pills down my throat, or they could declare me unfit and get me booted out.
Admittedly, I'm not quite sure how a chaplain would handle this situation, and it does kinda depend on what I tell them- there's a sliding scale between absolute truth: "Well sir, I've known I was bipolar well before I joined the military, and I've had suicidal ideation since I was around 7 years old, but I lied on every psych eval to get in the military since I didn't see another option for myself to have a future, but I recently realized that I don't like my brain that much so I want to take shameless advantage of the military's benefits to fix this life-long problem I lied to the Air Force about", half-lie: "Well sir, I recently found out from my parents that I was diagnosed with bipolar at an early age, and it's made alot of things come clear for me- I've always assumed that I was normal, but I did more research and holy shit but my brain is actually rather fucked up, and I think I'd like to see what it would be like if I didn't have random depressive spells, maybe see if I could be an even better, more productive Airman" and shameless lie: "Well sir, I've recently developed suicidal ideation, and thanks to friends not leaving me alone I haven't given into the impulses, but it's gotten to the point where I honestly scare myself and I want to take shameless advantage of the military's benefits to fix this problem". Problem with the truth is that I could very well get kicked out; problem with the half-lie and outright lie is that everyone involved would make incorrect assumptions about the sort of treatment I would need and probably end up fucking me up worse.
B) Treatment options. The two main options are therapy and medication.
Therapy: The is probably the safer route. I could probably go to a chaplain, spill everything that's bothering me, let them help me work out issues, or let the chaplain refer me to a therapist who could help with said issues. The problem with this is... professional therapy wouldn't actually help that much, permanently. I already have a cadre of friends I use as therapists, I meditate daily and I'm slowly researching therapy techniques, psychology, all sorts of things in that general body of knowledge to help myself out. I'm already getting alot of theraputic value at no risk to myself, so to involve risk to my future for better therapy when I'm already getting enough to keep me alive? Hell to the no.
Medication. Aka having some random-ass doctor feed me a bunch of chemicals designed to fuck with my brain that doctors haven't quite gotten the science down on. Meaning there are all sorts of horror stories about how different chemicals affect different people for different reasons and the doctors haven't figured out why yet, and I'm terrified of being a horror story. What's worse, bipolar II (my issue) hasn't been studied nearly as much as bipolar I, bipolar hasn't been studied nearly as much as depression, what works for depression makes the depressive side of bipolar even worse, AND the medications for bipolar are all designed around treating the mania first, depression second. Which sucks for me because I LIKE MY HYPOMANIA, and I know I won't be able to convince any doctor that letting me keep my hypomania is a legitimate option.
C) I am managing alright already. I have made loads of progress on the therapy front; Basic was hell but it also forced me to confront alot of what I hated about myself, so now depressive spells just entitle lac of energy rather than loads of self-hate, I was serious when I said I have a good group of friends as therapists, and I've been meditating daily and doing my best to resolve issues as they come up. As far as intellectual and emotional understanding, I'm pretty damn far ahead of alot of healthy people. I've been paying conscious attention to my mood, the sort of things that trigger certain reactions, practicing emotional regulating techniques to keep bad spells from getting worse and great spells from getting too out of had, and I'm much more regulated than I've ever been. For the chemical front (which is the dominant factor of this whole issue), I've started taking fish oil supplements based on some research I found (multiple sources confirming this, yes it's casual internet research but then again I can't really do much harm to myself with this) that suggests that the omega-3 proteins can help ease depression while boosting/ignoring maniac effects (differing opinions), which is certainly my goal. And yes, I've been incorporating ways to protect my life from suicidal ideation- not letting myself research best ways to kill myself (beyond what knowledge I've already gathered, and I know half of which is probably inaccurate), not letting myself buy rope, not letting myself leave my room when I'm depressed unless I'm in the company of friends or going to work (aka not letting myself climb the stairs and jump off the fourth floor), etc.
And yes, I do know that my bipolar is all about the chemicals in my brain, therapy won't really change the fact that I get major depressive and maniac spells, so if I want to stop feeling depressed I need to seriously fuck with my brain chemicals. Which I'm terrified of doing. And adding the possible damage to my future as a condition for fucking with my brain.... yeah, hell to the no. I'll stick with what I have and occasionally rail against Fate for putting me in the position to where I'm no longer allowed to consider killing myself as an escape option. Life sucks and then you die, and all that...
And no, I haven't figured out why the hell I'm feeling the need to talk about this shit on this blog. If you figure it out, let me know XD
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Nonsensical Rhymes
Clouds racing across the sky
Wind flowing through the trees
Sunlight flashing along the ground
Gazing up with a sigh
Wind rattling your keys
Wandering round and around
In spirit, flying high
Chasing all the bees
Followed by a hound
Wishing to die
Never traversing the seas
Not to hear another sound
Oh, tell me why
I should eat my peas
And disturb their mound?
Tucking into delicious pie
Sipping rather succulent teas
What a beautiful meal I’ve found
As hard as I try
Can’t avoid the fees
Getting thrown into the pound
Well, hello, goodbye
Off to take an arrow to both the knees
Always hunted, never bound
Monday, February 18, 2013
Tarot Musings
If you know anything at all about the Tarot, you know it can be amazingly complex. For those of you who don't know anything about it... Essentially, aspects of the human condition are summed up in these cards. The classic fortune-telling use for them involves laying our these cards in a spread, and letting them tell the story of the client's life. It sounds simple, but the practice gets complicated- each card has a "basic" meaning, iterations and subtleties of that meaning, and the meanings of the cards all interact in different ways depending on what position of a spread they're in, and that's not even taking reversals into account (which can be interpreted in various different ways just by themselves, with iterations and subtleties in each different interpretation, all of which interacting with the rest of the spread in various ways). Then again, an experienced person can boil down all the meanings of the cards down to their most essential point- like any other expert, making their specialty look easy.
Of course, fortune telling isn't the only purpose for the tarot. It's easily used for analysis (either of your own life circumstances/psyche/etc or others), creative brain-jogging ways (gaining inspiration from the beautiful artwork, using the cards to build stories of your own), spiritual rituals (displaying a card you wish to have in your life and meditating on it until you find it's energy, for example)... The possibilities are only hampered by your creativity.
There are a couple different reasons I find myself thinking about the tarot. I've been helping a friend make sense of his readings, and I must admit I am feeling a bit of pride in being able to help him do so. I guess I can actually class myself as an intermediate student of tarot, no longer a beginner, and I feel amazingly accomplished for it (probably more than the achievement merits in most eyes, but screw that noise). The second reason is I've been toying with an idea of writing a series of books based on illustrating the Tarot. The idea is for four books, one for each of the suits, and in each book the protagonist would follow the evolution of the court cards (starting out young as a Page, growing a bit and becoming a Knight, maturing and becoming a Queen and finishing their growth as a King) living through the ideals of their suit and all of the major Arcana. Only problem, I'm really not sure what direction I want to take this idea... Ah well, I guess that's what I get to figure out later.
Of course, fortune telling isn't the only purpose for the tarot. It's easily used for analysis (either of your own life circumstances/psyche/etc or others), creative brain-jogging ways (gaining inspiration from the beautiful artwork, using the cards to build stories of your own), spiritual rituals (displaying a card you wish to have in your life and meditating on it until you find it's energy, for example)... The possibilities are only hampered by your creativity.
There are a couple different reasons I find myself thinking about the tarot. I've been helping a friend make sense of his readings, and I must admit I am feeling a bit of pride in being able to help him do so. I guess I can actually class myself as an intermediate student of tarot, no longer a beginner, and I feel amazingly accomplished for it (probably more than the achievement merits in most eyes, but screw that noise). The second reason is I've been toying with an idea of writing a series of books based on illustrating the Tarot. The idea is for four books, one for each of the suits, and in each book the protagonist would follow the evolution of the court cards (starting out young as a Page, growing a bit and becoming a Knight, maturing and becoming a Queen and finishing their growth as a King) living through the ideals of their suit and all of the major Arcana. Only problem, I'm really not sure what direction I want to take this idea... Ah well, I guess that's what I get to figure out later.
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