Tag: fear

Fertilizer (or, why we’re up to our necks in shit)

I’ve found a weird calmness recently about the stuff going on in this country (this world). There is such awfulness, but also so very many absolutely amazing, brave, and strong people. Remember that there are more of you than there are of them. And that what’s going on is forcing so many more to take a step back and consider whether what’s going on aligns with their values. And so our numbers grow. I am willing to believe that we’re seeing the birthing pains of a much better world. Age of Pisces is on its way out, but clinging for dear life.

Had an amazing conversation yesterday about the concept of “psychopomps” or grim reapers. Our culture is afraid of death and sees these constructs as something to be feared. In older cultures, they understood death was part of the natural cycle of things. The death and decay of winter is needed to enrich the soil of the spring sprouts.

A culture terrified of dying is refusing to just die off already. The healer we were talking to commented that people now “take so long to die.” Meaning when someone’s time is inevitable, that they cling to the last breaths of their lives and struggle to keep their hearts beating, with no other result than prolonging their suffering. As a world, we’re so spiritually disconnected that we don’t understand death is a release and relief when your body can not longer support life. This age of people and cultures who are terrified of dying, of course is hanging on for dear life and the death throes are grotesque. But I am certain this conflict is clearing the way for something better.

When fear becomes strength

A week spent realizing how very brave I am. One of the bravest people I have known. It’s weird to be coming out the other side of the last few years with this perspective. A year ago I was so afraid and so hurt that I didn’t think I would survive it. I sincerely believe death would have been easier. I thought about it quite often. I felt so cowardly, but there were many times when the only thing stopping me was not wanting to be responsible for that much hurt in other people. You: my friends, the portion of my family whose feelings I care about and respect. I know you wouldn’t have blamed me. But it would have hurt, and there were a few people I love that would have never really recovered from it. You would have become as broken as I felt.

I see now that being brave isn’t about being fearless. It’s about seeing that fear, recognizing its depth, understanding that it can and probably will break you down to your very core, that you will be irrevocably changed, and yet refusing to run from it. Refusing to yield to it. Meeting your demons, staring them down, forcing them to be the ones to look away. To run from you. To fear you. Because the fear that had once overwhelmed you is no match for your strength. Because your fear has been transmuted into power.

notokay cupid

My internet had been down for days, and the first thing I did when it came back? I reactivated my OKCupid profile.  :/

After I edited the photos and profile to be more realistic, I’m surprised by how many messages I got in just a day, and most of them actually seem to have tried to start a conversation, not just send something clichéd. Which of course made me step away from the computer and consider deactivating my profile again. 😛

The idea of meeting new people makes me really anxious and I’m not sure I’m ready to take the pressure of going on a first date.  But the idea of having someone to go out to dinner with and to cuddle with and to have sex with sounds appealing. I don’t quite want a… boyfriend or anything, but I would like someone who is going to stay for a few minutes and cuddle rather than rush out the door.

Addendum: literally never logged back on to OKC after this post.

tangled

Well, instead of sketching, or paining, or even writing, I ended up sleeping for hours.  At least now, when I fall asleep at an unreasonably early hour, I don’t end up sleeping until morning. I woke up at 3AM feeling well rested and had to read for a while before I could fall back asleep.  That’s an encouraging sign that I don’t actually NEED the 10-12 hours of sleep I had been getting.

I’m continuing to struggle with finding inspiration to start any of the projects I had envisioned.  I’ve collected the pieces for the jewelry, I’ve purchased the paints and canvasses and brushes for painting, I’ve splurged on interestingly covered journals for writing, and I’ve filled my apartment with frames and sheets of matboard.  Yet it all sits untouched.

I used to be able to just draw and draw and draw without even pausing, really.  Inspiration? It was always there. Perhaps most of what I ended up drawing or painting or sewing wasn’t that original, but the ideas never ceased to flow.  I wonder to what extent this is a side effect of my medications.  How much is my personality and mind being suppressed? Not a question I’ll likely find an answer to soon, as normally my doctors’ opinions are to add more medications, not take away.

My mind just feels…. Stuck.  No ideas come out.  No words even, right now.  It just feels like a ball of tangled yarn.

Father’s day is tomorrow.  Normally I don’t post anything of my own, but I like my family members’ posts (without commenting, but still, I acknowledge. And my silence feels like consent).  Not this year.  I resent that I have to be in a position to forgive him for such atrocious actions and such callous attitude towards me. I resent it because I’m not sure he was sorry for his behavior during his life, only worried that he’d be found out.

Sometimes I wonder what things would have been like if I’d been consciously aware of what was going on and had been able to tell someone and stop him.  If he’d gone to jail.  We would have had to move — mom wouldn’t have been able to afford the house on her own. I would have wanted to move.  Not only was that place a source of anxiety and negative memories, there’s no way I would have been able to stand going to school with people who knew what had happened to me.  We would have ended up moving in with my mom’s parents. My grandmother would have been really emotionally and energetically…. Challenging.   I don’t know how I would have survived that either.  Is this really the family I picked?  I can’t imagine consciously deciding I needed to experience these horrible events and that this was the family I needed to have. Perhaps I knew I’d get good siblings out of the arrangement, but that almost doesn’t seem reason enough to have picked this.

A couple of years ago one of my friends said something that immediately felt true (even though I felt guilty too) — that my life would be better, freer, after both parents were gone. He meant this in the sense that I would no longer have to be concerned with appearances, wouldn’t feel obligated to feign interest in religion, and could drift away from extended family. Now I realize it’s not that simple. My siblings are only becoming more and more religious and latching onto the ideas my parents put into their minds, and the legacy of the abuse will outlive my mother.

Why is it such a struggle to put my thoughts down onto “paper”?  Am I that afraid of them? Am I running from my emotions that easily? I guess I am.  I need to admit that I am really down in the dumps again, that I don’t have the motivation to try to fix anything in my life right now, that if given a choice I would just stay in bed all the time.  I don’t know what to do to fix this.  There used to be ideas, activities, for which I’d feel a spark of interest.  That spark is gone.  Everything feels like a chore.  Lately even eating feels like an obligation.  You’d think that would have me losing weight, at least, but the opposite is true.  It feels like I am holding everything in me.

I did a quick tarot reading and pulled two runes today and both referred to having a healthy sex life.  Whaaaat? How is that even possible? I never meet anyone.  I feel very set in my ways of not meeting anyone. I don’t want to end up alone forever, not really, but when I SEE myself in the future I am alone.  What a solitary, lonely life I am leading and am intending to lead.  Do I really believe I don’t deserve to be loved? To be made love to? To make love to someone else? I can’t believe that.  I don’t deserve to be punished for HIS sins.

I am living what he told me I’d live.  Letting no one love me. I know he meant it to be hurtful and never really believed that no one would love me, but I’ve taken that to heart and am living it.  How can I break this cycle? How can I stop poisoning my body and leaving it to rot? How can I be happy with the way I look and feel again? How can I believe that there is someone out there, perhaps many someones, who’d be able to love me?  How can I even approach dating or sex with these memories always in my mind?

What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? Everything. Nothing. Who knows? I sure as hell don’t.  Why do I feel so broken? Intellectually I don’t really believe I am, but emotionally…. Whew. It’s as if I am living as two different selves.

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