The Trinity Pages Recovery JournalArchivesSaturday, 22 March 2008The Cost Of Creativity: Bipolar Disorder and the Stars(Having been creative all of my life, and having suffered from Bipolar mood swings off and on for years, I found this article interesting.) Committed to bandwidth on Sat, 22 Mar 08 in Links
Sunday, 09 March 2008Moving and DutyMore "stuff" is coming up. Yuck. Better write it down, maybe it'll help. I hate moving. I mean, I really hate moving. As a kid, we moved every few years. Sometimes it was okay, but sometimes I really hated it. There were a couple of times when I definitely did not want to go, but we had no choice. We went. Such is the life of a military brat. On those couple of occasions, it really was like a violation. The first time, when we moved from Arizona (a place I still love, though I haven't been there in years) to Germany (yes, Germany, as in Europe), it was just horrible. The culture shock was indescribable. We had no television for the first year (well, we had German television but as I spoke no German it wasn't much use), and I had been a serious television addict prior. Furthermore, we lived way out in the middle of nowhere in this weird little country village that really wasn't even a village, more like a housing development in woods. It was physically very beautiful there, lots of tall pines and open fields and not far from our place was a gorgeous little deep creek that cut through lush green fields full of sheep. But it was still the middle of nowhere, and there was nothing to do and nobody to talk to and it was just this horrible shock to the system. Add to that the fact that I was on the verge of puberty and I started to develop depression. It was pretty awful. (Parenthetical note: I don't want to say that Germany, itself, is awful. I'd quite like to go back and visit, and have a look at some of the places I saw while we lived there. It was highly educational and I wish I'd had a better appreciation for history then, as the country is steeped in it, with castles everywhere and walled cities and amazing Medieval and Renaissance architecture, not to mention amazingly good food and beautiful natural scenery.) The other time that we moved and it was a real violation was when I lived in California, which I quite liked, and we got uprooted and plopped down in the American Midwest in a horrible little town that I still sometimes see in my nightmares (not kidding about that, by the way). I didn't like the town, and the people there didn't think much of me. Years later, I was told that people were kind of intimidated by me, because I had come from California, and I seemed so full of attitude and had style that the people of this sleepy little dumb Midwestern town had never seen. I found that strange when I learned about it, and I still kind of do. I mean, I was as awkward and doofy as anyone else, but, looking back, I probably did have some attitude they weren't used to in that town, and on top of that I was smart and I was wearing styles that were in fashion in California but which wouldn't be seen in the boring little Midwestern towns for a few years yet, so, yeah, they probably were all weirded out and intimidated. (Dumbasses.) Anyway, going to that town from California, where I had real friends and a serious boyfriend and, I thought, a future and a life, was incredibly depressing and terribly upsetting to me. It seems I'm still upset about the constant moving. Against my will, and often moving from a comfortable situation into an unfamiliar, awkward, or even downright painful one took a toll. I mean, it's nobody's fault, and I'm not blaming anyone. This is just the military life, and I can accept that. I always did. I just didn't know how very deeply the pain went with regard to continually pulling up stakes and wandering somewhere else. The life of a gypsy. Small wonder I still have security issues. Again, I want to make it clear: it was nobody's fault, and I'm not blaming anyone. It was just one more unfortunate, painful fact that was my life. And another thing I've realised about myself. I'm extremely dutiful. I mean, majorly. If I know that I must do something, that it must be done, I do it. I'm the total opposite of a morning person, I hate getting up early, but if I know I have to get up every day at six am to go to work, then I do. I may not like it, but I can do it, if it's required. I can also keep a fairly clean house, I can keep any appointments that I know must be kept. I always do what I must do. I am extremely dutiful. Mind you, if I don't feel I must do something, and I don't feel like doing it, I won't. This makes people think I'm lazy. I'm not lazy, however. I'm self-indulgent when I don't have a reason to be disciplined, and my priorities are somewhat different than other peoples' sometimes. I don't care that much about things like dishes in the sink or how clean my toilet is. Yes, I do wash dishes and scrub toilets. I just don't do it on a schedule that some people think would be better. Like, oh, constantly. I do it when I feel like doing it. I tend to let the clean laundry pile up on the couch (hey, we have other chairs to sit in!) because I don't much like folding it and putting it away. This is not because I'm lazy. It's because I don't care that much. Folded laundry is not that important to me. I only start to get concerned when I can't find clean clothes easily because the pile is too deep. Again, this is not laziness. It is simply that folding laundry and putting it away is not a priority for me. If there was a house inspector around who was going to fine me for not folding the laundry, well, you can bet it'd be done immediately and put away, too. Same with dishes, toilets, whatever. As I say, when I must do something, I do it, or I make sure that it's done. I may sometimes procrastinate (or not; depends what it is), but the Thing That Must be Done is always done. I am dutiful. I do my duty. Must be my Protestant, military upbringing. With my parents, I did what I had to do, which was find a way to survive. I had to put up with them, having no choice, so I found ways to do that. I used to tell my mother that when I turned eighteen I was going to move out and she would scoff at me. Guess what I did when I was seventeen? Yeah, I got the hell out. I did move back briefly, but by the time I had my ninteenth birthday I was long gone, off in another state, a thousand miles away). I did leave them when I turned eighteen. I did what I had to do, and what I said I would do. Right before Christmas of 1994, I got into a huge fight with my parents. I stormed out of their house and said I was never going to set foot in their house again. And guess what? I didn't. I did what I had to do, and what I said I would do. There are a lot of instances in my life where I made up my mind and just did what I had to do, no matter how difficult or unpopular it was. And there are lots more where I just did what I had to do in order to survive, without much thought or decision at all. But in all cases, I do what I must. Always, always, always. No matter the pain, the stress, the fear, the difficulty, whatever, I do what I have to do. I'm not sure why I needed to realise this about myself. I guess someday it will be useful to know? Whatever. It's just who I am. It's neither good nor bad, because sometimes what I have to do is painful (to myself and others), and sometimes it's so easy it's ridiculous. And sometimes what I must do is even what I want to do... I wish that happened more often... Committed to bandwidth on Sun, 09 Mar 08 in General and Miscellaneous
Friday, 07 March 2008I reject your reality, and substitute my ownMy mother (my parents, really) had a very strange reality. As a child, of course, I had no way of knowing that her reality, and that the reality of our family, was not anywhere near that of most other peoples' reality. My mother is like Cleopatra, the Queen of Denial, and she was mentally ill in the bargain. She had this little strange world of denial she'd created, where everything had to be perfect and conform to her totally ridiculous ideas and ideals, and anyone and anything that didn't fit into it was a target for her abuse or for absolute dismissal. (That means me, mostly.) My father had his own reality, too, though he and my mother mostly had this wobbly kind of agreement on not rattling each other's realities. My father, for example, was a frequent liar, on every topic from totally mundane stuff that normal people wouldn't bother to lie about, to very major things like their finances and "where the money went" and so forth. When my mother challenged his version of reality, you-know-what would hit the fan, and when he didn't "play along" with her preferred version of reality, it was the same thing. I was smart enough, even as a little kid, not to buy into my parents' reality fully. I think I believed my father more than my mother, but I never fully bought it from either parent. I made the agreement at some point to play along. When I didn't play along, bad things happened... so I went with it. I did internalise a lot of it, particularly my mother's incredibly negative view of me. Well, honestly, I don't know if she really thought this stuff about me, or if she was just too screwed up and delusional and stupid not to know better than to tell me I was worthless, useless, good-for-nothing, ungrateful, lacking in most ways, doomed to failure, never to amount to anything, and so forth. I realised today that most of the reason I internalised her incredibly negative image of me was because not only did I lack any sort of comparison (such as people who told me I was worthy and good and capable and likely to succeed and so on), I did know that my life pretty much sucked. I was in almost constant emotional pain and stress, I was bullied in school and at home, we moved every two or three years so I had to start over at new schools all the time, and I was wretched at making new friends so I was frequently without any support system at all, through the school or from friends outside the home. I don't think I was conscious that my family was in any way different than anyone else's family, but I definitely knew that my life sucked, and my mother told me repeatedly that I deserved it and the reason I deserved it was because I was so worthless. Add to this a somewhat stern Protestant upbringing. Now, none of the churches we ever attended were particularly "fire and brimstone" or anything of that sort, but there was a lot of that stuff around in the 70s, and a lot of "exorcist" stuff, as well (due to the popularity of the movie). That can't help but put you in the mind of heaven and hell, you know? I took my experience of life and the things my mother told me about myself and why my life was so horrible (basically, because I wasn't good enough) and with the whole "go to heaven if you're good, go to hell if you're bad" thing (again: no church I ever attended as a child ever emphasised this or even particularly taught it; I just picked it up and applied it from things I read and general attitudes of the times), I figured that what my mother told me must be true. My life was horrible, and I deserved it because I just wasn't good enough. In addition to my mother invalidating my feelings and thoughts and telling me how it was all my fault because I was so worthless, when my father was irritated with me he would loudly demand, "What is wrong with you?!" (I didn't know, but I figured that there had to be something "wrong" with me.) I mean, "My mother is just a mentally unstable twit and my father is a rageoholic bully who never truly takes responsibility for anything he does and they enable each other, catching me in the middle of their dysfunction" isn't really something you think of when you're a kid, you know? Whew. Anyway. This finally explains something to me. First, why I have, for forty-something years, believed on some level that I really am unworthy, useless, worthless, and so forth. It was internalised to a very deep degree, on the grounds that I couldn't really figure out why my life sucked so much and my parents told me I was defective and useless and, well, it must be true that I'm not good enough to have love, acceptance, abundance, stability, success, or anything else good. I'm not worthy of blessings or approval. It was an incorrect belief (and it still is) but it makes sense now, given the circumstances and my very limited information on the world and myself and my parents. Secondly, it explains why I was able to reject my parents' reality. I knew, because I was a smart kid, and I could see that the reality they were forcing me to pretend I accepted was actually unacceptable. I had to agree to go along with it and pretend it was all fine and dandy or face painful retaliation from one or both parents, and I usually did (until my inner rebel decided it was worth taking the punishment just to rattle their cages by refusing to conform). But inside, in a carefully guarded and protected part of myself, I knew, and I never accepted the reality they wanted to force on me, not completely. I don't know if this makes any sense to anyone but me. And I apologise if this comes across as just another "rage against the parents" rant. It's not intended that way. I wanted to share it because I'm kind of fascinated to see these mechanisms at work, and you know what? Once you find the mechanism, you can disable it... Committed to bandwidth on Fri, 07 Mar 08 in General and Miscellaneous
Wednesday, 05 March 2008Just for TodayJust for today If just for one night If just (for) today If just for one night Just for today Just for today (George Harrison) Committed to bandwidth on Wed, 05 Mar 08 in Poetry & Prose
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