The things we won’t see

Truth time.

I am not as I appear. I have realized something, and it has shaken me.

About 3 years ago, I began, in earnest a journey to become a healthy me. It started with the shell. And boy, was I diligent in my workouts and food. And the difference- I never knew what my body could do. At first it made me so uneasy, my outside armour was shrinking, so even though my strength was increasing, my comfort in the world was not.

It took a year or so and then I started to find my confidence, I started to sparkle, to explore pieces of myself that had been dormant for a long time.

As with any change in vibration it causes discomfort around you, engages new, disrupts old.

But I really began to believe I was this strong, red headed warrior, that was just, helpful, kind, funny, creative and all sorts of wonderful things. I started to publicly display my monsters, to be a role model. ‘You too can battle your monsters, create a loving village and have a life that’s deeper than day to day survival.’ I found my voice, really began to be the storyteller and keeper some part of me believes I am.

But you see, the disruption that I actually caused has much negativity associated with it. I tried new approaches that I felt were in line with my new found power. They were largely unsuccessful, and somewhat viewed as selfish but I stubbornly pushed forward. I was not really credited with doing any changes for my self/soul. Surely this must be for the attention.

Then something happened, almost undetected by me, as I get to use injury as a legitimate excuse.

My outside buffer has started to return. The push of some of the outside world was too painful I imagine, reminds me to much that I should only have a small life, so soft protection must be created. The place I started with, the physical challenge that started it all, was pushed aside. Yes I have a shoulder issue, yes it requires care and modification, but not giving up altogether.

So why did I? Easy answer, it’s my oldest monster. The payment due for the disruptions I’ve caused, the misunderstandings, the strife. Somewhere in my head that monster wasn’t loud but hammered away that that is not my place.

The funny thing is the heavier I am the less room I take up in some ways. My monster convinced me to do this quietly, slowly, but still be able to talk a good game about self work, self worth, and honouring the self. And the whole time my anxiety dance had me going backwards, to prove ( to the masses) I still valued what brought me to the point of feeling courageous enough to try to be a better version in the first place.

It is, very, fucked up.

So dear Village, my apologies, to you and to myself. I am sorry I have only been partially truthful in my monster battle. I am sorry that at this time the default pattern has won. The epiphany of this has me so sad and angry at the moment.

Please know, I am acknowledging these things as a way to get back to honouring what I want to be, who I want to be. Of honouring your belief in me ( or what you thought I represented).

The battle isn’t over.

Love big, hug often and forgive what and when you can.

Thank you for reading.

my head on film

I woke up this morning deeply moved, and very much affected. Went to see A Star is Born last night. I ugly cried through most of it.
The deft hand used writing about addiction, mental illness and chronic conditions was amazing.

It’s hitting home especially hard right now, the destruction these things bring when left unchecked. The raw vulnerability when trying to bring yourself back from the brink. How susceptible one can be when not completely stable. How when we need to fill a certain expected role, we can until there is literally nothing left.

I could see myself in aspects of both characters. The darkness that comes when the monsters gain strength over the warrior. When the mental illness and addictive behaviours to mask take over.
The exhausted push to be the saviour for someone so low down they threaten to drown you as well.
And in the ways both characters demonstrate the desperation for it all to just end.

My heart feels raw, my eyes wet, not only for these fictional characters so realistically portrayed. But for any other having gone ( going) through this. For myself, my own struggle.

Remember to ask dear Village, not a throw away question- but a real ‘how are you?’ Prepare to listen, or just sit. Give kindness because you never know when someone is struggling. If you know someone with a chronic physical or mental condition, check in with them. You could save a life- someday that person may return to save yours.

why is expression so hard

I have always felt things intensely.
Joy, sorrow, love, pain, even the most mundane of emotions like boredom have a technicolor hue.
I know many people out there, us Empaths/Artists if you will, feel life as intensely as I do.
The gift/curse I have along with that is a love and decent talent for words.

Gift? Because it helps to get the intense feelings out of my head when I can explain them. Even the real good emotions, if not allowed to be expressed fill me up to the point of popping.
Gift? Because I know I have been able to entertain some as well. Sometimes even been blessed with being able to help others find their expression through my own.

Curse?
So easily I am misunderstood. Big, deep intense words get thrown around. Is she crazy? Depressed? She needs help if things are that dark, deep or off the rails. She should not express her feelings of admiration, love or connection so deeply to so many, there must be inappropriate things going on. She’s so angry. She’s too happy. She feels too much for too many.

I struggle. Between being the natural me that can express the orgasmic moment of eating a fresh cherry, how my heart fills at conversation, how kindness can touch my soul, cruelty rips at me.
And the me that feels the need to shrink, loose color so as to not make others uncomfortable, misunderstand or be able to make imaginary things out of what I say or write.

I have been shown both of these things. I have been told my expression as admirable, welcome, anticipated, appreciated.
I have had to face that these same words can be twisted, weaponized, used against me and others. Used to question intent because I express in big, deep colourful and powerful language.

I am me. I mean no harm. I find love and life to have many shades, I will not apologize for that.
I should not have to apologize for what’s in my head, for what I want/need to share. Yet today…….

Today I question. I question how and to whom I share. I question what is heard and interpreted. I feel myself watering down my expression of love for my Village, even though those feelings stay bold. Diluting the descriptions of my experience, I feel like I’m receding,
even though the quote that speaks to me is
‘I must write to empty my head or I shall surely go mad’ – Byron

My Words

When I give of my words and they are lost to silence
I have time to contemplate
The message that I send
The message left to take

Measured out carefully,
meaning, well conveyed
Are words truly a connection
Or just a game well played.

As words are misinterpreted
Silence can be too
Words can be balms or arrows
But empty pierces through

Pointed words lost to the void
Are in their proper place
But kindness lost to this vacuum
Leaves a wounded space

Sonorant Thief

Thief!! Thief!! Give it back!!
Give back the peace
Give back the clarity
Give back the quiet

No one invited you here
Your shrill drone, never ending
Nothing important to say
Digging in, drowning out the rest

Thief!!! Thief!!! Give him back!!
Give back the humour
Give back the patience
Give back the light

The gifts you’ve brought no one wants
The rigid pain, lack of sleep
No focus, giving room for past ghosts
To wake, recall, aid in your merry terror

Thief!!! Thief!!! Give him back!!!
Leave him be
Leave us alone
No one wants your destruction here.

Finding Forward

Love each other, be kind, be open,
forgive the monsters you can,
battle those you can’t.
Support each other in love
See truth in another’s eyes
Be willing to let go the phantom chains
Step forward, for you- not me, not them,
what anyone else believes or thinks matters not. If you know your self, your heart and your truth- trust, trust someday it will be seen, loved and accepted. Trust that you are, will be and always have been enough

Echos

Ripping the scar off to see if a wound has healed
Taking the same road to see if it goes some where new
Speaking the same words to see if you hear something different
Tasting the same bitterness to see if it has sweetened
Letting the already banished ghosts in, serves no purpose other than to create hell.
This is not where we are, this is not where we are going. We deserve to let the scar lie, travel our new road, speak the loving truth, taste the sweetness that we create, together, forward, no ghostly companions along for the ride. We have been to hell, got the T-shirt, moved on, time to burn the bridge back.

The Night Before

a birthday poem

Forty six years ago, on the night before, what did you think? Could you tell I was coming? Were you excited? Worried? I know so little……. Did you know you were having a girl? Did you have other names picked out? Did you dream of the person you’d hope I’d be?

Forty six years later on the night before, what do I think? Do I know where I am going? Am I excited? Worried? I know so little……. Do I even yet, feel like a full grown woman? Do I embody my name, my roles? Am I the person I dreamt I’d be?

Tell Me About Trust

I am the child of mentally ill people and addicts.. alcohol, drugs, and twisted behaviour, all colour branches on my family tree. Do I carry anger toward them? Yes, but not because of who they were, not because of what I feel was done to me, but anger that there are some scars and wiring I can not outrun. There are behaviours and thought patterns that I can fall into so easily if I am not on guard. While those around me are aware, and aware of some of the triggers, other than just being humanly mindful I expect no one to walk eggshells or manage this but me. I have an anxiety disorder that in the past has immobilized me, can make me paranoid, distrustful, emotional, rash, very angry and dark. I rarely trust my initial reactions to emotional based situations. So I breath and wait it out. – If I am in a decent headspace this serves me well. However if I am in an already anxious state and I let myself overthink too long, then the risk of past negative behaviours rises. I react big, dramatic and suck the oxygen out of the room. It is over the top, overwhelming to both myself and the recipient. Or I don’t react, I let it slide, I don’t state how I really feel, I ‘maturely’ move on. This second reaction leads to more paranoia, I second guess my assessment of people, their feelings and their intentions toward me. I then slide into a mode of distrust and I get so sad, the monsters tell me I am being used, I am made fun of and disrespected behind my back, my mental health issues get used as a scapegoat for judgment. This is what makes me angry, that even this far into adulthood, every relationship I have is shaded by what I witnessed growing up.

My father was a quiet man when sober, gentle, loving, encouraging, smart, funny and artistic. When drunk? Loud, brash, cutting, mean and often would try to tell others in the room about how nuts my mother could be, and that I was cut from the same and would never amount to much more than a whore (he told my first real boyfriend that, we were 14, ). If it were only the child- me bearing witness then I was privy to the conversations of the horror he was raised in. Listened to tales told by the monsters in his head. How the bloodline needed to end with me….. If we were weathering his deeper seated mental issues along with a run ‘off the wagon’, then out came the guns. From this I learned to be quiet, observe, look for warning signs, how to tap dance and soften the world around as to not bring the danger to me. I learned very early not to trust that things are as they appear.

My mother was a strong, funny, opinionated woman, she had my Nanna’s Irish wit and a temper to match. I do not really know if she drank to cope or to keep up with my father, so her world could be more tolerable. She did her best to shelter and protect me, until she couldn’t. The truth about my mother’s cancer was never fully told to me until I was older, even then, my older sisters and I have never had an open discussion about it. Back then, some information came as an after thought, filtered by accident to me, most of the four years she was sick I was only told she had a sore back. I know looking back, all of them were trying to protect me. Amongst other things, including the loss of my Nanna, one of the biggest things this has left me with, is a fear of loss for the good in my life and the need to have a strong circle of women around me. Some of the other things this has left me with is deep anxiety about betrayal and being thought of as unstable, (other than the crazy of my known anxiety monsters which I will mostly own).

Recently, some commentary about my communication abilities, read that, as my dramatic flare for imagery, description and feeling, have been misinterpreted and twisted around, used to justify another’s action. This happens, I put a lot out there (umm, blog?!FB?! IG?! General conversation) and I need to be prepared that this is a risk. When this came to light, I did what I do. I breathed, I waited, I weighed, I did the mature, be the bigger person thing. Be subtle, and move on. Only, it has kept a low hum in the back of my head, it’s taking up space. It’s trying to creep out more. For the most part, I detest this paranoid wiring, but there have been times where it has proven to be correct. I think this is in part why I have not been able to make any consistent changes to this behaviour. So now what? Well, I think I’ll wait a bit longer before deciding what to do, I’ll meditate, write, breathe. Measure what I know to be real against what I am now unsure of. Try to keep this state of uncomfortable from blowing any more into a full fledged state of anxiety.

I am well aware that being publicly up front that I have some form of mental illness will leave me open to others thoughts and opinions. These things really only hold sway in my head coming from people who know me, that I trust. I know I risk that ire now. Who knows how many of you that know me, will read into this and wonder if it’s you. If you have to wonder, than it isn’t. Trust that.