Category: Meet my Monsters

It’s coming….. pre birthday thoughts

Have you ever been nervous? Not that little bit of jittery catch my breath kind of nervous, but the kind that parallels anxiety so deeply you don’t know if you’re experiencing exhilaration or just an abject ripping apart of your heart and soul.

Every year as my birthday rolls around, this seems to be the overwhelming feeling growing as each year passes.

I try to distract myself with people, places, activities.

But Covid has seen to the fact that I don’t have my distractions, the shut down not only of the world at large, but of peoples minds and hearts because they’re overwhelmed, can at times make it feel like I’m adrift calling out to empty echoes.

I don’t say this for pity, I say this is fact. We are all on survival and I am not special.

Most think that each birthday I have lived should be a victory lap, for the cycles I have tried to break, for making it to an age that I hadn’t really pictured.

I do see each year as a gift, a gift of time with my family, a gift of time to be able to have purpose in the world, to do good things, to help people as best as I can.

But this year, this godforsaken year has been so hard. So many right things to be trying to do, Politic, health and relationship building. Trying to adapt and adjust my own career to what comes next, what I’ll find fulfillment with, where I’ll find my spark.

And today as I sit and look out at the blue sky, and try to fill the landscape of my day with something to make my heart happy, all I can really feel is exhaustion with the underlying electric current of nervousness.

I’m not sure what comes next, I really don’t think anybody is. I just don’t want to lose my drive to get there. Give in to the pain my body feels as I’m trying to coax it to strength and flexibility. Give in to the high anxiety I have been battling. To keep to the positive things I’m trying to do. Who do I want to be, where will I be and who will be with me, this next turn of the wheel? The dogs that are my coffee dates this morning hold no answers.

These are the thoughts I have over coffee before my day begins, I will go to nature, I will touch the ground, I will be thankful for what I have, and remind myself of the joy of curiosity of what’s to come.

Shame

Shame perverts everything we do.

Why? What do we have to feel shamed about? Emotions? Needs? The flesh that carries us? The mind that creates? Our desires? Fears? Our successes? Failures? Our mistakes? Our vulnerability? Our kindnesses?

The shame we carry can make us closed, cruel, judgmental – indifferent to expressions of gratitude, love, caring, joy.

It divides us.

We push it off on others, not acknowledging it is our own burden we carry. We believe that love, compassion and understanding are not for us. We are not worthy.

There is so much I want to write- so much I want to express. I just want to roar

FUCK YOU

I don’t want this any more.

Fuck you to anyone who has ever made you feel lesser than.

I will not be shamed for my vulnerability

I will not be shamed for my caring

I will not be shamed for my body

I will not be shamed for my willingness to try

I will not be shamed for my past

I will not be shamed for who I am

I will not be shamed for the love I give

I will not be shamed for trying to heal

I will not be shamed for my truth

I will not be shamed for asking for help

I will not be shamed for offering help

You can try,

by your words

your actions

your silence

to tear me down

to your level

Here I will not stay

You can keep your judgements

You can keep you helpful arrows

You can keep your cloak of shame

I will shed mine and rise above

Hold It

The sacred honour of holding stories comes with a price. 

The space I create for the words you need to spill, the poison you need to excise 

Burns

Burns a hole

Deep dark ugly secrets fester

I learned this lesson from the other side – so very few have I spilled my bile on…. 

watching them run in horror from my contamination- burning through the space they gave me

This place now locked. 

I believe this had fortified me from the same danger. That the space I could give was impervious to the acid of the tragedies you tell. I know what the poison will do if not relieved from self. I wear these wounds.

I must keep my neutral mask in place, my eyes have changed.

Will justice prevail? Not in the face of fear. Not this time.

Silence- I can only tell my story, but I carry the stone of yours, I see what is in your shadow.

It is not mine- only as a witness. I will soothe my burns, seal it up, create the space for another. Taking a moment to reflect if this is what my own toxins have done? Had it changed the eyes of others? Is this what made me invisible? Is this what turned them away?

I can clear the burning from my own eyes, I will still see you, just as I will see others.

The sacred honour of holding stories can come with a price. 

A Guided Tour of My Anxiety Attack

You work

You dive deep

You build and use your tools

You try to be accountable

Sometimes it’s little. A tightness in the chest. A tremor in the hand. Floating thoughts in tired chaos.

You work

It starts with a flutter deep in the belly. Temper becoming short as you try to hold on to the steady.

You try to be accountable.

Take a day to rest. The quiet makes the deep exhaustion deafening. Dive deep, use your tools.

The flutter grabs hold with claws and the world begins to roil. Coherent thoughts are just out of reach.

Sleep. Try to reset. Hold on to me so I don’t get carried away.

Middle of the night- clammy, claws have worked their way to the chest. Monsters screaming so loud, pulling my knees in, hands over my ears, trying pointlessly to keep out the screaming that’s inside.

Apologies tumbling from my lips, washed away by the downpour of tears. Shaking so hard, my seams threatening to tear.

Sometimes there’s a why. This time there is not a single, but fragments of everything. Real, imagined and all in between. A single why can be rationalized. The shame, I can’t get through the fragments cutting me from inside.

Shame and anger, gains feel lost.

Breathe.

Fucking breathe. Meet the monsters with compassion.

I don’t live here anymore. This once was the home in my head always. But not now.

No anger for the rushing back.

Compassion for the now.

I am human. I have cracks but I am not broken. Lean against the steady.

Breathe, held in place

Arms guiding me back to now. Keep breathing.

There will be fog. Use the tools. Medicine to dull the edge. Know that today you’ll struggle in the thick muck. One foot in front of the other.

Breath in, breath out.

The day will carry on.

You eventually will come to the other side, to begin again

You work

You dive deep

You build and use your tools

You try to be accountable

A Guided Tour of My Anxiety Attack

You work

You dive deep

You build and use your tools

You try to be accountable

Sometimes it’s little. A tightness in the chest. A tremor in the hand. Floating thoughts in tired chaos.

You work

It starts with a flutter deep in the belly. Temper becoming short as you try to hold on to the steady.

You try to be accountable.

Take a day to rest. The quiet makes the deep exhaustion deafening. Dive deep, use your tools.

The flutter grabs hold with claws and the world begins to roil. Coherent thoughts are just out of reach.

Sleep. Try to reset. Hold on to me so I don’t get carried away.

Middle of the night- clammy, claws have worked their way to the chest. Monsters screaming so loud, pulling my knees in, hands over my ears, trying pointlessly to keep out the screaming that’s inside.

Apologies tumbling from my lips, washed away by the downpour of tears. Shaking so hard, my seams threatening to tear.

Sometimes there’s a why. This time there is not a single, but fragments of everything. Real, imagined and all in between. A single why can be rationalized. The shame, I can’t get through the fragments cutting me from inside.

Shame and anger, gains feel lost.

Breathe.

Fucking breathe. Meet the monsters with compassion.

I don’t live here anymore. This once was the home in my head always. But not now.

No anger for the rushing back.

Compassion for the now.

I am human. I have cracks but I am not broken. Lean against the steady.

Breathe, held in place

Arms guiding me back to now. Keep breathing.

There will be fog. Use the tools. Medicine to dull the edge. Know that today you’ll struggle in the thick muck. One foot in front of the other.

Breath in, breath out.

The day will carry on.

You eventually will come to the other side, to begin again

You work

You dive deep

You build and use your tools

You try to be accountable

A Guided Tour of My Anxiety Attack

You work

You dive deep

You build and use your tools

You try to be accountable

Sometimes it’s little. A tightness in the chest. A tremor in the hand. Floating thoughts in tired chaos.

You work

It starts with a flutter deep in the belly. Temper becoming short as you try to hold on to the steady.

You try to be accountable.

Take a day to rest. The quiet makes the deep exhaustion deafening. Dive deep, use your tools.

The flutter grabs hold with claws and the world begins to roil. Coherent thoughts are just out of reach.

Sleep. Try to reset. Hold on to me so I don’t get carried away.

Middle of the night- clammy, claws have worked their way to the chest. Monsters screaming so loud, pulling my knees in, hands over my ears, trying pointlessly to keep out the screaming that’s inside.

Apologies tumbling from my lips, washed away by the downpour of tears. Shaking so hard, my seams threatening to tear.

Sometimes there’s a why. This time there is not a single, but fragments of everything. Real, imagined and all in between. A single why can be rationalized. The shame, I can’t get through the fragments cutting me from inside.

Shame and anger, gains feel lost.

Breathe.

Fucking breathe. Meet the monsters with compassion.

I don’t live here anymore. This once was the home in my head always. But not now.

No anger for the rushing back.

Compassion for the now.

I am human. I have cracks but I am not broken. Lean against the steady.

Breathe, held in place

Arms guiding me back to now. Keep breathing.

There will be fog. Use the tools. Medicine to dull the edge. Know that today you’ll struggle in the thick muck. One foot in front of the other.

Breath in, breath out.

The day will carry on.

You eventually will come to the other side, to begin again

You work

You dive deep

You build and use your tools

You try to be accountable

A Guided Tour of My Anxiety Attack

You work

You dive deep

You build and use your tools

You try to be accountable

Sometimes it’s little. A tightness in the chest. A tremor in the hand. Floating thoughts in tired chaos.

You work

It starts with a flutter deep in the belly. Temper becoming short as you try to hold on to the steady.

You try to be accountable.

Take a day to rest. The quiet makes the deep exhaustion deafening. Dive deep, use your tools.

The flutter grabs hold with claws and the world begins to roil. Coherent thoughts are just out of reach.

Sleep. Try to reset. Hold on to me so I don’t get carried away.

Middle of the night- clammy, claws have worked their way to the chest. Monsters screaming so loud, pulling my knees in, hands over my ears, trying pointlessly to keep out the screaming that’s inside.

Apologies tumbling from my lips, washed away by the downpour of tears. Shaking so hard, my seams threatening to tear.

Sometimes there’s a why. This time there is not a single, but fragments of everything. Real, imagined and all in between. A single why can be rationalized. The shame, I can’t get through the fragments cutting me from inside.

Shame and anger, gains feel lost.

Breathe.

Fucking breathe. Meet the monsters with compassion.

I don’t live here anymore. This once was the home in my head always. But not now.

No anger for the rushing back.

Compassion for the now.

I am human. I have cracks but I am not broken. Lean against the steady.

Breathe, held in place

Arms guiding me back to now. Keep breathing.

There will be fog. Use the tools. Medicine to dull the edge. Know that today you’ll struggle in the thick muck. One foot in front of the other.

Breath in, breath out.

The day will carry on.

You eventually will come to the other side, to begin again

You work

You dive deep

You build and use your tools

You try to be accountable

Pain

Sometimes you can’t tell just by looking.

Maybe when I move, you’ll see a pause, hear my breath. But just a little.

You can’t see the fire I feel, the ripping burn that just settles in. The raw grind and pop. The loudness of it in my head makes it hard to hear the outside world.

When asked, I pause, ‘fine’ I say- it’s exhausting to talk about any other way.

The forced encouragement I whisper to myself to move, stretch, to do what simply needs to get done, to not cry or complain.

It’s always there.

Just by degrees

A good day( usually after treatment), it’s hardly a thought. Not forefront in my thinking, not in my way.

A bad day, sometimes there’s a reason, sometimes there is not. It creeps in like a spiked steamroller. The loudest voice in the room. Some days only one sings it’s angry song. Some days it’s a duet.

At this moment it’s a four part harmony with a smouldering back drop. No steadiness, no focus available, except to will myself to the task at hand.

I do the things I can and hope it’s enough, I reassure the frustrated tired me that relief will come.

It’s all I can do, because some days you can’t tell by looking.