scramblednoodle - Tumblr blog

scramblednoodle · 3 years

Text

Day 50 - Is this the feeling they talk about?

One of the recurring things you hear about in transition stories is a high frequency of positive mood changes. You feel better, you feel more confident, all as you come to accept who you are, and you start to make that physical change.

There’s a photo from a card my Mom-in-law made on Vermin(Jay) and My dresser. It’s from last XMas. I’m beefy, I’m bearded. It’s me, but it’s not me. It’s an old me. The me in the mirror isn’t that person anymore. And I’m actually pretty fine with that. I’m more than fine, let’s be honest. I like what I see. There’s a certain amount of androgyny, especially when compared to my previous appearance. I’ve got longer hair, I’m 50 lbs lighter, and it’s starting to show in the face.

I like it.

So right now, there are two-fold changes: the transition to my correct gender, and a more reasonable weight.

I like it, but what’s more, I feel like I like it. Like, I legitimately like who I’m seeing. I’m still uncertain, but there’s this building sense of ‘right’. And my moods and desires are starting to change in some ways.

I have, for the past 10 years or so of my mental health journey, constantly worried about whether or not my good moods were just a phase, whether I was just manic, and whether or not tomorrow or the next hour or the next minute would be the moment when my mood swung back to a negative space.

In a sense, through constant analysis and worry, I was not ALLOWING myself to indulge in true joy. I still have issues allowing myself to feel this stuff without reservation.

So now we couple that realization with my gender alignment. I like who I see. I allow myself to feel joy.

It turns out I REALLY fucking love dancing.

Let’s use this as an analogue to a lot of things in my life. I’ll start by saying that I care too much what other people think, to the point that I let it dictate not only what I do, but how I enjoy it. I measure the way I talk, the way I move, the way I act, all to appease some projected expectation about what other people expect from me. I’m like an actor, living within the boundaries of a role that I made up in my head. I have always enjoyed dancing. I love dancing at Burning Man. I love dancing at company social functions. I love dancing at furry conventions. And now I love dancing in VR.

Up to these past two weekends, the way I danced was...subdued. It was hard to get out there and do anything other than sway. I’d move and shake and do stuff in rhythm, and I figured I wasn’t too bad. But I never let myself cut loose. Why? I don’t know any dance moves. I don’t know any of these fancy things that the professionals do. And I’m REALLY self-conscious about my fat ass. I may feel like my moves are decent, but I have this absurd certainty that I look like a beached whale flopping on a beach with its last breath. So while I LOVE dance music of all sorts, and I FEEL the music like it’s my own blood, I never let it really take me.

These are restrictions I have placed on myself.

Two weeks ago, there was a dance event in VRChat, and for the first time, I moved like I meant it. I just let go. I felt more free than I had in a while.

Now, part of this was chemical: I was coming off of a pretty bad case of Spiro brain fog, the constant cloudy confusion of a Testosterone blocker that I’d been living with for over a month, and which just seemed to get worse. My doc cut the dose in half, and aside from a brief period of SUPER ADD every morning, I’m doing MUCH better.

So this dance, I’m coming out of this bad place, mentally and physically, and there’s music and lights and MOTION. I was so jazzed about starting to recover from this haze that I just let myself go. I just went with it. The sounds and the sensation and the shared, communal energy just took me.

Look, I thrive off of energy. Music, people, sound, emotion, words, colors, art, environment, it’s all energy. I eat it up. It feels like a sort of hippie thing to say, and you know, that’s fine. Hippies have it right, IMO. Spread this love, because in the end, that’s all we are, energy and star stuff.

I didn’t dance TOO much that weekend. A few hours maybe.

Turns out there was another dance that got planned LAST weekend. HexFurryFest.

Oh boy.

I danced about 4ish hours on Friday, 4ish hours on Saturday, and a probably almost 7 hours on Sunday. I just didn’t stop. By YUR.fit’s account, on Sunday alone I burned over 4000 calories. FOUR THOUSAND.

I let go of what everyone was thinking, I lived in that moment, I let the music take me, and IT FELT FUCKING GREAT.

I’m riding that high. I’ve “discovered” Twitch and this fantastic community of live music and musicians and experience creators. The energy is outrageous. The love is magical. It’s like going to a jazz club, where when you like that shit YOU LET THEM KNOW. The feedback loop is just fucking POWERFUL beyond belief.

I feel it.

What’s more, I feel empowered as a result of all of this.

It’s not that I don’t CARE what people think of me, or how I move, or what I do, or how I act. There are still boundaries and limits and reasonable reactions and actions. But I ACCEPT that you might feel "some way” about me and what I’m doing, and I move on, because this isn’t about you. It’s about me and what I am allowing myself to feel, and how I’m stifling myself and my interactions, and ultimately letting everyone else dictate not just ME, but what makes me happy.

This is true of my music.

This is true of my art.

This is true of the way I speak and present myself.

This is part of my social anxiety.

This is part of my depression.

This is part of who I was.

In some way this feels like one of those “I MADE A REALIZATION, LET’S NOT WORRY ABOUT IT ANYMORE” things, where you have a self-realization and then move on because the endorphins fired off and you feel great for a little while.

I don’t think that’s happening here.

Look, this year has been shit for a lot of people. There’s a lot of folks down and out, and there’s a lot of folks in some pretty dark places.

I’ve had an amazing year. I am very sorry, and I am very cognizant of my privilege, and I thank the stars and the soul of the universe for my good fortune. I have made more friends than at any Furry convention, I have had as much positive social interaction in the past year as I have in the entirety of my adult life, and I do not exaggerate that.

This year has been full of change and discovery, of myself, and of the world around me.

And if this isn’t “That Feeling” that transitioning folks talk about, then I don’t know what is.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS MOTHERFUCKERS

There’s more music this weekend in VRChat. I’m gonna go dance. Come join me.

#transitionblog #transition #transisbeautiful #bipolar #depression #dancing

1 note · View note

scramblednoodle · 3 years

Text

Day 2 - Anxiety

This is a vent post; you have been warned.

I’m turning off the filters because I’ve been holding a lot of this shit in. And here is a comment born of anxiety: NO ONE IS GOING TO FUCKING CARE ANYWAY.

Please don’t message me that you do care. Please don’t. I know you do. LOGICALLY. But logic and anxiety DO NOT MATCH, and if you don’t grok this, then you need to think long and hard about what that REALLY means to people with this fucking malady.

Yesterday, at the end of the day, I was hit by crushing anxiety because of an incidental interaction, that I can’t even remember the details of, just that it called into doubt NOT ONLY the individual interaction, but the cascading tree of causality of all branches of my own personal Yggdrasil.

I have anxiety, pure and simple. I worry about everything. I analyze and I double analyze and I triple analyze, and even when I set a course, I do so full of doubt. I think that people who don’t have to deal with this sort of anxiety lack even the barest hint of understanding on how deeply this affects those who do. This is not to say that they have not experienced or experience anxiety; those with the disorder just experience it at an exponentially enhanced factor.

This is Day 2 of my transition. I felt great yesterday. Almost euphoric. And by the end of the day a little...weird. I looked at the side effects of Spironolactone and Estradiol. The former wasn’t of much worry, but one side effect of the latter burned itself into my eyeballs: anxiety. And like a hypochondriac, it may have been the very suggestion of this POSSIBLE mental shift that began the spiral.

I began to question. Myself. What I’m doing. Who I am. Lingering thoughts from work intruded. Did I do the right thing? Did I make a mistake? Was my analysis of that DKIM question correct? Was my reaction to a campaign vendor out of line? Did I offend that random person in my last ticket update? I could handle it, though.

And then someone in one of the various chats I’ve been in did something that I had been thinking about, and what’s more, they did some of the things I’ve already done. And I think they did it better than I could, and they did it CASUALLY. What took me tremendous amounts of mental effort seemed to be a casual thing for them, DESITE them claiming they were new to this. What is wrong with my brain? Why do these things become a herculean struggle for me, when others breeze through them? Why can REVEILLE not be special? Why am I so mediocre? People must think I’m useless, worthless, a whiner.

What does anyone know me for, anyway? The trumpet? I suck at it. I practiced my heart out at it, and still I was mediocre. I couldn’t hack being in even a low-end, community symphony orchestra. I can’t hit the high notes in the funk band I’m in the way the subs could. The ESTABLISHED LEAD could not perform as well as the subs were sight-reading the parts. What the fuck am I doing there? I’m not a trumpet player, I’m a fucking hack. And all of these synthesizer, this music shit. I have such great ideas, and when I sit in front of these things, I stare. Or I make something, and it feels mediocre. It feels like I strayed from my original intent.

What else would anyone know me for? Posting excessive amounts of pictures of VRChat on Twitter? I can’t even get most of my fucking old friends to play the fucking game, so why would they fucking care about the “neat” things I do? Neat things that other people have already posted about. I’m retreading everyone else’s path. I don’t know why I fucking bother. Half the time in VRChat I’m horribly lonely anyway, and the great times that I KNOW happened are fully eclipsed by all the fucking times some asshole in that fucking rexie crowd stepped in front of me in a conversation as if I wasn’t fucking there. or the times in my protogen group that I said something that felt relevant, but turned out to be from an old fuckface that has nothing in common with these young, excited, optimistic kids. that That’s ALL I REMEMBER. I remember that I DIDN’T EXIST.

My art is awful. I don’t practice enough, but how can you practice when everything you touch is shit? I diddle, I dabble, and when I seek some sort of affirmation that someone appreciates my garbage, it’s always the same people. It’s like drawing a stick figure and your mom putting it on the fridge. At some point you realize she’s doing it BECAUSE YOU MADE IT, and that makes it special TO THEM. It SHOULD be special to me, that I mean that to someone, but IT DOESN’T.

I surround myself with STUFF AND THINGS because each little item has a dream associated with it, each item, EVERY ITEM, has a story not just about what I’ve already done with it, but an even bigger story of WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH IT. They will never happen. Look at this 3D Printed Toothless. “I will paint that someday” I say, but I won’t, because I would ruin it with my shoddy painting. “Look at this dull knife? I will learn how to sharpen this dull knife.” But I don’t because I’ll just scratch it and make it worse. Look at this Loopstation. I’ve made some fun loops, but I’m going to get better at it, I’m going to practice. But I won’t, because I KNOW that I can’t make it work the way it works in my head, in the story that I wrote for it. Look at this fucking trumpet I bought that costs as much as a new car, 4 top end fursuits, or a year of mortgage payments for someone in a “reasonably” priced home. The THINGS I COULD PLAY, but I FUCKING WON’T because I CAN’T. Because I’m TERRIBLE.

I love to dance. It makes me feel alive. The music just moves me. VR has been a blessing for this. I can dance whenever I want, to whatever music I want. And then someone shows up the other day and starts cutting loose. They’ve never even been to a fucking club. They watch YouTube videos. They just started doing it. Their energy is TREMENDOUS and overwhelming and I CAN’T COMPARE. I realize that I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING CLOWN when I dance. I preach to people that it doesn’t matter, that everyone looks goofy, that it’s okay, but I’m FUCKING LYING because everyone is looking at me and judging me and thinking how embarrassing it is that I’m even in the same fucking ROOM with them. WHY DO I EVEN TRY?

Do you have ANY IDEA how life is when EVERYTHING YOU DO is worthless in your eyes? It’s not that I THINK it’s worthless, it’s that I KNOW it’s worthless.

You want to argue? Fine. Logically, you are correct. There is a rebuttal for EVERY SINGLE ONE of these admissions, and a rebuttal for the hundreds of other issues.

My hair looks dumb.

I look stupid with painted fingernails.

I can’t drive very good, and people notice.

My musical taste is awful.

I’m doing a bad job raising this new kitten.

I did a horrible job raising Bean.

I did a horrible job raising Harley.

I’m terrible at physicality.

My cooking is mediocre and samey.

I’m fat and gross.

I’m ugly as shit.

I look stupid in a dress.

My makeup looks like a kindergartner with a sharpie.

I suck at all video games.

No one likes the books I read.

I like the MCU and that’s horrible.

I like Apple products and that’s horrible.

My taste in computer hardware is shit.

My taste in clothes is shit.

My taste in cars is shit.

My glasses look dumb.

I made a mistake the last time I got my eyes checked because I’m stupid.

Only morons have as many knives as I do.

My voice is awful.

My photography was a joke, and I was a fool to have ever thought anyone gave a rat’s ass about my photos.

People think I’m a useless stoner.

I drink too much and am a fucking drunk that no one wants to hang around with.

My various bands have me there because they don’t know how to tell me to hit the road.

My VRChat characters are unremarkable and beneath notice.

DO I NEED TO CONTINUE???

These are the random thoughts that went through my head in rapid fire in the past 5 minutes. It took me longer to type them, at over 100wpm, than it did for them to fill my brain with their toxicity.

Do you have any idea what that’s like? To have everything you’ve done, ever done, and will do be called into question ad infinitum? To second-guess everything you say, everything you do, even every thought that goes in your head? Now wrap your head around this part:

Every one of those thoughts goes through multiple iterations of “Is it real? No it’s not real. But what if it is? What if you’re wrong? It’s probably real. Yeah, it’s real. But is it real? What if it is? Maybe I’m wrong? Yeah, I’m wrong, it’s real. But what if you’re wrong about it being real? Maybe it’s not real? Yeah, it’s probably not real. But you could be wrong about that, too.”

Every.

Fucking.

One.

*deep breath*

I started this post with the intent to write a little bit about the anxiety I’d been feeling. Turns out, I was wrong about how much was in there. I have anxiety dreams on a regular basis, more times than I admit, and likely even more than I can remember. I was at a convention last night. As usual, I missed every event. As usual, I missed every friend. As usual, I was late to every party. As usual, there was an elevator. Usually the elevator goes tot he wrong floor, or dumps me off either at the top of a maze of hotel rooms, outside a giant building with multiple staircases, or in the service tunnels beneath the building.

This time to elevator fell.

And it fell.

I legit thought this was it. I was going to die in this dream.

The brakes snapped on, and I woke up.

I never got back to REM. Tossed and turned for a few hours. Tried my usual trick of counting backwards form 100. I would lose count at about 94. My brain just...disintegrated. Over and over, it fragmented, then reformed back at my anxieties. When I don’t sleep, I’m especially susceptible to anxiety and depression.

Case in point.

========================

I’ve been mulling over what I just wrote. I felt all of that, in the moment. It looks silly now, on paper, as it were. But that’s just another aspect of the anxiety. A coping mechanism, if you will. “You’re just being silly”. And as usual, I’m already getting brain-foggy over the things I said. I forget about it again, because that’s what the brain does: it suppresses trauma.

All I know is I was near tears when I wrote all of that stuff up there; I remember that much, very clearly.

That memory will fade too.

And anxiety says to me, to write “It will fade, just like everything about me.”

So I wrote it, and I pretend to myself that I don’t believe it. That I don’t feel that I am all of those things I wrote about above. That everything...is fine.

And, at least for a little bit, it will be. Those scores of thoughts will reduce to, oh, maybe 10. Not all will be toxic, but most will be a worry of some sort. A question. A question to myself, of myself, about myself.

Anxiety and Depression and ADHD and Mania and other “Mental Misfires” are not things that ever “go away”. I may wake up, and the dream may fade, but the harsh reality is that, no matter what meds, no matter how much therapy, if you have this stuff, the dreams will come back. The severity will come and go., but...

The dreams always come back.

========================

I’m out of steam. The fire is cooled. I’m done writing for now, and no one wants to hear anything else about this, anyway, least of all me.

Peace, y’all.

#anxiety #crushing anxiety

1 note · View note

scramblednoodle · 4 years

Text

Day 1

So here we are. Last we talked, I was contemplating the concept of death, and the way I approached it. That was...2019? My friend with ALS died. Bean died. And then J and I had the most amazing trip of our lives, a distraction we sorely needed, a trip across the country over 30 days and 8500 miles, camper trailer in tow. Amazing time, amazing trip. Did we do Burning Man? I think we did Burning Man. Then CFT, then the holidays, then 2020 came around, and we did Further Confusion, with Vardaman gigs interspersed between.

And then Covid19 happened.

I don’t want to talk about all of the things that have happened since then. I’ll give a summary, though. We found VR and found a whole new dimension of socializing. We’ve made a TON of friends, more than we have ever made at any con, and maybe more than we’ve made at many of those cons combined, and we’ve gotten closer to some of our existing friends. I’ve lost a ton of weight. We got a kitten. We’ve stayed home, we don’t eat out, save for the occasional Taco Bell/Papa Murphy’s take-out. A lot of stuff has been done at home and with the house. We got a 3d printer, a kegerator, and a freeze dryer. Life has slowed down, but time has sped forward, and the two are oddly disjunct.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

See, sitting at home, doing things, and not being distracted by going out all the time has caused a certain amount of reflection. A LOT of reflection. I’ve had to face some things, and as a result, I’ve realized some things. Last year I started having a gender identity crisis. This mulled around in my head, until I slowed down, until life calmed down and I was forced to delve deep and explore this. Early this year, shortly after FC, I admitted that I was trans, to myself, and to those that know me. I came out on Twitter, to massive amounts of support. I mean, folks who knew me well probably weren’t all that surprised, except that it took me so long. To others, maybe it broadsided them, but I have thought of myself as “she” for so long, and been called “She” or “Lady” or “Her” or “Mistress” or whatever for so long, maybe it got taken for granted.

I was undecided on transitioning, but always kept the option open. Since I’d been losing weight, I set a goal: if I could hit 220, I would “consider” transitioning.

Let’s go back to the cross-country trip. I stopped shaving during that trip. I grew a great, big, Pacific NorthWest beard. MANLY beard. Bushy in all the right ways. I got complimented on my beard.

I started to hate my beard.

Denial-beard, it’s called, amongst some transgender folks. For my birthday this year I bought the nicest electric razor I have ever in my life owned, and was more expensive than my last 4 electric razors combined. For my birthday, I shaved my denial beard. It was the first time I had entirely removed my facial hair in years, and certainly the first time without it AND embracing my transgender self.

I loved what I saw in the mirror. I loved her so much that I decided that my goal of hitting a weight and then transitioning was purely a projection of my continued belief that in order to physically become the woman I am inside, that I had to be svelte. Thinner. Sleeker. Beautiful.

What a bunch of rubbish.

I saw myself as a woman in the mirror for the first time in my life, and I felt nothing but giddy joy. I’m starting to tear up at the memory of it. Do you have any fucking idea how HARD it is to look at yourself in a mirror for FORTY THREE YEARS and hate yourself? I bet more than one of you do.

Between 2007 and 2009 I went from 308lbs to 175lbs. I looked GOOD. I had hot men wanting to touch me, to fuck me. It was nice to be liked.

I hated who I saw in the mirror. And I eventually hated what being fit and thin and desired turned me into. A Fitness TYRANT. My way or no way. I started to look down on those who could not do what I did. It was gross.

Harley died, work went to shit, and over the next 10 years or so, I put most of the weight back on.

Still hated who I saw in the mirror.

And then, thanks to Covid, I saw a woman in the mirror, and for the first time, I understood.

Fuck the weight goal. I talked to my therapist. I needed a head check. Is this me? Am I doing the right thing? Is this a phase? A phase, LOL.

I’ve presented as a woman online since 1997. It started as an excuse to have cyber with straight guys; at least. that’s what I told myself. It felt comfortable from day 1. Over the years, my male characters either fell to the wayside, or became women themselves. So easy, transitioning in a side reality. Very few people would judge, and those who did would easily be blocked or ignored. I felt comfortable.

When I started to date Kiteless, many years ago, his circles had no problems with she/her pronoun with relation to me. After all, I was not the only dragoness with a misidentified physical body. It was...nice. For the first time, I felt like I could be accepted. I WAS accepted, as who I felt I was. That persisted, and continues to persist. When I started dating J, he would always refer to me as “Lady”. He never had a problem with my gender, though it took him a while to realize that it was not just a kink for me, that I was not doing it to tease him, but that I was doing it because it was how I felt comfortable. I think he understands it now.

Speaking of understanding, it was about the time I decided to go through with HRT that the real wall started to erect itself. Something that grew and grew, and grew strong.

My Dad.

Don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t anything he did or said. My dad is Puerto Rican, and he’s Military. He lives and breathes the US Army, even though he’s long retired. I don’t think he understands how to function back in the world. I don’t think he can handle the entropy. Or at least, it’s not an entropy he understands. But this makes him subject to, let’s just say, a rather blunt, lopsided, and sometimes outdated view of the world.

How in the hell would he accept that his son was going to become his daughter?

So I started to build this wall in my head. Out of bricks that I made myself. Bricks based on assumption and self-projection. I have ever been my own worst enemy, and this was no exception.

There is a memory, a very NOT FOND memory I have. Before I left home, before I escaped from under HIS roof (and he never let us forget that), my parents found out I was gay. At one point, my dad and I got into an argument, and he said “They need to take you out like that kid in Colorado and beat you.” He was referring to Matthew Shepard, a gay college kid who was beaten severely in Laramie, WY, and later died in Ft Collins, CO.

I’ve never forgiven my dad for that comment. I don’t know if I ever can. The comment came from a place of ignorance and anger, but it came from him, it came from within, and it was directed at his child. I will never forget that moment, and that moment will forever color the way I interact with him.

SO! You can understand, perhaps, why I was terrified of telling him. Despite our rocky relationship over the years, I do love my dad, and he’s the person in the world that, for a long time, I most wanted approval from. In a way, I still do, and I will probably always want his approval. Now, my mom accepted who I was without issue. She’s always been supportive, though there was a time when I think she was hurt that I would never give her grandkids. :P She follows me Twitter, so it was pretty clear to her what was happening with me, though she somehow missed the big news, that I was going to transition.

It was hard to tell her, but as I expected, she was supportive. Very supportive. I’m blushing just thinking about it, the feeling of my mom calling me her girl. I never would have thought I’d get to this point.

When I first broached transition with my therapist, after much handwringing and self-questioning, the expectation was that I was going to start a long process of approval. I would need to go through my Primary Care physician, then see an endocrinologist, then get a letter of recommendation from my therapist, then be evaluated for medications. My doctor was a small-town, country doctor who didn’t listen, and whose answer to everything was Flonase. He was OBSESSED with allergies and nasal steroids. I was really dubious he’d be on-board with helping me transition. So, of course I changed PCPs. J and I were already super dissatisfied with him, so it was a no-brainer. Ended up at OHSU, with a primary care doc who specialized in gender confirming action and therapies. We talked. I got a lab panel done. And then suddenly she was prescribing me estrogen and testosterone blockers.

My expectation of 6 months was suddenly obliterated, and boy did the doubt start. Am I doing the right thing? Oh my god, I’m not ready for this. I was supposed to have SIX MONTHS, and it took ONE AND A HALF.

Things moved fast after that. A few more doctor appointments. Some medication research. Some frozen sperm, just in case.

Yesterday was...a roller coaster. Yesterday, the meds showed up in the mail. Yesterday, I got the notification that my sperm was accepted into the sperm bank and was healthy and viable. Yesterday, I called my mom, and we talked for almost 2 hours. It was a lovely conversation. And I asked her to help me tell my dad.

A very short while later, I received a message from my dad. It was cryptic, but Dad is ESL, so he doesn’t really enunciate the way most folks do. Blunt, coarse, direct, and with odd modifier choices. Nonetheless he made one thing clear.

He loved me no matter what.

I cried for 30 minutes straight. My paper towels were a sopping mess of tears and snot. I was a mess.

I also felt more free than I’ve been in a long, long time. That wall I built got torn down, and good riddance. *I* built that wall, out of my own fear and projected doubts. It was a real wall. Those fears were real feelings. Unfounded, but REAL. And they’ve finally crumbled. Finally.

I took my first HRT pills this morning. As I understand it, I’ll be on them for at least 3 years, assuming I stick with it. I can expect a second puberty before any physical changes. In 6 months or something, physical changes will begin to occur, but right now I’m just...Well, my head is spinning. I still have doubts, but since yesterday, they’re quieter. They’re less pronounced. They’re mostly based around trying not to get shanked by a Good ‘Ol Boy. The usual.

And now we come to today.

Today is a special day. Today is my Day 1. Today begins the rest of my life.

I’m scared, I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m giddy. I am as confused a jumble as I ever was. But I’m pretty sure of one thing:

This is right.

My intent to is journal things now and then. Thoughts, worries, etc. We’ll see how it goes. )

Peace, y’all.

#transgender #transitioning #self doubt #hopeful #anxiety #joy

0 notes

scramblednoodle · 6 years

Text

Death and Taxes

This is more about death than anything, but we’ll get to taxes at the end, because it made a more appropriate title.

I have a friend with ALS who is, as most ALS sufferers, dying; his time is very limited. I also very recently lost my grandmother, so there’s been a bit of a churn in my head.

Way back in early 2010, my dog, Harley, died. I’ve written a good deal about him, as he instigated what was to be a drastic turning point in my life, as his passing became a huge trigger for my depression and eventual diagnosis as being bi-polar. Up to that point, I had been terrified of death. I would wake up crying as a child as I pondered the gravity of losing someone close to me. Harley was the first experience with that, and it was devestating.

After years of therapy and medication, and a fair bit of...ahem...chemically-induced navel gazing, my perception and acceptance of death started to change. It was, I believe, a direct correlation to my embracing of the concept of being “present” and “mindful”. In essence, I understand and (mostly) accept that life is nothing without death. What I do today is what’s more important, and I should focus on today because tomorrow might not come, and then what good does my worrying about it become? I think I’m going to start calling this “Dog Mind” because a dog only worries about the next 5 minutes, and it usually involves food or going out to do their business! A dog doesn’t worry about dying, they just worry about what’s in front of their nose, and if there isn’t anything there, well, they go and sniff out something to do, even if it’s just a nap!

Anyway, I’m a big fan of the concept of a “death party”. Mourn the loss, but don’t dwell on it. Instead focus on the good that was done, the principles that were lived by, the things that were accomplished, large and small. You can even focus on some of the bad things, either as a lesson, or to get people laughing and smiling about how ridiculous things were. Drink and be merry, because in celebrating their death you are celebrating their life, and that can leave you with sweet memories of love rather than bitter memories of loss.

I think it’s also okay to talk about death, but it’s not something you should dwell on overlong. Not because we’re trying to pretend it’s not going to happen, but because we accept that it’s going to happen. Shed some tears, reminisce, but then smile and make jokes about it. Trust me, you’ll feel better, and you might start to accept a little bit of it.

I suppose I’ve got a tendency of making light of death these days. Maybe it’s my way of coping with it, after all these years. Flow, don’t fight, with the river. Maybe this post is a bit of justification for that attitude, or maybe I just wanted to put this down in writing so that the next time I have to deal with death that’s right in front of me I can look back and be reminded of how I feel. Who can tell? It’s time to turn on the Dog Mind and not focus on worrying about that. :)

Speaking of worrying, how about those taxes??? Only two certainties in life, so they say! HAHAhaHahaha.... *sob* (there, I justified the title)

-Reveille

2 notes · View notes

scramblednoodle · 6 years

Text

“Artsy” crap.

Hello, it’s been a while.

I’ll just dive in. I’ve joined a band that is not my usual jazz or classical. It’s very experimental, so much so that I’m not playing just the trumpet, but little goofy instruments, as well, like kalimba, klave, tambourine; stuff to fill spaces where the horn doesn’t work, or to help build to the horn.

Experimental.

Artsy.

My guts try to clench at it. I wriggle and squirm. “THIS ISN’T MUSIC!” my brain screams at me. “THIS ISN’T WRITTEN ON A SHEET! IT HAS NO TIME SIGNATURE! THERE’S ONLY THE VAGUEST HINT OF A KEY!”

I scream back: “I DON’T EVEN KNOW THE THEORETICAL VAGARIES OF KEY THEORY TO GIVE A RATS ASS!”

Because I really don’t. I don’t think about those things. I just play what’s on the page, or what the band leader says to play. There’s a solid tune, a melody, a chorus, a bridge. Now there is no page. There’s a melody of sorts, but it’s unlike anything I’ve known. There’s a bridge that’s just suddenly there. There’s a chorus...Maybe? I think? And there in front of me, I have an iPad with various digital controls and simulated guitar pedals doing synthesized effects through a microphone interface that’s jammed into the bell of my horn. I have a small mixing board so I can switch between a normal mic for un-synthed mutes and a mute-embedded mic, a Silent Brass practice thing that makes for a very good, clean pickup for the super synthy stuff. I can shred, I can play bass, I can play organ, I can play the tuba.

“THIS FUCKING ARTSY CRAP!” my brain yells at me.

I cringe. The logical part of me says that this sort of weird musical experiment is good for me. It’s good to step outside of your comfort zone. You don’t grow if you do the same comfortable thing over and over. You don’t grow without trying something, even if you fail at it. Even if I hate it, I need to try it anyway.

As it turns out, I’m doing fairly decently, and I’m actually enjoying it. I’m starting to understand how the pedals work, how the synthy stuff works (sort of). It’s still terrifying.

It shouldn’t be.

It keeps going back to this negative “ARTSY” word. In my personal, negative use of it, it means doing something that is deliberately “Out There” for the sake of making it absurd, for the sake of getting a rise out of someone.

Wait, wait, wait. That’s what art is, anyway, isn’t it?!?! When I draw, I want to make an impression. When I play a solo, I want it to be interesting. So WHY. THE. FUCK. AM. I. SO. HUNG. UP. ON. THE. WORD. “ARTSY”!?!?!?!

Cognitive Dysfunction at its finest, y’all. Let’s break it down and prove myself wrong.

Listen up, self.

The dysfunction: This experimental shit is weird and too artsy and I’m embarrassed to do it.

1. Filtering - I am focusing only on the negative aspects of playing. I’m going back in my head and thinking on all the previous times I’ve failed at something musical I’ve tried to do. I’m going back in my head and thinking on all the previous times I tried to do electronic experimentation with the horn. I’m thinking of every failed solo, every flub in a song, every missed note.

Rebuttal - I can’t fail until I actually try, and if I fail, then I need to learn from that. My previous work is not this work. My previous solos are not these performances. My previous mistakes were learning experiences, and should be taken as such. To dwell only on the fact that they were mistakes is self-defeating. I cannot learn anything new if I don’t try anything new. The reality is that some of the sounds I’m coming up with are really pleasing to my own ears, and I feel like I’m already making some strides forward in understanding my instrument more, the way I make sound, and the way I match notes. I’m already learning. There will be mistakes, there will be failures: this is always the case. I must re-frame the way I view them, and take them as lessons rather than defeats.

2. Polarized Thinking - It’s either Classical/Jazz, or it’s artsy, experimental crap. I don’t like the experimental stuff of Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie. It sounds goofy. Who would play that? Why? It’s either the stuff I know, or it’s artsy, hipster CRAP.

Rebuttal - There are more styles than Classical and Jazz. Even I admit that I haven’t listened to THAT MUCH of Dizzy and Miles’ experimental phases. The reality is that I need to listen to it, to force myself to listen to the music as an expression, rather than a mathematical formula. As bad as I am at math, I have a really terrible habit of viewing things formulaically, especially music. And the truth is that people not only play interesting, weird, out-there experimental stuff, but a lot of people LOVE IT. It’s also, as everything, a learning experience. It’s an aspect of music, and my horn, and the way I play my horn, that I have barely touched. It’s already improving my ear training. I imagine it will ultimately help other aspects, as well.

3. Overgeneralization - This crosses over somewhat with Filtering. I’ve failed in the past. I’m doomed to fail again. I can’t do this sort of thing. I don’t even like experimental jazz.

Rebuttal - Well, to start with, this isn’t jazz. I know very little about what I’m playing, actually. There’s a lot of synth going on, a lot of drums, a lot of very unusual sort of sounds that I’m not used to. Part of me thinks it’s pretty cool that this is a thing. I’m going to miss notes; that’s a given. It happens to the best. I’m going to miss notes, I’m going to forget my batteries, I’m going to drop my mute, I’m going to have one drink too many and my brain will turn to mush. It’s just a thing that happens. Worrying about it, focusing on it will only make me crazy. C’mon, Rev, just fuckin’ go do it.

4. Jumping to Conclusions - Because I think this is artsy crap, everyone else will think this is artsy crap.

Rebuttal - It’s super easy to disprove this one. I’ve seen live performances of this. People dig it. Part of me doesn’t understand why, or how, but I think that’s the part of me that forgets that not everyone makes music, wants to makes music, or can even conceptualize of making music. That part of me forgets that I first picked up the trumpet almost 30 years ago. Sure, I’ve only been doing improvisation for 4ish years, but my experience on the horn vastly outweighs that. People like this stuff. Their ears find it genuinely interesting. Even me, as an audience member, was very much “How did they do that super neat sort of sound and music they just produced??” Folks dig it, and that’s a fact.

5. Emotional Reasoning - Yeah, yeah, it always comes back to this, doesn’t it. I’m a bundle of tangled threads of emotion, and it colors a lot of my thinking. Music has honestly been one of my greatest joys, and my biggest stressors. I love it so much, and I get wrecked when I don’t get what I think I should be getting out of it (there’s a hearty sprinkling of generalization, polarized thought, filtering, heaven’s reward, control fallacy, catastrophization...okay, a hearty sprinkling of EVERY dissonance...). What exactly am I looking to get out of it, though? Happiness? Recognition? I honestly don’t know what I want sometimes. So I get frustrated, and what should you do when you get frustrated? RUN THE FUCK AWAY!!!

Rebuttal - Yeah, no, don’t run away. That’s the emotion speaking. I don’t really know what I want out of this, but I do know that I need to stop worrying about the end and focus on the journey, on the now, on the present. Here we are, back to a common thread in my posts: STAYING PRESENT. Part of sorting out the emotions is what this post is for. I know that I don’t think straight when I’m being riled up and emotional. That’s a known thing. Step back, Rev, relax, take a deep breath. Take 10. Take 20! But focus on here...now...the present.

So where does this leave us? Let’s go back to the start, with the negative term:

ARTSY

It’s...just art. And art can be artsy: that’s not a bad thing, brain. It’s not a bad thing at all, so get your tail out there and play.

-R

0 notes

scramblednoodle · 8 years

Text

Hello, old friend.

DISCLAIMER: If you don’t like what you’re reading here, I’m not forcing you to read it. I’m a person with issues; this is where I talk about them. It may make you uncomfortable. It may bring you down. It may make you dislike me. You can choose to close this window and go back to your world, or you can chose to read this, and make of it what you will.

Hello, old friend, it’s been quite a while. So much has changed since last I put my thoughts here, all of it for the better. So why am I back? Well, no calm can last forever, and no storm can be truly banished. As Bob Ross said, you can’t have good times without the bad to give you perspective. The most perfect mind may live in a place where there is no thought of storms of or even of the lack of storms. This is a perfect place, an empty place, a state of wu-wei, or emptiness.

I am not that mind, and of late, my grasp on the present has faltered.

I’m going to talk about dreams now. I’ve been kept up by them lately, and it makes me tired. When I’m tired, I’m extremely susceptible to thought distortions. This has happened a few times over the past few weeks, and it’s getting more frequent, so it’s time to vomit it up on the table and stop keeping the thoughts that have spawned internalized. I want to try to analyze these dreams to the best of my ability, in detail. Feel free to comment on them, as well, as I am in full realization that my interpretations are the biased sort based on the fallacy of “I know all there is to know of myself, and this makes your opinions invalid”.

Keep in mind, ALL of the dreams described here happened LAST NIGHT. All in a row, as I tried to get caught up on sleep over the course of 12 hours. The previous days’ dreams have already been forgotten, and were not as intense as last night’s.

Dream #1 - A murderous shark

This is a recurring dream, but it’s rare. It’s an indistinct dream, characterized by flashes of action and event, but without being very solid or well-formed. I am...somewhere. Many places, in fact. There is a giant shark, a tremendous beast of the depths, from which I cannot escape. Is it me who can’t escape or those ambiguous faces with me, though? I can’t tell. All I know is that through rickety ships, dilapidated wharves, icebergs, and even land and mountains, the shark viciously murders in obscene shows of gore. Is it me it murders or is it those around me? I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t escape it. The dream fades, and I wake in a sweat and feeling very perturbed.

Dream #1 Analysis

The simplest thing I can come up with is fear of loss, and an inability to escape it. Current parallels can be drawn between fears of giving up the trumpet from frustration, surrendering to my perceived failure at art, the drastic changes in my lifestyle, the possibility of moving away in the short term, and the possibility of the market crashing and ruining my plans. We’ll discuss the base meanings later.

Dream #2 - A surprise birthday party

This was an odd one, and the first time I’ve experienced a dream like this. I’m at home, in my condo, and I’m woken up early by Jay, who says the doorbell is ringing. I go to answer the door and there are 10+ people there, who all shuffle in. I know many of them, some of them I do not. They gather in a circle and start to sing Happy Birthday, but there is no sound and the speak no words. This is a silent birthday song, and it’s odd in its intensity. Once done, we retire to a sun porch (which I don’t have) and one by one, the people I know leave, leaving only those who I don’t know. They ignore me, moving to the other room when I enter, leaving me alone. The dream fades, and I wake in a sweat, but feeling oddly happy.

Dream #2 Analysis

I ended this feeling happy, but further thought of it started to dig out the negatives that were hidden in it (for better or worse). My analysis is simple: a fear of meeting new people. This is likely also related to the recent con, and to the thoughts of moving away from here, as well as having to deal with the possibility of interacting with folks in Portland that I have nothing in common with. There is also a bit of fear of being alone, which is unusual for me, and likely something I’ve taken on as I’ve gotten so used to Jay being here.

Dream #3 - Taking pictures that won’t appear

I’m wandering around a familiar place, dilapidated back alleys and buildings, almost a wrecked industrial zone. I’ve been here before, in other dreams, but I’m usually doing odd work inside of these buildings, or sometimes lost, or sometimes fighting. This time, I’m wandering around the outsides them. Amongst the buildings, I see multiple interesting cars, so I take out my cell phone to take pictures of them for Jay. There are a total of 4 cars that catch my eye as being different. The first two I can take pictures of, but the second two, no matter what I do, the phone will not take a picture of them. It either doesn’t take the picture at all, or it takes a picture of something else random. I try to show Jay, but I am frustrated. I couldn’t show him what I wanted to show him. Of the 4 cars, I remembered the name of 3 of them in the dream. Outside of the dream, I only remember that one was enormous, black, with a single light on the front. The dream fades, and I wake in a sweat.

Dream #3 Analysis

This directly relates to my art, most likely the drawing ability I’ve been working on, though I can see echoes of it in my music and my photography. It expresses a deep frustration in my inability to create what I perceive, to the extent that even the simplest expression (a cell phone picture) is impossible.

Dream #4 - Fast food and getting shot (very vivid)

I’m standing on a grassy hill across the street from my house (from the birthday dream). I’m in line for a fast food place, though oddly, we’re going directly into the kitchen through the back door. I finally go in and am given a soggy burger and a very small number of potato chips and french fries. When I protest this poor excuse for food, the big woman there tells me to deal with it, while another indistinct worker hides in the background. I ask for her name, and she gives me the name “Mao” or something, and points to her badge, which says something completely different. Then she shows me a jade pendant, which looks shockingly like the one I wear, and says “The name is on here, too.” I pull out my pendant and show her, and say “I have one too!” and then I calm down, and tell her that everything is fine, and I’m just grumpy, and I take my food and soda and go. As I’m walking down the line of people, a short person with saggy eyes and slumping shoulders says to me “You ought to drink that soda before someone else does.” I ignore him and continue walking. He follows me to the edge of the street, and says, “I said you ought to drink that soda before I do.” I turn around and tell him to stuff it, and he fires a gun he’d been holding, then turns and slowly walks away. “Shit!” I say to myself, lifting my hands to my chest, around the area of my heart. There’s blood everywhere. I turn, my vision going blurry, and pull out my phone, trying to enter my code and dial 911. The dream fades, and I wake in a sweat.

Dream #4 Analysis

I’m annoyed by my own depression and lack of sleep. I’m annoyed at these stupid, unconscious-mining dreams that won’t let me rest. I fear that this disruption in my mood will lead me to some manic confrontation that will leave me in a bad state, physically. And I fully realize that I’m being a dick to nice people because I can’t control my emotions.

Dream #5 - The secret lab and boss fight (very vivid)

I’m working in a lab of some type, presumably secret. My manager is mouthy and impatient. An alarm goes off, as it’s time for a “regular event” to occur, but it’s dangerous for us, so we have to be somewhere safe. This is all I know of it. We’re running to the safe room, and the manager decides to berate me for performing poorly. The alarms get louder and I leave him behind to scream at me as I run. I make it into the safe room before the door auto-locks behind me, but because he was too busy focusing on yelling at me, he’s trapped outside. He slumps against a bundle of cables near the wall as the room fills with electricity, and then everything freezes in a layer of ice. Suddenly, he and the wires he slumped against start pulsing and throbbing in time, and he slowly ‘drains’ into the wires until he shrinks away, pumped under the floor and gone completely. The alarms end and the doors open. Later, I’m there with a team, investigating. We’re led by a man I recognize but can’t place; I think he’s an old boss, but I’m not sure. We go to the wall where the former manager was sucked into, and we pull the cables out to find them grotesquely bulged. We cut them off and blood and viscera spew out, along with a perfectly formed brain. We’re thrilled at the discovery, and gather it up for analysis. Things fuzz out, but I have a vague recollection of fighting bugs, possibly that came from the hoses, and which came out of them after the brain did. Not really sure about it. Things return to clarity, and we’re all running down a hallway, until we reach a door. “This is my fight. Only I can do this.” says indistinct man. He opens the sealed door and goes in, locking it behind him, as we watch through the glass. He proceeds to fight a perfectly normal-looking cat in what I can only describe as an epic boss fight, with the two of them engaging in a brutal mortal combat. At one point, the unknown man splits into 3, one himself, one a huge black guy in a police uniform, and the third I don’t remember, but I recall it being something metaphorical (fuck if I know :P). They beat down the cat, and we go back down the hallway, presumably to escape. There are alarms and whatnot, and all the insect from the tubes from earlier are trying to escape into hidden alcoves in the walls. I try to step on a few, but we’re running out of time, and we go to the end of the hallway and escape. We’re standing on the side of the street I got shot on, and we’re in dress military uniforms, and there are rows and rows of trees in perfect, symmetrical formation.

Dream #5 Analysis

I’m kind of at a loss on this one, as there is so very much going on. Perhaps a fear of being left behind, leading to horrible outcomes? Getting sucked into a machine and being nothing but a brain to be used? But the fighting cat? The escape? I don’t know. Maybe it means I feel I’m engaged in an epic struggle, and that I subconsciously expect a reward at the end? This one has me baffled.

The next three dreams overlapped each other simultaneously.

Dream #6 - Chatting with a Friend

I’m talking with a good friend of mine online. I don’t remember precisely what about, but a I think a large part of it was talking about my plans for the future, and where I was going (Dream #8). The whole time, I’m talking to her, I’m also playing a video game in another window. At one point, I get to a tough spot, and when I return, she’s posted a huge mess of things (not sure if they were positive of negative comments), and then at the end says “Anyway, g’night!” and logs off before I can respond.

Dream #7 - I can’t win at Final Fantasy 3(6)

The game from Dream #6 seems to be very similar to Final Fantasy 3(6), specifically before Sabin and Cyan go to the Phantom Forest. At one point, I’m fighting a set of tough monsters, but not a boss. The monsters hit me VERY hard, dropping both of my characters to near-death. I can think of no strategy to defeat these opponents, so I decide to go back. I reset the game and reload it, except that I’m at the same spot. This time they outright KO one of my characters, and leave the other near death again. I reset again. The same thing happens. This happens over and over until I give up in frustration and turn the console off, which for some reason erases all of my progress. It occurs to me immediately afterward that at some point, Shadow comes and helps you out, and that sometimes defeats like this are scripted, and because of my impatience, I didn’t give things time to fully complete.

Dream #8 - Thinking about talking to my high school counsellor about my future in life sciences

This segues from Dream #6′s conversations. It was more of a daydream within a dream, about how I should probably go talk to my high school counsellor about my future in Life Sciences (perhaps something to do with Dream #6), and my fears of failure because of my horrible deficiencies in math. Since I am a 38 year who went back to high school, surely the counsellor will take my future much more seriously, since obviously I wanted to try everything again.

Dream #6 #7 #8 Analysis

I’m lumping these all together because they were contiguous and simultaneous. #6 displays a fear of disregarding my friends because I am constantly distracted by things. #7 shows these things are obstacles that I find myself consistently failing at because of my own impatience. #8 shows that because of this, I find myself second guessing the deficiencies I have, and because of this, I feel I need guidance to correct it.

Let’s break down the anxieties we can pull from these dreams.

Dream #1 - Fear of loss, fear of being trapped.

Dream #2 - Fear of new people, fear of being alone.

Dream #3 - Frustration at failure to produce what I see in my head.

Dream #4 - Frustration at my depression, fear of my mania, fear of losing myself

Dream #5 - Unclear, but I think I expect to do great things and be rewarded?

Dream #6 - Fear of disregarding my friends and pushing them away.

Dream #7 - Fear of failure because I’m too impatient.

Dream #8 - Second guessing, focusing on my deficiencies.

Let’s distill these down further.

1. Fear of being trapped (1, 2, 4, 6)

2. Fear of loss (1, 3, 4, 6, 7)

3. Fear of strangers/new people (2, 4)

4. Fear of my own twisted emotions and the effects it can have on people, both strangers and those close to me (2, 4, 6, 7, 8)

5. Journey vs Ending (3, 5, 7, 8)

6. Expectation, Impatience, Anger (2, 3, 5, 7)

Let’s expound and then break them down and disprove them. These are common cognitive distortions I’ve learned through workshops at Kaiser, and through my psychiatrist and several psychologists. ( http://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-cognitive-distortions/ )

1. Fear of being trapped - I feel like I’m stuck in an endless loop, at work, at home. Things have changed hugely, but I feel tied down by monetary concerns, by future concerns, by life concerns. Will I be broke tomorrow? Will my condo be worth anything when I decide to move? Will living with Jay ultimately lead to perceived imprisonment?

Cognitive Distortions - Filtering, Polarized Thinking, Jumping to Conclusions, Catastrophizing, Control Fallacies, Emotional Reasoning

Rebuttal - Much of this thought is based on things I just don’t know. I’m very tired due to lack of sleep from the recent con, and this makes me VERY susceptible for misinterpreting and catastorphizing. Will these fears come true. Maybe they will and maybe they won’t. I need to trust in myself to deal with them if it does. I’ve come this far. I’ve worked through many problems before. Why would I now be able to work through these, too? I need to reduce my expectations and focus on being present, and things will work out.

2. Fear of loss - This is an extension of #1. I feel like I’m going to lose what I have. I fear I’m going to lose the things I need, and the people I love.

Cognitize Distortions - Filtering, Polarized Thinking, Catastrophizing, Personalization, Shoulds, Emotional Reasoning

Rebuttal - Logically, I know this type of thinking is not true. Logically, I know that for people, simple things are not going to drive them away. I have friends, and I have good ones. For physical objects? Logically, again, I know they’re not really needed, and that everything that makes me is in my heart and in my head. All physical objects are transient, even me, and I need to once again embrace that. Once more, staying present will help me realize that attachment to THINGS can be a way to set up expectations that lead to frustration. (It may be argued that this directly conflicts with the former, yet while the physical form is transient, in this age of virtual worlds and technology, a physical presence is not needed to maintain a mental and emotional connection with those close to you.)

3. Fear of strangers/new people - This is my most common, recurring fear, and it was likely triggered by thoughts of going to a swap meet with Jay in Portland in a few months. I’m terrified of meeting new people, or strangers, and trying to relate to them, and talk to them, and all the while feeling like I’m being judged by them. This usually manifests itself after parties or small events where there are close encounters with people who I fear, for one reason or another, dislike me, without ever having met them.

Cognitive Distortions - Filtering, Polarized thinking, Overgeneralization, Jumping to Conclusions, Personalization, “Should”s, Emotional Reasoning

Rebuttal - I repeatedly go back to believing that people are judging me. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. Maybe my “Resting Bitchfact” makes people think I’m angry and not to be interacted with. Maybe they’re just as terrified of talking to me as I am of talking to them. These are a lot of maybes that I’m not considering, and am instead jumping to conclusions. They are not interacting with me, therefore they hate me. They are not acknowledging me, therefore they are judging me. I am making up what they are thinking of me in my own head, when in the end, it doesn’t really matter what they think of me, and if I wish to make a good impression, I can’t stand around waiting for them to make a first move. In reality, I DO reach out to people, I DO hold out my hand and introduce myself, I DO interact with strangers. But in my head, I filter, and forget every single time I’ve ever done that. Again, by staying present, I can trust myself, and logically, I know that I am fully capable of dealing with this sort of thing.

4. Fear of my emotions and the effect they have on people - This is another old one. It’s a simple one. I KNOW I’m depressed, and I fear driving people away, especially my partner.

Cognitive Distortions - Filtering, Polarized Thinking, Jumping to Conclusions, Catastrophizing

Rebuttal - Logical me knows this is all bullshit. My friends love me for who I am, good and bad, and me being in a pissy mood isn’t going to push them away. Mostly I worry about Jay, because I know my depressions have an effect on him, and from experience, I know that my Ex had issues dealing with it. Jay loves me for who I am, good and bad, and I need to accept that, or else the spiral of my own doubt will continue to damage my emotions. My friends love me for who I am, and I have touched on that acceptance in many previous posts.

5. Journey vs Ending - This one is more applied to my various artistic endeavors. I keep trying to do things, to make things, and I see the end in my head, but I can never seem to get there. It’s frustrating as hell to see an end goal so very clearly, and not be able to reach it.

Cognitive Distortions - Filtering, Polarized Thinking, Jumping to Conclusions, Emotional Reasoning, Labelling, Heaven’s Reward

Rebuttal - While it is often true that the vision in my head does NOT match the reality, this is NOT a bad thing. We learn more from failure (and from the journey to that failure) than we learn by doing something perfectly. Perfection of the moment is a result of all the things you’ve let yourself learn and achieve up to that point. Once that perfection is reached, you must return to failure to continue to improve. I tend to focus only on the end, and on the thrill of the perfect ending, rather than accepting that I gain more value with every failure I make. I must see things to their conclusion, and understand that even if I fail, I can try again. And again. And again. And each time, I will be better.

6. Expectation, Impatience, Anger - This is very similar to #5, but to me is different enough to warrant another bullet point for disproval. I often fall back into expecting things to happen a certain way, and because I expect them to be so, I am impatient for them to reach their conclusion, and when they do not go the way I think they should go, I get frustrated and often angry. For instance, while driving, I get frustrated when people do not react “as they should” and do something I consider stupid, and desire only to be at the end of the trip because driving is stupid. At work, I expect people to follow a certain formula, and when they don’t, I get frustrated and nippy.

Cognitive Distortions - Filtering, Polarized Thinking, Overgeneralization, Jumping to Conclusions, Personalizing, Blaming, Emotional Reasoning, Being Right

Rebuttal - This all comes down to being present, of focusing on me, and not focusing on my desired outcome not coming to pass. Things will happen as they happen, and I have no control over them. What control I do have is only an illusion. I can only affect things positively by myself acting in a positive manner. It is my belief that by doing so, I can create ‘ripples’ of positivity that resonate through everything around me. For instance, by calmly treating a coworker’s issues with respect, I can positively assist them, and help them grow, instead of passing my annoyance and frustration on to them. By choosing not to react to other drivers’ questionable decisions on the road, I don’t spread the panic of my own impatient, bad driving actions. The same goes for every decision I make, throughout the day, with everyone and everything I interact with.

Conclusion

Well, there isn’t really any other conclusion I can have other than “things are pretty damn alright.” I wrote this early this morning when I woke up, about 8am or so, and have been mulling it over all day. I feel much better for having gotten it out there, and while I am still exhausted, it feels much better to have pulled the twisted tangle of this mess out of my brain.

Until next time...

-R

#bipolor #bi-polar #cognitive dissonance #cognitive behavior therapy #dreamlog #staying present #cognitive distortions

1 note · View note

scramblednoodle · 9 years

Text

Things are pretty damn good!

Good gravy, it’s been a while! I suppose that means things are going well? Yeah, they really have been!

I wrote last in early February. Things have pretty much been a blur.

I nearly gave up photography, but I sparked a conversation with a former coworker, non-furry friend who I wanted to sell my gear to, and through it all, I decided to keep at it. Keep at it, but with changes. I sold my old kit (or am in the process of, at any rate; the biggest, best, and most expensive lens I have still won’t sell) and I switched to a Fuji APS-C mirrorless, and use an old Nikon manual focus lens almost exclusively. It’s quite a different experience. Also, I’m not going to take pictures of furries anymore, and if I bring my camera to a furry event, it’s going to be for things more interesting than fursuits. I have thousands of pictures of fursuits, and it got very VERY old. I took a set of photos at BLFC that I was actually pretty happy with. What’s more, they took almost NO post-processing. It’s amazing how much better photos come out when you take your time on them!

I recently came to the realization that I’ve been getting taken by my anger, that it’s been affecting my interactions with people. I talked to my therapist about this, as well, and she suggested that it’s a mindfulness thing and gave me a few simple things to try to mitigate the anger when I feel it starting to come on. I also shared with her my thoughts that since I began my therapy, I’ve been getting more invested in making sure that I am happy first, that I am getting the things I think I need to be happy. Sometimes, however, my filters turn off, and instead of just smiling and nodding, I blurt something hurtful out. I’d mentioned that I was taking a break from weed, as well, just in case, and she said that she’d never heard of weed causing that kind of a reaction, though I’m not so sure that my case is ‘pure’. I tend to mix weed with booze, and though I thought I could cope, that may not be the case. I’m also often stressed, and social situations put me on edge these days. There are a combination of factors, though, that I’m beginning to work towards diagnosing and correcting.

I joined a classical ensemble at a local community college for their last semester. It was an interesting experience. Fun, and while one of the trumpets was good, and we played great together, the other was an 18 year old who would NOT shut up, and sucked. BADLY. The concert went horribly. *I* played great, but the aforementioned dude played HORRIBLY. That said, I’ll definitely go back, because my heart has always belonged to classical. :P I also joined a decent community band in the area. It was also an interesting experience, but also frustrating. The guy on my right never shut up, and despite apparently NEVER practicing, he had an opinion about everything. Not only that, but the gal to my left was NEVER...EVER in tune. I made a lot of screw-ups because I could NOT match her. The concert went...poorly. I didn’t play as well as I could have, but it is what it is. I sent me into a funk for a while, but I eventually came out of it.

On the subject of bands, my jazz band nearly fell apart. First half of them tell me they don’t want to do any other performances outside of FC and BLFC, then the keyboardist tells me he double booked the weekend of BLFC, then the keyboardist tells me he’s out of the country for nearly the entire month of April, and will be able to practice with us ONCE before BLFC. I almost called the whole thing off in frustration. As it stood, we kept it together, but I honestly only gave it a 50% effort because I’m kind of pissed at the band. The BLFC concert when okay. Not our best, but not our worst. When all that’s said and done, though, the band is going through some changes. First, the keyboardist moved to Seattle. He had delusions of staying in the band, despite this, but after a recent spate of Twitter posts, I’m pretty sure that’s not happening. The tenor sax player pinched a disc or something, and is out for the season to recover. At the same time, I’ve found a guitar player, a trombonist, and a trombonist/vocalist who’ll be joining the band for the next season. I’m really looking forward to the new dynamic, and I have hope that this will inject some new life into us.

Through all of this, my relationship with Jay has been blossoming more and more. My art has been improving, and I keep in constant touch with him. I spent the past week in Portland with him, and he came down to spend two weeks with me. My parents are visiting this coming weekend, and I’ll get to see what they think of him. They were right about my ex. I hope they like Jay. Things are just really good right now. They’re not perfect, make no mistake. Jay still has some stuff to take care of back home (a daunting amount that makes me twitch when I think about it), but it’s incumbent on me to trust him, and believe that he can make it happen. I hope he makes it happen. He’s the best thing to happen to me in a long, long time, and I’ve been told by my Mom, my psychiatrist, and several friends that I just light up whenever I talk about him.

I continue to deal with the Bi-Polar stuff, but with Jay’s support, I’ve had someone to talk to about things, someone to bounce ideas and thoughts off of, and at the same time, provide my own support to HIM. He loves me, even through my rough spots, just as I love him through his.

In any case, sorry I haven’t updated this in so long. However, this started life, and continues to be a blog about my bi-polar issues, and with things going so well....maybe it’s time to change the tone. :)

Love and joy to you all. :)

-R

1 note · View note

scramblednoodle · 9 years

Photo

My boyfriend came down for Valentine's day. I cooked dinner for him, we hung out, we went to the bar with everyone, we went to the monthly dance party in the city with everyone. It was non-stop, crazy, busy.

Despite the crazy, breakneck pace, I was in heaven. Even now, it all fades like some sort of impossible dream.

I've not been this wildly in love with anyone probably since the first time I was in love with someone. I worry I'm going to smother him with my clingy affection, but he insists he likes it. I'm sure it will relax as time goes on, but right now... Wow.

I've always lamented that My Prince would never Come, that my fairy-tale would never have a happy ending. And along, out of a multi-year friendship comes the most creative, tactile, loving, down-to-earth person I've ever known. He inspires me to make things that have real meaning, to put my soul into little things I make with my hands.

He inspired me to draw again. I've been doodling for weeks now. Just little, cute, affectionate things. I don't put most of them up for anyone else; they're just for him. But this one...This one I wanted to share. Pretty much sums up the relationship right now, but it's going to change. Those screens are going to go away.

I just have to be patient, and I need to manage expectation. With great love can come great distress. If things don't work the way I want them to, I'm going to lose it. The intensity of the emotion right now is so vast that I fear I'm going to wreck myself if anything at all goes wrong.

But that's the risk I accept. That's the risk I take. And I commit to myself here and now that I will stay present, that I will remain cognizant of my feelings, and above all, I'll do my best to let go, and let the Universe flow as it will. If I trust in that, and I trust in the goodness that I know exists at the core of my being, I know all will be will.

#expectation #love #bi-polar #coping #staying present #living in the moment

1 note · View note

scramblednoodle · 9 years

Text

New Year, New You

A friend of mine mentioned I hadn't written here in a while, and while I'd been meaning to, I hadn't really gotten around to it.

To be honest, there hasn't been much to vent about, just things...happening as they will happen.

Life has been rolling on, as it will. My last post was in early November; it was a quiet month, with really only the usual furry parties, and a relatively quiet Thanksgiving. Practice for the band continued, and with my epiphany from Burning Man, I kept pushing into new soloing and playing territory, and was only getting better.

I had an audition for a local wind ensemble later in the month. I flubbed it. I flubbed it BAD. When they came into the room to listen to me, my hands started to shake, my knees went weak, my lips clenched up, an my breath came in short gasps. I played songs I had played a hundred times before, and they were horrible. Choked. Wheezy. Surprisingly, they invited me on-board anyway, likely only because they were desperately in need of a 6th trumpet for one particular piece.

Midwest Furfest came in early December. It was a good convention, and I got a lot of time with the friend in whom I had interest out there. Things went well with him, but... Well, we'll go into that later. The con itself was very, very good, mostly in part to the company, but I got some good suiting in, and I even played some trumpet with a friend on the keyboard. Unfortunately, this is the negative part...My stage fright crippled me, as it had the audition. It absolutely crippled me. My hands went cold, my knees went weak, my mouth went dry. Heart rate through the roof, I couldn't think because the terror was all I knew. I was shaking so hard I was hitting myself in the mouth with my mouthpiece I played for maybe 10 minutes. I think. For all I know, it could have been 3 or 30. All I know is that I felt like I had reverted to an amateur school kid. It was a terrible feeling, and what's worse is I knew I could do SO much better.

When I got back, I went to the concert that I had auditioned for, and had an awesome time. It was SO amazing to perform like that again, especially in a group setting. Sadly, it ended all too soon, and the principle trumpet told me "We'll keep you in mind." when asked if they were going to keep me as a substitute. Not the response I wanted, and I can't help but think my pathetic audition is what caused it.

Later in the month, I flew back home to Texas to visit my folks. I brought my horn with me, because I knew I had to practice, since the jazz concert was coming up in January. I had a good time, being mostly just lazy with the folks. I practiced the horn, too, and did fine...until my brother mentioned that his girlfriend wanted to hear me play. It wasn't full stage fright, but my mind started blanking, and my lips got so tight that I could only play for about half an hour before no sound would come from the horn. And she wasn't even there. It was the simple THOUGHT that she wanted to listen to me that terrified me. I did manage to play the next day, but I don't think I got more than 45 minutes in, and it was a struggle the whole time.

Well, that was the last straw. I'd had enough. I went to see my psychiatrist, and she prescribed propranolol, which is a high blood pressure and common stage fright medication. I didn't have a chance to test it in the field, so I could only hope for the best.

New Year's came, and the usual celebrations I had been a part of the past few years weren't happening for one reason or another. I ended up at a smaller (MUCH smaller) and more sedate party that was...okay. I missed more of my friends who were usually there, and for the first time since probably 2009 or so, I didn't have a fursuit on when the clock struck midnight. I told myself "This is a new you!" but it was still kind of depressing. And then the kicker was, on the way home the guy driving me, a friend of mine, goes on a slight rant about prescription depression meds being a gateway to drug addiction and abuse. What? Seriously? I was drunk and stoned and in a bad place, and I took it VERY personally, so much so that for the next 2 weeks I was in a funk I couldn't drag myself out of. But I dealt. Somehow... I'm sure people got sick of me being pissy, but finding and avoiding triggers is a 24/7 job, and sometimes I get worn down.

So, FC go closer. I started to get more excited. There was a friend from Portland that I was getting closer to online, but I had trepidations: there was a guy I was interested out East. Now, I've mentioned him in the past, and my frustrations, but also my hope. That said, he had recerted to his usual difficult-to-talk to self, as in he would rarely say much. He rarely reached out to me, so I stopped initiating conversations. He seemed to notice this, and for 3 days or so, he started reaching out to ME. I was pleased! Maybe this was a turning point! And then he stopped.

There's a point when you have to think of your OWN self, of your OWN happiness. It's hard to let someone down when that's the case, but I have to come first, since it's MY life I need to live.

Yeah, so it wasn't gonna work. A great guy, a good friend, but not someone I could have a relationship, ESPECIALLY given the distance, which didn't seem like it was going to change any time soon. So I opened myself to other options.

And then, out of the blue, I fall in love with the guy from Portland.

Well, it wasn't that easy, to be honest. I've known him for 6 years. We've been to Burning Man if not together, then close by. Hung out at furry cons. Gotten drunk together. He's been in a sort-of relationship for a while, and he's not exactly local (though a lot closer than Chicago), but we'd talked at length about dating if he ever made it down here. For the past few months, I've been getting closer to him in an online sense, and then in the weeks leaving up to Further Confusion, he admitted he was done with the other sort-of relationship. So I said what the hell.

We hit it off like fire and gasoline at FC.

He's...unlike anyone I've ever dated before. Earnest, tactile, direct, emotional, an artist at heart. Not the best of jobs (sometimes none at all), gets emotionally attached to objects, and often lacking in ambition and direction, but I don't care anymore. I crave physical contact, and he gives it in spades (though he says he's different when he's back home; all the more reason to get him down here. :P )

I'm risking an old, deep friendship, but I don't care.

Anyway, I had an amazing FC. And then there was the concert.

The concert.

I took the propranolol, and just to be safe, I had a jug of Margarita that I sipped slowly from, just as insurance, but never enough to feel even a buzz. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I WAS SOBER AND I HAD NO STAGE FRIGHT.

It was one of the most cathartic moments of my life. The pure joy I felt was overwhelming. I played, I sang, I loved it. I felt like I was invincible afterward. All of my work, leading to this moment, and it was amazing. Fantastic. It was a drug. It was a drug, and I want more of it. I want all of it.

And yes, it was a drug that made it possible. Say what you like about dependence on medications, but you didn't feel what I felt.

Of course, afterward, the reality hit that the room was about half full (and it was a MUCH smaller room than last year), the acoustics of the room were terrible, and by the 12th "friend" who told me "I'm sorry I missed it, I was busy doing something else." I wanted to cry.

They don't understand how much this stupid thing means to me. It's like this thing I love very much, and they don't care.

Yeah, I'm stupid about it. They have their own things. They may not even like jazz, or live music. And here I am, wanting to stuff it down their throats and appreciate it. I'm not mindlessly naive, but my emotions are what they are, and I want people to see this thing I made, and I want them to appreciate it, because I poured my soul into it, and made it real.

Here, listen to the recording, especially to track 4, The Shadow of your Smile. I've never before played anything that came from my soul and sounded, even to my picky ears, like it was made of golden honey.

https://soundcloud.com/reveille-1/sets/reveille-and-the-swingin-tails-live-at-fc2015

I closed my eyes and called to it, and it came.

There's nothing sweeter.

Except someone you love being there to experience it with you.

The con eventually ended, and I took my friend to the airport. Afterward we had an exchange over SMS that had me near tears, and then...yeah, we're dating. And now here I am, trying not to sulk (especially since I'm taking a rest from the THC) and wishing that everything was a furry convention, and that my new boyfriend was here with me.

Where will the future take us? Who knows. Who cares. I'll enjoy the trip as best I can. :)

-R

#bi polar #jazz #furry #love

1 note · View note

scramblednoodle · 9 years

Text

Here we are again.

Months on from Burning Man, and the first cracks have appeared.

To be fair, there have been down periods before, but this feels...like it's more.

I haven't been sleeping well lately. I get tired, I lay down, and I stare. All I hear is the wheezing whine of my CPAP machine, the pulsing of the blood in my ears, the soft sound of the dog breathing, the creaking of the house. They all echo, they all distract, and I can't push them out. There was a time when I could count backwards from 100, and by 50 I'd be asleep. Somehow, my body decided that this was unacceptable, and it doesn't work anymore. Weed stopped working some time ago, as well; I'm currently on a break from it to see if the effectiveness will renew itself. I tried antihistamines last night, the ones my psych prescribed because they knocked me out. Pop a pill, wait 30, and I feel like I'm moving through jello. I start to nod off, so I go to bed, and then proceed to toss and turn uncomfortably for the next 4 hours, until I wake up and need to pee. So I go back to bed and have weird dreams about my ex.

I've ordered a package from somewhere; China, I think. But they can't send the package to me, so they send me an assortment of passports in a little wooden box, and all of the passports are part of some strange process I have to follow to figure out where to pick the thing up, and how to do it. Through it all, my ex is there, telling stupid jokes that only he things is funny, and I'm getting more and more annoyed because I can't figure out how to get the shipment. I don't even know what the shipment was. Must've been important? Who knows.

I woke up at some point. I think I had made it to the place to pick up the shipment, but I don't remember. There was something about a motorcycle and socks, but that's vague.

I don't often have dreams anymore, presumably because of the weed. But this one hit me a little too hard. Whether it's indicative of loneliness or if it's just a sudden resurgence of animosity to my ex, I can't tell. I don't really care.

I just want it to go away.

There is...stuff on the loneliness front. I had posted about an interest I had a while back. He's still vaguely an interest. I managed to convince him that he was in a bad state, and he's trying to change, and seems better for it. I still have to be the one to reach out, though, and that stinks of my previous relationship. He's going to MFF, so we're going to hook up and see how it goes. There's a second possibility, but...Well, it's a pseudo D/s relationship, but I let him know that I'm not a 100%, full time sub. I'm strong-willed, and I do my own thing. I need me time, time away, and I can't be fully subservient at all times. He's...Well, he knows very little about a lot of things. His life is video games, and he has no goals beyond getting a management position in his retail job. I have yet to broach this subject, but it worries me greatly. His social skills are nil, and nearly everything that he says comes out as pompous snark, even though he's very nearly always wrong about things. I've fallen into the annoying habit of "Well, actually"ing him, and I hate doing it. He's also completely musically illiterate, and when I showed him some of my trumpet recordings, he was stunned that that sort of music existed. Apparently he thought the only music instruments played was shitty covers of modern songs. I don't get it.

Maybe this is all stress that's contributing to my poor sleep. Maybe my mind is in a bad place. I have things that need doing that aren't getting done. I've also been trying solos again for jazz, and I'm falling flat on my face again. I've even gone back to boozing, and it's just as bad. I just can't find the damned notes, and it's frustrating.

I've applied to a local wind ensemble. We'll see how that goes. My private instructor seems to be getting annoyed at me about it, ever since I expressed my curiosity at it, and he emphatically told me that I was good enough. He says that for my skill and the amount of practice I do, I'm martyring myself by not using that skill for any sort of performance in the classical field. He said it's unheard of to practice that much (1-2 hours, 4-6 times a week) for anyone who doesn't make a living out of it. So I finally took his advice and sent an inquiry to a local wind ensemble. We'll see what happens. If that falls through, I have an in with another local wind ensemble, though they're a bit less convenient to get to.

My revolving debt is still reeling from Burning Man. I had to buy a lot of plane tickets for travel recently (Midwest FurFest, Rainfurrest, and visiting home for XMas), as well as all the tertiary things that go along with that (parking, food, booze), and now with the holidays coming up, it's like the chances of me catching up are pretty screwed. I try to be blasé about it, since it's just money, and money is one of the world's evils, but it still sits there in the back of my head. I spent a lot of effort getting the damned cards payed off, and now I just can't stop spending money.

I dunnow. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's Seasonal Affective Disorder, though to be fair, it's pretty sunny today.

Honestly, I think that these are just normal THINGS that people go through, but because I'm bi-polar, I'm more prone to catastrophize, and because I'm tired, I'm more susceptible to thought distortions.

I guess I'll just have to muscle through this, and hope for the best. There's not much more than that.

Wish me luck.

-R

#sleep deprived #bi-polar #depression #Thought distortions #obsession

1 note · View note

scramblednoodle · 10 years

Text

Rebirth

I haven't posted anything here in a while. There really wasn't any need to My life had reached a point in which things were relatively stable. As opposed to the previous post, things had settled down. I'd pulled back from my obsessive behavior, and began to focus on the "next big thing," which was Burning Man.

Last year, my Burning Man was a near-disaster. A lot of things that should have gone right went wrong. Scheduling conflicts, bad timing, bad circumstances, and a boyfriend who was increasingly growing more and more detached.

I won't get more into it than that.

This year, I said to myself "I'm not going to let that happen. I'm going to MAKE this a good Burn." And so I started working on being what I like to call "attached but independent," which is to say that I planned on camping NEXT to my last-year's group (minus the ex, who started his own camp). I built my own yurt, I transported all of my own stuff. The only thing I piggybacked on was food, and there was give and take in that regard, so it worked out without me feeling like I was freeloading/sparkle-ponying.

As I worked, though, I realized that there was the very real possibility of my trying too hard to MAKE this a good Burn. I remembered the Tao, and recalled that the best way to do something is to proceed without strict intent, to aim in a direction and let the universe take me.

So I released my expectation of a good Burn. I decided that whatever happened, happened. That did NOT mean I was not going to make proper preparation and prepare for eventualities. There's a big difference between not forcing a thing and doing nothing. :)

Just before the Burn, a friend came by and we worked a solid weekend on fursuity stuff. I took a lot of shortcuts, did a lot of things quickly, and actually learned a few ways to speed stuff up. Our mantra became "Fuck it, it's Burning Man!". Not because we didn't care, but because if there's anything that the Playa teaches you, it's that everything is temporary. So my costume falls apart, so what?! Make another on. Fix it. Turn it into a sculpture. Give it away. Who cares? You made it, enjoyed making it, and you can do it again. And again. And again.

So the Burn came. We got in without a hitch. We got set up without a hitch. Total reversal from last year, which pleased me. It rained hard that night, but we had our shelter set up, and all was well, despite the Playa briefly "shutting down" (which really means all vehicles were told to STAY THE FUCK WHERE YOU ARE, and not much else).

The first negative incident happened on Monday (I think). I had been drinking (duh!) right before a band event, and I was out and about doing something, and I rushed back to grab my horn. In the process, I think I forgot to secure the cover to the case I'd been keeping my old iPhone-turned-MP3 player in, and as I zoomed off, it fell out. Poof. Gone. I noticed a quarter mile later. I went back over my tracks and it was gone. For a moment, I was upset, but then I realized: Why should this change anything? The Playa demanded a sacrifice, and it got it.

I rode on. The music gig that night was a Burning Band bar crawl. So we played and I drank. And drank. Now, I'm always tentative playing in public, even at Burning Man, as I have HORRIBLE stage fright. I've tried small amounts of weed, and small to medium amounts of alcohol to get over it, and they didn't work. And yet, as I drank more, my playing became...free. Even my sound FELT like it improved. My improvisation was out of control. Now, I know what you're thinking: "You're drunk, and you imagined it because you were drunk." I thought that too. And then the band leader complimented me. Other band members complimented me. The leader of the other band complimented me. And I played harder and harder and harder, and I touched a part of myself that I never knew I had, that I'd never let myself believe I had.

It was one of the most amazing epiphanies in my life, as amazing as the time I touched enlightenment for a brief instant.

And so the Burn continued. I sat around and did nothing a lot. In previous years, I had pushed myself to DO ALL THE THINGS, and SEE ALL THE THINGS. This year, I said "Hey, man, whatever." and just went with the flow. I took a few pictures ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/29314661@N02/sets/72157647210999566/ ) but I didn't prioritize taking awesome shots. I did a few things out and about, but I didn't prioritize DOING things. I did make a point to hang out with some particular folks, and that happened, and it was cool. I also tried shrooms for the first time; that was interesting, but I need to try again sometime!

The second negative incident happened on Thursday or so: as I was riding, the entire battery case and side panel on my bicycle fell off as I was bumping around, and I lost one speaker, most of my batteries, and my voltage monitor. Again, I shrugged. "The Playa demanded further sacrifice!" I said, and so it was.

And on we went, through the week, seeing the sights, spending time with people, drinking, smoking, tripping, walking, riding. I wore my fursuit more than I have at most recent cons, and I enjoyed it. I found that I had stopped caring about my body image, because no one else seemed to, either. I stopped caring about being something, and I ended up just BEING. The Man burned and I felt elated. The Temple burned, and I cried. I cried and I cried and I cried and I cried.

Last year, I missed the Temple burn. Earlier in the week, last year, when my boyfriend and I were at the worst, I got extremely fucked up and in the dear of night, I put on my Taoist robes and walked very slowly to the Temple, in contemplation. There, I sat in a dark corner and wrote my thoughts. I was extremely drunk, extremely high, completely distraught, and writing in the dark. Going back and re-reading my words is difficult, because I was not mentally there anymore. I did remember one thing, though: I had written several words on a page of my journal. I don't remember them all, but the important ones were:

Desire

Expectation

Attachment

I never saw them burn, just a distant glow beyond the tents and structures that was otherworldly to a numb, disappointment wracked brain.

For me, those words never burned.

Over the next year, I worked hard to let go of those things, my desires, my expectations, my attachments. I have made amazing progress, I think. I haven't removed them all completely, yet; I'm not ready and I'm not sure if I want to be. That will come if it comes, and I'm in no rush.

I never went to the Temple this year. I looked at it from afar. I had nothing to do there, I had nothing to say, to let go. I didn't know why, I just had a feeling. I didn't NEED to go there.

When the Temple burned this year, and I stood these with two of my closest friends, I realized that the Temple never burned for me last year. I realized that those three words were still in the Temple this year: desire, expectation, and attachment.

They burned this year, as I watched them, and I let them go.

I cried forever, because it felt like millions of tons had lifted off of my shoulders, like I felt free for the first time in as long as I can remember.

I came back from Burning Man a changed person. My trumpet playing, almost overnight, increased leaps and bounds. I feel better about myself. I feel better about those around me. I feel better about everything. I thought that this was mania at first, but I released the concern; even if it was, then that will eventually pass.

I went to Rainfurrest with the intent to just let it happen, and I had a great con. And when I felt the inevitable depression creeping in, I told myself "You know what's wrong. Fix it. NOW." And I did, and the depression stopped before it began. It's happened since then. And it will happen again.

I feel amazing. I've felt amazing since the Burn. Do I hope this feeling remains? Oh, hell yes. But if it doesn't? Whatever, man. It is what it is. I've tasted what joy is, what freedom is. I can find it again.

Fuck it, it's Burning Man.

-R

#bi-polar #depression #Mania #rebirth #burning man #releasing attachment #expectation #attachment

4 notes · View notes

scramblednoodle · 10 years

Text

The accelerated cycle

I posted yesterday about various things that were bugging me. Honestly, my head is so spaced lately that I can't remember the post, so I had to go read it again.

Today started out fine. Took care of some stuff early for work, then hit the bank to correct an error of laziness on my part. Headed into work, and realized I was in a manic state. Okay, that's fine. It happens. Mania doesn't necessarily precede depression.

Except when it does.

At approximately 2pm, I got extremely fatigued. From that point on, my mood plummeted. All those things that weren't bothering me, suddenly were. Primary among them were a degrading relationship I was in the process of developing with a long distance friend. A few days ago, said friend, dropped a bit of a bombshell on me.

Yeah, he was in love with someone else.

Someone else did not return this love.

Said friend was torn in half, because he still loves him.

Yeeeeaaaaah.

So, I sucked it up and tried to deal, but as these things do, it started to get toxic. Yesterday is started to build, so I did a little Tumblr venting. However, when this fatigue hit me, it just all bubbled to the surface. I finished up my photo editing from the picnic last weekend and posted it, and as I expected, not a godsdamned person said a fucking thing.

Bam, abandonment.

I'm back to wondering what I'm taking photos for. I mean, I go through all of these things, and I pick out the best ones. Then I tweak the color, I tweak the levels, I tweak the dynamic range, I tweak the framing.

Why?

Apparently no one gives a flying fuck.

So my boss says "Go home, start your weekend." So I drive home, feeling abandoned by my long distance friend, by everyone for whom I PRESUMABLY take photos for, and you know, why not FEEL ABANDONED BY THE WHOLE FUCKING REST OF THE WORLD.

So I stopped for some groceries, I bought some weekend food, as well as some dark chocolate peanut butter cups that I could eat while crying into them, and I turned on the most depressing thing I could think of, which was Loreena McKennitt. And then, of course, her Highwayman song comes on, which is just a gut-wrencher. So I'm crying by the time I pull up into my carport, just feeling defeated.

I go inside, not feeling hungry, not feeling...well, much of anything. I sit on the couch, I check to see if anyone's noticed the photos I posted. Of course they didn't. I log in to Skype, and I see that Said Friend From Previous is still there.

I think about sending him a message. Something noncommittal, cursory.

I'm afraid of myself.

I'm afraid of what I might say.

I'm afraid I might push him away.

Instead, he messages me. Typical, Reveille. You talk big, but you can't take action.

He asks how I am, and as I'm about to /me shrug or make some other meh or half-assed response, I remember a very early post I made in this very journal, one about being honest, about opening up to people, about not hiding anymore, about not lying to people.

"I'm full on depressed." I say. Let's see if I push him away. Let's see what kind of a friend he is.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because of you." There, I said it.

So, as I mentioned earlier, it turns out this guy, whom I've come to like WAY too much, in WAY too short a period, in what amounts to a dangerous cocktail of obsession and affection, is focused elsewhere. Not just elsewhere, but on some guy who, as he describes it, is an abuser of his emotions. I knew the latter. Not the former.

So this knowledge just builds up in me until BLORP. Out it pops.

Along with that is a small slew of other stuff... You know, the normal thought-distortions. This time:

1) A dear friend for whom I have strong feelings has left the area after a long visit, and I still feel I didn't try hard enough to spend time with them

2) I missed out on a moving/anniversary party for some very dear friends down south

3) I'm horribly anxious about a datacenter move at work

4) I'm horribly anxious about Burning Man no sucking this year

5) Abandonment issues, this time around photography, and how no one seems to give a flying fuck what I put up or take pictures of

Let's just say that I spewed out a CBT session right there, all over him. To his credit, while he didn't say much, he DID seem to listen. Did he really LISTEN??

I don't know. Did he? Does it matter, really? I said what I needed to say, I got it off my chest. The boil is lanced, the wound cleaned. The mind can now heal, and the flow can continue anew.

Do I hurt still? Sure, who wouldn't? I'll need to pull back a bit, and try to re-align my thinking. I still want to be the guy's friend, even if it never ends up being more. But I've invested a tremendous amount, emotionally. Why? Because I wanted to be the fixer again. My own feelings of inadequacy made me jump in, uninvited, and try to impart my 'wisdom' on someone who didn't need or want it.

Sabotaged by my own eagerness, and what happens? The puppy gets kicked.

But hey...I had it coming.

I didn't need to write all this down, but I have an appointment with the psychologist on Monday, and this needs to be remembered. And for those of you out there with depression, you know that when your mind's chemistry goes back to normal, all of that depression just doesn't seem as bad as it really was.

-R

#depression #bi-polar #cognitive behavior therapy #cognitive dissonance #Thought distortions #love #lust #obsession

0 notes

scramblednoodle · 10 years

Text

"The usual"

"Hey, Rev! How are you today?"

"Oh, hey there. I'm tired from lack of sleep, and I'm pretty cranky. Also getting caught up in the emotions of others and cursing my fucking empathy. And I'm annoyed that I'm Forever Alone and fat. So, hey, I guess I'm doing the same as ever."

So, I suppose I'm just accepting that this is the status quo.

Any why not? What's wrong with a little discontent?

Forever Alone:

Yeah, my single-ness is getting to me. I know, logically, it shouldn't. I have plenty of friends, I have people I can hang out with, but sometimes I want to reach out, and I want a friend who is MORE than that. I want a confidant, a lover, a snuggle partner who doesn't have to go home to their boyfriend at the end of the day. I want someone who matches me, in interests, in drive, in relaxation, in thought.

There was a discussion on the local Furry mailing list these past few days, referring to find people to date. A lot of people talk about going for both furries and non-furries alike. The problem is that this is my life. I'm what's called a "Lifestyler". I LIVE this stuff; it's integral to my character. It's not something I can just flip a switch and turn off. The line between my persona and myself blurred a long time ago, and I don't mind it one bit. So I'm not a dragoness iRL, so what? I can fantasize, I can be hypnotized, I can play dress-up. All sorts of things to put me in that mindset. I have furry pictures on my walls, I have furry names in my phone, I have furry objects all over my shelves and home and my desk at work. I wear fursuits to Halloween at work.

I really don't think a non-furry could cope with me. And I don't know if I could cope the other direction, since they'll have friends, and I'll end up going to things that have nothing to do with the people I enjoy hanging out with.

So my alternative is to reach beyond the local pond, which has been fished clean, or is full of fish I don't find palatable for one reason or another. Yet even then, the fish are young, untested, and difficult. They're where I was 10, 12, 14 years ago.

I'm a very different person. I go back to Livejournal and I read my posts and I laugh at who I was. I can't help it.

Yet here I am, alone again.

Why should that bother me? I get on just find by myself. No one to depend on but me. No one to wait for but me. No one to be upset at but me. I don't know WHY I need companionship. I don't know WHY I keep basing the whole of my contentment on having someone to share it. A primal need? A condition pushed on me by society? "YOU MUST GET MARRIED." Maybe it is.

All I know is that I keep looking. Which leads to...

Goddamn Empathy:

I've been for some reason, pursuing a handful of folks in a long-distance regard. Nothing solid yet, still getting to know, still exploring. But as I mentioned earlier, they're young, they're trapped, they're depressed. I've tried to impart what advice I can when they need it, but I'm convinced that any sort of 'lasting' thing won't be lasting, and will instead be just a futile exercise in co-dependency; that's no way to have a relationship.

And yet when they're in bad spots, of course I want to help. The godsdamned "fixer" side of my personality bubbles to the surface, and I can't shut the fuck up and just say "I hope you feel better. Let me know if you need anything; I'm happy to help as I can." Not everyone needs to have shit dragged out of them the way I do.

Fat:

This is stupid. I'm fat, yeah. I could change it, but why bother? I thought I was fat even when I was 170lbs and not 250. I hated my ass then, and I hate it now. But people like me as I am, so I really just need to get over it and focus on being FIT.

Tired:

No real cure for this. I put a window AC in my bedroom, and it keeps my bedroom nice and chilled, but while it worked for a while, I still can't sleep. My mask is fine, my CPAP is fine, but I toss and turn and no matter how hard I try to turn off my mind, it doesn't...stop...churning.

**GAME OF THRONES SEASON 4 SPOILER FOLLOWS**

Before you ask, no, it's nothing specific. I'm not hung up on anything (except when I watched the season finale of GoT; fucking hell, I couldn't sleep for days without seeing *SPOILER* Oberyn's smashed head *SPOILER*). It's just random bits that don't stop flowing in endless circles in my brain.

**GAME OF THRONES SEASON 4 SPOILER PRECEDES*

All I can do, I suppose, is to continue on trying to sleep, and trying to keep my mind clear.

The Same as Ever:

I say that I'm the "same as ever". Am I? And what's more, am I okay with that?

No, I'm not, really. I would like to be more than that. I'd like to be more happy with myself, with my situation, with those around me. For fuck's sake, I make a lot of money, I own my own condo, I have cars, motorcycles, cameras, computers, fursuits, toys. Yet I'm proof that money can't buy happiness.

Happiness, I know, comes from within, not from without. It doesn't come from acceptance or validation (though that doesn't hurt, in the long run, because it can HELP you truly believe in the good within you) but from the true belief that you're a good person, and that what you have is enough to not just make you content, but to make you happy. Staying present, once again, is key: right here, right now, I believe I can be happy.

Now, if I only I could stay present.

-R

#bi-polar #staying present #loneliness #depression #fleeting happiness

0 notes