On depression
XPOST FROM FB
TMI/possibly mildly triggery warning. I'm using my FB in a more journal like way in this post. Don't read if you might not want such exposure to dark emotion-y things. I'm also leaving this unfiltered for once, so if you see this and it surprises you, or you want to speak up, go ahead, be you family, friends, anyone. Unmasking, as it were, on this, a most impersonal forum.
I've been spending a large amount of time lately contemplating what fucked up things our brains do to us. I've spent the last few days trying to take in useful information about the darkness that haunts almost everyone i know in various forms, to grok. It's funny because I technically remember what that feels like, or rather, DOESN'T feel like, or the weird random outbursts of all the not-good that used to come with it, mostly anger and rage and hatred, which always ended up boomeranging right back to explode in my own face. And my idea of "controlling" it was even more fucked up - I'd cut myself to ribbons to release, or starve to feel i could control something, or go on sex binges because it was something close to being able to feel something not negative, or drugs, so many drugs, just because it was a heavy blanket of warm over the nothing that kept it from view. I say technically remember, because i can look back, but i cannot connect with that place again, unless i sit with it for extended periods of time...which obviously, is mostly not something I would ever choose to take back into myself.
Mostly.
I'm compelled to open the doors and let in the lights on these things today, because as I've been sorting and purging things, shedding chunks of my past hoarded up in boxes, I rediscovered my antique scalpel. I refuse to part with it. It was my lance against pain in the past. It was the magic wand of relief. (don't suggest i be rid of it either, ever. It is a reminder i always want to have). I've been turning it around and around in my hands, marveling at it. It used to have such power. Indeed, still does, as i handle it like it might explode.
Which brings me to others i care for, which this week seems to be dredging up all over the place.
I've been so very close to those i loved in times past where I, no matter which approaches i have taken, could not have saved them from themselves. And it tore me to shreds to finally remove myself from a place that was only destructive to me, for the sake of keeping another afloat. It's a White Knight thing, a Capt'-Save-a-Hoe mentality (which will make my stripper friends laugh quite a bit to hear me say)...which is something that even I would look at in others and think only to SMDH. I know I can't, and perhaps shouldn't want to be someone's savior, indeed, it is arrogant and ego maniacal to even think of. And there is a root to it, oh yes, which will not be put down in words here - the trigger for my darkest days long gone, my totally ignoring someone slipping away until it was very much too late and they were gone, because i had been unwilling to face up to it, and helpless in the face of it.
I am reminded that I've been left as a partner because I could only be destructive to them as well as myself, and they had to remove themselves. It broke me more, but I now understand it. And truth be told, they never, ever left...they just took themselves to a different distance and has always been there, even if i didn't always see it.
I see it in those i love now, who acknowledge and struggle and fight a good fight and it pains me to know i can only be there and I cannot fight anyone's dragons but my own.
I see those i love, like my dad, who will NOT acknowledge the beasties, and it makes it a bit more complicated as such, because there is lashing out and flatness and it feels like being sneaky to try and work around something he won't even look at, while i see his ghosts flicker around him, unseen, unaddressed.
So I've been visiting with the Monsters in Me. Ah, they are a little matted and starved, and subdued. They wear scars, the tiniest and mostly unseen little lines etched in parchment skin, like jewels. They carry blades and emptiness like scepter and crown.
And i see them, but they have become ghosts. They terrify me now, even as shadows, which is good.
I've spent lots of random time in the last week crying for no particular reason, and I don't quite understand why, but i know it is good.
So hey.
If your monsters want company, or even if they don't....I've kicked my dungeon door open and stuck a rock in it. So just know you are welcome, and say hi.
I'm here.
TMI/possibly mildly triggery warning. I'm using my FB in a more journal like way in this post. Don't read if you might not want such exposure to dark emotion-y things. I'm also leaving this unfiltered for once, so if you see this and it surprises you, or you want to speak up, go ahead, be you family, friends, anyone. Unmasking, as it were, on this, a most impersonal forum.
I've been spending a large amount of time lately contemplating what fucked up things our brains do to us. I've spent the last few days trying to take in useful information about the darkness that haunts almost everyone i know in various forms, to grok. It's funny because I technically remember what that feels like, or rather, DOESN'T feel like, or the weird random outbursts of all the not-good that used to come with it, mostly anger and rage and hatred, which always ended up boomeranging right back to explode in my own face. And my idea of "controlling" it was even more fucked up - I'd cut myself to ribbons to release, or starve to feel i could control something, or go on sex binges because it was something close to being able to feel something not negative, or drugs, so many drugs, just because it was a heavy blanket of warm over the nothing that kept it from view. I say technically remember, because i can look back, but i cannot connect with that place again, unless i sit with it for extended periods of time...which obviously, is mostly not something I would ever choose to take back into myself.
Mostly.
I'm compelled to open the doors and let in the lights on these things today, because as I've been sorting and purging things, shedding chunks of my past hoarded up in boxes, I rediscovered my antique scalpel. I refuse to part with it. It was my lance against pain in the past. It was the magic wand of relief. (don't suggest i be rid of it either, ever. It is a reminder i always want to have). I've been turning it around and around in my hands, marveling at it. It used to have such power. Indeed, still does, as i handle it like it might explode.
Which brings me to others i care for, which this week seems to be dredging up all over the place.
I've been so very close to those i loved in times past where I, no matter which approaches i have taken, could not have saved them from themselves. And it tore me to shreds to finally remove myself from a place that was only destructive to me, for the sake of keeping another afloat. It's a White Knight thing, a Capt'-Save-a-Hoe mentality (which will make my stripper friends laugh quite a bit to hear me say)...which is something that even I would look at in others and think only to SMDH. I know I can't, and perhaps shouldn't want to be someone's savior, indeed, it is arrogant and ego maniacal to even think of. And there is a root to it, oh yes, which will not be put down in words here - the trigger for my darkest days long gone, my totally ignoring someone slipping away until it was very much too late and they were gone, because i had been unwilling to face up to it, and helpless in the face of it.
I am reminded that I've been left as a partner because I could only be destructive to them as well as myself, and they had to remove themselves. It broke me more, but I now understand it. And truth be told, they never, ever left...they just took themselves to a different distance and has always been there, even if i didn't always see it.
I see it in those i love now, who acknowledge and struggle and fight a good fight and it pains me to know i can only be there and I cannot fight anyone's dragons but my own.
I see those i love, like my dad, who will NOT acknowledge the beasties, and it makes it a bit more complicated as such, because there is lashing out and flatness and it feels like being sneaky to try and work around something he won't even look at, while i see his ghosts flicker around him, unseen, unaddressed.
So I've been visiting with the Monsters in Me. Ah, they are a little matted and starved, and subdued. They wear scars, the tiniest and mostly unseen little lines etched in parchment skin, like jewels. They carry blades and emptiness like scepter and crown.
And i see them, but they have become ghosts. They terrify me now, even as shadows, which is good.
I've spent lots of random time in the last week crying for no particular reason, and I don't quite understand why, but i know it is good.
So hey.
If your monsters want company, or even if they don't....I've kicked my dungeon door open and stuck a rock in it. So just know you are welcome, and say hi.
I'm here.