Category: Education

Passive Participation

I’m waiting for the third keynote speaker of the conference to step up to the podium at the 8th annual (I think) LDSPMA Conference 2023 Saturday Morning Session. I thought I was paying for more but I just get live feed of the keynotes and then access to recordings of of the breakout sessions in November. Which is fine because I couldn’t afford to fly to Utah, pay for a hotel/car/food and boarding for Sammy this year. This is the conference I was pushing myself to get my first draft done in Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed so I could pitch it to publishers. I decided I would pitch my other completed novel to the publishers in the virtual fast-pitch at the end of next week but those publishers had already rejected the manuscript several years ago. [If you’d like to read the first chapter you can find it here.]

There is a lot of in-person networking involved at the conference which, honestly, terrifies me. I’m affable enough when my anxiety is ramped up to full luminosity, which is how I’ve survived and functioned in the world my whole life. However, the fall-out of pushing myself is very painful and lasts for weeks after as I nit-pick and denigrate myself for every little mistake the anxiety has magnified from that time. Doing social things like meeting strangers, remembering their names and the conversations, yadda, yadda, yadda quickly depletes my nerves and temporarily wipes my memory like a prolonged trauma. Doing that over a three day period makes me winge over how long it would take for me to recover sufficiently to function in my life again. My job requires me to be out and among the world every day and to be cheerful and nice to EVERYONE even when they annoy the living daylights out of me. I will say I am stronger for the daily torture it provides but I see the effects on my emotional state at the end of the week. And that’s when it doesn’t matter. This matters! This is my foothold into the publishing world and possibly an agent. Someone who will do the footwork and networking for me so I can passively sit in my writing space and, well, write.

So the goals are to sit and watch the keynote speakers, to listen to the breakout sessions in my track, and then apply them into my writing life. Next year I will choose to actively participate and be prepared with manuscript(s) in hand, a smile genuinely plastered on my painted face and an emotional equilibrium to sustain me until I get home to read through all the offers to publish my copious selection of completed works. Wish me luck!!

Reconciled-ish

I finished Reconciliation and I am proud to say I have reconciled-ish with my Little Dragon. During the course of listening to the book I began to despair because I c ouldn’t figure out how I was going to make things up to my Little Dragon. She was, in a lot of ways, irreparably damaged. And I allowed it. I’m slowly unpacking the guilt associated with that. I did what I had to do to protect myself in the maelstrom of narcissism and gaslighting. There were times in my life when I wanted to leave everyone behind, when I wanted to divorce myself from the dysfunction that is my family but I didn’t have the backbone to go through with it. At those times I didn’t know why I had to leave I just knew I needed to.

Master Hanh said something in the book that was a tender light-bulb moment. In recognizing my inner child didn’t trust anyone because everyone had hurt her, hurt me, no one protected her or championed her when she needed it most. None of the grown-ups or semi-gr’ups even noticed me because I had perfected the protective art of invisibility in plain sight (If they can’t see you they can’t hurt you…). But now, I am grown. I am aware of my Little Dragon and I have vowed to pick up her banner and tout it to the world. I think (hope) she has accepted….

Upon accepting the responsibility of shepherding my inner child I have been treated to bouts of her pain. The pain I have been avoiding because, well, it hurts. When I feel safe, mostly when I am alone driving in my car I am treated to the excoriating memories of what drove me to abandon her. I have always believed I am ugly. Not uncommon for girls raised in my time, but it was reaffirmed by comments like “No one likes fat girls,” teasing mercilessly at school, my father singing to me “Rolly Polly, daddy’s little fatty. Rolly Polly daddy’s little girl.”, being told my hair hung in in greasy strings in my eyes. My favorite was “you’d be so pretty if you just lose weight.” (her list went on and on a continuous loop at times) Reliving her pain would push me to tears which I would have to quickly correct because I was driving in close quarter traffic. I don’t know if she was expressing her pain or trying to get even for my neglect but I didn’t stop it. She has settled down and I’m trying to be sensitive to her expressions in me now, as I write this, to be true to her voice as I am as true to my adult voice.

Since I offered this white flag my heart has been at peace. Yes, I still think I’m ugly, but I know a person is more than looks even though I have been told through my adult life that men don’t like fat women….or women who can’t cook or clean….Or maybe just the men I’m interested in don’t….I dunno. I’ve given up on that. What I am happy about is I am a person my Little Dragon can be proud of. I am a good person and I will be a good shepherd to her and raise her in the unconditional love I’ve never had. Maybe that will open the floodgates for this self-love everyone keeps talking about.

As Simple as a Cup of Tea

My monk, Titch Nhat Hanh, practiced something called a tea meditation. It’s said he would spend an hour drinking a cup of tea with his fellow monks. It sounds glorious. Honestly, I’m saying that without rancor or sarcasm. In his book Anger: Wisdom for cooling the flames, he talks about how a cup of tea, when drunk with mindfulness, will bring us back to ourselves. The whole world melts away when you spend the time thinking about nothing else but drinking the warm infusion of leaves, smelling the botanical aromas and feeling the concoction infuse your soul with each sip.

I have started my own tea ritual at night before bed. I’m not able to completely concentrate on the tea, I don’t quite have the discipline yet. I also have a bird who demands my complete attention after being left alone all day. I have a small one-ounce cup I try to put out for her when I drink but she doesn’t seem as interested in the tea as she is in pushing the small cup off the desk. She makes me smile. The tea does make me pause, to inhale the floral bouquet (tonight is lemon balm) and try to exhale the feelings of being overwhelmed, overworked and inactive in the direction I want to go. The herbals I drink at night are designed to promote calm and restfulness of mind after the long days I’ve been having, and the spice teas I drink during the day are to get more liquid and less chemicals into my body for better health.

I didn’t practice last night. I was too tired to do anything, including sleep. I was irritated because work was long, lunch was gastro-intestinally distressing and the work environment dredged up some old forgotten feelings from long, long ago of people long since passed. I watched TV eating salted caramels from Costco and stayed up well past my bedtime (8:30pm!) and still couldn’t sleep. I eventually got up around 10pm took some Tylenol then rubbed a melatonin infused lotion on my legs and feet and eventually fell into a quasi-restful slumber. I blamed my restlessness on the family interaction from the night before, I blamed it on working too much, I blamed it on being too tired to sleep. In reality, I didn’t bring myself back to center with a cup of tea after being scattered mentally, physically and emotionally from the day. Rituals are powerful tools, even when they are as simple as a cup of tea.

Roadkill

It was in the pre-dawn hours this morning while driving to work a baby deer bolted in front of my car. It wasn’t even big enough to make the car shutter as it threw off the small animal like a dog with rain water. I had no time to react, to hit my breaks or to even swerve, which would have put an abrupt end to my day. I pulled over about 100 yards away from the impact and as the morning began to shimmer in the sky I could see the dark body of the fawn on the side of the road. It was too dark to see if it was breathing and it wasn’t cold enough to see the steam from it’s breath. I wanted to believe it was okay and at the same time I wanted to believe it’s death was swift and painless. How those two diametrically opposed outcomes could rest peacefully in my mind still boggles. I couldn’t go to it because I didn’t want to know. It was cowardly, it was inhumane. If it was in agony I didn’t have any means to end it’s suffering, I couldn’t do it for Dotty, a creature I loved, I couldn’t pick up a rock and bash in the brains of a terrified animal to ‘help’.

Many images and thoughts have come from this experience unbidden and not totally unwanted.

  • It’s warning of jumping too soon into my plans for resolution with my sisters.
  • There is the guilt of thinking it was following it’s mother across the road and it was too intent to be with her it didn’t hesitate.
  • Anger at the house which allows the deers to graze in their yard so close to the busy road. It’s not a kindness befriending wild animals.
  • Shouldn’t I feel something more than just casual remorse for the loss of life. I’m too numb.
  • There should be a company you can call where someone quickly comes out, slaughters the venison and distributes it to the poor and hungry before the body starts to break down and spoil the meat.
  • What am I suppose to learn from this? Why did a baby deer have to die in order for me to learn whatever the lesson is? And how many more animals will need to be sacrificed before I learn it?
  • How completely blessed I am because it could have been so much worse.

On my drive home from work I didn’t see the body. I’m clinging to the hope I just stunned the little tyke and it’s with it’s mother being suckled back to health.

Doing the Needful

Boxes have been dancing around my head like cubed sugar plum fairies. In my first attempt at therapy with a Jungian therapist she diagnosed me with past sexual trauma based on an image in a dream she made me draw out (it was a doozy of a dream). I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO MEMORY OF THAT KIND OF TRAUMA. She told me it didn’t matter if I remember it or not, the dream image was proof. So I’ve been carrying around this idea in my head and dreading the day I would have to unbox it and deal with something I couldn’t remember. Ellen and I talked about this. No memory means no memory. The dream image is just a dream. There are survivor behaviors I exhibit (behaviors defined by talk-shows and internet articles), but it’s still not proof of abuse. We discussed my childhood and some of the frugal techniques my parents employed could explain a lot of those issues. Something which needs reframing further down the road.

Ellen pointed out the issues are in boxes and neatly put away. They are safe and secure and they don’t need to be dealt with right now, if ever. Not avoiding. Not ignoring. JUST NOT NOW. I can adjust their position on the shelves, but I don’t have to do anything right now. Right now is just too busy to be opening a possible cobra-in-the-box to scare me back into the void. I don’t need that right now. Relief doesn’t even describe what I felt at this realization.

Then why have the dream? Why would my subconscious bring this to my attention? One of the ideas which came to mind is I am starting to reduce my dependance on Ellen. It’s nice to have someone help you sort out the threats from the paranoia, if you will and it’s easier to have her on my calendar then to deal with things as they happen. I am doing okay on my own but I’m always afraid I’m going to mess up. When I start spinning on that fear I eventually stop myself and correct it with: “So what? You mess up. It’s not the end of the world.” Considering how many time I’ve found myself at the equivalent of square one due to mis-calculations and didn’t die or get arrested proves messing up isn’t the horror my brain has always made it out to be. Though the tool doesn’t present itself at the start of the spin, it does work once I get my hands on it. As long as I don’t stop trying I will succeed. As long as I get up every time I fall, I will cross the finish line. Right now, doing the needful is enough.

Facing Frailty with Faith

The post I created on November 17, 2015 was about how I finally crossed the line between void and light….though the dimness was about the same but my psyche started leaning more towards the light instead of the dark (and bed).  I started reducing my meds, and then I started putting requirement on me like getting my CNA and HHA so I could get a job with hospice.  The only thing I learned from that course is that being a CNA is not what I want to be.  The information and skill set I learned helped me with Mom, but again, I don’t want to do that again.  Maybe if I were a mother myself the wiping my mom’s nether region wouldn’t have been as traumatizing……I dunno.

I mentioned that I came down on my anti anxiety pills, which is good, and I haven’t gone back up other than as needed for extreme stress/anxiety inducing situations….like the day Mom died.  I think I took 2 Xanax throughout the day instead of just one.  However, I’ve held steady with my other meds for the last 2 years since I wrote that post.  Now I’m unemployed, I have until February 10 before insurance goes poof so I need to get back into the field of being an in home support person.  I just signed up for school, so that’s going to put a strain on me, and I can’t exactly go down on my meds at this point…..

I’m scared.

What if I can’t afford COBRA, or Covered California?

What if no one wants to hire me because of my age/weight/toothlessness? (Mom liked to hammer on that nail all the time and I can still hear her “You’d be so pretty if you just got your tooth fixed” in my head).  We’ll get to this kind of stuff some other time.

I am teaching myself to self-soothe that doesn’t include cookies or candy or shopping.  I remind myself constantly that Heavenly Father didn’t create me to fail.  If I fail it’s because I fail to try.  I have to put my foot out to step and trust the ground will be there.  And though all these sentiments are rather trite they are no less true.  I just don’t know how to quell the fear that I a going to overload my brain and then rush back to the safety of my bed.  Staying in bed is so safe, so peaceful and so not the way to get anything done, but the warmth convinces me not to care……

I guess I sort of went off point, or maybe not.  I’m not, for the lack of a better word, better.  I’m also not back in the void.  I can feel the attraction still, the safety of the known.  I am looking forward to taking the Light-Rail to school, studying in the coffee shop just down the street from the school and how I’m going to study.  (key words, looking forward to)  I have the mobility to go back to the void and look in and choose not to be subsumed, and it can be a big pull some days/hours, or I can walk back out to the shaded sun I’m in now.   Maybe it will break me, maybe I’m not ready but it’s not going to stop me from trying.  Papa always paraphrased Matthew 17:20 to me:

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed…

nothing shall be impossible unto you.

I should be able to muster up the faith of a tiny mustard seed.

Clipping Time’s Wings

Everyone knows that time flies, and I’m getting to that rounded age to see it zoom by at super-sonic speeds.  I was looking at the calendar of this blog, how many times I wrote in one month, how when I was in crisis there would be a darkened square two to three times a week, and when things were masquerading as ‘normal’ it was lighter.  Then I saw when I birthed this baby my jaw dropped.  May 2011!!  It’s been over five years, and before that it was about five years before with round one.  I’ve been trying to grapple with this for over ten years now.

The goal of this blog was to find my way back into the light but to make sure I didn’t trip the dark fantastic again if at all possible. I know life isn’t going to be all sunshine and flowers, there will be bouts of sunburn and allergies too. Now where once there was blackness and anger there is hope and joy . I am not cured, I don’t know if there is a cure, but this is working for me, the writing thing, I just wish it didn’t need to take so freaking long. I guess I should work on my instant gratification issues too

The new goal is to re-post the enteries and figure out a plan of attack in the event of a fresh hell in the void and to shore up the processes I found helpful. Time willing it shouldn’t take another FIVE YEARS!

Entitled to Surrender

I’ve been looking for a definition that encompasses my meaning and feelings for the word entitled.  Microsoft wasn’t helpful, nor were the additional sites it sent me to.  Merriam Webster Dictionary  was accurate but didn’t quite go far enough.  I went to the Urban Dictionary and it was almost spot on but the language used on the site isn’t as refined as I would prefer it for my use here.  So, I’m going to give you my definition:

Entitled

The belief of when you are doing something that benefits the whole you should be compensated, taken care of and/or relieved from your efforts from time to time.

That said, I’ve been fighting with this concept all through the holidays.  It really hit home when my nephew gave his 18 month old nephew an iPad mini.  I’ve wanted one for like ever but I never have the money in hand at the best time to buy so I’ve just made due with my iPhone and my Kindle.  Honestly, this almost brought me to tears.  It shouldn’t but it did.  I feel like I’m completely forgotten by the outskirts of the family.  The Grandkids know what a handful their Grandmother is but as long as it doesn’t impact their schedule or cause them any hardship they deign to visit for an hour or so or call once every eclipse. [Don’t get offended, I’m not done yet.]  After I wiped the tears away about the give before anyone could see them, I started to get angry.  I’m doing all the heavy lifting both emotionally and a good portion of the time physically but the 18 month old is entitled to an iPad to help him learn his ABCs.   (I’ve got an opinion on that but it’s not suitable for this forum….I’ll have it on Psyche-Stew soon.  Then on top of all of this, my sisters have been pulling back and recognizing I need a break but only willing to dole it out in one to four hour increments.  I need a Freaking Vacation….one that doesn’t include Mom, or a massage, or even just a weekend away so I don’t have the constant static of the baby monitor hissing in my ear while I’m trying to sleep.  But mostly the recognize it but are too busy to do anything about it.

So, for kicks and giggles I sat down and figured out just what I feel I’m entitled to.  We have someone during the day to take care of Mom, which is very helpful for me. However, that leaves me with 18 hours a day M-F and 24 hours per day for the weekend when Mom is all mine.  I would want the three of us to rotate the weekends, for the sisters to come three to four times a week to spend time with Mom so she’s not completely glommed onto me all the time, help with cleaning the house and cooking [because, honestly, I suck at both]. send me to a spa on a regular basis and understanding when I reach out to them for help and/or support I don’t get a litany of the things they’re doing and a bright “Hang in there” before I hang up.

To sum it up, I want them to take over preferably all of the work and leave me with the praise and accolades I receive when people see me and I tell them what I do. Not much, really.  😉

NO ONE IS ENTITLED TO THAT.

The only thing I am entitled to is my life and my free agency.  Beyond that, if Iwant to be entitled to something Ihave to find it within myself to provide those accolades and care I crave.

That said…..

I surrender.

Merriam Webster got it right this time defining Surrender as:

Surrender

: to agree to stop fighting, hiding, resisting, etc., because you know that you will not win or succeed

: to give the control or use of (something) to someone else

: to allow something (such as a habit or desire) to influence or control you

I’m not talking about backing away from my commitment to my mother or to my family.  I’m not going to quit anything that I am already doing,  that is not an option unless I plan to surrender who I am entirely.  No, I mean I’m going to stop fighting with reality and waging a spiky-word warfare with unsuspecting siblings.  My life, for now, is to be here for Mom, and I can’t do that fully if I’m allowing unhelpful thoughts discourage me and distract me into thinking that I’m being taken advantage of by the whole family.  I surrender the  illusion of entitlement.  I realize everyone is doing the absolute most they feel they can do and I can’t ask, demand, or whine about them giving more.  I’m the one who volunteered for this, to be the caregiver, and I will continue to give until my service is complete  My choice.  My free agency.  And that is how it is for every persons life.  I know that kind of has an over tone of I’ll-show-them, but I’ll assure you it’s not.  I’m anxious to live my life, to get out and meet the oncoming trials head on and ready to wrestle them to the ground.  For the first time I think in ever I am going to put my needs (writing, meditation, mental health, etc.) before anyone else’s.  I will be my next caregiving opportunity, for that, I believe, I am entitled.

Honest Gratitude

I’m not alone, for the longest time I thought I was the only one in my peer group that was stuck inside the void.  Of course I had isolated myself to the point that I was the only one I saw mostly and honestly, I was ignoring me.  I shrunk away from all the love at church because I didn’t want them to know, but I knew they knew, and I was interpreting their love as pity.  I knew they knew because years ago for an essay in my genealogy class, Mom telling people to get sympathy for the heavy burden I am to her, and I’m pretty sure it’s written across my face most of the time.  But to face them, to accept their love, to say “I’m doing well” when they I was lying made me just want to stay home, so I did.

I’ve been going back to church, and I’m hoping to make it a life-long habit from here on out.  I’ve been listening to the topics of conversation, the messages between the topics and I’ve found that a lot of people that appear so happy, as if they have everything they want/need/desire are getting sucked in, stuck in the void that I’ve been in.  The insidious nature of the void is that it is a palpable darkness that your eyes are for all intensive purposes blind.  No one calls out encouragement while they’re in there because no one wants to be found or helped or comforted because we don’t deserve it.  Or, so’s my experience.  The darkness can be a blinding light to some, a red ethereal heat, or a frigid cold that burns to the touch but it is our own hell.  The trouble with having your own personal hell is that no one can help you decorate it because they can’t see it.  But they want to do something to “brighten” things up to help you.  People brighten up your hell just by being there, not by making you explain and explain and explain how things are working inside your head only for them to look at you and honestly say “I don’t get it.  Why can’t you just make up your mind to get over it?”  For me, when someone would say that, I’d want to scream and throw things at them…preferable food that stains or smells bad.

This time around, hopefully my last time around, I’ve been honest.  I’ve been truthful with people when a question is asked that I am capable to answer from my experience.  I can’t address their experiences directly because I don’t know them.  It’s like having someone explain how salt tastes to them without using the word salty.  It can be done, but it’s really hard to know the words you need to describe it.  By being honest about my depression, I’m hoping to rip the mask off the face of depression and stare at my own face and not be ashamed, to abolish the stigma from you, your family, your friends and those that just think you should get over it.  Knowing you aren’t alone, even though your experience is unique, the concept of depression is ubiquitous is a comfort to some, a sympathetic pain to other and a reality the world needs to accept, understand and get over their issues about it.

To be honest, I’m so grateful for this depression, this time around.  (yes, that’s probably the meds talking).  What I’m grateful for is the opportunity I’ve gotten to stitch the tear, rebuild the destroyed and fix the broken so I don’t end up here again.  I’m not sure that I won’t.  I’m still very easily sent of kilter if something happens or my plans are upset in any way, but I balance out faster, I gather my strength and I push forward.  Honesty and gratitude seem to be working hand-in-hand for me.  I think I need to stop using this site as a pity party on ePaper and start using it to be grateful, honest and helpful for others.  It’s just figuring out how to do that and making the time for it and not using it as a way to hide from the issues I’m dealing with

Stay tuned, boys and girls, it looks like things are going to change (for the good, I hope)…….

Stretching My Philosophical Wings

I’m feeling a little deep today, wondering if I will ever get over this, whether I will ever be able to carry the load that I used to without getting overwhelmed and homesick for my bed.  Staring out the window at our potato bush, watching the humming birds and the finches flying in to rest between meals.  (We are *the* place to eat in the neighborhood for birds and squirrels)  These birds are so delicate they can barely move the long new-growth branches that have grown back after the gardeners last crew cut.  A bird, bigger than a finch, rounder than a sparrow, marked like a starling on it’s chest, but too small for being a starling flew at one of the branches, grabbed on and bent the perch over.  Confidently he held on and the branch stabilized.

So, what does this mean to me:

  • If I am the bird I need to be willing to fling myself at opportunities and have faith I will be safe and sustained
  • If I am the plant I need to remember to grow, to maintain green and supple branches capable to bend when the world flies at me from all directions.  If I can bend with the winds, I won’t break in a storm.