Tag: Mental Health

Random Musings

Strengths.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Strengths.

I took the Gallup StrengthsFinder test three years ago but decided to take it again, in trying to figure out what on earth it is that I’m good at. Most of the results stayed the same, but the #1 result wasn’t even in my last results–so that’s interesting.

1. Restorative: Instinctively, you regularly energize people with your ideas about what can be changed or done better. You frequently describe how individuals or groups can benefit from your suggestions. Your optimistic approach is apt to inspire people to design improvement plans. You probably rally individuals to support and execute those plans. Because of your strengths, you probably struggle to recall details, names, facts, appointments, numbers, or deadlines. You routinely use one or two techniques to jar your memory when you need to remember key pieces of information. This knowledge understandably guarantees your own, someone else’s, or the group’s success. Chances are good that you gravitate to conversations in which intelligent, unemotional, and reasonable thoughts are freely exchanged. These give-and-take sessions inspire you to consider what you need to upgrade, perfect, or raise to excellence. By nature, you identify skill deficiencies, knowledge gaps, or performance shortcomings. These usually capture your attention. Having discovered these problems, you are determined to conquer them. You probably say you can do anything you decide to do as long as you apply yourself. Driven by your talents, you usually identify problems others fail to notice. You repeatedly create solutions and find the right answers. You yearn to improve things about yourself, other people, or situations. You are drawn to classes, books, or activities that promise to give you the skills and knowledge you seek.

2. Futuristic: Instinctively, you occasionally work seriously at something when you have defined the specific objective you want to reach in the near term or the long term. Remember, your other talents might influence how far into the future you can push certain goals and still give them your undivided attention. By nature, you regularly set aside the majority of your time to contemplate what the world could be like years or decades from today. Ideas come to you when you are in the company of visionary thinkers. These individuals often stimulate your inventiveness. Chances are good that you invest considerable time creating the future of your own choosing. You frequently share your ideas about what will be possible in the coming months, years, and decades. You probably capture people’s attention whenever you describe in vivid detail what you imagine. Because of your strengths, you envision what you can accomplish tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or in the coming decades. Your goals and aspirations motivate you to keep moving forward. The tension you feel when a deadline is fast approaching forces you to concentrate on the right activities, discard irrelevant information, and not waste time on intriguing distractions. Your one aim is to reach your objectives. It’s very likely that you sometimes like being an individual performer. Why? Maybe working alone permits you to concentrate your energy on what you want to accomplish in the coming months, years, or decades.

3. Strategic: Chances are good that you can design innovative plans. You probably raise issues and identify recurring obstacles as you generate tactical options. Problems and possible solutions become apparent to you. Once you outline action steps, you quickly execute them one by one. You refuse to waste time questioning your ideas after everything has been set into motion. By nature, you generate ideas quickly. You draw clever linkages between facts, events, people, problems, or solutions. You present others with numerous options at a pace some find dizzying. Your innovative thinking tends to foster ongoing dialogue between and among the group’s participants. Instinctively, you generate innovative ideas. You have a unique perspective on events, people and situations. You probably inspire others to start projects and launch initiatives as a result of your perspective. You tend to identify a goal, devise numerous ways of reaching it and choose the best alternative. This explains why you see opportunities, trends and solutions before your teammates, classmates or peers do. Because of your strengths, you are innovative, inventive, original, and resourceful. Your mind allows you to venture beyond the commonplace, the familiar, or the obvious. You entertain ideas about the best ways to reach a goal, increase productivity, or solve a problem. First, you think of alternatives. Then you choose the best option. Driven by your talents, you customarily pinpoint the core problems and identify the best solutions. You artfully and skillfully eliminate distractions. This helps people gain a clear understanding of what is happening and why it is happening. You frequently identify ways to transform an obstacle into an opportunity.

4. Activator: Chances are good that you relieve people of the burden of having to figure out what you think, feel, and need. How? You simply tell them. Your plainspoken approach enhances their understanding of you as a person. Your straightforward expression of your needs and desires usually eliminates any confusion. Instinctively, you pay close attention to intelligent conversations. You have a knack for giving credit to individuals who make key points that advance everyone’s understanding of a theory, concept, or idea. You file away or make a mental note about this information, knowing it will be useful one day. It’s very likely that you rarely avoid telling people about yourself, your experiences, or even your shortcomings. You reflect on what you should do better, more completely, or more perfectly. You are comfortable admitting all sorts of things about yourself. Driven by your talents, you are very decisive about implementing upgrades or making enhancements. You probably realize that great ideas without action are totally meaningless. You occasionally become frustrated with individuals who lack the gumption — that is, boldness — to transform their original thoughts into tangible results. Because of your strengths, you usually declare what needs to be done. You probably rely on others to initiate discussions or small talk. Characteristically you avoid having to explain or defend your choices. You are inclined to move quickly so activity reduces the possibility of time-consuming dialogue.

5. Ideation: Instinctively, you think creatively. You see possibilities. You are inclined to reject traditional approaches to problem solving. You trust your feelings to lead you to the proper solution. It’s very likely that you are an original and innovative thinker. Others frequently rely on you to generate novel concepts, theories, plans, or solutions. You refuse to be stifled by traditions or trapped by routines. You probably bristle when someone says, “We can’t change that. We’ve always done it this way.” Driven by your talents, you automatically think of new and different ways to do things. Your mind is brimming with ideas. You probably are eager to share them with whoever will listen. Chances are good that you occasionally figure out how to get ahead and stay ahead of others. You usually generate more new ideas than anyone else in the group. Sometimes your brainpower gives you the advantage you need to succeed. Because of your strengths, you come to the assistance of individuals or groups that must invent new ways of doing everyday chores and tackling never-before-tried projects. Your imaginative mind creates all sorts of novel ideas. You probably enjoy brainstorming sessions. Why? No one is allowed to render a judgment until all the practical and outlandish ideas have been presented.

Hmm… so… those are my “strengths.” How can I apply these in a way that is productive in the real world? These days I’m drowning in my weaknesses, so it’s nice to be reminded that there are areas of my personality that can be seen as strengths if applied properly. But how?

Health & Healthcare

Weightless and Weightloss.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Weightless and Weightloss.

170lbs. Not the largest I’ve ever been, but with a healthy weight targeted 120lbs, I have a long way to go.

Getting healthy in 2020 is top priority, both mentally and physically. I want the energy to keep up with my son and any future children, should I be able to have any more. My last pregnancy was rough as I was 225lbs (gaining 45lbs) when I was only supposed to gain 10. Oops. I really want to get down to 120 before I even consider having another kid. I might not have one, but it’s as good a motivation as any.

I know how to do it and I also know exactly why I fail time and again.

1. My diet sucks. I don’t prepare healthy food. I get super stressed and binge on chocolate and bad carbs. I don’t eat enough some days and I eat way too much others. I want to focus on a mostly (entirely?) plant-based diet (maybe some fish) in 2020. I was vegetarian for 13 years as a teenager but the least healthy veg in the universe so I want to do it right this time. Cutting out dairy would be awesome but hard to do that as I also want to reduce my carb intake.

2. I don’t drink water. Not like—enough—water. I don’t drink any water, unless I’m working out. I need to force myself to drink constantly. Not booze. H2O. No more tea or lemonade or diet soda. Water.

3. Working out is too all or nothing. I go a week or two when I make it to workout classes 3-4 times then I don’t move for a month. I need to figure out a routine that works. Speaking of work, most of the women (and men) are in really good shape. I’m not sure how they find time to work out (well most don’t have kids!) but I want to be inspired by their size 2/4/6 selves and get myself back into my size 6 banana republic jeans in a box of wishful thinking under my bed. Not sure I’ll be in them by July but hey, pigs might fly.

4. I don’t sleep enough. I need to prioritize sleep right now. My lack of sleep has made me go crazy. At 9pm every night I need to shut down and close my eyes when my son does. I can’t stay up reading social media or catching up on work. Sleep is my top priority. Even above drinking more water!

5. Alcohol = bad. I’m considering a sober start to 2020. It’s so so hard to cut out booze, esp as someone with social anxiety, but I can at least reduce how often I’m drinking and how much. Unfortunately I’ve acquired a taste for beer lately but overall I need to cut back on socializing in alcohol-infused situations and try to find friends who like to do healthy things like go on walks and jump up and down at concerts without looking down on me for avoiding the bar. Maybe I’ll do 1 or 2x a month drinking nights and limit to 2 drinks max.

Hmm.

Weightloss goals…

Feb – 160

Mar – 155

April – 150

May – 145

June 140

July – 135

Aug – 130

Sept – 127

Oct – 123

Nov – 120

Dec – 118ish

Hey I’ll be happy back at 150!

Mental Health

Drift.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Drift.

Grab the wheel tight, though all control is long gone. Since the day your eyes first were introduced to light and the world appeared before you with all its people alien to you from the start. And now, at 36, you’ve accepted, or try to accept, that you will never find a path to feeling like part of it all—you won’t just grow out of not knowing how to relate to or respond to others. This is you at your unenviable core. You will not change. Your best bet is to numb. Medicate.

You are drifting yet again. Floating on some field hockey table as a particular puck being slammed against everything. Life moves so fast, especially now, it’s hard to catch a breath. And the hunger to be seen and understood grows with each passing year as the potential to be part of the surrounding world diminishes rapidly.

My value is questionable. I exist to exist. I offend, shock, but rarely awe. I am a mother and that should be enough. Even as a mother there is the shame of not doing enough, not connecting enough, not sending thank you or holiday cards enough.

And I cherish my friends but am a horrible one. I come up with all these ideas and plans that I fail to see through—and I don’t know why other than self diagnosing beyond the depression that every psychologist assures me, along with anxiety, is “all” that I have.

Is it the mood instability or is it the craving to feel connected and consistent which causes all of the instability? Does it even matter anymore?

I am never right or in the right. This is where I disintegrate into myself. I throw my mind at the wind towards anyone who might understand and relieve me from all of this, but it is something I must do on my own. For a person as absurd as myself the only means of survival seems to be slipping deeper inside myself, fighting every thought with rethought, with a giant grin plastered across my face so no one notices. Pure survival mode for now and maybe forever until the end of it. Because no one has time to care about or deal with a 36 year old woman who is so utterly lost she barely can find her own breath.

This is not just being over dramatic or immature or what have you. Look at my words and actions and awkwardness and how I fail daily to come across as an acceptable specimen of acceptable humanity. If I stop talking I am saying too little but if I start it’s only a matter of time (count the seconds) before I say something regrettable, blurt it out and grasp at the vibrations of voice wishing I could swallow them back. The shame of merely existing becomes far too great sometimes.

There lies the conundrum of why or why bother but there is plenty of it in motherhood and the alternate unanswerable question of why not? This is all a big game where every single one of us loses in the end, but I guess it’s still worth playing to pass the time.—if only its chutes and ladders weren’t so isolating and rough.

Mental Health

Undoing.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Undoing.

Where I am right now, finally, I guess, is willing to accept that childhood trauma can and does impact the brain in ways that are chemical and physical. I’m talking to a new online therapist who has a history working with those who have far worse trauma then I’ve ever experienced, I find she immediately understands why I think the way I think, and it’s refreshing to not be fed the same basic CBT lines without a solid understanding of the way I react so sensitively to everything and why.

Maybe it’s not bipolar. That’s a self diagnosis that could be wrong. I’m just looking for something to explain this energy and all of my mistakes, and specifically how there are months where I am clearly depressed and others where I feel like I can take on the world’s biggest challenges and solve them by being so raw and real that people will be inspired and turn to exploring their own psyches and find out that we are all pretty much the same in our bitter-beautiful mortality.

And yet.

There is a problem with how I am. A problem not with who I am but the consequence of it. I am, apparently, an adrenaline addict, which is a thing childhood trauma and PTSD can do to a brain. I’ve been using the word “addict” a lot to describe my challenges so it makes sense.

In my preliminary reading on the subject matter — attachment disorder with adrenaline addiction — I feel myself nodding as I read the content. Basically stable life is boring and I crave chaos. I create chaos. Others do not understand this. I don’t really want chaos but it is an addiction. It is that self sabotage that happens over and over again because I’m way more comfortable with turbulence than smooth skies.

This is something, I’ve read, that is etched into my mind, but that can be mostly unwired. I hope that’s true. Because the gist of it is that the things that today have the potential to make me “happy” are the same things that trigger my next demise.

I’m told I should go jump out of airplanes to fill this need for adrenaline, but I’m not the skydiving type. But one can also do things like performing or running (30 seconds beyond feeling like you can’t run anymore) to get that dopamine in healthy ways. That makes sense—I’m happiest when I am regularly exercising because I’m burning through some of the addiction cravings temporarily. Once my back issues are resolved I’ll be making exercise a priority. I already planned to in 2020 but now it’s part of my treatment plan.

I really wish I could know what it’s like to live without any history of trauma, and can only imagine how hard it is for others who experienced far worse. I feel like somewhere in all of this there is a guidance to my future career as a therapist/author, maybe, helping others with similar pasts and making sure they understand that their brains have been altered from a young age, they are not crazy, they are just addicted to things that are not healthy in that they impact the chance to be truly happy and stable, if that’s what they want.

In the meantime, this adrenaline junkie has to stop with the involuntary self destruction and find motivation to strive for the status quo. I think my new online therapist will help me with tactics that work for PTSD which will hopefully alleviate my cravings for the ugly high of self combustion.

And, I think it is fall-winter too, that triggers the worst of it. Historically so. The fall winter turbulence followed by deep winter depression and by spring I’m ready to pick up the pieces but it’s far too late. Maybe because it’s my birthday and every year I got older the expectations to fit into this idea of the perfect little girl grew exponentially. All I remember from childhood outside of feeling like an outsider, longing to be accepted by others, is getting into trouble, being whipped, and apologizing for being a horrible, broken person. I’m pretty sure that isn’t everyone’s childhood experience.

And I relate only to those with similar childhoods, it seems—the high functioning of us, anyway. Those of us who rebelled against it. Because we want more than this and yet we aren’t sure if happiness is actually achievable in a state of stability. We have the choice between medicating away the highs that drive us (to both the good and the bad) and experiencing the flatline of emotions, or we try to get a handle on the madness etched into our minds with every gaslight comment, every burning snap of the belt against our flesh, every moment that took away our confidence and our understanding of who we truly are or how to make that person happy.

I guess it starts with accepting that SHE (he) deserves to BE happy. Not in an epic, adrenaline-inducing, self destructive sort of way, but in a calm filled with gratitude and acceptance that transcends the day and becomes a natural part of being way. There is a path to recovery and I’m going to find it. I will undo the toxic mind and somehow give birth to a woman who respects herself and believes she is worthy of her own happiness. And, that, ideally, happiness need not be synonymous with emptiness and instead actually, somehow, feel good.

Mental Health

How are you doing?

by Life With Interest1 Comment on How are you doing?

It is a nicety and essential question of small talk: “how are you doing?” Variants of this question include “how was your weekend?” or more directional “don’t you feel amazing today, the weather is just perfect?”

Well, it becomes challenging to answer “how are you doing” with the socially appropriate response when you are challenged in your current state of mental health. The “correct” answer is always “good” or “great” but here’s a list of alternate answers that may be socially incorrect but a bit more accurate…

  • I’m horrible at the moment, thanks.
  • Ok. Why in this context does Ok sound not Ok? Like anything less than good is not Ok?
  • I was just contemplating the most painless way to put an end to my existence but I’m doing great! High five!
  • Didn’t sleep much last night. I have a toddler.
  • Didn’t sleep much last night. My mind was racing. I had a thousand ideas and wrote two blog posts. I’m tired now gosh darn it.
  • Didn’t sleep much last night. Was crying for hours then binge watched some series on Netflix then the sun came up.
  • Numb. Like. What are feelings anyway?
  • I think my feelings are better explained in an impromptu song and dance. (Starts to sing)
  • Really shitty. But I’ve come here to binge on candy and chips so I’ll feel worse soon, don’t you worry.
  • Spectacular. I just finished something and I think it was good. But don’t ask me later because I’m sure someone will tell me it wasn’t as good as I thought and then I will feel the opposite of spectacular.
  • I don’t know. I thought I was ok. But then I just remembered that Trump is president and our cops are shooting innocent people and getting away with it and the world is filled with horrible selfish people and I think I’m pretty horrible and selfish but at least I’m not a republican. You?
  • Like the Bay Area is too fucking expensive to live in. WTF?
  • Restless. Like I want to start a fight. Any interest? Oh wait I don’t know how to fight. Want to punch me in the face? That would be exciting. No, seriously. Punch me.
  • Sick. (Oh do you have a cold?) Mentally (said staring back blankly into the asker’s eyes.)
  • I plead the fifth.
  • You don’t want to know. If you do, read my blog at…
  • If I told you I’d have to kill you.
  • Like I don’t fit in here or anywhere else. You?
  • Hyper as fuck.
  • I do not have an HR-appropriate response to this question.
  • Let me send you my Spotify playlist that answers this appropriately. Think lots of Radiohead and Coldplay.
  • Can’t you tell by looking at my hair?
  • Unsure if I’m actually here at present or this all a dream or reality split in two this morning and if so I hope other me is faring better.
  • Well, I gotta pee. That’s why I am walking to the bathroom. Can we discuss my feelings later or else I’m going to feel something else and I won’t want to tell you about it but I promise you it will ruin my day.
  • Like an idiot because I overshared my overthoughts again and made things awkward and potentially harmed a friendship that means the world to me and I’m so mad at myself right now and want to erase the entirety of last week. How’s your morning going?
  • Great. (Starts to cry.)
  • Feeling sad because I don’t know if I can or should have more children and being pregnant is hard and having young kids is hard and I work full time and need to be employed for a year at one place to get maternity leave and my mental health challenges make that very difficult and I’m terrified I’m going to lose my job at the absolute worst time so I probably should not have another child but I want one and I’m getting older and… oh, you didn’t want to know all of that? Why did you ask?
  • Am I awake? Are you awake?
  • My back and arm hurts but I accidentally overdosed on Aleve so feeling great!
  • Like the world’s worst mom.
  • Good. I think. Wow. This is what feeling good feels like. Thanks for asking!
  • What are feelings? Why are feelings.
  • Pinch me and I’ll tell you.
  • Fuckkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Fine.
  • Confused.
  • Good. Good. Good. So good.
  • 36
  • 16
  • 8
  • 2
  • 82
  • Like an imposter.
  • Generally ok.
  • Fleshy.
  • Maybe alright?
  • Hungover. From 5 days ago.
  • Horny. I’m feeling horny. You?
  • Embarrassed. Chronically embarrassed.
  • Like I wish I was someone else.
  • Better than yesterday.
  • From 0-10? About a 2.
  • From 0-10? About 1000!
  • From 0-10? -1000. Can I leave now?
  • So excited! Isn’t it amazing today?
  • Fearful that life has no meaning.
  • Like my bones can feel the heaviness of the season and are cracking with each step.
  • Infatuated.
  • Extremely apathetic.
  • Mildly sociopathic.
  • Hypersensitive.
  • What?
  • The best I’ll ever feel.
  • Like a magnet.
  • Like a magnet that repels everyone around me.
  • Like a human.
  • Like someone slowly dying and existing in a meaningless void of space but appreciating that existence nonetheless because why the fuck shouldn’t I, you know, it’s all pointless so I’ve got to make it all pointy to feel anything at all. So, how’s your day going? How do YOU feel?
Mental Health

When You Meet Yourself Again Somewhere You Were Before But Forgot Exactly Where It Is

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on When You Meet Yourself Again Somewhere You Were Before But Forgot Exactly Where It Is

Undiagnosed with the highs as I only report with the lows. To therapy, that is. And so, After watching episode 3 of Modern Love I thought, hmm, I get it. Not that specific depiction of bipolar disorder, but of these two realities as one person—one depressed, unable to function, and the other with a sense of grandiosity, of being able to do anything and having this imagined magnetism and a thousand thoughts and ideas racing through your mind, then back to the depression. 

These (mood not tv series) episodes don’t come on suddenly for me, I think, as they do Anne Hathaway’s character. They ebb and flow with the seasons, the stress, and the scents around me. There is no clear pattern, though, but fall into winter tends to trigger the worst of it in either direction—something about the heavy clouds that I can feel compressing my skin and the weight of shortened daylight. 

I don’t actually know for certain this is bipolar—I’ve never been formally diagnosed with it (just depression and anxiety) but I know the questions asked to diagnose it and I know the answers align to not just this moment but a series of hypomanic episodes throughout my life. 

I never like to admit I am beyond the ability to control my thoughts or actions because that is terrifying. But I’m in control enough to know right from wrong. To stop myself, generally, from the worst of it. I can try to present as a normal high-functioning individual and hone in on the energy of the episode to be super productive. Unfortunately, the racing thoughts and ideas often are my downfall. It becomes near impossible to focus on anything except some grande scheme like staying up 24 hours straight to learn piano. 

I think it’s important to talk about mental health issues because they are as real as any other health issue. At the same time I know manic me is writing this as performance art—not so much as a cry for help, but a cry for connectivity with others who get it. Because it can be so isolating to exist amongst a sea of people who surely have their own issues but who don’t understand what it’s like to not know yourself, or, to meet yourself again. Not as a schizophrenic but as a person who has two ways of reacting to the world — both with great sensitivity, but one with a sense that anything is possible and the other who fundamentally believes nothing is.

Neither person sees the world in a healthful way. Others who haven’t been there often like to offer advice. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me to meditate I’d buy a meditation studio. Don’t get me wrong — meditation is a tool that can help, especially to calm down a racing mind temporarily, and I should do it more often. But this isn’t about transient stress or situational sadness. This is baked deep into me so deep no amount of headspace can clear my head. 

It seems the other M word—medication—is the only answer. Bipolar meds are very strong and they scare me. If I’ve ever held one belief close to my heart on who I am it is that I always trust my gut-based intuitions to lead me to what’s right. I feel so intensely it is hard to accept that feelings are just reactions to thoughts that are filtered through the altered state du jour. But I’m starting to accept that medication may be the way to go, hopefully not forever. I’m afraid to say goodbye to these moments when I feel like life is filled with infinite meaning, yet I know it’s unhealthy to live in that world now or ever again. 

But – waking up at 1am and then 4am with a surge of energy racing through my veins is magnificent, especially for someone who lives months of her life barely able to roll out of bed at 8 when the alarm clock goes off. The world is electric and moments extend so that days no longer blur together as a sea of grey nothingness but instead are each their own days in and of themselves. Sensations are so heightened and pleasurable even an accidental scratch feels good, or the hard edge of an uncomfortable chair cutting into your back. Because feeling everything is everything in this state. Feeling and experiencing and connecting.

Of course, others don’t live in this world, so you must be relentlessly cautious. There is madness in the splendor. A longing for plot where story doesn’t exist. Scripting plot points in the subtle arch or an eyebrow, the slight exhale of breath, the way the light catches the temporary truth hidden in anyone’s eyes, that longing and loneliness that some of us feel, that emptiness and want for more, found in the insatiable yet isolated, intellectual, often introverted, and inherently introspective.

And here is the downfall of the mania—because the world of possibility is the me that feels fucking fantastic momentarily yet also is aware of every action and reaction and understands that people don’t exist in the same world and then after impulse acting gets these mixed states with jolting lows, a quick cycling depression, embarrassment, shame, questioning ones own judgment, uncertain one deserves life at all (disappearance seems to be the best strategy to protect others), leading up to what inevitably is falling apart and slipping into the dark depression you know too well where all those highs of the epic life before feel like they came from a dream, from someone else’s life. It’s not like the plot points disappear then, they just become little silent self deprecating jokes along the way. You wonder how you ever thought people could consider you attractive or interesting or worthy of interaction.

The depression inspires a different kind of productivity as it tells you that you will never be good enough and you must constantly prove you are. The mania tells you that you will never be good at the things you ought to be good at anyway but there is so much more to be and do and feel. It’s probably why many artist types are manic depressive. Because in these states you can just create and you aren’t self doubting so much that you might create a work of genius or you might spin out the comparable of horse manure in a critic’s eyes and yet you put out something from start to finish and that’s enough for a shot at creating something meaningful. 

Or, you do what you have to do to survive and fight the urges and silence your mind and run your fingers across the pliable edge of the lemonade cap and feel where it compresses against your skin while listening to music’s rhythms shift and harmonies and discords meld into your eardrums and your play songs on repeat or moments of songs on repeat because they know your soul far better than you do and get inside of it. You write and write and write to scrub your mind empty as fast as possible and in the intervals of exhaustion-fueled silence try to focus and be productive and just survive. You try to exist as if nothing is different but of course everything is.

I don’t know if this is how other people experience mania, or if this even is mania, but it sure feels it. I’ve seen this all play out before, now time and again. I know how the story ends, and where it’s going, if I’m not more cautious. Yes, I ought to pick up a daily meditation practice and do whatever it takes to power through this, and do it on my own, to protect myself and others who may be impacted from my behavior and cravings in this beautiful terrifying heightened state of existence that will surely fall hard back to reality all too soon. And I’ll hold my breath this time and try to make it there without acquiring or gifting too many scars along the way.

Random Musings

Home.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Home.

The long goodbye to my first love continues. Goodbye to the walls which embraced me in my darkest times. The floors which captured my tears and laughter. The scenery that soothed me as I fell apart and puzzle pieces myself back together to survive another day.

Downstairs, the spaces which, since altered, once held me as I listened to my “The Little Mermaid” tape to capture the lyrics of “Part of Your World” pausing and rewinding every second (for the record it’s not pregnant women, sick of swimming, ready to stand), the same floor where I made a brilliant stop motion video about The Bluest Eye, the spot where I came home from school one day, having forgotten my key, and climbed through an unlocked window and fell face first into the game room, successfully entering, nonetheless. And I walk barefoot on the floors where countless games of War were played and Erector sets were erected in the best moments with my father, in happier times.

Continue reading “Home.” →
Poetry & Poetrish

Motions.

by Life With InterestLeave a Comment on Motions.

Going about the motions from morning to midnight,
trying to silence the sensitivities that swing you over,
and instead march on, focus, task oriented, GSD, one
deliverable after another, wake up, get up, and go,
and then again it is night, my child crying, 4am, my
bones rattle with exhaustion and delicate temperament.

Maneuver through meticulous motions, machine,
marching on from moon fall through moon rise,
silence the sensitivities that swing you over and over.

Life is a tactical, a solvable equation, in and out,
a game of strategy, not wit, of disappearance::
that riddle is you, hidden behind thick metaphor.
And few even notice at all, which is the victory you seek,
in that storm shelter of your soul, surrendered there,
going about the motions from morning to midnight,
silencing the sensitivities that swing you over.