mental health – Page 4 – Blue Ink Alchemy

Tag: mental health (page 4 of 10)

Being The Change

“Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.” — Harriet Braiker

I have to remind myself that I am not perfect.

I have to remind myself that I will never attain perfection.

I have to remind myself that I can’t work on myself alone.

These can be difficult for me to keep in mind. Especially that last part. White male-presenting folks in this society are expected to be self-sufficient self-starters, to have the inherent strength to yank ourselves up by our own bootstraps, to achieve simply by virtue of being white and male-bodied. Lack the strength, and you’re a ‘wimp’. Listen to the advice of those with different genders, colors, or orientations, and you’re a ‘cuck’. Struggle to reach even simple goals, like picking up the phone to handle important issues or make appointments, and you’re a ‘failure’.

This onus is nowhere near as bad as it is upon non-white non-male-presenters, but it still exists.

This is also not an excuse for bad behavior or bad decisions.

I don’t blame this state of affairs for my moments of weakness or those mistakes I’ve made that have shamed me and made me feel the opposite of proud in myself. My mental illness is not, nor will it ever be, something I can or should hide behind. It is an explanation, not an excuse. There is a large difference between the two. I still said the words I said; I still took the actions that I took. Those things are on me, and they are my responsibility.

When I make those mistakes, I get flustered. I back myself into a corner by admonishing myself, by berating myself for the mistakes I’ve made, by letting any of the fully justified criticism being related to me get amplified to a deafening level. Every moment of this pushes me further and further back, undoes hard work that I have done, and can even bring back the spectre of a version of myself that died years ago. The simpering, weak, reactionary, childish, trifling-ass…

I’m doing it again.

I have to examine this calmly. I have to avoid working myself into a self-flagellating froth. I’m writing this mostly as a stream of consciousness; other than spelling mistakes, I’m not editing things. This is a look inside of my head. And, more often than I’d like to admit, it’s not a very nice place.

When I have been backed into a corner, fielded accusations or insults, they’ve gone straight to my heart, and I’ve acquiesced, made myself smaller, given the accusers what they want, just to make the accusations stop. Just to be left alone. In the past, I’ve left very little room for myself, to stand up for myself, to assert that no, I have just as much right to fight back as anybody else, that I have my own sovereignty, my own identity. I’ve failed myself many times in this regard; I’ve pushed my own identity away so that it conforms to the perceptions of others, just to satisfy them, just to make them feel like they’ve won, just so they will leave me alone, in the desperate hope that it will stop the pain.

Again — and I must stress this — this is not an excuse for any of the above behaviors. They are childish, inappropriate, and even toxic. I am not proud of them. I am not hiding behind them. This is a statement of the facts. This is who I’ve been.

It is not who I would choose to be.

I’ve seen others do this. Perhaps not to the drama-mongering extreme that I’ve engaged in during the moments of which I am the least proud, but definitely turning themselves down, making themselves smaller, hiding themselves away. And it breaks my heart.

Compassion for others is a trait that some would argue is detrimental to one’s success. Look at those who are “successful” in the eyes of the greater population of capitalists and autocrats. They don’t give a damn about other people. They leverage their privilege and exploit weaknesses to get ahead, to make money, to seize fame. Being a “good person” is one of those exploitable weakness. It’s been used against me. So, too, have the weaknesses enumerated above. It’s left me with scars, with knives in my back, with bruises on my heart.

I’m waxing poetic again. Let me get back on point.

I can’t change the past. I can’t make up for all of my mistakes. I can’t dwell on my divorces, or my estrangement from the child I brought into this world, knowing now that I was — and perhaps always will be — ill-equipped to handle those responsibilities. Prevailing sentiments and admonishments from others would contend that “better men” would be able to “man up” and rise to the occasions. I didn’t. I failed. And I can’t change that.

The only thing I can do, the only thing I am empowered to do, is change these things, change myself, for the better going forward.

I know I can do it. I’ve seen it. Not just in myself, either. I’ve encountered, spoken to, been seen by people who knew me before. They’ve seen the changes in me. Some have looked on them with pride; others, with shock. I’m doing everything I can to make those changes consistent, self-evident, and ever-evolving. Ever onward, always upward.

When I stumble and fall back, I feel an incredible amount of shame, even though rational thought reminds me that mistakes and misfires are inevitable.

They don’t matter anywhere near as much as what I do when they happen.

I still have to unlearn some of my old behaviors. I have more work to do than I’d thought. I am not as “fine” as I’ve pretended to be. I still need help. Adjusted meds, better counseling, more time taken to step away from the escapism of screens and dice, the dire circumstances of the outside world, the overwhelming presence of others, and pasts I have with them, and futures I crave with them. I need to take more space for myself, center and calm myself within that space, and be the change I want to see in the world.

That is something I’ve wanted since I was a boy. When I’ve fallen short of the mark, that is when I’ve considered myself a failure, and mentally and emotionally abused myself for that shortcoming.

I still need to address that, to examine it, and change those neural patterns and behaviors so I am better equipped to be a better person, a better friend, a better partner, a better man.

Not a perfect one. I’m not perfect. I can’t be perfect.

That doesn’t mean I can’t be awesome.

“Awesome” is a much better goal than “perfect.”

Hell, it even sounds better.

I’m going to try and refocus on that, to work on better handling depression and doubt, and to seek the help and self-care I need to keep myself alive, moving forward, and being awesome.

I have to believe in myself.

All I ask of you, if you’ve read this far, if you’re seeing this, is that you believe in me when I can’t do that. When I can’t believe in myself, please believe in me.

Tell me that you do. I’ll always tell you the same. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.

I’m always open to hearing from you, if what you have to say is honest, helpful, constructive, and coming from a place of love and respect.

I will always believe in you, that you can be the change that you want to see in this broken world.

Because that is what compassion is.

And it is what I would want you to do for me.

Tuesdays are for telling my story.

500 Words on Communication

August 4, 2017 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

We humans are social creatures. We make connections with one another, and maintaining those connections requires communication. We’ve done it through letters (and honestly, I should write more letters), telegrams, telephones, and now the Internet. But throughout all of the iterations of our communication means, one fact has remained the same: it’s a two-way street.

We live in a world where, every day, it becomes more and more apparent that some of us are dealing with head weasels of various shapes and sizes. Some of them say that we’re not worth talking to. Others pull us back from seeking connection, or re-connection, out of fear or guilt or anxiety, be it rooted in reality or a creation of the weasel in question. People get wrapped up in work, studies, real-world concerns, or the static of emotions and thoughts that are no fault of their own, the echoes of trauma and anticipation of fresh wounds. Through this, one of the lines of communication goes silent.

Do we, on the other end, leave our line back to that person open?

For the most part, I say yes, especially if the person is someone we care about. In most cases, I prefer to make myself available. Sure, a person may seize upon that opening to try and cause drama, or express a toxic opinion, or otherwise attempt to undermine whatever progress I have made or am making. In which case, fine, eat my static. I’m not responsible for the pettiness of other people, save for my desire as a human being to bring out the best in other human beings. And, let’s face it, being petty and projecting upon others to avoid our own issues is far less than our best. I’ve learned to do better. I still have a lot to learn, for certain, but at least that’s crystal clear.

Enough about trifles. There are far more important people in my life than those who would trifle. I can’t help but see the potential in others, a strength or fortitude they may not see themselves. Worse, some of the people I see have within them the desire to overcome what impedes them, but don’t necessarily believe that they can. I want to foster that belief. I want to stoke that fire. I’ve had it done for me, by therapists and friends and loved ones, and I want nothing more than to turn around and do the same for those I admire, care about, and love.

I don’t want to put people on the spot, or name names, but… dammit, if you’re reading this, and it resonates, feel free to reach out to me. It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I will hold space for you and try to hear you out, because that’s what I’d want you to do for me.

Maybe I’m wasting my time in writing this, or this will go unread, or…

That’s my own head weasels talking.

And you, and I, can always talk louder than they ever could.

On Fridays I write 500 words.

The Lonely Road to “Better”

June 6, 2017 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

I have a confession to make. I don’t always fully disclose what I’m thinking or how I’m feeling. It’s not that I intend to engage in deception, obfuscation, or lies of omission. In my mind, I consider other issues far more important than something that occupies the entirety of a single head weasel’s diatribe. When it comes to therapy, I drill down below the layer of the feelings to general, foundational matters that could be holding them up. With others, I take the opportunity to shift my focus from something that refuses to change to something I feel I can change, and ask for help with it.

The fact is, the more I tread this road of getting better, the more I realize how lonely it is.

This is ongoing work, and precision work at that. When it comes to my own heart and mind, who is more qualified than myself to hold the metaphorical scalpel? Time and again, I’ve probed into the dark corners of my shadow, finding behaviors that have impeded me, or that even have informed toxic behaviors. I’ve cut them out like cancers. I try not to feel diminished by this, but liberated, because just like not every child is special, not every part of the self is good or valuable. Certainly, these aspects of ourselves have things to teach us; unfortunately, some of those lessons are learned in very hard ways.

Especially when we’re called on those problematic aspects by others. Or, worse, when aspects that need to be lovingly touched upon for healthy healing are instead exploited for the gain of others through shaming and emotional violence. But that is a discussion for another time.

No matter how we are made aware of what is required for us to get better, the realization can trip us up, perhaps even cripple us for a time. Anxiety over the past and present overwhelm us, attack us. Grief and self-recrimination join forces, twisting knives in our hearts and tying our innards in nauseating knots. We retreat, we hide ourselves away, we grief and we shudder and we cry.

We are not okay. And that, in and of itself, is okay.

I wouldn’t be where I am, able to articulate this, if I hadn’t spend a good amount of time not being okay. I’d visited that place repeatedly, falling almost immediately into suicidal despair, only arresting myself and getting the most direct and scorched-earth type of help I could. Doing this got me accused of “attention seeking”; all I wanted was some fucking help, right the fuck now. I wasn’t okay. I wanted to be okay. I wanted to get better.

I didn’t want attention for it. I had to do it alone. And I expected to. I didn’t want to. But, on some level, I knew I had to.

At one crucial point, it became clear that the lonely road, and hard days of walking it, were my only real option. To say nothing to the outside world, to share nothing of the walk along that road, to make my focus getting better. I was alone in my grief, isolated in my anxiety. I could, and did, get help when and where I could, in person and from professionals, out of public view. I wanted to get better for myself, not for the sake of any public perception.

When, in a recent discussion, the subject of ‘being on my side’ came up, I said this:

I’m not going to say anything calculated to get you on my side. All I care about is showing up, in this moment, in the best possible way I can. People can make their own judgments.

It’s taken me a long time to figure out that I don’t have to live up to anybody else’s standards. Sure, in a working environment, standards must be met if I wish to remain employed. But in my personal life, on personal projects, the only required standards are my own. To be honest, I think a lot of the blame that’s been placed on my shoulders for things past came from my personal standards being so low and secondary to the standards of others. When others became aware of the fact that I prioritized their standards over my own, it became easier for them to shirk personal responsibility and push the causes for discord solely onto my shoulders. This isn’t to say I had no part in the course of events; indeed, I’ve had to look back critically to find which of my former behaviors pushed events in one direction or another. I’ve accepted that it’s what happened, I own the things I did wrong, and I’m working, constantly, to get better in that and many other regards.

I’ve had to let go of how others see me, of wanting so badly to be accepted, welcomed, loved by others. I’ve had to learn how to love myself, to care enough about myself to want to correct myself, shape myself into a version that meets higher standards that I alone set, to be a better self. It’s been difficult. It’s been heartbreaking.

It’s been lonely.

I’ve worked to get past the public shame. I’ve worked to define myself, by myself, for myself. I’ve worked to get fucking better.

And I’m not done yet.

I’ll still get anxious. I’ll still get nauseous. I’ll still be haunted by memories, sidelined by grief, temporarily crippled by heartbreak. Some things, some people, we simply do not get over.

I am not going to let that stop me.

Neither should you.

There’s an aspect of each of our selves that we’ve picked up along the way, through informed behaviors of others or the endemic troubles of society around us. It’s up to us to push those aspects away, put them down, walk away from them, let them wither and die. That is how we move forward. That is how we meet higher standards for ourselves. That is how we get better.

It’s not selfish for us to do this for ourselves. It’s necessary if we want to survive.

And we shouldn’t, for a single instant, feel guilty that we’ve torn ourselves apart, thrown away and destroyed that which has held us back, and put ourselves back together.

It’s a hard road. A lonely road.

For my part, it’s the only one worth walking.

And when it comes to those parts that were in the way of me finally getting better, when I give them a face and a name, and I cut them free of who I was, away from who I want to be…

I’m really, really glad they’re fucking dead.

Tuesdays are for telling my story.

500 Words From Heinlein

May 12, 2017 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

Courtesy Floating Robes

I lie. Not all 500 of these words come to you from the pen of Robert A. Heinlein. But most of them will. Mostly because, after several years, I once again picked up (or, in this case, began listening to) The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, a seminal book of my early teen years and the one that pushed me towards this writing business in which I engage.

… I have this one nasty habit. Makes me hard to live with. I write …

At the moment, writing is not my primary profession. But it’s always there. In the back of my mind, a prodding need persists. I’m a storyteller. I have to tell stories. It’s a basic imperative, like my need to eat and breathe and gallivant as urbanely, responsibly, and respectfully as possible. Those things cost, and writing, at least in the stage I linger at, does not pay.

… writing is a legal way of avoiding work without actually stealing and one that doesn’t take any talent or training.

I’m in a perpetual state of “I’m working on it,” with a few projects. I am, hopefully, in a place where I can carve out more time to do it. And none too soon, because it’s really started to bug me.

… writing is antisocial. It’s as solitary as masturbation. Disturb a writer when he is in the throes of creation and he is likely to turn and bite right to the bone … and not even know that he’s doing it. As writers’ wives and husbands often learn to their horror …

I of course am not so ignorant as to blame my writing for the skeletons hanging in my closet. My mental illness and prior emotional instability were the impetus for several bad decisions, but as any storyteller would tell you, a good character becomes aware of their shortcomings, and seeks to overcome them. So it is with me. And yet, if writing is a shortcoming, I do not seek to overcome it.

In a household with more than one person, of which one is a writer, the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private, and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. Because, if you disturb the patient at such times, he may break into tears …

If nothing else, writing is a way for me to express my emotions in a safe environment. The lines of journals become a padded room. And as plotlines and characters take shape and grow over the course of my writing, parts of myself and my experiences and emotions flow into them. I have professional therapists — and a battery of medications and vitamins — but my pen, perhaps, is the best tool for how I continue to get better.

Besides…

There is no way to stop. Writers go on writing long after it becomes financially unnecessary … because it hurts less to write than it does not to write.

Indeed.

On Fridays I write 500 words.

Tightening Focus

May 1, 2017 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

Not all bipolar swings are inherently negative. A downward swing towards depression, if examined from an objective standpoint, can be a time for reflection and constructive introversion. Sometimes, one has to distance or disconnect oneself from the usual stimuli of the outside world to take stock, recover strength, and realign thoughts and goals. By the same coin, a upward swing — not necessarily into full hypomania — can be a boom time of great creativity, channeling energy into endeavors that suit one’s goals.

This takes time, practice, the help of a therapist and loved ones, and a good amount of hammering out new pathways in one’s thought processes and emotional self-examination. It isn’t easy. But it’s worth it.

It also eats up a bunch of spoons.

If you’re not familiar with the Spoon Theory, I expound upon it (and reference its source) here. Most spoonies deal with a purely physical ailment — fibromyalgia, endometriosis, auto-immune diseases, etc. Mental illness can qualify as well — bipolar disorder, PTSD, anxiety, and so on. If you get a flashback, a sting of anxiety, or enter a mixed state, you have to spend time and energy dealing with that state of being before you can move on to something like sleeping, or eating. You spend spoons you’d otherwise spend elsewhere.

It can be easy to realize, in retrospect, that we haven’t taken steps towards reaching our long-term goals. We might even look around us and see all sorts of things that could be addressed, in terms of chores or self-care. I feel that it’s important to keep focus on the fact that our worth is not tied to our productivity, no matter what this modern capitalist dystopia in which we find ourselves might say. We can, and should, find self-worth in who we are and what we cultivate in ourselves and the world around us.

There are two factors that inform the ways in which we contribute to the world around us: willingness and ability. If we have the willingness to contribute, but not the ability — be it because of spoons, money, skills, or other resources — that has worth, in and of itself, and in my opinion, does not get recognized as much as it should. On the flip side, if one has the ability to contribute, but not the willingness… well, that’s a completely different kettle of fish.

In the aftermath of those moments of introspection and personal re-alignment, the next step is to examine what is worthy of focus, and what can be set aside, at least for now. For example: I haven’t spent as much time writing as I have in gaming. I even tried my hand at streaming Hearthstone again over a couple of weekends. The thing is, there are only so many hours in the day and I only have so many spoons. And, let’s be honest, I’m a better writer than I am a gamer. I may get myself to Legend rank in Hearthstone, but I doubt I have the time and bandwidth to both cultivate tournament-level skills in that game and finish the writing projects that may actually achieve my long-term goal of writing novels as my primary means of income.

So it’s time to focus on that, and get the words out, and get this shit done.

For whatever it’s worth, May is Mental Health Month, and as we go through it, I’m going to also take time to reflect on how I’ve been improving over the last few months, what I can bring up in therapy, and how I can continue carving new and healthier neural pathways. I hope these experiences, and my words, prove helpful to you. It can be difficult for me to remember that focusing on myself and the way forward is not selfish, in and of itself; rather, if I do not build myself up, and celebrate myself, the world will be all to happy to tear me down and strip-mine me for useful material the way they have our planet.

But that’s a post for a different day.

Tuesdays are for telling my story.