Waking Up

It's hard to love someone, to care for them in the blackest hours.
The songs and the poems and the flowers and the pink hearts... they're all symbolic of the romanticism of love. I mean the rougher parts of love, the tooth and nail of it.
It's genuinely hard.

It's difficult to watch someone you care about go through something tough. When their health fails them and despite all the therapists and the medication and the professional teams, in the end you feel like you are the only person keeping them alive simply from the fierceness of your love for them.

It's terrifying to watch them peer over the edge into the void, the chasm calling them in. You tug at their sleeve and lose your cool for a moment even at their lowest ebb because you are simply petrified that this is the end, so close you can breathe it in.

It's hard to watch them suffer. You are helpless against the hopelessness. All-consuming as your love for them may be, you know you are both but a tiny coal in the hurricane. One gust too hard or squall too quenching and the fire fizzles.

It's exhausting to love someone.

Then, without warning, my lady is given back to me from the brink. She looks at me with eyes that are finally focussed and clear, her features are once again full and warm with joy where they had been dull and slack.

I realise I am staring into her eyes and she is actually there.
"Oh!" I exclaim in surprise. I stupidly add "Hello!"
She giggles. She hasn't giggled in weeks.
"Hello!"

My heart dissolves in my chest. I am drowned in relief and grief. I weep like she had died and was resurrected. I pull her to me and hold her tight and whisper to her that I missed her. We kiss like it's our first kiss again.

"Are you back to stay?" I ask, willing myself not to hope too much. "Or is this.... just a visit?"
She smiles weakly and tells me honestly, "I don't know."

Later, she tells me it is as though she had been asleep. I tell her that in truth it was much, much worse than that. Her being asleep all this time would have been easier.
She apologises. I wipe the words away from her lips with my fingertips. I tell her it's not her fault, and that truthfully I don't care, I'm just so happy to have her returned to me.
She holds me and I feel strength in her embrace again.

I empty my tears into her chest until I exhaust myself. She listens and runs her fingers through my hair. The gesture is so gentle and caring and full of everything I had mourned the loss of that I break again and cry a reserve of tears I didn't know I had. She makes pitying noises as she kisses my hot forehead.

Some mornings later we tentatively decide to celebrate her waking up. We spend almost all day with our hands and fingers interlocked, we tell each other we love each other, with forgotten sincerity and intensity. We talk and I spend some time filling in the gaps of the weeks she missed. There are days she has no memory of, conversations that are deleted from history. I slowly and gently bring her up to speed. My patience is lengthened.

The hard part is over for now. Until another storm hits we walk through foggy, dreamy swirls of the easier parts of love, like the end credits of a fantasy film.
I reflect on what I've learnt, and tell myself to try to remember it all: The night's rainfall can be weathered, with strength. I wish myself strength, because this is the part that's worth it:
Waking up.

.

"Is there something someone could have done?"

Recently I had a friend contact me asking for advice. She is a teacher and has noticed a girl in one of her classes displaying behaviour that fits into the category of anxiety/depression traits (gloomy, not achieving within her abilities, noticeably 'down' body language and facial expressions, negativity, poor self esteem etc etc). My friend asked "Is there something you wish a teacher had done for you?" She added that as part of the health curriculum, the students are addressing things such as self-regulation, resilience and conflict resolution strategies, body language and leadership skills, but she wanted to know if there was anything more that she could do. Was there more than being available to listen, and giving her extra time and support to complete tasks etc?

Firstly, I was surprised to be asked. My friend excused herself for the personal nature of the question, and allowed me the option to decline discussing it, but truth be told I was moved. Someone had recognised someone struggling, and had thought of me, thinking I could help. I have always been open about my struggles, in the hope that this very ripple effect could take place. Now that it's here, though, I'm not really sure what to say.

I didn't know whether I could make any real valuable additions to what was being done, but I offered the below response:

I’d love to be able to say that someone saying or doing any one thing (reminding me that there are people who love me, challenging my negative thoughts) would have pulled me out of the gloom, but the reality is that her brain is likely going to reject any evidence that you give her that says she is liked or capable etc, and it won't be a quick, transformative moment of "Oh. Right. Good point. Thanks." and skipping into the sunshine.

It’s a strong as hell voice in those dark corners of the mind.

Even when the rational side of your brain makes logical and evidence-based arguments that 100% disprove the ideas of ‘nobody likes you, you’re just a failure anyway, everything is pointless’, 9 times out of 10 that tiny, imperceptible voice will override them.

It’s like a gut feeling.

Ever had that sliver of a fear when you’re walking in the darkness of the hallway, and you know, truly and rationally, that you are safe and no one is there, but that little gut feeling says you need to quicken your step and get to the next lightswitch… just in case?

That’s the override.

BUT

That doesn’t mean that your efforts will go unnoticed.

I can vividly remember being called out by another student who gave me a firm but caring ‘not everyone is out to get you!’ and I hear her voice often, even as an adult.

And getting some kind of piece of paper that we had to pass around and write on, and discovering at the end of my school time that so many of my peers actually did like me and found me funny. I remember thinking why the hell did no one say anything before??

Because they felt I wouldn’t hear them. 

I would have heard them. Even if I dismissed it at first, I’d have shelved it.

It's common that your own gloom makes others uncomfortable, and they don't really know how best to approach you, especially if you've knocked back their efforts before. If the voice has spoken through you, biting back at their kindness, dismissing their offerings of any kind of light, it does make people think twice about reaching out again.

So, I guess the only thing I can suggest, as the girl on the other side, is to keep on reaching out. 

Teachers and other school staff were actually the people I took the greatest comfort from during that time.

If she says ‘nobody likes me’, a gentle ‘I think you’d be surprised’ could go a long way.

I was surprised in later life to find out that that inner voice had been lying to me all those years.

The depression and the anxiety go hand in hand. They lock you up and exhaust you, and encourage you that everyone has an agenda, and tell you that the only way to survive is to build walls even if those walls keep out the flowers with the arrows.

Anxiety can say "There are enemies at the door. Lock the windows, be on guard."

Depression can say "This is somehow your fault."

They're best friends, but not to you.

Keep reaching. 

Even if the hand is left hanging, keep it out there.

It will be frustrating, and exhausting, and it will seem like you’re wasting your time. But keep doing it. 

Remind her that you are there. Remind her that you will listen if she needs you to. Remind her that its okay to not be okay. 

I had a teacher who would tell me to smile, to cheer up, to put on a happy face. That last one was done via song so it did make me crack a smile briefly, but no it did not ‘cheer me up’. 

It made grumpy: I was allowed to feel down, I was keeping to myself and not bothering anyone goddammit, and these people were telling me I couldn’t/shouldn’t.

Having permission to not be okay has possibly been the greatest, most helpful thing about this journey. The growing awareness of these types of conditions today means that as an adult, I can now say to my boss or my friends or some of my family “Sorry, I’m not doing okay, but I’m safe.”

And both they and I know it will pass, to give me support or distance if I need, but most importantly, permission. I'm not allowed to apologise to the people who truly understand. Even if I try to, because that voice is saying how much you've disappointed everyone, those who really get it tell me put my apologies away. It's been a long and hard lesson to learn, but permission is a key pointer.

It takes a layer of stress and guilt away. 

Especially as a kid, I felt weighed down by people telling me about how I shouldn’t feel this way or that I didn’t deserve it because someone else had it harder. I found myself saying a friend had died, or it was the anniversary of a death or something similar just to get some peace from the questions. Only then did people say 'oh okay, yeah that’d suck, I’m here if you need/until you stop feeling so down, okay?' when that was all I'd wanted.

So I guess all I can really say in response to the question is:

I wish more people would have kept reminding me that they were there for me, should I ever feel the need/motivation to accept the invitations, and not been discouraged by my initial dismissals. Nothing more than a small reminder, stating that the offer was still open. That voice is quick to interpret the passage of time as a waning interest from others. Sure I probably would have gotten sick of hearing it, but when the time came that I wanted someone, I knew who I could approach.

I wish more people had said that it's okay to not be okay, that they wanted me to be safe but didn't demand that I be happy when I wasn't.

And I wish more people were brave and gentle and tactful enough to call me out when I was being ridiculous in my self-loathing. It's a delicate tap-dance of a kindness, but if the right person can find the right time and do it the right way, then it's something that can be useful down the track, and I thank the girl who first took the time to gauge where I was at and poked a hole in my defensiveness. 

I can't say that all or any of these things will be applicable to the student in question, but these are the things my reflections have brought to mind. 

I wonder if my healing would have started sooner had they been in play.

Musing over.

Related: Four Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was Struggling With Depression

I have been playing with the idea of this post for a while: mostly what I want to say but also whether it needs saying at all.

Some people who read this may already be aware that I have, in the past, been involved with a person who did not treat me very healthily. It has taken many years to actually recognise and correctly name this relationship as abusive. I suspect most people in similar situations have trouble identifying such until later. It's easy enough to dismiss oneself as being silly or oversensitive, but when you are being actively conditioned to do so, it's a lot harder to acknowledge in the moment.

The situation has been on my mind a fair bit recently for a few reasons. Perhaps the most striking to me at the moment is that I am fast approaching the anniversary of our first meeting. A decade has past, and I am so changed from the 'me' that became involved with this person that I am barely able to relate to any old diary entries or blog posts that I read. After moving house, I have been able to dig up old materials of this nature and read back over the period in question.
I don't really want to detail the exact specifics of the abuse, but I have some hindsight, context, and rueful wisdom.

The first thing I want to get off my chest is an apology.

I am sorry to all of my friends and family who were also affected by my relationship with this person.
I know they will say that the apology isn't warranted, but still I feel the need to impress upon them my sincerity: I am so sorry.

I'm sorry I didn't listen; that I dismissed your concerns; that I allowed myself to be shepherded away from your genuine and protective love; that I deprioritised you even in the days when I could see that I was being influenced, but decided to choose the easier path because continuing to fight to keep you by my side drained me of any energy I had left for myself. I remember some of the decisions I made out of self-preservation that hurt you and I still struggle with it.

Secondly, and I cannot stress this enough, I want to implore anyone reading this to make a concerted effort to stay mindful of their situation. There were a lot of warning signs and gut feelings that I ignored. There were also positive things I ignored too, like the concerns tentatively voiced to me by others that I cast aside; I fiercely defended my unhealthy relationship, even against my own inner qualms.

It is only now, with the strength of retrospection that I am able to see that I would have had support, but I had slowly been isolated. I was, whether consciously or not, cut from my herd.


People have often asked me why we got together in the first place, or at least stayed together after the first concerns were raised. The answer is somewhat two-fold itself: I was in a low place when we met, and this person could be very charismatic and good at saying what I wanted to hear. I can even remember a conversation we had after a group outing, whereby they accused my accompanying friends of not caring about me like they do. A case was presented, and I was swayed. Their debate was convincing, their evidence sound. Of course they knew what was best for me, after all they were my partner.

I don't necessarily believe this behaviour was deliberately malicious. I actually believe that they believe they were doing the right thing by me. I was slowly convinced that I owed them my dedication, my defence, my protection; after all isn't that what I also receive from them?

Possibly the most dismantling harm was the effect this had on my sense of self-assurance. Whenever I would gain enough confidence and felt the need to stand up for myself, my partner was very good at martyrdom and victim-playing. Again, I have reason to believe this wasn't a conscious and deliberate action, but simply a result of having no other emotional maturity or capacity to do otherwise.

It meant that I would eventually apologise for my moments of self-defense. They were held against me in a mental ledger, and I was confronted with the tired adage of "If you really loved me..." more than I had prior.

Eventually, this taught me that my indignation at unfair or unhealthy situations was disproportionate. I had been convinced that I was the one overreacting; that my outbursts of emotion or rage, the result of compacted and repressed frustration or a sense of injustice, were standalone incidents: I was the powder-cake.

I was not completely broken down. There was enough resilience in me to occasionally want to rally and say my piece, to voice that I was not happy with our circumstances or relationship. I had the inner fire to defend myself occasionally, but unfortunately in that relationship, and perhaps because of it, I also had an inability to do this more effectively than simply letting all the anger and hurt and frustration pour out of me in verbal and emotional tidal waves.

My partner did not lash out like this, my partner did not rant with a whirring mind and racing heart at me. They were a measured and quiet presence, with a withdrawn and sometimes unwavering air. Surely, of the two of us, it was I who was unstable? If anything, my partner would openly cry and become upset because of something I had done out of momentary inability to emotionally regulate. To the outside world, with my stronger personality and fiery volume once at tipping point, I seemed the dangerous one.

And that's how it felt.

I was singlehandedly being manipulated into believing myself to be the sole instigator of disquiet. I am not claiming, by any means, that the outbursts mentioned above were appropriate, but simply a result of months and eventually years of emotional games, and the need to demand respect when I felt confident enough to do so. As I said, I wasn't as well equipped to emotionally handle the situation more appropriately than to sit on my frustration in an attempt to keep peace until it became too much and resulted in an argument.

My partner was very good at being upset. There was always some issue or problem, whether emotional or functional, in our relationship or just in our home, that needed attention to 'make them happy'. I spent countless hours and immeasurable energy on trying to 'fix things'. I was constantly baffled why the exuberance I was expecting never came. If something in the outside world had gone wrong, I was hysterically and tearfully approached to deal with it. Someone sent you a nasty message? I'll handle this. You lost your job? I'll put your resume together. Can't afford your rent? I'll pay half. Favourite band isn't coming to town? Let's fly interstate to see them.
They were very good at making me feel needed.

And that was half the initial enticement. I was needed and wanted, at a time when I had craved the feeling.

In my diary of the time, the last entry before this person enters my life, is two lines. It reads simply:

I feel so unloved. Unloveable.

I was a sitting duck for any charismatic character to enter my world and begin making me feel these things again. I ended up in a worse place because I started a relationship, with an emotionally immature person, from a bad place.

The diary, and my personal blog at the time, details events that my memory has shelved. It starts positive, written in coloured pens with scrapbook items. Then gradually introduces more and more negative recounts of the days.

Some years later, my diary sees another succinct entry, which is incidentally the last entry in an unfinished notebook that grew less and less embellished and decorated as my creativity and motivation waned over time. It is written in plain black ink, and reads only:

I'm getting very tired of fighting. Very tired.



Judging from the timestamp, that was a few months before I was freed.
But I was not released entirely...

In the years that followed, living in small city meant that we had mutual acquaintances. We also had shared interests which meant occasionally I would find myself at the same event as my former partner. This in itself would be fine, but on numerous times they would seek me out and stand nearby apparently oblivious and coincidental, trying hard to be nonchalant. It happened more often than coincidences would have one believe. I was trying to move on with my life, and they were actively trying to reinsert themselves into it in any manner in which they could pass off as chance if confronted. Plausible deniability.


Another reason I find this topic on my mind lately is new information that has come to light about others who came after me.

I was not the last to be subjected to the manipulation and emotional & psychological abuse of this person. I have discovered other parties who were also subjected to it, some of whom are lucky to still be alive.'

I'm torn by this news.

On the one hand, I want to be proud of myself that I was strong enough and resilient enough to not have my mental health pushed quite this far. Perhaps that fire that would be used against me helped keep me safe?

On the other hand, these other relationships with my former partner and these parties were significantly shorter. Whilst I feel like I may have gotten away unscathed in comparison because I did not require hospitalization or need to be put on suicide watch, these events helped them recognise the unhealthy place they were in.
I feel somewhat stupid to know that I remained in a situation that was hazardous to my mental and physical and social health for so long.

It's challenging to process, because the journey I've been on since having the relationship removed from my life has allowed vast progression and growth, and I keep judging myself in the past by my wisdom of the present. I have to remember to be kind, and forgiving, to the person I was.

Big Anxiety in a Small Person

After reading this link about kids with anxiety, I have some thoughts that have been in the back of mind for a while now.

Firstly, I wish this kind of awareness was around when I was a kid.

I remember my mum telling someone that I 'worried a lot' and I remember 'feeling worried' about random things that I couldn't always articulate.

This was the only word I was ever given for what I felt.

I also remember watching some movie with my family and there was a scene where someone was called to the stand in court and I told my mum that if that ever happened to me I would just cry. Even if I had done nothing wrong and wasn't in trouble, I just knew I'd instantly burst into tears under that scrutiny. Even recalling that memory threatens to overwhelm me, I can place myself exactly back into that kid-me's emotion.

Whilst I've come a long way, that 'worried' kid still kicks around sometimes. I had no idea that it was anything real; I always thought I must be broken for worrying... about nothing. I was always wise enough to know that these were irrational anxieties, even if those 2 words were unknown to me at the time.

On the flipside, we always (lovingly) tease my dad for being a 'worry-wart'... So I guess the argument of genetics vs learned behaviour can kick in there. I've always maintained that it's a little bit of both - especially evidenced by the fact that as I grew older, I've stumbled and learnt my way around my anxiety depression. At least to (more recently) lessen its grip on me than the incapacitation I vaguely recall as a smaller person. But the DNA is still there, and it still raises its head when my methods fail.

Dad was/is prone to anxiety (over being late especially) and we all just learnt to accept that if there was a crisis, he was not the person to count on because he would simply panic. He would visibly reduce into a muddled, flustered being full of breathy exasperation. Meanwhile, precious seconds could be ticking by. Writing that, I am thinking of an instance when I wrenched the phone from him as he struggled to relay information from my mother, bent over the crumpled unconscious frame of my grandmother on the floor, to the 000 operator on the other end.

I also remember when I was very small, I slipped outside and lacerated my leg on a piece of metal. It was bad. I still carry the thick, fat scar on my upper thigh. 

I called out for my brother to help, since my mother was not home and knew Dad would rapidly turn into a useless ball of stress. I was young but sensible enough to have recognised this (and to know that walking inside was probably a bad idea since I'd get blood everywhere!). I was in shock and pain but I tried to keep my voice relatively even so Dad did not know there was any kind of emergency. My brother did a brilliant job of patching me up and although neither of us mentioned it, we knew to keep it from Dad. 

Even when he came into the living room later, as I laid on the couch, bandaged up under the blanket I was wrapped in, resting... He asked what was wrong (had he heard me in distress after all?) and I simply said "Nothing" as innocently as I could. My brother and I went back to watching TV. Mum came home after I went to bed that night and she was informed when I woke up in the middle of the night due to bad dreams, and I went to the doctor in the morning.

 

This. This is in my blood, my genes. And whilst I ruefully comment that today's kids have more resources than I did growing up, I am suddenly struck with the fact that he had less. None, even.

I don't envy the increased anxiety in our young people in this world, but I do envy the fact that due to its (ever increasing) widespread reach, at least anxiety (and depression) is slowly becoming more recognised, treated, and reduced in stigma. I may have missed out on the early help that I would've perhaps gotten (or not, who knows?) but at least I know that before we teeter too far on the border of becoming too much of an over-sensitive, coddling bunch -as the media an others would like to paint us as a society- there are other kids in pain who are getting help.

long time between drinks

I remember the last time I was about to write here, it had already been quite a while between posts.

Ironically, the reason I never got around to writing that positivity-filled post updating you all on my world is because suddenly the fragility of it all became apparent and the mind-world crumbled for a few days or a week and my motivation to check in subsequently died.

And here I am, between smooth sailing once again; caught in the shifting of tectonic plates as I try to calm my racing thoughts and stay grounded amongst my erratic emotions. Right now I am a little down. Winter is officially here and I'm cold and tired and it doesn't help things. I sit with a mindful smile and try to keep the negativity from sinking in.

This the most important part: knowing that how I feel right now is but temporary.
It too shall pass.

This is just a wave and I will ride it out.
It's a long way from where I started. And I guess that's something to be proud of in itself.

On that note, I will update you on one thing: I recently just passed my first year of working in a steady job. That's a big accomplishment for me in recent days. I am lucky. I have good people around me and am part of an understanding team there.

Customer service is involved too. Who'd have thunk it? Me back in the saddle.

So I guess amongst these dreary feelings I nurture a small flame against the wind. It is a tiny, ember of hope and pride and sanity. I am stronger than I ever suspected.

the dark is where the demons are...

It's nearly 3am and I have work 'tomorrow.'
I sit here on the couch in the darkness, thinking about nothing and everything; just a still, quiet meandering mind in the night.

It conjures up two memories, which revisit me not infrequently.

The first: a brief, fleeting image of being holed up years ago in a roadhouse motel alone by some interstate highway, listening to the trucks drone past as sleep escaped me. I stared into the moonlight and took dark 'artsy' photographs to pass the time, waiting for morning and the new workday, a sentence repeating over and over in my head - the answer to a question I hadn't bothered asking about why I could always sleep better in the daytime:
"The dark is where the demons are..."

The second memory is one from childhood.
I'm at a friend's birthday party. We're all perhaps about eight years old. Maybe younger. We've been playing in the backyard, and I've not been hugely interested in the games but joining in regardless.

Presently we're called inside: the party food is ready, probably cake too.

The other kids, maybe another 5 or 6 children, bustle through the back door to the kitchen and I linger at the back of the single file line. When I get to the door I let it shut in front of me and veer to a chair propped just alongside. I sit and I ponder without pondering - as I am right now - looking out over the now empty yard drenched in sun, and listening to the clamour of munching juveniles just within.

Someone notices I'm missing - the birthday girl, or perhaps her mother, and she opens the door to look for me. Seemingly startled to find me just outside, she asked "What are you doing??"

I reply, distracted "I'm just ...thinking".

Before she can respond her mother calls out to find out what's going on, and my friend relays over her shoulder: "She's thinking"
"Thinking!? What about?" the mother hollers, and my memory lets the rest of her words trail back into my mind and as the image fades to black I recall that I got up then and joined them, embarrassed.


Just being. Just seeing and feeling and thinking without thought. Numb, without the hopeless undertones, - though, she's still there somewhere.

Earlier this evening my partner and I had argued, and I suspect I am simply drained as always after such a challenging time. So I just sit. And am. My body claiming to want sleep, but my mind not surrendering to it, and my body only mildly convincing anyway.
I am not exhausted, I am just being. Just thinking.

A third commonly recounted memory surfaces:
I am in early highschool and the deputy principal has become a sort of mediator between another student and I in the midst of an emotional quarrel. She asks me what I do when I go home, after the conflict at school, and I reply that I do nothing: I do my homework and what tasks needs doing, but otherwise I just sit and think about things. Perhaps I include that I stare at the ceiling and think, I don't remember.
"Hmm" She nods slightly as she considers this. "That's dangerous."

I didn't reply at the time, and don't recall anything else as clearly from that conversation in her office.

"Is it?" my head still asks her today.

Are the quiet moments like this really dangerous? Do they really cause me as much harm as being emotionally heightened sprawled on the floor? Or kicking furniture and yelling?

Usually this type of quiet is the shell that's left when I'm tired and I've spent all the fight in me. I'm not depleted of anything but some energy, and lots of fight.
I'm submissive, passive, pliable.

If my partner is patient enough to wait for the objection to burn out of me in the form of tears and fists into floors, sometimes for hours... in this quiet time, even after the flares of shame and guilt if there's any to spare, I will do whatever it was I was rebelling against to begin with. Whatever tiny, insignificant last camel straw set my balanced brain on fire in the first place.
I become obedient, for the sheer reason that there's nothing left in me in this moment.

Dangerous?

Sometimes I agree with her. But this is not one of those times.
I think she means those times when the darkness is like a vacuum. When your head is not quiet, but full and noisy and repetitive. When the broken record tells you how hopeless and useless you are, and how selfish you are for feeling hopeless and useless. When the dark is where the demons are.

But this is not one of those times.

The demons are still here on nights like this, but they sit beside me. Not tormenting me, but not ignoring me either. We sit together and gaze out into the shadows like two strangers watching the same sunset on the same park bench, in polite silence.

Quietly appraising and respecting each other.

It's as though we have a truce this night: I don't try to stifle my demons, and they don't try to suffocate me.
This must be a sample of what living in peace with your inner demons must feel like.

I pause from finishing this post on that note as one last thought strikes me:
It's not as though I am scared of the dark, but quite the opposite. The night makes no demands. It is peaceful and quiet, and so, so many people are asleep. The day, however, brings harsh light to renewed worries. People and their demands awake. The world stirs.
It's easier to sleep past it all. With a bonus of a soul-lifting charge that only sleeping in sunlight can bring.

Perhaps I've had it wrong all these years, where my demons sleep.

Re-stitching

On the weekend we camped at a holiday park for a couple of nights. It was part of a retreat organised by my partner's 'church group' (their Facebook group description reads: "A gathering of same-sex attracted Christian, Post-Christian, Not-Christian-but-not-opposed and etc. Womyn - for social, spiritual, educational, meaningful, nutritional, conversational and "otheral" stuff.").

So they're a pretty open and inclusive bunch, and calling them a 'church group' doesn't really seem to fit, but I don't know what else to call them. Whilst not being hugely religious these days (I've always identified more as 'spiritual' as I became more my own person) I decided to go with her as I'm friends with some of the others, and we both needed another short time-away.

A bonus was that the rural area was close to an old friend's area, and we were able to catch up with her for lunch in the nearby township. My friend occasionally can be reclusive and it meant a lot that she made the effort to meet with us. I love her and miss her often, and I hope to make our catch-ups more frequent after a couple years of 'estrangement'.
I managed to meet with another long lost friend after camping, and I'll touch on that later.

After lunch we walked around the small town and spoke with some of the local shopkeepers. Our favourite was perhaps a new age store offering readings, healings, crystals etc. It was the kind of store that I (ashamedly) would ridicule whilst I was a blind, over-zealous, religious teenager.

As I grew older and slowly began living my own life and making my own thoughts and belief-systems, I was fortunate enough to meet some wonderful people who opened my eyes to a more spiritual and holistic way of thinking. This is where my 'spiritual' identity was born, although in the recent past as I've struggled with these various mental barriers noted in this blog, I admit that my soul needs a refresher. I wish I could keep on studying Complementary Health on the other side of the city, the staff there were pretty in-tune and I liked their approach of the mind, body and soul being interlinked. Perhaps one day when I can commit to on-campus learning again, I will pick it up.
I also think this is why I like my psychologist and chiropractors - folks who understand energies and that I am sensitive to them.

Anyway I digress as usual...

It was a lovely store, and the ladies there were lovely and nearly made me cry a couple times with their kindness and intuition. We bought some gemstones (2 or 3 each) and my partner also picked up some spirit cards which sound nice too: I'm looking forward to flicking through them.

It got me thinking about stones again and how I haven't really picked up any of mine for some time (excluding when I put them on my windowsill amongst my piratey things which would have charged them nicely, but it wasn't really 'using' them). I remembered I had maybe 4 at home on my bookshelf.

When we got home from campy times I set about looking up how to cleanse our new stones of their energies (since folks handling them instore would leave residual energy. We were advised to hold them under running water) and thought I should do the same for the few I knew I still had.

After refreshing my memory from Crystal Gems I decided I would gather my old stones and do a deep cleanse in saltwater before rinsing in the running water and smudging, since I knew I had a couple stones somewhere and they'd been on a shelf for a long time.

I went around my study collecting my stones and found out that I actually have 14 in total!
So between my own buying, and giftage from 3 of my aforementioned in-tune friends, over the last 10years I actually have acquired a heap more than I thought!

Now to go about the task of re-learning what each stone is. I wanted to re-centre, but first I need to re-educate.

This is kinda a testament as to how by-the-wayside I've left my focus on spirit and soul. I've been so concentrated on the mind and occasionally the body that I've forgotten the importance of the whole package.

Even the fact that I was laying in a tent listening to the wind and the birds, warm with my partner beside me, I felt myself loosen and my chest a little less tight.

I've been feeling nostalgic for how things were within me in the past - whilst acknowledging my rose-coloured-glasses-memory could be working against me here. That said, I've been making an effort to make contact with some old friends again. Mostly those who don't have/use social-media often.

The morning we packed up the tent, we drove back into the city to meet with another friend whom I hadn't seen in quite a few years (2 rekindles in 2 days - booyeah!) and it was one of those wonderful moments where the time hasn't diluted your dynamic.

I feel like I'm very slowly re-stitching torn pieces of my tapestry back together.

My Black Dog

It's been a few months since I've been motivated enough to write here. Even my personal diary hasn't seen a pen for a while.

A quick recap before I get into the flow of what I want to write about.
In the past 3 months:

• I got the job I was interviewed for last time we spoke. My manager is nice and they are flexible with my hours, since sometimes of late I haven't been up to working (more on that later). The work is simple and repetitive. I excel in the tasks, to the point that it irks me somewhat because I see a lot of coworkers doing the same thing alongside me, but sacrificing good results for speed. It's frustrating to see products going out the door that are woefully put together, yet I've been passive-aggressively told I'm too slow. Sigh. Well, screw you. At least I can see the art in what I'm doing, and I will never be dragged over the coals for creating something sub-standard.
• My second shift in, I was carpooling a workmate and I home when a man using his mobile phone rear ended  my car and shoved us into the back of the car in front of us. My car was a write-off, and after much back-and-forth between the insurance company and myself, I have finally only now bought myself an acceptable second-hand car.
• I started anti-depressants, which is much of the reason I will rant later in this post. I have tried 2 variants of pain-killer/anti-depressant drugs, and aside from having my joint pain reduced I am not thrilled with the results.
• I enrolled in an online course studying Training & Education. It's a field I've been curious about for a while now so with my leftover dollars from the purchase of my new car, I signed myself up to an at-your-own-pace 12month run. The 6month course was cheaper, but I'm a realist. I'm probably already behind schedule.

So that pretty much brings you up to speed.

The weather is slowly turning Springward. I have been feeling the winter a lot more than usual this year: trouble getting and keeping warm, more joint pain than usual, and the to-be-expected Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Today I took the day off work due to a few reasons; my hip is very sore and I need to see my chiro again, plus I had a rough night with a lot of tears and a foot through the wall, plus my partner has had some bad news regarding one of her clients at her work also. So we've declared ourselves unfit for anything too taxing today.
She currently has a workmate over and they are enjoying a cup of tea in the almost-spring weather, talking about the unfortunate events. I took it as a good opportunity to gather my thoughts here, since I was overdue.

When I started working again, we made a game plan. It involved who was responsible for which bills and financial obligations, whilst also outlining what self-care measures we each must apply ourselves to. Mine were to continue to see my chiro, GP and psych, as well as trialling medication to improve my moods and mental state. Aside from the chiro visits, which were on hiatus while I predominantly relied on public transport, I have been keeping up my end of the bargain.

I have never taken anti-depressants before. I was agreeable enough to start taking birth-control pills to counter the PMDD symptoms brought on by my menstrual cycle, but I have been resistant to anti-depressants for as long as I have known about them.

If you had asked me a year ago what I thought was 'wrong with me' I would have listed PMDD, then Social Anxiety, then Anxiety, but I would have bitten your head off if you included Depression in the suggestions.

I was/am swamped in self-stigma about Depression.

"No, I DON'T have Depression"
"I'm just tired/sore"
"I was fine until *insert reason here*"

Depression, in my mind, was/is the unkempt, dressing-gown draped, sad-and-sorry moocher who sits on the couch and watches TV all day. 'Every second person has fucking Depression. I don't have that!' I would spit the word out, as if it were a sour dob of snot on my tongue. My denial would/does frustrate me into a rage, lashing out at the label, fighting with all my strength against being associated with the pathetic images of Depression my brain held.
At the same time, I was ignoring every other day that I had spent in my pyjamas eating biscuits on the couch, staring blankly at the television watching movie after movie after movie. I was raging against an image I was filling nigh perfectly.

Some days are better than others, like the adventures in Depression themselves. Some days I exhaust myself into a sullen acceptance, and I retrospectively recognise all the signs from the past 15 years that undeniably pointed to the black dog* but I had looked the other way. My first clear memory of being depressed I was about 12 or 13, but I'm sure it even pre-dates that.

I came up with a story to cover my inexplicable 'down days' growing up in a close-knit school: Someone had died, it was the birthday of a lost loved one, I had a cold, I didn't sleep well, etc etc etc. I knew that if I just said 'I'm feeling a bit down' the next question would be 'why?'... and I didn't have an honest answer. I knew that was crazy, to be sad for no reason.

Other days I lock myself up, numbing out everyone around me as much as I dared. I kept up the facades to friends and family, so that they wouldn't pry. It's something I've noticed a lot since those years: my motivation for keeping it together was/is simply to avoid all the probing questions that would follow if I didn't.

I ruefully chuckle, even now, and think "What a reason! The only reason I don't snap completely is because I don't want to have to deal with the aftermath? Meaning, were there no aftermath, I would let myself go entirely?"

It's a sad realisation, to know that you're only passing for okay because you're not committed enough to the crazy label.

I feel like I'm in a painful purgatory. The good days taunt me with the possibility that this could be a reality: a happy, normal life, I'm capable of so much. Then the bad days swamp me and my brain laughs at having imagined anything so foolish.

The anti-depressants aren't working, and I go back to the doctor in a few days to discuss another option. They are actually making me worse. I have been lower in these last few months, on these pills supposedly designed to do the opposite, than I have ever managed by myself. I had been reluctant, but had been swayed into giving them a try, if nothing else, to at least write off the possibility that this could be what I need to feel better.

It's horrible, to have to feel so bad before you can say with certainty 'I knew this wasn't the answer.'

I had rebelled against them for so long, and the possibility that I may indeed need them, and now that I had finally been convinced by my partner and my health team to give them a try, they turn out to exactly as I had anticipated: a waste of time, a waste of money, and filling my body and brain with chemicals that alter me.
I have seen too many people I know and love become completely different people whilst taking medications and it had frightened me to think the same could happen to me... and yet here I am, on the end of a 3 month rollercoaster involving meds and withdrawals and moods like any crooked ferris wheel.

I tell myself to snap out of it. The stigma and my self-talk get together and tell me that I'm just weak, and a normal person wouldn't be reacted to the things I do the way that I do. It doesn't matter what anyone else says to me to make me feel better, my spinning thoughts command my attention far more than any outside voice.

My partner tries to help, but her voice simply adds to the constant noise in my head and I am quickly overwhelmed and get snappy. All I want anyone to do is to hug me, regardless of what good advice/intentions they may have.

I am an audience of one to a very loud disharmony. Like trying to listen to a live band play a song while wearing headphone that are playing a different genre of music entirely. The constant duality is tiring, and it's hard to explain thoroughly because no one hears it but me. The word 'hear' doesn't even seem to fit because it's not how I imagine hearing voices to be, just thoughts. Like when you get used to playing a particular album, and you expect the next song before it even starts playing, so much so that your brain actually starts playing it in your head... and then something else starts playing because this is a mix-tape not your favourite album, and for a moment you get confused because your brain is singing one song and your ears are hearing another.

Sigh.

And this is where the exhaustion settles in.

I'm tired of explaining myself, tired of trying to find the magic formula to 'get well', tired of labels, of justifications and explanations, of the black dog and all his friends. I'm tired of battling myself like I have these nearly-two decades.

I forget what my initial point was. Or if I had one.

For now I will simply leave you with the hardest words I have ever spoken:
I have Depression.

Black Dog Institute - What is Depression?
 

Some info for you

I usually don't really like a lot of the stuff Huffington Post put up, but I think this article 10 Things People Get Wrong About Anxiety is pretty fair.

It's also fair to say that even folks who suffer from anxiety are occasionally deluded by the same misconceptions.

Also, while I'm throwing links at you. I also like this theory about the high depression rate in my generation from Sub-Cultured. Just for laughs.

Say what you mean/ Mean what you say.

Have you ever spent a heap of time writing a post, then putting it up and rereading it and thinking:
"Why did I post that? No one cares about that!" 

Do our newsfeeds really need every scrap of thought broadcast to our friends and family? Is that really why they're tuned in?

Almost like when we post pictures of inane meals:
"Buttered toast again this morning, because YOLO."

Or tiny things that happened to us that happens to everyone:
"Stubbed my toe. FML... It's okay now, it stopped hurting by the time I finished writing that."

Or those posts that are just waaaay too dramatic (sometimes shared/posted on public pages):
"Don't EVER go to BillyBob Diggory Chaswick's House of International Earwax Sculptures. I went to the cafe in the giftshop and they brought me my raisin toast cut into SQUARES not TRIANGLES! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!? What kind of establishment would allow this?! I am never going back. Tell your friends!"

Then there's 'vaguebooking', the art of omitting so much from the post that few or none actually understand it:
"Why should I even bother with this any more? Every time I put in the effort, it runs away. On Monday, I was so happy after everything, but now it just feels like that time I wore that outfit. I know you know the one I mean...."

Or the ones that are just painful to physically read (this is going to hurt me more than it does you):
"so I lyk this guy n everythink, bt he dosent evn kno im their. my x thinks im discusting wen I tlk 2 him on fb cuz he lyk sez I shld of payed betta attenshun in english but lyk y shld i?? im nvr goin 2 england! omg wat a lOsEr!!"

This predates Facebook.

How many personal websites are there in cyberspace? Maybe long forgotten Angelfire pages or the like, full of useless info about the creator and what stuff they like or hate, with little or no design, random animations, and perhaps a song that automatically plays in the browser when you open the page (if you're lucky you may even have the ability to stop/mute it).
Countless public blogs no more than an online journal of actions. A record. A log.

What is it in us that must be heard, that must announce - even if it's just the mundane?

The internet. Making people feel like they have their own personal radio station for almost 2 decades!

It's something to ponder. But while you're at it, ponder this.
While you're speaking out and sharing with the world wide Web the news of your breakfast, or the selfie you just took in the restaurant bathroom, or that you just vomited and by golly doesn't it look exactly like the state of Texas?!... spare a thought for those without a voice.

Countless people don't have these freedoms that we piss away on trivial things. Some people can't say the gender of the person they love, others can't say what they think about their nation's government, others just simply don't have the funds and/or infrastructure in their region to have anything like this medium we take so for granted or the expensive devices we access it on. Some people have all of this but they just can't clear their minds of the mental clutter that stops them doing what their peers do so easily.

Take 5minutes. Feel the clothes on your back, and take in the million tiny blessings around you in the form of your freedoms, your possessions, your opportunities... You are blessed, whether you recognise it or not.

Today, I dare you to do something *you* really want to do. Eat cereal for dinner, wear odd socks, book that holiday, find another job, ask that certain person on a date, have dessert, get a dog. Anything!

Big or small, it doesn't matter. Just do something you can do, for you.

My Treacherous Past

After spending some time on my laptop reading travel blog posts of a friend-of-friend, and looking at some of my old photos, I decide I've had enough.

I close the laptop briefly to gather my thoughts, a chance to reflect on the sudden disgust and regret that's bubbled up in me.

The photos flash before my mind's eye again, and I realise that I was feeling taunted by them. They represent memories that frolic about and tease me about happier times. I had looked at the photographs -either taken by me, or of me, or both - and ruefully grimaced "That feels like the last time of my life I was ever truly happy".

I tell myself that I know this is not true.
I know what my mind is like: it has an uncanny ability to summarise over-positively. Unless speaking of a particularly turbulent time of my life, my mind recalls everything as rainbows and sunshine and happiness, and glosses over (or leaves out entirely) any negative feelings or experiences that were present at that time.

It's a survival mechanism, I know. I am a healer. If I could make visible how well and how often this trick has put me back together, I would look like a patchwork doll. It probably accounts for the lifelong feeling of never really identifying with past versions of my self - I am remade so often, I'm not the same person for more than a group of years.

And it's this very lifesaving thing that bothers me now.

I look around me at my nest, something a past-self would have envied, and I make a face.
"Is this who I am now? Is this what I represent?"

I feel weak, and wasted.

Less than a decade ago I was - felt - remember feeling - seemed fearless.

I try to brush it off as a side-effect to my recent 30th. But I've never really been bothered by age or numbers, and I know this is just a convenient excuse; a way to avoid explaining my dysphoria should another person question it.

I recall adventures of recent times: physical challenges, and mental and emotional ones. I remember feeling uncertain and afraid.

"Was I always so hesitant?"
My memory fails me as I try to answer myself. It spits out the usual list of victories and triumphs and happy memories. When I try to force it to focus on something I know must have been hard, but not quite life upheaving, it refuses to give me any more than a cursory acknowledgement of tribulation.

This is where my diaries or old blogs play a part, and it is shame that I fell out of the habit for some years. When I read back, especially those entries that are so vague they only really depict my bad feelings and not the particular issue I was wrestling with at the time, I am amazed to see how anguished I had been... for I have no recollection of it now.

It's frustrating.

But it's also hopeful.

I sit and think about what this means, and how am I feeling now compared to half an hour ago.
Still bummed, but calmer. At least I know that when I do pull myself out of this rut, I won't have much memory of just how low I felt at the time until I read my own words back.

I look at the scars on my body and soul and think about how they came to be; how the bad things have failed to beat me, whether I remember them properly or not.
A fond proverb floats to mind and I smile ruefully at the fact that I only ever remember it in times like these:

This too shall pass.

30 (and counting) and childless

Precious Gemstone indeed :)

Even as a little girl, I was asked about children. Did I want any? How many? What genders and how many of each?
Ever since I can remember, I've always replied that I didn't want children. It's something I've always known; it's a thought that pre-dates my awareness of my sexuality.

My mum used to always say "Oh you say that now, but one day you'll meet someone and want to have their babies" (edited pronouns to accommodate the spanning of Mum's understanding of my sexuality over the years). I used to joke that the more she said that, with the 'I know what will happen, wait and see' air to it, that I would deliberately stick to my guns on the matter.
But the truth is, it was easy to stick to my guns, because the maternal urges just never rose in me as I got older.

More than once have there been times in my adult life that I have sat down and seriously asked myself if I would have children. Even after the long, private chats with myself, the answer is still no.
Only once have I ever thought that I may amend that decision, because I was blindly in love with a girl who did want children. I thought 'if you wanted to have kids, then okay I will be their other parent.'

But in hindsight, I'm glad that never came to be. Even as a non-biological parent, I don't think I'd do right by those children. And really, that truth is betrayed in my wording:
 'if you wanted to have kids, then okay I will be their other parent.'
Okay. Like I'm giving in to a small disagreement. If I really wanted that, I would have been something like 'I can't wait to start a family with you' or similar, surely?

A friend shared great mini-article here from Abby who sums up pretty precisely why I choose not to have kids.

I have seen too many children who are in this world who probably shouldn't be - at least, not to the parents that bore them. Procreating these days is a choice, and it's mine to not do so.

Sure, when I hold the babies of my friends and my family (pictured), I love them. I appreciate them, I kiss their foreheads and call them little angels just like any would-be-mum would do. But I'm happy to hand them back knowing that I will not have one of my own.

I don't want to have kids just because I'm made to feel or am told that I should, or because others say I'd be a good mum, or even because I'm getting older and my timeframe to make a family is shrinking.

I would like to think that in a perfect world, all kids are wanted and fought for. But the sad truth is, a lot aren't. Some are on this earth due to many many reasons that I won't list here, as the combinations of factors are so numerous. My point is, whatever would lead me to having and keeping (writing from the perspective of pro-choice) a baby, would not be enough to convince me that this is indeed what I had always wanted.

The flat truth is, it just isn't.
And no kid should ever be the mistake their parents made.
I'd never call my child a mistake, or treat them badly, or take it out on them that this wasn't the life I wanted, but despite all that, I would be unhappy. At roots-level, this would still affect them.

If I had children, I wouldn't be the parent they deserved, and what does that make me then?
"Yay, you finally had kids... but... you're a lousy mum."

Only recently I went out to a birthday lunch accompanying a friend, and we sat with a few ladies who had children. The contrast between two mums in particular was astounding.

One was quite obviously not happy with her status as a mother, or the presence of her two (yeah, two) children in the world. And this was indeed reflected by the behaviour of the kids themselves. They messed around, undisciplined, because their mother wasn't (and probably hardly has been) paying them any positive attention, simply throwing a half-hearted 'don't do that!' when they got rowdy.

You may think me, the childless lesbian, a bit judgemental here, and making assumptions... but believe me, reader, when this lady picked up her younger offspring (who had spent most of the lunch face buried in a mobile phone playing games because what else is there to do?) onto her lap to stop her fussing. And she sighed to my friend and the table, aloud, without hush and very audible to her child on her lap: "Don't ever have kids! They will ruin your life."

'What kind of person says that??' said my brain. 'In front of her children, no less!'

While my friend and I left the restaurant later and drove home, we shared our disbelief at such a horrible thing to say... to someone you've never met before but also within earshot of your child. We also found that both of us had the same impression that the chidrens' behaviour/interactions (or lack thereof) was an effect of being spoken to/of in this way. It made me sad for them. I feel sad for any child that I see not appreciated by their parents for the gift they are (adults included), even when their behaviour is challenging at times.

It's a shame, especially when there are so many genuine couples out there who would treat a child like a precious gemstone if they could have one. And believe me, I've had my share of guilt over having a perfectly operational reproductive system and letting it go to waste when so many struggle. I've even been prepared to donate ova to a friend if they'd needed it.

The answer to my brain's question 'what kind of person says that?' is simply:
Someone who isn't ready to have had children now, if at all.

And this is kind of how I feel.

Sure, I wouldn't ever say that to/around my kids if I ever had them, but I know in my heart that I would probably feel this way nonetheless: This isn't me.

Why? Because I simply have no desire to ever be a mum.  It really is as simple as that.

I know it's hard for some people to understand, but it's kinda like sexuality that way: Just because you don't like kissing that gender, doesn't mean the people who do enjoy kissing them are beyond understanding or should be ridiculed/treated as freaks... we just all have different wants. If I don't really want to kiss a boy or have a baby, think of it this way: I'm leaving all the more boys and babies for the rest of those folk who do want them.

I like kids. I get along really well with kids. Hell, I work with kids and my success in that role lays heavily on my great ability to relate to them and understand them. But that doesn't make one automatic mum-material.

I'll settle for being the cool aunt to the kids in my honorary family.
Why? Because that's the role I'm always happy to play, the one I know I feel comfortable in.

Here, everyone is happy. I'm true to myself, those kids have one more person to love and care for them, and the world is spared of my share of offspring that I may have spawned simply out of pressure, not of love.

The upside is, being a same-sex attracted female, my risk of accidentally conceiving is highly reduced. Something to ponder on the Marriage Equality debate, same-sex marriages will produce less unwanted children... as they are harder work to acquire.

I'll leave you to your own thoughts on the matter.

Jekyll

I have begun a hardcopy journal again. This is something I haven't done for many years, and this kind of medium is probably the reason, but I'm using it for the cracked-pavement-honesty that I can't bear to have linger in the cyberworld for an undetermined amount of time.
Things that I know about myself, the unclear-label condition of my mind, and how I need to face these issues/how they affect my relationship.

Today I had a job interview. The first in a long time that was any kind of work I know I could do. I will know within the week whether I'll be offered the job, and I shall have to knuckle out if it is indeed right for me. Even if not, it feels good just to have the maybe.

I have been feeling very unlike myself for quite a while, and I've been trying to reconnect with that sense of 'self'. Doing things the 'old' me would  (journals, job interviews, performing onstage) has felt very akin to sliding on a long-lost but well loved pair of old favourite shoes. Relief.
The sheer relief to feel like me.

I am looking into the possibility that my anxiety is not a cause, but an effect, of my upside down mind lately. Right now my doctor and I are working on finding out if Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) may also be a factor. The more I learn about it, the more I see similarities in my mother's traits. I used to think she was just a little nuts as well as having nutty hormones, but I'm learning (both via this research, and in my physiology classes) that hormones can very well be the culprits that drives one nutty. These things deserve way more respect than we initially imagine.

They mess with my state of Jekyll.

When we were first discussing it with a new counsellor (since the last blog post re: my counsellor, I have not returned to her, instead my partner and I are seeing someone else together), I told them that once the clouds of the condition have passed and I am released from these personality-changing imbalances, I feel just that: released.

The cool, soothing wave of cold water that floods over me, like a shining, silver, fish that has had that searing hook removed from its mouth, and handed back out of the burning, dry air... slid back into the stream.

That is the feeling of finally waking up after a week or more, and finally feeling back in my own skin. It lasts only a moment, but it has built up... making the short transition something to savour as much as can be done.

Until then, I simply watch from the shadows, as the Hulk smashes and yells and sets fire to the forest around me. I barely choke on the smoke. I'm cloaked in apathy, straining against a chain as a tiny sliver of me tries to scream and tell the Animal to stop. I see my hands but they are not my hands, I hear my words but they are not mine, I feel the anger but I know that way back here in the shadows I am not angry. I try to plead with the Monster, and tell it to stop, to look at who you are hurting but it shouts back at me that it does not care. It douses me in apathy again and numbs me down as best it can until only the innermost core of me mourns.

And this is the unfair part. Between the rampage of the Hulk, and sweet release of the Silver Fish, that innermost core - the one most like myself, with my values and my beliefs - has her shackles removed and is finally allowed to see and feel and touch the damage. She dips her hands into the embers left behind and cries like her soul is ripped out. As she picks up the remains and tries to mend all that's broken - and it can take some time... at any point Mr Hyde can re-erupt - she slowly turns into the Fish, and hopes that the stream is not far away.

Then that morning comes. A brief release as the Silver Fish swims away. And Dr. Jekyll is back.


This is me every other lunar.
At this stage there's not much else I can do but to know what's coming and prepare for it, stay as conscious as I can, and plod forward.

If it's not the best help, it's not really much help at all...

If you don't think you're getting the best help for you, then shop around. This paraphrased summary of my last 3 sessions with my current counsellor (that I used to demonstrate to a friend what it's been like) is why I'll be moving on to another:

'hey Doc, I have problem A... but now that we think about it, B and C are hanging around too... and in many ways are probably more the root of A in the first place for reasons X, Y Z.' 

'now hold on, problem A, you say? well let's see... hmm it seems you have tricks up your sleeve for A so I'm at a loss as to why you're here...' 

'okay well B and C sometimes...' 

 'yeah but you said A is your problem... let's focus on that. Except you don't seem to need it' 

'right so can we please look at...'

'A... this says A.'


She's not bad, she's quite lovely. She's just not who I need right now.

I have only gotten 2 useful things from her, which is more than I had before:
a) my frustration caused from the inability to separate sounds may be due to Audio Processing, and I can be tested/undergo treatment if necessary.
b) "You can be kind to yourself, you know."

Forgiving vs Forgetting.

Imagine you're walking along the road, and also walking in the same direction is a man carrying a ladder on his shoulder.

The two of you walk along for a time, not quite together but not quite apart, when suddenly he is distracted by something, a bee perhaps, and without thinking he automatically twirls and the ladder smacks you hard in the face and knocks some teeth out.

As your shitty luck would have it, you were actually walking home from just having your teeth fixed after someone else previously smashed you in the face with a chair.

It was a complete accident, and he drops everything and apologises profusely and calls you an ambulance and tells you repeatedly that he's sorry and didnt mean any harm to come to you.

Of course you forgive him; it wasn't his fault. He was possibly tripped up by a stone, or that bee flew into his face or whatever. No malice, just an unfortunate coincidence that you were in the wrong place.

You're not going to tell everyone about that time this ladder guy ambushed you and mugged you with a ladder and left you bleeding in the road.

But does forgiving mean forgetting? Of course not.
And you'll probably always have scars anyway to remind you when you do.

You don't automatically forget when you forgive, despite how much you want you. By forgiving, you've made an active decision to say 'hey shit happens, but I understand' rather than being a jerk and laying blame where it doesn't belong.

But forgiving doesn't mean that next time you're walking along and there's a guy carrying a ladder nearby who may potentially spin and knock you over again, you won't maybe choose to walk along the other side of the road for safety's sake.

You haven't forgotten, you've forgiven. That's the thing you have control of, and that's the one that holds the most weight.

Everyone flinches to some degree. It can't be helped.
It's unintentional, just like how the accident occurred in the first place.