It grips me again...

Havoc on my body. Slice. Rip. Tear. Cut. Mirror image. Tortured self. Hang me...out to dry...this blood off...my hands.

More than a little scared...

Change is coming over me now...it comes too fast. Have I lost control of myself? Have I slipped? I am happy now but this change reminds me of how easy it is to lose myself. Change...slowly....slowly. Too fast and I am lost. What lies over this ocean of change? I hope it is a new land ready to be explored and not the edge of the world.

Baby steps...

I am experiencing a new feeling. A feeling of happiness. I have been depressed and have had trouble getting out of bed or doing the simpliest things. Though I am happy now I still have trouble getting out of bed a dealing with reality. I am totally in love and when I am with her the "real world" fades to the point that I forget it exists. When I am not with her I sleep, perchance to dream of her, until I can see her again. Love and depression do not make me functionable in society. But maybe they aren't to blame. Maybe it's something else altogether. Is it a physical problem? Am I just lazy? Does living in a world where injustice thrives on the misery of others cause me to put up walls and hide because I feel impotent? It's never just one factor and if I just try to "fix" one part of the problem, the problem will still exist. Baby steps... baby step into the world...baby step into responsibility...baby step into a position where I can make a difference...baby step into......revolution? Hope drives me. I recently got a boost of hope when my best friend found some herself. Hope is something that has been on my mind for a while now. It really is amazing. If you share it with others it spreads and grows. It sustains us through hard times and helps us grow into who we want to be. I have hope in spades now but why can I still not be productive. I lack the drive to get myself on a path to the destination because it seems too far away. If accomplishment happened over night I guess everyone would do it. But maybe without realizing it I have already taken the first steps and though the destination is veiled from my eyes at least now I have someone to walk beside me.

Nosce Te Ipsum...

I grew up in a Christian home and there I found warmth and love. As I grew older I began to ask questions at sunday school. Questions which were not well recieved. I can remember one perticular sunday at church when I was asking too many questions about evolution. I was trying to work out a way for what I had been taught at school about evolution to co-exist with what they were teaching us about our religion. They told me to stop asking questions. And at the end they pulled me aside and asked if I was having trouble at home. If I was being mistreated! Thus the bricks of my faith began to fall and when I was a teen the wall came down. Not long after the sunday school incident I was riding my bike down the street and came to a sudden stop in the middle of the road. I paused as a cloud saturated with rain came overhead and proceeded to rain down on me. But just a few feet away it was dry and sunny. Something came over me. In the face of something so phenominal I realized for the first time there was no God. But my family continued to go to church and I with them. I began to see things there that I had not seen before. Greed, arrogance, glutony, intolerance. Everything I was told was evil grew and breeded there. I am not saying that all churchs/Christians are like this but there...there everything that could have been was murdered by their selfishness and weakness. And so, with time, I stopped going to church and religion faded in my mind. That is until I found myself in the Holyland at the age of 23. Faith and goodness slowly grew in me again and with the past so close at hand I found God again. But not the God I grew up with. Before I left I visited Jerusalem and found that although God was there I could not accept Jesus. I am still not sure if I believe in him as a real man or just a model for us to follow, but I don't believe he died for my sins. My sins are my own. I have always believed that you should be responsible for what you do and if my sins are so evil that I deserve to go to Hell (if it exists) then to Hell I will go and pay for what I have done. And so I find myself still a little confused about what I believe...No one religion rings true with me and I find I must construct the world in a way that has God(s)/Mother Earth/humans...everything. The world has become large enough again in me that they each inhabit part of my mind and heart...I can live once more. Without knowing it I have been on a spiritual journey and have been getting to know myself. If the Kindom of God lies within then by getting to know myself, maybe I have been getting closer to that miracle.

Becoming worthy...

I am more then a little scared. When things seem to be going right the world tends to fall out from under me and I am left withering, alone, in a dark place. Maybe things are different now. That's a dangerous thought. But people are here to support me and I am willing to except their help for a change. I trip and they are there. I fall and they offer me a hand up. I make many mistakes . To err is human, I guess, but to forgive is divine. I am often almost overcome with emotion in public places. I think of them and I am shaken. Tears well up but I hold them back. I don't know if I am worthy of this forgiveness and understanding. I am confounded, perplexed...unworthy. Sometimes I take comfort in rejection. I have failed and should accept my dues. Pay the price for my sins. I am full of guilt, disappoinment (in myself), and only through suffering can I find release. Or so I thought...maybe, maybe someday I can be in a position to help everyone the way they help me. Maybe punishment isn't what I need but release through selflessness. Love is overwhelming me but again I am scared. Scared that if I allow myself to feel again that I will only end up on my ass. I often saw myself as Charlie Brown growing up. Blind trust can hurt. Will I ever feel good about myself? For years I look for another that could understand me and now it is unbelieveable. The feeling of finding someone is so remarkable and when I had only a crumb of hope left. Did I just say that? She IS remarkable, amazing, awesome...but if she is my soulmate and I see some characteristics of me in her (and her in me) does that mean maybe I might be as worthy of love as she? She makes me feel worthy when I hold her in my arms at night. She sleeps with her head on my chest...and again I am overwelmed. But the morning comes all too soon and we release each other into the world again. Love gets me through the day and in love lies the hope.

Changes...

I struggle to find myself in the midst of everything and find that when I do everything changes and I must grow with it. Change is hard and I do not always change into what I want to be, into someone good and kind and selfless. I find myself lost once again now and as I wander around weak and somewhat helpless I find I take on the personality of others. Like so many unfinished puzzles I become a jumble of pieces lying on the floor waiting, hopeing for someone to put me back together again. But its my puzzle and only I can see the picture. If someone else puts it back together the finished result will be their vision not mine. I wait, struggle, to get a foothold again to climb up to where I want to be and when I reach the top I will see a world and as light comes to it again, bold and vibrant, I find the puzzle doesn't end with me.

The Table...

Loss may be hard to deal with but so is fulfillment. The feeling does not linger long with me. In the end all we have is memories and they dont keep you warm at night. They dont hold you and tell you everything is going to be alright. All I have is an empty table and all the chairs are vacant. The candles flicker and grow dim but I remember... hope. Sometimes the past fades for a time and I invite another to share themselves and I share myself with them... we talk...we talk of memories. Trapped. I can not get away from it and someday this will be the past and I will remember. But for now we dine together and fear grips me.

A Quietus

I stalk death but it escapes me once again
ever do I try to capture her but she flees me
"now is not your time" I hear her call
but again I seek her
pouring from me down the drain
she come close but never stays
to linger would be to strip it of its humanity
run, run
the only thing stopping our union
is a this peice of steel
some days I long for you
others I put you from my mind
I have nothing to offer you
and from you I gain relief
joy withour sorrow
pleasure without pain
bliss without agony
I join with her and am released

The Bungled and the Botched...

I spent some time yesterday thinking about all the great minds and creative thinkers and I began to count the number of them that had tormented and dark lives (a good number of which are consider to be "mad" near the end of their lives). I thought of Van Gogh and Nietzsche, Freud and Beethoven and many others. Why are all of these people who did so much for us (whether you think they were right or wrong they did change our perception of the world) suffer so much? Did they change the world inspite of their conditions or were they made by them? Was it some kind of cosmic balance that gave them brilliant minds and made them see things differently but inturn took from them what was owed for these gifts? Was God punishing them for trying to figure out a world without God? Is it just the fate of all humans to suffer and struggle through this world? Is there a limit to what the human mind can do and if you try to push that limit does it end in madness? I once tried to "question everything" and took it very literally and for my efforts I had a complete breakdown that I still don't believe I have recovered from. I don't know what I was thinking... if someone with the calibre of mind as Nietzsche was driven to madness by questioning too much what could I accomplish but a trip to the madhouse. Now I mush admit I was mad to begin with but it took me somewhere I hadn't been before and don't want to go again. I WON'T question everything again. Somethings are just too big. I did learn something about myself though and perhaps about everyone. Before I thought that I was a normal person (yeah I know) who just had some mental health issuses and if I didn't have them I would be able to do the things that everyone else seems to do with ease. Mail a letter, pay a bill, get gas ect. Now I realize that I am not a normal person with some problems, I am bungled and botched, I AM my mental illnesses. Without the bungled and the botched there is nothing. We struggle against our problems and imperfections but I have learned I have to try and work with my problems and accept them to have any kind of harmony. For me a certain amount of planning mixed with a little medication/therapy and a large dash of perspective help me to be me. It is an on going recipe that I can never perfect but if I work at it I can learn to be happy again. I will leave you with a few quotes:

“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”
— Oscar Wilde

Nietzsche once said, “A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possesses at least two things besides: gratitude and purity.”

Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

"Perspective may be the only thing that can save a man of genius from himself"

Keep On Trucking...

It seems to me that those who tried the hardest to do what is good for others...to do the right thing, end up getting the short end of the stick. In a world where idoits and the greedy get promoted at an astownding pace the rest of us end up having to take sick or disability leave. Maybe we just bang our heads up against the wall trying to even get the simpliest things done. Things that seem like they should be simply are extremely difficult and things that seem moderate are impossible. Was it always this way? I guess it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I know of someone who is on stress leave (whether it was his and his doctors idea or his work's idea I don't know). This is a person who is just trying to do what is best for the most of the people in his work life and because it is next to impossible to get things changed the stress just got to be too much. I know of another person who's worry about the family and job caused them to take time off work. Yet another person tried for years to do a job that they found to be torturous and in the end their mental health suffered permanent damage. These are all good people who just care too much and end up getting the shaft. No one but those who have been in this situation seem to understand and I don't know if I want them to...well I want them to but sometimes in order to understand you have to suffer like those people and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I have to admit I am biased. Too many people in my life suffer from mental health isssues (some of which are biological and some are induced but negative situations). I myself have suffered from mental health issues for... well almost as long as I can remember. Some days even getting out of beed and showering can be a problem. I have been taking medication off and on since I was in...elementary school I believe. I have been on medication from 2003 straight until now and recently have been put on another. Sometimes I feel so sedated...I have trouble staying awake (I use to sleep for 12 hours or more somedays), my concintration is shot and I have trouble with drooling to name a few. I don't like feeling this way and I still have trouble doing some everyday things but I consider the alturnative. Manic depressive, schiztypal, psychotic, anxiety, stress, many different phobias, paraniod, obssesive compulsive to name a few. I scare me. I need the drugs to help me live with myself. I need the therapy to help me deal with what happens to me. I recently had a break down and had an emergency meeting with my doctor and he said I should take time off work and go on disability. Seems simple enough. I went to work and told them, seems simple enough (actually it was very difficult). I have to use up my sick leave before I can go on disability. Ok. I still have yet to rreceive and money for that and I can't call or go into work to talk to them because it is so difficult. I have to get others to help me and fight my battles... sometimes being either way is difficult. Lately I have often thought about cuting myself and sometimes I think about ending it all. But that is the easy way right? So I go through torture everyday and hope for some kind off change or relief. My brother stopped me from killing myself before and that had to be for some reason, right? I go one for the people I love...living for others is easier than living for myself because hey I am not worth it. Wow this turned into something I didnt mean it to... and since I try to do this without editing I will leave it in and leave you until next time by saying "lean on me if youre not strong" because lord knows you let me lean on you.