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I was cleaning my room, or trying to. I was doing laundry, or intending to. I was exercising, or at least my version. I hadn't eaten enough and suddenly I was very critical, of others, of myself. I was lonely. I was irritated. I felt like there would never be enough. Like I would never be enough. Like no one else would ever be enough.

I find myself using a certain relationship as a reminder. As a place of learning. But the things I am learning aren't all pleasant. And sometimes the more I try to find the positives, the silver lining, the light at the end of the tunnel, the more I know I'm fooling myself into the type of pain I've experienced before. Same old patterns. So what was really learned?

I dislike how my me-ness seems to raise this fuss, this alarm. I could turn off my mind, and know that everything is fine. This thought is not you, its not the reality of the moment. Nothing wagered. Nothing to lose. But my mind as my sugar level drops, my insecurity, reminds me that I haven't experienced anything else that draws me... and nothing is promised - but something is grieved.

I remember once being up all night worried -even though it was elementary school. It was not an uncommon thing in my childhood. I remember writing to Amanda, begging her for help. I didn't know her, not really. I just wanted my friend group to stay together. I just wanted to not be rejected. I wrote a letter, trying to appeal to her humanity, to her empathy, it would be nothing in the long run I assured her, just please interfere. Who else but the most popular girl could save my friendships from being dragged apart by the jealousy, manipulation, and desire of popularity. I never gave her that letter. Six months later, it wouldn't have mattered. Within a few years she was not the most popular girl anymore, a few years after that all my friendships had changed. It was painful. Sometimes it still is. I wonder what Amanda would think of that now. The idea of a 5th grader begging her to intercede. How completely ridiculous the whole thing would seem, and yet that night I was convinced that my world was falling apart, I had nothing else left but to beg.
How many times has that been the story I've told myself in the middle of the night, when things get the worst. In the middle of the 18 hour bus ride, when there is nothing but mystery beyond my uncomfortable seat. In the middle of a panic attack, when the world tightens like a vice. In the middle of a break up, in a goodbye...in the goodbyes that continue to haunt me. People wouldn't know how I carry those moments with me. They'd never guess how strongly I am dysregulated, and if I showed them they'd run.

Yesterday I felt like I was losing myself. I did some reading and found a light. Today again, I lost myself. Is this all there is?

Is my blue your blue?

Today I was reading about alexithymia, a condition where people seem to experience less feelings, and less ability to empathize with the feelings of others. Often it is associated with autism, those who experienced severe abuse as a child, those with PTSD or who have experienced a stroke or a traumatic brain injury. People with it, have a higher than average rate of substance abuse, eating disorders, self-harm, and a difficulty in romantic relationships. Some say it is a neurological issue. Some say it is a psychological response, a defense mechanism. They say about 10% of the population might have it to some degree.

Today I was reading a book about G-d, our concept of G-d, and what it means to believe in G-d in a world where everyone’s conception of G-d is different. Where a fifth of the world prays to one G-d (Allah), while another chunk claims to serve a different G-d using the same exact stories (Christianity). I wonder what it means to a person with alexithymia, to not know elation, elevation, revelation. To watch as “typicals” experience something so profound, and name it beyond their ability to comprehend, and in so doing match the person with alexithymia’s description –perhaps by accident, because they haven’t the words. And to what extent might the two assume they are experiencing the same thing. And to what extent might they be?

Having read many of the same texts as this author, I haven’t found much to be revelatory. But I like the examples, the stories, the quotes, the histories. They are wonderful reminders of these truths humanity has tried to understand. For instance, that perhaps our idea of trying to capture the truth of G-d and name it, is a form of materialism. That perhaps our jealousy and desire to control G-d, is the same set of natural human traits (and sins) as our desire to control each other, or the land, our implicit jealousy –that act of insecurity –an acknowledgment that our faith is too limited (in ourselves, in G-d, in each other).

As I am reading, I don’t struggle in the same way I once did with this concept that G-d is both bigger than my ability to comprehend, and also personal and knowable. I find it comforting and wish it no other way. But I do struggle every day with the material, personable parallels. I want to name a thing and have it be mine. I want to revel in a feeling and have it be known by others. I want to be acknowledged and admired for things, traits, potential. I want my gifts to go out into the world and in doing so, point back to me –my ego, my lifetime, my impermanent self -encapsulated in this name, this time, this round through. 

Today I was at PRIDE and saw a thousand beautiful faces. I cannot always distinguish between the good and the bad, especially when I am looking for G-d, and sometimes I look for G-d in those who are made in his image. Some people scoff and scorn the celebration of PRIDE. Some say it is good in theory, but too much commercialism, too much nudity, too much pageantry. Today I walked around in the heat, sweat dripping from my forehead, my moistened palms in prayer, humming mantras, reveling in G-d's sacred creation, in the millions of colors and sounds and faces of divinity. 

There is a Sufi explanation of the creation of us -humans. G-d wished to be known. Had he called into being only the stars, and the plants, and the bacteria, he’d have no mirror which saw and projected his omniscience. Had he called into being only humans, then they’d not know his greatness  which each of these other things projects. Lately I’ve been enjoying the idea that G-d created humans with problems so that they’d know themselves. They have to help each other through these problems, grow and adapt in order to know what they are capable of. They have to 'polish the mirror' just to reveal to themselves that they can, otherwise they’ll never know the extent of G-d's blessing. And if they do not know the extent of the blessing, then they cannot reveal the extent of G-d’s greatness. The all knowing all powerful needed you to suffer and overcome, and one day you will overcome, whether it be this round or the next, because G-d only makes perfect things.   

*The story in Christian mythology says that the angel of light pleaded with G-d that humans were unworthy and would inevitably disappoint, in his love of G-d the devil tries to prove it. In that story G-d says that the angel is wrong, that he has faith in humans. 

Panic attacks 4.12.18

Its 4:30 AM on April 12^th and I can’t sleep. Nothing in particular is on my mind, but my thoughts are racing and my chest keeps suffocating me. I can feel the anxiety all throughout my shoulders and back. I do deep breathing to relax, it is effective in stifling a panic attack. I try to understand the thought that triggered this, as I attempt to go back to sleep. My mind probes around the thought, testing, circling, afraid to get too close and then again, my breathing constricts. I remind myself to relax, I pull my thoughts back, try to reign them in. I try to remind myself what it is like to sleep, but my thoughts are a race again, my breathing becomes shallow and quick. There is a pain in my back and in my shoulders. I wonder if maybe I am having a heart attack. I do deep breathing, I feel my shoulders relax, and remind myself I am ok. It is effective for a while, and I try to sleep, but I am afraid. These thoughts remind me that I am not always in control, that I haven’t always been. In the most terrifying way they remind me of flash thoughts of the past. Times when I wasn’t sure that I was sane. The thoughts come too quickly to be categorized and I can’t trust my senses to explain. There isn’t a plot, or storyline, nothing relevant, my breathing has become shallow again. I remember waking up from nightmares this way, feeling completely out of control of everything that mattered. I do deep breathing and adjust my posture. Maybe I am just constricting my air ways? The anxiety presses through my upper body, that dull ache that feels like a bruise within. I breathe into my stomach, I force myself to exhale, and then exhale and then exhale. The physical way I was taught to remind myself I have enough air. I am not hyperventilating, but the reminder that I have to tell myself this, causes me to be afraid. Too many thoughts, rushing in from elsewhere. Too many emotions and perceptions that are not mine. Too many voices, fear, too much information, downloaded at once, I am flooded, it is so painfully overwhelming. I remind myself to breathe, but I am not always sure I want to. This is the mood swing that happens after, that overwhelming feeling of loneliness. That shift to absolute abandon and sorrow.  I turn on the lights, hoping for reprieve, something to distract, and suddenly begin to cry, with worry, with pity for myself for these racing thoughts, for this openness that I don’t want to cut off, but can’t maintain. The websites say breathe, the say distract, they say sigh mantras. And I can’t help but recognize that this is my daily existence. That being this way requires these things, it does not ask. I am alone in my room with no one to call or ask for help. I am terrified that I am dying. I am terrified that my third eye has opened too much. That these thoughts are not mine, that I couldn’t possibly control them. That this body has forgotten me. That I will die this way.

I cry. I am no longer panicked, just full of sorrow. I can’t help but think something terrible has happened elsewhere. I scan the news. Who has died? Where has the war been escalated? I can’t possibly have this much suffering in my own body without it being from elsewhere. The news says nothing. It was never as accurate as the senses. My senses are all wrong. The ache is spreading, am I warm? Am I cold? Am I in pain? I move my cell phone away from my body. Maybe I am picking the thoughts up from there. I am so tired, time goes by, as I write. I wonder if it has been enough time. If I have directed the thoughts well enough to finally sleep. I probe a little, determined to write the thought down if it comes again. To give it a voice or a name so that it doesn’t pain me so, but all I feel is the ache. Some part of me wonders what terrible thing I must be denying with my blurry eyes, and did I do it? or was it done to me? (as I worried earlier today) And I know either way I’d rather it be that I am picking up what is not mine from the world outside me. What is wrong with me? Dear god I pray, take this, I cry, I can’t handle it. I make it a mantra as I breathe. I wonder if its time to go back to sleep.

Mindfulness and shame (5.30.18)

I was doing this mindfulness exercise where you breathe into a feeling, and open it up.

I had a brief memory of something shameful, a small dense marble in the bottom of my stomach. I explored it and it grew larger, suddenly I wondered if perhaps I was hungry. There was a weird pain there that I couldn’t place, and ideas of previous shame experiences came to mind. Where do I hold my shame? The bottom of my stomach continued to grow. I felt tension in my lower back, then middle back, then the knot in my back where I had that bronchial infection. The tightness and constriction of what feels like broken ribs. The grating against each inhale. I returned my attention to my stomach, reminded that this bubble is where I used to feel nausea, and there it was again. That bubbling over nervousness that I experienced so often when I was young. That worry, that things were not okay, and would not be ok. The insecurity, the pain that remained, creeped up from my stomach through my back and choked my heart. I got scared of the nausea, sudden images of the demons revolting, clawing and maiming their way through my organs, -the eruption - I couldn’t put back into place. I knew this feeling, I tried to breathe into it, tell it that I was opening, but I felt the saliva pool around my gums, and was reminded that this is how it felt so often. That hunger, that never-ending insecurity that felt like I was always about to throw up, the emptiness, the shame, the guilt and the unbearable hurt that continued to build until I prayed there was nothing left, prayed for God to take me, to end me, and inevitably broke down into tears, crumpled myself into a ball and wept. That defeat of childhood. I didn’t this time, I stilled my stomach, and turned my mind elsewhere, still too afraid that I couldn’t bear it.

A few minutes later, I was still feeling it. It is back to a marble, only this time sitting just below my diaphragm. I asked myself what is it I want in this moment, and immediately knew that I wanted someone to comfort me. To take me into their arms and comfort me.

The mental image I have of myself is naked in blankets on the mattress at my Mom’s house after Becky and I broke up. Completely vulnerable and feeling incapable of even dressing myself to face the world.

I tell myself, you’ll have to learn to swaddle yourself, to give yourself that comfort. But behind that I still wish I had someone else to do it. I know I would want to do that for someone else, to take their brokenness up and show them that they are safe, that the world hasn’t really fallen apart, that their heart will mend and they are still worthy. In bits and pieces, I’ve tried to do that for others almost every day of my life. But as I told Courtney, I don’t think the loneliness and the hurt will go away until I find a way to mend this hurt that seems so vacuous. I see it now, that black hole, I can tell it is still there whirlpooling despite all my numbness, my boundaries, my attempts at acceptance, my attempts to lash out. And all the things I’ve tried to throw into it to close it up. From sugar, coffee, sex, porn, violence, learning, escape, faith and friendship, work and amicability… and all those good person traits. But it won’t really close up unless I recognize and heal it.

Hehehe or maybe I actually am hungry.