Daily Archives: January 16, 2015

Wouldn’t paranoia itself be considered unreal? It is, after all, an irrational belief in something that is not real.
Except a lot of people with paranoid issues don’t realize they are paranoid simply because their mind believes the paranoia and fear.

I’m at the other end of the spectrum. I get paranoid anxiety but it’s very real inasmuch as I know it’s not real. It is my brain sending me wrong messages, causing anxiety and panic to erupt randomly. Does it make me believe it any less? Nope. I KNOW it’s false information but it still sends me scrambling every time, acting on the assumption it may not be true, but then again, I’m nuts so it may not be far fetched at all.

Today was the prime example. I don’t know what triggered it.
I heard children outside all morning.
I saw a bus drive through the trailer park.
And wham, I am checking the school website making sure I didn’t miss some “early dismissal” notice.
Even when I see that I have missed nothing, dismissal is as usual…
I am paranoid and anxiety ridden thinking, better safe than sorry, cannot fail your child.
I get to the school, it’s business as usual…But I see parents coming out with their kid or parents going in with paperwork in hand…
and start freaking out that maybe I missed some sort of parental paperwork that has to be turned in personally.
It was insane.
I KNEW my brain was sending wrong information.
But my anxiety made me so paranoid and scared of failure, I started humoring the false info.

This wasn’t much of an issue before I had my kid.
Now it’s become the norm and I don’t like it at all.
This goes beyond a paranoid personality.
This is brain chemistry gone horribly awry.
The shrinks don’t want to address it except with heavy duty antipsychotics that have side effects that make you pray for death.
Don’t get me wrong, I have lived with hellish side effects provided the med corrected a problem.
Anti psychotics, for whatever reason, serve as nothing more than sleeping pill coma inducing drugs for me. They correct nothing. They make me a drooling walking zombie during the ten hours a day I am able to stay awake and non lucid.

I had theorized once upon a time that I was so screwed up, pregnancy and child birth might just “zap” my brain wiring right.
Seems to me it did the opposite and now I have issues I didn’t have before.

Now in the aftermath of fetching my daughter and nothing catastrophic happening (aside from me being scolded by the school for forgetting her homework and dropping her off too early in the morning) I am trying to process what made my brain go haywire.
What was the trigger? Was there even a trigger? Why do I have so little faith in myself that my first instinct is to assume I fucked something up.?

Right, because I generally do fuck something up.

I think I have post traumatic self syndrome.

if you saw me right now, you wouldn’t notice much.  perhaps a little more furrow in my brow and a slight pursing of my lips.  i would lay my hands down in my lap so you wouldn’t notice the tremble.  you wouldn’t feel the spontaneous, uncontrollable muscular twitches on my scalp, or the painful tension in my jaw that occasionally prevents me from opening up my mouth.

click down.  click right.  release.

you also wouldn’t hear the earth-shattering, petrified scream of terror that occupies my mind several hours a day, or the urge to cry at all moments.  especially not the unsettling thoughts of peeling off my own skin and running as fast as i can, as far as i can, and never looking back.

run, run, run, run

in persistent flight mode, the slightest unexpected thing could send me over the edge, letting out the long, horrified shriek i’ve so far been able to contain, or reducing me into a crumpled pile on the floor, shuddering, crying.  the safest place is the paralysis stage, when limbs feel heavy and the mind goes to a strange, empty place that can’t quite be captured with words.  it’s a bit as if you found yourself in a heavy fog, floating.  no thoughts can enter that space.  just quiet.

shh

you look around.  you see things, knowing implicitly what they are, but not quite processing them in the way that you would normally.  it’s a mindless place, a place where autopilot helps you navigate space, where you can be among the natives, appearing normal but not quite able to understand what they are saying.  this is where your hypervigilance comes in handy.  without a single thought, just using body language and facial cues to know when to smile, laugh, or look serious.  you leave, not knowing what you talked about.  hearing words – some of them seem to make sense together – but your mind slipped away again so you lost track of the point.  nevermind.  no one noticed.

you know you have work to do.  meetings to attend.  a dissertation to complete.  this place won’t help you, so you do the things that are supposed to help.  you hold your worry stone.  go to therapy.  take your meds.  take a bath.  get exercise and plenty of nutrients.  reach out to friends in whatever meager way you can compel yourself to do it.  try to distract yourself with busy work or netflix.  yet you still wake up, heart racing, tears at the gate, tight chest. bracing yourself.

what awful, hateful, spiteful things might you hear today?  what of your person might be under fire?  what things you care about might be used against you?  is everyone safe?

it might be quiet for a while.  what does it mean?  is it finally over?  maybe the defenses begin to come down and you see the vast emotional wreckage, the blistering, bleeding sores that have been opened and reopened, and scrubbed with a wire brush, and you know you can’t take any more.  all the troops are down; you have nothing left.  just motions and time.  go through the motions until new resources are born to repair this mess.

airstrikes by text message.

you hoped too soon.  this isn’t over.  not by a long shot.

perhaps if you contort yourself, your emotions, your values, your beliefs, maybe you can twist yourself into a foxhole.  maybe, if you compartmentalize enough, and don’t think about all of the verbal, acidic spittle or the award-winning mind fucks, you can dodge the attacks.  walk the narrow line, else a reign of terror befalls you.

why won’t you leave?

you can’t.  it’s not compatible with your person.  you cannot, in good conscience, abandon your position.  too much is at stake.  i weather the attacks so the little ones don’t have to.  it’s too unstable right now.  just a little longer.

hope, pray even, that the treatment sticks.  hope it’s just enough to get by, to get everyone in the safety zone.  set up the fort, get contacts in order, build the safety net.

it’s the only way to be free.

In reply to the very imprompt WordPress Daily Prompt Jan.16, 2015 ???? Wait for it….wait for it….     Read more →

…And let the hurt things out.

That’s what woke me this morning:

….You know without a doubt

Go and rub my head

And let the hurt things out

The kernel of a song.  My third “good one.”  That’s how they come, in my dreams.  They wake me up, I write them down.

This one came in a gush of tears.  I grabbed my voice recorder and whispered the snatch of song along with its tune and arrangement (they all come as a fairly complete stubbed-in piece to be completed while awake), collapsed back into bed and hours later I am still crying.

Last night I was up till I couldn’t stand it any more, IM’ing with a friend back in Jerusalem.  His wife died not long ago, he’s still young, he’s got a bunch of kids…..he’s so, so lonely…..he just wants someone in his bed to keep him company and drive away the chill grey of the dawn.  Will I come back and just be his friend and warm him?  Oh, he knows I’m old and sick (he’s young enough that I am old!), but we are such good friends and…….

I know, I know….don’t worry, I am not offended.  You know that I can’t do this for you….Yes, I know.

I have acted this role for so many, many people over the years.

I have been the Temple Prostitute, the Holy Woman who heals through the balm of Sacred Sex.

How many souls seared with the pain of loss, loneliness, lost-ness, have I soothed and set back on their way, smiling and breathing, with a word of thanks and freedom in their step?

I am glad for them.  I am grateful that I have been given a role in their healing.  I watch them go, and I don’t let them see.  Don’t look back, for I am naught but a pillar of salt tears.

What about me, I ask my Creator.  What about me?  Do I get a reward here, ever?  Or do I die alone, knowing that I have helped….is that my reward?

I’m sure that my reward will come, but not in the form that I would dearly love to have.  I haven’t merited that.  Not this time around.

I am of the lineage of Dina (Deena), daughter of Leah, the thirteenth child born of the loins of Yaakov (Jacob).  I will tell you more about her in my next post, G-d willing.

But for now, this soiled dove must tuck her head under her wing and weather the cold alone.

If you’re a catholic, you may want to sit this one out.

Well I totally missed this in December. There are things to admire about Pope Francis, because he doesn’t kill queers etc, but  … like he wouldn’t meet the Dalai Lama … (denied him an audience because China)

… and then about a week later he did this 15 diseases of the curia thing.

These are the ones that tangle my nose hairs:

6) Having “spiritual Alzheimer’s”. “We see it in the people who have forgotten their encounter with the Lord … in those who depend completely on their here and now, on their passions, whims and manias, in those who build walls around themselves and become enslaved to the idols that they have built with their own hands.”

8) Suffering from “existential schizophrenia”. “It’s the sickness of those who live a double life, fruit of hypocrisy that is typical of mediocre and progressive spiritual emptiness that academic degrees cannot fill. It’s a sickness that often affects those who, abandoning pastoral service, limit themselves to bureaucratic work, losing contact with reality and concrete people.”

I mean WTF?!?!?! What the actual fuck? Way to trivialise serious illnesses and insult everyone who has them. He’s an idiot. His staff are idiots. Whoever approved that memo … is an idiot. Got alzheimers? You’re a morally bankrupt heathen lunatic. You’re schizophrenic? You under achieving out of touch hypocrite. What next? Anarchist cancer? Ethereal ebola? I think he’s suffering from rampant catholicism, poor chap. Just go stomp on a kitten why don’t you.

If he was perched in front of me now, he’d be suffering from a corporeal punch in the nose. Where’s the so called ‘mentally unstable’ Susanna Maiolo, who lunged at the Sith Pope Benedict (twice), we need her now. (Honestly, if lunging at that particular pope doesn’t prove perfect sanity, I don’t know what does.) (Plenty of videos on YouTube if you need a reminder.)

I was raised catholic, does it show? Down with the damn vatican and all it’s corruption and crime. Frankly, I’m incensed.

I just got a phone call  (actually a robocall) from someone claiming to be with a company saying that I had recently inquired about drawing Social Security disability benefits.  Now, I’ve been drawing benefits since 2007.  So I asked her who she was and what her company did.  She said they could help me qualify for up o $2,000+ in benefits.  I told her I was already drawing benefits.  She said that someone in my household had recently made this call and could I put that person on the line.  I said that there was no one else eligible in the house for them.  After the robot processed this information a couple of times, she hung up.

I called Social Security to inquire how this company got its information.  The person answering said they had no idea–there wasn’t any activity on my claim since my trial work period decision had been made.  She did say they were a legitimate company that represented people who filed claims

I’m here to tell you that you don’t need ANYONE to help you file your claim.  No one knows your condition better than you, so you are your own best advocate.  You may say, “I don’t understand the rules, though,”

Guess what?  Neither do most of the lawyers that claim to help with filing applications.  I know them because I worked for them for seven years.  But I only know the medical side of it–I know very little about the financial side, that being a determination made by a Social Security employees rather than a Disability Determination Services employee. If you do sign up for a representative to help you file your claim, you forfeit 25% of your benefits to that person unless they waive that right.   That’s a steep price to pay someone who is often actually not very helpful. SO don’t be fooled by a lawyer or especially a private individual who claims to be able to help you get benefits. You can do it on your own.