Category: #mental health

The Hermit Chronicles: Aimless

“The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet 
and greet unknown fate.“
chymecindy
In the early dawn, the dark and the bright birth
My silver cage flew open, and I wandered,
Aimless
 
In the cool of the morning, the placenta of night
My foundling feet find rhythm, and I wandered,
Aimless
 
In the heat of noon, the umbilical light a rage
My downy wings grow furious, and I wandered,
Aimless
 
In the dying day, the flower of life now closing
My infant dreams lay in grasses, and I wandered,

Running On Empty

“Work hard for what you want because it won’t come to you without a fight. You have to be strong and courageous and know that you can do anything you put your mind to. If somebody puts you down or criticizes you, just keep on believing in yourself and turn it into something positive.” – Leah LaBelle

Running On Empty
fadedmapdots

 

Days pass and years go by, then I realize, I’m getting older. This isn’t a brilliant discovery but as I age, the days seem to whisper louder about my mortality and the lack of energy to do what I normally could do is most evident. If I can sense physical fatigue, what about mental fatigue? I struggle with severe mental issues (peruse my blog and you’ll see it plainly) which result in the weird trait of arguing with people who aren’t there. Not arguing with a vision, but rehearsing in my mind what was said and what I should or shouldn’t have said. I spend an hour or so cussing people out and yelling at them when they have long left the building. In the same way, I’ll rehearse an embarrassing or shameful moment over and over in my head years after the fact. These all drain away mental and emotional energy, the ability to take of the here and now. There is a finite amount of emotion and mental convolutions that I’m able to bear. After my resources are exhausted, depression rushes in to fill the void. An apathy and usually a self destructive habit looms in the setting sun of my mind and pulls me out of the thoughts and into another hellish position.

The answer? I stop when I find myself talking to someone who isn’t there, or for that matter, who doesn’t care what I think. I stop thinking about the embarrassing moments and faux pas that crowd my mind. Then I take my antidote and think about the something that doesn’t drain me, but encourages and fills me with hope, things that are wise and spiritual. Not necessarily all holy and Jesus things, but mainly wisdom and advice I’ve gleaned from searching for escapes from the insane asylum in my head. For instance, there are places and I’ll paraphrase, in the bible where God has said, “don’t be afraid of their faces or what they say, and I’ll be with you.” Instead of thinking about an insult said to me, or about how I really screwed up this or that, I think about how my Big Daddy (my affectionate term for God) is going to help me through this and give me a decent life. That’s how I’m learning to walk instead of crawl out of anguish. Peace my friends, it’ll work out for you, don’t stop trying, don’t stop believing.

Obsession

“When you live with voices in your head, you are drawn inextricably to voices outside your head. Very often the voices work to confirm your worst suspicions. Or think of things you could never have imagined! There are only so many hours of the day to hate yourself.” – Emma Forrest, Your Voice in My Head
 
templeofdamneds

 Obsession, a compulsive often unreasonable idea or emotion. My obsession is a self imposed attack on my body that’s not only pervasive, but changes it’s angle of assault every 4 -6 months. My mind, whether from a comment, a look, a misunderstood text, or a bad day, will berate me about a particular body feature without mercy. After I became completely obsessed with it, even making unreasonable changes, the area of obsession would change. I’d literally drop all thoughts concerning that body feature or action and begin a new regimen of torture around the next perceived “fault”. This led me to believe that the problems weren’t in my body but in my self-perception and what I perceived others thought of me.  Most of the time what I thought they thought about me was wrong. That “look” that they gave was totally unrelated to who or what I am. My egocentricity caused me to believe that I was the topic of every thought process in those around me. The plain truth? Most of the time no one cares enough to think that long and hard about me. To take the offensive against my renegade thoughts, I knew I had to be happy with my body and refuse to interpret what I believed others where thinking (which likely wasn’t true). I recognized the futility of conforming to a constantly changing standard of appearance and found that happiness with who I am, is the greatest compliment to my being. Holding my head high, I’ll be confident and sure, no matter what I think you think about how I look.

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Going Gently Into That Good Night

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”
― Stephen Hawking

The Crossing Over
                         The Crossing Over

When from birth the swaddling of obscurity
Covers my face with the harsh reality of life

How will I discover my soul and carry
the torch of meaningful purpose to my progeny?

Left with only the struggles of faith and doubt
over what my life should be or have been.

Why do I live, why has God given me breath?
Why go at all into the void of the living?

Of what purpose can it be to drag my soul
through a thousands horrors only to be reborn?

Does it matter at all and why
when I breath for the last time?

And then He whispers,
“That you may know me, this is your purpose”

It’s a fact of life that we
become disenchanted by joy without pain

And barely fight to know someone or something
unless extinction threatens to take them or it away

 

Imperfect

“I realize the imperfections in this composition, and I left it so because we’re all imperfect and need to accept the message of who we are and not what they say we are.”

I wish I were clay
then I could change myself
everyday

Today I should be this and
tomorrow I should be that
and for the moment
society says I’m fat

But not so long ago and
in other royal cultures so
this was a good to go

But merely because times
have changed and lenses
have different colors

I’m resigned to serving
like slaves in chains
I’ll be your skinny mistress

I am whatever you say I am (Eminem)
and that, by the whims of
a psychotic society

And even in writing if I forget
to dot an I or a comma I relent
of that you’ll never forget

I’ll be forever judged and that
it’s a fact of this life
YOU WILL NEVER BE ACCEPTED

Except by those who understand
that hats turned back and
hats turned to the side
are all a part
of the same ride

Curious

“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.”
― Banksy

Premonitions
                              Premonitions

Some say they’ve went there, to the other side.

That’s what they’ll tell you after they died.

The tickers kick’n and soon I’ll know

Whether this day I’m livin’ is my day to go

What do you do on the way out the door

When what you see, you’ll see no more

About these things I’m curious to ask

tripping the other side of the living mask

So my friends and lovers dear

who I hold both now and there

On the other side will you come with me

and find out what’s beyond that nether sea?

Hacker

 “It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” – Bruce Lee

summer-paradise-dreamer
The way closes in quickly behind him, the path for retreat lay buried beneath the tangled brush of circumstance and pain and, as the way behind him, so the way forward. Hack. Hack. Cutting through is his only way to survive, so this occupation possesses him as the crash and thrash of falling vines collapse. Pushing against the green and brown thorny tides, his blade finds the branch and creates a hewn option for progress. His muscles shine with the sheen of a mad genius plotting against the onslaught of disbelief and solitary confinement. Hack. Hack. The enemies that dig pits of despair and throw boulders of anger at his stubborn persistence feel the power of his unstoppable advance. Deep jungles and forbidden territories fraught with dangers, they bear the mark of this maker of ways. Hack. Hack. The wayfarers and sojourners of the same trail are out of sight, but if you listen closely to the forested cries of beauties unseen, you know he’s alive, by the sound of his blades, Hack, Hack.

 

Alone –

 “Imaginary lovers
Never turn you down
When all the others turn you away
They’re around
It’s my private pleasure
Midnight fantasy
Someone to share my
Wildest dreams with me” 

 

DreamWind

I’d do anything to keep from being alone, pay any price, be used to the “nth” degree and never say a word. Being used is better than being alone but it stings knowing the object of my affection will hurt me, maim my spirit, and destroy my forward progress. Still, I follow hard after her, giving all to maintain that relationship and avoid the terrors of being alone. What compromises have I willing conceded to? What violations of my self-esteem and personal space have I allowed for unrequited affection? What tortures has my heart been through, my body feeling the wretch of emotions that sets my nerves on fire? Being addicted, not to a substance, but to a world of egocentric affection that I’ve created by taking the object of my affection and embellishing her to a fantastic degree. I should know better, I do know better. The voices of friends and family, concerned that I am “being used”, try to slap me awake. Ignoring their advice, pushing away the voice of truth, I continue to live a world that only I see. Go away you bearers of truth, you wreckers of dreams, this is my world, I will not see it in your light! I take my script and apply it haphazardly, patching up the holes in the dike containing my empty dreams. Eagerly lapping up my lack of self-control and willful delusion, the protagonist in my play continues to feed my world of facades with empty compliments, cool affections, and eyes empty of love.  One day I’ll wake up and grab hold of myself, one day I’ll acknowledge this self-imposed hell, one day…but for now, I look at her and imagine how she loves me.

Also published in Broowaha

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A Witness

“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don’t.” 
fornaxvoid
Ah my son, the road has indeed been long and hard with many questions and mysteries. In the depths of my soul I’ve borne pain that I never thought I could bear. My father, who like myself was adopted after seeing his father shoot his mother and then himself, attempted to protect me (his stepson who was forced on him) by tormenting me in an effort to toughen me up. O god the terrors I experienced just trying to live at home, not just with him but with whoever was the father of the moment. After all this (which is only a small portion of my journey) I found a love that though it didn’t remove all the pain, nor guarantee my safety from more pain, gave me an experience of something bigger than me. This experience came at a service in our local church where I, having no strength to continue on my journey, learned that there is a personal God who wants to interact in my life. That night I came to know a love so tangible that I could feel it in the air around me. I knew then that despite whatever troubles and injustices that I have and will have experienced, there is one, Jesus, who will hear me and be my very real help in times of trouble. It’s to this God and his son Jesus that owe my life to now. The pain has not stopped, tears bleed from my eyes nearly everyday, but I have a refuge when I can go on no longer. All this said my son, please find Him who has been my salvation from myself and from this life. I’m not religious (I hate that word), in fact if you read the rest of my writings you’ll find I’m a screwed up, highly volatile, self destructive, and depressed individual who, if not for God who found me, would be dead or in jail. In the words of another, “I’m just one beggar telling another beggar where I found bread.” My health is failing, and I feel desperate to let you know how to escape the insanity that I passed on to you by my genes. I know what your going through and there is an answer, not to relieve the agony of a mind gone wrong, but to make something beneficial of your life and find an antidote that supersedes the mental and physical. I love you critter…