In Circles

I suppose I’ll tell you now, this is more like a journal entry, a rant, a musing, a questioning…I’m seeking things and trying to find it this way…we’ll see

Here’s a Tune for you to enjoy. It’s called “Lost in My Mind” by The Head & the Heart:

So I’m constantly trying to figure it out–the IT being what happened and what’s happening and a little bit of what will happen. The problem, what makes it so damn hard to write, is I think it must either be the bipolar disorder or the dissociation that has me chasing my f’n tail. I’m trying so hard to always to gage myself and what I do and say and feel, I’m my own worse critic and judge, because I want to know if I’m getting out of this PTSD shit. Am I evolving, or only involving excess? I have times where I dive into the emotions and the ambiguous feelings and the actions and reactions I have (not digging into the past but into the present). I swim around in it and really get pretty far with discovering patterns and behaviors, progress and declines. Then something happens…I space out. I get tired of it. I get so exhausted. And time slips by and I make myself busy (what’s a disabled gal to do but beach it and read and study study study and art art art) and its like I wake up and forgot everything I sought, all the answers I was on the brink of have disappeared or seem foolish. I don’t know where I am (spiritually, socially, and mentally). Doubt comes like big city shadows across buildings and I’m this little black jerk in the alley. It’s only natural that kick my self in the ass for this, for doing it again, for getting so close to something, getting ahead, getting ‘somewhere’ and then bang, I vanish. I lapse back. Am I subconsciously protecting myself? Or is it mania and lows? Or is it the ADHD’s exhaustion and lack of focus after too strong of a focus? Ya know I keep thinking about when I had my animal totems read by White Buffalo Woman, a proud member of the Lakota Tribe. She took me under her wing when I first began to ensue writing as a living because it was my passion. Her sociology class in college drew us close and she took me to do a reading. I have it all written down somewhere it was AMAZING. But i’ll never get over this: when it came time to see what my spiritual guide was, (and this was before the temperature in my brain and all the disorders escalated) and at the time I believed I was tough, strong, solid–because I fought against those that abused and abandoned me–so I thought highly of my secretly fractured self. I mean come on Amy–you were burning out on fumes. Anyways, she asked me what I thought my spiritaul guide was and I felt this well of pride in my chest for how far I’d come so I’d said “A Lion.” Yes. I f’n said “a lion.” Oh to be young and to dream that ego up. We did the cards and what I chose stunned and disgusted me then but is actually soooooo sooooo true to who I am (with the PTSD/trauma). I chose the animal that plays dead in danger: the possum. Hehee that cracks me up now. I’m so possum. I left there broken hearted that day and feeling like an idiot. If I’d only known then how true it was, and that it wasn’t so bad. It’s not like I play dead to everything (hear I am still trying to make myself feel better about it 🙂

Maybe I’m forgetting the important thing–to just be. To let myself feel what I feel, be as I am, be in the now, stay present (had lots of practice on that in the bin!) instead of examining everything so closely to prove to myself that I’ll be okay. I need to know that I’ll be okay and that I’ll be prepared if anything backlashes–like the EMDR coming up with a counselor that really doesn’t know me that well. I want to be bold and brave like I used to feel but moreso I don’t want to be STUPID. Is he the right therapist to do this with? I miss my old psychotherapist. Saw her for ten years. I stopped because it got too personal, too involved, and too much about herself. But now I want her back, the tradeoffs were worth it. Because she KNEW me. She got me through some rough-ass times. Because of her I had no rage and anger issues in the thick of the PTSD–I was looking beyond that for my meaning and my purpose and what I could get out of it. My abuser couldn’t have anymore of me, I was hungry for myself. She knew these things. She’s brilliant. She’s also too personal and opinionated. I don’t know what to do.

I’m going back to the Upanishads and Alan Watts. I need to get my feet on something sacred. I need to…regain my fragile lucus of controlf. I see my situation like a fushigi ball, know those things? It’s mirrored center ball “doesn’t move” it reflects, and there’s a clear, thick ball or coat around it that you use to rotate it and make it look like gravitational magic, the centers not moving as you manipulate your hands. Yeah. Info-mercial. My child “had to have it.” I kind of play with it. But anyway, (clearly this is a sporadic, moodified journal post and I apologize to all who were looking to read something that contained a point). Anyway, I don’t take much stock in the life that is happening around me as of yet (apparently I’ve stopped “being” that much is clear) because I’m too preoccupied with looking at my reflection. That’s it. I’ve figured out my problem. So what. What do I see in me? Or is it her? Do I still see this woman I’m trying to be as this “her” that I’ll someday fill. Filling my hands–I”m constantly trying to fill my hands: I set up boundaries between me and my ex, which was goddamned hard, and I decided to press charges against my abuser. I also am teetering on facing him and getting it from him–the whole truth. But will I get it? Can I stand it? I’m testing my waters so I can move–move somewhere, in some direction.

I picked up my old PTSD workbook, got another book called Trauma and Recovery which is okay, and got The Stranger in the Mirror on my kindle, though I prefer these texts as actual books. And I read at the beach with my daughter or at night and I’m wondering why it feels new to me–these facts? I’ve already read the hell outa them before. It’s like I need proof to know I feel the way I do and live the way I do for a reason. I need facts to show me that my feelings are valid, real, and mine and should be respected. I’m floundering in the respect arena. With my ex, with my sisters, with my mother. My family, they love me, they support me, they’ve been there for me like nobody’s business, yet….I have this lingering ick in my gut that they see me as this sick, disabled woman who is too messed up with ptsd, bipolar moods, adhd, and dissociation and insecurities that she can’t tell her own damn way around. that she doesn’t know what’s best for her, that her opinions and convictions have great purpose and make sense. Why do I feel so disrespected by them lately? Why do I feel like they see me by my labels? I’m still Amy; I’m still hot-headed and quick to defend; I’m learning how to respect myself; I don’t judge ANYONE, so why do I feel so judged? It’s shunning. It makes me angry. Furious. And I don’t know how to tell them “Hey, it’s ME for Christ’s sake, if you don’t take stock in what I say about what I want to do with my life, then fuck the fuck off!” But no, amiable me doesn’t want to cause anything, because I deeply doubt myself and think my chemistry is playing tricks on me and that they’re right. Good God. I gotta quit writing for now, I’m getting irked. Later.