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"I live in a world of delusion," Sarah complained.
"We all do," I agreed.
"Yeah," she said, "I know. That's my other point."
"I know you know," I giggled. "That's why I like ya. You get it."
We burst out laughing as our cognitive frameworks collapsed joyfully upon themselves, two schoolchildren giggling on the playground while the school house toppled
Nick wrote that to me before we even got off the phone. Show off. He's trying to teach me to write conversation. For now, I'd just like to include it as a piece of my own. From a different perspective, you know, to stroke my ego.
So the trick is getting back to writing After you've gotten off. Again and again. And that's all I have to do write now is keep writing. Write now. Write now. Nick already told me that one.
This is why I can't read that pronoia workbook write now. Is because I get too jealous. I type like a little kid when I get sad. I can't seem to get it out if I try to slow down. Speeding up, out of control to a point of stable, perpetual movement, constantly versus evermore urgent efforts to slow down. More concentrated, longer efforts to slow down. It's a lot of hard work. I have no idea why it's so hard, but ultimately, it's good for me. With or without the pot.
I have no idea what to say...aaron, i'm so sorry. My stuck point with this fanciful notion that I talk to God is what got us here. Where I don't know where you are and you don't know where I am. Where you're over there working on your music and I'm over here working on my book. Now, I can't wait for you to read this. Cause now it's gonna look like a litany of me stabbing myself on that excitement until I bleed. That hurt to say. Are you writing to me over there with your song? I doubt it, I don't know. You weren't talking directly about me any of those other times. I don't know, it was possible for me to infer them to be talking about me. I don't know why I can't lie now. That hurt too. I feel like that though when I write, like I get just within reach of the truth. And now i've been paying more attention to my body. All it says is that I have physical feeling pain somewhere in my body. God, why is that so hard to admit. Dear to whomever this may concern, I don't know how long it's going to take me to get better. I PLAN ON MAKING IT TAKE THE REST OF MY LIFE. If that means starting with pot I'm okay with that but soon into I'm gonna wanna give up everything else that's holding me back...
Saturday, September 26, 2009
My version of nick and my's conversation
A little bit of honest, digging introspection into what false beliefs I held revealed that we are all delusional to some extent. It's what those delusions are, what stage we are in of giving up our delusions. And we're at a very early one, but it's a big, quick step. A tread on the wheel.
Anyway, Nick and I were talking about my blocks as a writer. They were all very emotional issues.
Anyway, Nick and I were talking about my blocks as a writer. They were all very emotional issues.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
My thoughts on doubt and wonder part 2
The devil I'm running from now.
See that's the thing that God said to me, the last time that I spoke with him when I was sober.
He said:
DO NOT BE IN SOMEONE'S LIFE IF YOU CANNOT BE A GIFT.
And what I said to Charlie is:
I can see that you don't want a relationship right now.
"With you" he left unsaid.
Anyway, that was my romance while I was trying really hard to align my conversation with God to Christianity. I guess, I mentally went in and then mentally came out.
and when i get to thinking about it that way i get some where near a memory of what actually happened.
Other than that I usually just have this sense of dred.
An ever-leasening sense of dred.
Then I start wondering when the doubt started.
See that's the thing that God said to me, the last time that I spoke with him when I was sober.
He said:
DO NOT BE IN SOMEONE'S LIFE IF YOU CANNOT BE A GIFT.
And what I said to Charlie is:
I can see that you don't want a relationship right now.
"With you" he left unsaid.
Anyway, that was my romance while I was trying really hard to align my conversation with God to Christianity. I guess, I mentally went in and then mentally came out.
and when i get to thinking about it that way i get some where near a memory of what actually happened.
Other than that I usually just have this sense of dred.
An ever-leasening sense of dred.
Then I start wondering when the doubt started.
My thoughts on doubt and wonder
I have an incessant conversation with God. Well, I used to. Now I'm just addicted to pot. But God and pot used to be one and the same thing. Well, not always. There was a time when there was God everywhere. Well, my version of God. Not who God was, but threw what God wasn't. God wasn't evil. As in he wouldn't send us to hell. See, I saw God as Reacting to other forces that he put on earth. As if he needed us for anything. He always told me that he was merely here to serve. That much serves man. Man is needy and weak and vulnerable. All look to me now, God says with a sigh.Anyway, then I came to find out that God wasn't even bored. And I promptly began wanting to be with God every second of the day.
It's really addicting.
I can play it out in huge dramas saving souls every two or three months. Or maybe seven months. And maybe be so happy that I'm doing it the whole time that even start to enjoy myself a little. And it also totally looks like I'm praying on them. Yes, the play on words there is intentional. Preying on them that they might save me.
From the demon that I'm running from at the time.
See that was the thing about Charlie is that he knew the devil.
It's really addicting.
I can play it out in huge dramas saving souls every two or three months. Or maybe seven months. And maybe be so happy that I'm doing it the whole time that even start to enjoy myself a little. And it also totally looks like I'm praying on them. Yes, the play on words there is intentional. Preying on them that they might save me.
From the demon that I'm running from at the time.
See that was the thing about Charlie is that he knew the devil.
Friday, September 4, 2009
The tragedy of an old habit
I almost married this guy named Casey awhile back. He broke off the engagement after I had gone thousands of dollars into debt buying catering contracts and booking reception halls. He grew frustrated with, then shocked and appalled by my increasingly crazier schemes. Eventually he was broken, so he moved out of our apartment. The relationship should have ended long before that, and not just for the sake of my credit report, but because we had lost hope. For years it's been hard to put my finger on exactly what went wrong between us, but I gained some small understanding today.
I was feeling anxious about leaving the house this morning. I was supposed to go to a meeting to begin a new volunteer project but something inside me kept saying, “They don't really need me for this.” I just needed a personal day, something I hadn't had in a long time.
I approached Aaron, my current boyfriend, and told him that I didn't feel like going. I don't know if I was trying to reach out to him or if I just blurting that out hoping to bait him in telling me I didn't have to go. Whatever it was he screwed up his face in frustration and blew me off, going back to what he was doing on the computer. That was the last thing I said to him all morning. He left and I stole a personal day and skipped the meeting about the volunteer project, only now my anxiety was compounded by guilt for ditching out on the meeting and worry about disappointing Aaron.
We met up later to get groceries, awkward and silent. The explosion came when we left the store and argued over who would carry the groceries, if I would bum him a cigarette, where we should stop and smoke and god knows what else. We fought and walked all the way to the bus stop and lit up.
“Can I talk to you about something?” I asked him hesitantly between puffs.
“What?” he asked cautiously. I reminded him about that morning when I had told him that I didn't want to go. He said, “Well, why didn't you want to go? I don't understand.”
More of the same attitude. “Well, the time for gaining understanding has passed,” I said.
“What does that even mean?” he said still with his face all twisted. I thought for a solid thirty seconds about what to say. I thought about Casey and what a dysfunctional couple we were. Two separate relationships had evolved between Casey and I, our actual relationship and the relationship in my head. In our actual relationship there were ups and downs,
misunderstandings and reconciliations. In my head we had great debates about life and we resolved many things that never happened, that couldn't possible happen in real life. I wanted to catch Aaron and I before I couldn't be understood by him at all.
“It means that I don't feel,” I struggled, “trustful enough of you right now to be vulnerable.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means" I struggled some more, "that I just sit here and be quiet.”
We sat in a very frustrated silence until the bus came. We didn't make an attempt to sit near each other on the overcrowded bus. I sat in the back facing the rear and he sat down in front watching over the driver's shoulder.
I stewed over the impossibility of calmly telling him what the fuck was going on. In my head it was so easy, I could lay it out nice and clean like clean sheets on a bed. Then it occurred to me that the battles in my head are my own, I wouldn't want him in there anyway. He would be lost, and I doubted if we'd have any chance of reconciliation afterward. There was no Aaron in my head, and there had been no Casey in my head years before. They were fragments of self-doubt that I'd been wrestling with for years. All I had was Aaron, Aaron in real life. My task was to be patient and hope that love was its own reward.
When I looked up I could see the “Poetry in Motion” poster above the windows on the bus. It was the poem that Aaron once told me was his favorite of all the bus-poems. It was by Primus St. John. It said:
“I believe in myself slowly.
It takes all the doubt I've got.
It takes my wonder.”
I was feeling anxious about leaving the house this morning. I was supposed to go to a meeting to begin a new volunteer project but something inside me kept saying, “They don't really need me for this.” I just needed a personal day, something I hadn't had in a long time.
I approached Aaron, my current boyfriend, and told him that I didn't feel like going. I don't know if I was trying to reach out to him or if I just blurting that out hoping to bait him in telling me I didn't have to go. Whatever it was he screwed up his face in frustration and blew me off, going back to what he was doing on the computer. That was the last thing I said to him all morning. He left and I stole a personal day and skipped the meeting about the volunteer project, only now my anxiety was compounded by guilt for ditching out on the meeting and worry about disappointing Aaron.
We met up later to get groceries, awkward and silent. The explosion came when we left the store and argued over who would carry the groceries, if I would bum him a cigarette, where we should stop and smoke and god knows what else. We fought and walked all the way to the bus stop and lit up.
“Can I talk to you about something?” I asked him hesitantly between puffs.
“What?” he asked cautiously. I reminded him about that morning when I had told him that I didn't want to go. He said, “Well, why didn't you want to go? I don't understand.”
More of the same attitude. “Well, the time for gaining understanding has passed,” I said.
“What does that even mean?” he said still with his face all twisted. I thought for a solid thirty seconds about what to say. I thought about Casey and what a dysfunctional couple we were. Two separate relationships had evolved between Casey and I, our actual relationship and the relationship in my head. In our actual relationship there were ups and downs,
misunderstandings and reconciliations. In my head we had great debates about life and we resolved many things that never happened, that couldn't possible happen in real life. I wanted to catch Aaron and I before I couldn't be understood by him at all.
“It means that I don't feel,” I struggled, “trustful enough of you right now to be vulnerable.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means" I struggled some more, "that I just sit here and be quiet.”
We sat in a very frustrated silence until the bus came. We didn't make an attempt to sit near each other on the overcrowded bus. I sat in the back facing the rear and he sat down in front watching over the driver's shoulder.
I stewed over the impossibility of calmly telling him what the fuck was going on. In my head it was so easy, I could lay it out nice and clean like clean sheets on a bed. Then it occurred to me that the battles in my head are my own, I wouldn't want him in there anyway. He would be lost, and I doubted if we'd have any chance of reconciliation afterward. There was no Aaron in my head, and there had been no Casey in my head years before. They were fragments of self-doubt that I'd been wrestling with for years. All I had was Aaron, Aaron in real life. My task was to be patient and hope that love was its own reward.
When I looked up I could see the “Poetry in Motion” poster above the windows on the bus. It was the poem that Aaron once told me was his favorite of all the bus-poems. It was by Primus St. John. It said:
“I believe in myself slowly.
It takes all the doubt I've got.
It takes my wonder.”
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Waiting room
The burning in my chest and pins and needles in my shoulders mounted for weeks, my feelings completely mute. Little things like doing the dishes or taking the bus somewhere were quickly become much harder to do. I felt on edge all the time, stiff and uncomfortable. It entered my mind to go to the hospital, but it didn't seem called for. My therapist asked me, “What's the feedback from all this anxiety? What is amiss?”
So I put that question forward to my anxiety. When I sat down in front of the computer I was numb and paralyzed; when I did anything else the anxiety made me feel I wasn't in the right place. The nervous energy was familiar and before I would've drowned it in booze or, at least, turned on the television and zoned out. For once, I was just sitting there listening to my heart pound in my chest and asking it, “Why?”
Finally, I couldn't take the constant waiting anymore; waiting for it to get better, for it to get worse, I had no idea. I went to the emergency room and told them I was bipolar and having a lot of panic attacks. They said they would get me into see someone as soon as they could. I waited for four hours, all the while my chest exploding and subsiding with what I pictured to be white flames, until I was finally exhausted and started to let my guard down and close my eyes.
A nurse woke me when he called me back into a room. I waited on the hospital bed for just a few minutes when the social worker came into see me. She was an older woman, round in a just-baked-some-cookies kind of way. I wondered if she had kids of her own. If she didn't, she might be more apt to take care of me.
“Well, I looked at the chart, but tell me, what seems to be the problem tonight?” she asked cheerily.
“I have bipolar disorder and this anxiety has been building up for weeks and now I'm having panic attacks. I've never tried to responsibly manage my bipolar disorder before, so I don't know how long I have until I completely fall apart. I noticed the anxiety is starting to impair my functioning and I've even fallen back on smoking marijuana so I thought I would come in and see what you could do for me,” I heaved in one restless, expansive rant.
“Ok, that's great,” she nodded. “Tell me, are you suicidal right now?”
“No, just the opposite. Right now I feel like I wanna get through this.”
“I'm really glad to hear that,” she said as she smiled at me warmly. “And you're not homicidal?”
“No.”
“Are you hearing voices?” she asked calmly.
“No,” I hesitated. “Not really. Not like I used to.”
“Well,” her voice hinted at regret, “you don't meet the criteria for acute care. We might be able to get you into respite. But it sounds like you're doing everything correctly and that you're okay. I think you're best off trying to take care of yourself at home.” She obviously had kids of her own.
There was a stab in my chest that was sharp, like both disappointment and relief. I went home, smoked a bowl, and sat down in front of the computer.
So I put that question forward to my anxiety. When I sat down in front of the computer I was numb and paralyzed; when I did anything else the anxiety made me feel I wasn't in the right place. The nervous energy was familiar and before I would've drowned it in booze or, at least, turned on the television and zoned out. For once, I was just sitting there listening to my heart pound in my chest and asking it, “Why?”
Finally, I couldn't take the constant waiting anymore; waiting for it to get better, for it to get worse, I had no idea. I went to the emergency room and told them I was bipolar and having a lot of panic attacks. They said they would get me into see someone as soon as they could. I waited for four hours, all the while my chest exploding and subsiding with what I pictured to be white flames, until I was finally exhausted and started to let my guard down and close my eyes.
A nurse woke me when he called me back into a room. I waited on the hospital bed for just a few minutes when the social worker came into see me. She was an older woman, round in a just-baked-some-cookies kind of way. I wondered if she had kids of her own. If she didn't, she might be more apt to take care of me.
“Well, I looked at the chart, but tell me, what seems to be the problem tonight?” she asked cheerily.
“I have bipolar disorder and this anxiety has been building up for weeks and now I'm having panic attacks. I've never tried to responsibly manage my bipolar disorder before, so I don't know how long I have until I completely fall apart. I noticed the anxiety is starting to impair my functioning and I've even fallen back on smoking marijuana so I thought I would come in and see what you could do for me,” I heaved in one restless, expansive rant.
“Ok, that's great,” she nodded. “Tell me, are you suicidal right now?”
“No, just the opposite. Right now I feel like I wanna get through this.”
“I'm really glad to hear that,” she said as she smiled at me warmly. “And you're not homicidal?”
“No.”
“Are you hearing voices?” she asked calmly.
“No,” I hesitated. “Not really. Not like I used to.”
“Well,” her voice hinted at regret, “you don't meet the criteria for acute care. We might be able to get you into respite. But it sounds like you're doing everything correctly and that you're okay. I think you're best off trying to take care of yourself at home.” She obviously had kids of her own.
There was a stab in my chest that was sharp, like both disappointment and relief. I went home, smoked a bowl, and sat down in front of the computer.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Morning Ritual
Figure out what time I need to be getting up (and by default going to bed) everyday.
right now it's 6:54 in the morning. so far i haven't been to sleep. another bout of insomnia? this time i willed myself stayed awake consciously. am i trying to induce a manic episode? no, i'm just trying to figure out my sleep schedule. i wonder what time sunrise and sunset are and if it's just cloudy in the mornings and really shadowy at night. well anyway, i was obviously up before sunlight this morning. i did stream of consciousness journaling. then i did a tarot card reading. then for "what i'd love to become" i got the Sun. And I'd like to read that reading every morning for at least a week because the things i need to relinquish and the things I need to develop are good advice. Really good advice. I would love to become the Sun. I would love to find a spiritual practice that suited me. that's what i should have put down on my list of things to do. but i did call my whole list of things to do my Soul Pact with myself. But still the pot use has got to get under control. mindful codependency. we are as mindful as we are codependent. i'm as mindful of my pot use as my desire to get stoned. motivation to control my use, so I CAN KEEP USING. Whenever I want that is. So I have to really want to not smoke pot. I've gotta not really want to smoke pot is how it is. It has to be for my own reasons. That makes me want to smoke it right now. How long will it take me to find my own reasons? Why do I need respite(Explain.)? Or do you just want to get into respite really badly but you're afraid you won't, so you're trying to stress yourself out to the point of breakdown? well, almost breakdown. Or can you avoid that on your own for a little while longer? And is it always gonna be "When's the other shoe gonna drop?"
Had three cups of coffee. It's 7:09 am. It's still not sunny enough to say I need to...well, I don't know. It's bright enough to get up. It would take real effort to get up this early though. I don't know when my writing schedule is or what it looks like. Sleeping would be a great way to stave off the loneliness and the boredom of being home by myself at night. Anxiety: about being lonely and bored. Besides, I can handle the anxiety of being lonely and bored a lot better when I'm doing it by choice and not just out of self-pity and thinking i'm worthless. That's what I was gonna say before was about this time not having a mania that convinces myself wonderful things about myself but spends a season disproving all the bad things I think about myself. That would be more realistic. And I would be really realistic of what I'm capable of by consequence. It's funny that a silly little thing that simple is blowing the fuck out of my mind right now. Where is Keith when I need him?
Life is like a game of chess. Aaron and I got a No-Stress Chess set and a deck of cards from Toys R Us last night. Aaron and I need to create a spiritual practice for ourselves. But I don't know what Aaron's side of it is. But he's right. Life is like a game of chess. Well, sometimes it's like a game of rummy. I guess. There are so many things I would like to write about. BUT WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO THE WORK OF IT I'M SCARED. And my computer broke. How freaky is that? Last week was all about "getting to the page" and this week has ben all about amusing myself while I can't write. Until I finally have to write a little. I should read that chapter about passion and committment. (Stages of the Creative Process, Stage 2). That book may be able to help guide my path on that. I might reread discovery and encounter, too. Aaron says he doesn't doubt my ability to find happiness maybe even an income in writing. I have a hard time believing that because I feel like I'm such a shitty writer.
7:26 Now I'm running out of things to do for my morning ritual. I could go put in a load of laundry. there a load of laundry is in. I have another 28 minutes. It's 7:36 right now. I feel like pot allows me to access my subconscious as well as my superconscious. I don't even know if i can access my superconscious that much. I'm gonna go smoke a cigarette. it's so cloudy. i ended up taking more than just a cigarette break. and decided to add some really brief form of meditation in there. on the tarot card reading, i guess. i need to set up a new alter not in the bedroom. aaron needs to get to the library more though. like we said. exposure. to places that remind him of unhappy things. i don't know why i think that'll be good for him.
right now it's 6:54 in the morning. so far i haven't been to sleep. another bout of insomnia? this time i willed myself stayed awake consciously. am i trying to induce a manic episode? no, i'm just trying to figure out my sleep schedule. i wonder what time sunrise and sunset are and if it's just cloudy in the mornings and really shadowy at night. well anyway, i was obviously up before sunlight this morning. i did stream of consciousness journaling. then i did a tarot card reading. then for "what i'd love to become" i got the Sun. And I'd like to read that reading every morning for at least a week because the things i need to relinquish and the things I need to develop are good advice. Really good advice. I would love to become the Sun. I would love to find a spiritual practice that suited me. that's what i should have put down on my list of things to do. but i did call my whole list of things to do my Soul Pact with myself. But still the pot use has got to get under control. mindful codependency. we are as mindful as we are codependent. i'm as mindful of my pot use as my desire to get stoned. motivation to control my use, so I CAN KEEP USING. Whenever I want that is. So I have to really want to not smoke pot. I've gotta not really want to smoke pot is how it is. It has to be for my own reasons. That makes me want to smoke it right now. How long will it take me to find my own reasons? Why do I need respite(Explain.)? Or do you just want to get into respite really badly but you're afraid you won't, so you're trying to stress yourself out to the point of breakdown? well, almost breakdown. Or can you avoid that on your own for a little while longer? And is it always gonna be "When's the other shoe gonna drop?"
Had three cups of coffee. It's 7:09 am. It's still not sunny enough to say I need to...well, I don't know. It's bright enough to get up. It would take real effort to get up this early though. I don't know when my writing schedule is or what it looks like. Sleeping would be a great way to stave off the loneliness and the boredom of being home by myself at night. Anxiety: about being lonely and bored. Besides, I can handle the anxiety of being lonely and bored a lot better when I'm doing it by choice and not just out of self-pity and thinking i'm worthless. That's what I was gonna say before was about this time not having a mania that convinces myself wonderful things about myself but spends a season disproving all the bad things I think about myself. That would be more realistic. And I would be really realistic of what I'm capable of by consequence. It's funny that a silly little thing that simple is blowing the fuck out of my mind right now. Where is Keith when I need him?
Life is like a game of chess. Aaron and I got a No-Stress Chess set and a deck of cards from Toys R Us last night. Aaron and I need to create a spiritual practice for ourselves. But I don't know what Aaron's side of it is. But he's right. Life is like a game of chess. Well, sometimes it's like a game of rummy. I guess. There are so many things I would like to write about. BUT WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO THE WORK OF IT I'M SCARED. And my computer broke. How freaky is that? Last week was all about "getting to the page" and this week has ben all about amusing myself while I can't write. Until I finally have to write a little. I should read that chapter about passion and committment. (Stages of the Creative Process, Stage 2). That book may be able to help guide my path on that. I might reread discovery and encounter, too. Aaron says he doesn't doubt my ability to find happiness maybe even an income in writing. I have a hard time believing that because I feel like I'm such a shitty writer.
7:26 Now I'm running out of things to do for my morning ritual. I could go put in a load of laundry. there a load of laundry is in. I have another 28 minutes. It's 7:36 right now. I feel like pot allows me to access my subconscious as well as my superconscious. I don't even know if i can access my superconscious that much. I'm gonna go smoke a cigarette. it's so cloudy. i ended up taking more than just a cigarette break. and decided to add some really brief form of meditation in there. on the tarot card reading, i guess. i need to set up a new alter not in the bedroom. aaron needs to get to the library more though. like we said. exposure. to places that remind him of unhappy things. i don't know why i think that'll be good for him.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Going to work
How can I get You when I want You and how long will it take to achieve that state of mind sober?
I'm just gonna start writing. Try to set a pace. I notice my heart speeding up. Well, now that I said that it's slowing down. Starting to get a little wobbly. No God yet though. Wondering what to do if Aaron or Janet call me. Typing slow but making few errors. Errors becoming more prevalent. God, if you do show up I really intend to write this conversation down.
Going to smoke more. Startle response is becoming acute. Feeling a little “stoned”, staring more. A fart building up. Ha ha. Gross.
EVERYONE,
I'M NOT ADDICTED TO POT. I'M ADDICTED TO PSYCHOSIS.
Psychotic Features of Bipolar Disorder
Psychotic features are often present during the manic phase of bipolar I disorder. Aspects of psychosis may also manifest during extreme episodes of depression. They are also present in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. These features include delusions (false ideas about what is taking place or who one is) and hallucinations (seeing or hearing things which aren't there).
http://bipolar.about.com/od/psychoticfeatures/Psychotic_Features_of_Bipolar_Disorder.htm
Delusion of Reference-Delusions of Reference refers to the strongly held belief that random events, objects, behaviors of others, etc., have a particular and unusual significance to oneself.
Delusions-Delusions are false beliefs that are firmly held. They are one aspect of the psychotic features of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.
Are they hallucinations, though? I'm going through the list of symptoms on the website up there and then trying to pull out the relevant symptoms. Relevant to me, I mean.
And I don't know. Are they hallucinations?
The PARTS OF THE BRAIN is what I was interested in. I feel like I'm addicted to a part of my brain. I just can't find a picture anywhere. PictureS...to compare, say of the delusional brain and brain high on marijuana. I want to know if that is in fact the same place in my mind. And I want to know how to access and control it sober and on anti-psychotics. Because I am trying my hardest, but I can't live without it.
That's why I'm sad in group when I say my mental health issue is simply bipolar disorder (and not "with psychotic features"). I feel like my mood is pretty good, all the time, especially when you put it up against the grieving process. It varies predictably and still stays pretty positive with episodes of acute depression and anger. Acute meaning comes on suddenly, lasts a few hours, and moves on again. Meaning episodic. I don't know if I'm explaining any of this. I learned to talk like this from TV. Anyway, it varies along the patterns of stages of grief. I don't really know, I haven't looked that up yet, but I would predict. And since I can't find or don't have access to journal articles and there's just these google ads that come up, I'll have to consider running with the idea. But the idea is what if I could follow the movements of mind? I mean, yeah, maybe that's possible for everyone else as it is, but it's never been possible for me. My mind is this ancient removed monster.
Still, no God though.
Wondering why I'm so addicted to pot. Is it cause I'm so... I mean, where does the NEVER-ENDING SENSE OF URGENCY come from?
Alright God, I'm to where I need you on the line. Or someone.
Dear Aaron, the other God of my consciousness. No I should say the God of my Other Consciousness. Yeah, that puts it way more correctly. Anyway, I just wanted to say that no one is gonna get hurt and by that I mean lose their job or go to prison or the hospital while I smoke a little bit of pot and figure this thing out. Trust me, there's an easy way in and there's an easy way out. It just takes a little bit of work but I swear I'll write a really amazing book from AND LEARN TO DO THE WORK OF A WRITER IN THE MEANTIME. AND I'LL TALK TO NICK FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF EVERYDAY IF I HAVE TO.
No, I mean, he doesn't have that kind of time. Anyway, I mean, I just know that this book is gonna take a lot of research. Well, more the second one would... there are three books in the series again this time. I don't know what God or the universe or whatever likes so much about the number three.
I mean, maybe that's just the stage that I'm at where I can only imagine three books. Isn't it all the same difference? That the universe contains three books for me to write and God commands me to write and I can imagine three books to write. And is it impossible that I can believe all three things co-occurring at the same time? It's just three different ways of seeing the world at three different times. I'm just a shift-a shift in our consciousness. Literally, like imagine a wheel that would have to grow treads in order to start moving at a good solid pace where, like you said about riding your bike, you could just go forever. Well, we're about to grow a new tread. And I can't quite figure out which tread we are. Maybe all shifts feel this incredible. It seems like a pretty quiet one if you ask me. But I don't know where I get an idea of one to compare it to. I am human after all. I don't have two delusions about two different lives. I just have the one about this one. And I seem to be one of few, but I am not the only one. There are many others like me. Many of them are addicts in recovery. They all seem to be gardeners of their own sort. Man, how I would like to write about the addiction movement from the inside. Now it's the addiction and maladaptive behaviors movement. Already it's dividing its meaning into parts. A duality. Not yet a marriage. That's it. That's the three. First there was this one idea: US then there was this other idea: YOU AND ME. Then the third idea: YOU AND I ARE ONE.
"THAT'S A BIG SHIFT!," This surge of adrenaline screamed up my spine. "HI THIS IS GOD." A tear in the universe that sounds like a child's giddy belly laugh after he just said "BOO!!" and you dropped your coffee mug...ripped through the air in my head.
"I'm going to go smoke a cigarette first so that I don't have a heart attack," I said as I sat still and listened to the heart beat in my chest. "I'm afraid," I say to the still air of the room.
"I'LL BE BACK," God said in a poor Arnold Schwarztenager imitation.
"That's not funny, God," I laughed. "No one cool says that anymore."
See Aaron: you and I have one thing in common and you and I have another thing about that thing not in common. And it all has to do with the stories we told ourselves growing up. Our self-delusions, which we both have. Actually, we don't believe any of the stories we had to chose from. We don't just believe in society or we just believe in ourselves or both. IN. OUT. UP DOWN. It's that we don't believe in society and we don't believe in ourselves. Both. That's four total by the way. So this is like ourevolution.
"Our REVOLUTION!"
Right. God can see the word in my head and he corrects me.
"The wrong picture for the right thing. Words are pictures. Just pictures. A finger pointing to the moon" God corrects me again.
"I fucking hate that saying."
"Why?"
"Cause I don't get it."
"Except, when..." he sort of grumbles like a dad who's already coached you a million times what to say when he cues you.
"I do." I sigh resignedly.
"Right."
"Yeah, alright, God, that's very funny. You are Right." I show him in my mind. Hoorah! I get it.
Another giggle tears through my belly and in my mind. God is always very pleased with himself. "Then whose story of Me are you believing is right?" he asks affectionately. I want so desperately to find my own story of Him, It, Whatever.
"I can see it in every single one of them." I reply exhausted.
Aaron, when we met that was five, or the fifth revolution in this cycle but creation speeds up in a very predictable way. I think. If you can feel it. I'm a little confused now. Anyway, “stories we told ourselves” is significant too, because it used to just be stories we were told. Feelings were very simple cause we knew who caused our feelings. They did. With the advent of co-dependency came the realization that we are more than just two halfs. We are the conscious co-creation of
"TWO HAVES."
God definitely wants the credit of that one all to himself. I write as I listen to an echo of already a ghost of a laugh.
Yeah, when it's me writing...
"SHE'S THE CONFESSOR."
The Schwarzenegger voice again. Great. Yeah, God, you really can play on words. Ha ha ha. I'm not a writer as in I invent stuff. I'm a writer as in I type what I think. Unless I can't, then I say it. And there are a lot of weird reasons that I can't, but... they're all becoming more clear now.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Describe write now.
My editor told me to describe the craziness right now. I want to write right now. My dad sent me some old journals and writings from when I was a little kid in the mail. I got them yesterday and started going through them. I found the following:
"Reasons I think I'm mental:
A lot has changed, but you wouldn't believe how relieving it is to know that I'm still just the same girl that I started out as almost 16 years ago. It could be a little disturbing actually. The "healthier" I get, the more childlike I become. Jesus said something about being like a child. I'm trying to find out exactly what right now. But I can't find it. Hopefully, one of my pastors or ministers will get back to me with it later. I'm really curious. And I'm useless as far as internet research goes.
My soulmate in crazy read me her favorite Psalm from the Bible. It was the closest feeling to "being saved" that I've ever had. I think there are just some people that search for God ceaselessly. I think that's what drove me crazy. Not just that I prayed incessantly, but that God spoke back and I could hear his voice. This Psalm looks a lot like me:
When I was joining the Marine Corps in a fit of manic psychosis, I was sitting in the waiting area of the military entrance processing station inferring everything around me. They had those little New Testament pocket Bibles lying all over the place. I picked one up, flipped it open, and the following was what I read. It's a lot for a girl who hears voices and wears St. Jude (the patron saint of lost causes) around her neck to infer.
See, the first time I ever heard a voice I was young, like 11 years old. My head was bowed in church. I remember my cheeks were red I was praying so feverishly. Then I heard a response to my prayers like a force field around my head and shoulders, a voice whispered into my ear, solid and resonate and terrifying. He told me I was one of his prophets. So, now, I'm like, yeah, a crazy writer, I get it.
"Reasons I think I'm mental:
- I would rather be mental.
- I talk or argue with people who aren't there.
- It feels like I'm being watched or my mind's being read, so I try to watch what I think all the time.
- The visions I have.
- My paralyzing fear of death.
- The way I get when I freak out.
- The way I get real distant from people when they're talking to me.
- The way I'd rather be alone all the time."
A lot has changed, but you wouldn't believe how relieving it is to know that I'm still just the same girl that I started out as almost 16 years ago. It could be a little disturbing actually. The "healthier" I get, the more childlike I become. Jesus said something about being like a child. I'm trying to find out exactly what right now. But I can't find it. Hopefully, one of my pastors or ministers will get back to me with it later. I'm really curious. And I'm useless as far as internet research goes.
My soulmate in crazy read me her favorite Psalm from the Bible. It was the closest feeling to "being saved" that I've ever had. I think there are just some people that search for God ceaselessly. I think that's what drove me crazy. Not just that I prayed incessantly, but that God spoke back and I could hear his voice. This Psalm looks a lot like me:
| The Holy Bible: King James Version. 2000. |
| The Psalms |
| 77 |
Comfort from Recalling God's Mighty Deeds | ||||||
| ||||||
| 1 | I cried unto God with my voice,
| |||||
| 2 | In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord:
| |||||
| 3 | I remembered God, and was troubled:
| |||||
| 4 | Thou holdest mine eyes waking:
| |||||
| 5 | I have considered the days of old,
| |||||
| 6 | I call to remembrance my song in the night:
| |||||
| 7 | Will the Lord cast off for ever?
| |||||
| 8 | Is his mercy clean gone for ever?
| |||||
| 9 | Hath God forgotten to be gracious?
| |||||
| 10 | And I said, This is my infirmity:
| |||||
| 11 | I will remember the works of the LORD:
| |||||
| 12 | I will meditate also of all thy work,
| |||||
| 13 | Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary:
| |||||
| 14 | Thou art the God that doest wonders:
| |||||
| 15 | Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people,
| |||||
| 16 | The waters saw thee, O God,
| |||||
| 17 | The clouds poured out water:
| |||||
| 18 | The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven:
| |||||
| 19 | Thy way is in the sea,
| |||||
| 20 | Thou leddest thy people like a flock
| |||||
Published by The American Bible Society |
| CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD |
When I was joining the Marine Corps in a fit of manic psychosis, I was sitting in the waiting area of the military entrance processing station inferring everything around me. They had those little New Testament pocket Bibles lying all over the place. I picked one up, flipped it open, and the following was what I read. It's a lot for a girl who hears voices and wears St. Jude (the patron saint of lost causes) around her neck to infer.
Proverbs 1:1-9 TNIV (Today's New International Version)
Purpose and Theme
1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:
2 for gaining wisdom and instruction;
for understanding words of insight;
3 for receiving instruction in prudent behavior,
doing what is right and just and fair;
4 for giving prudence to those who are simple, [a]
knowledge and discretion to the young—
5 let the wise listen and add to their learning,
and let the discerning get guidance—
6 for understanding proverbs and parables,
the sayings and riddles of the wise. [b]
7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools [c] despise wisdom and instruction.
Prologue: Exhortations to Embrace Wisdom
Warning Against the Invitation of Sinful Men
8 Listen, my son, to your father's instruction
and do not forsake your mother's teaching.
9 They are a garland to grace your head
and a chain to adorn your neck.
Footnotes:
- Proverbs 1:4 The Hebrew word rendered simple in Proverbs denotes a person who is gullible, without moral direction and inclined to evil.
- Proverbs 1:6 Or understanding a proverb, namely, a parable, / and the sayings of the wise, their riddles
- Proverbs 1:7 The Hebrew words rendered fool in Proverbs, and often elsewhere in the Old Testament, denote a person who is morally deficient.
Today's New International Version
International Bible Society
© Copyright 2001, 2005
http://www.ibs.org/
Link to this Passage:
See, the first time I ever heard a voice I was young, like 11 years old. My head was bowed in church. I remember my cheeks were red I was praying so feverishly. Then I heard a response to my prayers like a force field around my head and shoulders, a voice whispered into my ear, solid and resonate and terrifying. He told me I was one of his prophets. So, now, I'm like, yeah, a crazy writer, I get it.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Heresy at the Church Picnic: My Sermon
How do you write a sermon? First, you walk the walk. As best you can. Then you can speak from the heart about it.
My name is Sarah Coffer. I go by a few other names, though. Overflowingcoffers. The Persistent Fool. That's my pseudonym as a writer. It's hard to translate doing into writing, though. You have to do it enough. So I am a writer. As in, sometimes, I write. But what do I do?
What I do, which is enormously difficult and scary, is BE. I try very hard to be myself, but have always been baffled by Who That IS. So doing has become a process of discovery. Like write now I need to eat. And smoke a cigarette. Because I'm doing being a writer, but what I write is what I hear.
That's Who I Am. Is a Hearer.
The Christians would say that this is my testimony. I'm being a witness. Paying witness.
I'm also a See-er.
What I see and what i hear is GOD. Everywhere I look, everywhere I listen. But I get overwhelmed and I have to focus. Slow down. Pay attention. Meditate.
What your Doing is whatever YOU ARE PAYING ATTENTION TO.
For a long time I was a very selfish girl. Childish, impudent, needy. I only payed attention to myself.
SEE
when you pay attention to something you Honor it. But pay attention to long can be like a form of neglect? If you just stared at your food, you would watch it spoil. I'm a spoiled girl.
Honor something else. Create more meaning for myself. Discover who I am. Eat the meal.
One egg scrambled. I slice wheat toast. Dip it in a side of gravy. And an apple. I can't eat much. Cause I'm very hyper.
I did a lot of drugs for a long time. For a while I did them like an animal. To ease the pain. Then I did them mindfully. And I got in touch with my pain. It's hurts A WHOLE LOT LESS NOW. I think I might be ready to say that I don't need drugs anymore. Others would agree that I don't. I have to listen to them. Cause I can't make any promises. I still want drugs. But I need to focus on what I need.
Go pee. Smoke a cigarette. Listen to the next person I speak with. Pay attention to my boyfriend.
SEEE
i fyou ignor something long enough it spoils too.
Just a minute ago, I showed the Pastor the story I wrote about him. He said he was honored to be included in my story. I thanked him genuinely for paying attention to it. He said, genuinely, that I was worth it. I felt, sincerely, a little, like crying. BUT IT DIDN'T HURT AS BAD TO HEAR THAT TIME.
Tell yourself again and again that you're worth the attention. Or remind yourself again and again to pay attention to something else. Or both. Depending on what you need at the time.
Try to find a balance.
Yes, balance. That's what they keep saying to me. Balance. As though I were a dancer.
I have a lot of self-help books. I've visited many different denominations of Christian churches. I secretly watch Oprah, but would totally deny it if outed. I only have a few really close friends that I trust enough to be myself with-which is someone truly embarrassing-and everyone else I'm almost completely estranged from. My only comfort is that I'm probably actually a lot like the people I most admire. My only reason for living is the spiritual epiphany. I'm a lot like that little girl that is too foolish and stubborn to give up on her dream of being a ballerina, despite mounting evidence that that is not where her natural talents lie. The little girl dances ceaselessly, caring about nothing else. The girl feels at times daring and courageous, other times baffled and guessing. Mostly she rides oscillating waves of embarrassment and glee, never quite aware of anything more than her own body. Her dance itself is the same, sometimes painful to watch, sometimes a pleasant surprise, but perhaps always interesting. William Blake said that if the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise. I say that if the fool could do anything else, he would.
My name is Sarah Coffer. I go by a few other names, though. Overflowingcoffers. The Persistent Fool. That's my pseudonym as a writer. It's hard to translate doing into writing, though. You have to do it enough. So I am a writer. As in, sometimes, I write. But what do I do?
What I do, which is enormously difficult and scary, is BE. I try very hard to be myself, but have always been baffled by Who That IS. So doing has become a process of discovery. Like write now I need to eat. And smoke a cigarette. Because I'm doing being a writer, but what I write is what I hear.
That's Who I Am. Is a Hearer.
The Christians would say that this is my testimony. I'm being a witness. Paying witness.
I'm also a See-er.
What I see and what i hear is GOD. Everywhere I look, everywhere I listen. But I get overwhelmed and I have to focus. Slow down. Pay attention. Meditate.
What your Doing is whatever YOU ARE PAYING ATTENTION TO.
For a long time I was a very selfish girl. Childish, impudent, needy. I only payed attention to myself.
SEE
when you pay attention to something you Honor it. But pay attention to long can be like a form of neglect? If you just stared at your food, you would watch it spoil. I'm a spoiled girl.
Honor something else. Create more meaning for myself. Discover who I am. Eat the meal.
One egg scrambled. I slice wheat toast. Dip it in a side of gravy. And an apple. I can't eat much. Cause I'm very hyper.
I did a lot of drugs for a long time. For a while I did them like an animal. To ease the pain. Then I did them mindfully. And I got in touch with my pain. It's hurts A WHOLE LOT LESS NOW. I think I might be ready to say that I don't need drugs anymore. Others would agree that I don't. I have to listen to them. Cause I can't make any promises. I still want drugs. But I need to focus on what I need.
Go pee. Smoke a cigarette. Listen to the next person I speak with. Pay attention to my boyfriend.
SEEE
i fyou ignor something long enough it spoils too.
Just a minute ago, I showed the Pastor the story I wrote about him. He said he was honored to be included in my story. I thanked him genuinely for paying attention to it. He said, genuinely, that I was worth it. I felt, sincerely, a little, like crying. BUT IT DIDN'T HURT AS BAD TO HEAR THAT TIME.
Tell yourself again and again that you're worth the attention. Or remind yourself again and again to pay attention to something else. Or both. Depending on what you need at the time.
Try to find a balance.
Yes, balance. That's what they keep saying to me. Balance. As though I were a dancer.
I have a lot of self-help books. I've visited many different denominations of Christian churches. I secretly watch Oprah, but would totally deny it if outed. I only have a few really close friends that I trust enough to be myself with-which is someone truly embarrassing-and everyone else I'm almost completely estranged from. My only comfort is that I'm probably actually a lot like the people I most admire. My only reason for living is the spiritual epiphany. I'm a lot like that little girl that is too foolish and stubborn to give up on her dream of being a ballerina, despite mounting evidence that that is not where her natural talents lie. The little girl dances ceaselessly, caring about nothing else. The girl feels at times daring and courageous, other times baffled and guessing. Mostly she rides oscillating waves of embarrassment and glee, never quite aware of anything more than her own body. Her dance itself is the same, sometimes painful to watch, sometimes a pleasant surprise, but perhaps always interesting. William Blake said that if the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise. I say that if the fool could do anything else, he would.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Life with a sore pinky toe
I like to wear uncomfortable shoes when I'm manic.
It keeps me grounded.
Pain is good for meditation.
Meditate on your pain.
Other than that there's nothing else wrong with me.
It keeps me grounded.
Pain is good for meditation.
Meditate on your pain.
Other than that there's nothing else wrong with me.
Letter from the Editor
Good draft. Can you choose 1 font for you, 1 font for the 11, and one font for God in your writing? It would help separate the voices -- if they can be separated that easily. I had some trouble with the gaps. Too much fell through them. It felt like you were shielding yourself from something.
If I'm getting one of the messages correctly: Do not leave Aaron. Do not go back to Charlie. Stability is more important than destiny. Allow stability or you'll be torn apart.
Tell me what you think about this. When you write try to follow more of your own story. For example, when did your mom call you a psychotic narcissist? Be fearless in facing the facts of your past. The miller's daughter outsmarted Rumpelstiltskin by ignoring him. Focus on yourself, not the 11. They'll try to scare the shit out of you, but if you persevere they'll compromise themselves. In the end Rumpelstiltskin confessed his name. I suspect the 11 will do the same. This is part of our prophetic heritage that's missing in The Bible.
When times get tough, remember this: I am always here for you, and will always love you. Laura feels the same.
love,
your editor,
nick
If I'm getting one of the messages correctly: Do not leave Aaron. Do not go back to Charlie. Stability is more important than destiny. Allow stability or you'll be torn apart.
Tell me what you think about this. When you write try to follow more of your own story. For example, when did your mom call you a psychotic narcissist? Be fearless in facing the facts of your past. The miller's daughter outsmarted Rumpelstiltskin by ignoring him. Focus on yourself, not the 11. They'll try to scare the shit out of you, but if you persevere they'll compromise themselves. In the end Rumpelstiltskin confessed his name. I suspect the 11 will do the same. This is part of our prophetic heritage that's missing in The Bible.
When times get tough, remember this: I am always here for you, and will always love you. Laura feels the same.
love,
your editor,
nick
Don't Quit Your Day Job
I have had trouble accepting that I was a writer ever since the moment I was born.
Even though, just as strongly, I always knew that I wanted to be.
I've wanted to be a lot of other things just as badly.
Since I've first convinced myself I'd never be a writer.
The thing that I convince myself that I can do keeps becoming more and more...
embarrassing...
IN FUCKING SANE.
I'm not a writer.
I'm a prophet.
And there are millions of others.
It's loud in here.
I can hear their conversation with God.
But only because of the way that it plays into mine.
Cause I'm really self-centered.
I'm just gonna keep writing.
Because I have no one else to write this with. Accept Aaron. And I can't ask of him the same thing you can't ask of me.
But we both talk to you constantly anyway.
So we'll connect just fine.
But I just don't want to do that to someone. I feel like I can't be in the same place with anyone at the same time.
I'd have to ask you to pay attention to me like all the time.
It's expensive.
I'm just a child.
Right your parents.
I can hear them.
I know that this is your job too.
Not job.
Work is where you go to punish yourself for not following your dream.
It's my dream to be a prophet or messenger or whatever and it's your dream to be a writer.
Say your parents.
And that you are perfect.
And that with me you are home
and that you are loved and that you're welcome
and you just called me again
There's a place where we meet...
Right here right now.
Where we're trapped.
There's just choice a now.
and choice a later.
and in the meantime could be hell.
but we would get a lot of pleasure for our punishment together in the meantime.
But that's the point between now
and whenever we finally "go to work"
and in the meantime we're gonna be kids in trouble
anyway, when the work is over
we'll be off the hook
cause god is our parents
and our children
i never thought of that
i don't get it.
anyway,
as you can see the conversation with God is still going on...
and it's driving me crazy.
save me.
but to save me you'd have to trust me.
cause i have to do this.
i only want this.
it's this now or
it's this later.
and for me it'll be hell in the meantime.
i don't fit
you don't fit.
let's find a place we can meet in the meantime.
you remember when i was drunk
the other night?
and i said that God was saying that you have to be okay with me not being around?
I didn't know what that meant because at the time I was "not at work" and was "letting off steam" and i had no idea what God was talking about. It didn't even occur to me that I was supposed to be listening. That's the drug talking. The drug affecting what comes out of the mouth of a girl that never speaks her own words. Just babbles alone with the millions of "voices in her head"
her own voices on steroids
it's a different kind of sense
and it's what you're paying attention to
it's the places that you meet
a lonely place...
but a place where you're not alone.
where there's familiar sounds and familiar heartbeats and amounts of tension in your jaw and falls in the rhythm of your breathing. Finding a comfort in your own skin.
No not a comfort.
There's no comfortable option.
You're at work.
For as long as you put up with this.
The sooner you accept it the less hell it'll be.
Punishment for being yourself. Just for being alive.
Parents.
Taking the job would be hell too.
Why?
Cause I would have to believe that I hear your voice all the time. That even though I'm completely "paranoid".
It's not paranoid.
It's completely self obsessed.
You're trying to speak
...you're own story.
There are creatives.
Some sell-outs, all well-dressed.
Musicians. etc.
There are addicts.
Whose devotion to God is equal only to their feelings of total unworthiness.
And there are schizophrenics.
Whose narcissism is paralleled only by the extremely successful.
And whose failure is only determined by their feelings of complete worthlessness.
If you fall, then you're fucked.
If you're wrong. If you listen. There's some sort of hell waiting for you.
Atheists.
The people that I hang out with and can get close to
are
atheists
that are just fine with that.
or completely pretend to be...
and i can feel their conversation with God.
I'M THEIR MESSENGER.
Writing this means trusting someone else?
It has to do with God's experience of himself.
As a parent.
Where people are.
I'm listening to God.
I'm just the only one that can understand what he's saying.
But when I'm listening to it.
It sounds like he's talking to me.
The relationship you have with your parents.
And that's where Aaron comes in.
Aaron is silent. Listening.
I am silent. Not listening. Listening to myself. Talk to God.
Inference.
Being a point. That hears.
And you guys are all out there.
Except the writer.
The name you go by in every age
God has been trying to get me to figure out what I've been calling him.
That's the code.
Father.
Blasphemy.
Name him and you'll "hear" him. Feel him.
know.
and it's impossible to believe.
can i live forever?
Even though, just as strongly, I always knew that I wanted to be.
I've wanted to be a lot of other things just as badly.
Since I've first convinced myself I'd never be a writer.
The thing that I convince myself that I can do keeps becoming more and more...
embarrassing...
IN FUCKING SANE.
I'm not a writer.
I'm a prophet.
And there are millions of others.
It's loud in here.
I can hear their conversation with God.
But only because of the way that it plays into mine.
Cause I'm really self-centered.
I'm just gonna keep writing.
Because I have no one else to write this with. Accept Aaron. And I can't ask of him the same thing you can't ask of me.
But we both talk to you constantly anyway.
So we'll connect just fine.
But I just don't want to do that to someone. I feel like I can't be in the same place with anyone at the same time.
I'd have to ask you to pay attention to me like all the time.
It's expensive.
I'm just a child.
Right your parents.
I can hear them.
I know that this is your job too.
Not job.
Work is where you go to punish yourself for not following your dream.
It's my dream to be a prophet or messenger or whatever and it's your dream to be a writer.
Say your parents.
And that you are perfect.
And that with me you are home
and that you are loved and that you're welcome
and you just called me again
There's a place where we meet...
Right here right now.
Where we're trapped.
There's just choice a now.
and choice a later.
and in the meantime could be hell.
but we would get a lot of pleasure for our punishment together in the meantime.
But that's the point between now
and whenever we finally "go to work"
and in the meantime we're gonna be kids in trouble
anyway, when the work is over
we'll be off the hook
cause god is our parents
and our children
i never thought of that
i don't get it.
anyway,
as you can see the conversation with God is still going on...
and it's driving me crazy.
save me.
but to save me you'd have to trust me.
cause i have to do this.
i only want this.
it's this now or
it's this later.
and for me it'll be hell in the meantime.
i don't fit
you don't fit.
let's find a place we can meet in the meantime.
you remember when i was drunk
the other night?
and i said that God was saying that you have to be okay with me not being around?
I didn't know what that meant because at the time I was "not at work" and was "letting off steam" and i had no idea what God was talking about. It didn't even occur to me that I was supposed to be listening. That's the drug talking. The drug affecting what comes out of the mouth of a girl that never speaks her own words. Just babbles alone with the millions of "voices in her head"
her own voices on steroids
it's a different kind of sense
and it's what you're paying attention to
it's the places that you meet
a lonely place...
but a place where you're not alone.
where there's familiar sounds and familiar heartbeats and amounts of tension in your jaw and falls in the rhythm of your breathing. Finding a comfort in your own skin.
No not a comfort.
There's no comfortable option.
You're at work.
For as long as you put up with this.
The sooner you accept it the less hell it'll be.
Punishment for being yourself. Just for being alive.
Parents.
Taking the job would be hell too.
Why?
Cause I would have to believe that I hear your voice all the time. That even though I'm completely "paranoid".
It's not paranoid.
It's completely self obsessed.
You're trying to speak
...you're own story.
There are creatives.
Some sell-outs, all well-dressed.
Musicians. etc.
There are addicts.
Whose devotion to God is equal only to their feelings of total unworthiness.
And there are schizophrenics.
Whose narcissism is paralleled only by the extremely successful.
And whose failure is only determined by their feelings of complete worthlessness.
If you fall, then you're fucked.
If you're wrong. If you listen. There's some sort of hell waiting for you.
Atheists.
The people that I hang out with and can get close to
are
atheists
that are just fine with that.
or completely pretend to be...
and i can feel their conversation with God.
I'M THEIR MESSENGER.
Writing this means trusting someone else?
It has to do with God's experience of himself.
As a parent.
Where people are.
I'm listening to God.
I'm just the only one that can understand what he's saying.
But when I'm listening to it.
It sounds like he's talking to me.
The relationship you have with your parents.
And that's where Aaron comes in.
Aaron is silent. Listening.
I am silent. Not listening. Listening to myself. Talk to God.
Inference.
Being a point. That hears.
And you guys are all out there.
Except the writer.
The name you go by in every age
God has been trying to get me to figure out what I've been calling him.
That's the code.
Father.
Blasphemy.
Name him and you'll "hear" him. Feel him.
know.
and it's impossible to believe.
can i live forever?
Friday, May 15, 2009
Gentle paranoia: A schizophrenic girl’s conversation with God recorded at the speed of sound
I can't just sit here and write what the 11 talk about. Why would they admit that they were real. And I'm not quite getting my point across?
The marines are here.
This is the fucking joke.
That they were watching.
I'm a racist and an asshole. I judge people based on who they are. And what?
It sounds like English all the time.
I'm crazy.
I am crazy.
not medical...
well neurology...
being a patient. you study them?
diet?
i know.
so you guys are the 11.
i made it up.
when i was perfectly sane.
but that's not kat and hans.
how the fuck do you guys know kat and hans?
you're like that too.
immersion?
what the fuck are you talking
patients
parents
i'm listening.
why did i have to do this
cause that's the only waythat you're gonnaa
slow down
talking to me
older people think that there's a miracle drug
because in our culture
what fucking culture?
i sit there for the dialysis
assignments
which
in the hospital
they're all like my aunts and uncles
invite me over for dinner
enraoches upon the whole client medical interpreter thing
different people that we know
i don't know if it's the same person
name's based on when you were born
shut the fuck up
yeah cultures fucking weird
so i am a messenger or i'm not
siblings
right
gives me a chance to actually speak
me
self-centric
parents
am i paying attention to you?
I'm a writer?
This is some sort of letter to Aaron
even though I'm publishing it on the internet.
It's hard to be out in the open.
It's hard to be yourself.
When you don't know who that is.
I talk to God all the time.
Whether I like it or not.
It's my heaven and it's my hell.
Right here right now.
Where I'm trapped.
When to listen to God could mean believing in him.
And believing in God means doing what he says.
That means being with someone else?
Work is the places that you go to when you want to punish yourself for not following your dream.
Life is work.
That's assignment.
I haven't been coming to work on time
because Charlie can see this blog.
I didn't know if he was looking at it or not.
Now that I know that he has seen it...
I can at least decide...
you know what's the most exciting revelation!
accepting this would be enormously difficult.
i hear the 11
when i get embarrassed for talking to god.
when i get to the
"you know what would be the most exciting revelation?!?" part
i already here it in this sick mocking tone.
and i feel like a fucking psychotic narcissist.
just like my mother said
but it's like they say about god.
you can chose option a now
or option a later
and the meantime is just gonna be hell
the women next to me are splitting their check
and for all i know they've been making fun of me the whole time they've been here.
I have got to pay to work
That's the revelation.
This is hell.
Being myself would be hell?
So I judge.
which drugs to take
I took a 200 mg carbamazepine this morning, but I forgot to take it last night.
I've actually only taken half my prescription this month.
So any mood stability that I have had has all been me.
Line cook. Keep pushing. Going back to the beginning over and over again. I got a better job offer.
Than citizen schools.
And it's been impossible to get to work ever since.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009: Carbamazepine Dream; from the Persistent Fool
I can't fight this insomnia anymore. Fine, I won't sleep. I'll be brilliant by night and dull by day until eventually I don't believe that the sun is real anymore. That's what people don't get about schizophrenics. The trouble is not: can they tell what's real and what's imaginary? It's can they tell when what's real feels imaginary and what's imaginary feels real? People that haven't experienced it don't know what they're talking about. It feels the same at some point. Both sides beg you to come back, to stay. You have to choose. Red pill? Blue pill?
I choose the carbamazepine dream.
But the ancient, brain-stem dream has its fingers around me, too.
Here's this for anyone who wants it:
http://www.playlist.com/overflowingcoffers
Some of my favorite songs.
I tell everyone this story. If you've known me a month, I've told you this story, about how when I'm depressed or anxious, I fall into some catatonic state on the couch in front of the television and watch hour after hour of syndicated reruns on TBS or WB or whatever. Anyway, one night I was watching a rerun of Becker, which was by the way, the most endearing character Ted Danson ever played, and, for those who are not familiar: Ted Danson plays Dr. Becker. He has his own practice in Brooklyn or somewhere and he's a crank but he's thorough. Anyway, Steven Wright guest stars on one episode and he plays a schizophrenic who talks to God, whom he calls Larry. This infuriates Dr. Becker and he goes on one of his signature tirades. He says he doesn't really talk to God, it's just the dopamine receptors in his brain, blah, blah, blah. (Like I know. I should know, but I don't.) And his receptionist, the capable and wise sidekick, the voice in his head, says, and this I can quote, "Well, how do you know that when God wants to talk to someone, that's not how he does it?"
That was a poignant moment for me, sadly. I truly thought that right then God was trying to talk to me... through the television.
I was talking to my therapist, who by the way is nothing like the therapist stereotype you've conjured in your brain. Alright, he's the prototype really, the subdued, active listener who every time you ask a tough question, articulate some crisis point, he breathes hard out his nose and stretches his mouth, looking perplexed, and says, "Yeah, what about that?" But you have to know a lot about therapists to get how transcendent and effective and even refreshing that is. Believe me, there are many other, far more irritating, techniques.
Anyway, I told him all about how it's so heartbreaking that there are no such thing as soulmates. How my feelings for this guy will just fade and later I'll meet someone new and have all those same feelings again, but for him (or, admittedly, in the opposite order). How nothing has any meaning, save that which you give it. And he, my therapist, replied...
He didn't say, "Yeah, what about that?" He was personally chagrined and I saw it. He faced the same dilemma once and he decided and he hasn't looked back. For the first time ever, he had an opinion about my opinion. He tackled the issue, made me draw all the logical conclusions that follow from that being true: You can give anything any meaning you want. You control, decide your experience of things. You decide if you participate. You can withdraw. These facts can be something sad. They can be something joyous. All that can be something really beautiful if you can see it.
And all the sudden I was in the place where you would withdraw to. And I understood what wasn't working about my schizophrenia all these years.
Most people have two competing strategies for avoiding the present moment. They either dwell on the past or fantasize about the future. Either way is a mind-made illusion. Neither exist. Fantasy. When a person is in a bad mood they dwell on the past. When a person is in a good mood they fantasize about the future. Conversely, the mind can create a mood with images. The mind can create the experience.
Some minds are skilled at this, creating experiences too intense to bear. The mind immediately goes to work constructing an experience that the body can bear, that reconciles contradictions, that anthropomorphizes ambivalences and makes them foes, one the hero, the other the villian. This is called delusion. The next stage of fantasy.
This is a place of Truth. But it's expressed in myth and riddle. It's written in the language our ancestors have handed down Truth to us.
For a long time, I wanted to be left alone in the delusion. When I was younger I was a character in the fantasy at the mercy of the forces of will and chance that governed that universe. A couple of years ago, I reemerged in the story as myself, normal, human, mortal Sarah, but acted as God of this fantasy world. From then on things happened on my terms and had to explain themselves. Legends and natural laws and characters were all stripped to basic, concrete forms, to the things they referenced in my experienced environment. Sometimes characters represented feelings I couldn't acknowledge and natural laws represented people whose behavior and treatment I had come to calculate and anticipate.
I thought that if I could just get inside it, I could dismantle it from the inside out. Disembowl it.
My whole life I was hypnotized by voices that danced me around. I did their bidding. The only things I paid attention to in real life were the things that they told me to. I would suddenly get the command, "Look." "Listen." And I would until they drew me back in. Those moments I spent aware of what you all would call real were what the voices called clues.
If there were clues, then there was a mystery. If there was a mystery, there was a solution.
It's when I realized that they wanted to die as badly as I did, that I realized we were one and the same.
One of the clues they gave me was a story from a comic book I heard, a little bit of demon mythology. According to this bit of real world legend, the only way to control a demon was to figure out its true name. Call it by its true name and it will do your bidding.
Then I knew that while the voices were me, the same voices everyone has in their head, except mine were on steroids, the part of me that recognized that was much more.
I learned a lot about myself by going into that nightmare realm and putting cracks in it. I lost and hurt a lot of people in the process, and I'm sorry, but I wouldn't trade it. What I figured out, no book or teacher or therapist has ever told me. And nothing that any book or teacher or therapist has ever told me helped me figure it out.
But the thing that surprised me was that going in didn't kill it. There's simply the aware me, present in the reality, and the unconscious me lost in this fantasy. And it's just a switch, that's all there is to it. A shot of Prolixin D killed the demons, but the fantasy-thinking remained, now it was just about "real" stuff, my real past, a realistic projection of the future. But where I spent my time, in fantasy or in reality, that's just a decision. Carbamazepine makes the decision a lot easier to make.
But it's a muscle, too, a strength. They say with the brain, "what fires together, wires together" and "if you don't use it, you lose it." Our brains like paths of least resistance. That's why we end up doing the same useless, detrimental stuff forever and ever. But you can literally rewire the brain, but the best, least toxic way is simply to do different stuff.
Anyway, that conversation with my therapist about meaning brought me deeper into that aware state that I'm always trying to get in and stay in. And it was there that I had true clarity and insight. I learned a lot about a lot of perfectly disposable stuff when I was in the delusion, but it's only helpful if you're going to try to mitigate the pain and damage caused by the unconscious state. What you learn from a place of deep awareness, that... is transcendence. It's not even learning, it's remembering, re-cognizing.
Knowing this pissed me off at first. It was so easy, so simple. I could've spared so many relationships, the one relationship that meant more to me than anything else, if I had just...
what? Figured it out sooner. Maybe I could've but I didn't. Maybe I'm not meant (heavy, contentious way of putting it) to have that love of my life. Maybe it's my purpose to bring light to the darkness that still shrouds so much of mental illness. Maybe it's my gift to give language to things that... most of their messengers speak in tongues, just glimpses of such leave people speechless... people who observe can only describe consequences.
At any rate, that was certainly my choice. And that's the bitter irony.
When I was a little girl in church, whenever someone said the word prophet, the voice said, "That's you." "Perk up, girl, you're being called on." "Pay attention, this concerns you." And I was so pissed scared that I never learned a damn thing about any of the prophets. I would yell back to the voice that I didn't want it, I didn't chose that life. I didn't want martyrdom or exile or God's eternal disappointment. And the voice always taunted me, you will, when the time comes and you know what you're supposed to say, you will and you will forsake everything else to do it, and it will be your glory.
And everytime, when push comes to shove, I do. I should be asleep now but the words are there. Hanging there for me to pick out of the void and put here.
Now what I'm afraid of is that I will be misunderstood. That I won't speak when I should. That no one will heed what I say.
Such was the madness of the prophets. All that time that I spent not learning about the prophets from the pastor and I would come to understand them better than anyone in that church could ever hope to.
I choose the carbamazepine dream.
But the ancient, brain-stem dream has its fingers around me, too.
Here's this for anyone who wants it:
http://www.playlist.com/overflowingcoffers
Some of my favorite songs.
I tell everyone this story. If you've known me a month, I've told you this story, about how when I'm depressed or anxious, I fall into some catatonic state on the couch in front of the television and watch hour after hour of syndicated reruns on TBS or WB or whatever. Anyway, one night I was watching a rerun of Becker, which was by the way, the most endearing character Ted Danson ever played, and, for those who are not familiar: Ted Danson plays Dr. Becker. He has his own practice in Brooklyn or somewhere and he's a crank but he's thorough. Anyway, Steven Wright guest stars on one episode and he plays a schizophrenic who talks to God, whom he calls Larry. This infuriates Dr. Becker and he goes on one of his signature tirades. He says he doesn't really talk to God, it's just the dopamine receptors in his brain, blah, blah, blah. (Like I know. I should know, but I don't.) And his receptionist, the capable and wise sidekick, the voice in his head, says, and this I can quote, "Well, how do you know that when God wants to talk to someone, that's not how he does it?"
That was a poignant moment for me, sadly. I truly thought that right then God was trying to talk to me... through the television.
I was talking to my therapist, who by the way is nothing like the therapist stereotype you've conjured in your brain. Alright, he's the prototype really, the subdued, active listener who every time you ask a tough question, articulate some crisis point, he breathes hard out his nose and stretches his mouth, looking perplexed, and says, "Yeah, what about that?" But you have to know a lot about therapists to get how transcendent and effective and even refreshing that is. Believe me, there are many other, far more irritating, techniques.
Anyway, I told him all about how it's so heartbreaking that there are no such thing as soulmates. How my feelings for this guy will just fade and later I'll meet someone new and have all those same feelings again, but for him (or, admittedly, in the opposite order). How nothing has any meaning, save that which you give it. And he, my therapist, replied...
He didn't say, "Yeah, what about that?" He was personally chagrined and I saw it. He faced the same dilemma once and he decided and he hasn't looked back. For the first time ever, he had an opinion about my opinion. He tackled the issue, made me draw all the logical conclusions that follow from that being true: You can give anything any meaning you want. You control, decide your experience of things. You decide if you participate. You can withdraw. These facts can be something sad. They can be something joyous. All that can be something really beautiful if you can see it.
And all the sudden I was in the place where you would withdraw to. And I understood what wasn't working about my schizophrenia all these years.
Most people have two competing strategies for avoiding the present moment. They either dwell on the past or fantasize about the future. Either way is a mind-made illusion. Neither exist. Fantasy. When a person is in a bad mood they dwell on the past. When a person is in a good mood they fantasize about the future. Conversely, the mind can create a mood with images. The mind can create the experience.
Some minds are skilled at this, creating experiences too intense to bear. The mind immediately goes to work constructing an experience that the body can bear, that reconciles contradictions, that anthropomorphizes ambivalences and makes them foes, one the hero, the other the villian. This is called delusion. The next stage of fantasy.
This is a place of Truth. But it's expressed in myth and riddle. It's written in the language our ancestors have handed down Truth to us.
For a long time, I wanted to be left alone in the delusion. When I was younger I was a character in the fantasy at the mercy of the forces of will and chance that governed that universe. A couple of years ago, I reemerged in the story as myself, normal, human, mortal Sarah, but acted as God of this fantasy world. From then on things happened on my terms and had to explain themselves. Legends and natural laws and characters were all stripped to basic, concrete forms, to the things they referenced in my experienced environment. Sometimes characters represented feelings I couldn't acknowledge and natural laws represented people whose behavior and treatment I had come to calculate and anticipate.
I thought that if I could just get inside it, I could dismantle it from the inside out. Disembowl it.
My whole life I was hypnotized by voices that danced me around. I did their bidding. The only things I paid attention to in real life were the things that they told me to. I would suddenly get the command, "Look." "Listen." And I would until they drew me back in. Those moments I spent aware of what you all would call real were what the voices called clues.
If there were clues, then there was a mystery. If there was a mystery, there was a solution.
It's when I realized that they wanted to die as badly as I did, that I realized we were one and the same.
One of the clues they gave me was a story from a comic book I heard, a little bit of demon mythology. According to this bit of real world legend, the only way to control a demon was to figure out its true name. Call it by its true name and it will do your bidding.
Then I knew that while the voices were me, the same voices everyone has in their head, except mine were on steroids, the part of me that recognized that was much more.
I learned a lot about myself by going into that nightmare realm and putting cracks in it. I lost and hurt a lot of people in the process, and I'm sorry, but I wouldn't trade it. What I figured out, no book or teacher or therapist has ever told me. And nothing that any book or teacher or therapist has ever told me helped me figure it out.
But the thing that surprised me was that going in didn't kill it. There's simply the aware me, present in the reality, and the unconscious me lost in this fantasy. And it's just a switch, that's all there is to it. A shot of Prolixin D killed the demons, but the fantasy-thinking remained, now it was just about "real" stuff, my real past, a realistic projection of the future. But where I spent my time, in fantasy or in reality, that's just a decision. Carbamazepine makes the decision a lot easier to make.
But it's a muscle, too, a strength. They say with the brain, "what fires together, wires together" and "if you don't use it, you lose it." Our brains like paths of least resistance. That's why we end up doing the same useless, detrimental stuff forever and ever. But you can literally rewire the brain, but the best, least toxic way is simply to do different stuff.
Anyway, that conversation with my therapist about meaning brought me deeper into that aware state that I'm always trying to get in and stay in. And it was there that I had true clarity and insight. I learned a lot about a lot of perfectly disposable stuff when I was in the delusion, but it's only helpful if you're going to try to mitigate the pain and damage caused by the unconscious state. What you learn from a place of deep awareness, that... is transcendence. It's not even learning, it's remembering, re-cognizing.
Knowing this pissed me off at first. It was so easy, so simple. I could've spared so many relationships, the one relationship that meant more to me than anything else, if I had just...
what? Figured it out sooner. Maybe I could've but I didn't. Maybe I'm not meant (heavy, contentious way of putting it) to have that love of my life. Maybe it's my purpose to bring light to the darkness that still shrouds so much of mental illness. Maybe it's my gift to give language to things that... most of their messengers speak in tongues, just glimpses of such leave people speechless... people who observe can only describe consequences.
At any rate, that was certainly my choice. And that's the bitter irony.
When I was a little girl in church, whenever someone said the word prophet, the voice said, "That's you." "Perk up, girl, you're being called on." "Pay attention, this concerns you." And I was so pissed scared that I never learned a damn thing about any of the prophets. I would yell back to the voice that I didn't want it, I didn't chose that life. I didn't want martyrdom or exile or God's eternal disappointment. And the voice always taunted me, you will, when the time comes and you know what you're supposed to say, you will and you will forsake everything else to do it, and it will be your glory.
And everytime, when push comes to shove, I do. I should be asleep now but the words are there. Hanging there for me to pick out of the void and put here.
Now what I'm afraid of is that I will be misunderstood. That I won't speak when I should. That no one will heed what I say.
Such was the madness of the prophets. All that time that I spent not learning about the prophets from the pastor and I would come to understand them better than anyone in that church could ever hope to.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Sagittarius Rising
I had an 8:30 appointment to keep at the hospital. I was beginning therapy at an outpatient day center and my intake was this morning. I had been in the program before for a couple months and but was discharged a couple of months ago. When a friend expressed concern that I had been hospitalized again, I joked with her that I was like an old FORD pick up truck. You just have to take it to the shop a lot. I am quintessentially high-maintenance.
Waiting for the bus to go to my appointment was like waiting for a sign. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I wanted to go have coffee with the man of God at his diner. A kid was waiting for the bus alongside me in heretofore silence. I broke it by offering him a couple of cigarettes for the use of his selfone, mine being very poignantly dead. The boy obliged. The man of God was not yet at the diner.
If I were going to go back into the outpatient program, I wanted to pick up right where I left off with the therapist I had been working with before. I didn’t want to have to waste time explaining myself. I wanted to arrive in context. I soon learned I had underestimated my notoriety with the program staff.
I was stuck at the intersection of Wabash and Lombard waiting for a bus at 7:30 in the morning, stuck at the intersection of wanting to flee from the program and wanting them to accept me with open arms at the hospital for who I was right now. I boarded the bus suspended between the opposing energies. "Be patient" kept going through my mind, but it’s hard when you don’t know what you’re waiting for.
The bus hurtled along at a couple of dozen miles per hour. I sat on the window seat on the left hand side of the bus, my right eye focused intently on my blindspots. A harmless old koot of a man wearing a Marines ball cap sat across from me in the seats that ran along the front of the bus facing the aisle. He was struggling to be heard by a woman who was standing near the front. As I got caught up deeper in my own internal dialogue, I noticed the commotion of the bus settle down significantly.
I felt very aware and I thought to check in with my body. “Poor Sacrificial Body,” I thought. I wondered how to get the mind to take it easy on the body. A new level of awareness reveled. The body craves incessantly, its demands insatiable; that is if we are to conceive of the mind as being the mere substance of ego-driven thoughts and the brain as part of the body. I wondered how I were ever going to burn up the ego. A brief silence ensued. It’s not the mind that won’t quit. The mind is a tool just as the body is. It’s the message that won’t quit.
An intense warmth shot from the base of spinal cord to my gut. I was riding a wave, no…
Hearing a channel. My mind and body were in complete service. In tune.
A voice said,
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
My abject silence and slight trembling being a sufficient affirmative response, it continued uninterrupted:
YOU DO YOUR SOUL’S BIDDING.
I am a prophet, I thought to myself. The gray of the day started to melt a little, literally, and the sun warmed me.
WHO’S STOPPING YOU?
What’s stopping me?
EXACTLY. EVEN IF IT MAKES YOU INSANE, EVEN IF IT MAKES YOU SICK, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO.
I’m not crazy! I shouted in my head, relieved and excited.
NO, YOU ARE. AND YOU’RE GETTING SICK.
I started to write. I started to write as fast as I could, once again, trying to record a conversation with God.
The last thing I wrote before I got off the bus was in response to God, but He was wrestling for control of my hand. I wrote:
“Oh, I’ll live.
I just gotta get through the next five years.”
I tried to write "few" but my hand jerked. I wrote “fwe” and I drew an arrow underneath, signifying to switch the two years. Looking at it now, I can see it looks like “five”.
I just turned 27. It’s the year 2009.
And the prophecies and visions just keep on coming.
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