A conversation to save

I invest far too much importance into these strangers

as if one of them saying no to me might result in the

word "reject" being branded on my forehead for

everyone to see

Why do you feel it?  I'm really curious
because you have proof right there that
people love and want you. I'm not downplaying
the fact that you feel it, I just am wondering
where that feeling is coming from

It doesn't transfer from them to me. I can't accept

myself, when I believe that I should be rejected,

that I'm unsafe for people

Hugs

Because my self-loathing and fear of myself is

internal, externalized love from other people

can't make that go away

It's between me and me

not them and me

I understand

Much, most, of it is about my mother

as I suspect is most of yours

rejection from the day we were born, babe

We've lived under threat to our very survival as

tiny little babies, how could we not?

We learned that that threat to us WAS us

I was unsafe for my mother, I became an unsafe

person to everyone.

When we were born we separated from them,

we had different needs than them, and our

stupid little baby heads didn't understand that

we were supposed to take care of them

When we finally learned that, we were so much

older and the damage was already done

We'd already failed

and we carry that burden and don't know how to

let go of it yet

I was lectured the other day,
he told me I need to let it all go
and that I alone am responsible
for my happiness
Right in the middle of lunch
I felt like crying

That's a very nice sentiment, pop

psych person, (rolling my eyes around,

shooting out sarcasm rainbows) but that's

far more advanced than we're ready for, and

to my mind completely ignores the damage

done to us.  We have a lot we have to do before

we can tackle that lovely concept

Let me know if I project my issues onto you

too much, btw

You are pretty damn spot on

But the first thing that you and I have to do,

being oldest children, having the types of mothers

 we did who witting and unwittingly did their specific

brand of damage - what we have to do is get

to a place where we can even look at the damage

done to our little baby selves, where we were NOT

taken care of FROM THE BEGINNING

Take care of ourselves, wtf?

we don't know how that's done!

It wasn't done for US, so how could we

have learned what that looks like???!!

And then, just maybe, after facing that truth,

we have to wade through ALL of the abandonment,

rage, grief, in an emotional, not just strictly

intellectual way

and JFC if that's not going to be a BITCH

And THEN

I know
My massive breakdowns in therapy are
just the start for me heh

and only then can we even begin to put

the pieces together to imagine what we

might have wanted, might have needed,

breaking down years of suppression and

repression and oppression, and going

through that grieving process, mourning

that loss

and THEN, working our way toward figuring

 out how to let our adult selves take care of us

so yeah, lol

Make your own damn fucking happiness

that just makes me rage

It's like I want to be sad?

EXACTLY, I KNOW, RITE?!?!?!

It sounds like it will never get there 

Nah, we will

I've spent the last year blocking myself from
feeling anything just so I can be content
And maintaining those walls, last year, it's
just too fucking hard now

yep, that's actually why we'll succeed, and

probably faster than we expect

Because the thing is - you and me - we grow,

it's who we are. We're crazy strong.

Have you seen that owl picture - the

depression one, beating at it with a stick?

Oh yes

So we're that kind of strong

and smart

And whatever it is about us, our temperaments,

personalities, souls, whatever you want to call it,

we are the kind of people who get there

Take a look at your family... content in their

ignorance, narcissism, bigotry, and look at you

you didn't stay in that

you grew

you fight for yourself and the survival of your soul

and that is why you'll get there and probably

faster than you think

Oh my god
Yes

Man, can you imagine us when we've been

able to set down those strength-sucking issues?  lol

FABULOUS

Lol

That's my take on it.

Pretty sure I'm right about it.

Of course I would.

But I'm still right.

Lol I love you

Love you too. 

Lithium, Part One

Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes

http://dorinta19.bizland.ro/FLOWERS%20FOR%20ALGERNON%20.htm

         Mar 28 Dr Strauss came to my room tonight to see why I dint come

         in like I was suppose to. I told him I dont like to race with Algernon

         any more. He said I dont have to for a while but I shud come in. He

         had a present for me. I thot it was a little television but it wasnt. He

         said I got to turn it on when I go to sleep. I said your kidding why

         shud I turn it on when Im going to sleep. Who ever herd of a thing

         like that. But he said if I want to get smart I got to do what he says. I

         told him I dint think I was going to get smart and he puts his hand

         on my sholder and said Charlie you dont know it yet but your

         getting smarter all the time. You wont notice for a while. I think he

         was just being nice to make me feel good because I dont look any

         smarter.

"You wont notice for a while."

         June 10 Deterioration progressing. I have become absentminded.

         Algernon died two days ago...

         ...I guess the same thing is or will soon be happening to me. Now

         that it's definite, I don't want it to happen.

            I put Algernon's body in a cheese box and buried him in the

         back yard. I cried.

"I guess the same thing is or will soon be happening to me. Now that it's definite, I don't want it to happen."

         June 21 Why can't I remember? I've got to fight. I lie in bed for

         days and I don't know who or where I am.

         June 30 A week since I dared to write again. It's slipping away like

         sand through my fingers. Most of the books I have are too hard for

         me now. I get angry with them because I know that I read and

         understood them just a few weeks ago.

         July 7 1 don't know where the week went. Todays Sunday I know

         because I can see through my window people going to church. I

         think I stayed in bed all week but I remember Mrs. Flynn bringing

         food to me a few times. I keep saying over and over Ive got to do

         something but then I forget or maybe its just easier not to do what I

         say Im going to do.

         July 28 I did a dumb thing today I forgot I wasnt in Miss Kinnians

         class at the adult center any more like I used to be. I went in and sat

         down in my old seat in the back of the room and she looked at me

         funny... I said hello Miss Kinnian Im redy for my

         lesin today only I lost my reader that we was using. She startid to cry.

         ...everybody looked at me and I saw they

         wasnt the same pepul who used to be in my class.

            Then all of a sudden I remembered some things about the

         operashun and me getting smart...

That progression - from understanding to incomprehension was Lithium for me. 

And yet Charlie was able to speak his truth, sporadically as it sometimes was, and in that sense I envy him. But he had to live with the knowledge that it was irreversible and impending doom, and that is something I do not envy at all.

That round circled pill is to deliberately choose that unnoticeable path from understanding to incomprehension for me. Can you wonder that I might shudder at even the smallest amount, and balk?

Lithium, Part Two

My inner world is one of shapes - sculptures, lines, webs, rounded squares and rectangles, a distinct landscape, colors of association flashing the connections everywhere. Knowledge is brightness, ignorance is dark - metaphorical, but very organized.

Slowly, unnoticably to me, my inner world slowed and gradually crystallized into a round-edged block of brown glass. It was inexorable, and created edges and boundaries around what had been seemingly limitless space. It was heavy, dull, and it severed and suffocated those lines of connection between thought to thought, thought to action, thought to words to action. Dull lights flashed bravely in the dark, isolated, far away, unreachable, without connection.

Blink. Stop.

Feel. Stop.

Speak. Stop.

Touch. Stop.

Stop motion without motion.

Nancy Andreasen, in Secrets of the Creative Brain (http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/06/secrets-of-the-creative-brain/), talks about the "association cortices".

"To read, your brain... needs to forward those black letters on to association-cortex regions such as the angular gyrus, so that meaning is attached to them; and then on to language-association regions in the temporal lobes, so that the words are connected not only to one another but also to their associated memories and given richer meanings. These associated memories and meanings constitute a “verbal lexicon,” which can be accessed for reading, speaking, listening, and writing. Each person’s lexicon is a bit different, even if the words themselves are the same, because each person has different associated memories and meanings."

The brown crystallization blocked my ability to create those associations, until I could no longer function even as the blood tests reported "below therapeutic levels". My life (beyond breathing and sleeping) depended upon being able to make those connections, but my ability to make them was being crushed.

I could no longer even make the connections that Lithium was causing it. 

I could not connect the thoughts that I could stop, I needed someone to explain to me that I could, tell me I must.