Rants and Musings

Seems there's a lot going on with me recently. Psych stuff, MS stuff, online stuff... shit. I suppose that's all it really amounts to. A bunch of shit.

Sometimes, in life, people find something which they enjoy doing that is very productive. Works out well for them, especially if they can figure out a way to be paid for it.

When you're angry, scared, or depressed all the time, it sort of fucks with the whole "enjoyment" aspect of things. Doesn't work out too well.

There's much I should write, but jesus fucking shit CHRIST, I'm tired!!!

It's like trying to stop a landslide with toothpicks and super-glue!!!

To this day, after two and a half years, I don't have a clue what the "t" in "tblog" stands for. I settled here because my friend, Nexy, had her blog here. I wasn't sure what the "t" meant, but I thought, "hey! if it's not "trans", at least the space is trans friendly, being that Nexy's here! That means there'll be some open minded, intelligent people around! I can rest for a bit!"

...and God said, "If you run out of toothpicks, let me know."

 

I feel a need to post a link to this old entry of mine because a certain tblog member (I won't list his name. He doesn't deserve the traffic for this.) thinks that being transsexual is something which warrants inclusion in a joke... that someone outing  his transsexual brother as a tool for revenge is really fucking hilarious.

Jokes like these help to continue to dehumanize Trans and Intersexed people, and as well, encourage Homophobia. Jokes like these announce that the violence and abuse is both understandable and acceptable.

Jokes like these help to make MY life, and the lives of many people I care for a LIVING HELL.

Just thought that maybe someone might think twice before "LOL"ing again.

It was a pretty rough night. If I'm lucky, today won't be as bad. Damn migraines. Migraines are evil. "Bone pain" isn't my favorite either. My hands have been doing the whole "bone pain" thing for a few nights in a row. Not fun. The pain in my hands is one of the MS symptoms I've been dealing with the longest. It was written off as "arthritis", even when I was a young teenager, because I'd broken my hand when I was about 9 or 10. I just accepted the "diagnosis". Even when, in my twenties, I would wake up screaming from the pain, I'd just write it off. I'd figure I was just dehydrated or something. Even when I couldn't push the strings on my bass down to the fret board, I'd write it off. I was just "double jointed".

I recently read that there are doctors who still don't think that pain is a symptom of MS. I'm appalled, but not too surprised. There are doctors who still don't think that rage is either. In truth, I think that people with MS understand the disease better than any doctor out there. It's not just because we have the disease, but because we tend to research the disease. Doc has a few years, maybe an hour a day tops, and a few people he speaks with. People with MS have 24 hours a day, for as long as they've had the disease, and input from as many human beings they can get information out of. We also know what many of the various medications can do, first hand. We win... at least, in this.

I had enough energy this morning to push myself into managing a shower, changing my sheets, and taking the trash out.

REALLY BAD FUCKING IDEA.

The MS monster is beating the crap out of me for it.

There's something going on, though I'm not sure what. My mind is full of more mundane things... politics, MS info, religion, things like that. There's something bigger... more profound though.

I hear the mumbling, but I cannot make out the actual words. I cannot interpret the language.

This feeling scares me.

I don't know what's more important to mention, the fact that I'm in pain, the fact that today they're coming to do the yearly "inspection" of my apartment, or the fact that the tv is talking to me again.

I don't mind when the tv talks to me. It's just that when it whispers sweet nothings, I have to be careful.

Keep your eyes open, and don't forget to watch yourself.

To those of you who are Americans with jobs, I want to say thank you for working and paying your Social Security tax. If not for your doing that, I'd be dead. 

To those at the top who determine what is fair, I want to challenge any of you to even try to live off of what you know we, who have only our Social Security income, are trying to live off of.

woohoo. 2007 cost of living adjustment minus 2007 rent increase, provided I pass tomorrow's apartment inspection ... Thanks. I'll try not to spend the whole $22 a month in one place.

...and I'm actually doing better, financially, than most who are left to rely solely on Social Security.

Sad.

We're all working through things, from what I know. It seems that no matter how old you get, you're always still "growing up". There is no magic age where suddenly your life makes sense and you feel that you're done working on yourself. There are a few age landmarks that our various societies and cultures wave at us, but it's really a crock of shit.

You're not a "man" at 13. You're not necessarily ready to drive at 16. (I won't even touch the "age of consent thing.) 18 doesn't mean that you should be trusted with a rifle, nor does it mean you have the political world all figured out. You're not necessarily more ready to drink alcohol at 21 than you were at 12. "Middle Aged" can only be determined by your date of death. "Old" is relative.

"Grown Up" is relative.

...and I think that maybe it's transient too.

It's not really that I see happy people as "stupid" as much as it is that I see apparently happy people as "fake".

In my life, I've learned that the closer you get to people who say that they're "happy", the more you realize just how unhappy they truly are. How close a person allows you to get to them is based on how much they're willing to let you see. Usually, they save the worst for last, for fear of driving you away.

I toss out "my worst" from day one, so that I feel more confident that people won't leave me once I'm allowed to get even closer to them. I "warn" people with my words. Am I always at my worst? No, but the worst often happens.

I look for the worst in other people so that I can protect myself.

I am attracted to strong, happy people, so I often get hurt by trying to become closer to those who end up being nothing but very skilled fakers.

Live and learn.

Guess I'm not feeling too well today. The day started out alright, but then I sort of got whacked over the head by the fatigue monster.

sucks

A person is involuntarily locked up for only one of two reasons; bad luck, or being stupid. I do my best not to be stupid, as my luck isn't the best. What scares me is that the intelligent thing for me to do in this society is to hide in a hole until it makes sense to come out, and because of bad luck I do not have the ability to do that.

Recently, I have not felt comfortable writing here. I gave it some thought, and more recently came to a few conclusions. I'm posting this so that everyone knows where I'm coming from in advance, and then I can get back to feeling more comfortable about expressing myself.

A "safe space" is somewhere you can express yourself freely, and feel that you most likely won't be attacked for doing so.

Parent one - "You shouldn't feel the way you do because it makes no logical sense. Allow me to tell you what makes sense and point out how stupid I think you are." (Invalidation)

Parent two - "Now you know how I feel!" or "Other people have it just as bad or worse than you do, so you'll get no sympathy from me." (Invalidation)

Parent two (b) - cry cry cry, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, I'm such a bad parent, cry cry cry, I wish I had been more respectful to my parents when they were alive. I'm sorry that I gave you such a bad example. (Hyper-Passive Aggressive Invalidation)

My blog is my safe space, and I intend to keep it as such. If you comment in the style of either parent, I will interpret it (subconsciously or otherwise) as an attack. I know where the "delete comment" button is.

I don't keep this blog in order to argue, debate, or compete with other people. The fact that I even feel the need to post this speaks volumes.

My advice to everyone concerning this blog is to listen to Parent 3, who said, "If you don't like it, leave."

Worked out well for me.

I had a whole shit load of hits to my archives last night, according to my tblog stats page.

I'd be flattered if I thought that it was actually a human being reading them.

Looks like a bot though.

Bummer.

I cut it into little pieces and flushed it down the fucking toilet.

I'm NOT for sale.

Cunt.

There are certain sites which really fuck with my emotions. MyShpace is one of them. Just when you think you've gotten over not having a specific person in your life, there they are, existing without you. Teasing. Just when you think that you've dealt with the fact that the past is the past, it becomes the present again. Just when you're thinking that there might be a future, you start asking yourself, "Did I overlook something, or someone, in the past? Am I on the wrong road? Did I take a left when I should have taken a right? Should I make a U-turn?"

It's tough to stay in the present... it's tough to want to stay in the present when the present feels so goddamned difficult. It's tough to focus on "Once, I hurt worse than I do now." when you're in pain.

There is only one person on the planet; one person with many faces... and all those faces look exactly like your own.

It's not that my brain is completely stuck, it's just that there's a lot up there and it's not organizing itself into sentence form. I'm sure that it will, but it might take a while. Not that anyone other than myself is forcing me to write.

I have to wonder why that is. Is it simply my obsessive-compulsive tendencies which make me feel obligated to write every day? If I stand back from it and look, a lot of what I do online seems rather ritualistic. This keeps me busy, but I don't know that it really serves to benefit the quality of my life.

Used to be that I was online because I was looking for something. It was a "quest" of sorts. I dare say that I found what I was looking for. So, now what? Why I am I still here? Just because it served me well on the last quest, does that mean it will on another?

Perhaps I should first decide what it is that I am next going to seek. Then... perhaps what it is that I am next going to seek is, in fact, what I'm seeking right now.

Hope to post a bit tomorrow. Pretty beat right now though. My brother came up for a visit. I'm very glad that he did, but now I'm needing to catch my breath a bit.

I'm going to be out of touch for a bit. Don't want anyone to worry though. I'm ok. I'll be back to bitchin' here in a few days.

(My comments will be taking some time off while I'm gone. Hopefully they'll be back when I am.)

I'm guessing that my MS is getting pretty active. Despite my talks with SirThinksalot, I'm not getting very far in my attempts to get to a more functional level.

I suppose that I have to try another angle. Nessie was in my dreams a lot last night. Something about being at a parking lot or something... and something having to do with my ex. I don't remember too much, but being that Nessie was in the dream, my guess is that Nessie is here to stay. My walking with the cane is far enough etched into my subconscious that "just doing it" is not an option.

Maybe one day it will be something I can do, but right now I think that SirThinksalot has other plans. I'm not sure what they are though. Wish I did. I'd help out if I knew.

Maybe that's the whole thing though. If I knew, I might fuck everything up. That's the thing about thinking that you're helping. Sometimes what you think is help is not really help at all. Sometimes the best help you can provide is to just be available.

SirThinksalot will let me know if he needs me to do something for him.

Although I recently purged a few sites from my list, as of right now I am still trying to keep up with other people via 6 e-mail accounts, 14 message boards, 7 e-mail groups, and 143 blogs.

I should NOT be made to feel guilty if I cannot add another blog to my list, nor should I be made to feel guilty for not being able to leave comments anywhere.

I have volumes I feel like writing about all that is going through my head right now, but I can't do it. Why? Because I don't want to hurt people's feelings. Because the wrong people will take the wrong things to be about them.

I'm shaking with RAGE right now. INTENSE RAGE.

 

I found out that someone I'd known from posting on a message board passed away. Makes me feel sad, because this person was a truly nice human being. Life can be so cruel sometimes.

Makes me angry, because I found out by accident.

Makes me glad, because it helps me put into perspective this whole online thing, and how damn fickle most people really are.

I'm pretty through giving people the benefit of the doubt.

Before it was discovered (in November of 2004) that I'd had MS, most likely, since 1983, the Docktors decided that all my symptoms were caused by my having DID. I've been on (Social Security) Disability since 1994, with that (and PTSD as the "secondary diagnosis") as the reason listed. The details are too much for me to type out right now, but for those of you who do not know what DID is, here's a link to an older entry of mine. I didn't know that I had MS then, so keep that in mind... I guess.

I really have to remember to get myself one of those plastic, daily pill, box thingees. I forget whether or not I take meds, sometimes no more than five minutes after I wrote down that I did. Writing it down just doesn't work sometimes. I get too easily distracted, and go off into DUHville.

The only daily med I take is the Atenolol, and I hate that I have to take it. Not a lot of choice there though. The usual resting pulse of 120, and ridiculously high Blood Pressure, was getting to be a bit much. It's working ok, so far. My pulse dropped down to an average of 80-something, and the highest it has gotten since I started the medication was about 104. No real side effects that I can bitch about either, as long as I remember to eat. ...that's a whole 'nother topic though.

There's a lot on my mind. I'm not sure how much of it is my idealizing the past and how much of it is about my being angry about my present, but whichever it is, it doesn't feel too good.

It's taken me almost two years now, to get to the point of being able to deal with the fact that, most likely, things are not ever going to just suddenly get better. The "DID patterns" I experienced in the past are still present. It does make some sense though, it's how I learned to deal with stress from a very young age. It's how I learned to survive.

MS is stressful, among other things. Too, there are a lot of other things about just being "Cutter" which are stressful. ...things which are not going to change, because there is no way to change them. It's not for lack of want, or lack of trying, or lack of knowledge. It's just the reality.

The one thing that has changed drastically in the past couple of years, which has been the most damaging to my quality of life, is the status of my ability to walk. Before March of 2005, not only did I not need a cane, but my legs never just suddenly "went out" during the course of a day.

Being that I do not and cannot drive, not being able to walk with ease really messes up my life. If my legs were acting the way they were before March of 2005, I'd be able to be a lot more independent than I am now. The walk to the grocery store is actually a shorter walk than I used to do, at least once every week, right up until October of 2004, to go to see my therapist. Yet, in the time I've been here, I've only managed the walk twice. Twice ...in over a year. ...and not without a cane!

I have to get real here. I somehow have to get past the fear part of all of this. The fear flips a switch in my brain, and over the last couple of years I (completely subconsciously) rewired everything up there to fuck with my legs when I get scared. This is the reality... there is nothing wrong with my legs! It's in my brain!!!

I need my legs back under control. I need to somehow get past the fear. I have to somehow realize that there are doctors who understand both MS and DID. It is their job to do so. I don't have to prove to everyone just how sick I am! The government, as messed up as it is, will not, in all likelihood, suddenly boot me off of Disability because I "look fine". The rest of the world may think that I'm "faking", or "lazy", or "exaggerating", but... SO WHAT!?!? That's the way people are! They're generally unhappy, judgmental, insecure, completely ignorant, ASSHOLES.

I have to get "SirThinksalot" under control. I have to find it within myself, somehow, to relax. I have to get to the place where I know that I've been through hell, many times. Get back to the place where I can scream to the world, "Bring it on!!!" I could sure use some help. I could use a good rehab or therapist to help me with all of it, but NEWS FLASH! It's not an option right now!!!

Either you figure out a way to get back to walking without the cane, or you'll just keep spiraling downwards. No, you can't make the MS go away. No, you can't un-do a lot of the damage. So, REWIRE IT. You've done it before, so that means that it can be done again!

You want to walk around saying that you're God?

PROVE IT!

I'm pretty ok, just trying to not push myself too much. Too much crap was flying around in my head, and I didn't feel capable of handling that sort of psychocrapple without inadvertently taking it out on other people.

Hopefully I can manage to write something tomorrow... and read more than I did today.

I'm not doing too well, and so I might be sort of scarce. I'll try to read, but I don't know about saying too much.

I'm sorry.

I've been feeling really overwhelmed by my blog recently. Most of what is stressing me out has to do with tblog's "quirks". It's not just that I can't keep up with replying to my commets, it's that recently I don't even know that I have comments. I'm supposed to be notified and directed to all of my comments, but I keep finding comments I never knew were even there. ...and no, it's not my fault. I'm simply not notified by tblog, as I'm supposed to be.

Too, there's no easy way to deal with comments that are older. You have to crawl through (in my case) a few years worth of comments in order to find one, if you want to delete it. I can't just read through my blog and delete the comments I don't want there.

Obviously, it's bugging the shit out of me.

As a note though, sometimes my not replying to comments has nothing to do with having nothing to say. Sometimes it just has to do with the fact that I didn't even get the opportunity to read them.

I'm rather focused on shit stemming from... life. If you want to know just what, just go here.

So, for now... some other, recent, random thoughts...

XXXX:pXXXX

A trauma is a devastating event you continue to attempt to protect yourself from, for the rest of your life... for fear of not being able to endure it again.

XXXXXXXXX

What would happen if instead of living for today, you lived for tomorrow instead?

XXXXXXXXX

If I started your car and and sat with it in your closed garage for a few hours, I'd die. If I chain smoked a pack of cigarettes in your closet, with you in it, all you'd have to do is bathe and wash your clothing.

Any questions?

XXXXXXXXX

People who fear jury duty, and so will not register vote:

People with panic or social anxiety disorders.
People who cannot afford to miss work. (The government only pays you a few dollars a day, and the laws don't matter when it comes to people who are just looking for a reason to fire your ass.)
People who don't know how to even get to the court house.
People who are paranoid to be "on the radar".
People who do not feel that they have the right to judge another human being.
People who do not trust those who present the "evidence" and fear speaking against them.
People who have tempers and do not want to "go off" while serving.

so.... is this really FAIR? Don't ALL Americans deserve the freedom to vote without risking their well being?

Why the FUCK are you OBLIGATED to serve on a JURY? Shouldn't it be voluntary?

If I'm REALLY PISSED OFF about just having to be in the damn courtroom, and just want the trial to be over, how the FUCK can I be OBJECTIVE???!!!

XXXXXXXXX

I deleted what I first wrote here because if I posted it, you would deny it, and you? You would completely fall apart. That would make ME the bad guy, for saying something about what happened to me because of what you didn't do, even though you told me that you would do it.

XXXXXXXXX

I don't have enough beer.

 

I do NOT play "comment tag", nor will I ever hit your blog because I see a line from you on tblurt which reads, "plz" anything. I take writing this blog VERY seriously, and am very selective while I decide which blogs to actually read and/or promote.

If you don't read what I write, and don't even have it in you to spell out "thank you" or "please",  when you are asking something of people... I don't want your hits, I don't need your hits, and I have no immediate desire to know you. If you come by here and leave a random comment on my blog, your comment will be deleted. Don't come here just to get more people to come to your blog. It's rude. It's no better than spam, and it annoys the piss out of me.

...and by the way, your tits won't get you anywhere in my world.