diff --git a/content/news/2019-10-10-heavy-shit.md b/content/news/2019-10-10-heavy-shit.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f6ba1d --- /dev/null +++ b/content/news/2019-10-10-heavy-shit.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +date: 2019-10-10 +title: Heavy shit +--- + +This took forever to write. + + + +> You had lots going on. + +Well, still. Even if I had lots going on, it would have been nice to have actually gotten some more done. + +> Also, you're depressed. + +That too. + + + +### New content + +* [Suicide](/self-harm/suicide) + +### Updated content + +* Added some stuff to [agony and ecstasy](/agony-and-ecstasy) diff --git a/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/audio.md b/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/audio.md index 6d98adc..53c4442 100644 --- a/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/audio.md +++ b/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/audio.md @@ -3,3 +3,5 @@ type: single --- + + diff --git a/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/text.md b/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/text.md index 1ac9029..7300d88 100644 --- a/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/text.md +++ b/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/text.md @@ -86,3 +86,12 @@ In the cedar-limbs. ### See also * [Winter](https://ericwhitacre.com/music-catalog/winter) by Edward Esch +* *House of Leaves* by Mark Z Danielewski (of course) +* *S* by J J Abrams and Doug Dorst +* *Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish: a Novel* by David Rakoff +* *Pattern Recognition* by William Gibson +* *The Pharmako/ Trilogy* by Dale Pendell +* *The Ocean at the End of the Lane* by Neil Gaiman +* *The Tao Te Ching* by Lao Tzu, translated by Stephen Mitchell +* *The Bucketrider* by Franz Kafka +* *Ecclesiastes* diff --git a/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/video.md b/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/video.md index d0e7e41..35a5715 100644 --- a/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/video.md +++ b/content/poet-and-mystic/agony-and-ecstasy/video.md @@ -4,6 +4,15 @@ type: single + + + + + + + + ### See also * [ANIMA](https://www.netflix.com/title/81110498) +* The rest of *Samsara* diff --git a/content/self-harm/suicide/001.md b/content/self-harm/suicide/001.md index c896ddd..18e1e1d 100644 --- a/content/self-harm/suicide/001.md +++ b/content/self-harm/suicide/001.md @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ weight: 1 On March 21st, 2012, I tried to kill myself. -It's amazing how such a simple statement of fact reflects, months of strange tension, slow recovery, and a whole lot of trying to understand what really happened. It's not a comfortable thing for anyone to discuss, but it's one of those things I need to discuss, need to get off my chest. A little too much of what makes life meaningful for me now is wrapped up in that one night. +It's amazing how such a simple statement of fact reflects, months of strange tension, slow recovery, and a whole lot of trying to understand what really happened. It's not a comfortable thing for anyone to discuss, but it's one of those things I need to discuss, need to get off my chest. A little too much of what makes life meaningful for me now is wrapped up in that one night. > Even now? diff --git a/content/self-harm/suicide/002.md b/content/self-harm/suicide/002.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..288bcd9 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/self-harm/suicide/002.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +--- +date: 2019-09-29 +weight: 2 +--- + +It's not really so much that I have the need to write about what happened, even, as that, after something of such import, I feel the need to expose myself through writing, to force ideas out into the open whether or not they actually have anything to do with what's going on. + +> It goes beyond a desire. It becomes a necessity. + +Creativity, it seems, is one of those things where, the more you put it to use, the more you *must* use it. + +> After a certain point, it forces itself upon you. Hits you like a ton of bricks. + +Yes. + +I toyed with how to write about something like this for a few months after it happened before hammering out a five thousand word essay. + +> You planned on an additional ten thousand. + +In this case, after all, I felt the need to actually write about what really happened. I tried the whole "write about something else" thing and it didn't work; it didn't relieve that pressure within myself that needed to be released. + +> You tried venting little bits of it here and there on twitter, on Facebook. + +It didn't work. It kept the pressure from becoming unbearable, perhaps, but only for a few days. After that, the weight of it --- of how easy it was, of how quickly you snapped to, of how badly you could have fucked up --- became too intense to ignore once again. + +So. + +I tried to kill myself on March 21st, 2012. It was, as the epigram said, not a big deal; it was just my big deal. diff --git a/content/self-harm/suicide/003.md b/content/self-harm/suicide/003.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c840d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/self-harm/suicide/003.md @@ -0,0 +1,52 @@ +--- +date: 2019-09-29 +weight: 3 +--- + +I'll be honest, I stole the concept of *thisness*, the phrase, "See, it is doing *this* now" from a science fiction book. + +> I honestly expected nothing less. + +I suspect that Neal Stephenson got it from elsewhere, too. I think he basically admits as much, in that he was talking about Husserl at the time. Still, it's proven handy. + +The biggest thing I've taken away from therapy has been an increased sense of self awareness. The ability to say "ah, I am doing *this* now." It is the *thisness* of myself. The *thisness* of my mind. I am able to see myself dipping down into the well of depression. I'm able to see the hypomania that starts to creep into my mind, into my life, and forces me to bury myself in projects. + +> Like this one. + +Yes. That's why I'm moving so much more slowly with it now. I have slid off the pedestal and into the slow morass of depression. I can feel it coloring my life with anhedonia. + +> Not coloring, no. Sapping the color. Not even black-and-white, but an absense. A missingness. + +Yes. + +> But you didn't have this back then. You didn't have the thisness of mental health. You weren't able to see what was going on. + +Yes. I was having panic attacks from day to day. I was caught up in those rising swells of anxiety that would lead to me freezing. Occaisonally, I would have to stop in a rest area on my way home just to calm down enough to continue driving. + +> That's when you started your habit of asking others to tell you good things. + +"Tell me good things," I'd say, and I'd get a slew of responses. Many were along the lines of "You! You're good!" + +> But you weren't able to internalize that. + +Not then, no. Not back then, and especially not during panic attacks. + +Some of them would be "A good thing is that I had a good day at work." That was what I needed to hear. I needed to hear that others were having a good day. I needed to hear that others were *capable* of having good days. I needed to hear that good days were possible, and that I might be in line for one, myself. + +My boss picked up on that, as well as so many other things. "You're so angry," he said. "You're scaring the project manager at times." So he sent me to a psychiatrist. + +> He handed you a check for a thousand dollars and said, "I know it's expensive, so hopefully this helps you out." You never cashed it. + +Doctor Johnston was a pretty good doctor. He had his problems, sure. + +> You fired him when, after you asked him for a letter of support for hormones, he said, "I don't know enough about that, and you don't even want to know my feelings about it." + +Well, yes, but there's no denying the utility of what he gave me. + +> He gave you exactly what you brought to the table, except with context. + +Yes. I brought my anxiety to the table, and he taught me about it. He spoke my words back to me and added footnotes. He wrote in the margins of my speech and I learned. + +> You brought your anxiety, but not your depression. You thought you just had anxiety, not any mood disorders. Despite years of experience, you didn't tell him about how you felt. + +No, and there's the problem. diff --git a/content/self-harm/suicide/004.md b/content/self-harm/suicide/004.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eadf8fd --- /dev/null +++ b/content/self-harm/suicide/004.md @@ -0,0 +1,24 @@ +--- +date: 2019-10-04 +weight: 4 +--- + +When I first started therapy, I did what I thought was the right thing by bringing an open mind. It wasn't enough for me to seek help, I had to be told what was wrong with me. So anxious was I to not diagnose myself, I had to let someone do the work to pry the symptoms from me. + +I didn't tell Dr Johnston that I was feeling bad. I told him my boss told me I was angry. I didn't tell him that I was depressed, I told him that James was worried about how anxious I was. + +> And so you got treated for anxiety. + +And so I got treated for anxiety. I was given clonazepam to take daily and lorazepam for breakthrough anxiety. + +> You have always had issues with control. You always needed to be on top of a situation. + +And all my deepest fears, all of those things I would ruminate on during a panic attack, would surround the fact that I wasn't in control of a situation, yes. It made sense to treat the anxiety. + +> It hurt. + +Yes. I was given a long-acting anxiolytic and a more powerful, shorter-lasting one for breakthrough anxiety. When things hurt, they calmed and soothed the pain. They removed it. + +> They removed a lot more than just the pain of panic. + +Yes. diff --git a/content/self-harm/suicide/005.md b/content/self-harm/suicide/005.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..009cd25 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/self-harm/suicide/005.md @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +--- +date: 2019-10-07 +weight: 5 +--- + +The problem of working with clients on a task with a specified end-goal, one that is finished and about which you can say, "ah, it does *this* now", is that when the project is done, there is nothing left. + +> This is a problem with any task. This is a grander problem. + +Yes, even with self-appointed tasks, even with tasks at a non job-shop. It happened just recently, too. I finished my time at IA. I got home from visiting Barac. I got the contract signed at NV. + +If you hit a deadline and succeed, or if you have some work travel, or if you get home from a vacation, suddenly there's this empty bit of your future where there used to be this thing. There's just a void there. A sudden lack of weight. + +> And so you finished the release at work and also finished the office move in one fell swoop, and went home. + +I went home and took my meds like a good girl, and then proceeded to dissociate right through the evening. + +Dissociation is a hell of a drug. + +> It's a dreamy thing. It's a soft thing. It's a cottony thing. It's a muffled thing. It's watching your hands move. It's watching yourself breathe. It's feeling the air move in and out of you with a distant, slightly confused detachment. It's "ah, it does **this** now", except saying that about some strange machine which is not yourself. + +I watched myself sit down in my chair. I watched myself turn on *Babylon 5*. I watched myself mow through two glasses of gin. + +> You watched yourself with a metaphysical quirk of the eyebrow as you reached forward, grabbed the box of X-acto wood-carving tools, and flipped it open. You watched numbly as you slashed open the inside of your arm. There was a moment where you marveled at how long it took for the blood to well up, where you could see the white of subcutaneous fat. + +And then the pain snapped me to. diff --git a/content/self-harm/suicide/006.md b/content/self-harm/suicide/006.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb94056 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/self-harm/suicide/006.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +date: 2019-10-08 +weight: 6 +--- + +Okay, I lied. Just a little bit. + +> Yes. You didn't dissociate through the entire thing. There was no small part of that scene that was horribly, terrfyingly intentional. + +What really woke me up was watching this person-who-was-me somehow go into 'fuck it' mode and tear the shit out of his right arm from one end to the other with a very sharp, very new razor blade. + +It was like the rush of coming to your senses after a nightmare, the pulling forward and the re-anchoring, the flood of adrenaline in preparation for flight. + +It wasn't necessarily the cut that woke me. It was the second or so before when I entered that 'fuck it' mode, and I was too slow, too confused and frightened to stop this person-who-was-me from pulling the ultimate embarrassing act: trying to commit suicide while watching a dumb '90s science fiction show. + +> It was a slow awakening. You weren't just too slow, you were not fully awake yet. The dream of dissociation was still clinging, gauzy, to you. + +
V +I do not know which to prefer, +The beauty of inflections +Or the beauty of innuendoes, +The blackbird whistling +Or just after.
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