The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Where are you and where are you going?
ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

I feel sort of tangled and drowning a bit.

As I said above I do think I have borderline "symptoms" or as various psychs and therapists have said--"traits." I typically do not mention this as, strangely enough, bipolar has far less stigma than any personality disorder even though personality disorders are actually treatable in a way that you can be in complete remission from them. In reality, I believe what is called "quiet borderline" --and actually, in my prepubescent and pubescent years did have "loud" or whatever the opposite is with very real, scary things that I did that I will not detail here. But ultimately, I went through some sort of reckoning, filled with guilt, and since then it has always been a very inward feeling, except for the fact that I frequently ghost friends and nuke entire social networks. (but I do not do so dramatically, instead I quietly block people without warning and cut off contact completely, so there is no room for drama).

Why am I bringing that up now? Because it feeds into bipolar and bipolar feeds into it. My current psych just says its "trauma" and "traits" because we all know that he doesn't want to throw BPD at me--that's like a death sentence for a woman. (BTW I think crazy-ex girlfriend is the single best show about mental health in general, but especially BPD).

Anyways, what will happen is this: I will use today's drama for reference. Gardening outside, large dog comes up and spills all my coffee, don't care I love dogs. Quickly grab a leash and go around the neighborhood looking for people--braless and without shoes. Get lots of weird looks. Realize I look deranged so go back inside to get bra and shoes, all the dogs get into a fight and M breaks it up. Dog pisses on me and M gets angry because I am now tracking piss into the house. Yells at me and I leave and find dogs owner. Come back inside and M's door is closed (this is a sign to stay away because he is angry).

So what do I do? My mind spirals to "what did I do wrong?" because in my mind, M is not just irritated, he absolutely hates me and I am now a worthless human being. I am trying to figure out how tracking dog pee into the house makes me a worthless human being. Instead of rationally realizing that I am not a worthless human being, I then think of all of the people who have treated me like I'm worthless and every awful things that has been said it me and I now fall into suicidal despair as I can't imagine how I will ever fix how absolutely worthless I am.

This is not something that M sees, I am alone sobbing in a bathroom and M is blissfully unaware. Instead I simply give him the cold shoulder and refuse to talk to him because I am terrified that even one word will have me break into tears which is embarrassing and I dislike showing emotions this way.

The stress of these episodes (which I believe are more BPD in nature) can then send me into an actual bipolar episode and they usually do unless I take emergency steps (usually benzos lol). Stress = bipolar episode and BPD makes every day occurences into re-experiencing the worst trauma you've had in your life (very stressful).

But what they also do is send me into strange dissociative leftovers of fantasies that are deeply imbedded into my psyche. This is more like an after shock--after days up to a week of feeling absolute hopeless despair, I switch into fantasy world. These fantasies generally take on a trad-wife nature. I believe because my home life was so miserable and unpredictable as a child that my dream in this scenario, and a way to escape any abandonment or pain in the future, is some 1950's era home where I have complete control of everything down to the dust on my curtains. -queue manic cleaning, exercising, and spending sprees.

Why am I writing this in an ERE journal? Number one because I have received a lot of great feedback on my journal in regards to mental health issues and I think it's something this community may be lacking. Secondly because it is, by and large, the biggest reason I ruin my spending goals. These dissociative episodes end in consumption as I think that having the perfect home, perfect set of pie dishes, perfect set of (whatever) will solve my emotional problems. This is not a conscious decision I make, it truly is a personality shift and it's scary to undergo as I come back a week or more later and wonder why on earth I spent $1,000 on new curtain, a sewing machine, and a collection of expensive home-made bath bombs.

I believe that many people go through something similar--but especially men, will refuse to look at how it's impacting them as a sign of weakness and resorts in other awful sufferings bordering from binge drinking, eating, to obsession with self improvement in an unrealistic and often guilt-filled nature that can never be lived up to.

Therapists do not seem to help very much with this if you are self-aware, as therapy--at least in my experience, is all about bringing you to awareness. Therapists try and hint at bringing me to awareness until I outright list all of the problems, reason for the problems, and impacts of the problems--and they are at a loss as they can not bring you actionable steps for such deeply rooted and complex problems. This is why I would like to focus on self led therapy.

I've found a resource on reddit of all places that has been paramount in helping me figure things out. One of such posts is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ResponsibleRec ... _identity/, but this user is a gold mine and has a website as well. He is also bipolar and BPD. and talks a lot about victim identity and learned helplessness. As of yet, I don't have a way to stop or even ease these episodes. The closest I've gotten to help is through Pete Walker's discussion of "emotional flashbacks"--here http://www.pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htm

Ultimately, it is a long and hard process of relearning a reality that did not exist as children. If, as a chid, you learned that love and human connection was synonymous with abandonment and fear, it is very hard to retrain your brain as an adult. But my only path forward is to be able to do just that.

This requires either being single or having an extremely patient partner. My partner was not always extremely patient, and it is also 100% okay for your partners/friends/etc to say that it is too much for them. That is a boundary that they are allowed to have. If that is the case, it is not your responsibility to change their mind but instead your responsibility to take the time to heal so that you are not outsourcing all of your emotional needs onto another person.

For this reason, I am investing quite a bit of money into restarting DBT therapy. My journal for some time may be about managing my illness in this way as I don't think I can progress until I can get this under control (and I will say I have made tremendous progress--even a year ago the above situation would potentially have me convincing myself that my partner is actually an evil person and that I need to leave him ASAP, which led to impulsive out of state moves and such as a need to escape).

Mental health is both genetic, biological, and environmental. Ignoring any one of these issues will not solve these problems. Medicine alone doesn't help, neither does engaging in healthy habits which are bound to fall apart during an episode unless you can self regulate. I acutally believe the biggest impact medicine has, for me personally, is that it blunts my immediate responses in these situations (hmm sort of like a buffer and a way to decouple, at least a little bit, in Jacob's language).

But ultimately these blips continue to happen. If I feel my mother is headed towards another episode, then a client yelling at me for being worthless can bring up these feelings. I will, quite literally, internalize anyones frustration and anger as a sign of my own worthlessness. This makes complete since if you realize that as children, we egotistically believe in magical thinking. "X happened because I did Y" which could be "I cry so I get rewarded" to "Mom is on a bender because I was annoying." Those who have had traumatic childhoods often do not progress beyond these very basic stages of human understanding, and so we are perpetually left with egocentric self hatred. This is amplified even more in religious trauma where now, instead of your mother being mad at you, God is punishing you. And each punishment ends in "what did I do wrong to make God angry."

This is also why I'm addicted to online spaces with para-social relationships that I can nuke at will without warning anytime I want. That is a level of control not available in deep social networks IRL.

Action steps for me:

Journaling
-rereading Pete Walker's "From Surviving to Thriving"
-signing back up for DBT
-meditation
-exercising (exercising tends to release the sharpest parts of these emotions)
-investing in massages. I don't care how "woo" it is, human contact, that is physical, is extremely healing. And the "unwoo" science of this can be read in "The Body Keeps the Score"

-----------
ERE wise
I have half of my paycheck going to an unrelated bank account that I have no access to with a high interest rate.
Continuing to max out 401k
no credit cards

M and I have decided CO is where we will end up. This is likely 1-2 years away. I will not move until we have saved enough for a home. This may not be ERE, but having a home to call my own is one of my biggest priorities. Homes are one of my biggest passions, especially old, historic homes. We can luckily buy on the outskirts of Denver where prices are not insane, but will still need to save up quite a bit. I have no idea if housing prices will continue to rise which will help somewhat in the sell of this house, but also means we need to aggressively save to live in Denver regardless. The stress of living in a red state has been getting heavier and heavier. The recent abortion ban sent me into a similar dissociative state as the one I talk about above.

Besides studying for the CFP, I am also trying my hand at freelance writing. I have no idea where to start or how, but I suppose that's how it goes. I'm... almost embarassingly starting an instagram for the offchance it will get big enough to lead to a blog where people will actually read what I write. However, I need to work at my writing--specifically outlining and editing instead of usual word-vomit.

My dream world would be to get by on my writing and creative projects alone, live in the mountains (or near), and be a perpetual student. Is that realistic? Likely not. But I can work towards it. M's decision to move to CO--even though it involves some trauma for him (I left him and hooked up with very shady characters at one point)--is a very huge development and proves more than anything that I am in fact progressing enough for him to have some trust in me. Likewise, I find my irritability and anger is rightfully placed in "i am irritable and angry" instead of "he is a terrible person that makes me irritable and angry.

I understand that this post may divorce me from some who read as it shows some very ugly sides of me, but what the hell I can't be much more vulnerable than proving my episodes through writing--might as well acknowledge and address their sources.

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Alphaville
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by Alphaville »

i was reading and i ran into this
ellarose24 wrote:
Fri May 28, 2021 9:00 pm
So what do I do? My mind spirals to "what did I do wrong?" because in my mind, M is not just irritated, he absolutely hates me and I am now a worthless human being.
amd i had to stop a second and yell

that's totally bpd! :lol:

and no it's not the big incurable people used to think it was hahaha

anyway more later once i read calmly, but from skimming: good for you resuming dbt. i hope your shrink is a good one,

ok now i go on to fill in the rest of the info i evidently skipped... but yeah that was totally bpd :D

courage!

--

ps- yay denver! [extra comment deleted to avoid "politics"] :D

ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

Alphaville wrote:
Fri May 28, 2021 9:09 pm
i was reading and i ran into this



amd i had to stop a second and yell

that's totally bpd! :lol:

and no it's not the big incurable people used to think it was hahaha

anyway more later once i read calmly, but from skimming: good for you resuming dbt. i hope your shrink is a good one,

ok now i go on to fill in the rest of the info i evidently skipped... but yeah that was totally bpd :D

courage!

--

ps- yay denver! [extra comment deleted to avoid "politics"] :D
Thanks :) It is very difficult in mental health communities because there is a very big problem with self-diagnosing...but there is also a problem with psychs/therapists being unwilling to diagnose. BPD, for instance, is typically not diagnosed unless you have aa history of threatening suicide and multiple hospital stays because of it. Those who are better at managing symptoms (or perhaps just hiding) go without diagnoses because practitioners believe the stigma is not worth it. On the other end of this spectrum are people's twitter profiles that list diagnoses as badges of honor and identity without having set foot in a therapists office.

Qazwer
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by Qazwer »

DBT treatment if you can find it is amazing. The results are great for a lot of diagnoses. Cognitive behavioral therapy(CBT) is often considered 1st wave therapy. DBT which is a team based approach is part of third wave of treatments. It includes CBT but merges multiple other threads. The stigma from BPD comes from old school CBT is just not that great at treating it. DBT was built for it. Linnehan describes how her struggles with BPD led to her creation.

ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

Sigh, all roads lead to me picking up the pieces again.

Focus: Environment and health for now.

Needed improvements: I have largely stopped eating and coffee intake is at the point where I am getting sick in the afternoons, losing weight rapidly. My environment is currently: hellscape.

I don't really feel like elaborating, just that I'm kind of at the trough on the depressive end and making my way back to functioning (or at least thinking about it).

The hardest part for me seems to be the obsessions that come and go, I don't really know who I am unless I'm mid episode and very focused on something. When I veer into depression and then come out of it, I feel sort of like a shell. Lol, I've always felt this way. Imagine the shells which hermit crabs inhabit are sentient, and all they can do is observe where they are taken and eventually left. As a child even, I often felt like I was simply a "Vessel" for what I at the time said were souls but now understand are moods--meaning my perceptions and moods change so rapidly and drastically that it often felt like another mind was inhabiting my body, though memories and such would stay in tact.

Things that, no matter the episode, can be focused on and not argued out of any change to philosophy/ideology (which happens frequently during episodes): Health, cleanliness, erm, what else? I can argue myself out of discipline and into hedonism if I want.

During one episode, I kept repeating to myself "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace etc" as a mantra and it kind of grounded in me in a way and directed my episode in a more positive manner and... in a direction at all. I think having a sort of mantra that encapsulates some positive things to work towards regardless of mood/obsessions may be a good idea.

M seems to be checked out momentarily, understandably so--it is bothersome because it would be so much easier if I had some support during these moments (support meaning someone directing me towards healthy activities and very firmly telling me to stop engaging in unhealthy)--but I think he is borderline traumatized from previous episodes and his way of dealing is to check out. This is understandable and I must respect it and learn to rely on myself.

I seem to be finding philosophy an easier way to understand my experience than psychiatry. Someone just linked me to Lacan and I feel some coherence in thought there https://youtu.be/UBhYq7HqLXo

I do think that people with my disorder, or mix of disorders, whatever it is exactly that is going on in my subconscious, conscious, and neurochemistry--have a very unique experience of being left with the "real" which Lacan describes, quite frequently as episodes rip away identity. That is, the realization of the absence of any coherent self. It also makes me extremely wary of people who have a very strict sense of self, makes me afraid of defensiveness, projection, etc. It is one of the reasons I tend to run away from others after first idealizing them. "They know everything! Wait, no they do not--they are human and empty like me--they are a fraud and they scare me" (yes this may be borderline symptoms who knows.) I sometimes think that all of these neuroses and symptoms are perhaps from understanding the reality of the world in a way others do not--oh that is probably delusional.

I do think advertising and consumption is a symptom of something far, far greater than just a sick society, and I haven't yet figured it out. In college I struggled as my faith in religion began to deteriorate. Because I felt that replacing "perfection" outside of humanity--as something that can only exist through supernatural mystical experience to instead something that should be achieved through strictly human effort is ultimately detrimental. Perhaps more detrimental that religion itself. Because I believe the human mind still tries to find the ideal, and yet consumerism places that ideal onto ourselves instead. So that we quite literally worship ourselves, picking up bits of identity to adorn ourselves with almost as if an offering in worship. Is the mirror the new gilded calf? It is hard not to, despite lacking belief, to not want to go back to religion, where identity was not worshiped and internalized as desire for perfection, but instead perfection was something only achieved through mystical grace of non-human experience.

Ah, it seems I'm rambling. Too much time spent journaling, reading philosophy, and old college journals.

Money spent--I went to a fair two days ago, it was lovely and I cried at being around music and people after being shut in for over a year. But I also began to feel overwhelmed, and left exhausted and irritated at my sense feeling assaulted. I have been ordering coffee which is really quite stupid as I have a coffee machine--but my antipsychotics go up and up and up, which makes my willpower in the morning non-existant in drug-hazed state. There are many ways I could offset this, for instance programming coffee in the morning and moving back into room. But ultimately I need to stop drinking coffee altogether as I am actually throwing up from coffee intake in the afternoons and my appetite is repressed to the point that I am not eating at all. I fall into self pity with "MEDS MAKE ME NEED COFFEE" but I bet if I quite coffee, I could reduce meds (at some point far in the future) as coffee is truly exacerbating every single bad symptoms I have.

The habits I have for myself have sort of dwindled back to "take meds at X time every day and sleep by X time every day." Once i have that down, other steps can be built back upon.

I really have nothing left to do but take it day at a time. I think I may need to add more meds as seroquel alone is no longer cutting it.

that is it, I promised myself that ERE--in whatever way I come to it--is a worthy goal, yet I feel the desire to run away from it again as I continuously fail. But I suppose the failures are less and less extreme, though embarrassing all the same.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

I appreciate your posts even if I don't have anything helpful to reply. As always I wish you all the best.

If you don't mind saying, what is a typical cycle? Made up example: up one week, down three weeks, neither eight weeks.

ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

I am not really sure to be honest because I don't know I'm in a cycle until the very end of one (as in right now) and at the tail end of one--the last week or so, my memory is shot. I know it's ending when I start getting borderline comatose and extremely tired.

This last one was I suppose two months of stability, a month (maybe less or more?) of hypomania (I believe this started around the time the AC thing was going on), last 2 weeks have descended into what is called a mixed episode which is hell on earth and usually where my episodes end (Energy of mania, but irritability, depression, anger, sensory input overload).

It is very hard because about 90% of the time stability eventually ends in hypo/mania. Where that line crosses I'm never quite sure.

ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

Mental illness is very hard to decipher because there are both (what is theorized and widely accepted) chemical and neurological *things* happening while also those things focusing and being filtered by the reality of your life.

For me, this seems to focus on: Rebellion followed by terror and then a fearful self-herding back to societal norms.

I start with disgust at society--I'm angry, at something. Usually good things to be angry about! Like Consumerism, men, uh.... "society." What's to like there. I explore these ideas and they are sort of fun, I feel empowered, who needs (normal) life and (normal) people? Maybe I'm better than that! Look at this world, it's sick and I *know* how to save myself, plus this is fun and fuck all of you!

Have you ever, (in an inexperienced manner) gone bouldering up a mountain? I did it quite a bit when I lived in CO> Not rock-climbing, just scrambling and grabbing and pushing yourself up large jutting, ancient rocks that have broken off the mountain and tumbled down.

The way up, (for inexperienced me) at least is filled with a sort of glee. People get smaller, you get higher, confidence increases--plans aren't needed, just a large pushing away from and into the mass of the mountain.

But the way down, for me at least, usually involved actual tears. No more pushing up and away, you are now subject to gravity, in fact you have to be a friend to gravity, work with it. It's pulling you, you're hopping onto sloped, slick rock, holding yourself up between crevices until your foot feels surface again. Gravity was just your enemy and now you must play nice.

All of a sudden, a PLD doesn't seem so stupid. In fact coming bouldering at all seems stupid. Why didn't you go to a nice lodge and order steak and wine? Why not go on a guided horseback excursion? Why didn't you buy some god damned boots that have better ankle support?

And that's where I ultimately wind up. Engaging in whatever obsession, pushing myself out of my current reality--but once I get high enough, I begin to remember gravity--I notice I didn't pack enough water, theres no cell service, my elbows are bleeding, I'm really not in good shape to begin with, what the hell was I thinking?

And perhaps both figuratively and literally I squeak "mommy?"

Oh no, uh oh, I'm not normal. None of this was a good idea. How do I get back down or--at the height of my mania--how do I integrate back into society?

------

I had deep fantasies as a child for a normal life. I felt very safe with my WASP friends, and I *was* safe. We did normal things--played in pools (supervised), went to movies, ate at the family dinner table. My home was largely isolation, witch doctors, demons, microwaveable pancakes.

And so normal became something that I both deeply resented as well as desperately hoped for. Metaphorically, these nice blips of domestic bliss were lodges deep in the mountains that were driven to--to enjoy the mountains in view only, and my home life was not me bouldering up a mountain, but hanging and pushing myself up onto a ledge, with site of the lodges below, but desperately pushing away from them for survival.

So now--at the top of my obsessions, in my mania, (my whatever diagnostic tool must be used to describe the vast experience of a life that is otherwise incomprehensible to me or society)--I glance a reflections and see my mother staring back at me. And seeing my mother, I also see myself frightened and terrified and grasping onto a ledge, pushing away from society, pushing up into survival, it isn't fun anymore.

The problem is that mania and previous experience taints any ability of mine to explore the world away from WASP-hood. I keeping finding ERE, obsessing, then feeling fear with what it could reflect (same with feminism or really any thing that pushes from status quo).

I'm very tired, and in my tiredness, I would like nothing more than to relax in a calm and soothing valley, observe the relative magic of functional living, the safety of privilege.

I want to live like that--how do I live like that? Mow the lawn, shave my legs, buy nice clothes, engage in corporate politics, shop at farmer's markets, maybe even go to church :shock:

It is this phase in which most people tell me I am most stable. But it not that I feel calm and grounded--it is the reflection on the way up that I saw and that terrified me, and reminded me of gravity, and made me vow to never go bouldering again. (Oh man, I'm mixing all kinds of metaphors here and I'm not sure how that's working out). Its a desire to focus on experiences that are safe, comfortable, NORMAL. I just want to be normal! Until I see my reflection again and low and behold my mother is there, but now instead of fear I feel hatred and anger at the people that trapped her and I and later abandoned us. And I make new plans to make them all tiny insignificant dots gain as I go, unprepared, climbing into my next identity.

I can not feasibly make change when I am operating out of fear, anger, or past paradigms that I have been taught. And yet learning new ones seems rather impossible. I think this is the reason I can not operate the way Jacob does, making changes immediately and intensively--those fill me with fear even if they are fun at first. I need to practice first, build up strength, chart my path before haphazardly jumping and running away--or running to--the place in which I'm clinging off the side of the cliff in fear. The goal I think would be an excursion meant not as a single experience to come back from, but as a path to a new foundation. I have been focusing too much on the climbing, and not on the foundation that I ultimately would like to rest on. I go headfirst out of fear and excitement and rebellion, thinking nothing of the end point but only of getting far away and making my current reality small enough that I can no longer see it. Until that terrifies me and I scramble back with my tail between my legs.

I need the right tools, I need strength, I need a plan, I need to stop ending up in a place where I'm hanging off a ledge. I need to end up with feet firmly planted at a destination that I set out for, with everything needed to make at least semi-permanent camp. If I make my way up or down, it should be with purpose and intention, and a desire to build--not to run, rebel, or dissociatively take pleasure in making reality unrecognizable.

That is all. I'm not out of the woods yet (or uh... down the mountain?) I suppose I must do that first, get some ground underneath me, and then begin to plan. Plan realistically for what I am capable of, but with hope too.

Currently, I am spending all of my energy playing nice with gravity while secretly cursing its existence.

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Alphaville
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by Alphaville »

ellarose24 wrote:
Wed Jun 02, 2021 12:38 am
(Oh man, I'm mixing all kinds of metaphors here and I'm not sure how that's working out).
i don't have a lot to say right this minute, except you're a damn good poet, and you write very well.

this is valuable work. keep it up.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

For what its worth, the activity you are describing can be called scrambling or 4th class climbing. Bouldering refers to a different type of climbing where you are never very far off the ground and don't ascend a mountain. Pointing this out not to be pedantic but because the terms you are using are the same words but have different meanings to rock climbers.

ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

Hello my friends,

I am once again here to apologize for the mess that you have witnessed.

Anyways.

It was, how long, 2-3 weeks of me being completely out of commission? By this I mean, I had started chain smoking cigarettes, writing non-sense (not just here, everywhere I could), ordering fast food, sleeping occasionally, coffee to the point of nausea.

I quit smoking 4 days ago, and have been feeling very sick since then--extreme nausea, I cannot really explain how I feel except like there is metal in the back of my skull--cold and sharp and painful. I tried to go on a walk to "get back" into any semblance of health, and a 20 minute walk has somehow pulled the muscle connecting my thigh to my hip.

I believe that the amount of energy I experience puts a lot of wear and tear on my body. For instance, I believe that I am constantly clenching my muscles, I noticed my Heart Rate was going up, peaking in the 90s for a couple of days, and has now come down to low 70s. I just feel sort of cold, brittle, rusty.

My brain feels strange as well, I am yelling out emotions, almost like a tic--SCARED! SAD! SCARED! It is really odd.

I found something called dark therapy which I have started myself on. Room is pitch black, not even the light of smoke detector, blue light glasses at 6 PM. Stay in total darkness until 8 AM. It seems to be working.

Other than that my body just seems to be shot. Extreme fatigue, nausea, brittle feeling. A lot of random bruises, wake up itching as if bitten by ants, and pulling muscles from... walking!

Lol, okay. Well I'm starting over. To be honest, I really am not that upset about anything. I've gone through this so many times. I mean, of course I'm motivated to find a way to stop it, if not I would probably give up. My psych seems to have given up, and I'm okay with that. I am going to try dark therapy, and just focus on being as healthy as I possibly can.

Right now, I'm not worried about spending money on anything besides fast food. And indeed, I have $1300 on my credit card from fast food, as well as some purchases at the heigh of it all. I thought I would go to a golf tournament and "network" and bought $700 of Ralph Lauren clothes???? Um. I have returned all but the socks, but have not received a refund yet. Instead of going to the golf tournament, I went to an amusement park instead. LOL.

It honestly feels good to be so tired, and I'm grateful I can't really walk right now. I feel cozy, just laying in bed watching comfy movies like Black Beauty and cuddling with my dogs. If I am seeking gratitude, I am grateful simply for the wide range of experience that I am given. It does allow me perspective, empathy, and a knowing uncertainty that goes with me everywhere. I especially like the knowing uncertainty, understanding how easy it is for the brain to change it's mind, or take you for a ride, I think this helps me not have a large ego (unless in that state) and also gives me some perspective on those who also spiral. Erm, I just think humans are so frail, as are their thoughts, and I like that I am intimately aware of this. It helps me love them even though sometimes they seem depraved and evil.

The good thing is, my medicine seems to be keeping me from the depths of depression (the very bad stuff). I get little blips, but they are talked away. I mostly just feel very, very tired. Sort of uncomfortable, but okay.

My networth went up $5000 in the last month simply because of the market. I have credit cards to pay off--which I can, but no fun.

Because of... the way I am... I have half of my paycheck going to a savings account that is not attached to my bank. If I cannot afford to pay off my credit cards with the remainder that goes to my bank, I am not pulling from that savings account. I need to, ultimately, feel the pain of my decisions. Once these cards are paid off, I am completely getting rid of them. I do not care about the benefits they provide. Amazon's reward system makes this difficult, but I think it is necessary.

It is very hard to work, but somehow I only took--I think 1 day off so far. I'm not really doing good at work, but I'm there, so that's something. My CFP material have left untouched since the first day I received them. That is fine, I'm not pressuring myself with it now.

I feel as if I may have... um, I don't know. I feel as if my partner might be disappointed and a little frightened. Given other episodes have had much more negative impact. Actually, this one seems pretty tame though I do feel like I'm in ruins again. But I didn't do anything like quit my job and move to a different state, nor did I break up with him even though I wanted to. So that is a positive too, I believe I knew pretty quickly I was in an episode, and though health wise I'm sort of in shambles, I was able to resist the worst of my impulses and label them for what they are.So that's good news. I do believe my doctor told me that I will likely never get rid of episodes, just make them less extreme. I guess that's what this is. Woohoo.

The rebuilding up is always the best part anyways. Feels like hope.

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Alphaville
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by Alphaville »

ellarose24 wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:53 pm
I am once again here to apologize for the mess that you have witnessed.
i meant to say this the other day, but i didn't know how to say it right away and got sidetracked:

please, no apologies... really, working on self-awareness is a worthy pursuit.

sure, you might feel like you have to apologize and it's your right to do so but... there's nothing wrong with what you're doing here. and so the apology feels like a devaluation of your efforts.
ellarose24 wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:53 pm
The rebuilding up is always the best part anyways. Feels like hope.
and i'm glad to see you're on the mend... hang in there.

ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

Some thoughts as I disentangle myself.

The internet, I believe, is very bad for me. I believe it is bad for most people, but for my specific brain—and I believe those who have brains like mine, it is one of the worst possible things.

This is because mania is constantly looking for a way to take flight, and the internet gives in infinite ways to do so. I can find a million people at any time who agree with what I think, no matter what it is I think, and no matter how novel my idea is, I can find someone who has likely already outlined it.

The internet makes me stressed. I know this because of my Apple Watch. My heart rate periodically spike to 120 or above depending on what I’m reading.

We were simply not made to have this amount of information at our fingertips, a million people to argue with, to affirm us, to engage in whatever emotional masturbation we feel we need at the moment.

I am limiting my online time to one hour a week, on the weekend, as long as my other goals are completed.

Something that I believe did help me last time was minimalism. I put everything unnecessary into a closet and limited my choices. This is another place my brain takes flight, but to a lesser degree obviously Thant he internet. At one point I “reintroduced” everything and, my house is a complete mess and I am stressed.

So things that negatively impacts me: the internet, “stuff,” and I will obviously add more. 2 years ago it would be “alcohol and marijuana” but I AM making some progress, I hardly touch those anymore—alcohol not at all.

Things that help ground me. I was thinking of the word grounding today, as my mind went off on an anxious thought. My brain seems to go off on tangents, I imagine that there is some neural pathway that extends way up above the atmosphere, and my brain sends thoughts there. Once my thoughts are there, I feel disconnected from my body, my surroundings, and ultimately my self. My experience is totally disconnected from my present.

I appreciate the word “grounding” much more after having digested it. But what grounds me?

I think that I do need nature, sunlight, and outdoor air. Walks. Music. Poetry. Specifically poetry that required digestion, and leave a slight smile when you do. Practicing the piano.

Neutral things
Reading. Reading, outside of poetry, allows flight, but the flight is relatively contained within the context of the book. Writing. Writing can be good for me, but I find it is actually another way my brain can attempt lift off. My mother actually cannot meditate, her brain uses that to lift off—although I’d argue she doesn’t meditate correctly (she calls it “active imagination”).

Ultimately anything that exists primarily in the mind is a slight risk. Which is fine, I think going back to my garden, hiking, and simply being present in nature need to be prioritized and will tether me enough.

———————

Finances:

I’ve saved $5k in emergency savings since maybe a mont or two ago? My memory is unfortunately really shot right now. I’m having half of my after tax paycheck going to a savings account.

I find the need to automate savings etc as much as possible. Thinking about ways to “optimize” myself as consumer or non-consumer also seems to engage my flighty brain. It’s very fun, but ultimately, I think I become ill when I find something that allows me to obsess without remorse. To make my goal of having an identity away from consumption, I need to let that naturally happen with very gentle guidance. Allowing my brain to engage in dogmatic thinking about my lifestyle, no matter how good the substance is, isn’t working for me.

Ultimately, my focus is on making majority of my life “grounded” and slower. This means long periods of silence and observation.

The beginning of The Shallows, a book on the harm of the internet (and yes, one that has influenced my decisions) starts with a quote from a Keats poem that I’ve written at the front of my journal to read—as it’s a good abstract view of my intentions currently.

“And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain”

ZAFCorrection
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ZAFCorrection »

@ellarose

With regard to meditation, JMG makes the distinction between at least two kinds of meditation, the mind-emptying meditation popular in eastern religions and the "thinking about something intentionally" version that is apparently done in western traditions. My key takeaway of that was people don't necessarily mean the same thing when they say they are meditating, and there may not be a one true version.

Green Pimble
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by Green Pimble »

Thank you for your journal Ellarose24. Your writing is very insightful and concise.

Your comment about poems leaving a slight smile made me think of the haiku's of Issa (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198 ... ssa-s-best). Rich, poignant, so very human. Reading them fills me with life:

on the cat's grave
in First Month...
dried sardines

ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

I have decided to stay away from parts of the forum that I suppose aren’t meant for me but are made for (some people?) I have to say that Jacob’s movement and guidance via his blog and especially his book are things I am eternally grateful for, but getting into subtypes of subtypes of people is not fun nor healthy for me. I understand it may be for others. I’ll just leave it at that and be happy in my own little corner, grateful it exists.

I have had some large changes recently. I have seen three separate psychiatrists who claim I do not have bipolar, that I have extensive trauma and that medication was exacerbating such trauma. I was told this early on in my diagnosis but ran from it, because there is a very real risk to operating under “not bipolar” reality. I saw that reality in my unmedicated mother. (Although I don’t totally believe in that reality either)

However, the risk of operating under bipolar reality while not being bipolar has proven to be just as dangerous. I can not overstate the impact psychiatric medicine has on physical, mental, and overall well being.

This reality included: losing large swaths of time and memory, including dissociative states in which I seemed to operate as a different person. High blood pressure, pre diabetes, Parkinsonism, RA like symptoms, sleeping 14 hours a day, extreme fatigue, and an overall loss of self in general.

The process to get off of my medicine will be a very long one, and I am expecting it to be difficult with withdrawals. I have been on meds for over 5 years now. I previously sometimes stopped cold turkey—this made me have withdrawal symptoms that look very similar to bipolar. Keep in mind, I never had bipolar symptoms until I was put on medicine to begin with.

I could be wrong, I could be bipolar and about to royally screw up my life, that is why I sought three different doctors to confirm. I am still worried I somehow misconstrued my reality to them. But the truth is, it’s hard to know my reality when I am in a constantly drugged state.

I have reduced medicine and feel anxiety coming back at an alarming rate. Something interesting about anxiety is that it is a great motivator for me. I am doing things, consistently. It as if I can observe, clearly, what I have become and it terrifies me. On medicine, it was hard to even show up to work every day. That ultimately was my only goal in life, which makes sense when you only have about two hours of awake time aside from working. This meant I had no time for relationships, cleaning, cooking, etc.

It made it very hard to focus on ERE skills. I would get, it felt like, moments of clarity and energy, but there were two problems: one was that I felt that any progress or energy was a symptom of my mental illness (mania). The absolute terror I felt towards “mania” (which in hindsight my most severe “manic episodes” were from withdrawal symptoms of stopping meds abruptly)—had me run straight to my psychiatrist’s arms begging to be drugged more. So it seems any time my drug levels would stabilize in my system, I took better feelings as my illness “peaking through” and then drugged myself more.

This is very hard for me to talk about as I know the stigma of having the crazy label, and I know that my thoughts will likely be interpreted as more craziness. But I believe my psychiatrist was not ethical. I am probably interpreting maliciousness when it is really just negligence. But there are some unforgivable things that he did, as he was also my therapist. His therapy was based in Freudian psychoanalysis, yes FREUD in the 21st century. And some of the events that transpired make me feel terrified and sick.

At one point, he doubled the size of my lamictal pills but kept the instructions the same. So I ended up quadrupling my dosage instead of the intention to double, the dosage was 2x as much as therapeutic levels. This was when I lived in CO and, at that time, I was eating about 1/8 of a 5 mg gummy if THC a day. I am very used to marijuana, been using it since I was a teen.

Well that day, my vision started to fade, I lost all motor control, began to vomit profusely, and shake uncontrollably on the floor.

The ER thought I was high and made fun of me, I saw a doctor the day after who also said I was high. I called my psych and he said I was “allergic” to weed. I took my medicine three days later and had the same effect, but knew better than to call anyone and spent 24 hours shaking on the bathroom floor. When I came to, I looked at the pill bottle and noticed what had happened, sent him an email, and all I got back was “yep that will do it.” No apology for his mistake or inability to take me seriously.

But more concerning was his therapy. I have been with a partner that was outright abusing me. Abusing me in the way of pinning my to beds while screaming at me, driving me drunk and pretending he was going to kill us, threatening to slit my dogs throat, there are many more instances, too many to list out here and they still fuck my brain up when thinking about them. My doctor said that he was a “jerk” but not abusive and that men’s brains mature slower and that he wasn’t intentionally being mean to me. I believe many of my symptoms came from this abuse, putting me on drugs
Made me stop reacting to abuse = cured. Whenever I said I wanted to leave, my psych would remind me that he would never take me back and ask if I was really sure about this?

He also encouraged me to meet a man twice my age who, within a month of talking, said he wanted to Impregnate and marry me. When I felt sick at the thought of meeting him, my doctor told me that was because I would never understand or know what true love is. That love would always make me feel sick because I’d never experienced it before. I won’t get into the trauma of what happened when I met this man, but I am thankful that it did as I was able to cut it off then and there instead of intertwine my life with him. (He had mentioned that wives should OBeY their husbands and that he would cure all of my problems and demanded I stopped working, to give a glance at what my life would have become).

So that’s where I am. And that is, I suppose, what bothers me about some of the talks around Wheaton levels etc. some of us are coming from a very different place. You can say that I was an idiot for living like this and taking advice from a psychopath. You can say I am Wheaton level 1 for running away to Colorado to escape abuse that i didn’t know was abuse and taking a loan out of my 401k to do so, and even more of an idiot for running back to abuse that I didn’t know was abuse.

This is why I believe feminism is very important, and doubly so in the ERE movement. There is an absolute culture made to keep women dependent. I have even more controversial views on what led to my mothers psychosis, it involves extremely personal facts about our family that I cannot discuss here, but I do not believe these illnesses are always genetic. Sometimes enough abuse breaks you, and when it does, there is someone to hand you drugs. Women who are in actively abusive relationships are told they have BPD for daring to crack.

This is perhaps too personal and too disgusting for many to want to look at or read. But I believe what always made me attach myself to ERE is independence. Independence, to me, is rebellion against a reality that has dictated to me that I have zero agency in my life. It is a rebellion against myself which finds dependence comforting.

To be very clear and honest, my SO, the one who I have said is so amazing and great—he is the one who used to be abusive. He is in therapy and has stopped drinking. There are still problems, and I still “overreact” to some of his behaviors due to the past. But I want to rewrite this narrative I had that he was so “amazing” for daring to stay with someone as broken and ruined as me. He is not the sole reason I was broken and ruined, my childhood and previous relationships all led to this point. And certainly, I understand that true agency means that I also credit myself for staying. I also do not believe all abusive people are psychopath narcissists, I still see the good in my partner, I see how is own trauma from childhood made him unable to know what real respect and love meant, and he has made great strides. Honestly, he did not start making these strides until I found radical feminism and had the gall to call him out on his bullshit and place the blame back where it belonged. Which was then framed as mania and personality disorders for daring to question status quo.

But I have agency now. There are more hours in the day as I reduce the drugs in my system. I’ve completed the first three modules of the CFP. I haven’t missed any days from work in the past month, that is a big deal for me. My living space is clean. I am smoking again as right after my fathers cancer was cleared, my mother is going into surgery for a blockage in her heart. That’s not an excuse but it’s where I am.

I think my story will come out a little over time and I do believe it deserves to be told. As does my mothers, which for the time being I am too heartbroken to tell, and to fully admit to myself would likely mean cutting off the rest of my family. But I do think I will get there.

And so that describes some of my offense at basing Wheaton levels as some semblance of your worth. Some of us start at very different places, some of us live in reality that others can’t comprehend. The Britney Spears saga is not one that is uncommon, it’s just one that people can glorify and manufacture outrage as if this isn’t happening all around the world. Ultimately, I believe there is a lot of privilege involved in some of the discussions here. I remember reading someone’s journal and them saying “I think only well rounded people with good childhoods can fully comprehend ERE” and everyone agreed with them. And maybe that is true, because some of us have not even seen agency or independence as a choice.

ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

Disappointed by both psychiatry and therapy, I am taking up philosophy. Already, I find it much more interesting, substantial, and logical. At the very least, most philosophers understand that they are making observations, and accept that these observations may be flawed.

My doctor (that is what I will call him, though he was both an analyst and a psychiatrist), un-ironically quoted Freud in our last meeting, telling me that “anatomy is destiny.” This was after I told him that I believe perhaps all women are, in some ways, traumatized. Traumatized by the expectations for infantile dependence, and that to complain about such dependance is anti-women or worse, anti-man. “be happy that you are not subjected to the wars, the coal mines, the dirty world of man”—it seems this is still repeated to this day. Ignoring prostitution, rape, physical trauma of so many births, mortality rates of mothers. But that, of course, was in the past. We only feel tangential reverberation from these wars, deaths, and abject dependence. Right?

I feel though, that feminists are still confined by pre-existing definitions made by someone else. They still fall under the dichotomy of: Career women (boss bitch) OR housewife. There exists, it seems, no other choice. Even now, the secular world seems to be retreating to delusional femininity just as the housewife of the 1950s. I searched “cottage core” hashtags on instagram to see how long it would take to find a male-version, I was unsuccessful in finding any.

I searched anti-consumption, and was given posts about natural makeup, safety razors, and replacing plastic Tupperware with glass.

Anti-consumption, for women, seems to be adopted as either an idealized identity of traditionalism, or an outright identity of subversive consumption. Women who disagree with consumption show their choices by making their own makeup, or buying “ethical makeup” or perhaps sewing a recreation of Edwardian dresses—by spending time on fairy crowns and baking picturesque shortcakes, and more than all by making anti-consumption something to be easily consumed. The plumbing, building, slaughtering—those never come into view. Anti-consumption for women, at least according to the narrative played in popular media, is about being more creative in making yourself the product. The vast majority of time is dictated towards finding ways to make life pretty—collecting wildflowers or making jam for biscuits. If these women did not find ways to adorn themselves (with natural dyes and flowers and braids!)—what would we see them doing? And would anyone want to watch it?

I am reading, as the same time, Betty Friedman and Sartre. I feel equally terrified and in awe of Sartre’s notions of will and true freedom. I find it serendipitous to be reading these two thinkers at the same time. As I see Freidman falling prey to the Bad Faith Sartre speaks about. Denying her freedom by juxtaposing two possible options for women: Homemaker or Career women. Or perhaps, women truly do not (or did not) have the true freedom to engage in free will to begin with. Undoubtedly, we are still reeling from out grandmothers and great grandmothers continuously definitions and deconstructions by government and corporate propaganda and what was needed by our nation. Sometimes, we need Rosy the Riveters to keep out nation running as men are at war, other times, we need June Cleavers to replace the men that were killed in such wars. Now—what is true equality? That we should all be consumers, with women allowed to engage in delusional femininity as a marker of identity—a way to turn away from the world and engage in neurotic fantasy, and yet hated by men for ever being given the opportunity they were not—to live in infantile delusion?

It is likely obvious that I struggle immensely with the notion of femininity. There is something about me that makes life very difficult but I find value in—that is my ability to see the logic, morality, the “good” of almost any argument. The ability to try them on for size so that I can play them out to their fullest before finding out their flaws and discarding them. I believe, in therapy, this is called “having an unstable sense of self or identity”—and it is difficult, and perhaps maladaptive, but it has allowed me to fully understand both the logic and the incompleteness of many identities, philosophies, and arguments. Femininity, however, was one that completely escaped my radar. It was one I wore without any recognition of what I was wearing. Growing up with traditional values, religious upbringing, etc etc… I never once stopped to think why I viewed passivity, dependence, and lacy frivolity as the ultimate in being a Good Person.

And so when I engage with the notion of being “anti-conumption”—I seem to gravitate towards one of the two identities I am given, even without a man in my life, I believe it would be the same. A “house keeper.”

No doubt, there are female Jacob Fischer’s in the world—but they would never have such a following. The most popular equivalent would be cottage core lifestyle blogs and youtube channels, where anti consumption is something engaged in with a clean linen dress laying down in a field of wildflowers, reading a book of poetry and perhaps buying a second hand pre-Raphaelite painting of The Lady of Shallot, laying quietly and passively in her pure white dress, moments before her fate.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

If you are looking for a female FIRE guru you could try Paula Pant: https://affordanything.com. She has a good podcast. Appears to have a very large following. Not particularly anticonsumption though.

ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

My Antipsychotic is down by half, I probably have another 6 months to go before I get off completely, I'm taking my time with it.

A noticeable change is in the level of anger I feel, and the ability to express that anger. But sometimes it bubbles up and makes it hard to work or focus. Sometimes my mind goes back towards trauma and I feel anger--and it feels good. I watched the last episode of Handmaiden's tale and it felt good. I read something on the subreddit that said "Anger is taking the shame you felt and placing it outward, where it belongs" and I like that quote, and write it down in my journal to read each morning.

And surely, it is far better than the dissociative yelps in which I would say "I'm sad!" "I'm angry" "I'm upset" and when asked why I would look out confused, unsure of what I said, or if it was even I that said it--and if I did, why? Unable to think past these little tics of emotions that came out like belches.

Besides the anger, my functioning has become much better. The house is clean, I read books in the evening, I've completely cut off social media. Studying for the CFP is a reprieve, memorization, easy math formulas, tricky questions. It feels like meditation and my mind latches onto in comfortably.

I have locked all of my credit cards. I thought of cancelling them, but I am afraid of what that will do to my credit score. Everything is paid with my debit card. I am forgoing amazon completely. "consumer debt should especially be avoided by those who have spending problems" the CFP says, and it categorizes credit card purchases as consumer debt, no matter if you pay them off monthly. Similarly, cash flow does not see debt as an outflow of cash until it is paid off, instead it is simply an increase in debt. I like these neat little categories. They're fun for me to tinker with in excel, and it was easy to cut off my credit cards completely.

Outside, the vegetables I tried to grow are not dead, but they are the same size they were 4 months ago. I assume 3 feet of woodchips must be supplemented with compost, which I did not do. However, the butternut squash seeds I threw out on the side yard are bubbling up and overflowing out that corner like a stream. They are really beautiful. I used some of the tree branches I salvaged from someone yard to try and make a natural trellis/arch at the front of my gate for them to grow over and provide shade. I like going out in the morning and seeing their yellow flowers still happy in morning dew.

Keeping this to myself, and I suppose the few that read this journal, I have been researching mysticism in world religions. This is especially dangerous for a "former and possibly still bipolar" person--everyone knows religion is off limits for those such as us, and ESPECIALLY mysticism, whose experiences, if not mania themselves, are the gate-way to. Yet it is mysticism that I have always been drawn to. Hildegard Von Bingen was my constantl accompaniment when hiking the rockies. Very little else seemed to fit the experience I had in the mountains. Her and Noirin Ni Riain sing to me early mornings as well, in the garden or as I clean.

It is true, both anger and the subtle put powerful feelings of peace would be glanced at by my previous Freudian Analyst with a raised eye brow, as he calmly tells me we should up my seroquel. But both of these feel like I exist again within my own body. And even my body is slowly becoming mine again--the light tremors are fading, the aches and the inability to breathe are subsiding. I can, actually, fill up my lungs with breath and be satisfied. Something that was impossible on higher dosages of antipsychotics. Breath was always muffled and incomplete. Now I feel my own presence, both emotionally and in my ability to breathe completely.

I do not fear insanity or the thought of existing without the buffer of medication. I am slowly coming around to the thought that this label--bipolar--was not only false but insanely harmful. I am trying very hard to prevent black and white thinking, such as that psych meds are all bad, that psychiatrists are all evil. I am trying to contain my bad experience simply as mine. But it hurts sometimes, to think of these bad experiences like a gift that was given to me specifically. I would like a collective mourning. My mother's story keeps haunting me with even more terror and pain, although she is now silent and hardly exists at all.

ellarose24
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Re: The Road Goes on Forever--Sometimes in Circles

Post by ellarose24 »

—————
Financial things and such

Locking my credit cards is something I should have done years ago. When I was “good” at ERE I would pay them off every month. Then I got a zero interest credit card. Then another. And so it goes. I’ve never made a late payment nor paid interest, but I was getting far too comfortable carrying a balance on zero interest credit cards.

I do still have our AC purchase on one, there is $6k on the card. Zero interest for a year. I pay monthly on this instead of the mortgage, which M takes care of.

I would have laughed very hard at myself 6 years ago or so. I always paid my cards off in full and was in full ERE mode. You may even say, back then, I was Wheaton level 4! Lol. Have you ever heard of someone moving backwards? Well I certainly did. I think advertising and shopping is truly an addiction, and with just a little taste....

—————————————
Current goals

My biggest goals right now are the CFP. But lately, my body has been feeling so much better that I long to move it, do yoga, workout. That bubbling anger I’ve talked about has also been impetus to move. I have a strong desire to smash things, throw them against walls.

M said he would teach me how to use the punching bag. My arms are flabby. I have just noticed that my breasts, even though they are small, are sagging. Woe is me! I do not have motherhood to apologize for gravity’s romance with my body.
————————————

*Stream of conscious vomit and other going ons*

I bubble up with deep sadness and longing for my mother—who is here but not here. When I would do this with my psychoanalysis, he would say I’m feeling guilty because I’d rather her be dead.

It is true there are times her psychosis was so bad that I thought death might’ve been easier, but it was a horrid thing for him to tell me.

I feel a sense of relief that I can experience grief and sadness right now, as the medication wanes. I do feel emotions extremely deeply, and I have no guilt for that.

I have been watching YouTube videos about cottage-core as a way to rage. Something about them is deeply offensive to me. I decided I would make a YouTube video about Wuthering Heights, one of “cottage cores” favorite books that I doubt they have ever read. As wuthering heights is far more inline with Frakenstein and other gothic novels than it is the likes of Little Women.

So I tested out my camera. I bought a tapestry for the background as well as a red dress, like Kate Busch in her song Wuthering Heights.

My Instagram has gained a modest following with expression of love for nature, anti-consumption, etc etc.

“It is okay to buy these things, they are for creativity” I told myself. In the camera I noticed how full my face has become, and my always-there double chin more pronounced. I noticed too, the wrinkles and dents around my forehead. I put on a wig I wore for cosplaying years ago, hides the chin well enough. I adjusted the desk towards the sun to soften my features.

I felt, as I was putting makeup on, that this would be marked down by the doctor I no longer see as evidence of stability. I imagine him writing notes “patient has put in makeup today, seems to be taking care of herself (for once)”

Seeing myself in the camera and playing it back disgusted me. I have such a strange relationship with my looks. When I was younger, I both found them powerful and terrifying. I would run between deifying myself and defiling. Curling my hair into perfect waves one day and shaving it off the next. Now that my looks are largely fading, I have a similar feeling of both grief and relief.

You will be happy to know that I canceled the orders for the red dress as well as the tapestry, though I do not know if canceling the tapestry will take. It was $60.

I had a brief flirtation with imagining me engaging in literary analysis and deep dives into my favorite books, but I recognized to do so, I would need to market myself in a way in which it is not the art that we are consuming, but me as the product. This is exactly what happens in these “aesthetic” blogs where people “know” they are “supposed” to like little woman and Anne of green gables, and then someone accidentally throws wuthering heights, and then everyone has a vintage wuthering heights book. When they finally read it they leave reviews that the book was “devoid of hope and miserable” as if that’s saying anything bad about the book itself.

On the off chance I would find any semblance of success on some social media platform, I know that I would have to pigeonhole myself into branding. I could not engage with both the Bronte sisters and Ezra Pound for instance. I especially could not go from, say, The Secret Garden to Steinbeck. Or I suppose I could, but the audience would be disappointed that I am not sticking to a theme—likely one of pastural delusion. (Unfortunately my tastes do happen to line up with cottage core, but my disdain of pastels and the nausea I get when seeing 30 year old women with braided pigtails and straw hats and pinafores would make me unable to fit in any real marketable product).

Yet I find philosophy-tube to be filled with young men with bad takes who do not brush their hair. It seems if you have enough ego, anything goes.

Anyways that was my brief flirtation with a YouTube presence. I find a desire to escape my current career path, however—I find the path towards ego and falseness a terrifying one. And, admittedly, I am becoming too old for such things.

I have always had a sort of obsession with humbling myself. Ego terrifies me. Perhaps a job in which the elderly take out their life’s disappointments on me is the perfect fit. I did tell an elderly man that called my “princess” yesterday that I preferred the term “feudal lord.” He did not laugh.

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