Archive for the 'kat' Category

cyclic

Written on March 1, 2012 by kat. 0 Comments

i hate for the collected twitter posts to pile up like that, uninterrupted. it’s so familiar to mourn for what i don’t do anymore, the art, the writing, whatever; but i do it anyway. honestly, i think a long time ago i stopped really writing because i felt embarrassed to write the same things over and over. even though it only means that this stuff is wringing its way through my body, over and over. if it’s still relevant to me it must still be worth writing about. but i always feel i should be original. i should have something to say. i should move forward.

i’d like to value being still. i’d like to know, even in my healing, that there is nowhere to get. perhaps one downside to being in the therapy mill is that you consider yourself to be ‘healing’, which is a movement word. always there are new anxieties to face, memories to process, people to find, facets to reclaim. and of course, all that can happen, could, even should happen. but it happens. we don’t need to do something to life to make it change. i don’t know. i feel pompous. guilty, because i should be working. stupid. it certainly is tough to work with the censors. i see more and more facets of my life that they touch. there’s shame attached to the whole idea of performing, which is really just being seen, and being seen to know you’re being seen. one might be ok, but never the other.

i guess it’s fairly normal to get into this state of yearning, every so often. it’s hard to know that things don’t change quickly, or in the direction we want them to. even things that appear to have to do with will. will is a funny idea. does it mean holding to a purpose or idea enough that you can ignore your health or senses or instincts? is that a good thing? in many ways i want to unlearn will. and yet it is so valued. there are things you can’t do without it. there are so many things that you can only do if you do only them. i’m thinking about how badly i wanted – no, still want, even though it’s impossible – to be a dancer. but also so many other things, of course. some of us feel as strongly about music. et cetera. we will never shine in the ways we wanted to when we were younger. but maybe we’re happier for it? it is hard to say that when my heart is sinking like this. gravity weighing more in the middle of me, some sort of slow escalator of insides descending, descending. the ascent (there must be one, right?) is hidden from view.

i don’t stand behind anything i’m saying. i’m just talking. i feel tired. i always do.

ok, i’ll bite

Written on October 29, 2011 by kat. 0 Comments

i feel like i am where i need to be, this moment in time, which is uncomfortable. things are all mixed, are always mixed. there is contentment and despair, love and fear, hope. hope can be so trivialized and formulaic, but for us it is a monstrous, mottled scepter. the head hurts, fabric feels rough, we feel totally unsure of ourselves, our relationships feel distant and the footing is treacherous, work is confusing and overwhelming, meditation is a threat, we are sad which feels good, angry which feels awful, awful, and good too, depressed and lost and present, life is interesting, there are restful corners, dread and open spaces, gleams of hope like migraine auras. in short, everything is as it usually is. what is the difference, the notable? as i search for words it is my headache and attendant nausea; but i wanted to say something about… resignation, perhaps? acceptance that i don’t know what i’m doing, that storms loom, that i cannot slip out of reach of the troubles. and that there is compensation and new perspectives and real emotion.

just went out to eat with indigo and aeron, in the crisp, vital, busy saturday morning. it felt like i spent my time well, and like i was a betrayer. irritation that i felt like i was a betrayer. the feeling might come from anywhere but the irritation is important too. now i’m hurting and sick to my stomach, wanting to write something down, pin something down, recognizing that i can’t and that i can’t stop wanting to, wanting to get clear, get clean. wanting to watch what i say and not to.

i opened the tao when i got home- maybe i can make a habit of quotes like indigo. who knows? habits are funny things, not predictable or forceable. here’s what felt right:

they’re good to good people and they’re good to bad people. power is goodness. they trust people of good faith and people of bad faith. power is trust. (49, ukl translation)

though i think perhaps it’s the rest of the verse that has more to offer me, something that doesn’t feel clear. being of the world. and its relationship to trust.

writing if it kills me

Written on September 28, 2010 by kat and matt. 0 Comments

there is always a headache at the front. sometimes it is small enough to ignore, a light band of tension across our forehead. sometimes it is bad enough that we can do nothing and concentrate on nothing – which is very bad indeed, since we are good at dissociating pain for the most part. usually it’s somewhere in between. at this moment it’s in between, probably an average level, maybe a bit higher. our neck is tight and will not be loosened. the tension swoops up through the back of the head, worst where the neck meets it, then spreads into its glory in our forehead and temples. if i focus my eyes there is brief dizziness subsiding into a pushing back against the forehead, with little needle threads rivuleting up from there. if i try to ignore it altogether it feels like i’m wearing a pulsing, breathing hat that is far too tight. that twists and settles when i move or concentrate visually. this is always.

today, as most days, it’s coming on afternoon and our melancholy is settling in. our therapist is back from vacation, and we saw her monday. it was nothing, low-key, fine. i joked that if edges were there, they’d probably think of loads that’s going on for me. i’m sure it’s true, too. but they weren’t and we couldn’t think of any particular aching misery.

we haven’t done any memory work with this new therapist, who we’ve been seeing for nine months, and that worries me a bit. it seems like we’re stuck. like we stopped going somewhere. we just keep bobbing up and down. therapy is hard work, school is hard work. i always end up doing the school stuff first. but of course sadnesses, issues, traumas come up; they just fade into the background as quickly as they came. and we can never remember any of it when we get to our therapist’s office. and i don’t know how to do not-doing. not to push but to find. i’m yawning all over the place just thinking about it. i worry. it isn’t that i don’t trust the process; i just don’t really trust me. i’m so afraid to be stuck here, well enough not to try to die and depressed enough not to be able to live (well). i am sick to death of my own issues.

fairyland

Written on August 28, 2010 by kat. 0 Comments

what drives us to write is usually a feeling, which can end up in just a lot of descriptors. i am disconnected and ungainly. i am not quite real, soap-bubble, this life is not solid. i am scared and tired. i am hurting (back spasm for ~20 hours) and alone. i feel fanciful but vulnerable, poppable – the soap again.

i feel like there is a brink i can’t quite put my finger on, and i am teetering over it. i could fall one way into lighter. lighter burden, permeable responsibilities, possible, open. i could continue sliding back the other way to sink, to watch horrified and struck-still as my life turns to stone, my self, into immobility is i think the gist. where i don’t have the physical energy required to open a window, where i don’t have the mental energy to flip open the laptop for our (fake) internship.

where good intentions bob close and impossibly out of reach. i’ll do my dishes. i’ll get some real coding done and make up for lost time. i’ll do the laundry. i’ll make my space clean and bright and usable. i’ll eat meals as opposed to sunflower seeds (which nowadays is code for the random crap i eat when i can’t prepare food (always) – cookies, luna bar, dry tortilla chips, almonds, yogurt, ice cream, whatever. not BAD for me but not meant to be all that is eaten.) i’ll organize my life and make usable my time, my empty spaces. i’ll deal with the scary mail. i’ll get back on top – just – not this second – in half an hour – an hour – tomorrow. when i try to move this second people scream and act like they’re drowning (maybe they are). anyway, i guess my stupid back has made most cleaning impossible today – bending and turning are both pretty much torture.

i want my life to be a clear running stream (purity is a myth), filling the low places, touching but not concealing, sharpening. beautiful, sustainable. it’s fairyland. it’s why turning over a new leaf has been such a habit, especially when we were young. at 13 it was all we knew how to do. it worked then, for a short time. maybe would have been longer if we were singular. now the balance of power in the system is too different and it’s hardly ever practicable.

my hands and feet are uncomfortably sweaty but i’m not warm. in fact, my feet are cold. typing feels clammy, my palms lubricating the front of the keyboard, my grimy fingers touching and rubbing off on the keys. the part of my back just below the neck is there, like a hot stone, pressing. yesterday it was like a hot iron, so i guess that’s progress. i am stiff from holding my head in one position.  my body feels hollow and sticky and fraudulent. finding words is pleasant but not as it could be, and not lastingly. a ripple of rest for each novel accuracy in what i write, but the pool is in a thimble.

there are so many thoughts and they are so, so lost. i store myself in talking to edges, only, and now edges and i get maybe two hours together on 2/3rds of the days. nobody’s fault. but it’s empty-making. then again, maybe it got me writing, maybe that’s good. everything is unsure, open to saturation. permeable, but i say that too much. you know how it feels sometimes like the boundaries are kind of fractal-ey, the finer you go the finer holes there are to fill, things that seem connected from a distance are a riot of gaps? shrug.

there is no destination. there is no journey. there is only a cruel mocking glimmer of motion, lulling and damning, because it never comes. only i’m so close. if i could just move… then i’d have motion. but it’s like exercising to stop depression. if you could exercise, the depression might be manageable. if i could move, then maybe i could cover distance.

blah all of it is starting to feel too pretentious, what gives you the right to be delicate and obscure and fake-poetical. and this is part of everything too. drink any draught of feeling deep enough, there is the coarse bitterness of self-hate. i don’t even think it shows when i’m mocking myself. i meant to close a paragraph ago. what am i doing? what is there to do? we want to die.

raise your hands high

Written on February 13, 2010 by kat and miss shirley. 2 Comments

anything but self. convince yourself you can’t afford it. convince yourself it will be better later. tell yourself this is more important, this, this, this again. above all, do not be still. do not be with yourself. do not rest. do not breathe. do not cry or break down. it will be okay later. you can put it off till later. this is now; inward will always be there. out, turn out, turn to out, whirl out. it will be okay. you can keep going this way. you have no choice.

after all, isn’t it virtuous that the inside should be a chore? it is much easier to work. look, i’ll let you clean and self-care. i’ll let you play games and read books. i’m not cruel. aren’t you happier this way? and anyhow, never forget you don’t have a choice. stay focused. you can do this thing or you can lose everything. how can you even pause? don’t forget that it is selfish to look in. it is selfish to die or to want to. so losing everything is not a choice; it would penalize those close to you, and let you off the hook. come on, it’s ok, it’s okay, i’m not asking for much, i’d never ask for more than you could do. come on, isn’t this nicer anyway? isn’t this smooth? lozenge the interrupts smooth before and after, they slip away on through, back to work. avoid them when you can, but when you can’t, let go of them. you do not want to stick to that. you do not want to hang on to that.

this is for you, you, you. this will get you where you need to be. i bend so much. you have so much. there is no point in going further. it won’t pay off. you can do it later. in the break. you’ll have time someday. you don’t now. just go, go, go. slide on, slip on, i’ll help with the corners, we’ll get through it. this isn’t counter to your purposes. aren’t you better than you were? isn’t it better to be stoic, doesn’t it feel masculine? i thought that’s what you wanted, what you liked. just go.

who answers?

Written on September 3, 2009 by kat. 0 Comments

i am sad and small and i am hurting and i am okay and i am scared and i am hopeful and i am overwhelmed. i am sure there is something i’m forgetting. i am sure there is something i’m doing wrong. i am shaking and hungry and stunned and still. i am not content. i am nobody, i am nothing, i am worthless, i am not worth saving. i am trying. i am still alive. (do i deserve to be?)

i feel unloved and alone and worthless. i feel scattered and lost. i feel so scared and so forgotten. i feel panic in my chest. i feel a headache coming on. i feel like i should just give up. i feel like i should work hard, in a frenzy, go go go. i feel so close to being organized, and so far, but being organized is not the holy grail i’m setting it up to be. i feel confused and foggy and alone and alone and alone and alone.

i want to be loved. i want to be clean. i want to get everything cleaned up in my head and in my apartment. i want a system of living that minimizes anxiety. i want to get my scooter fixed but i am so, so scared. i want to rest. i want to be clean i want to be clean i want to be clean. i want to feel finished to feel polished to feel like i can handle my own horizons. i want to cry. i want to let go. i want to be held and nurtured. i want to be able, i want to be strong, i want to get everything done.

i guess i’m just a mix. the scared, the hopeful, the lost, the sad. okay, not okay. so very deeply.

writing is almost like company

Written on July 17, 2009 by kat and matt. 0 Comments

i’m in a really weird place. a mix of old and new, calm and frantic, rest and invalidation, understanding and confusion. when i let my brain drift to rest, we get very anxious. but i do keep drifting back to idle. there is so much i would say, if only i could. there is so much i want to tell you. every time i get a train of thought going, another nudges itself between me and the train.

i’ll wake up in bed and be unable to rest until i do a certain google search i thought of. nothing meaningful or interesting; everything from random stuff about coding or linguistics to the location of the nearest bakery to learning asl to whatever. just whatever comes into my brain, that promises at least five minutes of blessed distraction.

i’d like to settle down, become still. i’m aching and tired, and trying to understand how to let myself be that. even if others are tired of hearing me. even if i get no sympathy in the entire world. even if i get people coming to my symptom tracker thing to tell me that my pain is nothing. no context, no understanding. i wanted to defend myself but i just deleted the comment and blocked the commenter. even if my twitterverse wearies of me. even if i feel i have no right, when two closest to me have so much that is real and awful going on.

we want to understand the link between our past and our current-day pain. i know it is not simple and i know they both feed each other. but it is so hard not to have answers, not to know whether to try to get treatment, whether to allow myselves room. of course we should have room, no matter what, but it’s not always so easy.

we still have memories. i remembered last night a wire cage with a hole in it that my leg went through, up to the thigh. more hurt, more discomfort, whatever. i brush off my attempts to feel sympathetic, boo hoo. let me break out the tiny violins.

kids feel unheard and unlovable. like we’re encased in lucite and no matter how much we shout, no one will hear. i know, a predictable metaphor. why am i so defensive? why must i denigrate what i say?

i think it’s easier to write because of the new interface cynthia and e set up. we’ve gotten very used to writing stuff in vi, because that’s what we use to code or write in latex. we get a comfortable and warm feeling from being so geeky, but what does it matter in the end? we are totally depressed about ever finding a job. we could never get through a technical interview without accommodations. and no employer wants to hire someone who needs accommodations. voices inside say our life is going nowhere. we will always be alone and there will never be any point.

so yeah, i guess we’re in a lot of distress. i don’t know what to do to pass the time, or why i should pass it. of course many think that dying just makes sense. like always, we don’t have the strength to do that either.

i feel like a spoiled whiny brat

Written on July 4, 2009 by beth and kat. 0 Comments

maybe, on a day like today, there’s nothing to do but write. too bleak and despairing to settle on anything. the sims doesn’t catch our imagination, reading depresses us, eating hurts our mouth, everything exhausts our resources. it is so hollow to be trying just for entertainment. this is the worth of my time. but the couple projects i have going to try to make school better when i go back are way beyond me. i can’t even concentrate enough for a logic game.

i have to concentrate to breathe through my nose. somehow it feels more silent, to keep my mouth tight shut. i do not want to have pride. it’s obvious that we’re having mom issues, but what does knowledge matter? what will ever be in our future? i don’t even understand why it all feels pointless, suddenly. it can’t only be our trouble with edges. or if it is, that just means it’s the real state and edges can make it go away.

we have to face the fact that insiders are angry at them, for no good reason. it’s so stupid and undeserved but we can’t just make it go away. we’re trying to put it back where it belongs – on our mom – but that feels hollow too. it feels like we can’t do anything right, we can’t ever be good enough. it just makes it worse that they probably feel the same way. just takes away our right to feel. how can we not understand? and many of us do.  but we are also hurt, and weary, and sullen. we can live with it but it’s nursing a big hole in our center, thinking we will have to exist without them. and i know it’s not that bad and i’m being melodramatic but i already know that, i already hate that people are having these feelings, i cannot forgive myself for them. and they only hurt me. the first inkling of them and i’m sure edges will flame ice cold and refuse to need us. which is their right. they have as much, more, reason to be angry as we do. how dare we. but it’s all mixed up, and the only thing my system can agree upon is that we should do without, eat air, hide ourselves where we won’t bother anybody. is that we will never be able to measure up so maybe we should just give up.

i know that’s disordered thinking that we will have to conquer in the long run. but i guess we can’t conquer it without expressing it.

i am having trouble forgiving myself tonight. i am trying too hard. why can’t the default, just being, be rich and satisfying? why must the default feel hollow and dull and without change?

in a translation of the tao this line is capturing me:

get rid of kindness and justice and people once more will love and obey

i think there’s something in it for me. i can’t tease it out. get rid of kindness, and people will love. reminds me of a catatonia lyric: “altruism stinks of fallacy”.

acting in self interest, i will love and be loved? not trying to be fair, i will rediscover the connections?

i want to cry, i feel like i’ve been estranged from edges for a thousand years.

i can’t force it. and i like what the ursula translation says for the next verse:

but even these three rules
needn’t be followed; what works reliably
is to know the raw silk,
hold the uncut wood.
Need little,
want less.
Forget the rules.
Be untroubled.

i keep thinking shoulds are the only way to be loved again. if i can be or do enough. in this case, understanding enough, kind enough. self-effacing enough. and of course i drift further out to sea.

how can i apologize, without burdening them with my guilt? how can i admit my faults, without dropping everything to correct them? could there ever be such a thing as “hey, i’m sorry for the snarky comment. i guess i didn’t realize how much that issue was bothering me. i’ll try to look at that.”?

seeing that this stinks so highly of mom stuff does not seem to help. i think maybe there’s an insight to be had from her approach to apologies. i apologized a lot growing up. but she would say that i didn’t really mean it unless i made amends, and changed my behavior. that sorry means change (and the subext i got, sorry means obesiance.) i know this wasn’t my mom’s intended message, but somehow i got from that that it’s not okay to be okay, and apologize. that being miserable is a way to atone. (i guess that one’s pretty ubiquitous.)

i can’t stop overcorrecting by seeing how it hurts people even worse that i do so. (to be more concrete, being miserable to be sorry for a thoughtless remark, triggers bigger badder feelings than the remark did.) it is true, but i’m not able to use that to change. i have to find something else.

i am limping and sore. (not that limping is a bad or shameful thing.)  i guess i need to work on self interest. after all, everyone acting in [true] self interest will make the world a better place, right? or not-acting in self interest. i need to not-act in self interest.

whenever i use my spirituality to help me puzzle out my hurts, i feel so stupid and pretentious. like using others’ thoughts to help myself along is cheating, or at least not genuine.

i don’t know. i can’t talk myself out of despair. maybe that’s just what i need to feel right now. suffering is not more or less sacred than sensuality or contentment. but by its nature, i can’t just let it go at that. i rail against it, i want it to stop.

i hope, at least, that i’ve talked myself a bit from the flat nothing of depression to the clean wound of grief.

watch out, watch your step

Written on April 14, 2009 by kat. 0 Comments

i’m jittery, weepy, anxious. i’m dissatisfied and confused. there is an unmet need in me, resentful, jealous. we felt like we couldn’t be good enough for our therapist. i think that younger ones are close, and don’t understand edges’ pain. kids in multiple systems often have trouble dealing with other systems’ kids, i’ve noticed. (not nearly always, just often.) i think they can have trouble recognizing the smallness in others. especially because they never got a chance (in some cases) to socialize with other kids.

edges sent us a couple of short emails canceling our plans for the evening. canceling wasn’t a problem; but we do feel snubbed. like we need armor. like fine i don’t care i don’t need you anyway. like we do not exist. tense with weight, shoulders, hips, calves. like we could cry, but we can’t. like no one cares about anything that is going on with us. i’m trying not to censor no matter how bad what we are feeling, because i have to stop censoring in order to unravel. but stopping the censor feels like pushing along a cart with wooden wheels that aren’t quite symmetrical, and get harder to turn at some points. like it is all pushing forward, it takes continuous effort, but sometimes we can move along with it and sometimes we have to use all our strength and then go rolling forward quicker than we wanted.

maybe we feel like they are asking us for something we can’t provide, just by being small and incoherent. uneven. we can’t let them be hurt, it comes at a cost. theywantus theyneedus theydemandus. like they blame us for their hurt, like they are asking us to fix it, reproachful that we don’t. like they’re saying that we think they’re bad.

breathe, myriad. they have their private hell just as you do, they’re entangled in it just as you are. you are not their persecutor. they are not trying to show you how much you’ve hurt them. they are simply in pain. you can let them be in pain. you’re nearly constantly in some kind of pain (physical, emotional, spiritual, mental). you don’t blame them for your private misery that predates them and will outlast any time spent with them. they have no part in it and they are not accusing you what you would not accuse them. o please breathe. you do not have to, you CANNOT fix it. you can’t even ameliorate it. not always. not even frequently. you have to let them be. you have to let yourself be. even when you are subpar. even when you cannot think of anything to say.

i’m not sleeping well. my spit tends to taste metallic – like blood. there is a memory that started surfacing on saturday and it is not gone. well really, it’s just a new piece of an old memory.

(trigger warning)

here: it’ll freeze on my tongue if i don’t say it: they cut out her tongue before they strung her up to burn. they cut it into pieces and we all had to take one into our mouths. (it dawned on me this time that there really weren’t that many of us children who had to watch. three, i think, or maybe four. i guess that makes sense.) we’d have to swallow but we weren’t allowed yet. we had to hold it in our mouths, the tip of our tongue nudging it against our bottom teeth where they could see, hold our mouths open so they could see. a little blood pooled there – maybe there was extra.

we were so intricately implicated. we took her will to speak and we held it away from her, she never spoke again. we took her voice. then later, of course, we chewed and swallowed. it would not have been so bad if we could just have swallowed. we crushed her voice, masticated it, salivated on it, rolled it with our tongue till we were familiar with every aspect of the soft-tough-rubbery-octopus-ey texture of it. and they never forced us. placed it upon our tongue, yes, told us the rules, yes, but we followed them of our own accord. followed every one of them. sat perfectly still in the greasy stinking heat of the fire. i don’t have the sounds in my memory. i know she must have screamed. i can’t even really see her, only her feet they get black first but that’s better than looking up. i feel and smell, the most. she hadn’t done anything wrong. she died because she was so good; had we been good enough, we could have saved her by taking her place. in easter, it’s an innocent. (i don’t know if this happened all the way more than once. certainly not every year.) the smell, gasoline and burning hair and barbeque all at once. i still can’t stand to smell barbeques. between that and the anthills, it’s hard to walk in residential areas during the summer.

my heart hurts and i am lonely with it. everything i put into my mouth tastes bad, especially at night. everything is something i want to repel, expel. my head hurts too.

without a body to keep me warm

Written on February 28, 2009 by kat. 0 Comments

there’s scorn both ways, all ways. there’s fear and feelings. there’s doom and shame. there’s a transulecent dancing streak, fleet-footed, wrapped in white cloths, of compassion. there’s new awareness and who would think it would be war-worthy? nothing like memories, nothing old and worn, but body-awareness. so that is the present battle, and many of the soldiers would keep me at all costs from even mentioning this. from making it sound as though we thought we were real. from taking the easy way, the coward’s way, pitying ourselves because we crave to be pitied.

but our body is not special. it holds memories and stress like all bodies. it is beautiful, and whole, and we are lucky for that. but it is also real, and ill-used. 

there’s always pain for some; held by some. if we allow them looser boundaries on their burdens, will we lose our abilities? if ignoring pain gives us so much, then why stop? if paying attention would limit our life, why pay?  my body works right, i cannot make that complaint!  what’s the danger of ignoring the pain? that it will get worse? but why would it? and if it did, wouldn’t we be in precisely the same place?

to acknowledge physical as well as emotional, mental, spiritual woundedness… it seems wicked. selfish. dangerous – we might create what we are looking for.

some of us are so weary. so endlessly unacknowledged. stoic with despair (where despair is only the absence of hope.) we can hardly hear those ones over the clamor of the upset ones.

you. have. no. business. delving.