Elaborate (phone) notes

Will jot down some phone notes, then elaborate, cos I think of stuff, then forget to write (about) it.

"Keep forgetting to mention I haven't taken any painkillers for... I want to say months but am not sure that would be correct. Feels like months."

This doesn't mean I have no back or neck pain which usually is the kind of excruciating pain that prompts me into taking painkillers (Ibuprofen) for one day, sometimes a few days.
It doesn't seem to have been a conscious choice to not take them at all anymore, but I do appreciate my clarity of mind, and since I'm very sensitive to 'substances', even taking a painkiller produces some kind of fog in my head. It makes my thinking jumbled and confused. Also there is a reason I can't put into words, but it has something to do with authenticity, along the lines of 'you can't fix what you don't know'. Something about it being real. True. And then working with what I got. Which I can't do if I numb the symptoms. Yeah, that's it. How can I fix a problem when I'm numbing the symptoms? They could be helpful in pinpointing the cause.

"Am over rape. At times think I 'shouldn't' be, playing it over in my head, but no, I'm pretty much over it and am fine with it."

I told the psychology lady about this. At times I replay the chain of events in my head out of a sense of what would be expected by society, what would be done by 'normal' people who have experienced something violent and intrusive. Still looking for a way to be normal, a way to fit in, by adapting behaviour I think is sort of expected. There are moments I do feel a bit of a shock, when on TV a woman gets choked and/or raped, that's authentic, but the rest is fake.
At times I think of the rape as a dance. We danced a dance we were supposed to dance, which was written in the script and we would both walk away from and use in the rest of our lives. I didn't exactly say that to the psychology lady, but I did tell her about behaving in a way my mind thought would be 'appropriate' for a rape 'victim'.
I can't say I was a rape 'participator', because when it happened I feared for my life and did NOT want to be raped, but it is one of those episodes in my life I feel was preordained (never mind that probably ALL is preordained).
Also, I feel that I did everything right, I played my part well, I did everything my smarty pants mind could think of doing to save my own life and I even knew to take back some of the power over the situation.
Afterwards I took and shook his hand, telling him to have a good life, looking him in the eyes. Yes, in order to save my life, cos we were so close to the road, but it also made the experience 'well-rounded' - I do not know how else to put it. I wanted to be the best I could be in that experience. It's easy to be spiritual and good when you're rich and well taken care of. Even though I didn't entirely mean it, not with all of myself, cos of well, being raped and such, there was a detached part which was thinking quite clearly and lifting me up to another level of dealing with what was. Dealing with the moment at hand.
Maybe at some other point in time I will be making more sense, trying to put this into words.

"Sometimes I radiate vulnerability, victim-like seeking approval, begging for it, pretending to be weaker than I really am."

Usually when I'm cycling through town, going to get groceries or coming back from it. It's one of those things I do, then realise I'm doing them. It's also the reason I don't go for those long walks anymore, which hopefully is a temporary thing. I walk around like that little, insecure girl I have been since my youth and it attracts mean behaviour in others.
All the old fear and insecurity have been provoked into coming to the surface since living here, next to this person who much resembles my mother's ex boyfriend in mean, calculated, aggressive behaviour, intimidation and self righteousness. In the years since I've been living here, all the old fear has been coming to the surface in a steady stream of anxiety and nerves.
Yesterday was a day of such extreme fear my belly started hurting like crazy, and still does. Headache is calming down a bit, but it felt like a ball of molten lead was in my gut; the oldest, deepest, worst fear (I hope, cos that means it's being worked through and will be dispersed).
Perk of this was I couldn't sleep and was awake when a thunderstorm started around 4a.m.; I could see the flashes through my bedroom window and it was awesome just lying there listening!

"Smiling, laughing, then realizing it's fake, wondering why I do that. Do I need to?"

Even when I visited my best friend I found myself laughing at moments when there really was nothing funny. It was nice talking and chatting with her, as always, but I laughed out of habit, out of hiding my real face. In a way, laughing and joking is a mask, which is common knowledge of course, especially among comedians.
Maybe now I start noticing it in the moment because I'm getting ready to let that go.
I don't do big fat masks anymore, but there's still some masking going on in the way I talk to people. It's more out of habit sometimes than out of fear. Which is good. Conscious as I try to be about stuff like this, a habit is something I can handle, that can be changed quite easily compared to a fear.
A fear is not a thing onto itself, it's merely a tentacle sprouted from the big fear-beasty. All fears are Fear. If there is no fear connected to this behaviour anymore, then it is definitely something that can be changed, all it takes is noticing it when it happens.

Layer cake (and eat it too)

And anóther layer of anxiety and fear has opened up. Nerves and whirlpools of fear partying in my belly. I'm having difficulty breathing. Headache as well. It's the same symptoms as when I drink fruit juice for a couple of days, for detoxification (just juice, no food).
So maybe that's what's happening. Do I need an explanation? Yeah, cos of the headache, I'm familiar with the 'freshly opened can of fear'-feeling.
Feeling a bit restless as well, maybe something's up. Maybe changes áre coming. In my circumstances I mean, I know I'm changing. Detoxification on the outside as well would be nice. But I don't know what I'm saying; as I am writing this, all these fears that are worked loose are swirling through me, it's a definite full moon when I'm writing this, and the monthly hassle is knocking on the door. I just don't want to open the bloody thing. Heh.
Oww.. my head is killing me.

"My whole life, I've done what someone else said I should, been who he said I should be [...].
I never stopped to think about what I wanted and what I needed. And now I don't know who I'm supposed to be." - Dexter Morgan.

Couldn't have said it better myself. This is the exact situation I found myself in, the exact moment I started my journey to find out not who I was, because I was nothing, rather, who I wanted to be, chose to be. And when that process is finally over and done with, I'll once again be nothing.
But a Nothing very unlike the no-thing I was before I (consciously) started down this Path.

Still listening to MUSE

Ah. Now the heat comes and calms me. It's a wonderful warmth in my chest, that envelops me from within each time a change has been succesfully worked through. The heat of change, if you will.
It beats warm milk with honey.***

Listening to MUSE

This is what I heard on the radio when I turned it on this morning, changing channels from one song to another, in this order; "What if God was one of us?", "Reach out (...) I'll be there", "You're never alone", "I gave her the dreams".
Well I sure hope You mean it, I could use some help with my living conditions.

Just got a note from a friend saying I was 'so right'; when a door closes a window opens for him. I doubt having said that so literally, but anyway. Everything I always tried to keep in mind to give me hope seems to work for him in a much faster way! Oh well, that's what happens with people who have walk-in-the-park lives, shouldn't surprise me. I see the advantages of my experience and background.
We talked on the phone last week, and I realised that what's such a given to me is foreign to him (trying to understand others and their motivations and pain, which causes an empathy that can't be turned off again). Which I understood. So I prefer my life. I think. But only in retrospect.
During a huge part of my life I would have given anything to be in anybody else's shoes, though now I wouldn't trade lives for anything. Too much work has been done. Besides, I want to see where this is going, where I'm headed. I want a happy ending to a gruesome story. I want something useful and good done with my life experiences.
I'm grateful for having friends with walk-in-the-park-lives; without them I wouldn't have had information to compare my information with. My little world would have seemed more real to me without them, they have been the white to my black. It made me hopeful and made me realise how relative everything is. There's as many worlds as there are people, change is possible, nice things do happen et cetera.

So this afternoon I had my last talk with the psychology lady, who was appropriately dressed in white as I was in black (I have a sweating-problem, so wearing black makes the most sense, it's not out of doom and gloom or anything). She kept the door open - figuratively - and said I could always make an appointment if I needed to talk about something real bad. I told her that was good to know, although most of the time this is where I turn to when I need to get stuff off my mind, and I told her about my taking up writing again, partly to substitute our talks (it has about the same effect).

Today another layer of stress has opened up, so I'm pretty scared about the neighbour situation. It's all fine and dandy that living in a pressure cooker speeds up the process lots, but it's moments like this I fear for my life. Not because I don't want to die, but rather the way in which. I'm not done yet. If lightning would strike me down, well, that's okay, I'll be fine with that, but I'd prefer not to be stabbed or get a Molotovcocktail thrown at my house or something like that by one of the neighbours. Just wanted to have that said. Would be nice if something had been done with all I went through before I die, is all I'm saying.
I'm scared today, it's a near full moon and near the monthly hassle so I shouldn't be defending myself like this, but I want to write down everything, if necessary, to write out the tension, get it off my hairy chest. I'm using the serial killer's autobiography to find echoes in me of the dark stuff in the book, to speed up the process even more. Sweat out all the old fears.

The past two days the anxiety on a deep level - in an unknown location somewhere in my belly - has been replaced by peace and relaxation, so a seed has been planted. Let it grow! Where before was continuous stress, now there is quiet and well, nothing. Feels new, feels weird and a little superficial, as if a person is only 'deep' when in a constant state of fear and desperation.
But it's true, I'm turning into an increasingly boring person. Happy, content people are all the same, they have the same characteristics, where everybody's pain and fear has a different face and story (and in that way is more interesting).
I hope to be extremely boring very very soon.

"Your past is over; it cannot touch you. Forgive all involved, including yourself. God specializes in new beginnings."

The whole of the moon

Every time I'm able to relax, a deeper layer of anxiety opens up and is then released gradually over a period of time through me being anxious, stressed out and worried about lots of (minor) stuff. I don't relax often. But when the neighbours leave for two weeks like some time ago, the sudden quiet and peace create a relaxation that goes deeper and deeper and opens up layers of nervousness and fear originating from a long time ago.
At the moment I'm reading two very different books, one about the nightmare, the other about the sweetest dream; the autobiography of the worst serial killer ever, and "Love is letting go of fear". They balance each other out quite nicely. But seriously, I'm into forgiveness lately (I have a specific focal point every now and then, besides long, dreary working-stuff-out periods), cos that just seems to be where I'm at, at the moment.
Apparently, I'm ripe for it, because sometimes even thinking about it creates a sense of peace in me. I gather it's the same thing as surrendering to God's Will/Plan, giving up control, letting the Universe guide my little boat, you name it.
I'm having trouble finding the right words AND I'm overly sensitive, and when I looked outside I saw why: the moon is nearly full and that gets me all sensitive and weepy.
Anyway, I'm mulling some stuff over and "Forgive your past and everyone involved including yourself" in particular. I don't have to actively pursue anything. When I'm ready for something, that thing just works itself out in me, all I need to do is remind myself sometimes, with notes for instance; I tend to write quotes or sentences on little pieces of paper and stuff them in my bag or pockets, so I can read them several times during the day. A step up from scribbling on my hand.

My laptop also is not into the near full moon and just crashed on me. Starting up again takes oh, about half an hour, so now I can't keep my eyes open. Bed soon. Tomorrow is my last talk with the psychologist lady.
I feel some mayor changes coming. I don't know what where when or how, but there's something in the air besides volcano ash.

Right

It went well. We were supposed to talk for about an hour, instead we talked for nearly two. I went in with caution, yet without grudges or resentment. With open mind and heart. I needed some time to adjust, where I kept eyeing him to check for his reaction to the things I was saying, but after a while I came into my own, found my voice; when he said he didn't know much about me I carefully started to talk and gradually became more relaxed/balanced/in the moment.
I told him about my life, about who I am and choose to be, about the way I handle and look at my life. How I go about changing it, reprogramming myself, building me up from nothing, from a negative space filled with, well, crap.
I politely and gently 'refused' some of his suggestions by saying that experience has shown that those methods aren't right for me, but I could see how it would work for others; I then focused on useful parts of the things he said, making sure to tell him it was helpful and I could work with that.
While I was telling him my life story and how I try to deal with it, I actually saw his eyes tearing up. I squashed a spark of smugness.
A moment later I got back into authenticity, with no ulterior motives, genuinely trying to make it about getting somewhere together, instead of me against him. It was a victory cos we both came out winners.
I didn't bring up last time, neither did he, well a little but I gently steered around it so we could proceed with a clean slate.
I told him I understand how it must be difficult for people with a nice background - here I used 'a friend' to illustrate my point, so I wouldn't offend him - to get how hard it is to rewrite history, reprogramme yourself, and how hard the simple things are because of that; like doing dishes or getting up in the morning (/afternoon). No task is simple or small when depression and fear have shrunk your world to the size of a peanut.
The attack/defense mindset was absent. Yeah baby!

Afterwards I went to sit somewhere with a salad and pineapple juice to celebrate; this is the direction I want my life to take. This approach is light and interesting.
When the meeting had ended and I was on my way to a few hours of sun on my face I realised what my fear had been: I was afraid of losing myself in connecting with others. A very realistic fear, since that is what happened before. But that was before, and now the opportunities to connect present themselves because I'm ready and the time is right, apparently.

Ashes and asses

Awesome, awesome pictures of the volcano and ash and everything related:
http://bit.ly/aN0Kpd
The photos of the volcano with the lightning just blew me away.
I have a thing for lightning and wouldn't mind being near an active volcano at some point. To see a pic of those things combined... truly awe inspiring. Too bad I ain't no virgin anymore, or I'd might consider throwing myself in to save the world's economy. (Yeah right!)
Anyway. The end's drawing near for the talks with the psychology lady, so I'll try and start this up again; writing things down clears my thoughts as much as talking to her does. She sometimes gives me feedback, but we have established that for me to get the most out it, is to just talk. That way I usually reach a clarity I couldn't have found by talking to myself. Writing stuff down has the same effect, although the feedback from this woman is refreshing.
I love it when people ask me questions. I like thinking about things, getting to the answers, discovering what's behind them, beneath them, what's hidden, what's possible, et cetera. I like to work things out in my head, I like to get the overall picture.
This week I have been dreading the meeting I have tomorrow morning, with a man who made condescending remarks last time we met. Don't want to go into details, but I have to go. I forgot to look at this meeting as a challenge, a chance to practise. Or just an experience, good or bad, that should be irrelevant, but it isn't. And to say it should be is also judgement. All in all, I think I'm judging myself more about this meeting than him.
Why is it so hard to let it go? Because he is in a position of power, and the first time he was kind and understanding. The sudden judgemental things he said were a slap in my face because he said them in a friendly tone of voice. Belittling, condescending.
This stirs up anger in me. Self-righteous anger. Like I want to attack him and defend myself at the same time by making some fitting comments about how one would expect someone in his line of work to have some shred of compassion for people less fortunate.
Of course I'd lower myself to his level. Of course there are no levels.
I don't expect myself to get rid of all this stuff by tomorrow morning. It's just a wish. I wish it wouldn't get to me, that's not the person who I want to be. I want to be able to let it go, let it roll off me as a drop of water on lotus leaves (they don't absorb water or dirt, for real, it just rolls off them), to shrug it off and be on my merry way.
FUCK HIM!! No point in denying my true feelings right? I won't deny, I won't suppress, no matter how ugly it gets. He should know better, really? Should he? He plays his part, and so do I.
My experience tells me that cursing at something or someone makes me feel heavy, polluted. Gossiping as well. I feel it pulling me down.
I wonder how I'll feel tomorrow. There's a lot of fear in me right now. What if's. The consequences of our meeting. So. I'm not 'fixing' this by writing about it. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. This time it doesn't. Can I be okay with that? Whatever happens tomorrow, happens, and is probably what should happen. I cannot be the judge of that. This is how it is.

Hippie serial killer

I ordered two seasons of Dexter (was mesmerised first time I saw it) and an autobiography by a serial killer - with the intention of delving into my own darkest parts. The parts I usually skip cos I know what's there and I'm past the darker urges I had when I was young and extremely tormented (I literally haven't hurt a fly in decades).
But now I'm okay with it and not afraid or even apprehensive to shine a torch on those parts. Maybe a floodlight. It's fine with me, even though I had some awfully dark tendencies way back when.
Didn't act on them, or else I'd be typing this from a cosy prison cell.
I know where it came from and I know nothing can be denied, unless everything is denied. Whatever that means. It's all here, so it's all okay. I don't know whether this makes sense or not, I'm a little rusty from not writing the past few months.
Not a lot has happened on the outside, but it has on the inside; I'm ever so slowly turning into a Human Adult, with growing pains and steps back and everything.
Starting to realise that a huge part of my life, if not all of it, is/was focused on attack and defense. Mayor change of direction within the dream: I haven't found the right words yet to describe exactly what I mean by that, or what it looks like, but you could dumb it down to 'make love not war' (without the actual love making as in sex).
Just the approach to things, people, situations. "How can I bring together" instead of "how can I best defend myself". Unite instead of fight. I knew there was a risk of sounding like a total hippie. Oh well, there's worse things.
And best of all, I'm starting to care less about other people's opinions of me. Took me long enough, but the satisfaction and peace of mind was/is definitely worth it. Still developing; it's a work in progress, but not through conscious effort. Things are now changing by themselves.

I dusted off "A Course in Miracles" again, which is quite similar to Jed's books. For one willing to look past the christian terminology it really speaks of the exact same thing; the only Real thing.

"Reality cannot 'threaten' anything except illusions, since reality can only uphold truth."

Not too shabby eh?
Anyway, I'm waiting for the words to come by themselves, cos eventually they always do, when my thoughts have crystallized. Which is not now, not yet. I wrote this to de-rust myself.

Here's something I found myself repeating over and over upon waking up one morning, not consciously, but as a remnant of a dream or something like it:

"He doesn't force you to sing,
He turns you into a song."

Will watch an episode of Dexter now, before going to bed.
Later***M.