head shrinking

i'm nervous about tomorrow.

it'll be my first assessment at the counseling center and the first time i've seen someone in a few years.


i have no idea what to say.

before i would have just gone through a laundry list of what was to be expected and how i should respond, but now i can't even do that.
i don't want to do that.
i actually just want to be honest with myself for once and talk to somebody about all the weird shit that goes on in my mind, which is terrifying because i have no idea what i'd actually say if asked a question on any given subject.

i can't sleep.

i took my nice cough syrup to a. help with the coughing, and b. help with the insomnia.

still sitting around waiting for it to kick in.




btw, expectorant- latin. ex, to reject; pect-the chest.
it's supposed to make my coughs "more productive", meaning i'd cough up all the gross crap in larger amounts.


i should've taken a benedryl to make me fall asleep.

fml.

brainwash

So when I was growing up the world was a pretty lonely place.
I had nobody I could trust or really talk to until maybe a few years ago.

When I was 13ish I started going to this teen church (some people actually invited me to be a part of something? for serious? like they actually want me to be there??) 2x a week.
It was fantastically "unique" and unlike any church I've ever been to before.

I mean, it had everything to distract and dazzle kids and teens alike.

There was a live band, smoke machines, an in-your-face preacher who cracked jokes and was all tough love. He even wore jeans & tee shirts.

And then there was this "God" who supposedly thinks the world of you so that he sacrificed himself to save your mortal soul. There was this supreme being who loved you and thought you were awesome. This creator of the universe thought that you were WORTH something.

All it took to make it concrete is that you submit any free will or intelligent thoughts, along with 10% of what you had, to his representatives.
These people would never steer you wrong.
They are a part of the "body of Christ".



So for a while I bought the lies.

For a kid who never felt like I was worth anything this whole God concept was pretty awesome.

I kept building up wall after wall of biblical answers that never really answered any of the deep seated questions. For example, why would a benevolent God let people suffer. Why is it that the church is more concerned about bake sales to raise money for expanding their building when people are starving on the streets right outside its doors? Why is it that God would give everybody free will and then condemn people to hell for not believing in Him?

Why is there even a hell?

Because if you turn on the evening news it seems that hell is already here. Rape, murder, genocide, natural disasters, human-made disasters, war, famine... Nobody can tell me that hell isn't already here on earth.
How is this the product of a loving deity?


I eventually walked away.

I have never met this Jesus, but I know that the Christian church is not a representation of who he is or what he stood for.

He wasn't all about memorizing the texts of Judaism and spitting out verses. He was about living. He was about taking care of the poor and the sick, standing up for the socially repressed, partying with friends and strangers alike, and throwing wrenches into the machine of his time, whether that machine is the political or religious empire.
He was about asking questions nobody could answer. The envelope wasn't just pushed, but thrown across the room.

Now that is somebody I would follow.

Not these ignorant, delusional, self righteous nuts on stage every sunday.




In other news: I am feeling better. Still pretty dizzy but I am not passing out or having weird fever dreams.

(It was pretty fucked up. I kept seeing myself in the alter room in that Buddhist temple where my dad's ashes are kept. there are 2 alters with shelves for the dead females and males. in my weird nightmare there were just dead people standing around instead of jars of ash. they all kept staring ahead and somebody kept saying "you dont belong here. why are you here? this is a resting place for the dead. this is not your place." and i kept waking up and falling asleep again so i would constantly be back in that scene.)

New place

I moved into a studio apartment behind Kelsey's house.

Things to be cleaned, dusted, unpacked, etc.

Come over and visit me :)

beautiful rainy afternoon

When I was 4ish my mom was pregnant with my sister. Like a huge & ready to burst sort of pregnant. She wasn't really able to move that quickly and deal with an overly curious kid at the same time so it was up to my dad to watch me. This meant that I had to go with him on business trips.

He left me at his older sister's bar/bed&breakfast/rest stop close to where he was working.

I had a tiny bed in this hallway that had a small nook, almost like somebody was in the process of adding a second bedroom as an afterthought, but decided to quit halfway through.

One of his sister's sons molested me.

I still don't remember most of what happened til this day. That's actually a good thing. The details of the event could really fuck me up further than needed.

For the first time I can actually say that what happened did happen instead of just having a big white wall where that memory was.

I just remember feeling like I'd woken up with him getting off my bed with this feeling of total dread mixed with confusion and fear.

He stole the jewelry my parents bought for me (asians have a weird thing about putting gold & etc on their kids) off my wrists and I remember him saying "I'm borrowing these bracelets, [insert childhood nickname here]. Don't tell anyone."

Of course my parents found out he stole & tried to pawn the jewelry but nothing beyond that.

I've never told them.

I've never told anybody until now.

I'm not angry or upset. It happened so long that it seems pointless for me to be bothered by it.

However, just as a result of all the BS I am really afraid that I'll never be okay again.

Like something broke a long time ago and I wont ever be normal because of it.

The whole sex thing freaks me out.

It has always scared me a little bit and I really have no interest in physical contact with anybody.

I didn't even realize why til now.

And that's what happened.

cold rainy mornings

lily is watching little einsteins and singing along to the theme song.

kels & i are about to go pick up some milk and find a small birthday present for greg.

life is good.

i feel my heart beating. i have a mild anxiety and only a little bit of dread in the pit of my stomache. but i have something else too. that weird glimmer of hope.

i am excited about living my life today, pain be damned.

one day i will wake up and there will be no pain at all.

through it all there is one major difference that wasnt there even a month ago: a stubborn will to live

I will pray for you

What does that even mean?

I used to hear that quite a bit. The people who said it meant they would pray for me after hearing about all the bad things I had been going through, but what does that really mean?

It is said in good intentions, I suppose.

However, it seemed extremely patronizing.

It was like hearing somebody pour their heart out because in their broken, desperate, worn down, completely helpless shoes you seemed trustworthy and caring enough to ask them what was wrong.
Then you turn around and say:

I hear your words, but I am not really listening.
I have only generic words of comfort that I memorized for you, and your problems go beyond my word bank of empty answers so I will make up something and put a bandaid over a gushing wound.
Let me tell my personal jesus to make your world less fucked up so that I may be free from the same worry that has you so broken.
I will pray for you.




....









Why can't people just be honest?

I know you don't have an answer for me. You're not the guru on top of the mountain. That's not what I wanted.
All it would have taken was for you to take my hand and be honest with me and with yourself.
You're sorry I am going through what I am going through. You don't have the answers. You don't know why life has decided to fuck me over at this point, but you hope things will get better. In the meantime you'll just sit with me in the silence, without judgment, so I won't feel horribly isolated.

Suffering is one of the things that unites all people, no matter who they are, what they do for a living, what language they speak, their religion, race, socioeconomic status...
When we hurt, we hurt.
Human beings grieve when they experience loss.
Just the fact that it hurts and that everyone have or will hurt is comforting because it means we are really all one.
It is the honest truth.

So why do so many people try to give a generic answer to try to fix things?

Even if it is done with good intentions it still makes things a little worse.

All it really takes is for you to say: I'm here for you.

And mean it.

Trust????

How do you place hope, faith, love, and trust in a God who makes your life feel like a cosmic joke?
A God who screws you over repeatedly when all you did was pray desperately for things to be okay and they end up with the worst possible outcomes. A supposedly benevolent being who lets you have a glimpse of what being happy should feel like until you are brave enough to think that the world is a good place only to quickly snatch everything away again.
How do you let this person do this again and again, but still hang onto this "fact" that God is good, simply because you were brainwashed with it growing up?

How come nobody has an answer for me that makes sense?

Bass

I bought my bass & all the stuff that goes with it a few years ago.

I was extremely suicidal and it scared me. So I tried to find some sort of release, some sort of therapy that did not require me sitting in front of a shrink for an hour of awkward question-dodging.

The sound is deep, the resonating notes made my hands tingle and bounced around the inside of my ears. It was extremely calming. It made everything stop hurting for just a little while.

I really love that bass. I think it may have saved my life.

Fortunately that part of my life has passed. I can get out of bed these days. I no longer think about driving off a bridge on the interstate. I no longer think about hanging myself or taking pills and falling asleep in a tub of water.

So I am selling my bass and using that money to get more lenses or to pay off what I already owe.


That part of life when I just needed to feel safe is gone, replaced by a part of my life when I want to grow and change. Now I need to move in an entirely different direction.

I am trading what saved me for something that will hopefully propel me to new paths.

It makes me a bit sad to let go of that bass.
It isn't about how much it costs or the material possession.
Truthfully I am terrible musically. I can't even hum on key. I couldn't keep the rhythm going. My hands always hurt after a few hours of plucking on those strings. After a while all the notes sounded the same and I gave up.

It feels more like I am selling something that made me feel safe, even briefly.

Like I'm giving away a part of me.

It still has to be done. I can't hang onto things like that.

Maybe it'll help somebody else. Who knows.

Lily pads

I used to cut myself.
Sliced angry words into my arms, legs, stomach, shoulders. Drew heart outlines on the left side of my chest with a tiny razor blade from the pack my mom had in her sewing kit. She used it to take apart stitches. I thought that if I kept doing that then one day I'd have the courage to cut out my own heart and make everything stop. No more being alone in my head. No more days of constant fear & anxiety for no reason. No more driving to some isolated spot to cry in my car because I felt like I didn't deserve to live, but not having the balls to just end everything and consequently feeling like a total wuss.

I didn't like all the weird looks & pity-face that I got from people when they saw the scars so I tried to cover my skin with ink. If I spent money to have art put on my body then I would be less tempted to mess up somebody's work. If I didn't cover myself with scars then the cutting habit would go away on it's own. It's faulty logic, but it's my own.
Every time something major happened I would head straight to see one of my best friends with ideas for new tattoos. He never realized how fucked up I was in the head. He thought I appreciated his art (which I do) solely for it's aesthetic qualities. I feel bad about deceiving him in the past.
So I would go to take the edge off by having somebody else fuck up my skin. The only difference is that I would have pretty sweet art by the end of it instead of ugly scars.
(I happen to like scars, still)

This went on for a while until I finally realized the reason behind it.

And now I have made a commitment to using art simply for art and not an addictive coping mechanism.

Which means that I will not have any body modification done for a long time.



Which also means that I have an overwhelming urge to pick up the one razor I had saved all these years.


I am too anxious to sleep so I will try to stay up & study in hopes that it will distract me from falling back into this habit.

Scary

For the past few days I have been in shock.

I am actually here. Like, really. *HERE*

I am not detached, watching things happen, going through motions without thinking...

Life is here. I'm in the middle of it.

It's terrifying, but I am also thrilled. It is similar to being on a roller coaster for the first time, which is really a bad example because I despise roller coasters.
The point is that I am really experiencing my life for the first time in since I can remember.

I'm seeing everything and more importantly I am allowing myself to feel it.

Everything feels so new.

Wish me luck.