blogdeath – part two. Unleash the storm and the night

Lighthouse – Interpol
I think the blog is probably a keeper. I realised this today, as my mood has taken a significant turn for the worse, and I’ve had a rough day. Writing has always helped me relieve the pressure in my head, and the relief of pressure helps me to think more clearly. Or at least, clearly enough that I can operate on some kind of level that is a notch above emotional wreck.

I do feel somewhat limited in what I can say on this blog, which kind of belies the purpose of it. My rantings are a way of working out fears, insecurities, depressive miseries and delusions, until I get a grip. I don’t want to expose people who actually know me or are involved in my life to those things, because they may well not be my everyday feelings, just passing emotional turmoil. If anyone was to judge me solely from this blog they would maybe think I was depressed constantly, when this is not the case at all. Not anymore anyway….

But I am loathe to leave behind all these thoughts. Parts of me.

Sometimes I think I am just playing at recovery. Trying to please her. Make her stay. Pretend there is hope. That I am worth it.
Sometimes I just want to let go, not have to try so hard anymore. To give in. The crushing disappointment when I fail, don’t have the energy to overcome the voices, the fears, the insecurity, the black weight.
I feel trapped in a box. Sometimes I just want to be miserable. Sometimes that is ok. Isn’t it? Do I have to be strong all the time?

So. I think the blog stays. I need it. I have no-one else I can talk to like this.

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blogdeath – part one

and so that time rolls around again where I ponder killing the blog, for it’s inevitable decline is like a cocktail stick being repeatedly jabbed in my eye, very very slowly, i.e every few days when I remember that it exists and that I never post, and that I miss my blog friends, but really, truly no longer no how to communicate what is going on in my head these days.

Writing about everyday tedious crushing depression is easy. It goes like this ‘lalalala life sucks, I suck, there is no hope of life or me ever not sucking, what is the point of it all, oh the anguish, fuck it all I’m going to listen to some Sigur Ros and cry’…
Repeat.
A lot.

You’d think one would get bored of writing various versions of that essential nubbin, but really, not so much. I managed it for months, and never really seemed to tire of it. It was an outlet, I explained to the world at large my pains, there were some oohs and ahhhs, and I felt justified that my life was indeed a bit crap and there was no hope for anything other than a tortured disappointing half life.

Now, things are a little different – I feel I am actually on the path of ‘recovery'(as gabe terms it, but I prefer to think of it as learning how to manage the crap). I have a full time job, which I am actually managing to not only keep, but almost enjoy, and be involved with. Granted it is exhausting at times, but compared to how I was two years ago, it’s a minor miracle that I can keep going for 8 hours a day never mind doing it 5 days a week.
I have a partner, and am slowly learning how to not let my moods, anxieties, selfishnesses, and general craziness interfere TOOO much with the general enjoyment of the relationship, although I still manage to fuck things up royally from time to time, but you know, who doesn’t?

The problem is, I had built up a whole lexicon of suffering, a dictionary of despair – I knew how to eloquently express my vague sense of disatisfaction with the world, my angst, and my heartache. It rolled off me like so much miserable water.

I have no idea how to communicate what is going on in my life now, I don’t have the words, or the eloquence to effectively portray the more subtle rhythms of recovery. The small triumphs when I avoid anxiety ripping me down into depression, when I breathe deeply and tell myself I am being an idiot, and these thoughts are the result of insecurity and fear. It’s easy to describe the violence and power of a tornado, it’s more difficult to lay down a soliloquy of sanity.

Do I even want to, or need to keep a blog about how things are improving?
Should I start writing about my favourite recipes instead? Was I ever writing for anything other than to reach out to others? Or is it just for myself?

I don’t know. I am pondering it.

Imaginary computer people, you’ll never leave me will you?

(Where did you all go….)

I have abandoned the blogging for a while now…mostly too much time at work and then too much time with C when I’m not at work. It’s been mostly wonderful. I haven’t missed writing out my miseries in this sodding thing, although I have missed the comraderie of the melancholic brigade. We pour out our anxieties, our twisted silent screams, our failures to fit into this world that absolutely nobody fits into, even though most of the time it feels like everyone but us fits in. And there’s acceptance. Understanding.
Granted, mostly we accept and understand because we don’t have to spend any actual time in each others presence because then we’d no doubt just annoy the hell out of each other. Nonetheless, the acceptance and freedom to blurt out our pathetic fears without wreaking judgement and criticism is nice.

Tonight is not a good night. I am having a silent fight with C.

You know those?

I guess you either do or you don’t.

She was kind of manic when I got home – I was kind of tense after a day of reading intensely boring research and a way too stuffy office which made me feel like I was living in some kind of fever dream.
Seriously it was about 2 degrees C outside, I had the window wide open, and I was still slowly baking to death.
The radiators must be powered by some kind of top secret fusion reactor.

I digress. Probably because I don’t want to talk about this, but if I don’t get it out I will surely implode.

C gets kind of brusque and impatient when she is being a little manic. with me anyway. She generally manages to be very polite and charming with other people, but with me, its mostly the impatient, not a huge amount of consideration for our emotional ties, and my immense insecurities and emotional issues. My problem she would no doubt say. Maybe so.

Anyway. I was trying to explain to her what I had found out during my hours of tedious research, and she was being all terse and impatient, and I was getting all defensive, not in any way prepared for anything other than a warm and welcoming partner after a depressing day. I tried to say she was being all spiky, and she responded with saying it was all in my mind (which is pretty much guaranteed to annoy me, and by now she must know that), and that didnt go down well at all. I would be the first to admit that I am prone to emotional messiness, but when C gets manic, her mood changes, she gets slightly aggressive, curt, bullish and impatient. She tries to make out that I am the only person in the world who has ever witnessed this. That everyone else finds her charming and terribly efficient. She points this out in a way that is designed to make me feel confused about my own perceptions and that my opinions are ill informed and pretty worthless.

This of course is somewhat infuriating.

When C is manic, she doesnt seem to care much about the effect she has on me. Its just me and my inability to deal with the world and my insecurities. She is of course flawless.

I am too shaken by this to want to have a fight. I am already pretty depressed by a day of boredom. I spend the evening in agony at our seperateness, wondering why my feelings matter so little. She spends the evening chatting to a friend and playing a game online.
Obviously, I am the loser here. I end up more depressed and miserable. She is all dandy.

Often I find it impossible to talk to C about my depression, my anxieties and idiocies because she just pushes through such things, doesn’t ever have them in the first place or has techniques to deal with them. I don’t like listening to myself talking about stuff that she finds so easy to push aside, or feelings that are alien to her. Her way of dealing with my problems often leave me feeling worthless, more depressed, or worse, trigger deeper emotions that set off defensive anger, that she retaliates to with soul destroying effectiveness. I can’t fight with her, because I already feel worthless. I have lost before I begin.
If I can’t share my fears and insecurities with my lover without fearing it ending in feeling worse, or a fight, then what is going wrong there?

Sure you can look back, If it means moving on

Sure you can look back
If it means moving on
And you can take me back
But you must come home
We are both a in maddening cloud

[audio:miserybutterfly/008maddeningcloud.mp3]
(Blonde Redhead – Maddening Cloud)

Been a while huh?
Admit it, you missed me…

Really. Its been like 2 months or something. You must have noticed.

Whatever…

I apologise for my absence for those of you who have come to enjoy my stumbling efforts to make sense of my world. Or just steal my salsa recipes and claim the glory for yourselves (you know who you are).
As one or two of you already know, life happened, and I have been busy with living, rather than writing about living. I enjoy writing about living, but recently its been changing so much, and so many changes are going on in my mind that I have been at a loss as to how to describe how I feel, or what the changes actually are.
I say that as if I have somehow reached a point where I can describe it. Alas, you are to be disappointed.

I can’t recall what I have said or not said about recent events in my life, so a quick recap…started new full time job in June, wife left same week to move to different part of country. Spent couple of months learning to work full time again after 5 years self employment. All I pretty much did during this period was get my head together, work, and pay the rent and the large pile of debts I had accumulated. I drank some…I reconnected with friends. I breathed again, and thought a lot. I recognised how much happier I was out of the marriage. I moved on a whole lot.

Then I had a visit from a new friend. It was supposed to be a short visit, a few days…
She is still here.

That time has been spent in a crazy blur of discovering another person, discovering myself, discovering what love actually is, and what it is not. There is so much more I could write, need to write, but finding the time and the right words is so difficult. The process is ongoing, and wonderful, and stressful and new.

I just wanted to get this post out of the way because its been sitting in my drafts for weeks, in one form or another, and I need to break the logjam. I have stuff to say.

And you can touch me there
Just don’t leave me alone
And you can call me softly
When I dream and ask for more
You can slow and fold and mold my mind

And she said
I can’t feel my toes
And she must be alone
And far too cold

And he stares
Like he doesn’t see
He must be scared
And far too lost

Under and over
We must have glanced
Face to face
We’ve had to dance
We’re both in a maddening cloud

Sure you can step back
If it means moving on
And you take me back
But you must be alone
You can choke and smoke and rock my mind

Simulacra and Simulation

[audio:donotwanthis.mp3]

Sometimes, only sometimes, you realise that the map you use to find your way around your mind is of equal size and complexity, and possibly even containing more layers and levels than the plane you try to exist upon at any given time.

That one we call reality. You might have noticed it.

I am nihilistic and twisty.
Sometimes there is a core of anger in me that rises with no reason at all. Self-hatred, futility, weakeness. Bitter fucking hate.
I hide it well. I take it away from those I care about. Or try to. Which is ridiculous because the only thing that can stop it is to be held until the anger has no fuel.

Sadly when I am like this, I don’t let anyone near me.

So instead of bothering people, instead of asking for help, I will drink, and pretend I am fine, and it will be buried, and squashed down, into that layer of silt at the bottom of my mind. God help me if if gets disturbed by some giant footstep some day.

Tasty beer. You will never leave me…

The original is unfaithful to the translation.
(Jorge Luis Borges)