The world is round. So said my Hutterite friend last summer*. So said I to my Polish friend last week. Good things happen; bad things happen. Things happen. Things happen to us. We make things happen. When we struggle, things become difficult. Generally, when we run with the rhythm of life, in the current of positive thought and deed, good happenings occur easily.
I'm trapped somewhere between the world of sinner and saint, closer to sinner by far, and in this lonesome stretch of highway, there seems to be a lull in the proceedings. At least in the things that I "want" to fall into my world. Like about $10 grand to dig my way out of the stressful hole that I slowly but methodically dug these past few months/years...
I'm online today, seeking out career changes, educational opportunities, even work opportunities... Stressing over fines and bills and "stuff" and bullshit. Worried about the future, when really.. Really, the only work I have before me today is to not pick up dope.
And to not worry about setting my net for jobs and income when I still have fish to clean from my last catch.
Everything will come when it is supposed to. Just keep my side of the street clean.
My heart beats harder at this realization. The tears well up. They call this "surrender"...A ti me rindo. "To you I rend."
Letting go of the panicky hustle I have conditioned myself to do and just doing what's in front of me.
(sigh)...
Ok.. For now this will have to do.
Right now I have hungry kids in front of me!
xox.
S.
*Piscescree Blogspot - "It's Always Something," April 2013
let love guide you to the freedom you deserve...
Showing posts with label piscescree. Show all posts
Showing posts with label piscescree. Show all posts
Monday, August 26, 2013
Thursday, August 22, 2013
First Things First...
I have to write. I just have to. At least I think I do. It's because I think all the fucking time. Too much. What was, what could have been, what should have been, what will be... blah, blah, blah... My brain creates visions, and then it makes connections between them and the next thing. On and on.
And in doing all this thinking, I am expending some degree of energy. Very little energy, but some energy nonetheless. And my brain, drug addled and self obsessed though it may be, perceives this endless brainbabble as actually doing the thing I am thinking about.
I sense that this hearkens back to my childhood when a trip to Disneyland was out of the fucking question, or even a video game console or some such thing. My mind would create such strong imagery - experiencing the world through PBS and Encyclopedia Brittanica. I would build these complex universes - like a post apocalyptic preteen mountain lifestyle where the nukes would fly and I would have time to commit a B & E at the Pioneer sporting goods store next to the Bakery and IGA on the hill (Hintonites know of which I speak) and take to the wilderness with plenty of guns, ammo, snare wire and dehydrated stroganoff.
There was a certain solace in knowing that I could succeed in this world - a world of bears and deer, trout and weather and solitude. That perhaps one of the sweet girls I admired at Mountainview Elementary or Overlander Junior High would see my survival talents and come live in my cabin and we would procreate and eat wondrous meals and hibernate away from the nuclear winter that was sure to come.
This was a far better reality than the one I was experiencing. I did not feel worthy of anything special or nice or wondrous. Much of this came from me not wanting to impose anything further on my mom, who, bless her heart, did the level best she could with what she had at the time. So my "not asking for anything" was a little bit that I could do to be small and less of a burden.
I lived instead in my mind. In the books that I spent hours with.
This kind of escapist thought became my reprieve.
It has now become my deepest weakness.
These thoughts continue. Imagining what I will do, and doing nothing of the sort. The thoughts include several things that are related to my achieving my own self respect. Things like working on the relationships with my sons, long absent from my life; strengthening my financial situation, staying sober, etc. All the wreckage from 30 years of pretty much being high, drunk, self obsessed or draped in lies.
I picture the time spent on these precious tasks, see the sun and rain and all the details in between, and the rainbow at the end, all in a matter of seconds, and my feelings seem to evolve as though I've actually done it.
This is fucked.
Fucked because I imagine all these character building exercises and imagine that I've become the character that they've built.
Then carry this zhǐlǎohǔ or 紙老虎 or paper tiger of personality shift around like a plastic dollar store police badge of accomplishment.
I can't continue this any longer. I am 42 not 12. I can not keep building escapist cabins in the bush and feeling like I'm Grizzly Adams when I am trapped in a suburban crackhead nightmare of bullshittery and strained talents.
I paint pictures that are pretty black and white, but the reality is that there are moments of clarity, moments of truth that I do walk through. Too few though.
I need more.
I have a feeling that these incessant thoughts need to be exposed and shown the light of day lest they continue to commit perjury in the psychic court of my life.
Perhaps they can live here in this little homely blog.
...
I speak of these things today because I have been spending a lot of time writing the next chapter of my life in my mind. Imagining my way out of this nonsense and into the next phase of wellness, growth, sobriety, career fulfillment, etc... It has become a bit of a din, (or is that djinn?)
This transitional thinking hedges on being a "plan for recovery and healing" but mostly it is a creatively visualized reality that resonates like my nuclear hermit plan from my childhood. Real tween the ears but nowhere else.
As such, I sense myself going through the mock changes, see the physical changes in my appearance from working out every day, sense the integrity and honesty taking root in my consciousness, my sense of self becoming humble, kind, real and firmly ensconced in a sustainable home we've built ourselves, with me in the garden, or polishing solar panels, fit and brown and handsome as all get out.
So I paint a picture out of the madness into a sane and respectable life, look at it for a few minutes, commit to "do the work." Maybe even put in a few days towards the goalposts... Then, quietly, like a thief in the night, my penchant for the silky stroke of the pipe comes stealing into my thoughts.
Poof.
Gone.
Back to the drawing board, square one, whatever you want to call it.
I have been recently obsessing about my current situation, financial, spiritual, career wise, all of the above. Trying to duct tape and band aid and shuck and jive my way to the path to enlightenment and truth, sobriety and respect.
Looking at consolidation loans, career changes, geographical changes, whatever. Madly trying to fix what I've broke; what has been broken for so long.
Fuck it.
I have all the tools right here right now. Within my arms' reach; within the scope of my imaginings and the frame of my doings. I just need to get out of my own way.
"I suffer from figureitoutism," says a dear friend of mine.
Me too Al.
Let the brain exercise here on the keys when it starts to get noisy in there... When I start conjecturing and posturing and reaping the spoils of my imagined efforts.
Just do what's in front of you says I to me. First things first, the rest will come when it's sposed to.
Unless God went and left when I was out chasing my tail. Though I'm pretty sure the Universal Love that I call God doesn't leave. Never. I just turn away every now and again perhaps because I don't feel worth the love that flows so freely.
Anyways, that's a story for another day.
xox
S.
And in doing all this thinking, I am expending some degree of energy. Very little energy, but some energy nonetheless. And my brain, drug addled and self obsessed though it may be, perceives this endless brainbabble as actually doing the thing I am thinking about.
I sense that this hearkens back to my childhood when a trip to Disneyland was out of the fucking question, or even a video game console or some such thing. My mind would create such strong imagery - experiencing the world through PBS and Encyclopedia Brittanica. I would build these complex universes - like a post apocalyptic preteen mountain lifestyle where the nukes would fly and I would have time to commit a B & E at the Pioneer sporting goods store next to the Bakery and IGA on the hill (Hintonites know of which I speak) and take to the wilderness with plenty of guns, ammo, snare wire and dehydrated stroganoff.
There was a certain solace in knowing that I could succeed in this world - a world of bears and deer, trout and weather and solitude. That perhaps one of the sweet girls I admired at Mountainview Elementary or Overlander Junior High would see my survival talents and come live in my cabin and we would procreate and eat wondrous meals and hibernate away from the nuclear winter that was sure to come.
This was a far better reality than the one I was experiencing. I did not feel worthy of anything special or nice or wondrous. Much of this came from me not wanting to impose anything further on my mom, who, bless her heart, did the level best she could with what she had at the time. So my "not asking for anything" was a little bit that I could do to be small and less of a burden.
I lived instead in my mind. In the books that I spent hours with.
This kind of escapist thought became my reprieve.
It has now become my deepest weakness.
These thoughts continue. Imagining what I will do, and doing nothing of the sort. The thoughts include several things that are related to my achieving my own self respect. Things like working on the relationships with my sons, long absent from my life; strengthening my financial situation, staying sober, etc. All the wreckage from 30 years of pretty much being high, drunk, self obsessed or draped in lies.
I picture the time spent on these precious tasks, see the sun and rain and all the details in between, and the rainbow at the end, all in a matter of seconds, and my feelings seem to evolve as though I've actually done it.
This is fucked.
Fucked because I imagine all these character building exercises and imagine that I've become the character that they've built.
Then carry this zhǐlǎohǔ or 紙老虎 or paper tiger of personality shift around like a plastic dollar store police badge of accomplishment.
I can't continue this any longer. I am 42 not 12. I can not keep building escapist cabins in the bush and feeling like I'm Grizzly Adams when I am trapped in a suburban crackhead nightmare of bullshittery and strained talents.
I paint pictures that are pretty black and white, but the reality is that there are moments of clarity, moments of truth that I do walk through. Too few though.
I need more.
I have a feeling that these incessant thoughts need to be exposed and shown the light of day lest they continue to commit perjury in the psychic court of my life.
Perhaps they can live here in this little homely blog.
...
I speak of these things today because I have been spending a lot of time writing the next chapter of my life in my mind. Imagining my way out of this nonsense and into the next phase of wellness, growth, sobriety, career fulfillment, etc... It has become a bit of a din, (or is that djinn?)
This transitional thinking hedges on being a "plan for recovery and healing" but mostly it is a creatively visualized reality that resonates like my nuclear hermit plan from my childhood. Real tween the ears but nowhere else.
As such, I sense myself going through the mock changes, see the physical changes in my appearance from working out every day, sense the integrity and honesty taking root in my consciousness, my sense of self becoming humble, kind, real and firmly ensconced in a sustainable home we've built ourselves, with me in the garden, or polishing solar panels, fit and brown and handsome as all get out.
So I paint a picture out of the madness into a sane and respectable life, look at it for a few minutes, commit to "do the work." Maybe even put in a few days towards the goalposts... Then, quietly, like a thief in the night, my penchant for the silky stroke of the pipe comes stealing into my thoughts.
Poof.
Gone.
Back to the drawing board, square one, whatever you want to call it.
I have been recently obsessing about my current situation, financial, spiritual, career wise, all of the above. Trying to duct tape and band aid and shuck and jive my way to the path to enlightenment and truth, sobriety and respect.
Looking at consolidation loans, career changes, geographical changes, whatever. Madly trying to fix what I've broke; what has been broken for so long.
Fuck it.
I have all the tools right here right now. Within my arms' reach; within the scope of my imaginings and the frame of my doings. I just need to get out of my own way.
"I suffer from figureitoutism," says a dear friend of mine.
Me too Al.
Let the brain exercise here on the keys when it starts to get noisy in there... When I start conjecturing and posturing and reaping the spoils of my imagined efforts.
Just do what's in front of you says I to me. First things first, the rest will come when it's sposed to.
Unless God went and left when I was out chasing my tail. Though I'm pretty sure the Universal Love that I call God doesn't leave. Never. I just turn away every now and again perhaps because I don't feel worth the love that flows so freely.
Anyways, that's a story for another day.
xox
S.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
To Wit, to Woo...
My thanks today to Paul Weinhold; his blog answered me a pressing question and also directed me to the narrow gate through which I must pass, by annotating the immortal words of one of the greatest writers in history, Hesiod.
Encouragement from Hesiod
Encouragement from Hesiod
σοὶ δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἐσθλὰ νοέων ἐρέω, μέγα νήπιε Πέρση.
τὴν μέν τοι κακότητα καὶ ἰλαδὸν ἔστιν ἑλέσθαι
ῥηιδίως: λείη μὲν ὁδός, μάλα δ᾽ ἐγγύθι ναίει:
τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν
ἀθάνατοι: μακρός δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἶμος ἐς αὐτὴν
καὶ τρηχύς τὸ πρῶτον: ἐπὴν δ᾽ εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται,
ῥηιδίη δὴ ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα.
For your own good, I tell you, Perses, you silly fool,
Badness by the barrel-full one can lay hold of
Easily; the way is smooth and quite close at hand.
But the immortal gods have put sweat before excellence.
The path to that is long and steep
And rough at first, but when one nears the top,
Then it gets easy, though it is still difficult.
Sheldon, you silly fool. This is beginning to not hold water anymore. Less a silly fool than a hurtful ass.
We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. But really, is there anything really other than spiritual perfection? Our spirits are perfect. Our bodies' abilities to house them perfectly are less than average.
Selfishness. This came rising to the fore again. I had worked it down till it was barely noticeable, but then, like an old unwelcome friend, the dreadful knock on the door, that at once awakens fear and queasy feelings, but at the same time, a little perverse excitement.
So many exhort me to make recovery a full time job. I am beginning to think they are right.
My brain is bruised today and my face is sore from the oral surgery the other day. I need to heal. My spirit is also sore from being misused and maltreated. Today is one day. But it is one day. The saint with whom I share my life grows weary of my bullshit. There was supposed to not be anymore bullshit. I sincerely thought I was through the woods. There was my biggest failing. Never through the woods, only one day reprieve from the insanity of active addiction at a time.
Fuck me. It is from the self hate from "same ol', same ol'" that the desire to dig in and persevere wanes. The frustration of failure, the immensity of the wreckage that can form in such short fashion. These things conspire to keep me lost, blind and broken.
No, I say. No. Today is for me. Today is for my heart and soul and my children. Today I live. Today I will give love to those who stand by me, and love to me too.
I had attached myself so firmly to a program of recovery and a fellowship, so firmly to a feeling of being done, of being committed to a life of sobriety and health. Then, I stopped moving forward. I stopped helping others. I got busy again, jumped back into work, being a multitasking ADHD doughhead, smooth talker and crazy homelife. Recovery took a back seat and so did my sobriety. Asshole selfish druggie jumped back into the front seat, and I never even put up a fight. I just let him slide in. And once in, he has a hard time relinquishing the wheel.
I've taken it back. Today, with a vengeance, and with some soft love for my hurting soul and my hurting family.
Today, and God willing every day.
The owl's call. To wit and to woo. My friend Paul Weinhold describes the possibilities of what Shakespeare may have meant with the owl's call in Love's Labor Lost here. I think this is the choice I am faced with - to succumb to my wit, to the place of my ego, where my rat-a-tat-tat smarty pants sense of humour and manipulative wordsmithery live, or to woo; to that place of love, which is sincere, real and borne of love and all things of the heart. The former is a slippery slope for me, where I may be prone to my own bullshit, The latter is a part of me that I love. My soft, chewy centre, and one that is safer for everyone. To wit, to woo: If that is a question, then certainly I must to woo.
Much love.
S.
τὴν μέν τοι κακότητα καὶ ἰλαδὸν ἔστιν ἑλέσθαι
ῥηιδίως: λείη μὲν ὁδός, μάλα δ᾽ ἐγγύθι ναίει:
τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν
ἀθάνατοι: μακρός δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἶμος ἐς αὐτὴν
καὶ τρηχύς τὸ πρῶτον: ἐπὴν δ᾽ εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται,
ῥηιδίη δὴ ἔπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα.
For your own good, I tell you, Perses, you silly fool,
Badness by the barrel-full one can lay hold of
Easily; the way is smooth and quite close at hand.
But the immortal gods have put sweat before excellence.
The path to that is long and steep
And rough at first, but when one nears the top,
Then it gets easy, though it is still difficult.
Sheldon, you silly fool. This is beginning to not hold water anymore. Less a silly fool than a hurtful ass.
We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. But really, is there anything really other than spiritual perfection? Our spirits are perfect. Our bodies' abilities to house them perfectly are less than average.
Selfishness. This came rising to the fore again. I had worked it down till it was barely noticeable, but then, like an old unwelcome friend, the dreadful knock on the door, that at once awakens fear and queasy feelings, but at the same time, a little perverse excitement.
So many exhort me to make recovery a full time job. I am beginning to think they are right.
My brain is bruised today and my face is sore from the oral surgery the other day. I need to heal. My spirit is also sore from being misused and maltreated. Today is one day. But it is one day. The saint with whom I share my life grows weary of my bullshit. There was supposed to not be anymore bullshit. I sincerely thought I was through the woods. There was my biggest failing. Never through the woods, only one day reprieve from the insanity of active addiction at a time.
Fuck me. It is from the self hate from "same ol', same ol'" that the desire to dig in and persevere wanes. The frustration of failure, the immensity of the wreckage that can form in such short fashion. These things conspire to keep me lost, blind and broken.
No, I say. No. Today is for me. Today is for my heart and soul and my children. Today I live. Today I will give love to those who stand by me, and love to me too.
I had attached myself so firmly to a program of recovery and a fellowship, so firmly to a feeling of being done, of being committed to a life of sobriety and health. Then, I stopped moving forward. I stopped helping others. I got busy again, jumped back into work, being a multitasking ADHD doughhead, smooth talker and crazy homelife. Recovery took a back seat and so did my sobriety. Asshole selfish druggie jumped back into the front seat, and I never even put up a fight. I just let him slide in. And once in, he has a hard time relinquishing the wheel.
I've taken it back. Today, with a vengeance, and with some soft love for my hurting soul and my hurting family.
Today, and God willing every day.
The owl's call. To wit and to woo. My friend Paul Weinhold describes the possibilities of what Shakespeare may have meant with the owl's call in Love's Labor Lost here. I think this is the choice I am faced with - to succumb to my wit, to the place of my ego, where my rat-a-tat-tat smarty pants sense of humour and manipulative wordsmithery live, or to woo; to that place of love, which is sincere, real and borne of love and all things of the heart. The former is a slippery slope for me, where I may be prone to my own bullshit, The latter is a part of me that I love. My soft, chewy centre, and one that is safer for everyone. To wit, to woo: If that is a question, then certainly I must to woo.
Much love.
S.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Day Four: Up the Creek without a paddle or "Can someone bring me some toilet paper please!?"
I have found something in my chest that I forgot existed. A good heart, strong and true, with a love for life and all that it brings. So funny all the things that are coming forward now; a never ending barrage of memories, fond and painful, trickling over my mind's eye like the headwaters of the Skeena converging in the verdant meadows of northern BC. Reminders of all that is true - of all that I believe with every fiber of my being.
And the bullshit, slowly floating to the top, easy to see, easy to smell and able to be caught with a small butterfly net and filtered away.
Yesterday was a new moon. My mom used to have the odd new moon ceremony. This is a good time to begin something; to chase away the clutter of the past and commence anew. I feel it in my bones.
Addiction and all that it brings has been a part of my life for many, many years. Even before I was a separate breathing entity, I was part of a duality within my mom's womb, where addiction played a role.
Funny. I always knew it. That our history - her history, helped to forge this alchemical soup that I had become.
My mom used to tell me stories when I was young... (I LOVED hearing about myself and our little travails and twisted, happy/sad life stories). But stories that would shock. Stories about how I was conceived. About getting punched in the stomach by a drunk when she was pregnant with me. About crying herself to sleep with me inside of her. Stories of violence and fear, pain and sadness - but also of hope and beauty and all things that made this life worth living.
I used to think of this poor 16 year old Indian girl. It's 1970 and she's in a small redneck forestry and mining town. She is pregnant by the bad boy son of the strict disciplinarian high school principal - an English principal, no less.
Whew...
What pain, what fear, what stigma.
What stress.
What stress... Stress. The emotion that wreaks the most havoc on a teenage girl's endocrine system, and most assuredly on her developing child. I always wondered what it must have felt like in there. In the dark, warm, comfort of the womb - a place that is generally considered to be safe and sound - a warm wet reprieve from the ills of the world. In there, among her pain and fear and sadness and other emotions, as she found her way past parental alcoholism and the other goodies of her teenagedom.
I always knew in my gut that I was not "unscathed" from her travails. That somehow, in some way, they touched me irrevocably.
Dr. Gabor Mate, Canadian physician and author extraordinaire, has written some books which speak to this truth. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is an amazing book (thanks Dad) that speak about some of the most cutting edge brain research that steps out some of these causal factors.
He is the staff physician at the Portland Hotel in Downtown Van. The only legal injection site in N. America. He has a few insights to say the least.
It has been through rifling through his work that I have discovered that I am, in fact, ADHD. Some of you probably figured this out 20 years ago! ; ) But mostly that I am not alone in my struggles. At about 5:59 of the video attached above, he touches on some things that make sense right down to my core.
Something interesting that I have finally realized is about the nature of the stimulant addiction I have maintained for nearly 12 years.
See, I used to work with kids in care; I supervised group homes and staff and some of Alberta's most troubled youth. All came with their own alphabet soup of diagnoses and prescribed medical reprieve.
I had many kids who were ADHD and who seemed to be unwilling passengers on their brain's joyride with their bodies. We didn't prescribe them "downers".... They got ritalin - a psychostimulant. This stimulant flooded the brain's chemoreceptors with dopamine and norepinephrine, effectively allowing them to "slow down" and react in more normal operating levels.
I've known people who are addicted to stimulants and, when they take them, they fly off the handle. They turn into cleaning machines or sex machines or whatever. Not me. I would turn into a zombie. I would slow down. Calm down. I couldn't handle company or other people. Always alone, always quiet - no music, no sounds.
I understand now.
Self prescribed medical reprieve from ADHD. Nice try Dr. Hughes.
How bout some other ways to manage ADHD... Like diet, exercise, high energy/high adrenaline hobbies, proper sleep and nutrition. And love. Lots of love - both self and for others.
You know, my recent discoveries about the nature of my addictive self destructive tendencies do not absolve me from my responsibility of dealing with them; managing them - mitigating them. They do not pass off the blame to my parents and the circumstances of my life. They bring light to dark shady places. They shine a penetrating unwavering spotlight on those narrow twisted curvy places in my psyche that threaten to undermine who I am. They threaten to take an otherwise beautiful person and separate him from love and light.
It's nice to know where the "Crazy" came from. But it don't change anything. I still have to deal with it, walk with it, and learn how to keep 'er saddled and between the lines.
No pun intended.
Much love all.
S.
And the bullshit, slowly floating to the top, easy to see, easy to smell and able to be caught with a small butterfly net and filtered away.
Yesterday was a new moon. My mom used to have the odd new moon ceremony. This is a good time to begin something; to chase away the clutter of the past and commence anew. I feel it in my bones.
Addiction and all that it brings has been a part of my life for many, many years. Even before I was a separate breathing entity, I was part of a duality within my mom's womb, where addiction played a role.
Funny. I always knew it. That our history - her history, helped to forge this alchemical soup that I had become.
My mom used to tell me stories when I was young... (I LOVED hearing about myself and our little travails and twisted, happy/sad life stories). But stories that would shock. Stories about how I was conceived. About getting punched in the stomach by a drunk when she was pregnant with me. About crying herself to sleep with me inside of her. Stories of violence and fear, pain and sadness - but also of hope and beauty and all things that made this life worth living.
I used to think of this poor 16 year old Indian girl. It's 1970 and she's in a small redneck forestry and mining town. She is pregnant by the bad boy son of the strict disciplinarian high school principal - an English principal, no less.
Whew...
What pain, what fear, what stigma.
What stress.
What stress... Stress. The emotion that wreaks the most havoc on a teenage girl's endocrine system, and most assuredly on her developing child. I always wondered what it must have felt like in there. In the dark, warm, comfort of the womb - a place that is generally considered to be safe and sound - a warm wet reprieve from the ills of the world. In there, among her pain and fear and sadness and other emotions, as she found her way past parental alcoholism and the other goodies of her teenagedom.
I always knew in my gut that I was not "unscathed" from her travails. That somehow, in some way, they touched me irrevocably.
Dr. Gabor Mate, Canadian physician and author extraordinaire, has written some books which speak to this truth. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is an amazing book (thanks Dad) that speak about some of the most cutting edge brain research that steps out some of these causal factors.
He is the staff physician at the Portland Hotel in Downtown Van. The only legal injection site in N. America. He has a few insights to say the least.
It has been through rifling through his work that I have discovered that I am, in fact, ADHD. Some of you probably figured this out 20 years ago! ; ) But mostly that I am not alone in my struggles. At about 5:59 of the video attached above, he touches on some things that make sense right down to my core.
Something interesting that I have finally realized is about the nature of the stimulant addiction I have maintained for nearly 12 years.
See, I used to work with kids in care; I supervised group homes and staff and some of Alberta's most troubled youth. All came with their own alphabet soup of diagnoses and prescribed medical reprieve.
I had many kids who were ADHD and who seemed to be unwilling passengers on their brain's joyride with their bodies. We didn't prescribe them "downers".... They got ritalin - a psychostimulant. This stimulant flooded the brain's chemoreceptors with dopamine and norepinephrine, effectively allowing them to "slow down" and react in more normal operating levels.
I've known people who are addicted to stimulants and, when they take them, they fly off the handle. They turn into cleaning machines or sex machines or whatever. Not me. I would turn into a zombie. I would slow down. Calm down. I couldn't handle company or other people. Always alone, always quiet - no music, no sounds.
I understand now.
Self prescribed medical reprieve from ADHD. Nice try Dr. Hughes.
How bout some other ways to manage ADHD... Like diet, exercise, high energy/high adrenaline hobbies, proper sleep and nutrition. And love. Lots of love - both self and for others.
You know, my recent discoveries about the nature of my addictive self destructive tendencies do not absolve me from my responsibility of dealing with them; managing them - mitigating them. They do not pass off the blame to my parents and the circumstances of my life. They bring light to dark shady places. They shine a penetrating unwavering spotlight on those narrow twisted curvy places in my psyche that threaten to undermine who I am. They threaten to take an otherwise beautiful person and separate him from love and light.
It's nice to know where the "Crazy" came from. But it don't change anything. I still have to deal with it, walk with it, and learn how to keep 'er saddled and between the lines.
No pun intended.
Much love all.
S.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Day Three...
Funny... I get a gentle little push today reminding me that I didn't blog yesterday. See, I even start to waver in my commitments; it only takes a few short hours for the best laid plans to turn into water under the bridge. Thanks for the reminder.
In fact, yesterday was a very difficult day. My family travelled to the north pole in order that T. could do some valuable work. I stayed because I have much work to do here. So, alone I was. Sad and alone. Realizing how much life my children and wife inspire in me. My energy level just drained. My intentions were good, as they usually are - i.e. I wanted to hit a nice Sunday evening meeting, wanted to blog until the cows came home and enjoy the quiet and the time to myself. But instead, I sat on the couch, watching movies and eating spicy food, feeling bad for not following through on at least the meeting that I had intended.
Today I am reminded that addiction is a disease of loneliness. That it can be fed by loneliness and solitude. That it tends to be the inability to want to be in one's own skin that can drive the first attempt to "pick up."
Please carry me from this place.
Lots of work to do; cleaning up wreckage, creating new pathways and new opportunities. Honouring old commitments. Learning how to love one's self.
Today I would much rather stay in bed all day and hide from the sun, from the shame, from the responsibility and from the fear. But I can't. A gentle little push from Thunder Bay is all it takes this morning.
My wife says to me a couple years ago that I will be remembered for the addict behaviour and bullshit, not for anything else. She means it well, as a means of inspiration... As in "get off your ass and smarten up, or this will be all anyone sees when they look at you..." Inside, I thought, "She's crazy. There is so much I've done. So many people I've touched. So many roses among the thorns.
But the ones who really know me, who really see me... They know. When I stop calling. When I don't check in on Facebook. When my phone goes to answering machine. <sigh> Change. Time to change.
I have lots to do today and I better get to it. I will blog again this evening to make up for my errant Sunday night. Apologies to those who require one. I will leave you with a beautiful song from a beautiful soul. Poor Shannon... Bee Girl... Always felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb. Like he didn't fit anywhere... He hoped so deeply that the birth of his child Nico Blue would keep him grounded, keep him sane. <sigh> We love you still Shannon Hoon. God bless you wherever you are. And God please make life easy for the ones he left behind.
S.
In fact, yesterday was a very difficult day. My family travelled to the north pole in order that T. could do some valuable work. I stayed because I have much work to do here. So, alone I was. Sad and alone. Realizing how much life my children and wife inspire in me. My energy level just drained. My intentions were good, as they usually are - i.e. I wanted to hit a nice Sunday evening meeting, wanted to blog until the cows came home and enjoy the quiet and the time to myself. But instead, I sat on the couch, watching movies and eating spicy food, feeling bad for not following through on at least the meeting that I had intended.
Today I am reminded that addiction is a disease of loneliness. That it can be fed by loneliness and solitude. That it tends to be the inability to want to be in one's own skin that can drive the first attempt to "pick up."
Please carry me from this place.
Lots of work to do; cleaning up wreckage, creating new pathways and new opportunities. Honouring old commitments. Learning how to love one's self.
Today I would much rather stay in bed all day and hide from the sun, from the shame, from the responsibility and from the fear. But I can't. A gentle little push from Thunder Bay is all it takes this morning.
My wife says to me a couple years ago that I will be remembered for the addict behaviour and bullshit, not for anything else. She means it well, as a means of inspiration... As in "get off your ass and smarten up, or this will be all anyone sees when they look at you..." Inside, I thought, "She's crazy. There is so much I've done. So many people I've touched. So many roses among the thorns.
But the ones who really know me, who really see me... They know. When I stop calling. When I don't check in on Facebook. When my phone goes to answering machine. <sigh> Change. Time to change.
I have lots to do today and I better get to it. I will blog again this evening to make up for my errant Sunday night. Apologies to those who require one. I will leave you with a beautiful song from a beautiful soul. Poor Shannon... Bee Girl... Always felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb. Like he didn't fit anywhere... He hoped so deeply that the birth of his child Nico Blue would keep him grounded, keep him sane. <sigh> We love you still Shannon Hoon. God bless you wherever you are. And God please make life easy for the ones he left behind.
S.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)