The architect of her own survival
Jan. 18th, 2011 01:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rachg82*points to subject heading*
SNEAK PEEK AT MY NEW FIC (and what).
Also, I am a tease. In other words: that line is just a random snippet from the new fic (not even the title), I like it, and it applies to my life right now as well; ergo, it fits. Plus I'm not done with the whole shibang yet, but the section I've written so far basically could be its own dealio & I sort of want to just post it already (but I'm not gonna, which you all should be grateful for as it means ending on a less angsty note, most likely) so this is my compromise. I'm a complicated individual like that.
P.S. It's also possible I've already started writing down songs for my next Fanfic Soundtrack, which I will totally be posting immediately after the silly thing is finished. Haha. I HAVE A PROBLEM & I MUST BE STOPPED.
(pssst: sneak peek at that<--I love that song)
Moving on: welcome to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
divine_katie! Now that we are friends here too, you are extra special! To everyone else, you sort of already know Katie, as I've mentioned her once or twice, re: our wacky & deranged Facebook convos. Ohhh, if she only knew what she was getting herself into, friending me here. SO MANY WORDS. SO, SO MANY LONGWINDED WORDS.
In other news: I went to my ACA meeting tonight. The topic ended up being sort of open, but covered a few things--the desire to be "reborn" (not in a religious way, but letting go of the past), learning how to be spontaneous, learning how to let yourself be comfortable with happiness, not always be so *controlled & responsible & detached* etc, and how to be joyful (remember last time? Connecting with your inner child? The part of you that's curious & feels simple wonder? The part that's creative, that wants to explore, be silly, make friends, etc?<---i.e. the part that never got to comfortably thrive when you were a kid in your dysfunctional-ass home if you're an ACA?). As I said before, I swear these meetings have some kind of nutso radar when it comes to knowing *exactly* what I need to hear & talk about. IT'S CRAZY. I did share, and I talked about 12/31/10, my agreement to stay alive, my mom showing up & the police & the panic & ugh,keenai talking with me all night on New Years Eve, Christmas with my dying uncle, crying & sleeping for days, not eating, resisting the urge to cut for the first time in months, and finally coming to a place where I resolved to turn it around--how I wrote to a friend, started a story, did artwork, etc, and talked with keenai just TODAY about the struggle to let ourselves be happy. And that's when I burst out crying, because I just NEEDED that reminder, y'know? As I put it, it's not just about "having nightmares every night for months, and getting yourself to keep living, and forcing yourself to feel all the things you don't want to feel, and keeping yourself from cutting--it's also about joy, and learning how to live." It's so important to remember that's what it's about too. That's the payoff. It's not even just that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, far off in the future. It can be *right now*. As the speaker at the beginning said, you can't only ~learn your way out~, you also *act your way out*. One foot in front of the other (one person literally said that. I was like, "get out of my head"), sometimes maybe faking-it-til-you-make-it at first. And as he put it, it's about both--stop being afraid to feel the pain, but also stop being afraid to feel happy. If you stopped being so afraid of being happy (without the "don't be TOO happy!" shit, and the "ohhh, you can't do that--other people do that, but not you. . ." type restrictions on your behavior), maybe you wouldn't have to control the pain so much to begin with. And eventually, eventually, if you truly let yourself feel what you've been through, acknowledge it & process it & stop running from it, there is a door on the other side. That's what he said. You don't just keep mourning it forever, as long as you let yourself fucking FEEL it. Finally. It just takes time is all. But in the meantime, you can still live too. All at once. It's okay to feel all of it at once & seek out what matters to you & maintain balance & find joy & move FORWARD & there's a way to do that, even with all your old baggage occasionally tripping you up along the way.
It's also sometimes really helpful to listen to the other people share because you see these people who look so normal & stable & better than you, you know? This woman who spoke after I did? I'm guessing she was in her mid-thirties (I can never tell with age--I'm horrible at it) and there she was--nice outfit & all professional seeming & punctual--and there I was, having arrived five minutes late with my ill-fitting jeans & crappy black hoodie & stained white snowcap & shaky hands, and blah. But, seriously, when she spoke, the first thing out of her mouth was that she appreciated hearing others' stories about depression (I was the only person who'd spoken about the topic so far, just for the record. Others followed after us) because she'd been having a really hard time & they actually gave her hope (I wanted to hug her for that). She talked about how she'd "plaster on the makeup & the cute clothes" because it was the only thing keeping her "pieces together", which I totally related to from my younger days--in my teens & early twenties, that's exactly how I was--and how she couldn't even cry, even though she felt like it so badly. All she felt like was "detached despair", and she put her hands up as she said it, like she was somehow trapped in it, like glass.
So it really just proves, you have NO IDEA what is going on with people when you pass by them on the street. You just don't. It's almost kind of heartbreaking & yet comforting in one of those "humans can be so beautifully connected" sort of ways.
Another girl about my age talked about the issue of always being overresponsible too, and how even when she was having "fun," she still just. . .wasn't. Like, she just didn't know what it meant. But finally this last year, despite being unemployed, she took a trip to Europe. She had the money & just went for it. I was like, "HELLO, YOU ARE AWESOME." Now she's got a job offer to teach English in Chile. Again with the awesome. And she was like, "I wouldn't have taken the offer before ACA, because I've always been my mom's confidant & I wouldn't have wanted to leave her, but now I know how to live for myself & I can do that." AWESOME.
She actually walked up to me after the meeting ended (as I was gathering my things) & told me I was "so brave" & "strong", etc, which is the type of thing I never know how to respond to. I mean, I say thank you of course, but my face always goes sort of smiley-frozen, like (in my head) "err, why exactly? Bad things happened & I survived. That's what you do. That's what you're doing too. But, sure, okay!" Heh. For a long time I just assumed people said it in the way that TV characters joke that non-attractive people have "good personalities," like it's just a nice thing to say in a bad situation (sort of like how you lose your job & people are all "when God closes a door, he opens a window! Chin up, bucko!" *barf*), but I thought about it afterward tonight, and was like, "Dude, maybe that's just the ACA thing in me." Like, I can't take a compliment without somehow qualifying or rationalizing it, thus distancing myself & dismissing its importance. OR turning it into some big joke). So perhaps I will try to start just sincerely accepting it when people say that, even if it's hard. Because, honestly, those specific words have been said to me over & over so many times. Maaaaaaaybe people mean them. Theoretically.
Anyway. So I talked with her for a few minutes after the meeting too, which was nice. I usually just duck my head & kinda ~run out of there~ on Saturdays, ha. I actually exchanged names & everything. Social skills FTW! Maybe I'll see her again and make a friend. Aw.<--cheesy
ALSO, I kept running into this one woman from the meeting all night after that, like seriously EVERYWHERE. It was hilarious. On the streetcar, by the courthouse downtown, and then again at the transit center. But it turned out to be incredibly fortunate, because I hadn't realized that my final bus was running on a holiday schedule & thus wouldn't be arriving again until tomorrow. D'oh! Luckily, she brought me over to a bus guy who called another bus guy who literally TOOK OUR ASSES HOME ON A SPECIAL BUS JUST FOR OUR TWO STRANDED SELVES. Hey-o!
She was like, "obviously a higher power meant for us to run into each other all night." Hee![/12 step humor]
On a funny note, she was ~very concerned~ seeming that I lived alone. Why do older women always react that way? It could've been because I talked about depression during the meeting, but c'mon. She gave me her number & was all "call anytime! And if you need a roommate in the future, bla bla bla." I was like, "um, no." Ha. I AM A LONE WOLF, YO.
Anyway, obviously I'm glad I went. This whole schedule-y resolution business is of the good. Even though I didn't clean yesterday. I know. Fail. My head hurt though, y'all. And I consider this week the official beginning point anyway. Last week was the warm-up period.[/excuse] AT LEAST I'M TRYING.
Lastly, here are my plans for the next three days. Muy exciting:
-tomorrow, I will take a walk and then I'm going bowling with my anxiety/depression meetup group.
-Wednesday, I am going to the beach with5brokenfingers (yaaaaaay), and possibly looking for work, if I have time. If not, I will do it on Friday, which is my free day.
-Thursday, I will finish my fic (yeah, right) & prepare for Bones. Or, as I like to call it: BOOOOOOOOOOOONES.
Continuing our (inter)National BSG Appreciation Week with a Vid of the Day, here's a lovely piece of ep-centric angst to stab you in the face by Adalla001 (those who'd like can refresh their memory of the ep by taking a trip on the wayback machine with my ole flaily recap/review. What fun!). A huge amount of my writerly mojo comes from listening to music, and this fic especially will owe many thanks to Bear McCreary & the BSG soundtracks (especially Passacaglia/The Shape of Things to Come. elaihgoiahogigh. You guys know how I feel about that song.) This vid not only uses music exclusively from said soundtracks, making it by default worth listening to at the very least, but it also does a unique job of editing frames together in time to the music in such a way as to make you really stop & *look* at each character, and think about them (especially Dee. God, my heart). And considering the entire thing is devoted to "Sometimes a Great Notion"--one of my favorite episodes (one of those I came to appreciate more & more with each subsequent rewatch, much like "Unfinished Business"), and one of the MOST FANTASTICALLY BLEAK THINGS EVER (haha, you know it's true!)--that's a very good choice for forcing the viewer to really focus on the characers for once, rather than just flitting from image to image via moving video. And I usually *don't* like slideshow format either, but this one is well-done, probably mostly because any shot one takes from this ep is automatically gorgeous anyway. So, yes. It makes the grade for me. Watch it.
SNEAK PEEK AT MY NEW FIC (and what).
Also, I am a tease. In other words: that line is just a random snippet from the new fic (not even the title), I like it, and it applies to my life right now as well; ergo, it fits. Plus I'm not done with the whole shibang yet, but the section I've written so far basically could be its own dealio & I sort of want to just post it already (but I'm not gonna, which you all should be grateful for as it means ending on a less angsty note, most likely) so this is my compromise. I'm a complicated individual like that.
P.S. It's also possible I've already started writing down songs for my next Fanfic Soundtrack, which I will totally be posting immediately after the silly thing is finished. Haha. I HAVE A PROBLEM & I MUST BE STOPPED.
(pssst: sneak peek at that<--I love that song)
Moving on: welcome to
divine_katie! Now that we are friends here too, you are extra special! To everyone else, you sort of already know Katie, as I've mentioned her once or twice, re: our wacky & deranged Facebook convos. Ohhh, if she only knew what she was getting herself into, friending me here. SO MANY WORDS. SO, SO MANY LONGWINDED WORDS.In other news: I went to my ACA meeting tonight. The topic ended up being sort of open, but covered a few things--the desire to be "reborn" (not in a religious way, but letting go of the past), learning how to be spontaneous, learning how to let yourself be comfortable with happiness, not always be so *controlled & responsible & detached* etc, and how to be joyful (remember last time? Connecting with your inner child? The part of you that's curious & feels simple wonder? The part that's creative, that wants to explore, be silly, make friends, etc?<---i.e. the part that never got to comfortably thrive when you were a kid in your dysfunctional-ass home if you're an ACA?). As I said before, I swear these meetings have some kind of nutso radar when it comes to knowing *exactly* what I need to hear & talk about. IT'S CRAZY. I did share, and I talked about 12/31/10, my agreement to stay alive, my mom showing up & the police & the panic & ugh,
keenai talking with me all night on New Years Eve, Christmas with my dying uncle, crying & sleeping for days, not eating, resisting the urge to cut for the first time in months, and finally coming to a place where I resolved to turn it around--how I wrote to a friend, started a story, did artwork, etc, and talked with keenai just TODAY about the struggle to let ourselves be happy. And that's when I burst out crying, because I just NEEDED that reminder, y'know? As I put it, it's not just about "having nightmares every night for months, and getting yourself to keep living, and forcing yourself to feel all the things you don't want to feel, and keeping yourself from cutting--it's also about joy, and learning how to live." It's so important to remember that's what it's about too. That's the payoff. It's not even just that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, far off in the future. It can be *right now*. As the speaker at the beginning said, you can't only ~learn your way out~, you also *act your way out*. One foot in front of the other (one person literally said that. I was like, "get out of my head"), sometimes maybe faking-it-til-you-make-it at first. And as he put it, it's about both--stop being afraid to feel the pain, but also stop being afraid to feel happy. If you stopped being so afraid of being happy (without the "don't be TOO happy!" shit, and the "ohhh, you can't do that--other people do that, but not you. . ." type restrictions on your behavior), maybe you wouldn't have to control the pain so much to begin with. And eventually, eventually, if you truly let yourself feel what you've been through, acknowledge it & process it & stop running from it, there is a door on the other side. That's what he said. You don't just keep mourning it forever, as long as you let yourself fucking FEEL it. Finally. It just takes time is all. But in the meantime, you can still live too. All at once. It's okay to feel all of it at once & seek out what matters to you & maintain balance & find joy & move FORWARD & there's a way to do that, even with all your old baggage occasionally tripping you up along the way.It's also sometimes really helpful to listen to the other people share because you see these people who look so normal & stable & better than you, you know? This woman who spoke after I did? I'm guessing she was in her mid-thirties (I can never tell with age--I'm horrible at it) and there she was--nice outfit & all professional seeming & punctual--and there I was, having arrived five minutes late with my ill-fitting jeans & crappy black hoodie & stained white snowcap & shaky hands, and blah. But, seriously, when she spoke, the first thing out of her mouth was that she appreciated hearing others' stories about depression (I was the only person who'd spoken about the topic so far, just for the record. Others followed after us) because she'd been having a really hard time & they actually gave her hope (I wanted to hug her for that). She talked about how she'd "plaster on the makeup & the cute clothes" because it was the only thing keeping her "pieces together", which I totally related to from my younger days--in my teens & early twenties, that's exactly how I was--and how she couldn't even cry, even though she felt like it so badly. All she felt like was "detached despair", and she put her hands up as she said it, like she was somehow trapped in it, like glass.
So it really just proves, you have NO IDEA what is going on with people when you pass by them on the street. You just don't. It's almost kind of heartbreaking & yet comforting in one of those "humans can be so beautifully connected" sort of ways.
Another girl about my age talked about the issue of always being overresponsible too, and how even when she was having "fun," she still just. . .wasn't. Like, she just didn't know what it meant. But finally this last year, despite being unemployed, she took a trip to Europe. She had the money & just went for it. I was like, "HELLO, YOU ARE AWESOME." Now she's got a job offer to teach English in Chile. Again with the awesome. And she was like, "I wouldn't have taken the offer before ACA, because I've always been my mom's confidant & I wouldn't have wanted to leave her, but now I know how to live for myself & I can do that." AWESOME.
She actually walked up to me after the meeting ended (as I was gathering my things) & told me I was "so brave" & "strong", etc, which is the type of thing I never know how to respond to. I mean, I say thank you of course, but my face always goes sort of smiley-frozen, like (in my head) "err, why exactly? Bad things happened & I survived. That's what you do. That's what you're doing too. But, sure, okay!" Heh. For a long time I just assumed people said it in the way that TV characters joke that non-attractive people have "good personalities," like it's just a nice thing to say in a bad situation (sort of like how you lose your job & people are all "when God closes a door, he opens a window! Chin up, bucko!" *barf*), but I thought about it afterward tonight, and was like, "Dude, maybe that's just the ACA thing in me." Like, I can't take a compliment without somehow qualifying or rationalizing it, thus distancing myself & dismissing its importance. OR turning it into some big joke). So perhaps I will try to start just sincerely accepting it when people say that, even if it's hard. Because, honestly, those specific words have been said to me over & over so many times. Maaaaaaaybe people mean them. Theoretically.
Anyway. So I talked with her for a few minutes after the meeting too, which was nice. I usually just duck my head & kinda ~run out of there~ on Saturdays, ha. I actually exchanged names & everything. Social skills FTW! Maybe I'll see her again and make a friend. Aw.<--cheesy
ALSO, I kept running into this one woman from the meeting all night after that, like seriously EVERYWHERE. It was hilarious. On the streetcar, by the courthouse downtown, and then again at the transit center. But it turned out to be incredibly fortunate, because I hadn't realized that my final bus was running on a holiday schedule & thus wouldn't be arriving again until tomorrow. D'oh! Luckily, she brought me over to a bus guy who called another bus guy who literally TOOK OUR ASSES HOME ON A SPECIAL BUS JUST FOR OUR TWO STRANDED SELVES. Hey-o!
She was like, "obviously a higher power meant for us to run into each other all night." Hee![/12 step humor]
On a funny note, she was ~very concerned~ seeming that I lived alone. Why do older women always react that way? It could've been because I talked about depression during the meeting, but c'mon. She gave me her number & was all "call anytime! And if you need a roommate in the future, bla bla bla." I was like, "um, no." Ha. I AM A LONE WOLF, YO.
Anyway, obviously I'm glad I went. This whole schedule-y resolution business is of the good. Even though I didn't clean yesterday. I know. Fail. My head hurt though, y'all. And I consider this week the official beginning point anyway. Last week was the warm-up period.[/excuse] AT LEAST I'M TRYING.
Lastly, here are my plans for the next three days. Muy exciting:
-tomorrow, I will take a walk and then I'm going bowling with my anxiety/depression meetup group.
-Wednesday, I am going to the beach with
5brokenfingers (yaaaaaay), and possibly looking for work, if I have time. If not, I will do it on Friday, which is my free day. -Thursday, I will finish my fic (yeah, right) & prepare for Bones. Or, as I like to call it: BOOOOOOOOOOOONES.
Continuing our (inter)National BSG Appreciation Week with a Vid of the Day, here's a lovely piece of ep-centric angst to stab you in the face by Adalla001 (those who'd like can refresh their memory of the ep by taking a trip on the wayback machine with my ole flaily recap/review. What fun!). A huge amount of my writerly mojo comes from listening to music, and this fic especially will owe many thanks to Bear McCreary & the BSG soundtracks (especially Passacaglia/The Shape of Things to Come. elaihgoiahogigh. You guys know how I feel about that song.) This vid not only uses music exclusively from said soundtracks, making it by default worth listening to at the very least, but it also does a unique job of editing frames together in time to the music in such a way as to make you really stop & *look* at each character, and think about them (especially Dee. God, my heart). And considering the entire thing is devoted to "Sometimes a Great Notion"--one of my favorite episodes (one of those I came to appreciate more & more with each subsequent rewatch, much like "Unfinished Business"), and one of the MOST FANTASTICALLY BLEAK THINGS EVER (haha, you know it's true!)--that's a very good choice for forcing the viewer to really focus on the characers for once, rather than just flitting from image to image via moving video. And I usually *don't* like slideshow format either, but this one is well-done, probably mostly because any shot one takes from this ep is automatically gorgeous anyway. So, yes. It makes the grade for me. Watch it.
