How did I Love?

Image by Ajay kumar Singh from Pixabay

A response to this post.

Oh gosh, I don't know if this will go through and I don't know if it is even welcome, but here it is.

How did I love?

With much reservation, fear, and sorrow.

I used to have such a strong need to connect with someone that I let a lot of the wrong ones in, and they did me a lot of damage.

Romantically, my theme song is Love Stinks, and I do not want anyone telling me that I need to "try again." No, I do not, and I don't want to.

Even with friendship, my theme song is Love Hurts. Most people who have said they wanted to be friends really just wanted something from me. Money or connections, when I had those. Now that I don't have much of anything, these "friends" are long gone.

I can't really relate to other people with bipolar disorder because although some of them understand the bipolar part, they don't understand the ADD, OCD, and PTSD that is also part of the package.

A lot of people get help from medications, but I can't take anything except a low dose of Lithium. I have type 2 bipolar disorder, so I normally do not get full-on manias and I normally do not experience psychosis. When I take SSRIs, I experience both. I've learned a lot of coping skills, but it's a real balancing act. If I let someone in and they betray me, I could end up in the ER with blood running down my arms from slashing my wrists. It's happened before. I do not want it to happen again. 

I've had love to give in the past. I give it only to a select few and with a lot of reservations. Some people think this means that I'm cold and standoffish. However, I've found that people who demand love tend to be people that will only misuse it.

I didn't say this in my comment on the post, but, for real, other people with mood disorders have been some of the most narrow-minded and least understanding. When they have said that I need to have my doctor adjust my meds if I mention going through a severe depression, and I respond that I can't take the meds because they make me manic and psychotic, these people will suddenly become cold and judgmental. "Well, if you're that depressed, you need to be on meds." 

Well, if you're that much of an asshole, you need to fuck off.

I wish I had known then what I know now. Some people are miserable fuckers who want to rub their miserable fuckery all over others. I never said you were a bad person for taking meds, you defensive douche canoe. Why am I a bad person for opting not to take them when they send me straight off the rails?

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Ornery and Neurodivergent

Carpe Diem Field of Flowers: Honeysuckle

I can remember

the smell of honeysuckle

New Mexico night

~Cie~

Notes:

I recently completed and am about to submit my manuscript for the Insecure Writers' Support Group anthology contest. The genre is middle-grade historical fantasy/action.

I normally write for adults. I find writing for youth extremely challenging. I ended up opting to write a lightly fictionalized autobiography of myself between childhood and my pre-teen years which centered around my imagination and the fantastical fiction genres which inspired me. In writing about myself I ended up opening a lot of pockets of unresolved grief.

The place I lived between the ages of four and nine was a semi-rural pocket in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where people could have small farms and keep chickens and such. We had a very large yard, a half-acre. Unfortunately, the house was in rather a shoddy condition and cockroaches the size of school buses had a tendency to get inside. The bugs are huge in New Mexico, and I was not keen on that. But I did love the little skinks and horned toads and such. We also had many beautiful plants around such as the honeysuckle vines, and the cicadas would sing us to sleep.

I was a very shy child and did not have many friends. The characters I met in fantasy worlds were my friends, as were my pets and the animals in our yard.

Although I was born in the Western United States and raised in the Southwest for a number of years, my parents were both from New York. When certain relatives would visit, they would ridicule my accent. A New Mexico accent is a bit of an off-Texas drawl. To this day, I bristle whenever anyone askes the seemingly innocent question: "where are you from?" To me, that question is loaded.

Tan Renga Challenge 2019: Day 7: Wisteria

Image Source

In the moonlight,

The color and scent of the wisteria

Seems far away.

As far away I think as

My sense of belonging here

Buson & Cie

Notes:

The Hokku (Haiku) stanza of the poem was written by Yosa Buson (1716 - 1784). The Akegu (closing) stanza was written by me.

I have never felt that I belonged in this world. When I was younger, I always hoped I'd find people I belonged with. There have been a few where I feel like they put up with me to a degree or felt sympathy for me, but I have never had a sense of finding my "tribe." The only person I'm really at all close with is my son. I tend to form only very superficial relationships with other people.

Dinners with my mother are perilous and fraught with small talk. She has never approved of any of my choices, and she knows almost nothing about what is really transpiring in my life.

I am not at all close with the other members of my family. I would not recognize most of them if I passed them in the street.

At this point in my life, I do not wish to party and socialize. I have one friend whom I confide in via email, and that means a lot. This friend lives a few thousand miles away from me, so it isn't as if we could get together for coffee.

I have felt a degree of understanding and acceptance from the people participating in this little Tan Renga challenge, which I usually don't get a sense of during such challenges. 

I usually feel as if I am an outsider who has crashed a party when participating in blog hops, and the general sense is "what is that freak doing here at our exclusive soiree?" Some of the blog hops I participate in are very focused on clothing and fashion although other sorts of posts are allowed, and if you don't think I'm an absolute outlier when it comes to fashion, you don't know me at all. I can't afford nice clothes or even new clothes, and I look like an unmade bed most of the time.

One would think that I would feel more at home with creative blog hops, but I usually don't. I've been surprised by the feeling of peace I've gained participating in this one. Maybe it's just that no-one has attacked me yet. Hopefully, we can do without that happening this time.

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 15 + Poems in April 2019 Day 4 & 15: The Haibun Ballad of Cie

My Eyes Have Seen Version 4

Photoshop Manipulation by The Real Cie

(Yes, that's my big, ugly, Neanderthal forehead)

So, you want to know about me.

My truth will make you uncomfortable. You may end up thinking that I’m lying because surely in modern society, nobody could be allowed to fall through the cracks that much. But you asked, and so I’ll answer as briefly as possible.

I was born in 1965 in Denver, Colorado to a doctoral student in literature who had once wished to travel the country like his hero, Jack Kerouac, and his wife, a former nurse with a degree in fine arts.

My parents had abandoned the church but returned to it when I was seven years old. My then-three-year-old brother and I were baptized and became Catholic.

My bipolar disorder onset when I hit puberty, and I was always misunderstood.

I am fifty-four years old and live in poverty.

If you are broken

If you are damaged or odd

You will be cast out

~Cie~

(Telling it like it is)

Prompt #4

Prompt #15

Notes:

By the way, I do write flash fictions in Haibun form because I like to.

Come at me!

The ending verse was inspired by a quote from the character John River, portrayed by the brilliant Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard.

In this world, no-one can be different or strange or damaged, or they lock you up.

--John River

Let's Be Alone Together

I can work at this point, and I have my moments of happiness, but really the depression never leaves. Even when I have hypomania (I have type 2 bipolar disorder), the sadness is still just beneath the surface.

All my life I heard how I should just "snap out of it", "Stop feeling that way", "quit looking for attention," and "so many people have it worse than you." It can be a lonely road when you're like me.

So, I'm on Facebook (a platform I have a like/strong dislike relationship with.) I'm chartley65. You can give me a friend request if you want. I work a lot, I don't have chat on, and I'm terrible about checking my messages, but if I see that you posted anything, I'll likely respond. I try to be supportive of other people walking the path.

~Cie~

Trying Not to be a Needy Nebbish

I don't know if Alex Van Halen is empathic, but it wouldn't surprise me, as creative people often are empathic. I simply chose a quote that I liked, by a person I have some regard for.

Although we are good at picking up on the emotions of others, those of us who are empathic are often lonely. I have very few friends and don't want to risk pushing them away by being too needy, a problem I've had in the past.

I have had to learn that when my friends aren't in frequent contact, it likely isn't because they're deliberately trying to push me away. It's probably because something is going on in their lives that requires their immediate attention, or they may simply not be feeling like communicating with other people.

Not having had a lot of experience with true give and take relationships, I'm always learning what it's like to actually be a friend.

Sometimes I wish I had lots of like-minded friends so if one wasn't responding I could choose from a myriad of others so as to always be getting feedback and support. 

However, the truth is, while it may be possible to have a pretty well unlimited number of acquaintances or "drinking buddies," one's list of real friends tends to be a pretty short one.

Fair weather friends are easy to come by. Those who will stick with you even when your life or your perspective on life sucks are hard to find.

When guitarist Robbin Crosby contracted HIV and his HIV later became full-blown AIDS, he told his friend and former band mate Juan Croucier that he used to think he had all the friends in the world, but once he got sick, everyone disappeared. Robbin died feeling alone in the world, which is tragic. 

The fact that "Robbin Crosby fat" was one of the choices that generated when I typed in a search for Robbin Crosby to find the above picture disgusts me. The people making that search are likely doing so to feel superior to him, because fat = inferior, amirite?

No, you're not. You're an asshole. Fuck your tiny-minded schadenfreude.

Robbin was a lovely, kind, troubled person. He was a beautiful human being at any size. He was one of those people who felt things very deeply. Robbin was empathic, and sometimes this meant that he let destructive people into his life because he felt a need to help them. Many empathic people have this trouble.

He is also one of those people who illustrates the fact that you have no idea what a person's state of health is or what their diet is by looking at their body type. Robbin gained a lot of weight towards the end of his life, but it wasn't because he was eating a lot. He didn't feel very well most of the time, and didn't really enjoy eating. He put on weight because of metabolic changes.

I got off track because I was so enraged by that disgusting search choice. Back to the initial topic now.

I used to think it would be wonderful to be popular. If I were popular, I'd have all the friends I could ever wish for, right? Well, not really. Being popular doesn't necessarily mean you have real friends. Sometimes it means you don't know who your real friends are. Not that I know what that's like, as I've never been popular, it's simply an observation I've made where popular people are concerned.

For anyone who might be curious, I've chatted with Robbin Crosby on a few occasions. I can't tell you where his treasure is buried, and I didn't ask him about any deep, dark secrets. He is feeling okay with his transition into spirit at this point. He is still a sweetheart, he likes helping others when he can, and he still loves music. No, I have never had any sort of tryst with him, for those who might be curious about that aspect. He's a nice, supportive friend in spirit whom I wish I could have known in life.

I am generally able to find friends in spirit to chat with, but when my moods are dark and I am in a place of self-loathing, I have trouble trusting my input. For most people still in the flesh, we require connection with other incarnate souls. I do not require any sort of romantic connection with an incarnate person, but  I do need friendship, as feeling "lost at sea" is difficult, even for those who believe in the non-physical realms.

For those of us who are sighted, seeing is believing. I rarely see spirits. I sometimes wish I were better at seeing them, although given the choice, I'd rather sense their emotions and thoughts as I do. I wish I were proficient at both seeing and sensing.

I try not to be a needy nebbish with either my physical or non-corporeal friends, but sometimes its hard. I've felt alone and misunderstood for as long as I can remember. When I feel like someone understands me, it's hard not to drain the well, so to speak.

Why do I share these unpleasant truths about myself?

Because I wish I could find others willing to do so. Then I wouldn't feel so alone.

Since I haven't found those people, I need to be that person for others who might be feeling the way I do.

~Cie~