Once again I thought of my story, The Legend of Seacliffe, and it's protagonist, Randal Messana. The poem allows readers to see through his eyes. (Or, as I initially spelled it, to sea through his eyes.)
I'm not much for the whole "content warnings on everything" culture, but to avoid that blasted criticism, I will tell you that what I'm writing here is not going to be pretty, so if you feel like you might be upset by discussions of topics such as suicide and suicide ideation, you can give this post a miss.
I have an online friend whose name is Richard. Richard has autism. At one point, he wrote a post which said he hears people say all the time that they support people with autism and would never bully or hurt anyone who is autistic. He followed this up with the statement that a lot of these people are probably unaware of the times when they have been interacting with someone who was autistic and decided that it was okay to bully or belittle that person because that person was "just weird."
I cannot write a first-hand account of what it means to be misjudged and treated poorly as a person with autism, because I don't have autism. My son does. However, members of my extended family like to tell me that he doesn't, because he's high-functioning. He doesn't show signs of being overstimulated when he's in public. In their words, he's "just shy," he "just needs to come out of his shell," he "just needs to put himself out there." "He's intelligent, it's about damn time he went back to school/found a job." "You baby him too much."
If I don't listen to what my son is saying and ignore the fact that he's becoming overstimulated, he shuts down on me and it's hard for me to open communication with him again.
My son went to a school where people were taught to be understanding and accepting of one another's differences. My friend Richard wasn't so lucky. A lot of people are not.
A whole lot of years ago, I learned about a very unusual fellow by the name of Per Ohlin. If he were still alive, he would be 50 years old now. However, he died from a self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head when he was 22 years old.
There is a lot of misinformation about this unfortunate soul floating around. After reading a fair bit about him from people who actually knew him, such as his brother and the few real friends he had, I believe that he may have been autistic. Per's brother said that Per would become hyper-focused on whatever task he was working on and get very upset at being interrupted from what he was doing. Although highly intelligent, he performed very poorly in school.
Per's classmates in his early years accepted his idiosyncratic behaviors. However, when he was twelve, his parents divorced and he ended up going to a new school. His new classmates not only bullied him mercilessly, but they also ganged up on him and beat him so badly that he ended up being declared clinically dead. There was evidence after this beating of brain damage. None of the individuals involved were ever punished.
Per experienced high degrees of suicide ideation and engaged in self-harm. In his case, the suicide ideation ended up being completed. I am not sure that anything could have been done to save this tragic soul.
However, people can prevent the likelihood of further such occurrences by educating themselves about neurological and psychological differences and by attempting to be a bit kinder to those who present with unusual personalities.
I do not have autism. I am not normal neurologically, which expresses itself in problems with balance as well as varying degrees of difficulty walking. I had a small stroke in early 2017, which is likely the culprit in this case.
What I do have is something I refer to as a trifecta of fuckery or a hot trifecta of mess. This is the Universe's Asshat Trick and it involves rapid-cycling type 2 bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Even though there are all too many people who love to use the term "bipolar" to mean "moody," and I do call people out when they do that and advise them to educate their ignorant selves and not use people's health conditions as insults, I'm going to talk about borderline personality disorder, because it is even more misunderstood than bipolar disorder.
I do not write anything that is normal because I am not normal. I use a lot of metaphors, and my characters are extremely fucked up. I am getting to the point with this, so bear with me. It's a bit difficult to put it out there.
The risky behavior has been toned down for many years. I can't drink alcohol and I don't do illegal drugs. I don't even like the way most drugs make me feel. I don't have any kind of sex, let alone unsafe sex, and I don't want to. Most of the time I am able to resist inflicting self-injury, but not always. I tend to keep my behaviors in check, but there are still things that bleed to the surface.
Having been treated poorly by people who claimed they loved me is something that has led to a strong inability to trust. I generally only form very superficial relationships with people because I don't want to get attached to them, even on a platonic level. I do not have strong bonds even with most of my family members. This is not because I am incapable of feeling. It is because I am capable of feeling too deeply.
When I have written about the consuming love/obsession I have felt in the past, there have been people who have expounded that this is the only way to love, and I am rather horrified. I honestly don't think that obsessive love is healthy. I have scars on my arms that will never go away because of an obsessive love for awful men who treated me like a used condom. I'm glad if you liked the poem, but, yanno, it wasn't meant to be a "how-to" guide. It was really more of a warning.
I had a person comment on a character in one of my stories, asking if the character was a "teenager," and, to be honest, I was a bit insulted by that insinuation. The character was an adult in his mid-twenties. Being insecure is not only the hallmark of teenagers. There are some teenagers who are quite self-assured (I can assure you that I was not one of them) and some adults who are extremely insecure. These feelings of insecurity are magnified many times over in a person who has a condition such as borderline personality disorder.
I personally don't "do" romance because I don't like having my every thought consumed by the fear that I am going to be abandoned, which is what happens when I do romance. I sure as hell don't do casual sex, because I don't like it. Since I really don't like sex much in the first place and would only engage in such an activity with someone I trusted, why the hell would I want to do it casually?
I am far from being a teenager, but borderline personality disorder ensures that I will be one of the most insecure and least trusting people I know until the day I die. It also means that I have a high degree of self-loathing.
Writing is two things to me. First of all, it's catharsis. Second, I really don't know how to do anything else.
I'm not sure if I'm a "good" writer, a "bad" writer, or something in between. I write a bunch of shit. If you like it, great. If you don't like it, whatever. I'm probably not going to stop doing it, even if the occasional bad review makes me hate myself for a few days and I might end up with some cuts or bruises.
A lot of writing critics are looking for formulaic writing, for a type of "normal." I learned this while applying for ghostwriting jobs. I don't do formulaic writing, and I'm not normal. My brain doesn't work normally.
I often compare the way my brain works to the famous images of webs created by spiders on various types of drugs.
I say that my thoughts work a lot like the spiderwebs in the top row. They look normal at first glance, but on closer look, they are not. I can "pass for normal" enough that people who meet me in public don't notice anything particularly unusual about me. But I am actually quite fragile in spite of being rather a hulking figure physically.
So, I write the shit that I write and in the end, it will all amount to nothing. I will very likely die destitute and unwell. When I was young, I had myself fooled that I had something to offer the world. I no longer believe this is true. At this point, I'm just doing the shit that I do, and you can come along for the ride or not. It doesn't really matter that much to me one way or the other.
~Cie~
The ultimate borderline personality disorder anthem
Suicidal Tendencies - Nobody Hears
Lyrics
I talk through my eyes, the words pourin' down
Nobody hears
You ask me what's wrong, but what can I say
Nobody hears
I try to tell you
I try to show you
How else can I tell you?
How else can I show you?
I'm screaming inside, why can't you hear?
Nobody hears
You're looking right though me like I'm not here
Nobody hears
When the last tear falls down
Nothing gets washed away
Another plea put to rest
As nobody hears, nobody hears
So what did I do to you
That makes you run from me?
Now I'm sitting here screaming inside myself
Don't understand why nobody hears
You figured it and shaped it to your perfection
Nobody hears
Subtracted my feelings from this equation
Nobody hears
Is it all in my mind?
All in my mind
Then it would be easy to find
Easy to find
When the last tear falls down
Nothing gets washed away
Another plea put to rest
As nobody hears, nobody hears
So what did I do to you
That makes you run from me?
Now I'm sitting here screaming inside myself
Don't understand why nobody hears
So if it's all
If it's all in my mind
Then wouldn't it, wouldn't it
Wouldn't it be so easy to find?
When the last tear falls down
Nothing gets washed away
Another plea put to rest
As nobody hears, nobody hears
So what do I have to do
To make you comfort me?
Now I'm sitting here screaming inside myself
Don't understand why nobody hears
So I'm sitting here screaming inside myself
Well I'm sitting here crying inside myself
So I'm sitting here screaming to nobody else
Don't understand why nobody hears
And nobody nears, nobody hears, nobody hears, nobody hears
spring snow purifies earth and heaven – our enemies perish spring snow hearing the army's approach grows red with spilled blood purifies earth and heaven the god of war triumphant the bodies burning our enemies perish we see our enemy's face when looking in glass Mizuhara Shûôshi & Cie
Notes:
The "sleigh" in this grim Troiku was written by Mizuhara Shûôshi (9 Oct 1892–17 July 1981). The three horses of the Apocalypse were created by me.
The Sleigh portion of the Troiku was created by Santoka Taneda (3 December 1882 - 11 October 1940). The three "horses" were created by me.
I was born in Denver, Colorado on 15 February 1965. My parents were actually living in Laramie, Wyoming at the time. I was born in the middle of a blizzard at 6 A.M. and have caused nothing but trouble ever since.
After my brother was born on 17 March 1969, my parents moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico so my father could finish his doctorate. We lived in a rundown house in a bad part of town. There were fire ants, black widow spiders, and cockroaches the size of school buses. However, we had a half acre of land and were allowed to have chickens. We planted corn and beans. There were horned toads and skinks. The neighbor had pheasants and bees. He was an okay guy who pretty much kept to himself. His wife was a fire-and-brimstone Fundamentalist who called me a filthy slut for taking my shirt off on a hot day. I was four years old at the time.
A New Mexico accent is similar to a Texas accent, and when we moved back to Colorado when I was ten years old, all the other kids ridiculed the way I talked. I was already shy, and this led to me becoming even more withdrawn. I always hated school. I was never well-liked or anything even in the same zip code as popular. To this day, I still hate the sound of my own voice and I hate when people ask the innocent question of "where are you from?" My knee-jerk reaction is to answer "Mars," because I've never felt like I belonged on this planet.
Many, many years later, I live in the suburbs of Denver, but it costs too much to keep living there. Denver is one of those cities whose working classes can't afford to live there. A condo or small townhouse in Denver costs around $250,000, and then the owner still has to pay HOA fees which average $600 per month in the Denver area. The average salary for someone in the working classes in the Denver area is $12 per hour. See how that doesn't add up?
For someone who is disabled, things are even worse. There is a waiting list to even be considered for subsidized housing. The homeless population is growing by leaps and bounds. Even a modest apartment is out of reach for people in the working class.
Thus, people in the working class are moving out of cities like Denver to rural areas. If they continue working in Denver, they have a long commute. If they are unable to continue working, they end up on the dole.
My son and I are moving to Grover, which is approximately 110 miles northeast of Denver. He has a modest amount of money being given to him by his father following the sale of farmland. This money allows for the purchase of a six-bedroom historic hotel and renovations on said structure. Property taxes in this area are low. The average person living in this area falls below the median income for the state and many fall below the poverty line. My son and I are among the people who fall below the poverty line. We are both disabled and neither of us can work conventional jobs.
Moving to this place is a risk but also an opportunity.
It is also our last hope.
Here's to Grover, my last stop on the journey, and possibly the first place I'll truly feel I can call home.
Our challenge today was to create a "Troiku". This is my first time working with this form, and I found it an enjoyable challenge. I wasn't quite sure what to do with my 7-syllable line in the "sleigh" part of my Troiku, so I have two seven-syllable lines in one of my stanzas. I hope that this is acceptable with this non-traditional form of Haiku.
Click the banners to find out more about the prompts.
Note:
For tonight's exercise in self-abuse, I have chosen the Rondeau. I don't know about you, but I find this to be a challenging form.
Here is how you form a Rondeau.
(1) A A B B A (2) A A B with refrain: C (3) A A B B A with concluding refrain C. The refrain must be identical with the beginning of the first line.
Christine says that while she encourages pieces that touch on the lived experiences of those who identify as LGBTQ for the Pride Anthem challenge, it isn't a requirement.
While I for one give not one single rip about anyone's sexual orientation and would ask that others return me the same courtesy, I will disclose that my poem was written from the POV of someone who hid their mental health issues for many years as opposed to someone who felt forced into the closet regarding their sexuality. However, the poem is for anyone who feels as if they have had to hide a key part of themselves in the often closed-minded world in which we live.
