Most people who work with me will attest to the idea that I am a very outspoken, sometimes bold and/or brash, and always opinionated individual. To those people it would seem that I am a very easy person to read or interpret, but they couldn't be more incorrect if they tried because that is exactly what I want them to think.
Most of things I say at work are very calculated sorts of things to give people a sense of what I want them to see and more importantly, keep them distracted from what I don't want them to see. They may think they know exactly what I'm thinking or what I'm implying when I say something, but like I said above, that is exactly what I want them to think. There are a few whom I work with that are what I like to call "safe individuals", but the vast majority are too petty and wrapped up in there own problems to look beyond themselves to try to understand someone who is layered in complexities. I could be thinking of ways to end my own life and everyone at work would be thinking about how good of a mood I'm in. Our medical director, who happens to be a trusted friend, remarked one day about how well it seemed that I was doing. I told her that's exactly what she was supposed to think and that I had been thinking of taking my life that very day. That's how good I am as disguising what is going on underneath....most times.
If there is something my sister and I have in common, it's the ability to tell people exactly what they want to hear at any given moment to keep them away from the truth or honest feeling moment. It's almost a game for me sometimes at work, seeing how far away from the truth I can keep them. To those who can't see through my deception, I appear to be flippant, cold, and insensitive.....and that's exactly what I want them to think. In truth, the exact opposite is true, I am extremely, sensitive, emotional, and compassionate, but usually only show it when playing devil's advocate or when under extreme stress and don't have the energy to keep the subterfuge going. I these tactics of deception as a test of sorts because it's a great way to see who is capable of seeing through the complexities of the performance that I'm giving. The most interesting part is that there usually three or four layers of truth to be deduced, each gaining in complexity the deeper you get. To try to peel these layers back is to really get to know who I am and what really stand for. You have to first see through the deception and most individuals never see past that and see only me at face value. People who know better see that almost everything that comes out of my mouth is very calculated and is designed to keep people away from the truth.
Now, many would argue that such a duplicitous nature is unsavory, but those are the types who aren't going to be able to understand my true thoughts and intentions. The truth is that I am a very sensitive individual and it is absolutely necessary that I hide that information from people that aren't going to respect or understand that fact. I've been hurt too many times by people willing to take advantage to my soft and sensitive nature to disastrous effect to my psyche. Four years ago, someone was smart enough to make it through all of my defenses and gain access to almost all of my most sensitive wounds. Unfortunately her intentions were anything but benign and she did untold amounts of damage to me before I was able to extricate myself from her web of lies. Thus the necessity for the barrier maze, those who choose to navigate it are under extreme scrutiny from me at all times in order to discover their character and intentions. If I judge someone to be safe, I usually will give access to a few upper layers of my true personality for starters to see what they do with the information. Those that are judged as a danger encounter more and more complex illusions, false statements and diversionary tactics.
As it stands right now, only one person I work directly with has any access to anything other than diversionary webs I weave. No one from work has access to this or my Facebook feed either, so my secret will remain just that. Facebook friends beware though, I would be lying if I said I only behaved this way at work. When I'm doing poorly and don't want anyone to know what's really going on inside my head, I use these tactics with gusto because I don't want anyone to get wind of the conflict.
It all boils down to the fact that I don't want interference or manipulation from outside parties, especially when it comes to very personal, sensitive, and private issues that can be easily misunderstood or downright incomprehensible to anyone save for those who have been there. Please don't take any of this personally, these are all defense tactics to keep me free from harm and manipulation. Like I said, the truth is there within everything I say and do, it's purposefully difficult to discern. That being said, if I say I am being truthful, that is ALWAYS to be taken at face value because it is the truth. It should be noted that I have warned my physicians about things I will say, do and ask for when in extremis, but don't think I don't have backup plans up my sleeves.
I am being honest right now by saying that I'm not suicidal at the moment. That being said, there is a very significant chance that I will die by my own hand in the future. If that moment does indeed arrive, there will be no warning or cry for help, for I want my decision to mine and mine alone. This is going to really upset people who actually read this drivel, but the truth is the truth. From a statistical standpoint, people with diagnoses similar to mine have less than favorable prognoses. To be honest, I would prefer to accept death on my own terms, there is a certain level of courage in that. My sister was brave enough and had to clarity to see what the rest of her life was going to be like and she chose to end her suffering. Though I miss her every single day and will do so for the rest of my life, I will always respect her decision and the courage it took to end her nightmare.
So there it is, the truth....or is it. I'm already formulating strategies to keep people from getting too close to me as a result of this information. Yes, I am taking a huge gamble by revealing all of this, but I am more than confident that I can deflect any further inquiries into the truth......it's all a game really.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
A Dingo's guide to behaving at the vet.
It's funny how people's dogs reflect their owner's personality quirks and that most certainly applies to both of The Dingoes. Dingo Jack has the essence of mischief and offbeat sense of humor that I frequently display, particularly when I'm at work. Dingo Carter on the other hand definitely represents the focus I display when pursuing things I loves (his ball is his life) and my tendency to be surly and antisocial at times. Both of The Dingoes are very intelligent and are very good at problem solving in their own ways. Since they are Dingoes and have the essences of my personality taken to the extreme, public outings can be very embarrassing for me......especially when we visit the vet.
Last week I made the decision to have Dingo Carter's front dew claws removed (at our vet's suggestion) since he seems to rip one off at least one every three to four months. I always dread going to the vet because The Dingoes always seem to go out of their way to showcase just how unruly they can truly be. I started the day out by having to drop Carter off at the vet before 9:00 in the morning, which is an ungodly hour for me to be up because I work until 11:30 at night most days of the week. This means that Jack was going to be home by himself for most of the day, something that very rarely happens these days since the main reason I adopted Carter four years ago was to keep Jack company when I'm gone. Carter gave me a very forlorn, "They are going to kill me!", look as I was leaving, which was very effective at pulling my heart strings. I then ran errands for about four hours knowing that Dingo Jack was at home alone and most likely was up to as much mischief as he could into. I was not disappointed when I got home to check on him.
To start with, Jack is pretty bonkers whenever I come home, but today it was like he had done several lines of cocaine while I was gone. He pretty much bouncing off the walls and ceiling and damn near tore holes in my shirt with his claws from jumping all over me. It was then that I realized I had made a grave error, I had forgot to put up the (supposedly Dingo-proof) kitchen garbage. Jack has never been able to knock over the squat, rectangular stainless steel garbage can I have, but he has devised a method of extracting the garbage sack, thus eliminating the need to knock the can over. True to his reputation, there was garbage strewn throughout the entire apartment, all of it licked as clean as possible or torn to shreds. It was quite clear that Dingo Jack was very proud of his cocaine fueled garbage frenzy.
I then had more errands to run, so I left Jack at home to do even more lines of cocaine in preparation for his visit with the vet later in the afternoon. When I returned, he was more than ready to go and was sporting a very disconcerting look on his face. It was at that time that I knew I was in for an epic Dingo experience at the vet. First we had to drive all the way across town in late afternoon Missoula traffic, which was heavy that day. It should be noted that both Dingoes absolutely abhor the new Dingoemobile I bought back in June of last year......primarily because they have to ride in the back instead of up front with me. Both of them have been loudly protesting this unjust arrangement ever since and by protesting, I mean howling like banshees every time we go anywhere. Jack decided he was going to "cry like Nancy Kerrigan" for the duration of the journey and cry he did....with gusto. If you've never seen the phenomenon, go here: Cry like Nancy Kerrigan
Finally the moment of my final atonement arrived and we pulled into the parking lot at the vet's office. For some odd reason, Dingo Jack's reaction to going to the vet is the polar opposite of Dingo Carter's (primarily because Jack hasn't had an anal abscess that had to be lanced or dew claws to rip off, so he really has never had a bad vet experience) and he immediately switched to "LOOK HOW MUCH COCAINE I DID!!" mode. The one vet tech that works at the office knows us well and I can hear her sigh audibly every time I walk in the door with either or both of The Dingoes. This is where the experience switches to one of extreme frustration and embarrassment for me. In fact, I'm pretty surprised I didn't spontaneously burst into flames from embarrassment during any given moment of the experience. We were quickly ushered into an examination room, lest Dingo Jack cause a serious scene in the waiting room (did I mention the office staff knows all about us?). Upon entering the room, the poor vet was promptly mugged by the cocaine charged Dingo Jack and his first comment was, "He sure doesn't act like a dog who is nearly nine years old." I was tempted to correct him on his mistake, The Dingoes are NOT dogs. Jack genuinely enjoys the vet's attention and was more than happy to be up on the exam table......that is until it came time to examine his ears. As soon as the vet grasped Jack's right ear, Jack shrugged him off and snapped at him. I have NEVER seen him snap at anyone like that. Ever. Undeterred, the vet made a second attempt only to get a very up close and personal view of Jack's bared teeth. As far as Jack was concerned, this wasn't going to go down without the vet losing flesh or preferentially, a few digits for him to make a necklace out of and wear around his neck. The vet then produced a muzzle from out of nowhere and on it went.......which Jack then removed in less than the span of three seconds (not kidding), all the while laughing maniacally at our feeble attempts to deprive him of any of the vet's fingers. At this point, the vet was genuinely surprised and on the muzzle went, this time with me doing my best to restrain the Dingo while informing the vet that Jack had done more cocaine today than Charlie Sheen does in a week. Now, I've had to hold Dingo Carter in exams before and have been praised for how tenacious and effective my restraining techniques are. Cocaine Jack was far too much for the both of us and the vet said he needed to take him to the back to get help. I'm pretty sure I could hear a huge commotion coming from the back room with the sounds of items falling off of shelves along with profuse yelling and swearing as the office staff attempted to inspect Jack's ears, give him his shots, and trim his claws. The vet reappeared with Cocaine Jack a few moments later with all digits intact and no visible evidence of bodily harm, looking as though he had just had a brush with death itself and very relieved to have the ordeal behind him.
As you have probably noticed, Dingo Carter has been absent for most of this adventure. This is because he spent the morning in surgery and the afternoon recovering. After the vet's near death at the mercies of Cocaine Jack, the vet returned leading a limping Dingo Carter resplendent in a cone of shame. Carter's misery was palpable and I think even Jack felt sorry for the state he was in. Carter was still somewhat groggy and VERY unhappy about the apparatus that was fastened to his head. Naturally, a cone of shame adds a significant amount of width to a Dingo's body and it was no surprise that Carter got it stuck on the door frame. One would think he would back up for a another try or at least step to side to get through the door. So pronounced was his displeasure that he just stood there with the cone stuck up against the door frame for several seconds giving me the most withering look I have ever seen him give. Eventually I scooped him up off the floor and placed him on the exam table so the vet come give him one last look before we went on our (less than) merry way. Getting the dogs out of the clinic and into the Dingomobile was uneventful.....except Carter repeated his "get the cone stuck on the door frame and refuse to move any further while giving a withering stare" routine. I'm pretty sure I heard another audible sigh of relief from the staff as we left the clinic.
By now it was five o'clock on a Friday afternoon and traffic was in full swing for us on the drive home. The usual "Symphony Of Sorrow" performance was extra exuberant with Jack once again crying like Nancy Kerrigan on lead and Carter providing backup vocals with his pronounced moaning. The symphony was so enthusiastic that we garnered many looks from people in vehicles next to us at stop lights, Jack in particular was very proud while Carter just wanted to get home and be done with the cone of shame. There was one final performance of getting the cone stuck on the door frame of the apartment by Dingo Carter. That was quickly followed by the removal of said cone of shame and Carter happily limped off to the bed to go to work in earnest on his bandages.
Ultimately I was able to cut Carter's bandages off a few days later without losing any of my own fingers to his bared teeth and it looks like Dingo Jack was able to recover from his cocaine binge. I also once again managed to escape from spontaneously bursting into flames from embarrassment, maybe next time will be the time my number comes up. I'm certain our vet clinic is happy to be rid of us for what hopefully will be another year, though that only gives The Dingoes that much more time to formulate their plans for maximum chaos, discord, and destruction.
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| Where these two go, mischief and mayhem are sure to follow. |
Last week I made the decision to have Dingo Carter's front dew claws removed (at our vet's suggestion) since he seems to rip one off at least one every three to four months. I always dread going to the vet because The Dingoes always seem to go out of their way to showcase just how unruly they can truly be. I started the day out by having to drop Carter off at the vet before 9:00 in the morning, which is an ungodly hour for me to be up because I work until 11:30 at night most days of the week. This means that Jack was going to be home by himself for most of the day, something that very rarely happens these days since the main reason I adopted Carter four years ago was to keep Jack company when I'm gone. Carter gave me a very forlorn, "They are going to kill me!", look as I was leaving, which was very effective at pulling my heart strings. I then ran errands for about four hours knowing that Dingo Jack was at home alone and most likely was up to as much mischief as he could into. I was not disappointed when I got home to check on him.
To start with, Jack is pretty bonkers whenever I come home, but today it was like he had done several lines of cocaine while I was gone. He pretty much bouncing off the walls and ceiling and damn near tore holes in my shirt with his claws from jumping all over me. It was then that I realized I had made a grave error, I had forgot to put up the (supposedly Dingo-proof) kitchen garbage. Jack has never been able to knock over the squat, rectangular stainless steel garbage can I have, but he has devised a method of extracting the garbage sack, thus eliminating the need to knock the can over. True to his reputation, there was garbage strewn throughout the entire apartment, all of it licked as clean as possible or torn to shreds. It was quite clear that Dingo Jack was very proud of his cocaine fueled garbage frenzy.
I then had more errands to run, so I left Jack at home to do even more lines of cocaine in preparation for his visit with the vet later in the afternoon. When I returned, he was more than ready to go and was sporting a very disconcerting look on his face. It was at that time that I knew I was in for an epic Dingo experience at the vet. First we had to drive all the way across town in late afternoon Missoula traffic, which was heavy that day. It should be noted that both Dingoes absolutely abhor the new Dingoemobile I bought back in June of last year......primarily because they have to ride in the back instead of up front with me. Both of them have been loudly protesting this unjust arrangement ever since and by protesting, I mean howling like banshees every time we go anywhere. Jack decided he was going to "cry like Nancy Kerrigan" for the duration of the journey and cry he did....with gusto. If you've never seen the phenomenon, go here: Cry like Nancy Kerrigan
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| "Why? Why? Why?!?!" |
Finally the moment of my final atonement arrived and we pulled into the parking lot at the vet's office. For some odd reason, Dingo Jack's reaction to going to the vet is the polar opposite of Dingo Carter's (primarily because Jack hasn't had an anal abscess that had to be lanced or dew claws to rip off, so he really has never had a bad vet experience) and he immediately switched to "LOOK HOW MUCH COCAINE I DID!!" mode. The one vet tech that works at the office knows us well and I can hear her sigh audibly every time I walk in the door with either or both of The Dingoes. This is where the experience switches to one of extreme frustration and embarrassment for me. In fact, I'm pretty surprised I didn't spontaneously burst into flames from embarrassment during any given moment of the experience. We were quickly ushered into an examination room, lest Dingo Jack cause a serious scene in the waiting room (did I mention the office staff knows all about us?). Upon entering the room, the poor vet was promptly mugged by the cocaine charged Dingo Jack and his first comment was, "He sure doesn't act like a dog who is nearly nine years old." I was tempted to correct him on his mistake, The Dingoes are NOT dogs. Jack genuinely enjoys the vet's attention and was more than happy to be up on the exam table......that is until it came time to examine his ears. As soon as the vet grasped Jack's right ear, Jack shrugged him off and snapped at him. I have NEVER seen him snap at anyone like that. Ever. Undeterred, the vet made a second attempt only to get a very up close and personal view of Jack's bared teeth. As far as Jack was concerned, this wasn't going to go down without the vet losing flesh or preferentially, a few digits for him to make a necklace out of and wear around his neck. The vet then produced a muzzle from out of nowhere and on it went.......which Jack then removed in less than the span of three seconds (not kidding), all the while laughing maniacally at our feeble attempts to deprive him of any of the vet's fingers. At this point, the vet was genuinely surprised and on the muzzle went, this time with me doing my best to restrain the Dingo while informing the vet that Jack had done more cocaine today than Charlie Sheen does in a week. Now, I've had to hold Dingo Carter in exams before and have been praised for how tenacious and effective my restraining techniques are. Cocaine Jack was far too much for the both of us and the vet said he needed to take him to the back to get help. I'm pretty sure I could hear a huge commotion coming from the back room with the sounds of items falling off of shelves along with profuse yelling and swearing as the office staff attempted to inspect Jack's ears, give him his shots, and trim his claws. The vet reappeared with Cocaine Jack a few moments later with all digits intact and no visible evidence of bodily harm, looking as though he had just had a brush with death itself and very relieved to have the ordeal behind him.
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| "Come any closer with that thing and you are going to lose some fingers, asshole." |
As you have probably noticed, Dingo Carter has been absent for most of this adventure. This is because he spent the morning in surgery and the afternoon recovering. After the vet's near death at the mercies of Cocaine Jack, the vet returned leading a limping Dingo Carter resplendent in a cone of shame. Carter's misery was palpable and I think even Jack felt sorry for the state he was in. Carter was still somewhat groggy and VERY unhappy about the apparatus that was fastened to his head. Naturally, a cone of shame adds a significant amount of width to a Dingo's body and it was no surprise that Carter got it stuck on the door frame. One would think he would back up for a another try or at least step to side to get through the door. So pronounced was his displeasure that he just stood there with the cone stuck up against the door frame for several seconds giving me the most withering look I have ever seen him give. Eventually I scooped him up off the floor and placed him on the exam table so the vet come give him one last look before we went on our (less than) merry way. Getting the dogs out of the clinic and into the Dingomobile was uneventful.....except Carter repeated his "get the cone stuck on the door frame and refuse to move any further while giving a withering stare" routine. I'm pretty sure I heard another audible sigh of relief from the staff as we left the clinic.
By now it was five o'clock on a Friday afternoon and traffic was in full swing for us on the drive home. The usual "Symphony Of Sorrow" performance was extra exuberant with Jack once again crying like Nancy Kerrigan on lead and Carter providing backup vocals with his pronounced moaning. The symphony was so enthusiastic that we garnered many looks from people in vehicles next to us at stop lights, Jack in particular was very proud while Carter just wanted to get home and be done with the cone of shame. There was one final performance of getting the cone stuck on the door frame of the apartment by Dingo Carter. That was quickly followed by the removal of said cone of shame and Carter happily limped off to the bed to go to work in earnest on his bandages.
Ultimately I was able to cut Carter's bandages off a few days later without losing any of my own fingers to his bared teeth and it looks like Dingo Jack was able to recover from his cocaine binge. I also once again managed to escape from spontaneously bursting into flames from embarrassment, maybe next time will be the time my number comes up. I'm certain our vet clinic is happy to be rid of us for what hopefully will be another year, though that only gives The Dingoes that much more time to formulate their plans for maximum chaos, discord, and destruction.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Is this thing on?
Hello blog, it has only been ten months since I last wrote anything in this space. It actually seems like it was a lifetime ago given everything that has happened in that time. I wish I could say that thing have been going well, but really it has just been one very long train wreck.
Most everyone knows that my mother passed away in early June last year from complications of lymphoma. My relationship with mom was complex due to the long term abuse she gave me growing up and her death has been an extremely complex issue for me to deal with. Though we weren't close over the last 15 years, she left everything to me in what is undoubtedly the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. I am eternally grateful for her generosity, it shows that despite everything that happened between us, she genuinely loved me as her son. Having to settle mom's estate and sell her condo was more than a challenge for a man who has a multifaceted mental illness and mood disorder. Fortunately for me, mom's good friends adopted me as one of their own. They are all very, very nice people and I genuinely appreciate them.....but they aren't the sort of people who are going to understand the inner workings of someone who is as complex and (dare I say) broken as I am. I actually ended up selling mom's condo to her friends, who had just lost their home in a fire. These people needed help so I sold the condo to them for far less than it was worth (much to the dismay of my aunt and father). This was a "pay it forward" moment for me, mostly because I know what it's like to suddenly find yourself without a home and no belongings whatsoever (when I crash landed back on the mainland after living in Hawaii for two years). I would like to think that was what mom would have wanted me to do.
Despite the fact that mom's friends have adopted me, I am almost completely alone right now. My best friend in Spokane stopped talking to me about this time last year. This is primarily because he has been displeased with me for years now over my activity levels and my weight. I'm fat. There is no way around it. I know it and trust me, I HATE IT. Unfortunately, I live with a pretty serious case of Complex PTSD, an unspecified personality disorder (this is a new development), bouts of severe depression, and extremely low self worth. To say I hate myself would be the understatement of a lifetime. Over the last few years it has become increasingly difficult for my friend in Spokane to hide his displeasure with me over how lazy he thinks I am. Of course, Matt has lead a relatively easy life, he has no mental illness, he wasn't abused as a child, he didn't lose a sibling to suicide, he didn't have his entire world come crashing in on him at any point in time, let alone numerous times.......and he has no reference for any of these things, so instead of compassion, he has contempt.
Being betrayed (more in this later) and abandoned by friends isn't anything new to me, it just never gets any easier. Matt was the last bastion of friends I had from before my Kauai days. We used to ski and mountain bike together a lot. Over the last couple of years mountain biking with Matt hasn't been fun for me because every time we would go out he would try to push me as hard as he absolutely could in an attempt to get me to lose weight. I don't like being pushed by anyone and I actually lost interest in mountain biking over the last couple of years because the pressure he put on me. Every time he would call over the previous two years I would have to lie to him about mountain biking or going to the gym because there would always be this awkward pause and change in his tone with me if I ever mentioned I wasn't doing either. Matt has never been the most compassionate person I have ever met, nor has he ever really understood the things that I have been through over the last seven years (specifically Carly's suicide). He called me after mom's death and of course, asked me if I had been going to the gym or mountain biking. Naturally, I had not been doing either of those things because I was too busy taking care of things concerning mom's death. The last time I heard from him was a text a few weeks later inquiring if I was getting out on the bike with the dogs while I was in Helena, I said that I hadn't had the time and I haven't heard from him since......though it has never been very far from my mind. In fact, I obsess over it frequently.
When you have trust and self esteem issues, it is extremely important that people who are close to those with these issues be supportive, accepting, and as understanding as is humanly possible. I have a serious mental illness, it is not tangible, it is not plainly defined, it is never logical, nor is it very obvious. It is insidious, persistent, and very debilitating. I want to be normal, I want people to like me, I want to get up and function like a normal person every day instead of wanting to stay in bed or never leave my apartment. I want to be happy.....so much. I'm so tired of hurting inside. I'm so tired of hating myself. I'm so tired of trying so hard to convince myself and everyone else that I'm a good person. I'm tired of being left behind or betrayed. I'm tired of being tired.
Like I said above, I have serious trust issues and events over the last year have on poured gasoline over that fire. The remaining elements of my family have absolutely zero idea who I am, what I stand for, what my interests and pursuits are, what I do for a living, how intelligent I am, or how delicate I am....which is fine. It is nearly impossible for me to ask for help from anyone and that goes double for those in my family. By the time January rolled around, things were absolutely falling apart at the seams for me. Numerous events at work had pushed me beyond my breaking point and it became painfully obvious to me that I wasn't in control of myself any longer. So I decided to take a leave of absence in order to try to get some things back in order in my life. I made the mistake of mentioning this to one of my relatives....... to disastrous effect. When placed in a conflict situation, I try to be as honest as possible while not being inflammatory. Unfortunately the person I was trying to confide in became angry with me and I dropped a pretty huge bomb on the person (not in anger, I was just being honest). As usual, I was treated like I was being unreasonable and didn't deserve to be upset. The underlying message? Jon does not matter. I did my best to inject some structure back into my life during my leave and did have a small degree of success. One area of constant anxiety was my work situation. Though I was out on medical leave, I knew that because of the extreme lack of staffing levels within the lab I was causing a lot of people a lot of inconvenience. This weighed heavily on me and I chose to return to work much earlier than I should have........and I paid the price for it.
The second day of work after I had returned was on a Saturday during a very bad winter storm here in western Montana. Unfortunately, there was a serious wreck on highway 93, south of Missoula with numerous trauma victims. The worst victim came to our hospital and a bleeding emergency was called. Shortly before mom's death, I had been involved with other departments in the hospital in updating our bleeding emergency/trauma protocols. I had two reservations about the new policy while we were still debating, but mom died soon after the preliminary meetings on the subject and I wasn't present to voice my concerns over the new process before it got put into action. Both of those concerns presented themselves to me that very night, the second shift I had worked since coming back (too early) from leave. Faced with a no win situation, I had to make a judgment call for numerous, complex blood bank science related issues. To those who know the intricacies of the laboratory science involved in transfusion medicine, I made the right call. To those who were just screaming for blood products, no matter what the cost, my judgment call appeared to be cold, uncaring, and made me look like I wanted to let the patient bleed out. Things rapidly became political and I reacted poorly to what happened next. I had to stand my ground in the worst way possible during a serious emergency for honest and legitimate reasons. It was not the sort of call I wanted to make, but it was the call I had to make at the time. In hindsight, my judgment call on the matter was neither correct, or incorrect......we just didn't have to protocol and guidelines to anticipate what had happened. Sadly, the patient's fate had already been decided before she had even arrived at the hospital and she died shortly after.
I have been involved in numerous trauma and bleeding emergency related events here at the hospital, including one just two months prior that I recently chronicled on Facebook. In that last event, we beat impossible odds and saved a young pregnant woman's life. It was the hardest night of my career and it was the finest night of my career. The only thanks I received for my sweat and tears that night was in inquiry into my performance, something that devastated me. The underlying message (again)? Jon does not matter. Now, here I was not three months later in a very similar situation. The dust hadn't even remotely started to settle before my actions were called into question this time. I felt cornered and when I feel cornered, I lash out. Now, before I go any further about my conduct I would like to add that my candor was not anything that the staff in the lab experience from other elements in the hospital on a daily basis. In fact, I would say that I actually did a great job in not coming completely unglued in the on the person in question. That being said, don't EVER call a house supervisor when you have an attitude problem. Big, dumb mistake, Jon. I was already in the middle of a raging forest fire and I decided to drop a 2000 pound bomb on it. By the time the house supervisor came down to deal with me, I had regained some of my composure and was in the middle of realizing just what I had done in the eyes of the emergency room staff as far as my judgment call went........which was going to be difficult for me to live with (even though I wasn't in the wrong) without what happened next. The house supervisor dismissed me/told me to go home. She could have physically struck me and it wouldn't have done as much damage to me and my fragile psyche at the time. To be told to go home during a crisis situation is the ultimate indignity for someone who takes his/her job as seriously as I do. That being said, I shocked her by apologizing for my candor (something no one has ever done for me at this institution), so much so that she allowed me to stay and see things through to the end. After she left the lab and the ER physician finally called an end to everything, I fell prey to my inner voices and fell apart entirely. If it weren't for the fact that one of my coworkers muttering that I was going to kill myself as I left and called the lab's medical director in concern, I wouldn't be here today. I left the hospital determined to kill myself that very night, I just had to figure out the best way of doing it. Our medical director (who is a friend and knows my entire story as far as my PTSD goes) got me on the phone and convinced me to go home to my apartment knowing that I wouldn't do anything to myself once I was at home with the dogs. I don't think I have ever been as fractured as I was then, there were pieces of me to be found everywhere. I had made and extremely difficult clinical decision that appeared to everyone not educated in laboratory transfusion medicine that I was just going to let a patient die, I had lost my temper with someone (I try so hard not to), and I had been asked to leave the hospital, my mind was telling me that everything that I have ever been told is true and that I should just do the world a favor and kill myself because I'm an awful person (in fact, just recalling that night has caused unwanted and intrusive thoughts to creep back into my mind).
Needless to say, I went back on medical leave for another two weeks......which was probably the worst thing at the time. I had to come to grips with what I had done while elements within hospital administration decided just what they were going to do with me. Now, my coworkers who were with me that night (who just so happened to be with me the night we pulled off the miracle on the pregnant woman) defend my actions to this day and tell me I did the right thing. That being said, that was not the answer the lab manager (not the lab medical director, they are two different people) and hospital administration wanted to hear. During this two week period the lab manager went around to numerous individuals in the lab for any sort of information on my actions over the last five and half years of my employment with the hospital. It has been demonstrated numerous times that I do not work with understanding or compassionate individuals, this along with the fact I had completely screwed everyone's schedule over in the last two months due to my medical leave, gave a lot of my coworkers no pause in assassinating my character. You have to realize that I was at home during all of this agonizing and obsessing over everything the whole time. Finally, a meeting with the lab manager and human resources was setup with me the day before I returned to work. I expected things to go poorly, but I expected my disciplinary action to only concerned with that single event (which it should have been).....oh, how wrong I was. I sat for an hour listening to our lab manager catalog all of my faults and (undocumented) misdeeds. I have never been counseled for anything up until this point in my career. There were specific examples listed that could only have come from the mouths of my coworkers. At no point in time were any of my accomplishments, achievements, my dedication to the lab, my compassion and caring for our patients, my technical abilities and expertise, or my work ethic highlighted. My character was flogged mercilessly. I left that meeting with my job, but I think it would have just been better if they had fired me. The lab manager was so relentless that one of the HR reps actually had to stop her because of the physical impact it was having on my (I was trembling violently and could barely hold back tears). The worst part is that she actually had the gall to tell me that everyone cares so much about me, yet they had no qualms in stabbing me in the back. I left chastised, despondent, and in shame. The things I was accused of doing were so horrifying to me that I left seriously pondering the idea of taking my life once again.
Now, I am not defending myself over losing my temper with the house supervisor. That was unprofessional and I am very ashamed of my conduct. I apologized for that and promised it will never happen again (which it won't). That being said, all of the other accusations leveled at me had nothing to do with the night in question and could be construed as a witch hunt of sorts. Going around and polling people the (extremely understaffed and overstressed, though people I was loyal to) lab looking for tidbits to use against me without asking for examples of positive worth is unprofessional, in my opinion. With the exception of a few individuals, it is quite clear that most of my coworkers sold me out and I hope they feel really great about themselves for doing so. I went back to work the next day and tried my best to pick up the pieces of my dignity that were left to be found. It was over a week before I would even speak to anyone beyond a sentence or two. Though in a moment that brought tears to my eyes, one tech who been with the hospital for over 30 years and was retiring the next day, told me that I was one of the finest techs she had ever worked with and that it was imperative that I remain the person that I always have been. Though I genuinely appreciate the compliment, that Jon is now dead.
Things did not get any better for me after that either The following week I had an appointment with my primary care physician for my release to work full time. I arrived approximately five minutes late for my appointment......because I woke up with a sinus infection caused headache of world ending proportions. My doctor's nurse was so rude (not the best way to treat a patient with an anxiety disorder) to me that I nearly left in tears. In fact, if I had treated a patient half as badly as I had been by this nurse, I would expect to be dismissed immediately. I love my doctor very much and it was only out of respect for her and my level of despondency to prevented me from notifying the office administrator to the nurse's behavior and demanding a serious reprimand and apology. What was the take home message (again)? I don't matter. Ever. To make things even worse, my therapist had been unavailable during all of this, so I had no professional support through any of this. When she did return, she notified me that she was scaling back her practice considerably and that day was the last day she was going to see me. Take home message? I don't matter and am so messed up that even mental health professionals can't handle me. I still haven't bothered to call either of the therapists she referred me to, I just don't have the energy to tell my story again in such a way to convey the magnitude of the challenges I face and I don't feel inclined to trying to build a rapport with anyone at this time either.
So, my best friend up and abandons me, I have no support system, the hospital hangs me out to dry, my coworkers stab me in the back, I can't even get any compassion from anyone even when I'm a patient, and my therapist picks the absolute worst time to cut me loose. At this point, if you don't walk on four legs and wag your tail when you see me, I straight up don't trust you and I don't want to have anything to do with you. I. hate. people. I'm done. I'm done trying to convince myself and the world that I'm a nice person. I'm done letting ANYONE get even close to me. I'm done caring about what people think of me. I'm done with being loyal to coworkers (watch out, I never stop watching, I never stop listening, I rarely forgive, and I NEVER forget). I am fucking done. If you don't like me? That's nice, go fuck yourself. I'm done hiding from the world too. Expect lots of visible tattoos in the future. Guess what? I hate your stupid, conformist, non-thinking, mainstream life. I'm hurt. I'm bitter. I'm done with people. I'm done trying.......and you know what? I don't care. I have my dogs, they love me and I love them....dearly. They will keep me walking this road until they pass away because if there is one thing I will NEVER do, it would be to leave my two best friends behind to fend for themselves.
Most everyone knows that my mother passed away in early June last year from complications of lymphoma. My relationship with mom was complex due to the long term abuse she gave me growing up and her death has been an extremely complex issue for me to deal with. Though we weren't close over the last 15 years, she left everything to me in what is undoubtedly the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. I am eternally grateful for her generosity, it shows that despite everything that happened between us, she genuinely loved me as her son. Having to settle mom's estate and sell her condo was more than a challenge for a man who has a multifaceted mental illness and mood disorder. Fortunately for me, mom's good friends adopted me as one of their own. They are all very, very nice people and I genuinely appreciate them.....but they aren't the sort of people who are going to understand the inner workings of someone who is as complex and (dare I say) broken as I am. I actually ended up selling mom's condo to her friends, who had just lost their home in a fire. These people needed help so I sold the condo to them for far less than it was worth (much to the dismay of my aunt and father). This was a "pay it forward" moment for me, mostly because I know what it's like to suddenly find yourself without a home and no belongings whatsoever (when I crash landed back on the mainland after living in Hawaii for two years). I would like to think that was what mom would have wanted me to do.
Despite the fact that mom's friends have adopted me, I am almost completely alone right now. My best friend in Spokane stopped talking to me about this time last year. This is primarily because he has been displeased with me for years now over my activity levels and my weight. I'm fat. There is no way around it. I know it and trust me, I HATE IT. Unfortunately, I live with a pretty serious case of Complex PTSD, an unspecified personality disorder (this is a new development), bouts of severe depression, and extremely low self worth. To say I hate myself would be the understatement of a lifetime. Over the last few years it has become increasingly difficult for my friend in Spokane to hide his displeasure with me over how lazy he thinks I am. Of course, Matt has lead a relatively easy life, he has no mental illness, he wasn't abused as a child, he didn't lose a sibling to suicide, he didn't have his entire world come crashing in on him at any point in time, let alone numerous times.......and he has no reference for any of these things, so instead of compassion, he has contempt.
Being betrayed (more in this later) and abandoned by friends isn't anything new to me, it just never gets any easier. Matt was the last bastion of friends I had from before my Kauai days. We used to ski and mountain bike together a lot. Over the last couple of years mountain biking with Matt hasn't been fun for me because every time we would go out he would try to push me as hard as he absolutely could in an attempt to get me to lose weight. I don't like being pushed by anyone and I actually lost interest in mountain biking over the last couple of years because the pressure he put on me. Every time he would call over the previous two years I would have to lie to him about mountain biking or going to the gym because there would always be this awkward pause and change in his tone with me if I ever mentioned I wasn't doing either. Matt has never been the most compassionate person I have ever met, nor has he ever really understood the things that I have been through over the last seven years (specifically Carly's suicide). He called me after mom's death and of course, asked me if I had been going to the gym or mountain biking. Naturally, I had not been doing either of those things because I was too busy taking care of things concerning mom's death. The last time I heard from him was a text a few weeks later inquiring if I was getting out on the bike with the dogs while I was in Helena, I said that I hadn't had the time and I haven't heard from him since......though it has never been very far from my mind. In fact, I obsess over it frequently.
When you have trust and self esteem issues, it is extremely important that people who are close to those with these issues be supportive, accepting, and as understanding as is humanly possible. I have a serious mental illness, it is not tangible, it is not plainly defined, it is never logical, nor is it very obvious. It is insidious, persistent, and very debilitating. I want to be normal, I want people to like me, I want to get up and function like a normal person every day instead of wanting to stay in bed or never leave my apartment. I want to be happy.....so much. I'm so tired of hurting inside. I'm so tired of hating myself. I'm so tired of trying so hard to convince myself and everyone else that I'm a good person. I'm tired of being left behind or betrayed. I'm tired of being tired.
Like I said above, I have serious trust issues and events over the last year have on poured gasoline over that fire. The remaining elements of my family have absolutely zero idea who I am, what I stand for, what my interests and pursuits are, what I do for a living, how intelligent I am, or how delicate I am....which is fine. It is nearly impossible for me to ask for help from anyone and that goes double for those in my family. By the time January rolled around, things were absolutely falling apart at the seams for me. Numerous events at work had pushed me beyond my breaking point and it became painfully obvious to me that I wasn't in control of myself any longer. So I decided to take a leave of absence in order to try to get some things back in order in my life. I made the mistake of mentioning this to one of my relatives....... to disastrous effect. When placed in a conflict situation, I try to be as honest as possible while not being inflammatory. Unfortunately the person I was trying to confide in became angry with me and I dropped a pretty huge bomb on the person (not in anger, I was just being honest). As usual, I was treated like I was being unreasonable and didn't deserve to be upset. The underlying message? Jon does not matter. I did my best to inject some structure back into my life during my leave and did have a small degree of success. One area of constant anxiety was my work situation. Though I was out on medical leave, I knew that because of the extreme lack of staffing levels within the lab I was causing a lot of people a lot of inconvenience. This weighed heavily on me and I chose to return to work much earlier than I should have........and I paid the price for it.
The second day of work after I had returned was on a Saturday during a very bad winter storm here in western Montana. Unfortunately, there was a serious wreck on highway 93, south of Missoula with numerous trauma victims. The worst victim came to our hospital and a bleeding emergency was called. Shortly before mom's death, I had been involved with other departments in the hospital in updating our bleeding emergency/trauma protocols. I had two reservations about the new policy while we were still debating, but mom died soon after the preliminary meetings on the subject and I wasn't present to voice my concerns over the new process before it got put into action. Both of those concerns presented themselves to me that very night, the second shift I had worked since coming back (too early) from leave. Faced with a no win situation, I had to make a judgment call for numerous, complex blood bank science related issues. To those who know the intricacies of the laboratory science involved in transfusion medicine, I made the right call. To those who were just screaming for blood products, no matter what the cost, my judgment call appeared to be cold, uncaring, and made me look like I wanted to let the patient bleed out. Things rapidly became political and I reacted poorly to what happened next. I had to stand my ground in the worst way possible during a serious emergency for honest and legitimate reasons. It was not the sort of call I wanted to make, but it was the call I had to make at the time. In hindsight, my judgment call on the matter was neither correct, or incorrect......we just didn't have to protocol and guidelines to anticipate what had happened. Sadly, the patient's fate had already been decided before she had even arrived at the hospital and she died shortly after.
I have been involved in numerous trauma and bleeding emergency related events here at the hospital, including one just two months prior that I recently chronicled on Facebook. In that last event, we beat impossible odds and saved a young pregnant woman's life. It was the hardest night of my career and it was the finest night of my career. The only thanks I received for my sweat and tears that night was in inquiry into my performance, something that devastated me. The underlying message (again)? Jon does not matter. Now, here I was not three months later in a very similar situation. The dust hadn't even remotely started to settle before my actions were called into question this time. I felt cornered and when I feel cornered, I lash out. Now, before I go any further about my conduct I would like to add that my candor was not anything that the staff in the lab experience from other elements in the hospital on a daily basis. In fact, I would say that I actually did a great job in not coming completely unglued in the on the person in question. That being said, don't EVER call a house supervisor when you have an attitude problem. Big, dumb mistake, Jon. I was already in the middle of a raging forest fire and I decided to drop a 2000 pound bomb on it. By the time the house supervisor came down to deal with me, I had regained some of my composure and was in the middle of realizing just what I had done in the eyes of the emergency room staff as far as my judgment call went........which was going to be difficult for me to live with (even though I wasn't in the wrong) without what happened next. The house supervisor dismissed me/told me to go home. She could have physically struck me and it wouldn't have done as much damage to me and my fragile psyche at the time. To be told to go home during a crisis situation is the ultimate indignity for someone who takes his/her job as seriously as I do. That being said, I shocked her by apologizing for my candor (something no one has ever done for me at this institution), so much so that she allowed me to stay and see things through to the end. After she left the lab and the ER physician finally called an end to everything, I fell prey to my inner voices and fell apart entirely. If it weren't for the fact that one of my coworkers muttering that I was going to kill myself as I left and called the lab's medical director in concern, I wouldn't be here today. I left the hospital determined to kill myself that very night, I just had to figure out the best way of doing it. Our medical director (who is a friend and knows my entire story as far as my PTSD goes) got me on the phone and convinced me to go home to my apartment knowing that I wouldn't do anything to myself once I was at home with the dogs. I don't think I have ever been as fractured as I was then, there were pieces of me to be found everywhere. I had made and extremely difficult clinical decision that appeared to everyone not educated in laboratory transfusion medicine that I was just going to let a patient die, I had lost my temper with someone (I try so hard not to), and I had been asked to leave the hospital, my mind was telling me that everything that I have ever been told is true and that I should just do the world a favor and kill myself because I'm an awful person (in fact, just recalling that night has caused unwanted and intrusive thoughts to creep back into my mind).
Needless to say, I went back on medical leave for another two weeks......which was probably the worst thing at the time. I had to come to grips with what I had done while elements within hospital administration decided just what they were going to do with me. Now, my coworkers who were with me that night (who just so happened to be with me the night we pulled off the miracle on the pregnant woman) defend my actions to this day and tell me I did the right thing. That being said, that was not the answer the lab manager (not the lab medical director, they are two different people) and hospital administration wanted to hear. During this two week period the lab manager went around to numerous individuals in the lab for any sort of information on my actions over the last five and half years of my employment with the hospital. It has been demonstrated numerous times that I do not work with understanding or compassionate individuals, this along with the fact I had completely screwed everyone's schedule over in the last two months due to my medical leave, gave a lot of my coworkers no pause in assassinating my character. You have to realize that I was at home during all of this agonizing and obsessing over everything the whole time. Finally, a meeting with the lab manager and human resources was setup with me the day before I returned to work. I expected things to go poorly, but I expected my disciplinary action to only concerned with that single event (which it should have been).....oh, how wrong I was. I sat for an hour listening to our lab manager catalog all of my faults and (undocumented) misdeeds. I have never been counseled for anything up until this point in my career. There were specific examples listed that could only have come from the mouths of my coworkers. At no point in time were any of my accomplishments, achievements, my dedication to the lab, my compassion and caring for our patients, my technical abilities and expertise, or my work ethic highlighted. My character was flogged mercilessly. I left that meeting with my job, but I think it would have just been better if they had fired me. The lab manager was so relentless that one of the HR reps actually had to stop her because of the physical impact it was having on my (I was trembling violently and could barely hold back tears). The worst part is that she actually had the gall to tell me that everyone cares so much about me, yet they had no qualms in stabbing me in the back. I left chastised, despondent, and in shame. The things I was accused of doing were so horrifying to me that I left seriously pondering the idea of taking my life once again.
Now, I am not defending myself over losing my temper with the house supervisor. That was unprofessional and I am very ashamed of my conduct. I apologized for that and promised it will never happen again (which it won't). That being said, all of the other accusations leveled at me had nothing to do with the night in question and could be construed as a witch hunt of sorts. Going around and polling people the (extremely understaffed and overstressed, though people I was loyal to) lab looking for tidbits to use against me without asking for examples of positive worth is unprofessional, in my opinion. With the exception of a few individuals, it is quite clear that most of my coworkers sold me out and I hope they feel really great about themselves for doing so. I went back to work the next day and tried my best to pick up the pieces of my dignity that were left to be found. It was over a week before I would even speak to anyone beyond a sentence or two. Though in a moment that brought tears to my eyes, one tech who been with the hospital for over 30 years and was retiring the next day, told me that I was one of the finest techs she had ever worked with and that it was imperative that I remain the person that I always have been. Though I genuinely appreciate the compliment, that Jon is now dead.
Things did not get any better for me after that either The following week I had an appointment with my primary care physician for my release to work full time. I arrived approximately five minutes late for my appointment......because I woke up with a sinus infection caused headache of world ending proportions. My doctor's nurse was so rude (not the best way to treat a patient with an anxiety disorder) to me that I nearly left in tears. In fact, if I had treated a patient half as badly as I had been by this nurse, I would expect to be dismissed immediately. I love my doctor very much and it was only out of respect for her and my level of despondency to prevented me from notifying the office administrator to the nurse's behavior and demanding a serious reprimand and apology. What was the take home message (again)? I don't matter. Ever. To make things even worse, my therapist had been unavailable during all of this, so I had no professional support through any of this. When she did return, she notified me that she was scaling back her practice considerably and that day was the last day she was going to see me. Take home message? I don't matter and am so messed up that even mental health professionals can't handle me. I still haven't bothered to call either of the therapists she referred me to, I just don't have the energy to tell my story again in such a way to convey the magnitude of the challenges I face and I don't feel inclined to trying to build a rapport with anyone at this time either.
So, my best friend up and abandons me, I have no support system, the hospital hangs me out to dry, my coworkers stab me in the back, I can't even get any compassion from anyone even when I'm a patient, and my therapist picks the absolute worst time to cut me loose. At this point, if you don't walk on four legs and wag your tail when you see me, I straight up don't trust you and I don't want to have anything to do with you. I. hate. people. I'm done. I'm done trying to convince myself and the world that I'm a nice person. I'm done letting ANYONE get even close to me. I'm done caring about what people think of me. I'm done with being loyal to coworkers (watch out, I never stop watching, I never stop listening, I rarely forgive, and I NEVER forget). I am fucking done. If you don't like me? That's nice, go fuck yourself. I'm done hiding from the world too. Expect lots of visible tattoos in the future. Guess what? I hate your stupid, conformist, non-thinking, mainstream life. I'm hurt. I'm bitter. I'm done with people. I'm done trying.......and you know what? I don't care. I have my dogs, they love me and I love them....dearly. They will keep me walking this road until they pass away because if there is one thing I will NEVER do, it would be to leave my two best friends behind to fend for themselves.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
You can't always get what you want........but sometimes you get what you need.
I have been remiss about updating my blog again for the last three months, and there is a very good reason for that. About this time in March, I found out that my mother's lymphoma was terminal, and that she only had about three to six months left to live. I had mixed feelings about this news, especially when you consider the abuse that my sister and I suffered from mom. To make things even more complicated, mom told me that she was leaving everything to me.
That statement alone sent my head reeling for weeks. She was leaving everything to her son that wanted nothing to do with her over the last two years. The son who did nothing while she endured three consecutive courses of chemotherapy over the span of over a year. I've kept my distance for a reason, my own mental health. Prolonged contact with mom frequently brought up too many bad memories, and it didn't help that mom has spent the last twenty years in a benzodiazepine induced fog, trying to forget everything from the past. Mom had slipped into a victim mentality, which something I absolutely had zero tolerance for because of all the abuse she gave me. For many years, I was absolutely outraged about her behavior, and her expectation that I should feel sorry for her. This behavior became far worse after Carly's suicide, and I naturally became more, and more hostile toward mom. As we all know, events from two years ago drove me to the very edge of my sanity, and I was fortunate enough to spend six weeks in an intensive outpatient therapy program in Seattle. It was here that I learned that I have Complex PTSD, and that if I was ever going to be a whole person, I had to forgive mom. I found the courage to do just that, and my attitude toward her shifted from one of rage and hatred, to a form of sadness and pity.
I had forgiven mom, but I still needed to keep her at a distance from me to keep her from interfering with the growth processes that I was undertaking at the time. It was at this point that I decided that I would never reveal to her that I have CPTSD, because I felt that it would be too cruel for her psyche to handle. Think about it, my sister committed suicide back in 2009, an event that the abuse mom perpetrated on Carly certainly played a role in. I just couldn't tell her that I have CPTSD because of what she did to me as a child. The old me would have jumped at the chance to get any kind of revenge on mom, but the new me has far more compassion, and is more interested in my future than inflicting more wounds based on actions inflicted on me in my past.
My initial reaction to the news of mom's pending death was more than a little cold. I told myself that there was no way that I was going to take care of her in the final days and months of her life. Then she told me she was leaving everything to me, something that literally made my jaw go slack, and left me with my mouth wide open. Why would she leave everything to someone who has spent a great deal of his life trying to forget she ever existed? Because buried deep below mom's numerous problems, she still cared and loved her son, that's why. At first I was extremely wary of everything and thought it was some kind of ruse. I feared that she would hold my inheritance over my head like bait, and then proceed to revert to her old way and punish me as much as she could before she died. My friends who know me expressed the same concerns as well. Everyone told me to be very cautious, this could very well have been a trap for me (I've certainly experienced situations that seemed far more unlikely and absurd). I was very cautious for the first few months of contact with her, I would call her every other day to see how she was doing, and would try to make meaningful conversation with her. One thing that struck me immediately, was the fact that it seemed like I was always talking to a drunk person, no matter what time of day I called her. Now, mom has been abusing benzodiazepines for over twenty years now, and I chalked things up to that. My first visit to Helena in over three years dispelled all of those speculations instantly, and I was instantly horrified to discover how things really were. Mom wasn't taking too many pills, somehow she had severely deteriorated cognitively to the point that I question whether or not she had suffered a moderate stroke.
The mom I knew was gone almost entirely. She couldn't talk without slurring, she could barely walk without stumbling, and even the most basic physical movement or activity required all of her concentration. Mom was no longer capable to being abusive at all, she was dying and losing her mind at the same time......and all she could think about was leaving everything to me, and making it as easy as possible for me and her sister to take care of her affairs after she passed. Mom may have lost a lot of her mental functions, but in doing so, it revealed her true character, something I had overlooked over the last thirty or so years. Mom was an extremely caring and compassionate woman.......and she genuinely loved her son. The worst was the fact I could tell she was very afraid of dying. Once I realized all of this, I pledged to her that I would make sure that she didn't die alone, and I kept my word on that.
A week after my initial visit, it became clear to me that mom was going to need someone at home with her 24 hours a day to make sure she was cared for, and didn't fall around the house (which she had already done more than once). It also became clear who that person was going to be.......me. If I was going to be able to live with myself after all of this, I was going to have to do the one thing that she never did for me as a child..... take care of and comfort her while she was sick. The irony of the situation most certainly wasn't lost on me, but like I said, if I was going to be able to live with myself, I was going to have to step up to the plate, and demonstrate an incredible amount of compassion. I'm not going to lie, I was scared shitless over this, and I lost a lot of sleep over it over the last two weeks. In time, I came to view it as an opportunity to bond with mom in her last days, and possibly show her things that she had no idea about when it came to her son. It most certainly wasn't going to be easy, but I found that I genuinely wanted to do this for her. There was one caveat; the dingoes absolutely had to be with me during all of this, otherwise the likelihood of a major depressive episode was almost guaranteed for me. Fortunately, she tentatively agreed to the idea of having two crazed dingoes running roughshod all over her condominium. I made all of the preparations to take three months of leave from work (mom agreed to pay my lost wages with some of my inheritance money), and I was ready to come over to Helena to take care of mom full time starting Sunday, June 9th. I'm writing this very late in the evening on Saturday, June 8th.......I was never given the chance to take care of mom like I planned.
I had just crawled into bed after work around midnight on Wednesday, when my phone jerked me instantly awake with my heart caught in my throat (a lovely symptom of PTSD). I knew immediately that something was very wrong. My aunt was the caller, and was in hysterics when I answered. She had found mom down on the floor trying to crawl into the bathroom, incoherent, white as a sheet......and covered in bloody stool. I can't even begin to imagine how awful the situation was for my aunt, or fault her for being in hysterics when she called me. She has no medical knowledge, or training like I do as a medical professional, but she made the call to 911, and then called me. The paramedics whisked mom off to the ER of the local hospital, and I called one of mom's friends, who happens to be a Registered Nurse. She quickly went down to the hospital, assessed the situation, and called me straightaway to tell me I urgently needed to speak to the attending physician, since I am mom's power of attorney (something we had established less than a week prior). I spoke with the physician, and he confirmed my fears, mom had an acute gastrointestinal bleed, and probably had only hours, to a fews days left to live.
That was all it took. I threw the dogs in the car at 1:00 in the morning, and drove like a banshee to Helena. I arrived to find her resting comfortably, but unconscious, with my aunt keeping vigil next to her bed. We sat there for a few hours, and then I took my aunt back to the condo so she could get some sleep. When I returned to mom's hospital room, it was obvious to me that her breathing was becoming increasingly labored, and pretty soon she was only breathing a few times a minute. I couldn't believe this was happening in front of me. Worse yet, I didn't think to say anything important at the time, when I finally came to my senses, she had passed away.
Sigh, this was not how things were supposed to end between us. I was going to take care of her, and through that process, she was going to learn that I had forgiven her, and held no ill will toward her. She was going to learn about who I really am, and just how much I had changed over the last two years. Sadly, that never came to pass. When I finally came to my senses, I told her I had forgiven her a long time ago, that I love her, and to tell Carly that I say hi. In short, I had none of the closure that I had hoped for. I can't help but think that this was another missed opportunity for me to prove to the world that I really am a good person, I still yearn so much to prove that......not that it will make me believe it in the process. I made good on my promise though, she wasn't alone when she died, and I'm very grateful for that because I would hate myself that much more if she would have been alone.
So here is sit on the eve of the day that I genuinely thought would transform people's perception of me once and for all. I really was determined to take care of mom until her final day. I was going to try to make her life as full as possible. I was going to take her to movies, watch TV with her, take her for drives, cook meals for her, and maybe even read to her. I really wanted to do all of that for her.....because I actually cared about her, and loved her. One thing that has changed about me over the four years since Carly's death is that I understand her far more now than I ever could have beforehand. That process has already begun with mom, and as it did with Carly, it is helping me deal with the grieving process. I'm not interested in learning the why of everything that happened during our time growing up, I'm interested in learning what the real person my mom was. Looking back, I can honestly say that I truly have completely forgiven mom for everything. I'm still going to struggle with my CPTSD until the day I die, but at least I'm not angry over it any longer. I'm not stuck on what happened all those years ago any longer, now I'm focused on what I need to do move beyond my past. I already miss my mom, and wish I had more time with her before she died because it turns out that she was a much different person than the one I thought she was, and that has given me greater clarity when thinking about the past. Sadly, I think mom died still hating her mother for what she had done to her as a child, fortunately for me, I won't make that same mistake. I didn't get all of the closure that I wanted, but maybe I got the closure I needed.
The rapid manner in which mom passed really is a blessing in disguise. I was absolutely horrified when I found out that she was basically going to starve to death, while losing more and more of her mental acuity each day....a fate that I consider to be worse than death. Thankfully, that never came to pass, and mom's suffering ended before it could get far worse. My life is going to be quite different in the coming days thanks to everything mom has left me, and I hope I was able to adequately convey to her just how thankful I am to her because of it. I most certainly will never forget the very last thing that mom ever did for me.
Goodbye mom, thank you so much, I love you, and I will always miss you.
That statement alone sent my head reeling for weeks. She was leaving everything to her son that wanted nothing to do with her over the last two years. The son who did nothing while she endured three consecutive courses of chemotherapy over the span of over a year. I've kept my distance for a reason, my own mental health. Prolonged contact with mom frequently brought up too many bad memories, and it didn't help that mom has spent the last twenty years in a benzodiazepine induced fog, trying to forget everything from the past. Mom had slipped into a victim mentality, which something I absolutely had zero tolerance for because of all the abuse she gave me. For many years, I was absolutely outraged about her behavior, and her expectation that I should feel sorry for her. This behavior became far worse after Carly's suicide, and I naturally became more, and more hostile toward mom. As we all know, events from two years ago drove me to the very edge of my sanity, and I was fortunate enough to spend six weeks in an intensive outpatient therapy program in Seattle. It was here that I learned that I have Complex PTSD, and that if I was ever going to be a whole person, I had to forgive mom. I found the courage to do just that, and my attitude toward her shifted from one of rage and hatred, to a form of sadness and pity.
I had forgiven mom, but I still needed to keep her at a distance from me to keep her from interfering with the growth processes that I was undertaking at the time. It was at this point that I decided that I would never reveal to her that I have CPTSD, because I felt that it would be too cruel for her psyche to handle. Think about it, my sister committed suicide back in 2009, an event that the abuse mom perpetrated on Carly certainly played a role in. I just couldn't tell her that I have CPTSD because of what she did to me as a child. The old me would have jumped at the chance to get any kind of revenge on mom, but the new me has far more compassion, and is more interested in my future than inflicting more wounds based on actions inflicted on me in my past.
My initial reaction to the news of mom's pending death was more than a little cold. I told myself that there was no way that I was going to take care of her in the final days and months of her life. Then she told me she was leaving everything to me, something that literally made my jaw go slack, and left me with my mouth wide open. Why would she leave everything to someone who has spent a great deal of his life trying to forget she ever existed? Because buried deep below mom's numerous problems, she still cared and loved her son, that's why. At first I was extremely wary of everything and thought it was some kind of ruse. I feared that she would hold my inheritance over my head like bait, and then proceed to revert to her old way and punish me as much as she could before she died. My friends who know me expressed the same concerns as well. Everyone told me to be very cautious, this could very well have been a trap for me (I've certainly experienced situations that seemed far more unlikely and absurd). I was very cautious for the first few months of contact with her, I would call her every other day to see how she was doing, and would try to make meaningful conversation with her. One thing that struck me immediately, was the fact that it seemed like I was always talking to a drunk person, no matter what time of day I called her. Now, mom has been abusing benzodiazepines for over twenty years now, and I chalked things up to that. My first visit to Helena in over three years dispelled all of those speculations instantly, and I was instantly horrified to discover how things really were. Mom wasn't taking too many pills, somehow she had severely deteriorated cognitively to the point that I question whether or not she had suffered a moderate stroke.
The mom I knew was gone almost entirely. She couldn't talk without slurring, she could barely walk without stumbling, and even the most basic physical movement or activity required all of her concentration. Mom was no longer capable to being abusive at all, she was dying and losing her mind at the same time......and all she could think about was leaving everything to me, and making it as easy as possible for me and her sister to take care of her affairs after she passed. Mom may have lost a lot of her mental functions, but in doing so, it revealed her true character, something I had overlooked over the last thirty or so years. Mom was an extremely caring and compassionate woman.......and she genuinely loved her son. The worst was the fact I could tell she was very afraid of dying. Once I realized all of this, I pledged to her that I would make sure that she didn't die alone, and I kept my word on that.
A week after my initial visit, it became clear to me that mom was going to need someone at home with her 24 hours a day to make sure she was cared for, and didn't fall around the house (which she had already done more than once). It also became clear who that person was going to be.......me. If I was going to be able to live with myself after all of this, I was going to have to do the one thing that she never did for me as a child..... take care of and comfort her while she was sick. The irony of the situation most certainly wasn't lost on me, but like I said, if I was going to be able to live with myself, I was going to have to step up to the plate, and demonstrate an incredible amount of compassion. I'm not going to lie, I was scared shitless over this, and I lost a lot of sleep over it over the last two weeks. In time, I came to view it as an opportunity to bond with mom in her last days, and possibly show her things that she had no idea about when it came to her son. It most certainly wasn't going to be easy, but I found that I genuinely wanted to do this for her. There was one caveat; the dingoes absolutely had to be with me during all of this, otherwise the likelihood of a major depressive episode was almost guaranteed for me. Fortunately, she tentatively agreed to the idea of having two crazed dingoes running roughshod all over her condominium. I made all of the preparations to take three months of leave from work (mom agreed to pay my lost wages with some of my inheritance money), and I was ready to come over to Helena to take care of mom full time starting Sunday, June 9th. I'm writing this very late in the evening on Saturday, June 8th.......I was never given the chance to take care of mom like I planned.
I had just crawled into bed after work around midnight on Wednesday, when my phone jerked me instantly awake with my heart caught in my throat (a lovely symptom of PTSD). I knew immediately that something was very wrong. My aunt was the caller, and was in hysterics when I answered. She had found mom down on the floor trying to crawl into the bathroom, incoherent, white as a sheet......and covered in bloody stool. I can't even begin to imagine how awful the situation was for my aunt, or fault her for being in hysterics when she called me. She has no medical knowledge, or training like I do as a medical professional, but she made the call to 911, and then called me. The paramedics whisked mom off to the ER of the local hospital, and I called one of mom's friends, who happens to be a Registered Nurse. She quickly went down to the hospital, assessed the situation, and called me straightaway to tell me I urgently needed to speak to the attending physician, since I am mom's power of attorney (something we had established less than a week prior). I spoke with the physician, and he confirmed my fears, mom had an acute gastrointestinal bleed, and probably had only hours, to a fews days left to live.
That was all it took. I threw the dogs in the car at 1:00 in the morning, and drove like a banshee to Helena. I arrived to find her resting comfortably, but unconscious, with my aunt keeping vigil next to her bed. We sat there for a few hours, and then I took my aunt back to the condo so she could get some sleep. When I returned to mom's hospital room, it was obvious to me that her breathing was becoming increasingly labored, and pretty soon she was only breathing a few times a minute. I couldn't believe this was happening in front of me. Worse yet, I didn't think to say anything important at the time, when I finally came to my senses, she had passed away.
Sigh, this was not how things were supposed to end between us. I was going to take care of her, and through that process, she was going to learn that I had forgiven her, and held no ill will toward her. She was going to learn about who I really am, and just how much I had changed over the last two years. Sadly, that never came to pass. When I finally came to my senses, I told her I had forgiven her a long time ago, that I love her, and to tell Carly that I say hi. In short, I had none of the closure that I had hoped for. I can't help but think that this was another missed opportunity for me to prove to the world that I really am a good person, I still yearn so much to prove that......not that it will make me believe it in the process. I made good on my promise though, she wasn't alone when she died, and I'm very grateful for that because I would hate myself that much more if she would have been alone.
So here is sit on the eve of the day that I genuinely thought would transform people's perception of me once and for all. I really was determined to take care of mom until her final day. I was going to try to make her life as full as possible. I was going to take her to movies, watch TV with her, take her for drives, cook meals for her, and maybe even read to her. I really wanted to do all of that for her.....because I actually cared about her, and loved her. One thing that has changed about me over the four years since Carly's death is that I understand her far more now than I ever could have beforehand. That process has already begun with mom, and as it did with Carly, it is helping me deal with the grieving process. I'm not interested in learning the why of everything that happened during our time growing up, I'm interested in learning what the real person my mom was. Looking back, I can honestly say that I truly have completely forgiven mom for everything. I'm still going to struggle with my CPTSD until the day I die, but at least I'm not angry over it any longer. I'm not stuck on what happened all those years ago any longer, now I'm focused on what I need to do move beyond my past. I already miss my mom, and wish I had more time with her before she died because it turns out that she was a much different person than the one I thought she was, and that has given me greater clarity when thinking about the past. Sadly, I think mom died still hating her mother for what she had done to her as a child, fortunately for me, I won't make that same mistake. I didn't get all of the closure that I wanted, but maybe I got the closure I needed.
The rapid manner in which mom passed really is a blessing in disguise. I was absolutely horrified when I found out that she was basically going to starve to death, while losing more and more of her mental acuity each day....a fate that I consider to be worse than death. Thankfully, that never came to pass, and mom's suffering ended before it could get far worse. My life is going to be quite different in the coming days thanks to everything mom has left me, and I hope I was able to adequately convey to her just how thankful I am to her because of it. I most certainly will never forget the very last thing that mom ever did for me.
Goodbye mom, thank you so much, I love you, and I will always miss you.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Violent Video Games, And Children....Things Are Always More Complicated Than They Appear.
As more details emerge from the Sandy Hook tragedy, and Aurora, Colorado shootings, I find myself in bit of an uncomfortable position. Being someone who suffers from a significant mental illness, when the mainstream media talks about "deranged crazies" or just using the term "mentally ill", I can't help but feel a little discriminated against, somewhat (a subject for another day). Yes, I am mentally ill. No, I am not dangerous to anyone, except maybe myself at times. And yes, I play violent video games.
I am not a violent person, in fact I abhor violence. I have absolutely no desire to hurt the people who have hurt me in the past. That is not the path to freedom and enlightenment. If I were to do to those who had wronged me what they did to me in vengeance, I would become no better of a person than they are. Violence, other than in self defense, is never the answer. To commit random acts of violence against the defenseless and innocent is perhaps the greatest travesty that any human being could commit.
It's been over three months now since the Sandy Hook tragedy, and over eight since the Aurora, Colorado shootings took place. The blame game continues to rage, and the NRA continues to demonstrate just how infantile and primitive its doctrines are. Gun violence is a HUGE problem in the United States. This is not going to change unless drastic measures are going to be undertaken by the nation as a whole. I'm not going to suggest any possible solutions or actions to curtail the problems here, just know that I am a very large supporter of bans on any and all guns, with the exception of sporting rifles and shotguns.
Back in December, I had a conversation with my father and stepmother on the issue of what drives people to commit mass murder. One of the first things that my father brought up was violent video games. I grew up in the 80's and was among the vanguard of the video game generation. Video games have been a big part of my life since about 1982. Back in the early days of gaming, the games were pretty innocuous in nature. They were simple, and designed for short term entertainment. Kids and adults alike enjoyed the early versions of arcade games and home entertainment systems. The video game industry collapsed in the mid 80's, but was reborn again when Nintendo released the original NES in the United States in the late 80's. At this time, video games were still pretty light hearted and contained little in the way of graphic violence. That was about to change though.
In the early 90's a company name Midway launched the first game in the series known as Mortal Kombat. While there were somewhat violent video games before it, this particular game took violence and gore to completely unheard of levels for the industry at the time. Mortal Kombat featured blood shed, dismemberment, impalement, and even spinal cord removal. It soon became all the rage in the arcades, and managed to generate more than it's fair share of negative press due to the graphic violence presented in the game. It's important to note that I was in my early 20's at this point, old enough to know the difference between the real world and fantasy worlds. I wasn't some kid, mindlessly plugging quarters into a machine and laughing about the violence that ensued on the screen. I dohave to admit that I was very much into the whole Mortal Kombat series as a whole, in the early days. I even purchased it for my Nintendo system when it came out on the home consoles, and spent hours and hours pummeling my fraternity brothers, who loved the game as much as I did.
It was at this point in time that political forces got involved with concerns about violence in video games. In 1994, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), was created. The ESRB then developed a video game age suitability rating scale, similar in nature to the system used to rate a suitability scale for movies. These ratings range from "Early Childhood" to "Adults Only". It should be noted that these ratings are not governed by the government and are not legally enforced. They exist solely to educate parents as to what kind of content is present in a video game. Retailers can, and have, established policies about not selling "Mature" or "Adults Only" related content to minors under the age of 17. Just how well they stick to these policies, is anyone's guess. The point is, there is a system in place that rates the violent content level of video games and what age groups said games are suitable for.
Going back to the conversation that I had with my father regarding violent video games, I support the ESRB ratings systems. However, I don't think it goes far enough, and think the government needs to get involved in the regulation of who can buy these games. I play violent video games all of the time, and have for over 20 years now. I am an adult, and started playing these games as an adult. Adult being the key word there. I strongly believe that almost all of the games that I enjoy playing, absolutely should NOT be played by ANY people under the age of 18. This is where things start to get more complicated.
If I jump on my Xbox 360 to play some Halo 4 online right now, which is a "Mature" rated game (meaning it's only suitable for people over the age of 17), I will most definitely encounter players who are as young 7 or 8 playing the game online. In fact, depending on what time of day you are playing, the majority of people playing Halo 4 online are under the age of 17. This is not an appropriate game for kids, in my opinion. It involves hunting and killing other players in an online environment, full of anonymity (internet anonymity is a subject for another day). Where are these kids getting these games? Their parents are buying them for them, that's where.
Video game violence is ubiquitous now, and as time marches on, it only seems to get worse and worse. Like I said above, I enjoy playing these games, but tend to shy away from the more violent versions in favor of immersion in story elements. Yes, something needs to be done about violent video games, parents need to stop buying them for their children to play. It's as simple as that, people. Parents need to take responsibility for parenting their children, instead of blaming an entire industry for gun violence. Letting your children plug into a video game for 4 hours a day, isn't good parenting, in my opinion. I'm sure older parents can remember the days before the dawn of video games, and I'm pretty sure there were plenty of things to keep children entertained then. There is absolutely no substitute for good, conscious parenting. Stop buying kids "Mature" rated games and letting them play them, people!
I've only touched on one major hot button in the debate about gun violence (or violence, in general) in the United States. Every party in the cross hairs is blaming another party in the cross hairs. It's time for simple, common sense methods to be used to make a difference. Do I believe that the government should regulate the video game industry more? Most certainly. However, I think that parents can make much more of a difference by being just that, a parent. It's time to take responsibility for your children's development and well being. I am absolutely certain that exposing children to graphic violence has negative effects on empathic responses, and ultimately desensitizes young minds to the horrors of violence, as a whole. Common sense and responsibility will ultimately prove to be the ultimate weapons in the war agains violence in the United States.
I am not a violent person, in fact I abhor violence. I have absolutely no desire to hurt the people who have hurt me in the past. That is not the path to freedom and enlightenment. If I were to do to those who had wronged me what they did to me in vengeance, I would become no better of a person than they are. Violence, other than in self defense, is never the answer. To commit random acts of violence against the defenseless and innocent is perhaps the greatest travesty that any human being could commit.
It's been over three months now since the Sandy Hook tragedy, and over eight since the Aurora, Colorado shootings took place. The blame game continues to rage, and the NRA continues to demonstrate just how infantile and primitive its doctrines are. Gun violence is a HUGE problem in the United States. This is not going to change unless drastic measures are going to be undertaken by the nation as a whole. I'm not going to suggest any possible solutions or actions to curtail the problems here, just know that I am a very large supporter of bans on any and all guns, with the exception of sporting rifles and shotguns.
Back in December, I had a conversation with my father and stepmother on the issue of what drives people to commit mass murder. One of the first things that my father brought up was violent video games. I grew up in the 80's and was among the vanguard of the video game generation. Video games have been a big part of my life since about 1982. Back in the early days of gaming, the games were pretty innocuous in nature. They were simple, and designed for short term entertainment. Kids and adults alike enjoyed the early versions of arcade games and home entertainment systems. The video game industry collapsed in the mid 80's, but was reborn again when Nintendo released the original NES in the United States in the late 80's. At this time, video games were still pretty light hearted and contained little in the way of graphic violence. That was about to change though.
In the early 90's a company name Midway launched the first game in the series known as Mortal Kombat. While there were somewhat violent video games before it, this particular game took violence and gore to completely unheard of levels for the industry at the time. Mortal Kombat featured blood shed, dismemberment, impalement, and even spinal cord removal. It soon became all the rage in the arcades, and managed to generate more than it's fair share of negative press due to the graphic violence presented in the game. It's important to note that I was in my early 20's at this point, old enough to know the difference between the real world and fantasy worlds. I wasn't some kid, mindlessly plugging quarters into a machine and laughing about the violence that ensued on the screen. I dohave to admit that I was very much into the whole Mortal Kombat series as a whole, in the early days. I even purchased it for my Nintendo system when it came out on the home consoles, and spent hours and hours pummeling my fraternity brothers, who loved the game as much as I did.
It was at this point in time that political forces got involved with concerns about violence in video games. In 1994, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), was created. The ESRB then developed a video game age suitability rating scale, similar in nature to the system used to rate a suitability scale for movies. These ratings range from "Early Childhood" to "Adults Only". It should be noted that these ratings are not governed by the government and are not legally enforced. They exist solely to educate parents as to what kind of content is present in a video game. Retailers can, and have, established policies about not selling "Mature" or "Adults Only" related content to minors under the age of 17. Just how well they stick to these policies, is anyone's guess. The point is, there is a system in place that rates the violent content level of video games and what age groups said games are suitable for.
Going back to the conversation that I had with my father regarding violent video games, I support the ESRB ratings systems. However, I don't think it goes far enough, and think the government needs to get involved in the regulation of who can buy these games. I play violent video games all of the time, and have for over 20 years now. I am an adult, and started playing these games as an adult. Adult being the key word there. I strongly believe that almost all of the games that I enjoy playing, absolutely should NOT be played by ANY people under the age of 18. This is where things start to get more complicated.
If I jump on my Xbox 360 to play some Halo 4 online right now, which is a "Mature" rated game (meaning it's only suitable for people over the age of 17), I will most definitely encounter players who are as young 7 or 8 playing the game online. In fact, depending on what time of day you are playing, the majority of people playing Halo 4 online are under the age of 17. This is not an appropriate game for kids, in my opinion. It involves hunting and killing other players in an online environment, full of anonymity (internet anonymity is a subject for another day). Where are these kids getting these games? Their parents are buying them for them, that's where.
Video game violence is ubiquitous now, and as time marches on, it only seems to get worse and worse. Like I said above, I enjoy playing these games, but tend to shy away from the more violent versions in favor of immersion in story elements. Yes, something needs to be done about violent video games, parents need to stop buying them for their children to play. It's as simple as that, people. Parents need to take responsibility for parenting their children, instead of blaming an entire industry for gun violence. Letting your children plug into a video game for 4 hours a day, isn't good parenting, in my opinion. I'm sure older parents can remember the days before the dawn of video games, and I'm pretty sure there were plenty of things to keep children entertained then. There is absolutely no substitute for good, conscious parenting. Stop buying kids "Mature" rated games and letting them play them, people!
I've only touched on one major hot button in the debate about gun violence (or violence, in general) in the United States. Every party in the cross hairs is blaming another party in the cross hairs. It's time for simple, common sense methods to be used to make a difference. Do I believe that the government should regulate the video game industry more? Most certainly. However, I think that parents can make much more of a difference by being just that, a parent. It's time to take responsibility for your children's development and well being. I am absolutely certain that exposing children to graphic violence has negative effects on empathic responses, and ultimately desensitizes young minds to the horrors of violence, as a whole. Common sense and responsibility will ultimately prove to be the ultimate weapons in the war agains violence in the United States.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Does Your Music Have A Sense Of Humor?
It's a very poorly kept secret that outside of the Dave Matthews Band, my taste in music is wildly varied, if not eccentric in nature. Seriously, there really is no way of predicting just what I am going to take a liking to. In fact, the best way to categorize my tastes is to explore what I dislike. I am extremely allergic to any Pop music, allergic meaning that it makes me want to throw up. I am also very displeased with what passes for Country music today, but I don't listen to it, so it can be as bad as it wants to be. It has become clear to me very recently that I have a very strong tendency to gravitate towards music that conveys an underlying message or meaning.....except for all the time when I don't follow this rule. This applies to all of the electronic music that I listen to, it's mindless as hell because there are no lyrics. I've never been able to tell just why I like it so much, it must have something to do with not me not having very good taste (as most everyone points out any time I bring up my love for all things DMB). From a social standpoint, being a 40 year old who listens to a great deal of electronic music can be a little awkward at times. At least I don't attend any of the local raves, drop tons of ecstasy, and then shed my shirt to dance with glow sticks all night. In short, I like what I like, it doesn't make sense, and that's all I really have to say on the subject.
This is the point that I start talking expressing my sense of humor through some of the music that I listen to. To start off with, I feel very sorry for my coworkers, since they are subjected to my musical tastes almost every day. This has to do with the fact that in order to keep my sanity at work, there has to be music playing in the background. I make fun of ALL music, especially my own, so it's best that I play my own so I don't offend someone by making fun of THEIR music. I have my own iPod speaker dock/charger thingy, that I haul out every day, stuff the old iPod into, hit shuffle on my "work" playlist, and begin another shift of acoustical bliss and commentary. For my coworkers' convenience (and sanity), I do try to do is weed out any of my more eccentric selections from my work playlist, this includes any and all of my electronic selections because, I admit, they can be extremely annoying to any normal person. Occasionally a wayward song or two ends up on the work playlist and gets played, and usually commented on by some of my coworkers (usually involving the term, WTF).
Like I said above, I am very much into music that has an underlying theme or message to it. This includes tracks and artists that for some odd reason or another, I find very humorous. One of these songs would be, "One of Us", by Joan Osborn. I'm probably the only person on the planet that plays this song regularly anymore. Poor Joan had exactly one hit in her lifetime, and unfortunately for her, I have chosen to immortalize this song for the rest of my life. I find this song humorous because the underlying theme is about the idea that God could be just a regular jerk hole, wandering the streets of some smelly city like the rest of us. As an agnostic, this is an extremely humorous concept. Of course, me being me, I have to makeup my own lyrics....just because it's fun to do. I have this, ummm, how should I put it? Let's say affection, yes, affection. An affection for referring to God as Dog (God is Dog spelled backwards after all. Coincidence? I think not.). I, of course, find this to be very, very humorous just for the fact that I could very well be living with the creator of all things every day, and not know it..... God, or I should really say Dog, (Praise him!) may just be my good friend JackJack. Though if this really is the case, homeless people, UPS delivery men, people on Harley Davidson motorcycles, and teenagers on skateboards, are the worst of sinners and are doomed to go straight to hell after leaving this plane of existence. Anyway, what if Dog really is "One of Us"? I would absolutely be happy as a clam if this were the case and as a result, very ironic, and very, very humorous. Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell, there absolutely no changing that, so I'm just going to continue on my merry way (on second thought, I already spend 40 hours a week in hell, I work at the Community Medial Center laboratory).
This would be a good time for a disclaimer of sorts: At no point in time is my sense of humor supposed to make any sense whatsoever. I make fun of absolutely anything, and everything, this especially includes me, myself, and I. If there is one rule I live by, it's not to take myself very seriously. However, if you don't find any of the following examples to be funny, you need to have your head examined.....because I am the very model of a well adjusted human being.
So, there are more than a few songs on my iPod that are there only to remind me of just how funny that life is. This includes the cheesiest, 80's butt rock that you can find (actually, this particular example is very serious in nature, it's the delivery that's hilarious). Lounge singers with effeminate voices (come on, it's Wayne Newton). Songs about chickens (sorry, Dad), hot dog stands (sorry again, Dad), cocaine (this, at least, is in good taste...for once), marijuana, some cow bell, more marijuana (I just think the whole weed culture is hilarious), terrible covers of classic songs, country legends at their worst, extremely annoying songs about classic toys, songs about speeding, absurd songs about being a cowboy (that one is for you, Yarrow), old school Ozzie (so funny), more country legends at their worst, awful James Bond themes, another legendary lounge singer at his worst, legendary Mexican trumpetists (so sorry, Dad), more awful 80's music, stuff I'm not even sure what to make of (is she having a seizure?), the worst rapper ever, and even more country legends at their worst.
Am I eccentric? Most certainly. Is this funny? Undoubtedly. Do my coworkers hate me? Absolutely. They say, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.". I say, "Funny music is in the eye of the beholder.".
Finally, I would like to apologize to anyone foolish enough to watch any of the linked videos I posted. I would also like to thank my Dad for exposing me to so much hilarious music. And on that note, I'm going to go hunt for even more musical selections of dubious taste to entertain myself with.
Did I say I was done? Not quite. There is one last song I absolutely have to share. "Luka", has a very special place in my heart.......just not with those lyrics. Here's how it should really go:
My name is JackJack,
I live on the basement floor,
I live downstairs from you,
I know I've barked at you before.
As if anyone needs any further proof that I'm obsessed with my dog. Also, I'm so full of shit (but you know that already).
This is the point that I start talking expressing my sense of humor through some of the music that I listen to. To start off with, I feel very sorry for my coworkers, since they are subjected to my musical tastes almost every day. This has to do with the fact that in order to keep my sanity at work, there has to be music playing in the background. I make fun of ALL music, especially my own, so it's best that I play my own so I don't offend someone by making fun of THEIR music. I have my own iPod speaker dock/charger thingy, that I haul out every day, stuff the old iPod into, hit shuffle on my "work" playlist, and begin another shift of acoustical bliss and commentary. For my coworkers' convenience (and sanity), I do try to do is weed out any of my more eccentric selections from my work playlist, this includes any and all of my electronic selections because, I admit, they can be extremely annoying to any normal person. Occasionally a wayward song or two ends up on the work playlist and gets played, and usually commented on by some of my coworkers (usually involving the term, WTF).
Like I said above, I am very much into music that has an underlying theme or message to it. This includes tracks and artists that for some odd reason or another, I find very humorous. One of these songs would be, "One of Us", by Joan Osborn. I'm probably the only person on the planet that plays this song regularly anymore. Poor Joan had exactly one hit in her lifetime, and unfortunately for her, I have chosen to immortalize this song for the rest of my life. I find this song humorous because the underlying theme is about the idea that God could be just a regular jerk hole, wandering the streets of some smelly city like the rest of us. As an agnostic, this is an extremely humorous concept. Of course, me being me, I have to makeup my own lyrics....just because it's fun to do. I have this, ummm, how should I put it? Let's say affection, yes, affection. An affection for referring to God as Dog (God is Dog spelled backwards after all. Coincidence? I think not.). I, of course, find this to be very, very humorous just for the fact that I could very well be living with the creator of all things every day, and not know it..... God, or I should really say Dog, (Praise him!) may just be my good friend JackJack. Though if this really is the case, homeless people, UPS delivery men, people on Harley Davidson motorcycles, and teenagers on skateboards, are the worst of sinners and are doomed to go straight to hell after leaving this plane of existence. Anyway, what if Dog really is "One of Us"? I would absolutely be happy as a clam if this were the case and as a result, very ironic, and very, very humorous. Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell, there absolutely no changing that, so I'm just going to continue on my merry way (on second thought, I already spend 40 hours a week in hell, I work at the Community Medial Center laboratory).
This would be a good time for a disclaimer of sorts: At no point in time is my sense of humor supposed to make any sense whatsoever. I make fun of absolutely anything, and everything, this especially includes me, myself, and I. If there is one rule I live by, it's not to take myself very seriously. However, if you don't find any of the following examples to be funny, you need to have your head examined.....because I am the very model of a well adjusted human being.
So, there are more than a few songs on my iPod that are there only to remind me of just how funny that life is. This includes the cheesiest, 80's butt rock that you can find (actually, this particular example is very serious in nature, it's the delivery that's hilarious). Lounge singers with effeminate voices (come on, it's Wayne Newton). Songs about chickens (sorry, Dad), hot dog stands (sorry again, Dad), cocaine (this, at least, is in good taste...for once), marijuana, some cow bell, more marijuana (I just think the whole weed culture is hilarious), terrible covers of classic songs, country legends at their worst, extremely annoying songs about classic toys, songs about speeding, absurd songs about being a cowboy (that one is for you, Yarrow), old school Ozzie (so funny), more country legends at their worst, awful James Bond themes, another legendary lounge singer at his worst, legendary Mexican trumpetists (so sorry, Dad), more awful 80's music, stuff I'm not even sure what to make of (is she having a seizure?), the worst rapper ever, and even more country legends at their worst.
Am I eccentric? Most certainly. Is this funny? Undoubtedly. Do my coworkers hate me? Absolutely. They say, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.". I say, "Funny music is in the eye of the beholder.".
Finally, I would like to apologize to anyone foolish enough to watch any of the linked videos I posted. I would also like to thank my Dad for exposing me to so much hilarious music. And on that note, I'm going to go hunt for even more musical selections of dubious taste to entertain myself with.
Did I say I was done? Not quite. There is one last song I absolutely have to share. "Luka", has a very special place in my heart.......just not with those lyrics. Here's how it should really go:
My name is JackJack,
I live on the basement floor,
I live downstairs from you,
I know I've barked at you before.
As if anyone needs any further proof that I'm obsessed with my dog. Also, I'm so full of shit (but you know that already).
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Experience, Adversity, Discovery, Evolution, And A Crisis Of Identity.
A few months ago, someone close to me told me that I dress like a hipster. A hipster? I may be many things, but I most certainly am not a hipster. My fashion wardrobe consists entirely of "Life Is Good" shirts, Dave Matthews Band tour t-shirts, a multitude of outdoor and workout tees, Keen shoes and sandals, a multitude of Buffs, and the ever important designated hat. This, most certainly, is not the wardrobe of a true hipster.
This moment triggered some reflection and self analysis concerning who I was, what I've become, and what it all means to be me. Coincidentally, it is the 7 year anniversary of my move to Kauai. Ever since my experience on Kauai and relocation to here in Missoula, I have struggled with just who I think I am identity wise. Before I moved to Kauai, I was obsessed with materialistic pursuits and living the "normal" life someone in their thirties with a good career lives. I tried extremely hard to follow this path, determined to be just like the rest of the average United States citizen....... and I was very unhappy, as a result. I told myself, "There has to be more to life than this.". I was married, I had three dogs, we were on track to buy a house someday, why wasn't I happy? I yearned for something completely different, I needed an experience so different that it would force me to see life in a completely different way. Well, I got just that... in spades.
My wife and I had honeymooned on the island of Kauai, and it had given me a taste of a lifestyle that I had never experienced before. We jokingly entertained the idea of giving everything up and moving to the island, at no point in time did I think my wife was serious. One day, she called me at work and was really excited about something. She had done some sniffing around on the internet and found a job opening for a Medical Technologist, on none other than the island of Kauai. Suddenly, we were seriously entertaining something that was beyond the wildest of my dreams. Long story short, we took the plunge. I literally had no idea what was to come once I set foot on the island as a resident, or even just how much of an effect it would on the person I was at the time.
The state of Hawaii has a style that is completely it's own, to say the least. Being a haole from the mainland, integrating with this culture proved to be far more difficult that I could possibly have imagined. Despite those obstacles, I found that I embraced a hybrid of Californian and Hawaiian surf culture. I found this to be a very good fit for my personality, and quickly grew very comfortable with it. Surf culture is usually very laid back (when not in the water,waiting for sets to come in, then it is very, very structured, rigid and intolerant of non-locals) and very liberal in nature. Before I moved to the island, my ideals were very much what you would consider middle of the road, I was socially and politically conservative on some issues and liberal on others. Growing up in Montana, my cultural experiences were very limited and naive in nature.
However, once I got to Kauai, a radical change began to occur, so much so that my then wife told me that she didn't recognize who I was anymore. My wife left me after 6 weeks on the island, unable to deal with the cultural differences and sheer distance from all that she had know. Suddenly, I found myself to be a lot more financially challenged than I had ever been. As a result, my personality moved away from materialistic endeavors to a much, much more laid back and liberal mind set. Being able to play in the waves every day only strengthened my adoption of the island lifestyle and mindset. Oh how much I miss riding waves every day. I have always been a real water person and it just seems like I was born to close to the ocean. To this day, I have yet to encounter a euphoric experience that even comes close to riding across the face of a wave, time seems to slow down and you feel very at one with the essence of the wave and the ocean as a whole. It was a very life changing experience, and I would like to believe that it opened up my mind to things that I had never contemplated before.
Hawaii is a very beautiful place, but it has a very sad side to it. On Kauai in particular, a great deal of the local population lives in what we would consider poverty. For the first time in my life, the disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots" was a constant presence. The Hawaiian people as a whole, are some of the most beautiful people I have ever met. I had the honor of meeting two women who were 100% Hawaiian, in fact the person who introduced them to me told me to touch them because they were 100%, and were extremely special. Both of these women were very much true representatives of what it Hawaiian culture is. Unfortunately, that culture is slowly dying, something that I lament very deeply to this day. I learned what Kau Inoa means and why it exists as a movement. You see, the indigenous people of the Hawaiian islands do not hold "indigenous people" status in the eyes of the United States government. This means that native Hawaiians do not receive the same kind of benefits that the many tribes of Native Americans of the mainlands from the federal government. This is an absolute outrage since the US expatriates overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, and the US government annexed the islands in 1898. I became more and more ashamed of the actions of my government and country as I learned more and more. This had the effect of opening up my eyes to plight and treatment of all the indigenous people of the United States. Things were no longer simple, or black and white. I came to realize that we, as human beings, have a responsibility to each other and society. In short, I was becoming more and more liberal, and socially conscious each day.
As much as the Kauai had an effect on me, it wasn't a good place for someone who has Complex PTSD, making me very much susceptible to any negative social stimulus, due to the abuse I suffered as a child. I learned how ugly racism could be, the locals hated haoles from the mainland, we were occupying their land and taking all the good jobs from them. Racism was very real toward whites, and I identified with and understood the reasons the local people of Hawaii hate us. Things didn't work out for me and I crash landed back on the mainland after a very public nervous breakdown at work. I discovered that my ex-wife had taken almost all of the furniture that was in storage, the majority of which was given to me by my father before we even got married. I had next to nothing, it was me, JackJack and my car. I only two friends left over from the divorce and worse yet, I was in a relationship with a very, very unstable woman who, in the end, tried her very best to destroy me.
I had absolutely no idea who I was anymore, and things only continued this way for nearly three and a half years due to the manipulation and abuse my ex-girlfriend subjected me to. Things finally came to a head in May of 2011, after a six month long stint of an increasingly absurd, and cruel ruse perpetrated by my ex, designed to do nothing but torture me, I snapped. Fortunately, I landed in an intensive outpatient treatment program for people with mental illness. It was at this time that I finally started to untangle the experiences of the previous 5 years and gain some level of understanding of who I am again. I'd like to say that this has been an easy process for me, but it hasn't. I'm forty years old now and I struggle with concepts of where and what "normal" people my age are doing with themselves. I know I'm not supposed to think about things like that, people are all different, and lead lives according to who they are. It helps that Missoula is a very liberal community that supports a very wide variety of lifestyles. What doesn't help is that if I drive 5 miles in any direction, that sort of tolerance comes to an abrupt end. I'm forty now, I have lived in a tiny studio apartment for almost 4 years now. I'm just now climbing out of the debt I accrued during my time on the island. I'm about 40 pounds heavier than I was on the island, my sister killed herself nearly four years ago, I have a very serious mental illness and I have basically stopped trying to interact with the people in the world. I carry a great deal of shame over this.I feel like I have nothing to show for the last seven years of my life. People tell me this isn't really the case, and to a large extent, this is very true. The amount of life experience I've gained during this time is absolutely staggering and cannot be calculated. I have undergone a radical change, so radical that I doubt the person I was ten years ago would even begin to recognize who I've become. Unfortunately, I'm not sharing that experience with anyone, and I rarely ever talk about my life and experiences on the island. In fact, it's only been within the last few months that I have even been able to think about those experiences and how much they had an effect on me, it was just too raw and painful. This was coupled with the fact that I was literally just trying to survive from one day to the next without removing myself from this plane of existence. Recently, I've done things to remind me of those days I spent on the island. I got a tattoo of a Hawaiian Honu with a representation of the Hawaiian islands on it's shell, Kauai colored in red, on my left calf. I also purchased a Maori Koru and Honu surf necklaces to serve as daily reminders of my experience, and adventures on the island. I need to remember that culture, it's very important to me. Sadly, I still can't bring myself to listen to the Hawaiian music I collected during my time there, it reminds me too much of the time I spent with my ex-girlfriend. Maybe with time that will change.
I've finally stopped denying that the last seven years happened, and I'm trying my best to learn about the person that I've become. It's a daily and complicated process and it most certainly is going to continue to take a long time. However, I know the following things: Ideologically, I am extremely liberal, bordering on non-conformist, this means that I am far more empathetic than I used to be. My "emotional "age and "experience" age couldn't be farther apart if they tried. I am a vanguard member of the "geek" generation in terms of age and growing up, that territory is largely unexplored as far as societal acceptance goes. I've seen things that are so beautiful that they have brought tears to my eyes (that subject is for another time and place), and I have seen unspeakable cruelty. My path is my own, and no one else's, I have to accept that for what it is. I am no longer materialistic and seek the meaning of life through experience and enlightenment, instead of material possessions. I will always, always have dogs in my life, preferably rat terriers. Things I struggle with: What I have to offer to people in terms of relationships and friendships. My exact place in the world. Trust. Trust. Trust. Isolation, both self imposed, and incidental. A balanced view, and sense of self.
Coming to grips with who you are is something that everyone has to deal with in their life. Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't capable, are too wrapped up in their lives, or are just too much in denial to stop and look at themselves. I'm not claiming to be an expert on this subject, just having learned how to look, and perceive things myself. I am beginning to be able to see just how much I've grown and changed over time. Though I have suffered a lot of pain over the last seven years, I am very thankful for the experience and wisdom that it has provided.
This moment triggered some reflection and self analysis concerning who I was, what I've become, and what it all means to be me. Coincidentally, it is the 7 year anniversary of my move to Kauai. Ever since my experience on Kauai and relocation to here in Missoula, I have struggled with just who I think I am identity wise. Before I moved to Kauai, I was obsessed with materialistic pursuits and living the "normal" life someone in their thirties with a good career lives. I tried extremely hard to follow this path, determined to be just like the rest of the average United States citizen....... and I was very unhappy, as a result. I told myself, "There has to be more to life than this.". I was married, I had three dogs, we were on track to buy a house someday, why wasn't I happy? I yearned for something completely different, I needed an experience so different that it would force me to see life in a completely different way. Well, I got just that... in spades.
My wife and I had honeymooned on the island of Kauai, and it had given me a taste of a lifestyle that I had never experienced before. We jokingly entertained the idea of giving everything up and moving to the island, at no point in time did I think my wife was serious. One day, she called me at work and was really excited about something. She had done some sniffing around on the internet and found a job opening for a Medical Technologist, on none other than the island of Kauai. Suddenly, we were seriously entertaining something that was beyond the wildest of my dreams. Long story short, we took the plunge. I literally had no idea what was to come once I set foot on the island as a resident, or even just how much of an effect it would on the person I was at the time.
The state of Hawaii has a style that is completely it's own, to say the least. Being a haole from the mainland, integrating with this culture proved to be far more difficult that I could possibly have imagined. Despite those obstacles, I found that I embraced a hybrid of Californian and Hawaiian surf culture. I found this to be a very good fit for my personality, and quickly grew very comfortable with it. Surf culture is usually very laid back (when not in the water,waiting for sets to come in, then it is very, very structured, rigid and intolerant of non-locals) and very liberal in nature. Before I moved to the island, my ideals were very much what you would consider middle of the road, I was socially and politically conservative on some issues and liberal on others. Growing up in Montana, my cultural experiences were very limited and naive in nature.
However, once I got to Kauai, a radical change began to occur, so much so that my then wife told me that she didn't recognize who I was anymore. My wife left me after 6 weeks on the island, unable to deal with the cultural differences and sheer distance from all that she had know. Suddenly, I found myself to be a lot more financially challenged than I had ever been. As a result, my personality moved away from materialistic endeavors to a much, much more laid back and liberal mind set. Being able to play in the waves every day only strengthened my adoption of the island lifestyle and mindset. Oh how much I miss riding waves every day. I have always been a real water person and it just seems like I was born to close to the ocean. To this day, I have yet to encounter a euphoric experience that even comes close to riding across the face of a wave, time seems to slow down and you feel very at one with the essence of the wave and the ocean as a whole. It was a very life changing experience, and I would like to believe that it opened up my mind to things that I had never contemplated before.
Hawaii is a very beautiful place, but it has a very sad side to it. On Kauai in particular, a great deal of the local population lives in what we would consider poverty. For the first time in my life, the disparity between the "haves" and the "have nots" was a constant presence. The Hawaiian people as a whole, are some of the most beautiful people I have ever met. I had the honor of meeting two women who were 100% Hawaiian, in fact the person who introduced them to me told me to touch them because they were 100%, and were extremely special. Both of these women were very much true representatives of what it Hawaiian culture is. Unfortunately, that culture is slowly dying, something that I lament very deeply to this day. I learned what Kau Inoa means and why it exists as a movement. You see, the indigenous people of the Hawaiian islands do not hold "indigenous people" status in the eyes of the United States government. This means that native Hawaiians do not receive the same kind of benefits that the many tribes of Native Americans of the mainlands from the federal government. This is an absolute outrage since the US expatriates overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, and the US government annexed the islands in 1898. I became more and more ashamed of the actions of my government and country as I learned more and more. This had the effect of opening up my eyes to plight and treatment of all the indigenous people of the United States. Things were no longer simple, or black and white. I came to realize that we, as human beings, have a responsibility to each other and society. In short, I was becoming more and more liberal, and socially conscious each day.
As much as the Kauai had an effect on me, it wasn't a good place for someone who has Complex PTSD, making me very much susceptible to any negative social stimulus, due to the abuse I suffered as a child. I learned how ugly racism could be, the locals hated haoles from the mainland, we were occupying their land and taking all the good jobs from them. Racism was very real toward whites, and I identified with and understood the reasons the local people of Hawaii hate us. Things didn't work out for me and I crash landed back on the mainland after a very public nervous breakdown at work. I discovered that my ex-wife had taken almost all of the furniture that was in storage, the majority of which was given to me by my father before we even got married. I had next to nothing, it was me, JackJack and my car. I only two friends left over from the divorce and worse yet, I was in a relationship with a very, very unstable woman who, in the end, tried her very best to destroy me.
I had absolutely no idea who I was anymore, and things only continued this way for nearly three and a half years due to the manipulation and abuse my ex-girlfriend subjected me to. Things finally came to a head in May of 2011, after a six month long stint of an increasingly absurd, and cruel ruse perpetrated by my ex, designed to do nothing but torture me, I snapped. Fortunately, I landed in an intensive outpatient treatment program for people with mental illness. It was at this time that I finally started to untangle the experiences of the previous 5 years and gain some level of understanding of who I am again. I'd like to say that this has been an easy process for me, but it hasn't. I'm forty years old now and I struggle with concepts of where and what "normal" people my age are doing with themselves. I know I'm not supposed to think about things like that, people are all different, and lead lives according to who they are. It helps that Missoula is a very liberal community that supports a very wide variety of lifestyles. What doesn't help is that if I drive 5 miles in any direction, that sort of tolerance comes to an abrupt end. I'm forty now, I have lived in a tiny studio apartment for almost 4 years now. I'm just now climbing out of the debt I accrued during my time on the island. I'm about 40 pounds heavier than I was on the island, my sister killed herself nearly four years ago, I have a very serious mental illness and I have basically stopped trying to interact with the people in the world. I carry a great deal of shame over this.I feel like I have nothing to show for the last seven years of my life. People tell me this isn't really the case, and to a large extent, this is very true. The amount of life experience I've gained during this time is absolutely staggering and cannot be calculated. I have undergone a radical change, so radical that I doubt the person I was ten years ago would even begin to recognize who I've become. Unfortunately, I'm not sharing that experience with anyone, and I rarely ever talk about my life and experiences on the island. In fact, it's only been within the last few months that I have even been able to think about those experiences and how much they had an effect on me, it was just too raw and painful. This was coupled with the fact that I was literally just trying to survive from one day to the next without removing myself from this plane of existence. Recently, I've done things to remind me of those days I spent on the island. I got a tattoo of a Hawaiian Honu with a representation of the Hawaiian islands on it's shell, Kauai colored in red, on my left calf. I also purchased a Maori Koru and Honu surf necklaces to serve as daily reminders of my experience, and adventures on the island. I need to remember that culture, it's very important to me. Sadly, I still can't bring myself to listen to the Hawaiian music I collected during my time there, it reminds me too much of the time I spent with my ex-girlfriend. Maybe with time that will change.
I've finally stopped denying that the last seven years happened, and I'm trying my best to learn about the person that I've become. It's a daily and complicated process and it most certainly is going to continue to take a long time. However, I know the following things: Ideologically, I am extremely liberal, bordering on non-conformist, this means that I am far more empathetic than I used to be. My "emotional "age and "experience" age couldn't be farther apart if they tried. I am a vanguard member of the "geek" generation in terms of age and growing up, that territory is largely unexplored as far as societal acceptance goes. I've seen things that are so beautiful that they have brought tears to my eyes (that subject is for another time and place), and I have seen unspeakable cruelty. My path is my own, and no one else's, I have to accept that for what it is. I am no longer materialistic and seek the meaning of life through experience and enlightenment, instead of material possessions. I will always, always have dogs in my life, preferably rat terriers. Things I struggle with: What I have to offer to people in terms of relationships and friendships. My exact place in the world. Trust. Trust. Trust. Isolation, both self imposed, and incidental. A balanced view, and sense of self.
Coming to grips with who you are is something that everyone has to deal with in their life. Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't capable, are too wrapped up in their lives, or are just too much in denial to stop and look at themselves. I'm not claiming to be an expert on this subject, just having learned how to look, and perceive things myself. I am beginning to be able to see just how much I've grown and changed over time. Though I have suffered a lot of pain over the last seven years, I am very thankful for the experience and wisdom that it has provided.
"Came in from a rainy Thursday
On the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly
I turned on the lights, the TV
And the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you
What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some are saying
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away
But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Passion or coincidence
Once prompted you to say
"Pride will tear us both apart"
Well now pride's gone out the window
Cross the rooftops
Run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart
What is happening to me?
Crazy, some'd say
Where is my friend when I need you most?
Gone away
But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Papers in the roadside
Tell of suffering and greed
Here today, forgot tomorrow
Ooh, here besides the news
Of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrowed talk
And I don't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Every one
Is my world, I will learn to survive
Any one
Is my world, I will learn to survive
Any one
Is my world
Every one
Is my world"
On the avenue
Thought I heard you talking softly
I turned on the lights, the TV
And the radio
Still I can't escape the ghost of you
What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some are saying
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away
But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Passion or coincidence
Once prompted you to say
"Pride will tear us both apart"
Well now pride's gone out the window
Cross the rooftops
Run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart
What is happening to me?
Crazy, some'd say
Where is my friend when I need you most?
Gone away
But I won't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Papers in the roadside
Tell of suffering and greed
Here today, forgot tomorrow
Ooh, here besides the news
Of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrowed talk
And I don't cry for yesterday
There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Every one
Is my world, I will learn to survive
Any one
Is my world, I will learn to survive
Any one
Is my world
Every one
Is my world"
Duran Duran "Ordinary World"
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