Author: crashed not burned

Three seconds, one occasion. A crash took my sense of control away, putting me someplace I never imagined. Finding paths through the wilds of ignorance, opening my eyes to realities once obscured, inspiration found in love for my children.

YO, People in Chronic Pain! Emergency rooms are thine enemy.

Published on by crashed not burnedLeave a comment

Why?

Dying? Might feel so, yet, only you are in fact – not actually.

Nor are you enduring a “condition” which MUST and can be treated. Say a stroke? Broken nose? Appendicitis?

Nope, merely a humongous (what I call an “uptick”) of your constant pain. None of the above scenarios fit yeh.

Now, should you, IF you, fit into that emergency room method of triage – which is that list, an ORDER by which patients receive care in order of severity of injury or otherwise fixable health crisis – THEN hells bells GET THYSELF to the ER.

But.

Vomiting from extraordinary pain? Body writhing in pain? Tears, mucus, and horror rolling down your face? Lil kids’s eyes wide open staring at you in the ER waiting room. No kid whining “I’ve gotta go bathroom”, cause you already scared the shit outta them?

Pain knows no triage in an emergency room folks.

Pain has zero priority. Insane in every membrane pain causing vomiting causing dehydration, causing worse pain – means a whole hella nothing in that place hope once lived.

Sure, if you crave feeling desperation so badly. Perhaps you are masochistic enough – that you’d like to be purely reactive, outrageously desperate enough…that after those perspective of eons of tortured waiting, you determinedly (however feebly) begin wheeling yourself over to the exit. Exit being a brilliant idea. What with the brilliant idea of tipping over to the pavement, welcoming crushing car wheels..?!?

That type of act got me security attention and a quick IV. Never imagined possible horror moment, brain burned forever remembering my frightening those waiting room children with the intensity of my suffering that refused to let me have any control. Refused to let me hide that horrid visual and vocal manifestation in that waiting time, stretched to centuries (think loud gasps, retching, crying uncontrollably).

Be clear, tisn’t the ER’s fault. Simply, the whole shindig is set up for triaging those people whose medical problems can (hopefully) be “fixed” not merely brought medically into submission.

Alternatives are NECESSARY. YOU must pay attention and take control.

Take a nap. Saying you cannot if a pain uptick is rising, is akin to you thinking you won’t be melted by magma from a fast erupting volcano.

Start meditation on the regular. Meditation is scientifically proven to lower lactic acid in the blood and hemceforth throughout your whole body and brain. Lower your lactic acid, in turn raise your pain, anxiety and panic tolerance. Don’t be defeatist. KNOW this; meditation is the act of bringing your mind back to calm intention, bring it back from those sneaky thoughts – the whole “I’m bad at meditation” is a fundamental miscomprehension of what meditation IS.

Marijuana’s ability to drastically decrease nausea is a major miracle. Plus it lessens symptoms of pain for ever so many causes of pain.

Opiates? NOooooo if you are a true chronic pain sufferer you will get slammed with rebound pain that will hit you worse after a few days; far worse than that pain for which you took it in the first place. SO save any you’ve got for a last gasp attempt to knock yourself out – use em sparingly and rarely to sleep deep and avoid the ER. Do not take on the regular because your pain will only worsen. Hoard enough so you have backup.

Mostly, get your coping skills attuned to your own damn self. Feeling more oogy but want to stay at the party? Uh. No. GO home and sleep. (lil weed helps that there too). Dying to hit that concert? Nap before, nap after. Let the dishes stay dirty and go a day without underwear. Put those responsibilities like doing laundry aside, so you can get your joy on and not pay with the desire to commit suicide.

Use “the google” or whatever search engine and find the zillion legit articles about managing and coping with pain so you stay in a semblance of control of your own self.

You CAN do this.

In solidarity and lack of bullshit,

Renée

ps – Hey, if you are in pain because of an injury, something new and unknown… GO to the ER or Urgent Care – ABSOLUTELY! Just know thyself.

What if Every Person Was Blind?

Published on by crashed not burnedLeave a comment

Totally different Darwinism, human evolvement but, all of us blind. 

From birth. Imagine society having alternatively developed around convenience to manage without thought or attention to sight..  Akin to our reality, except this key difference of everyone being blind.

 This radically different evolution would have tesulted in no more attention to the “lack” of sight, being the norm, than attention we ourselves pay to ordinary mechanisms utilized to compensate our human “ordinary” physical limitations.. Not possessing sight would result in normalizing certain …conveniences – those things we give little thought to unless unavailable.  A ladder, elevator. Stairs.  Analygize creation of some sort of tool, assistive devise, the purpose of which is to make up for limitations.  

Limitations caused by a factor so common such as height and our civilization’s usage of steps.  Just as petite person in our reality need utilize a step stool to get a platter from some high shelf. 

Can you imagine such a world?  Born blind into a world peopled by blind humans since the earliest of history’s tale??!! 

Of course!  We humans would have crafted such a world making sense to our having lack of sight.

That lack of sight (don’t get confused, we’re talking bout this imaginary sightless world now) necessarily leaving a vacuum, a suction humankind would have filled by necessity and imagination.  Manifested by senses intensified by usage and ordinary living.  Smells, sounds, the touch of a misty breeze, all revealing deductions ordinarily played out in television and movie stories about superheroes – but here in this blog blind world – senses attached to our intelligence instead more developed, naturally evolved, due to focus of an active creative human mind with tools at disposal.

And then I wonder just wonder.  If then, I’d wager for sure, it would be different.  

Wobbles in tone and mixups of words noticed; uneven tempo of footfalls heard; iciness of hand and warmth of brow touched upon greeting…

There would be no “you look (insert positive here)!”.

Tedium and focus to explain not so necessary.  Deductive reasoning doing that job.

(Secret… what a relief it would be.)

Yours in reality and imagination about nevergoingtobesosafetoimagine things, (it is ok to be naughty some times)

Renée

The “ugh” of “ughs” aka feeling ooogy 

Published on by crashed not burnedLeave a comment

Ever have a day when everything sucks?  Straight outta bed and first off, before reaching the bathroom, ya smash your shinbone into some furniture.  Your wallet decides since you’re in a hurry that it’s a great time to grow legs and goes missing for thirty minutes… 

…and you cannot stop imagining that a mini, muscular, boil and open sore ridden creature is sitting on your head – stabbing each of your eyeballs simultaneously.  Grinning with glee as he flexes his biceps and shoves the knives in up through your head and eyes up until those dern hilts of the knives won’t let the knives go all the way through.

Well likely you’ve not my particular trolls, but your very own that take their own shape and do their own thang.

Point being.  You feel TERRIBLE.  Poop is better, at least poop can fertilize.  You feel worse than poop.

AND THEN…

You interact with someone, a well meaning, kind person.  

The perfect person to give ya a sucker punch, because they got you all vulnerable with their good person way of being.

And it comes.

This here good person gets you with their honest impression and earnest insistence.

They get you by telling yeh “you LOOK great!” (Or “good”; or “young”; or beautiful” etc)

And your entire psyche shrivels past a curtain and into the previously concealed gap in your chest.  The barrage of complimentary comments piercing the pretense you’ve been managing.  That “yeah you feel shitty and look in the mirror and see more shitty and it just doesn’t matter cause you got no choice but to have to go on so you do and so just fuck it” kinda coping.

Here comes this not a liar type person telling you something you feel is abbbbysolutely NOT true… getting you agitated, thinking to yourself, screaming silently, “you liar, I look HORRIBLE!  Don’t you see I’m in hell? And LOOK like it?”

That there is the ugh of ughs.  The ooogy.

That disconnect between how a person perceives themselves and how others perceive the person.

It happens to everybody I know who has at least a few insecure days…

There is added oooogy when living in pain.

Because then emotions are a tad extra raw.  Raw emotions are the ultimate in causing miscommunication.

The rawness blows thoughts along the drift of thinking that somebody telling you how good you look; well they are just either genuinely thinking so….. OR are full of…bullshit.  

Those compliments ain’t true.  You’re discounting my pain.  

You forget. How I look is a but a costume, hiding pain from casual observers.  

Of course logic says they really mean it, this is your issue, another thing to process in therapy.  The journey to separate ones’ sense of self apart from the consistent pain.  To perceive correctly is challenging what with the knives in me eyes.  I do try. And try. And try.

But.

You can’t help it. Not only is this previously trusted person now viewed askew with regard to your trust in gut feelings about whether they get you – you get hit with the devastating conclusion thinking they do not comprehend.

No matter their understanding that you feel damn bad.  You are in a mental space where you are certain you MUST look terrible.

UGH

OOOGY

So how the heckenheck is someone to deal with this, with you who has this issue?

Now mind you, OF COURSE if a person thinks something positive, including about the way they perceive another person looks, go straight on and tell that person those positives.

Only, be mindful.  Recognize the person you are complimenting may be reacting internally really poorly because they feel awful and that transfers into how they feel they look.

Just know.

Be mindful.

Yours in not knowing what the heck, but knowing that being communicative and kind is a good base from which to maybe figure it out,

Renée

When You’re Made to Question Yourself and Your Decisions…Dig down into that Nasty Shiz UNTIL You Get to the CORE of WHY you made the Decision…

Published on by crashed not burnedLeave a comment

My biological family are devils posing as people.

It was a wretched experience, that process of breaking down the nature of the relationships and lack thereof.  Weighing and assigning value – or negative impact – to my biological family’s presence and influence on my and my girls’  lives, my personal immediate family’s healthy state of existence.

This dreadful task took months of unraveling, unpacking my subconscious.  Time had no choice but to tick by before I could climb out of the black void, having been thrown into that place without light because the blinding truth hit my inner eye.

What a horrible process it is to have to evaluate whether to go “no contact” with one’s family.

First doing the analysis of what was in my/children’s best (non toxic) interest.  That first step is interminable.  Delving into memories purposely and subconsciously buried because the deeper they were, the less power they had.  With the power buried deep, the toxic assaults could be stepfordly ignored.  Then, once the shields dissolved, it became no longer possible to unsee what my renewed vision understood.  Ugly realities sparked a necessary process. Undergoing the pain of having to parse facts from mere perception, truths insisting to be revealed, no matter the excruciating process.

Then executing the decision, that agonizingly, burning, soul threatening determination. Heartbreakingly realizing that this choice is absolutely unavoidable.

Finally, mourning, grieving.  Working upon understanding as a mechanism to cope.  Continuing to peer using a microscope, at that which had been previously hidden. Forcing my acclimation to the reality of my biological family’s disfunction; whilst despite myself, continuing the simultaneous grasping at wisps of wishes it weren’t so.

Then.  After an emotional eternity, finally achieving the tightest seal on my emotions possible for me to attain.  The closest I could get to the illusive wish for closure.  (except during holidays and societal focus upon “family” which never fails to stick me with sharp hooked barbs)

None of it was my initial choice.  All of this torturous process started happening because a GMO mutant straw broke my camel’s back.  Where memory and accuracy is concerned – all of my (almost ridiculously) careful close examination began happening – at a point in time – timing as close can be to when the toxic shower was raining full blast.  Time when clarity is best achieved because the circumstance is unavoidably in one’s face.   Time feeling urgent, yet needing to be tempered, because clarity requires patience and unmeasured opportunity to manage a decision that jibes with peace in one’s heart.  Ultimately working to achieve peace of knowing that a terribly difficult, nearly unbearable decision – is nevertheless the good and right and healthy decision to make.

Then comes death.

Death represents finality in opportunity.  A person being alive provides a single hair of reassurance should there be a desire to “take it (the decision to go no-contact) back'”, keeping alive the elusive fantasy which is never going to actually happen, that mere mote of dusty yearning which lingers next to “possible” though “improbable”.  Those who are shunted into the category of toxically unbearable to have in one’s life, can always be revisited if the shunted one is alive.  Being alive gives access, a potential “opportunity” should some change in heart manage a reversal in choice to go “no contact”.

The emphasis here is my biological father being alive means that should the process of my having undergone the first, second, and third (as delineated above) analysis end up being tossed in the food processor; chopping reasoning and good judgement into tiny bits … well, being alive means a chance, you/I can seek a “do-over”, a “re-do”.

Being in the world of the living lets choice stay alive. Choice, knowing there is option – floating out in the realm of potential. The choice in and of itself also up to choice.  A decision to be taken or not.  But remaining an option.  That original determination could be “taken back”.

Never mind that this is unrealistic.  That heart wrenching wish that these devils were different.  Wresting with the facts unearthed, the horrible treatment by those whose nasty nature strains to reverse my natural optimism.  Yet my wiring maintaining fragments of wistful hoping, bits of burnt wishes wanting, wishing that the devilishness isn’t woven into the texture of my biological family’s very being.  Fantasy leaving open the option, however unrealistic and remote, that I could break “no contact” because by some miracle, a vital sea change in the psychological make up of my biological family occurred.

The truth of toxicity is the confusion and self doubt it feeds upon, and then uses to manipulate. Toxicity is an expert at pulling wool over one’s mind.  Wishing and hoping only perpetrate the myths of the possibility, wanting what is actually unattainable.  It took months of therapy aimed at piercing through my own bullshit of coping (by not seeing).  Plodding and wincing throughout the examination of my life from childhood till the occasion of a final rift.

The wack of my realization that my “bio family”s neglect, lying, and general behavior caused more injury to my daughters’ and my mental well being.  Injury much more insidious and harmful than any physical damage caused even by a direct strong kick with a steel toed boot straight into the faces of my daughters.

My girls, the two people I can identify as my absolute unconditional loves.  Hurt them, beware my fire.  Hurt me?  Eh.  I was raised and trained to self blame.  Unusual apparently I am not, according to studies evaluating the psychological impact upon the adult children (aka such as me) of such abusive families.  Analysis clearly revealed  common sense, it is usual for that a soul to placidly bear toxicity this soul has been accustomed to throughout life, trained to be submissive.

BUT, being a punching bag oneself is one thing.  Commonly, toxicity is eventually turned upon the loved ones of the beleaguered soul, those loved ones begin to bear the brunt – loved ones who are oft times the children of the beleaguered soul.  Stand back, for then an awakening occurs.

Once toxic behavior is unleashed upon the beleaguered soul’s own children – when the grandchildren are impacted (meaning my children for example) THEN what had been a nonexistent defense raised on behalf of one’s self,  morphs into existence.  NOW the attack upon one’s children fuels that defense of the loved ones, spurring one into a fiery mandatory insistence that realization be achieved.

I can and have taken plenty of harsh hits.  Times have been when I didn’t nearly recognize some statement or action/inaction was even toxic.  But brainwashed ignorance had applied only when messing with me.

Ahhhhh so.  Fuck with my kids?   Oh no no no no.  My love for them creates a spotlight of alertness that makes me SEE.  And once the miles thick insulation of bullshit became clear glass, it had no choice but to shatter.  The heartbreaking yet required determination.  A determination that was foreseen but required a journey perhaps as treacherous as hiking death valley all alone.  But I wasn’t alone.  Therapy provided my intelligence with crampons for climbing out of the valleys, up those sheer cliffs, in order to see those truths dwelling down deep and that had been blurry up close.  Using therapy crampons enables one to climb up upon the perch above the valley of dark self blame.  Allowing visibility so that a person can see below, above, across, and all areas in between.

Those months of analysis upon every perspective possible to imagine.  Straining with the effort to keep the scale of evaluation fairly and properly balanced.  All analysis’s resulting in an unavoidable conclusion. My family are devils posing as people.  Yes.  My biological (and his married-into), family.  My biological mother.  Revealed from behind their masks of charisma and false kindness.

In actuality: these people are a raging narcissist father; an enabler and narcissist rage re-director step mother;  spoiled selfish gasslighting/flying monkey narcissistic step siblings; and biological borderline disordered (amongst other disorders) mother. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_monkeys_psychology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

Bidding HIM fare well.  Oh how crushing to realize my very own father’s vehemently proclaimed love for me and my children is nothing like healthy love is defined.  Not at all. My biological father who would at times say, “of course I love you, you are my daughter!”  The father who – usually immediately before, or after, making such a proclamation – would next rage incoherently at me (and as my girls were getting older, had begun erratic stunningly surprising rages aimed towards/at my children).   Equally devastating was his timing.  Just when my girls and I possessed absolute need – my “biological father” and “rest of the family” would utterly abandon us … at least until he (the narcissist king of the family) felt it suited him to re-connect.

Fare Well. The title of my letter.  A proclamation of my own.  Delivered in the most straightforward, the most mindful manner I could possibly muster.  Vetted by people I love and who truly love me, because I did not want to be petty nor cruel.  I genuinely wish them all a fare thee well.

Far from me and my loved ones.

For years now my proclamation has lain mostly stagnant.  Basically unchallenged, no efforts made by my “bio family” for any sort of reconciliation ever, NOT EVER.  No proffer with any earnest aim of achieving a meeting of minds and any realistic examination of how to change the “family” dynamic to a healthy one.

Of course, this lack of what would amount to a “healthy” “productive” response by these “family” members makes total sense, given some of very reasons which underlay my decision to go “no contact” in the first place.  (Meaning that their use of abandonment and silent treatment as punishment; their inability to empathize; inability to engage in self reflection of any true sort – all that makes predictable, although heartbreaking, that my bio family is unable to be emotionally healthy and instead is mired in dysfunction.)

I have had to harden my heart, in order to NOT hope – hope was hope-less,  demonstrated by not the slightest drizzle of a healthy attempt to reconcile having been made by “my family”.  Hardening my heart was unfortunately made easier, strengthened, by my “family’s” response to my extreme boundary setting.

Rather than attempts to reconcile by addressing the truths I explored in my “Fare Well” letter, instead, only the most feeble of protestations were generated. Darkly hilarious in the irony of validating my decision,  whilst simultaneously heart crumbling to have shoved in my face, unavoidable facts supporting my determination.  My decision was further validated by their wee, incredibly inappropriate, and manipulatively damaging response by them, to my fare well letter.   Their protests wrapped in nasty accusations, failure to acknowledge truths, and sharp attacks aimed to undermine.

These paltry, perhaps two or three “efforts”  to re-connect were all couched in phrases and terms without even a shadow of the slightest sort of comprehension of the toxicity which prompted my decision.  No demonstration (because of their inability) to exercise even an anorexic comprehension. Only a vacuum where a soul CAN possess perception.  Never an acknowledgment, (it appears because they simply cannot understand) of the IMPACT of their abuse, neglect and gas lighting.

Horribly, the only and slight protestations made by my biological family, only served to drill the decision deeper into my soul.  Because the sense behind their words, their chosen methods and means of expression, solidified the very reasons to sever the relationships that were never true experiences of familial love.

This post insisted upon being written, I suppose as a continued method of coping.  Editing is itself a wrenching activity and at odds with my compulsion to publish it quickly as a sort of therapeutic cleansing of my psyche.  A damn was burst yesterday, and my emotions flooded because of the card I received.  This missive sent from an unknown address, the return address written on the envelope listed as from nowhere I know in NJ, yet mailed from NYC.

A communication cruel in the conveyance and consistent in keeping with how my bio family consistently related to me.  Sent anonymously.  No identification of the sender, no name or recognizable return address.  The message itself harsh.  Lacking kind platitudes of any sort – again par for the course when it comes to my “bio family” manner of communicating.  The message inside the card is pictured with this post.

A card that served to stun.  To cause revisiting.  Awakening mourning for my father whose own personal history impacted his personality so as to make him unable to love in the true sense of the word.  His absolute inability to love with kind goodness; searching his bag of tricks reveals only a void.  Nothing in his repertoire motivated by positivity, only by insecurity and his dire desire to feel superior.

Hell hath no fury like a narcissist believing they are being criticized.  Constructive comments, attempts to convey feelings other than fawning love, are met with his rage.  Complicating and confusing, tangling analysis is a tragedy inasmuch as his personality disorder is not his fault. Tragedies he had endured when he was a child shaped his psyche, but that shape – the man he became, is toxicity incarnate.  He lacks true empathy (true care, he can fake it for societal mores sake), he is incapable of demonstrated actions of support; communicating with mindful expression; refuses to even attempt genuine attempts at understanding, and is unable to love with compassion.

I mourn what I wish I had and know will NEVER have.  That time is gone.  It is the era of my doing the best possible parenting and loving for my own children.  It is the era of recognizing positivity and just as importantly recognizing and not tolerating toxicity.

Thank you for reading through this public revealing of an enormous demon that haunts my life.

I hope some may perhaps find some scraps of peace relevant to an aspect relevant to whatever personal strife you may have in your own world.  Know that you are not alone in these efforts to get/remain/continue to live your life positively and with love.  Beguiling toxicity can and must be pulled back to reveal truths.

Be aware, beware, of how toxicity is made all the more dangerous by being all dolled up with conventional thinking about “what is supposed to be”.  Forget convention.  Go with logic, reason, facts, acts, expression – to form what is personally safely healthy for yourself and those you need protect.

Yours in analyzation as a method to achieve the peaceful life most possible to have … strength to you, whatever the circumstances,

Sincerely,

Renée

Three sites that may be helpful reading for you.  There are countless articles and books to be researched on this topic… these are three quickly found in an internet search…

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-legacy-distorted-love/201105/narcissistic-parents-contact-or-not

http://narcissismschild.com/2015/02/20/keep-narcissistic-grandparents-away-from-your-kids/

http://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/2015/12/3/no-contact

Call Shit a Rose and it still Stinks

Published on by crashed not burnedLeave a comment

Everybody seems expert on personality disorders nowadays.  What with the proliferation of public figures exposing their proclivities (deliberately or not); talking heads (or asses) are busy categorizing and explaining behaviors utilizing labels ordinarily reserved for diagnosis by experts in the field of psychology.

“Narcissistic” is maybe most bandied about, perhaps because that diagnosis is tops on most lists describing U.S.A.’s idiot in chief.  Given the human penchant for seeking comprehension of … anything and everything… of course people wanna understand “why/what the heck is that (insert here: a behavior, a statement, anything that makes you go “what the fuck?!”) coming from?!”.

Next natural jump in thought is to apply this newly discovered, popular armchair diagnosis, to people in one’s own personal world.

And here is where the rub lies.  What does the label mean in real life?  To you, to me, to any person?  I research the crap out of these categories of human behavior and have learned that some personality disorders could also be known as “nasty unrepentant manipulative shitty shit”.  Guess what.  The behavior itself is what matters.  Not the label.

So when my mother shitbombs me with one of her missives that arrive dressed up as a serial killer’s envelope, (no return address, no post office stamp, my name typed on separate piece of white paper, then cut out unevenly, and taped carefully to a large manilla envelope yet contains only a single page), it matters not whether she has a formal diagnosis.  Whether a professional in the field of psychology has determined her to be borderline personality disordered, dependent personality disordered, narcissistic … is in the hard life of reality, completely irrelevant.

Diagnosis or not, my mother is a poisonous self pitying manipulative nasty mean unempathetic delusional liar.  Happenstance that her most prevalent traits are those contained within the professionally approved label.  The toxicity that she embodies is untenable to tolerate no matter, because it is the person she IS, not the label she is given, that matters.

Raining down protestations are weapons of mass effective perspective blockers, and are utilized by toxic people often.  Aggressively or plaintively asserted, “I’m not a this and that”…. Then they go ahead and engage in one or other of the very behaviors that a person diagnosed with “this and that” is characterized by.

Keeping perspective clear is tough for every person because our darn emotions and stray wishes love to color our view and move the horizon from where it actually is.  Keeping perspective when in constant chronic pain is a newish journey for me, and I’m finding the pain useful as providing both a deadline and a windshield wiper.  A deadline is a must have for tolerating toxicity because after all, I ain’t voluntarily allowing myself to die drowning in poison thank you very much, and after a while the breathing gets really tough.  The wiper, well just think of a mechanism cleaner, and most importantly, one that is much more effective than squeegees once used by the guys hanging out in traffic over by the Holland Tunnel.

Being thankful for this epiphany of my pain as a tool towards my mental health is an understatement, for no other reason that because clarity is VITAL.  The alternative I dread, but which could entirely be plausible, is that the insane-pain could be a total brain blocker rendering me oblivious to just about everything.   Oblivious meaning completely letting my rational analysis be rendered into shreds too tiny to be patched back together.   Luckily for me, when the holysheitpain- ness strikes, obliviousness equals shutting down entirely and sleep.

The moral of this post is, know your own true identity if you can.  Keep your perspective clear and free from the temptations of tempests of drama.  Be real about what is and isn’t healthy for you.   Utilize whatever challenges you face as motives,  the challenges are enough by themselves.  Keep it real so you can move it forward to happy goodness.  Just remember, and be gentle with yourself. Because the places that your challenges will take you are easily swayed off direction, for the winds of poison gust strong.

Holding onto positivity ain’t easy.

But nor is it irretrievable when a grip is lost.

Grab it back knowing it is up to you.

Yours in keeping it as clear as can in order to live a positive existence,

Renée

 

 

 

Can YOU chose your reality?

Published on by crashed not burnedLeave a comment

Despair, jealousy, anger, frustration… all the negative emotions that smack us and send us spinning, coming from what oft feels from a void we hadn’t known existed.   Possibly, or probably, we were willfully blind.  Purposely overlooking varieties of red flags because we didn’t want to see the negative looming.  Seeing it coming or not matters not at all when that damn hard smack comes which sends a person reeling.  Somehow the smack (at least initially) mostly always feels like a crevasse has opened beneath us.

We cannot in any way control our immediate rush of whatever negative feeling strikes us IN THAT IMMEDIATE smack moment.

It is ridiculously important to sit with whatever emotion left you spinning without any ground under your feet.   Be real with yourself about what you’re feeling.  Don’t pull bullshit veils over your own intelligence.

Naturally the INSTANT AFTER you are propelled into the “HOLY FUCK” void, we tend to got grabbed and pulled in the cyclone created by the question “WHY”.  We get swirled in rapidly (hard to think straight) spinning, dizzying circles and are simultaneously battered with all the cyclone “WHY” debris.  “WHY” debris is no stranger to us, but man does it hurt!  Debris in the form of self blame, searching why we created or helped the smackdown occur.  Victimizing oneself, why me?!  Lots of flying around debris is labeled “willful ignorance” and we respond with, “How could blah blah blah have blahblah to me!”  IT IS HUMAN NATURE to engage in self examination, seeking to comprehend why.

Then STOP!  Can you?  Well it is completely and utterly up to YOU.

Because at this point you’ve reached the fork in the emotional health road.  That moment many, but not most, of us even know exists in our conscious minds.

This moment when we actually have a CHOICE.  We can’t control how fucked up we feel when someshit occurs and we’re stricken in the moment.  But after that initial strike?  We have a choice.  We can take control in a positive way that moves us forward towards peace and happiness, or otherwise.

Yes, really, you have this power.  We are in charge of our own realities and we get to shape where our minds go with intention.  INTENTION.  Yes, I’m taking about the non bullshit that is being mindful.  Meaning you look OUTSIDE of your own damn self.

Unless.  Unless that most valuable possession your heart and soul possesses, gets ripped or blown away, because you won’t hold onto it.  Hear me?  YOU won’t hold onto it.  Either purposely or non purposely.  Guess what,  YOU CAN STILL TAKE IT BACK.   Intention is there for you to hold onto, if you chose.  For certain you won’t be in charge of yourself without intention.

The toughest and scariest path to take at this fork in the road is the one hidden behind the brambles of every nasty thing you’ve ever consciously or subconsciously thought about yourself.  It ain’t easy guiding yourself in a emotionally healthy manner what with those devils riding your shoulders.  Devil ventriloquists to your brain, making you say to yourself (and perhaps others) “I’m so stupid” “Why did I fall for that” “He/she is a total (insert horrific adjective about a person’s flaw here) and I …”

POWER is necessary to push those prickly thorny blood drawing life sucking brambles of nasty out of your fucking way; and you need dig up yourself some insight otherwise you won’t see the alternative path.

Ask yourself, DO you muster the insight, the calm, the bullshit filter to push your mind down the road of the reality of learning and growth?  Can you?  Have you TRIED?????

or…

Do the frenemies-feelings (those emotions so familiar they are easy to fall in with;  and those suckers destruct self esteem) – take you by the hand instead?  Surely you’re familiar with these terminators aimed at defeating your power.  Self doubt, self blame, DO those emotions take you down a path filled with sticky tar that swallows your soul?  Are you comfortable wallowing in victimhood pretending you aren’t bitter?

Is it safer for you to feel shitty?  To not have expectations?  To anticipate negativity and disbelieve positivity?  What is your comfort level?  Do compliments make you uneasy?  What is the sense of worth you truly possess?

WILL YOU STAY STUCK IN WHATEVER SENSE OF WORTH YOU’VE GOT?

OR WILL YOU WORK AT MAKING YOUR REALITY A HAPPIER ONE?

This stopping in mental time, this recognition of choice, is extraordinarily difficult and seemingly completely missed by most.  All one needs do for proof of why it is so well hidden is to pay attention to all that surrounds us.  Listen to friends, news, various postings on media, and the discontent is rampant.  The norm is woe.

For goodness sakes, of course you must own your misery.  Face your depression.  Examine your reasons. Be real with yourself at the very least, if not also to others.

BUT DON’T LET THOSE TOXIC NEGATIVE EMOTIONS TAKE YOU TO LIVE IN VICTIMLAND.

Unless of course you prefer victim land, (where narcissists and borderline disordered people happily feed off depressives and people well trained to think they’re worthless).

Reveling in misery is many people’s idea of normal.  Hey, if that sinks their boat and they’re happy (well not my definition of happy but their personal reality of happy) in the muck at the bottom, that is an individual’s life to live.  The unspoken danger is that the longer a person stays in victimland- the more deeply sucked into that muck a person gets and the more difficult to even WANT to feel happy.

Me?  The muck pre-existing in the world not having to do with me personally, well that is plenty bad enough for me to want to never voluntarily take a path that leads to my own personal tarpit.

So I’m learning.  Working at noticing.  Being attentive (even in hindsight) as can be.

Working I am.  To take that other path.  To machete through the brambles, clear my vision to see that there is a way to  (yeah, it sounds corny) enlightenment.  That’s right, I said it.  Enlightenment.  The word used by mystics, religions, and defined by me here as stripping away the bullshit and taking whatever negative toxic crap I felt/feel and squeezing whatever positive I can out of it.

That means looking for lessons.  That means calming down enough to seek other perspectives, ones that don’t drown me and render me paralyzed.  Perspectives that make me grow in comprehension about whatever the hell it may be.  Recognizing that all I can control is my own self, and when I do manage control there is an undeniable ripple effect impacting whatever is around me.

None of us are perfect, that would be damn boring anyway.

But too many of us wallow in victimhood, feeling snarky, put upon.  And that just sucks the life out of the atmosphere.

Smack yourself with a reality stick if you want to be happy and even (holy shit…) joyful! This means analyzing logically.  About yourself, about another, about a situation.  Think about how whatever fucked you up – can also flip side – instead, make you better, more capable, more understanding about whatever the hell you now know about.

Find the generosity in your soul and guide it to your heart.  Forgive yourself first.  When you’re ready, let that toxicity go fly away so it doesn’t shadow your manner, your inner light.  Even if you don’t think you HAVE an inner light, you won’t know unless you genuinely attempt to reveal it to yourself.  Find the courage to look within.

No-one else is capable.  No-one else is responsible.  It falls upon each of us individually to manage our personal reality.  Only on our own can we find and harness our power to find and utilize that ephereal insight to shape this reality.  How the reality feels, what we let it do to us, how some thing impacts upon your existence, and hence also those around you.

Yours in the challenge of choosing to pause at the fork, find your power, and shape your reality to be happy,

Renée

Forget “FOMO” (“F”ear “O”f “M”issing “Ou”t”) – and instead focus

Published on by crashed not burned2 Comments

This sunny weather is feeding a virtual torrential storm on social media – my face squinching in effort to think what media DOESN’T HAVE the fourth of July splattered SOMEHOW into the message today (and of course bookend days though more of intermittent showers).

News blasts: Governor closes beaches for the FOURTH; sales galore on the FOURTH; fireworks, (And car shows? How antique cars became part of this day I suppose is attributed to American nostalgia and hankering for gas guzzlers that look cool? Don’t get me wrong, I like a good machine); circuses, pop up vendors of food, more pop up vendors of food… or what poses as food but is delicious evilness.

Open your FB feed to the flood of “what I’m doing that is so fantastic on the fourth” Facebook submergence.  Photos of beaming faces, often in or near some sort of water or at least a checkered tablecloth… or at least holding some sort of sparkler or photo bombed by a stray condiment…

Easy to slip slide into the …. “F“ear “O“f “M“issing “O“ut phenom (that is more all american than supporting our president.)(job title not capped on purpose)

This FOMO sucks the joy out of your life and you (me too) need to stop.

Can you?  If you like wallowing in crap then wallow away, I don’t want to take your (negative reinforcement of toxic feelings) righteous yearnings away…

So those who scoff at the focus vs femo(crap), you are free to stop reading here.

Otherwise take your head outta your nether regions and focus on whatever goodness you’ve got right here and now.  With your self.  With your environs.

Me, I planned on fireworks and the whole fantastic community coming together madness partay that is what I absolutely love about basically almost any event hosted around here…

Yet my girlie needed some down time lone with Mama.  And me with her.

I’m joyful for those I love who are enjoying their thang… that is their focus and the sharing of their experience means I get to witness happiness.

But fomo?  No friggin way.  You’ve your sitch.  I’ve mine.  Focus.

And when I focus, all that comes to mind is “ahhhh”.   These moments with my lil one are going to change with the times of her growth, and whilst they will all have their beauty, the poignancy of past never fails to sting me.  So focus I do.  Soak it in.  Hold for future memory.  Trying to diminish that future missing this time with her.

Goodnight and feel the goodness of your own circumstances no matter the devilish temptation to not be satisfied.

Yours in focusing, (like being organized, being focused is a constant effort, don’t bs yourself into to classifying yourself as “not” just because it is WORK and comes easy to no one!)

Renée

why give a shit

Published on by crashed not burned1 Comment

Ever ask yourself flat out real deal no baloney straight up why the fuck it matters?

You made or are making a choice. This that or the other deserves whatever energy you are giving/gave…

or not.

Which?

And to what point at all?

I’ve awoken to the sun shining on all I can do, and  alternatively that which must peaceably wait.

For me, the illustration is in my sisterchildhoodfriend letting me know she was genuinely worried because my bedroom is in a state never before seen let alone imagined.

Between moving on ceremonies and attendant rituals and celebrations; likewise high school graduation time absorbancy all encompassing -…….

… I’ve zero ability ((either energywise, physical capability -wise; emotional nonoverload-wise) – NO FRIGGINTENT WAY my room warrants even a smidgen of attention.

Except to slide stuff over on the bed to make room and so be it if stuff falls to the floor.

Otherwise, next.

Always a list of priorities and yep a straightened room feels most peaceful so priority it will get.

In another day or so.

Yours in letting unproductive anxiety go,

Renée

Chosen Family

Published on by crashed not burnedLeave a comment

“Blood is thicker than water”

“Friends will come and go, family is always there for you”

Two of countless platitudes voiced during occasions of momentous import.

The first nonsensical to my thinking.  Thick blood is clotting blood.  Clotting blood makes a scab protecting a wound so skin can regrow, vital sure.  Of course water is absolutely necessary for life, our very cells are comprised of it.  Between the two I don’t see a clear winner.

Keeping trying to make sense of this oft vehemently spat out statement, I think about the composition of both comparatively.  While how blood could be assessed as essentially “stronger” (for why else would “thicker” matter if at all?) … our blood wouldn’t flow whatsoever if we didn’t intake water.  Water itself is survival.  Huh right?

Looking closer at the benefits of clotting there arises the reality of torture and tragedy.  Blood clots which form internally – washing round our bodies ultimately finding the way to a heart or brain – either kills us or renders us prisoners in our bodies (heart attack, aneurysm or a stroke in case you were wondering). (I’m terrified of a stroke, trapped in my body, unable to communicate with an active mind?!  YIKESOLA!!!!! TORTURE).  And a heart attack? A surprise murderer that takes young and old alike to the place of no return.

Slash smush down!  First sentiment rendered nonsensical.  At the very best, most positive – saying “blood is thicker than water” is a meaningless comment applied to a truly lovely connection between biologically connected people.

At worst, that bullshit is a stab in the eye of anyone who has unbearable toxicity in their biological relations.

The second platitude?  A flat out lie.  Family is absolutely NOT always there for a person.  In fact, families can be dysfunctionally toxic in a horror show, rather than sitcom, fashion.

Sure, family can certainly be fabulously there for a soul.

BUT: NOT NECESSARILY.

At. All.

People in the public eye ofttimes are “outed” about the rifts along their family biological tree.

Many in their private lives just pretend all is glossy, while they froth with quiet (or not so quiet) frustration.

THANK GOODNESS (and I mean GOODness) for CHOSEN FAMILY.

People who you aren’t obligated to because just because.  People who demonstrate kindness and love in thoughtful meaningful manners that feel like true home in your heart.

Cherish these people.  Absorb their goodness and shine yours their way.  Let them stand by your side at those times when provincial people might narrowly think you are alone.  Feel strong in your independence, your choice, your freedom, and most importantly – in your love.

Yours in being unconventional,

Renée

Being argharghbarg about doing something doesn’t mean you never care

Published on by crashed not burnedLeave a comment

You are allowed to feel schpilkis (yiddish for utchuty, otherwise known as “ants in pants”) after letting your child stay on your nipple after he/she fell asleep after nursing two hours.

It is ok to remember feeling all jumpy and irritated-like when you walked back to the bed for one “last kiss”.

Even now when that kid is poised, ready and wanting to leap.  No matter how preened their feathers, how strongly rooted.  Regardless of your confidence in their ability to navigate their individuality throughout the masses in the world.

Now, when your heart aches with the missing of those chubby arms around your neck.  The silence longing to be broken with “Mooooooommmmmy”.

It is tempting to convince ourselves that the two are not mutually exclusive. How could we purely love our children and simultaneously want to give ourselves a shake like a big ole dog getting rid of all the water.

We are allowed to live in a moment and experience the reality of what is happening that moment.  Our exhausted child needed sleep, and if we felt irritation that it was taking so godsmackingdoobies long as it was… that’s just the deal.   How lovely to think that if we came upon a time machine and were zapped so we could re-live those moments, all’d be different.  This go round we’d fall asleep with our child, cuddling warmly.  Smack yourself with some reality and remind yourself that while distracted by your kid’s finger digging in your ear, likely your whole left side would have gone numb from hanging over the edge of the kid’s skinny bed (no room for you what with all stuffed animals procreating all over).

Romanticizing all of your intimate parenting is robbing yourself of the gritty actual of it all.

Cherish, as it was truly experienced.

Yours in arghabargazumzum,

Renée