Tuesday 1 February 2011

It is easy to forget sometimes that thoughts and fears are not even an inch high off the ground, that in one sense they don't even exist at all.

But when they come in in the night, they take you in your innocence, and they wake you with worries about the chink in the curtains, the spider that is crawling across the wall but is not, the boyfriend that you call a liar but who is not.

When you wake, they are encrusted about you like sleep in your eyes, hanging over your head like 38 degrees in the height of February.  You wake, and you remind yourself for the eleventy-seventh time that they are not real.  They are not even an inch high off the ground.

You do things that people recommend, like take those voices of destruction and give them a Mickey Mouse timbre, or relocate them somewhere else in your body so they're further away, or closer.  Anything to displace them from the rut and help you realise again ... again ... afuckingain ... that they are wraiths.  That they are not the boss of you.

Never did you really realise that there were so many of them before.  They have come out from their recesses.  They come out whenever you are physically impaired in any way - an unfairness if ever you thought it.  They weave their way round your legs like demon cats, wraithing bullshit into your head.

They keep trying to get you to kill the wrong thing.  They whisper their lies that things are different than what they really are.  They whisper so insidiously that if you didn't know any better now you would maybe try to kill the wrong thing.  The things that they whisper to you about, instead of the whispers themselves.

They try to get you to kill the wrong thing.  But you're onto them.

You know it is a good thing that they have come out from the recesses.  Here, they are out in the pure air and here, you can melt them down, slowly slowly, just by staring at them, like a candle.  They dwarf just by you watching them, but it's a very slow process.  Longer than it took the Wicked Witch of the West.

You are very tired.  You want a holiday from your brain.  Because there's just so many of them, sometimes they swamp in like syrup and flood the room.

You think you shall take Jesus for your animus.  You do not know what you think of the way Jesus has come to be viewed by goober Christianity, but you sure do love the feel of him.  You ask him anyway to come and take them away.

You do the things that are required for you to do, the meditation, the exercise, and the fog begins to lift.  You understand what people say, that old cliche about suffering creatives, that you need the suffering to send you to the page.  You think it's bullshit, but you understand how the cliche came about.  Because it does do that, to a certain extent.  Because the page and the clay are two more things that quell them.  Somehow, the energy expended in these negativities gets to channel itself when you send it all off outside to play in the fresh air and make something creative.

You have this untenable thought that life will not be able to be enjoyed if any of these fears remain in any form whatsoever.  That if they ever return ever again, that life cannot be enjoyed right now because they are going to return some time.

As if you're not the boss of them.  As if a fear about future fear which is about past fear is anything to be ... well, fearful about.

12 comments

  1. 'Tis true, they're not the boss of you but they sure feel bossy at times. I guess I sometimes think of them as my children, my petulant three year olds, who are ever insistent about wanting their fill, wanting it now, to be placated. But I talk to them with respect and some weird kind of "love"? and then they behave...if only for a while.

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    1. I love this comment even more, reading it from across the miles of August 2013.

      This feels like the crux of everything really - to love the unlovable bits of ourselves. I guess that transpires out into the world as well. Can we love politicians? I dunno :)

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  2. I love that :)

    Sometimes I think you are further along than me in regards to this stuff. Or at least you are at the moment :P It is very inspiring. And I agree, I really do think they are misguided parts lookin' for some lurve in some way. Or at the very least a kind jailer who will keep them chained but won't torture them :)

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  3. This is so like my post yesterday, but in your inimitable style, Sue. I think we're on the same page here. We have to get out of the habit of listening to that five-year-old who wants to run things, and instead reassure him/her that he/she doesn't have to, 'cos there's nothing to fear; indeed, fear is nothing:)

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  4. You know, I'm learning to choose which voices I listen to, and it's empowering to choose the authentic ones over the liars. But it's hard.

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  5. killing the wrong thing
    oh i so resonate
    great little piece this one :)

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  6. MysticBrit - It *was* so like your post the other day! :) And yes, I agree, reassurance reassurance reassurance.

    Erin - that is totally empowering, choosing the authentic ones over the liars. I think it's pretty much one of the hardest things I've ever done.

    Kel - thank you, my dear. You know, the deceit of all of this territory means that we think, "Oh, I'm the only one who tries to kill the wrong thing. Other people don't do that, only me." How ridiculous that is. But still, I was surprised to see ... "What, YOU, Kel?" As if it's only me who does that ... so silly!!

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  7. Wow. Yes. What Erin said.

    The process of untangling the authentic from the liars is harder than I like. But slowly - surely, I find myself getting angry with the liars and arguing with them. And then a new revelation comes from that argument that the liars did not want me to see. That makes me smile even when it's painful.

    They would have me in perpetual dirty pain - pain that never ends and infects with dispair. And pain is not something I can opt out of. But, I can choose to have my pain be clean pain - pain felt from seeing truth. And THAT pain cleanses and washes away the dirt and burns up the tendrils of the voices that lie....

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  8. During a period of great personal angst, I met a psychologist friend. I asked if he had any advice in dealing with the naysayers in my head. He related a time in his life when his little 2 year old son was stricken with leukemia. It was a long and fitful battle of 3 years. I asked him, how did he do it; how did he cope. He said for all those years he battled back and forth with the mumbo jumbo rationalizations and arguments. Being a psychologist, that is what he did. He analyzed and countered. Until one day he got to the end of his rope and just spoke to the fears. He said "Stop It!" He refused to listen to their arguments, threats, or predictions. He did not let them get a word in edgewise. And it worked.

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  9. KG - your comment today is one of the reasons why blogging is so brilliant to me. I have been struggling again the past few days and I so love what you say here. The pain from seeing truth ... yes.

    Jo - "Stop it!" It's so simple ... but such a labyrinth to get there, sometimes. It is so, so, so, simple. So hard. That poor man, what a struggle to have to deal with that.

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  10. I so appreciate the wisdom from all of you here. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

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  11. Sue.... just hugs. That is all. :-)

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