Allow myself to come to as many as 43 new truths

the house is slowly, but surely getting cleaner. It’s hard to do much when 1)I’m burnt out with the cataloging books deal and 2)There’s so much stuff here.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it hasn’t, yet. I waffle between periods of great fragility and wimpyness and feeling like I can overcome anything I set my mind to. Odd contrast.

The fragility is new, raw, and much deeper than the PTSD stuff was. It’s scarey for me because most of it is really old crapola.

The key seems to be a few things: 1)This is going to take some time. It may only take a day to clean a room for most people, but I’m not just cleaning a room—I’m dealing with a lifetime of insecurity, invasion, abandonment, and betrayal. All the stuff that “home” is supposed to be and mine wasn’t. I have to be okay with the fact that the act of cleaning a room is easy, but the emotional stuff that goes with it isn’t and takes time and care. 2)Creativity is the key out. One point about a month ago I said to someone that creativity is the expression of the unconsious self, unedited by others, life, etc. which is true. It is also therefore the only real counter I can find to the nasties that I mentioned before. I can work on a rug, finding a way to display/organize my embroidery floss, set up my house plants, etc. and all of that helps me to cope with the rest. 3)I need help. Specifically, I need DH’s help and participation. It helps to counter the emotional stuff too.

So we’ve developed a sort of routine. I do whatever I do and if he hasn’t got time to help (and he rarely does these days, they doubled his work load last year) we talk about what I’ve done and he tells me what he thinks. It’s enough—mostly.

Oh! Last point, I forgot (smirk) 4)I don’t work in a straight line. I just don’t go from A to B to C to D, unless I force myself. So beating myself up because this process is a meandering one is just silly. Given a choice I never work in a linear fashion. And so that has to be okay too!

jkd

we have the first submission for the new anthology. I, my co-editor, and the author are likely the only folks who’ve read this story.

Me?

wtf am I doing in a group with a PhD in biology and PhD in aeronautics (I think) and reading the guy’s work to judge it? BOY do I have a case of imposter syndrome!!!

The concept for the book is my idea, and the story was written specifically for the anthology. I like the story.

And I’m awe-struck. This story was written because I had an idea three years ago.

Me?

I’ll get over it, but I am alternately terrified and jubilant. What an honor! Someone wrote a piece of fiction because of something I came up with.

Wow!

jkd

Thank you all for being here and a part of my life!

jkd

hasn’t been easy to come up with. I finally admitted out loud that I was really depressed, starting around the 1st of the year and going on from there. Not stop you dead in your tracks depressed, but depressed just the same.

I’m tired of fighting me,the stuff, etc., etc. blah blah blah.

If I wasn’t afraid of just traumatizing myself all over again, and Dh being mad (rightfully so) I’d just get a dumpster and or make a LARGE fire.

But…I’ve got to honor myself and honor the money we’ve spent to preserve the stuff and get as much $$ back out as I can.

Along that line…I made $ the first 2 months of this year, and haven’t the past 3. Depending on what I heard/misheard (?) over the phone, I may have only lost about $30 this month, but that means that I also didn’t make the storage rent either. I’m about ready to call it quits at the antique store and just consign stuff or do shows, or something ELSE.

Dunno.

jkd

Phrink & I had an appt. today. A few points—

1)She thinks my mother loved me, somewhere, but she was an alcoholic, so she loved alcohol more. It occurs to me now, several hours later, that trying to contact my mother’s spirit and finding out she DIDN’T love me would be devastating, to say the least. And, I have not much confidence she really did.

2)She also thinks my memoir is a healing tool. Don’t know if that’s true, or if I have to be “healed” to some level to finish it? Which comes first…chicken or egg?

jkd

it may be a breakthrough…or just another stall.

I was trying to sleep tonight (have an early day tomorrow, this always happens) and had a mind flash. Everything I do gets bogged down in the middle.

The creative urge that gets me going or the rage that gets me going has usually burnt itself out. The excitement of “seeing” the finished product in my mind has been replaced by the reality that things rarely work as I envision them, even with revision.

And the project just dies, midstream. That is true of all three book projects, flutterbyflyby3’s mobile, my friend’s rug, etc. etc.

There is a part of me that doesn’t want me to accomplish anything, it’d make me too visible. It’s very destructive, I’ve given that part of me a name lately, I call her the “evil twin.” As long as she can keep me endlessly starting things, then the excitement, etc. swamps the fact that the house/my life is really cluttered with unfinished stuff: books, writing, stories, crafts, home decorating, garden stuff, you name it. I quit in the middle.

And I’m running into the same sort of “resistance” to the de-hoarding thing. It looks like I might, just might actually get it done. I’ve been behind my goal average since I started the new goal (this year it’s 10,060 things out) and that has actuallly stopped me dead for a while. But I picked it up again.

Partly because I have a blog that I started to track the stuff out, and I’d be too embarrassed to just quit entirely, on Feb. 15? Not the way I want to see myself.

But I also don’t want to be seen ss the “almost” person: almost artist, almost crafter, almost writer, almost de-hoarder, almost…

PAH!

Don’t know the answer, yet. I’ll thunk on it.

jkd

our car burnt up its turbocharger just before Christmas, that bill was a major OUCH!

I got a job out of state. The first bout went just fine. The 2nd (and last) was supposed to be tomorrow- Weds.

Except that I threw out my back last night, big time. Wound up in the emergency room. Not fun.

And our new (just after Thanskgiving) refrigerator/freezer? The freezer is keeping things a balmy 50 degrees, for some reason.

Bah!

All I can say is that the 2nd – 4th quarter of this year had better be outstanding! Coz this as a trend is NOT sustainable!

jkd

eating too much, and doing too little, sure signs I’m being depressed, or as close as I let myelf get these days.

And of course, admitting that, made me really depressed.

wtf.

So I have flogged myself into working on the cleanup this a.m., haven’t written a blog post, but restricted myself to comments, and have made myself get up from the computer to actually DO something two or three times already.

Why can’t this just be easy? Why can’t I just decide I’m going to do X and do it?

Shit.

I’m going to go scrub something, preferably something NASTY, I’ll pretend it’s the part of me that continually undermines my efforts. These days, I call her the Evil Twin. Excuse me, I’m going to go rub dirt in her face!

jkd

I have remembered my dreams, three days in a row! [Of course, now that I’ve noticed now I won’t for a while, but I am resigned to that too.] Remembering my dreams has made it hard to get out of bed; it’s rather like having a private movie theater.

In my 20s, I made myself forget my dreams. I’d wake up with whatever emotion the dream created running through my day. Dreams yanked me around emotionally; they were irrational. I was terrified I_was_ crazy and the dreams’ irrationality proved it? In the 30+ years since, I have remembered my dreams 1-3 times a year or maybe less than that. Remembering my dreams three days in a row hasn’t happened in decades.

I had a creative brainstorm a few nights ago as I was trying to sleep. Ideas about creating stuff woke me up, the usual 1,000 notions buzzing. I haven’t been making anything or working on projects, like cards, and I’ve been fighting off depression/hiding/being unproductive.

Wide awake at 2 a.m., I realized the creative vision of our home-to-be is a huge part of why I’ve been able to work so hard at the de-hoarding. When that vision slips or falters, I also lose the energy that keeps me revved and able to do the de-hoarding. De-hoarding isn’t simply an intellectual decision I made, to do a given task in a given time.

I knew that. But I didn’t know that I NEED the creative vision/creativity to keep me emotionally fueled and focused. Rather than dismissing my creative side, I need to nurture it. I use it in the de-hoarding to figure out how to store stuff, what/how to do it, as well as the usual crafting, gardening, etc.
Creativity yields or nurtures dreams, vision & de-hoarding.

The kicker in here (there had to be one) is safety. I create most either when I feel safe OR when I feel very unsafe. Anything other than the two extremes, I have a tendency to believe I’m too busy, adult, intellectual, (fill in the blank) to “play” with creativity. What I’ve learned is that the creativity is not only the way I keep coming at the problem (There’s always another “What if I…?”) but it gives me s the vision of my goal.

And, together those provide the energy and will to make the wanted change reality. Otherwise, it’s the same old swamp, with the usual cast of monsters, nightmares, scar tissue and bleeding wounds. Without the creativity, I am chained in that swamp, with no hope of escape. With creativity? The chains disappear and I can get out.

The creativity isn’t an exercise, a hobby, or a time waster. It’s not only an integral part of what I’m trying to do (goal/vision), the methodology (What if…), but it is the engine that powers the effort. Without it, instead of making strides, I make baby steps and spin around in place, getting not much accomplished, going not much of anywhere!

Whether I am an “artist” or “writer” or “fine arts” person, or not, whether or not what I create is “worthy” or not doesn’t matter. I NEED the creativity. I am a creative person, because without it, the PTSD/abuse win and stubborn bunny that I am, that’s just not acceptable!

I have been blessed since we came back from our holiday, I’ve been sleeping through the night. For someone with PTSD this can be unusual or rare. It certainly is in my case!

While we were gone, for a while I was really dumb. I stayed up late watching TV. We don’t have a TV and I don’t go to movies because (amongst other reasons) I have very little, if any, emotional buffers with visual media. So (whatever) happens on screen happen to ME, and therefore, it isn’t fun. This is also the reason I don’t read horror. I love the idea of the genre, but I can’t live with it, so I don’t. It’s part of being so f’n fragile that I’ve just become accustomed to.

Do you know what’s on late night TV? Mass murderers and Yeti searches this time. Gee, just what I need. Every creak and rustle became a nightmare. Just about the only time I can remember this being worse was a few years back we went to a wedding on 10/30 and stayed in a (nearly empty) hotel 10/31. What’s on TV on Halloween is horror, mass murders, history of horror and mass murders, and . . . .

You’d think I’d have remembered, but I didn’t. I was surprised that for the first time I could remember, I’d gone traveling without a book to read, or 5. I thought, “Okay, maybe it’s time to put aside the book crutch? We’ll see how it goes.”

After 4 days of being up until midnight -4 a.m., I got DH to take me to a bookstore. I bought a romance, took a hot bath, had tea, read and then went to SLEEP at 1 a.m. In short, I did my whole nightly routine.

I don’t like it, but I’m as fragile as I am, the ways that I am. The only “strength” I’ve found for dealing with this irrational and sometimes bizarre condition is to simply accept it. It is what it is. If I can find a way to cope with whatever fragility better, then I’ll try. But in the meantime, I just try and find a way to deal.

But, for the first time in YEARS, I am sleeping through the night. I have no idea what actually changed, except that I was BLOODY SICK of being tired all the time. Being tired also makes me more sensitive, and it becomes a rat wheel: can’t stop going so fast/tired/the wheel pushes you around again., You keep going and . BLAH!

jkd