Still Here Two

 Five days ago, I wrote a list and posted it as Still Here.  Before Thursday, December 2, 2021, I am supposed to meditate on this list or something like it at least four more times.  Today, I met with my therapist and we discussed my list.  I realized that the list could be more clear to others, so for one of my "meditation" sessions, let's expand on my list.

1. I am willing to say, "fuck it," and get on with things.
   I have the ability and the willingness to face unknown or likely poor results or circumstances and just get on with it.  This is easiest to see when I play video games, but it is also possible to see in my approach to things like writing, or self-improvement, or learning new skills.
   
   
2. I see a world beneath the world, that I don't know how to describe, but that brings depth and value to my observations.
   I identify as autistic, probably with Asperger's.  It is very difficult to describe the ways that how I perceive and understand the world are different but it is clear they are.  I see similarities where others do not.  I see into, beside, and around.  I often don't see the surface.  This causes me to miss what is obvious, but it causes me to see what is not obvious.  Instead of rejecting my differences, I embrace them.  They give me invaluable insights that I could never have without those differences.
   
   
3. I have strong access to intuitive tools of understanding.
   I have spent time, energy, and work learning to use intuition, meditation, mental imagery and have sometimes helped others access these tools as well.
   
   
4. I empower growth in others.
   Through the way I present myself, and how I interact with people, people who spend a lot of time in my company find it easier to grow.
   
   
5. I am deeply empathic.
   I identify as an empath.  I feel the emotions of others.  I may not understand it, but I often feel it.  This makes me especially open to the pain of others and I appreciate the opportunities that affords me to offer comfort where needed.
   
   
6. I am open to any exercise or activity.
   I refuse to let size, shape, or expectation limit what I am willing to try.  You never know what you can do until you try.
   
   
7. I am agile and dexterous.
   I learn new physical skills quickly, be it dancing, turkish get-ups, juggling, or chop sticks.
   
   
8. I get stronger fast.
   I have a body type that responds to strength training quickly.  I also have a lot of nutrition and training knowledge.
   
   
9. I am honest and open that I need help with my depression.
   This is at several levels.  First, obviously, I am willing to say, "I am not safe right now, please take me to the ER."  Second, I am voluntarily in treatment.  Third, I have informed the people around me, and I try to let them know when I need extra help with eating, or with taking my meds.
   
   
10. I love unconditionally.
    My love never ends.  It is not predicated on anything.  Hurting me doesn't make me stop loving you.  It may make me stop associating with you, but nothing makes me stop loving or love less.

This is what these mean to me.

Still Here

I am in a mental health group for self-esteem right now.  As part of homework, we were supposed to write ten positive things about ourselves. This is not actually a challenge for me.  In fact, it has become so not a challenge for me that I wonder if I'm not almost avoiding it by saying it has become easy.  I thought I should sit down and write an actual list, and not make it trivial things, but put some work into it.  These are ten things I like about myself, in this moment (when I'm writing, obviously, not when you are reading, the only moment you have access to, pbltttt).

1. I am willing to say, "fuck it," and get on with things.
2. I see a world beneath the world, that I don't know how to describe, but that brings depth and value to my observations.
3. I have strong access to intuitive tools of understanding.
4. I empower growth in others.
5. I am deeply empathic.
6. I am open to any exercise or activity.
7. I am agile and dexterous.
8. I get stronger fast.
9. I am honest and open that I need help with my depression.
10. I love unconditionally.

This list is in no particular order, and is not comprehensive.  It is a good list for this moment.

Complications

 Each of the conditions I struggle with are enough alone to debilitate me by themselves, though I am learning to manage them; PTSD, and related anxiety, major depression, and as yet undiagnosed neurological symptoms.  In general, I experience low to moderate levels of symptoms from each condition, with severe flare ups from one or another at a time.  Very rarely, I experience severe symptoms in every condition at the same time.  Right now is one of those times.  I can usually manage severe symptoms in one condition, but as the number of conditions with severe symptoms increase, management tools become less effective, and symptoms magnify each other.

When my baseline fear level gets so high that I cannot bear the thought of facing another person (PTSD/anxiety), when I am incapable of clear thought (neurological), or safe balanced movement (neurological), when reflections in my glasses have me jumping out of my skin (PTSD), when I need the help of a compassionate listener but cannot face talking to another person (anxiety), when every thought is poisoned and I cannot imagine why anyone alive would even notice if I were gone, much less want or be willing to help (depression), with all of these symptoms in effect at the same time, I find myself crippled.  I am unable to leave my room to get food, much less to seek and ask for help.  When I am like this, nothing works.  All I can hope is the will to survive outlasts the storm of misery.

This is where I have been since Sunday morning.  It is Tuesday night as I write this.  Some symptoms are marginally lighter enough for me to be able to write here.  As I'm pretty sure no one reads this, I can almost talk about the truth of the pain I am feeling.

I could use a dawn soon.

Isolation

Alone,

I'm lost.

The cold cuts through me like a scalpel made of ice.

Restless,

I search,

For the warmth of connections I cannot find.

One heartbeat,

In sync,

I think I have a chance.

Truth

Hits hard.

Hope adds salt to wounds.

I sit,

And cry,

In this fortress of isolation I have erected inside.

The Map to my Soul Is Missing

When poison sits behind your eyes,

Under your taste buds,

Inside your ears,

When no brightness can pierce the veil inside

Do you hide?

If you fear the contamination contained within your mind

Like Pontypool's words

Where madness lies

When blood and corruption darken your skies,

Do you hide from the only good things in your life lest you burn them or smash them or stain them or pain them to die?

Words, the Refuse of the Soul

 I have no idea what I'm going to write.  Words are piling up inside of me like magma building before the eruption, pressure building, small tremors presaging the upcoming explosion.

My internal editor has taken a vacation.  There is no quality control.  This is the stream of my consciousness, the merry go round of my attention, and the whims of my fingers as spelling goes right out the window.  What do you mean the window is clossd?

I am lost in time.  This happens more and more as I come unmoored.  Not quite a week ago, I experienced a miracle, a PTSD triggered panic attack that visited and decided it was unnecessary, leaving as suddenly and as arbitrarily as it came with only elevated body temperature and heart rate to show it had existed at all.  A grace I was able to accept as it came, appreciated, without grasping after it.

Today, nostalgia sent me to mine my own words for wisdom and emotion.  The former was welcome, the latter, overwhelming and has left my ship overturned and grounded on a tumultuous shore, the rocks slowly breaking it into the pieces that may find their way into some future child's curious hands.

I seek the peace internal that comes not from conquering your environs but from conquering the frenzy of self.  I was to be, be it bleeding or breathing.  It is enough to be, and be well.  Not well as an outcome but as a quality of being, to be with fullness of self accepting both what is and what I am.

I write.  Perhaps you read.  We are.  Be well.

Life of Metaphors

It is our nature that we view the world through metaphors.  We have literally evolved to process a world of mind that is an approximation of the reality around us.  We have models  of reality that give us the tools to make predictions and develop heuristics which allow us to be successful without having to input every miniscule detail of our sensorium.

Given this abstraction, it is so strange that we often don't understand how very much the mental models we choose have the capacity to completely change the power we feel over our lives and our reality.  When the only tools you have to manipulate the world are the models you build, of course you cannot do more than your model allows.  If your only model says that you can experience mind but not influence mind, then literally that is true. But when you update, upgrade, or replace that model with one which includes mental control, all of a sudden you have that ability.  You may need time to learn the controls, and it is likely to improve with time, but suddenly you are no longer a prisoner of the prior model.

It is the same with the world around us, and with human consciousness, and with the global awakening of the mass of humanity around us.  Once we have mental models which allow for our influence, then we create, and magnify our control in those spheres.

As I grow, I have been experiencing the effects of new models throughout my life.  A friend suggests that I can call in a talent that I do not currently possess, and with confidence, which I can also call in, I can function in a new space.  She says this with unfamiliar and uncomfortable words, and I resist.  Fortunately, her advice triggers a model update which runs as a background process for a day or two.  I add to my model of reality that I can call in confidence and skills I don't already possess.  A couple days later, I read a document I was sent, and the words I've been missing for a critical skill appear in front of me, and my ability to communicate in a new setting transforms and blossoms.  I have called in a skill that I did not already possess!  And this new skill brings with it confidence, or perhaps it just arrives beside the confidence that I've called in.  And I experience an epiphany.  Her words, ones I did not understand, and at the time could not receive have changed the model through which I experience my reality, and I now have the ability to call in skills and confidence.

Where before, I felt at the mercy of my ability to find a teacher, to convince a teacher to impart wisdom, that teacher's skill at imparting said wisdom, and my ability to receive, I now understand that I call the teachings to myself which I most need.  Because I have updated my metaphor, I recognize that I call in the lessons which empower me to continue down my path.

And so I go.  My path is calling me, and I call to myself the ability to see it, the strength to walk it, and the confidence to continue, even when I might doubt.

What models are holding you back?  Are you ready and willing to change them to empower you to be the best you are capable of?  Are you willing to continue down your path?  I'm waiting for you there.  Perhaps we can walk together for a while.