New World

I have not posted in a while because I moved around the world. Yes literally, I'm now in a timezone 13 hours from my previous. This move has not been easy and I was reluctant to do it. But here we are. Now it's about survivng, adapting, thriving. Which is doubtful right now. These kind of challenges are highly emotional and bring out underlying issues.

So why did I do it? Simply, I wanted to get out of the boat. I wanted to walk on the waves. Secondly, I wanted to change the story of the rich young ruler. I didn't want to look back on my life and know that when told what I needed to be perfect, I went away sad. No I literally gave most everything away and gave up my life for this purpose.

And it's kicking my butt. Work is pointless. I get paid well to do basically nothing and am treated politley as if I'm in the way most of the time or given zilly llittle things just so I don't totally do nothing. Sounds good? Yeah, try it awhile. Nowhere to hang your hat. Nothing to get up for in the morning. Then there's family. We are much more in each others' space here and I am so far the only one with a schedule to force me out. So when I get home there's two bored people starving for attention I don't have to give. Problems to solve, fears to assuage. My teen is the worst. Needier than when an infant, fully capable of stepping out more, but too scared to do it. And when I push him out of the nest she flies into a rage at me.

Then there's the worst part, our apartment, provided by my employer in an old wooden structure with upstairs neighbors that are extremely loud on the floor, like hours of pounding, dropping, falling. I don't even really know if they are that loud in terms of decibels. Objective evidence is hard to get, but in any case, I find myself getting more and more agitated as it goes on. Some noises send me over the edge and I break something or scream, or collapse into full panic attack. I shake, sweat, heart pounds. I thought I might have some latent PTSD. But the  I read about misophonia, which is a neurological condition that causes these same reactions. Just perfect. Another rare and unheard of illness to confirm, cope with, and explain for the rest of my life. But it matches my history. I have always been very sensitive to overhead house noises and bass through walls. Like, if a neighbor has a stereo on, I have paced the floor for hours fighting the urge to go beat their door in and destroy the infernal machine. Now I'm trapped inside the machine and I can't take it.

I have started counseling and the therapist is recommending a psychiatrist...good luck way out here on the edge of the world. I talked to my employer and for cultural reasons I completely don't understand we can't get the people to be quiet. Though they may not physically be Bable to be quiet enough if I really do have a condition. So their idea to move us to a free standing quiet house is probably best. God, I'm hoping.

I even asked them if it would be easier just to let me go and I'd go home. But they didn't want to do that. We have a lead on a house, so please soon!

I don't know what I'm doing. I can't analyze or fix myself and I need lots of help to live here. I can completely understand why Peter feared and began to sink. I'm going down fast and can only say, "Lord, help me". You see there's no solid ground out here. It isn't all bad. There are points of grace and light, even some angels that don't know it. But this is hard to do.

Rough

This has been a pretty rough weekend.  It happens.  Not that anything particularly bad has happened.  In fact, some very good things have actually occurred and it may get better still before it's over.  Truthfully, I wouldn't be surprised if the bad has been simply because the good was on its way and certain goods illicit spiritual resistance.  Perhaps in the amazing God way, the resistance furthers the good in spite of its intent to do the opposite.

Still it has been rough of a kind I haven't had in a long time.  It started building a while back with tensions in a part of my family.  That didn't go well at all and the best that could come of it was an open acknowledgement of the problem on my part and a refusal to sit under it any more.  This nonetheless hurt to do and revealed to me something about the relationship which I have long known to be the case.  I don't blame anyone here...really.  I don't think anyone meant for these things to happen, but there has been a long history of unspoken disappointments on both sides.  The long and short is that it awakened deep fears and pains in me.  Deeper than I knew.

Add to that a recent occurrence with another part of my family which piled on to already great tensions and hurt.  I was not involved directly and the conflict is between others, but I see the wounds and the aftermath.

Then add in some difficulties arranging certain upcoming events, sickness in some of the family, minor injuries in others, and top it all off with a supposedly all natural, safe, vitamin energy drink which might as well have been crack in a system like mine that can't tolerate anything beyond primitive whole foods, and you have the perfect makings of a bad head.  It doesn't take much for my demons to see an opportunity like this and they are all about exploiting it to full advantage.  This leaves me a tremoring wreck of doubts, fears, anger, confusion, and sadness. 

Of course most of the time, I can put on a brave face and go about my day, and for years I've managed pretty well.  But this weekend I kept losing it at random moments.  Fortunately I was alone each time.  But perhaps this is not fortunate because then no one sees the state I'm in, which only serves as fuel on the fire when they cast a weird glance and simply go about their business oblivious to the tortured captive crying out from behind my eyes.  This is of course fully exploited by my tormentors who keep whispering accusations and lies to me.

In my stronger moments, when chemicals aren't altering my awareness and mood, I can brush past these gaseous scavengers and don't give it a second thought.  But times like these, I am reminded of my sins and flaws and weakness.

Even still, I am more aware of God with me and in others than I have been in the past.  My tribe is still expanding, my influence and reach is growing.  In fact I happily confirmed one more in my family this weekend.  Even in my throes, God is able to work through me, confirming yet again that what good is in me is not of myself. 

And about midway through writing this, I was able to experience the peace and quiet joy of confession.  I have long heard from my Catholic friends about this, but have never really had the opportunity to experience it.  Of course, I didn't talk to a priest in that sense, but appealed to the natural priesthood of a trusted sister who was able to listen, and demonstrate absolution in her acceptance of what I am writing here, only to a level of detail which I will not write here.

Thank God for all he is.

Punched

I saw the movie Sucker Punch last night. It wasn't great, but it was powerful in its way. Many aspects resonated with me so much so that I'm sitting here late the next night writing about it. If you are the Fan Base, you know that I don't do movie or book reviews. (If you aren't that one person you won't be reading this anyway, so it doesn't matter.) Anyway, by way of setting up my further contemplation, the movie follows a girl who finds herself in circumstances that would unglue the best of us. Then she's placed in an institution that is worse yet. She detaches from reality somewhat and becomes a powerful warrior in her own mind along with a few other inmates. The movie spends most of its time inside this reality as these inmates see it. You only get brief glimpses into how that looked in the "real world" because for them, it was real as they saw it. But the director makes it clear that there is a real world and these fantasy worlds are truly just that. However, even though they are fantasy, the director makes a poignant point about their value.

This self-imagery enables the girls to do in the real world what they could not do on their own. Even though they perceive it in fantastic images and experiences, the outcome is the same in both worlds.

There is also a character which the movie identifies as an angel, which guides and directs them, but does not fight their battles for them. This too is a powerful statement. Especially if, like me, you totter on the edge of sanity.

Perhaps that's why I am so touched and repulsed by the movie all at once. First of all, when I say the edge of sanity, I have to be clear that this is not a hip euphemism. I'm not making a metaphor. I mean it. Having difficulty with reality does not mean we all drool and stare out windows. Most people with "mental difficulties" are very functional and in fact undiagnosed because of it. Who knows, maybe we just experience more of reality than others and that makes it hard to "stay inside the lines" of normalcy...which would turn out to actually be less real in this scenario, but I'm losing my point.

The director says that he loves to make movies that disturb people while entertaining them and that he likes his morals to be blatant. Both of these goals are achieved in this movie. He speaks to people with real mental difficulties by portraying a hero who has real mental difficulties, but who uses them to her advantage. A hero faces exaggerated circumstances and has exaggerated abilities so that we who hear (or watch) the story can envision that for ourselves and echo it in our more mundane circumstances.

So what does he say to us in the movie? First, you have all the weapons you need. This hits me so hard, coming out of a valley in my ongoing struggle with this thing that plagues me. Second, an angel says this. So a messenger from God tells me that I have all the weapons I need. Wow, is all I can say. Have you ever read Ephesians 6 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17? But the angel can't fight for them. They have to fight for themselves. His role is to take them along the path, but they must walk it. Just as God is always with me, but I must still live through the entire day and all it throws at me.

Third he says, "Fight!" Read Jeremiah 46:3. We must not give up. There is too much talk of this among those who don't understand. We don't need to be encouraged to be mush, to be passive, peaceful, drugged up zombies. We need to take life fiercely by the horns and slay these dragons before us, no matter what our dragons may be. This may seem like a platitude to most people. A nice sentiment. But when you live with mental anguish, depression, psychosomatia, inability to keep perspective on reality, the pressure to roll over and die is immense. Self-preservation is gone and despair sucks at your heels to swallow you if you hesitate for a second. In this kind of existence a voice from outside tells us to stand up, take the weapons we didn't even know we had, and use them. That the weapons are there for us. It isn't a self-help metaphor. It requires a fantastic belief to be able to function. We aren't broken in need of fixing. We were made this way, made for another world. This comes with it's detriments, but also for every detriment is a power to balance it, and even conquer the detriments, as was the case with Baby Doll in the movie.

I know how much "winding up" it takes to do normal tasks. But I can believe I'm a powerful warrior facing down demons. Chances are, I actually am...Even if I am psychotic, in my perception, the fantasy and reality merge to the point that it is effectively the same thing.

Here is a movie for people like me, to people like me. It clearly calls out to me to stand and fight and encourages me to believe what is unbelievable. Even if the way I see it isn't "reality" it will have the same effect. It is an affirmation of my world and my existence. It can be turned to good and used in power.

I don't know if Zack Snyder knows someone that inspired the movie or if his genius produced a movie that superbly speaks to something he personally knows nothing about and may not have even intended to address. But either way, I am thankful for it.