Slipping

I feel myself slipping down again.  It's not a good feeling, but something I've grown used to.  It feels like a dark cloud forming.  I'm more on edge, quicker to burst out angry, more likely to take offence at things, less likely to be as busy as I usually am. 

Normally I keep the demons at bay through constant occupation.  Even rest is occupation.  Sometimes I welcome getting sick, even though I fight like mad to NOT get sick.  Once I am, I can just let go and rest.  But in these times, the lack of doing is more just because it all seems futile and worthless.

People always say, "Let me know if you feel that way."  But that's just the problem isn't it?  I'm never going to...If I could I wouldn't need the help.  And when I feel good enough to let someone know, they don't believe it, don't remember it, don't notice it, or aren't around to be able to.  We'll see if this post ever makes it onto the blog.  I'm going to try hard to let it stand.

I don't even know what help would be.  No amount of talking it through will do anything about it.  I've read enough on CBT and tried it to know it won't stick.  That stuff all requires a willing participant.  Sure there's probably a good deal I don't know about that stuff, but the effort to sift through the crap with someone to get to the good stuff just makes it seem like more of a burden.

But I know it will pass.  It always does.  I surround myself with precautions when I feel it coming enough to avoid serious consequences.  I'll still go to work, look the same as always, joke, etc.  I know from seeing it in others that if you know what to look for, you can tell the difference.  But most people can't or don't bother.  It's truly a closed world.  If you haven't been there, you don't understand.  You can't.

So what helps?  I don't know.  Time.  Prayer. I always delve deeper into those regions during these times.  Someone seeing it for what it is and piercing the cloud.  It happens on rare occasions and those people are instantly locked in my heart forever.

But like I said, I know it will pass and the only way past is through.  We'll see how it goes this time.

How to make a liar

I haven't posted in a while.  I tried but couldn't.  I've been through one of the worst dark periods I've had ever.  I don't want to go into it, but it's been rough.  I'm doing better now.

I don't know what the purpose of it is, but it has revealed my weakness, my baseness, my violence, and my selfishness.  Maybe that is the purpose.  I just know it is not fun and not pretty.  It's also not made up and I can't help it.  If you've never been there, you won't understand and that's ok.  Don't seek it.

I have said it before, but it is clearer to me than ever that whatever is good in me is not from me.  I know you'll deny that and think it's just the darkness talking, and that's fine.  I hope you never see that side of me.

But I'm trying to keep seeing it.  I don't want to live in it, but I don't want to forget it either.  I tend toward hubris and self-confidence without it.  Even the humility you think you know in me is a form of self-pride.  I'm not kidding.

People lead the question all the time.  Christians are the worst about it.  What do you think will happen if you constantly keep telling people how to be?  Anyone with half a brain will quickly learn how to pretend at it.  Put on the actions and even self-deceive that they have achieved it.  I've done it.  I habitually do it.  And you reward the better liars.

I have a ready bunch of scripts to throw up in any given situation.  I watch carefully.  I have fakes backstopping fakes and will say whatever works to get the reaction I need.

And what I really need is a safe place to let those things slowly fall off.  People who are not impressed by it.  People who want me to thoroughly be good rather than merely seem good.  You condemn yourselves in me!  And I condemn myself!

Understand me, I am not saying this from a place of despair.  Quite the opposite.  When I was despairing, I hid from you because then I can't keep up the masks, can't keep the demons in their chains.  But right now I'm in that hazy space between the nightmare and the bright day and soon I'll be fully dressed and presentable again.God forbid!

I need a savior.  I am fully reminded that if there is any hope for me it is in Jesus.  Not knowledge about him, but in the real living him.  I am not claiming to know grand mystical things.  If I did, I doubt them now.  He didn't even show up in some nonmiraculous way to rescue me.  But I don't care.  My heart leaps when I think about him, when I read about him.  I understand the meaning of hoping in him.  I didn't choose this.  If I did it was rigged.  I am not in control.  So if he doesn't have me, if I do not eventually arrive in a place of peace and perfection and learn that he was there when I couldn't see it or know it, then I would rather rush headlong into the void now.  It isn't about this world.  It isn't about the surface things you spend so much time talking about as if we could just decide to be something else.  Even if you can, I CAN'T!  I don't know how.  It doesn't work.  Whether that's brain chemistry, spiritual sense, slavery, karma, grace, whatever you want to call it.  What I can do is lie about it though!

You'd rather me be presentable, disfigure my feelings into acceptable packages, even though you THINK you want me to let it out.  Which is the most insidious part!  Your words say one thing and your actions say another in the same breath.  Your words are a trap.  A demon maw yawns behind your fair and hopeful words, you whitewashed tombs!  Damn you satans in a hollow christ's image!  I've never yet found anyone who really meant it when they say it's safe to let it out and let it go.  Maybe one or two people come closer than others.  But if I have ever let the depth of it peak out, people take pains...no give pains to shut it in again.

So keep teaching behaviors.  Keep focusing on outwards before inwards.  Keep modeling the plastic masks.  Keep grinding out budding faith with your two faces.  Keep making liars.  I don't want to be one anymore.

Poured

"Christians devour each other."  This is a quote I once read in an article by a Christian who was quoting his athiest friend who was observing why he isn't a Christian.  It's very true.

I feel poured out.  Stretched at every point.  People want things and they want more and more and more.  Like my cup is draining faster than filling.  And then some people ask for things they don't really want you to give them.

I do public work.  So what I do isn't just inconsequential money-making tasks.  It's things that enable most of you do your inconsequential money-making tasks, and I do them at a level that is involved in the decisions and planning.  So it is not boasting to say that what I do affects all of you who live in the same area and has lasting impacts into the future.  It's just so invisible to your daily lives that you don't even know it's going on.  But I digress.

My point is that even in this, a coworker was saying today, "It's as if they ask us to make something better because they have to, but they really just want to keep doing the same old thing, so they make it something super difficult to actually accomplish with little resources, and when we figure out a way to do it anyway, they say, 'oh s***!, we never thought they'd actually do it!' So they have to make it artificially difficult."

So I get it from all sides.  And in the place I should find rest and comfort, I find people saying, "well if your joy isn't complete you just have to..."  It's all on my effort.  Even if that effort is simply believing something, or thinking something, or seeing something differently.  I don't know if these people are well-meaning candy-eyed types who have never really known darkness, or if they're just clones spitting whatever script they can access from a motivational poster, or if they are just as screwed up and think they need to mask it by saying the 'right' thing.

Well, I'm stepping out and saying that for some of us, it isn't that easy.  If I were to hound you about running and tell you that you just need to run faster.  You just need stronger muscles, a better heart, more endurance!  You'd look at me and say, "easy for you to say."  Well why is it any different with a mental or emotional condition.  I can't help it!  I know all the stuff you're saying.  I just can't make it any different!  Don't you think I've tried?  I promise you I'm not one of those people who just want to play the victim.  and even if I was, maybe I couldn't help that either!

Why are you so quick to explain and categorize and answer?  You obviously don't get it, or you're a liar.  Either way, you make it abundantly clear that I can't reveal this part of me to you.  So you rob from me a place to find rest.  You force a tired soul out into the night again because there's obviously no room in your inn for the likes of me.

Even still, for your sake, I hope God doesn't lay my blood on your hands because I don't think you know what you do.  And I've been to hell, just went back for a visit actually.  Trust me, you don't want to go.

Safe

I want to say something very serious...well I'm usually serious, so more serious than usual.  This post is for anyone who finds it and needs it.  I want you to know that this will always be a safe place for you.  I will always be a safe place for you.

I am like you.  I know depression.  I know the taste of a gun barrel and the feel of a blade on my wrists.  I have carved my pain in my arms and chest.  I know about the masks.  I know about good days and bad.  I know decades...literally decades of only nightmares at night.  I know the hollowness.  I know the terror of lonely places, dark corners.  I know the desire to simply cease being.

I know trances and psychic attack.  I know the evil that can make you forget your own name.  I know what it is to have my senses coopted by things that feed on pain and fear, to lose touch with reality for a time, to approach the gates of hell.

I know rage.  I know the overwhelming desire to kill and destroy.  I know what it is to look out of burning eyes and calculate the animal rending of someone before me.

I know rejection.  I know false acceptance.  I know the taunts and insults.  I know the subtle but clear lack of understanding from people who want to care.  I know how that look of alienation cuts more deeply because it comes from those who obviously don't want to wound.  It just tells us how strange we are.

So if you understand this.  If you know me or if you stumble across this late one night.  Know that I am here and you are there.  And you are not alone.  Look at my picture.  Read my words.  Do I not seem like someone who knows?

You don't need to be anything other than what you are around me.  And if you need me, I will be there in whatever way I can.  This is my promise.  Test me and see if I don't mean it.  I don't come with programs and easy answers.  But I come.  I am the living dead, sent for the dead living.  I gave up my life and it has been given back for you.

I am Cavvvp.  I am real.  And I am here.

Cloud

It's been a while since I posted and there's a reason for that.  A lot has happened.  I got busy with local non-profit stuff I do and on the way back from one of the events someone ran a red light and smashed my truck.  They hit right behind the driver door at about 50kph.  My truck spun out and stopped against a curb.  The lady dropped her phone an reached for it.  When she sat back up, WHAM!  she had two kids in the car and if she'd hit a fraction of a second earlier, she could have killed me and definitely would have injured me worse.  SO PUT THE FREAKIN' PHONE DOWN AND DRIVE RIGHT!

I walked out, but had a few bruises and some muscle strain in my neck and shoulder.  All in all, not a bad accident, thank God.

This all just after we made the decision to buy my wife a new car because hers was on the way out.  We hate to have a car payment, but we got a good deal and made the leap, then this.

See, they don't make my truck any more and certainly not driven so little.  With another car payment, I really didn't want to make two right now, so a new truck was out.  I did manage to get another truck, but it took some searching.  Prices have gone up and with so many major American companies ceasing to make small pickups, the used market is really hot for them.  It is a couple years newer, but has been driven more and is a bit more worn on the body.  But it's also better on gas and, being a Toyota, would be superior to an equal Ford (what I had before).  So vehicle is different, but a wash in the end.  Insurance covered basically the whole purchase, so I can't really complain, as long as this one turns out to be as reliable as my old one.  I haven't had it long enough to trust it fully.


But as you know, this blog is about contemplation, and that's what I do.  So I'm always looking for the greater lesson.  Certainly, I think there's something in that I may have been tacitly trusting in my station in life more than God himself.  I was sitting pretty well with no long term bills, a good job, plenty of disposable income (which we gave a good deal of to charity).  Amazing how fast that can disappear.  While nothing major happened in the end, it was enough to wake me up to this.

Secondly, I was thrown up against a bit of Job-like feeling.  I didn't do anything to deserve the wreck.  In fact I was doing more things right than many.  But apparently, that doesn't matter.  I know this logically, but for all of you who want to speak chiding platitudes to me, I reply, just let me come plow your classic car to bits and almost kill you in the process and let's see how you feel about it.  Your pat answers just make me angry.  I mean, I took care of that car and paid it off and was set to run it for the rest of my life, or nearly.  That was yanked right out from under me through someone else's negligence.  I think I have a right to process some emotions over it, even if they aren't entirely logical.

Add to that the deepest thing which will prevent this entry from being widely distributed.  Namely, that I sit too close to the edge of depression anyway.  If you are one of these people then you know what I mean.  If not, then thank God and either try to understand something you know nothing about, or just stop reading now, because you won't get this easily.  You see, this mental state doesn't go away.  If we are functional, it's through a series of coping strategies and masks...yeah, masks, we put on.  Because people don't get it.  They don't know what's it's like to have this darkness hovering just behind your eyes like a cloud.  Sure we joke about it and make cute donkeys or funny robots to parody it, but the reality is not amusing.  Imagine looking at any scenario and immediately seeing the worst cases, running them to conclusion, and then having to hunt for the good options if you can even see them.  Imagine that any joy or fun is constantly tainted by the shadow of the cloud behind your eyes and imagine having to worry if too much of that slips out and gives away too much of your inner struggles.

Our culture wants us to be happy and level.  Anything below the line is not accepted.  Try getting a job, being trusted with children, or even keeping friends that are good for you.  Of course different people react differently to it.  It isn't all just weepy, can't get out of bed stuff.  Some of us cope using anger and near rage.  The Linkin Park song describes it well.  That face on the inside never goes away, taunting, staring, laughing.  Some get destructive of self or other things.  And it doesn't take much to knock us over that slippery edge.

So for someone like me, these events carry a greater challenge to grasp for life at something that can hold me out from under that cloud.  I can feel it slipping when another idiot cuts me off in traffic and I have a near PSTD moment (not to belittle the true sufferers of this condition, but only to allude to it since it gets better press) with sweaty palms, racing heart, and raging temper.  Or when the neighbor plays his stereo too loud and I'm feeling my blood pressure rise with every vibration of the base.

I know I will get better.  I'm learning to deal with these things more quickly.  And there must be a reason for God taking me down this road.  I'm trying my best to trust him.  He is my refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.  But if I slip up and complain a bit too much or seem more agitated than usual, cut me some slack, ok?  And keep your worn-out platitudes to yourself.  They don't help.  If you don't know what might be a platitude, it's anything you've ever heard more than one person say about a similar situation.  No matter how well-meaning you are, it is going to come off shallow and dismissive.  So just back off.  And if I offend you, I'm sorry.  But you offended me first.

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.