Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

I don't know what to do with myself ...
Listening to the first episode of Life and Fate Vasily Grossman - not really listening.
Was going to sketch Lisa but I looked at her beautiful photograph and just can't believe that she is dead. The photo shows her so alive and happy, a big big smile.
Thinking about a film but can't be bothered. I have eaten and just want more. I want someone to be caring for me and wrapping me in loving hugs and parenting me. I feel the vacuum right at this moment of that not existing.
I want to shout it to everyone and someone be able to contain my feelings - to take it away? Perhaps. But more to tell me it's all going to be OK and the nasty stuff is all going to be better in the morning.

I wrote to J ....
"My cousin died today - just 41 and 3 beautiful little girls
Wonder why and at the same time know how to answer that
Wonder why not me when I have invited death and know how to answer that too
I feel sad but don't feel I have a right to as I have stayed at a distance forever.
Grieve the loss of whatever could have been if I hadn't been so distant
Feel angry!
I feel nothing all at the same time"

I feel good that I am aware. Yet I feel so unaware too. It makes no sense and that's just it. It is all so much bigger than me that I am not going to understand the reasons if there even are any. It's the way of the world.
Why her - as if it's unfair and the death of someone else would be more justified. I don't believe that but I feel so confused. So so so confused.
I miss my mum so much. It hurts in my heart.
It doesn't seem right at all.
It doesn't seem to be true at all.
This odd thing of death - people snapped out of my life forever. Not much different than those that were gone - the earliest one being about 5 or 6 years old and my lovely lovely little friend was taken away.
I think that was the first time I felt so heart broken. And it's been a lifetime of heart break amidst adventure and newness and fun and laughter and fear and anger - the wholesome bounty of being alive.
Phew Man! It's full and plentiful being human. The ups and downs of emotions.
Always wanting only to feel good and not pass through the difficulties. Here I am looking at me in feelings that feel inexplicable and painful. Looking at myself.

Oh and I realised today I do not want the Team Leader job at all. All too stressful. perhaps I don't have it in me anymore. Perhaps I just cannot face the demands without feeling stressed. I simply don't like it. And it somehow removes me being in contact enough to do the therapy in the way that I feel most at ease. Nope it's not for me. Not a good career decision but I really don;t want an escalating career. I would like to develop a reputation as a good therapist and that can only occur if I practice therapy.

Dadaism - Kurt Schwitter, Billy Childish, Marcel Duchamp

R.I.P. Lisa 20Feb70 to 19Sep11

I feel like SCREAMING!!!!!! My cousin dies today at 1pm
I received this text "Bliss Just to let you know we lost our beautiful L at 1pm today speak soon lol x"
I am mixed up with my feelings. I felt a smiling in my eyes. And as I am often reminded people laugh at inappropriate things when they don't know how to react. I cried when thinking of her as a little girl and thinking of her little girls now. Thinking of how a little of the childlike joys and carefree attitude will today have been snuffed out - hopefully there will be passion and adventure and freedom sometime in the near future. I think of my auntie. My uncle. I feel so far away and no rights to feel anything. I want to speak to someone in the family but do not have that contact with anyone. I want to know strange things like what it was like this last few days knowing she was saying goodbye to her lvoed ones. What the fuck? Why do I want to know that??? This is not about me for goodness sake.
I feel angry and loading all my anger on projections with the P. Just somewhere to place the anger. I don't believe in a religious God but I am raging at the religious God. Where the fuck were you then? Huh?
I think it should have been me even though thinking about being in the last hours facing death I have felt a chill of fear run through me. It's not upon me as I write this - completely detached from that fear. I don;t understand why her not me when I have wanted death, invited it. It makes no sense and yet I know the answer to the question too.

My cousin died today.

Email to M - mental health "issues"

With regard the mental health systems and stifling creativity -
I speak regularly with my supervisor and colleagues the fine line between challenging peoples denial as they want to move away from addictive processes and then humanistically following their lead and exploring self-efficacy etc.
Finding a comfortable mix of prescriptive methods when it comes to dealing with the control addiction and often working with dual diagnoses - such as bi-polar, depression etc etc. I really firmly believe that the labels are very useful for a person to make indentifications with others with similar symptoms and some treatments vary according to symptoms. However, I also beleive that the way forward is what actually matters. So here are the symptoms but what actio is taken from then on is the key.
With knowledge individuals can make healthier choices. And change is only required when something is not actually working anymore. Sometimes though people do not see the extent of the consequences. I rarely see the depths I have gone to when I am in the middle of it all. IN hindsight I see much more clearly. And I am much more open to finding different ways to get out of the quagmires I create.
I really like the open debates I can have with different mental health workers on ways to improve the support we give to clients. I also am liking the support I have started to receive from the psychiatrist I have seen. I marvelled that he held a similar philosophy to my own. It is useful learning about bi-polar from the inside of me. It all makes so much sense and creating that narrative of my past with new insight. Just like the earlier days of Step One and seeing the patterns - now with added knowledge I can see how everything was so interlinked and still is.
Helpful hindsight - but how I go forward is todays importance. Finding new ways of enhancing and embracing more of me that I have discovered  - without dampening the real me.
Dr Greeson agreed with me when I said the label is helpful but it's just life and my version of life.

Anyway always interesting debates. Oh and having learnt about bi-polar in my course this year it holds a lot of interest and also a lot of reality. Every brain is wired with imperfections - it's blinking well incredible any of us survive at all. Such a complex, awesome structural creation is our brain and the central nervous system. Wows me with every little thing I read and learn.

Bliss
XX

Outsider Art - Childish Billy and Dargering the Henry

Henry Darger. I can't recall how this artist was brought to my attention.





A very interesting discovery nonetheless. Outsider art - as just about everyone is labelled this was a completely new one on me. Linked with art produced in the insane-asylums and also particularly linked with autism. Wow! How awful that autism was ever considered mentally insane. It is horrid actually how different mentalities are labelled as issues and the prejudices that are conjured with the use of words such as mentally insane. Everyone will have defective wiring's int he brain just differently defective. That does not mean anyone is a problem. Of course the consequences of the defective wiring can be problematic. There is a belief currently that paedophiles can not be cured. Addicts can not be cured, psychopathology is not curable, autism is not curable, Parkinson's disease is not curable - and these are just a few examples of conditions that are all in the brain.
Henry Darger apparently behaved strangely. What does that mean? Eccentricity or any deviation from the greater norm is uncomfortable for the masses. And because of differences people tend to shy away - fear of the differences I guess.
So Outsider Art is also known as Naive Art. Billy Childish might be considered a Naive artist perhaps? Artists never institutionalised. This is interesting actually as I think that I do not have techniques and therefore cannot be creating real art. But actually I am simply doing it for my own pleasure and therefore developing my own techniques. It is valid art simply by the fact that it is created. Original artists didn't have teachings necessarily so techniques had to evolve. Experimental - jut going with the flow.
So Henry wrote in the Realms of the Unreal. It sounds worthy of reading. I picked up connections with Philip Pullmans Dark Materials Trilogy with references to religious systems through fictional analogies.
So it seems I have been interested by Henry Darger.
Also Billy Childish mentioned by J today.



I would like to have the courage simply to paint and just let the image be what it is. I am thinking I can just use basic colours. No need to mix and get accuracy. Just go for it.

Both prolific creators - books, poems, paintings.

Bliss
XX

Agonising analysing compared with interesting observation and moving on by

"We may think that we have done enough by writing about our past. We cannot afford this mistake."

Basic Text, p.32

Some of us aren't too keen on writing out our Fourth Step; others take it to an obsessive extreme.  To our sponsor's growing dismay, we inventory ourselves again and again. We discover  everything there is to know about why we were the way we were. We have the idea that thinking,  writing, and talking about our past is enough. We hear none of our sponsor's suggestions to  become entirely ready to have our defects removed or make amends for the harm we've caused.  We simply write more about those defects and delightedly share our fresh insights. Finally,  our worn-out sponsor withdraws from us in self-defense. Extreme as this scenario may seem, many of us have found ourselves in just such a situation.  Thinking, writing, and talking about what was wrong with us made us feel like we had it all  under control. Sooner or later, however, we realized we were stuck in our problems, the solutions  nowhere in sight. We knew that, if we wanted to live differently, we would have to move on  beyond Step Five in our program. We began to seek the willingness to have a Higher Power remove the character defects of which we'd become so intensely aware. We made amends for   the destruction we had caused others in acting out on those defects. Only then did we begin  to experience the freedom of an awakening spirit. Today, we're no longer victims; we are free  to move on in our recovery.

Just for Today: Although necessary, Steps Four and Five alone will not bring about emotional  and spiritual recovery. I will take them, and then I will act on them. Bliss XX

Letter to A

Thank you for reading my texts. And responding.
It's strange in a positive way but just recently I have been better able to simply observe myself within my emotions and thoughts. Not always immediately but after writing what's going on I seem able to literally stand back and take a view of myself. As a result I have been feeling that I embracing my feelings. Even writing that I can observe myself. It's another phase and what I observe is how surprised I am and analytical of it. However there is quite a freedom that I am feeling, like breathing in early morning fresh air.

I think I will give my dad a call just to enquire how his wife is and him too. :)

I too know how relationships stir up so much in me. So it is not surprising to me that so much is being stirred for you. From my own point of view I was really questioning with JH whether it was addiction or true connection. And I think on reflection that I can see that there was a bit of both. There was also avoidance for certain.
I respect you for working through each day.
I really believe that there is the courting stage, however each of us do that. I have always chosen to be full on, living together etc., early on in any relationship. How I view that now is that it's been my way of courting i.e. getting to know the other person and "us" together. Oddly enough I have always met people who want to court in the same manner. For myself it's probably not ideal because I get so ensconced I find it difficult to move on when I have realised I am not compatible after all.
However it has been my way and I have found out whether we can work it or not - and each stage of life has as well brought differences - I think early on the men were very similar. Has that changed? Well I think some things have shifted but underlying anger has been consistent. Is that typical of today's man? Who knows.
I would hope that I get to stage in my development when a relationship is easy. A person who is easy to be with. I realise that they way I am will always have difficulties for me - people with people.
I see how I have little things with people I know. But with the people I love in my life - You, E, M, A, R to name those that are amongst the most important, any differences and difficulties I experience pale into insignificance compared with the love and easiness I generally feel. And I realise the difficulties are always mine not the other person. However relationships I have been in have revealed to me that the differences seem to grow and unless the other person is able to as well, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to overcome them
For example my insecurity with JH's various lies and attitude with women "friends" was something I could not overcome. I became angrier and behaved like a screaming banshee and began to hate myself and him. He was who he was. I like many many things about him  though. But oddly enough as I read the occasional email I receive from him I can see that there were so many incompatibilities. And clearly we couldn't find a common ground on some of the things that for me really mattered and the lesser issues weren't even evident. So I see how courting is a matter of time.
Blimey there are so many ups and downs of relating. It's a miracle that through the centuries humans have managed to survive (said tongue in cheek).
On the periphery of your relationship I realise that I know little a I don't see you together. By that I am not suggesting it needs to be otherwise. That was interesting for me to realise that as I have got older I am less involved in my friends relationships. I have never met N - yet I understand as E has never really been secure and now it's not even a relationship. I feel for her accepting these crumbs when I know she wants more but convinces herself this is OK. I know R's partner A because I stay with them. But the time is really spent with R and admittedly when I first met him I was quite rude about him. I was so ashamed about that (in early days of recovery literally and no idea what honesty really meant). However I have got to know him and like him well enough. I don't always approve of the way he treats R and see alcohol plays a part sometimes but I guess as my friends are courting then I am also getting to know the person as a friend. It's interesting how it all works.
Of course with I I only have your version of him. And also only your version of you two together.
I hope you don't mind me reflecting these things. Of course with an email you can read what you like and throw the rest away..... :)
Nothing I am writing is meant to sound in any way critical.
You are my friend and I love you very much so what I wish for you is happiness and contentment.
I hear your sadness.
I have felt so sad when writing Step One - reading what a complicated, abusive, painful life of relationships I have had. Sadness for the lack of the relationship I would like actually can still crave with my dad. How that gap with him is unfinished business within me and somehow I think contributes to creating gaps in the way I relate with men. Perhaps the gap is closing or altering shape. The grief deserves some healing time I think and I need somewhat to do this clear of a relationship. The men have never been enough to fill the gap between me and my dad. I am filled with sadness recently about this rather than rage and anger.
In the theory of grief this might mean that I am closer to acceptance - denial (decades of that - mainly thinking I was the problem and using) - anger ( decades of this too - inappropriate mostly but changing more recently to recognising the resentments and having spoken with him feel this was a release of some of the rage) - Bargaining ( oh my gosh - manipulation, changing personality, trying to be who I thought he wanted when that didn't work being everything he thought I was, coming between my mum and him, siding with him - all sorts of ways of bargaining) - Sadness (I have been sad throughout all these decades but the sadness has always felt so painful I think I turned it into anger and using to avoid the pain and if the pain was bad enough I would have to let it out but it came out in tears and desperation which my dad just rejected even more. I even cry as I write this. I closed the sadness down and now it's all coming out. I cry for my life time without my dads love for me being me and now as life comes towards an end I am just stricken with this sadness of a gap wider than the universe itself - it's such a pity, Especially as I have seem he relating with other people and craving that from him so much but all of the time not just in the glimpses of relating he has done. He has never been able to sustain closeness with anyone. I feel sad for him too but maybe that is misplaced, perhaps he is perfectly happy - I have no idea) - and coming towards acceptance (I have moments of acceptance which is big big progress. I am not sure I will get there as a destination but the moments of it bring me also moments of serenity)
So A this was a lot of blurb but very therapeutic for me. And all inspired from reading about how you are facing things on a daily basis. It is so much easier to be an observer from the outside - so I admire the way you can do this when you are sharing with friends. I just stopped doing that when with JH and never did it at all when with SH. And before that I was truly as mad as a hatter - drink drugs etc.
I think you are courageous and gracious in facing your relationship on a daily basis.

Interesting that I has discovered his boundaries regarding criticism. I am sure we talked the other day about you seeing how far you could push him. And ew yuch I know how I cringe when receiving feedback about how my behaviour affects someone else. I am always glad in hindsight but at the time I loathe it. Thankfully I am less likely to justify and dodge. I try to receive the feedback. Ha ha I have to almost dig myself into a trench just to stand still and try not to show any emotional reaction so that the person does not know that I am hurting and ashamed. Who me? Faulty? And yet I spend so much of my time feeling faulty and not enough. It's so complex huh!

Just a wonder on my part ..... do you think with I reacting rather than not dealing with this is a sign to you that he values the relationship? I just think I saw this in myself - there is a commitment sort of thing to work through something that is a challenge for him and he hasn't ignored it and walked away. I write this as someone saying that they want to be with me and are committed (as much as anyone can be) isn't enough. But someone who wants to work in togetherness i.e. not trying to change me but saying what is or isn't working for them and how I affect them is a sign of good friendship.
I remember the first few times this happened with E and it helped me realise that the friendship was strong. We weren't going to just gradually phase out, we could talk and hug and love each other even when there were difficulties and found ways to compromise with our differences. For me it seemed to be a security.
Regarding E at the moment it's me who ha actually separated myself. As I feel a anger with her at work, I perceive an attitude that I don't like. There is a grandiosity with a belief that she is level and friendly with everyone. I know she has a busy workload but I find a laziness outside of this zone. Wanting other people to do menail things that she thinks are not her responsibility. It feels demeaning actually. Simple things like getting a client to speak to her about funding. We can ask a client to speak to her but I do not feel that I am the one to always be chasing the clients on her behalf. We can all do that. And I get to a stage where I just withdraw and moan about her rather than challenge this. I know I am fearful of her temper. When she withdraws she withdraw with a cutting edge in her attitude. ON the other hand I have experienced E very differently when we have spoken. I could say that I feel undermined the next time there is an issue of not wantng to do things. I haven't had any direct contact with her as I haven't done P's job for a while. But over this next 2 weeks whilst he's away there will be more contact. So when I feel surprised I need to say something.
It was interesting the other day hearing how unhappy she is with the company. There was something bonding about that. I haven't talked to her of my disappointment and disgust and the lack of employee care. All the good staff are leaving and I want to leave too. I am hoping that something will present itself. I do not want to be working within a unit that is full of rubbish. It is not good for my morale and also it matters when looking for another job to be part of something that has been a success and not to have been around during the doldrums. Know what I mean? Mind you it is my opinion only. I liked what it was and the team that were there. I just don't like this style and it doesn't suit me nor me it. So hopfully there is an availability somewhere that is more compatible.

Before this with friends it's never been like this. People have always just disappeared or rejected or gossipped or something that has felt like rejection and so I have never trusted and gradually didn't bother.
With SH I always felt in the wrong. He was always angry with me for my behaviours and blaming and so there was no way to talk an find balance.I had to change or else. And it got to the or else in the end. I also felt so threatened by the need to change that I became stubborn and even things I could see needed to change were things I fought against. I think this was related to the fact that I was blamed for everything and he didn't want to take responsibility for anything. When he made his amends recently he said sorry for the anger after we separated. I wonder if he has any thoughts about the period before or if he still blames. Interesting as I reflect on it as I would like to make amends for some inflexibility on my part whilst in the relationship. That was my insecurity becoming a blanket for the things I was responsible for. One of those is the confusion I had about time with SH and then time on the phone with friends.
 More recently with friends I so know it's not about them, it's about me. I get angry at first but recently see more quickly that it's me and know that I will find a way of saying something about my feelings.


Well after this epic email - avoiding studying and tidying too - but also good to type out some emotions and thoughts about me. It was really relating to a lot you are saying.

I hope your weekend is relaxing amidst the ups and downs ....sending you lots of love

Oh I accepted 1 1/2 days extra leave for the 2 weeks standing up for P. Seems reasonable I suppose.

Bliss
XX