Category: rambling

Nothing as powerful as avoidance

This is the face of unresolved emotions. I know I want to talk about the time after Rob’s death. Need to even. It’s important in the evolution of how I arrived at this point of FINALLY dealing with me BEING bipolar. It was a time of yet another encounter with my bipolar diagnosis that I brushed off. It will be another decade of life that I pushed and pushed and felt my sanity and self-worth erode. Another terrible marriage/relationship choice. Another cycle of enthusiastically throwing myself into something and then running away. That chapter will give way to the early California years and the next diagnosis that came with the added – uhmm you are also like super ADHD and OCD. By the way you got some C-PTSD going on in there… Gurl you in danger.

I just create, destroy, and run. Wash – Rinse – Repeat. That my friends is a cycle of mental health, not a personality trait. (I mean who know what the actual personality is under all these masks)

And I can see with that perfect hindsight vision how close I’ve come to breaking the cycle and then the inciting incident or the complete overwhelm that happens and I slide backward.

Yet I think I can finally say that I know I’m not falling all the way back to the beginning. I can see the progress. The learning. And I suppose it’s why I’m finally here putting everything out there. Maybe I’ll tumble my way through all the malarkey flashback style for a few years and then put it together like a puzzle.

For now, I’m avoiding the grief post. I’m avoiding reliving what comes next and I can practically see my therapist’s raised eyebrow as she doesn’t have to say a word. She gets me, she knows I know. I know she knows I know…wait what was I talking about…. avoidance, oh yeah. I suppose the progress today is I am here writing even if it’s not 100% about what I want to talk about. Even if it IS dancing around the darkness I must traverse. The hurt, anger, and pain I feel somewhat obligated to carry. And good lord the truckload of regret for what I’ve done to my family and friends.

Instead since my grief post, I did this:

Instead of actually blogging/writing/processing I went on a clickup binge. LOL avoidance master!

At least it has the appearance of being productive. Even now I’m putting the pressure on myself to write every day – which of course I will struggle to maintain and then I’ll feel like a failure and then I’ll quit??? Well, that has been the past pattern. It’s hard to work through the hollow times. It’s hard to maintain hypo-mania levels of enthusiasm and it’s nearly impossible to slog through some of the deeper depressions and care about any of it. I’ve joked my whole life that “I am my own dichotomy” and “as with all things I swing both ways” — Hahahhahaaaaa… OH wait. #porquenolosdos ? Why not indeed.
I’ve always known the truth. Here’s hoping embracing it will finally bring lasting, sustainable change that leads me to the life I dream of and a way to heal the generational trauma that I so graciously passed on to my children.

My kids….

Bright Bright Sun Shiny Day

"The Midnight Show", 1973 Johnny Nash singing I can see clearly now

I was promised one world and learned something else – it has been messing with me my whole life.

I was around 5 when this aired. This matters because today we are going to talk about core beliefs.

Recently I’ve given a lot of thought to things I believe from my childhood. I have done 3 rounds of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way over the last 2 years. I have written my #morningpages 448 days (and counting) in a row. That is a LOT of introspection, and a lot of deconstructing of my beliefs.

We all have them. Things we picked up either directly because someone said them to us a lot – or just once in a very vulnerable moment. Think things like “you are so lazy”, “you are such a slob”, “you are too sensitive” or if you are lucky “you are smart” “your smile lights up a room”. And other societal beliefs that we pick up more by proximity. Things we see and hear from other people and in the media we consume, “poor people did that to themselves”, “the world is a scary/kind place”, “hard work will get you where you want to go”, “equality is possible”, “racism is evil and systemic”. (Pssst this is how racism ended up systemic, core beliefs we are given often w/o intent as children)

It has been said that we form our core beliefs and personalities by age 7

Now we all grew up in different places and different times. We had parents with their own beliefs, we went to different schools (maybe someday I’ll write my feelings on what catholic school did to me) So we all were programmed, one way or another with a core set of beliefs. Many people don’t examine these beliefs over the course of their life. What they were taught is what they know and believe and they change very little. But some of us have a sense that something isn’t quite right. Maybe those beliefs didn’t match your own innate morality, or maybe as you grew up you saw conflicting information and you couldn’t ignore new ideas. What ever it is when we examine those beliefs we can begin to understand who we truly are, what we truly desire, (Luci would be so proud) and that is the beginning of healing for a lot of us. Because if you are still operating from the same place you did at the age of 7 w/out finding out if your coping mechanisms and beliefs are still relevant and true you may be in a bit of rut. It’s quite possible your life has been on repeat for many cycles.

Do you even truly know?

The only way to get out of your loop (Thank you Westworld) is to examine it and see what you want to change. Or maybe see what you want to enhance.

Either way, reflection, questioning, examining, and challenging your beliefs is how we become our most authentic, grounded, peaceful selves.

Wow, this took a different turn. A much more positive turn really because I came here to say this: This was what I heard in my youth…this was the future I was promised —finding out we were lied to really drug me down, man. I want the diverse, accepting, anti-racist, equitable future I was promised.

But I realized something uplifting in the process. My core beliefs are about equity, fairness, anti-racism, diversity, inclusion, feminism, humanism. My core belief system is a big ‘ol 60s hippy that believes in peace, love, and rainbows. And although it is at odds with *gestures vaguely* all of this, it’s a comfort to know that my core being still believes in the messages of hopes and the vision of a diverse and accepted humanity. (this is my plug for how #sciencefiction made me a better person)

I’ll return to my bipolar journey soon. I promise. But in true bipolar nature that part of the story sent me off on a tangent and it might take some time to circle back around.

Until then what are some of your core beliefs? helpful or harmful. told to you or absorbed by proximity. What are some you have changed? What are some you wish you could change? What are some you are glad are firmly entrenched in your being?

Just keep rollin’

This backstory feels heavy and ponderous. And yet it also feels necessary. To understand how someone reaches 53 w/o ever really dealing with a particular issue head-on matters. It matters to me as a person, but I think it matters more in our understanding of how people are suffering every day. It matters in the context of medical harm and how systemic issues of sexism and racism add further harm to individuals and how that equates to a societal ill. Our mental health issues are rampant and unchecked and we’re all just out here running into each other and judging each other and there is little to no understanding of the cost of this state of being. We have no grace for ourselves and each other in our trauma and in the comparison of our trauma.
Recognizing that other people are in worse situations, recognizing my privileges, I still need to process my hurt. My therapist says I’m not really angry I just have a deep well of hurt to face, rage is so much easier. But I digress, I’m here to speak the pain so that I can face it, and hopefully, as I heal and begin to work with instead of against my bipolar nature I’ll be more able to help out those who are suffering even more.

Ulitmately that is all I want, to be able to process so that I can more truly live and in doing so help others do the same. I beleive so passionatley that we are losing too much art, wonder, joy, and progress to people’s fears and pain and unrelenting traumas. How glorious would a world of people living authentically and with the capacity to face the darkness and triumph so much they can then share their gifts with the world w/out destroying themselves. Rather than comparing hurt we let each person live their truth w/o comparison.
Some say I’m a dreamer….

I’m avoiding the next chapter – The post-Rob Lafavor years. The way that grief tore me down to a shadow and had me regress to a proto version of myself like I hit a bipolar reset and was 20 all over again – in the worst broken ways possible.
It wasn’t all bad, they were also the yoga years, the Arizona family years, the South Korea Years, the find my way to California years…but before I can speak to that I’m going to have to wax poetical about grief – and honestly I’m too tired today.

Today there is no hypomania to push me through. Today I have that dull empty ache inside. Today I’m less enthusiastic, less hopeful. The good news is, now that I’m embracing and learning about my bipolar self I can see it for what it is and truly know that this too shall pass. Sometimes my neurotransmitters are on fire and some days they are sludge. I’m practicing moving through the sludge w/o getting bogged down while remembering to give myself grace, that understanding that I am not always in control of every little thing. And although that aggravates me, it also releases me… just maybe I’ll learn to actually relax.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves 😀