Tag Archives: emotions

reflections within

Why

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What made me so vulnerable in college? What makes me vulnerable now, to this day? What makes me weak, powerless to think my own thoughts and take my own steps? Isn’t there a reason why I am always second-guessing myself?
I am now coming to know the reasons. But should I tell you, o reader? Can I actually be forthcoming, if only here in this odd un-place? I would like someone to know. This seems safe on the surface.

Is it possible I have been beaten down into submission all along the way? But, of course, always with a smile, or a candy, or a dollar bill. Not in the more obviously harmful ways I was later exposed to and was by then defenseless against. Isn’t it time I told the story of how I came to be such that I am? How I ended up impotent. And speechless. And rich with melancholy.

originally published on 3/18/08

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Grassy

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Now what was I thinking?
My deep loneliness is connected to my deep sense of shame. I cannot feel a human connectedness, which is really my birthright, due to my distrust and fear that I will be further shamed. I never figured out how to heal my initial shame, so I inadvertently locked myself up in a box of untouchability for safety’s sake. No matter how great the conversation, or how good the camaraderie, or how varied and interesting the day-to-day involvement with the outside world, it is no use. I am stuck here in my cubicle. And it’s an unpleasant cubicle. That’s why I must distract myself. A prime example is sleep time. There are no daytime distractions left to protect me from my pain and self-flagellation, so I use the eensie weensie voices on talk radio, playing nearly inaudibly. I know someone else who has a thing for radios. I do believe it would be safe to say the word shame can be applied in that person’s heart of hearts. But it is really an endearing quality from the outside, most of the time. It imbues just a touch of likable desperation. That is inevitable where shame is concerned – a compulsion to be accepted, since you have none for yourself.

originally published on 4/18/08

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Betwixt

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Ahh, my shame. I see I am ashamed due to my shame. Seems reasonable, huh? I end up being ashamed to be me. Thus I do what any ashamed person would do: hide in a cave or wear masks. The troubling thing about shame is that you can’t even look yourself straight in the eye. So what are your chances of letting someone else get a glimpse?
That must be my greatest fear. I hide behind the supposed fear of not liking other people, when what really concerns me is whether they are going to like what they see in me.

It seems if I can work past this underlying shame, I will be able to be more myself around others. I won’t be so constantly fearful of others’ judgment. Judgmental people tend to have a lot of sway over me. Their personalities confirm my own predilection to judge myself. People have varying degrees of judgmentalness, but almost everyone has some. I do feel it can turn in on itself quite easily, and that perhaps it starts out turned inwards, later going outwards.

When I’m working on my problems successfully, I feel different. I can be more in the moment with other people, less caught up in some neuroses or another. I am less worried about whether what I say or do will violate some law or societal norm. I feel I have calmed the bumpy waters of my soul, so I don’t constantly interrupt the flow of life, of a day, an hour, a minute. I sometimes feel that I must check myself so often, I cannot make it through any activity in some semblance of peace.

originally published on 4/23/08

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Boon

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Speaking of inward inquiry, I wrote this not long ago…
So, where does my shame stem from? Do I deserve to be ashamed? Did I harm someone else, or was something done to me? These are questions just as much for the heart as for historical accuracy. What does my heart tell me? Can my heart differentiate between one and the other? Abuser or abusee? If so, which one is worse? Are you supposed to shed your shame if you are an abuser? Or do you need it? To keep you in check. Is that more guilt than shame?

The trouble seems to be that something is eating away at me on the inside. Which is good. It is my checks and balances system. I only know something is eating away because part of me wants to be behaving in healthier, freer ways, and is being foiled. So my body/soul is telling me I am in conflict; it’s giving me signals. Sadness, compulsion, addiction, loneliness, isolation. These are signals. Flares. Although quiet ones. But they feel loud and overwhelming in their numbification.

I cannot simply enjoy life – like the beauty of this day. Like the beauty of being alive. That is how I know there is inner conflict conspiring against what is natural, natural pleasures of life. I am overwhelmed with distrust.

originally published on 6/17/08

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Wheew

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I just noticed that mood-altering attempts actually worsen my mood swings. I have naturally wide mood fluctuations. Perhaps accepting that fact could help me restrain myself from artificially controlling them.
I engage in an activity that appears on the surface to make me feel good. And maybe it does. There’s the trouble. Once I am under the spell of this external high, my internal barometer loses its centering abilities, however ineffectual they may be, and I have to take a great deal of time and concentration to eventually regroup and find my spiritual balance.

I might consider enjoying my own natural highs and lows, leaving the external, imposed ones to others who are less volatile.

originally published on 6/21/08

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Bye-ing

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I am looking for that buzz. I am searching for those endorphins. One idea is that they are there, inside me. I need not expend all of my energy in a quest for their source. It is right in front of my eyes, really.
I self-medicate. In all sorts of ways. But in my efforts I am masking the natural remedy which is here. I think I am a peaceful man, but instead I am fighting any truths which I am privy to. I am a ludicrous warrior. How boring. No wonder I am so often bored. Fight, fight, fight. How monotonous.

originally published on 6/22/08

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Balmy

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I use music and many other things as a balm on my soul. I seem to be pained from deep down. It’s a pain which is semi-constant, varying in degrees. The pleasurable feelings I have been recalling from childhood must also be counterbalanced by painful ones. That would also support the maxim about not feeling one without the other. Of course as an adult, I have a third option of feeling nothing. Or rather, always self-medicating, applying the various balms available to me. They are distractions.
So, about the pain…

If I was happy and warm being in bed with my parents, I was unhappy when I had nightmares. I was unhappy when kids at school ridiculed and excluded me. To tell you the truth, I don’t really want to know what made me unhappy. I don’t want to remember in detail nasty feelings of pain and humiliation. Unfortunately the choice is that or running for the rest of my life.

I wrote a journal about what were the negative experiences in my life. Remember? Must I continue to rehash them?

originally published on 6/25/08

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Barn

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If you are feeling half dead, is that a bad thing? I would say so. It means you aren’t able to enjoy the pleasures (or pains) of being alive. It means you can’t tell if you are doing things because you genuinely want to, or if you are just trying to keep yourself out of that pit of despair. And the same goes for decisions. I frequently feel I could go either way on matters, and the direction I do go is chosen out of convenience or fear, not from true desire.
Sometimes I am more aware of my mild depressiveness than other times. But I am essentially noticing that I have one foot in the afterlife all of the time. I have quit. I cannot see any better alternative than death. Perhaps that is always the third choice in my decision-making process: should I do this, that, or just simply die and put an end to all options? It seems odd, though, because my rational mind has a multitude of reasons to relish my existence. That must be why I forget that I am some percent suicidal all of the time. There is no good reason to depart from here, from the pleasing life I lead. Just last night a struggling musician scooping ice cream was commenting on how joyful I must be being a full-time artist.

What can I say? The best explanation I’ve heard is that I am fractured. I don’t get to enjoy the differing parts of one human’s life. I am denied access. For instance, the part of me that can appreciate making a living as a musician is not hooked up with the part of me that plays the cello full-time. I have extremely brief moments of connection, and therefore satisfaction and joy, but they are unsustainable.

originally published on 7/9/08

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Laugher

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I still wonder if I am the way I am because of different incidents in my life, or if I always exuded these traits. It’s a funny mind-bent to take yourself back to those possible key moments when something external may have altered your very fabric in some way. I wonder if it is really any more odd than thinking about internal, inevitable human-development turning points, even though one may appear so much more organic and natural than the other. External changes have certain obvious events you can reference – birth, first day of school, first crush, first fight, first summer camp away from home, first concert, first love, marriage, children, mortgage, etc. – whereas internal ones have a morphing quality that’s at least as deep but much more elusive.
I have also been an observer of the different levels of gentleness possible with any psycho-spiritual changes. It seems to depend how the new information is presented. Reading books is usually much gentler than being thrust into a baffling new social situation. However, these many intensities are important in crossing the various rites of passage, I believe. And even if they are not, they seem to be inescapable. I find the best way to truly figure out where the point of balance is on any philosophical pursuit, is to experience at least some of the edges that comprise it.

originally published on 3/8/09

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Martyr

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So who out there can handle real life? I want what you have. I strive to be near people who appear to handle it. It calms me. Too bad it’s nothing but a temporary balm.
I try to keep things on an even keel. I try to stay free from vices. I try to be wise in my decision-making. I try to learn from my mistakes. I seek out wisdom from those who seem to possess it.

It is my instability and my neediness which are the problems. But why do I feel like they are a natural reaction to the world around me? I have never blamed my sensitiveness for my problems, because I only see it as an asset. I would like to retain that supposition.

That leaves something else as the culprit. Is it society? Yes. Is it my history? Yes. Is it karma from previous existences? Perhaps. Is it my lack of judgment? No, I do not want to blame that. I don’t think blaming a part of myself is helpful or deeply true. Hating myself is a reaction to something else that is going on, not a cause.

I used to like to say that the only place I felt right was onstage during a performance. That realization came later on, in college. Before then I didn’t even comprehend the ridiculousness of my emotional situation. I can handle the unhandlable much better than normalcy. It’s ludicrous. Or is it? Is what people call normal life really so straightforward and simple? And is getting up in front of hundreds or thousands of people to perform and express something unique so daunting? What if that’s the only time you feel like you are yourself? Like you are unencumbered and free. Why is it I feel that time stops when I am performing, but the rest of the time, time is a weight on my head, taunting me not to fuck up this minute, this second, this year, this life, not to make the same mistakes I’ve made innumerable times before, ones that cause me to not sleep most of a night, or regret what I’ve said or didn’t say, or wonder what in the world I’ve been doing for the last three hours.

originally published on 5/20/09