Words

I have been thinking about words lately. Some words are just fun to look at and to say. Galoshes is a case in point. It's just fun to say. Ga-Losh-Es. Gazebo is another one. Ga-ZE-bo. But a lot of words are a bit confusing. Lets take the word plough as an example. Plough, pronounced, plow. Ok now dough. Pronounced dow? No, pronounced doe. Tough, (toe)?. Again, no tuff. Cough, (cuff). Nope Koff. How about Thought. It too has ought in it so is it Thcufft or Thkofft. Quite a mouth full. It is a very strange language.

But it has it's good points. For instance, "O turant Muse, what shall be thy amends for thy deglect of truth in beauty dyed?" It is the language of Shakespeare. Whether you like him or not you can't denie his influance.

So, with all of it's silly rules and strange pronunciations it is a very good language to communicate just what you want to communicate.

Nuff' Said.
August 16, 2009

August 19, 2009
The Little Men

When we last left our hero had mentioned something about four little men living in his head. What about these men and what are they doing inside his head. I will attempt to clarify.

There is a lot of chatter that goes on in my head. It ranges from musings on the world in general, to rage against creation or myself. Random thoughts that ping from subject to subject at the speed of thought. My head is like a school cafeteria. It rings with voices but it is very difficult to focus on one conversation for any length of time.

And it seems that all of this is controlled by four different and distinct entities. Four little men that battle for dominion over my personality. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Well maybe it is as crazy as it sounds. Do I believe that these little men exist, that there are real flesh and bone beings living in my head. Yes and No. No they aren’t real.. If you sliced my head open you would find the usual stuff inside. But, they do affect my actions and emotions in a very real way. I know who is in charge at any one time.

It is still a mystery as to why I came up with this system to deal with my personality shifts. I can’t even tell you when it first manifested itself. There was not one crystalline moment when, Poof, the all appeared. It was more in the way of making sense of the thoughts in my head. If there was a physical manifestation of my behavior, someone who was in control, than I might figure out a way to control him. If the angry man was in charge than this is how I should handle him, and so with each in their turn. Sounds loopy when you put it down in black and white but it makes perfect sense if you are me. But your not, so you’ll have to trust me.

In order to understand a little more, I will introduce each little man. The one that is nominally in charge is the Normal One. He is the face of reality. The public face that holds the others in check while dealing with the everyday world around. We all have that aspect of our personalities. The Public Face. What we want people to see not the one that is pathetic, manic or scary.

There is the Pathetic One. This is the little man that takes control when I am in the depths of depression. When I am so depressed that I feel nothing. When I’m so dead in side that all emotions have disappeared, it is this one who is in control. It is he that wields the knife, who checks to see if I, indeed, bleed.

What is the importance of bleeding. When you bleed, when the blood actually runs down your arm, it is proof of life. If there is a working heart than the blood flows. Dead or mechanical devices do not bleed. The pain is dulled when this man is in charge but there is pain. The dead don’t feel pain. Any felling, not matter how destructive it is, is good. The alternative is worse than any physical pain. Something is better than nothing.

Of all the little men, I hate this one the most. I am a pathetic worthless piece of shit and a total waist of skin when he is at the controls. I can’t muster the energy to fight back and so begins a feed back loop that drives me deeper into hopelessness. I have spent months like this. I have lost jobs, lost friends, and lost experiences when in this state. Death is preferable. And death is the prevailing thought at these times.

So why not choose death? Many reasons actually. The foremost of which is that my family would be the one that would have to live with the consequences. Suicide is a selfish act that does more to hurt the living than the suicide. The living are the ones made to suffer for the suicide’s cowardice. I do believe that. I have had friends who have had people commit suicide in their families. They are left to wonder what they did wrong. How come they did not see the signs? What could they do different? I love my family more than I hate myself. Until that changes than suicide is not an option. If cutting is the only alternative than I’ll buy a sharp knife.

At other times the Happy One is at the helm. He is a joy to behold. The life of the party. Everyone’s friend. This is the one to have around when your ready for a good time. Sounds good to me, but wait there are costs to having Mr. Happy in command, cost being the optimal word. There are no breaks when Mr. Happy is driving. If it sounds good it must be good. There is no self control at these times. Don’t have the money, charge it. Not getting to your destination fast enough, push the car to 100 plus miles an hour. Got to work tomorrow but having to much fun, call in sick. Live for today for there is no tomorrow. The only trouble with that thought is that, so far, tomorrow always comes, and with it comes the hangover, the bills, the tickets, the questions. Why the fuck did I do that? What the fuck am I going to do with this? Who the fuck are you? Later comes the regrets. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Right? Wrong! When it comes to doing stupid things the opposite reaction is exponentially worse than the original action. The fun is fleeting the consequences linger.

Now on to the scary one. This is the one that I have no control over. When the rage comes it comes fast and usually when I’m in a manic state of mind. Happy one instant and raging the next. I doesn’t take much. A look, a word, an action and it’s off to the races.

It seems that the only way to control Mr. Pissed Off is to drug him. I take a lot of drugs to keep everyone settled down. They tend to work to well at times. Imagine, if you will, a large thumb and forefinger and you are standing in the middle, you can neither go up or go down. Your just there. Creativity dries up and it is so easy to slip into apathy. It’s a Catch-22, take the drugs to control the mania/depression and be “Blah” or don’t take the drugs and be manic or depressed but creative and screwed up. Dandy choices.

So those are the men who live up there. I have learned to live with them as they jostle for control. It makes for a crowed head but never dull. Always something going on. Next time I will write something completely irrelevant.

August 19, 2009

I have been reading a book about memorable cases of mental health professionals. It got me thinking about my own joyous experiences with being less than what society calls normal. I mean, it is not considered normal to take a razor or knife to your forearm when ever I think that I have done something so monumental stupid that I have to be punished. Or I will take the same knife and carve Life Sucks in my arm for no reason at all except it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The prevailing wisdom in psychology today is that present behavior is in direct correlation with your earlier life experiences. If you were told and it was demonstrated by other’s actions that you were a smart, capable person, with a lot to offer the world, you more than likely will grow up to be a well adjusted person who is able to function without any extracurricular whittling on your limps. If, on the other hand, you are continually told that nothing you do is right, and that you are a stupid piece of shit, than you will probably grow up think that you are a stupid piece of shit, though everyone you know keeps telling you that you are one of the smartest people they know.
I hate to work in the yard, work on my house or work on my car. Why because it was a miserable experience whenever I would do this when I was a kid and I now I’ll just fuck it up. Self talk reinforces behavior. I know this but I still have to force myself to do things around the house. Some days I succeed but most days I don’t.

Now, this being said, it does not excuse me from trying. People that insist on blaming the shortcomings on how they were treated as a kid are, in my mind, worthless pieces of shit. It is a continual feedback loop. Your where told you were a piece of shit therefore you are a piece of shit, so you behave as a piece of shit, so daddy was right after all, reinforcing the original premise. But you know intellectually that after 48 years you are more responsible for your actions than anything that may have occurred in the past so when you throw this into the loop you begin to feel even worse about yourself. “You fucking asshole, quit feeling sorry for yourself and get on with your life. Blaming daddy for your shortcomings is retarded.” You see how this keeps going.

So logically I know that my thoughts and behavior or self destructive, but I can’t or won’t change the behavior. We tend to stick with what we know. I think I’m a piece of shit there for I am. I will go to bed and tell myself I will accomplish great things tomorrow. But when tomorrow comes I can’t bring myself to get out of bed. Once I do, I won’t get off my dead ass and accomplish anything. I don’t want to leave the house. Every perceived bad thing that’s ever happened to me is happened outside the house. Therefore if I never leave the house nothing bad will happen. Sound logic. It’s bullshit and I know it but it doesn’t make it invalid to me.

Also, It probably isn’t healthy to continually write down that I am a piece of shit. It just keeps the thought firmly in place. It’s like there is a little man inside my head that keeps reminding be of how worthless I am. Like the slave that stood behind Xerxes and kept reminding him to remember the Greeks. There is a little man in my head and like Xerxes slave, he keeps saying, "Remember, you’re a piece of shit." As a matter of fact there are at least four little men that I am aware of. This does not mean that I am seeing and hearing things that don’t exist. It means that I have come up with my own way of dealing with what rattles around in my head. It also doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. But that subject is for another time.
So what do I do about this. Well for one thing I’m writing this. It may be a bit of mental masturbation, but masturbation never hurt anyone. So I will continue. Will I show this to anyone. Probably. I am certain that there is one thing I do well and that is write. I should do it more often, but it interferes with my feed back loop, and we can’t have that, can we?
I have become more aware of how many times a day I tear myself down. It is a lot.
I will walk past a mirror and the first thought that comes to mind is, “God you’re a fat fuck.” Do something wrong and it’s, “You stupid fucking asshole.” One good thing is I have become aware of the behavior. The trick is to figure out how to stop it. Haven’t figured that out yet.
When I catch myself my next thought is, “Shut up asshole.” Again, not the most positive of responses. I was told by someone a lot smarter than me that I need to show the same compassion to me as I show to them. I would never tell someone, “Why yes, you are indeed a worthless piece of shit. Give up, nothing will every change.“ (It should be noted that when I wrote that last sentence I first wrote, “I” are indeed a… makes you go HUMMMM!”)
What is this leading up to. Shit, I don’t know. It just seemed important to get this down. Why do I do the things I do. Why can’t Jeffy stop hating Jeffy. I’ll let you know when I figure out the answer. But in the mean time I will, in the words of Chief Dan George, “Endeavor to preserve.” And in the end that’s all we can hope for really.