Source of comfort

Over the past several years, I have isolated myself more and more from others. One reason I did this in the beginning, is because I trust no one. Everyone is a suspect, especially if they seem nice. But as time passed, I realized it was also a way to control my emotional dysregulation. This is at the heart of a lot of my problems: emotional dysregulation and interpersonal conflicts. Spend less time around others and I have less conflicts and therefore less emotional dysregulation. Of course, I am not stating that this is the best strategy, only that is my thinking…however messed up it may be.

Recently, I was asked if I get lonely from spending so much time away from others (apart from work). At first, I did get lonely. Then I began to find all kinds of projects to keep me busy: painting, drawing, wood carving, art journaling, book binding, spending time in nature, making herbal salves, lip balms and creams…binge watching Netflix…the list goes on and on.

Something else also happened early on to keep me from feeling lonely. In fact, it took me a long time before I realized what had actually happened. At first, I began to see the whole world around me as being filled with people…plant people, animal people, tree people, stone and grass people(animism)…

It is amazing what the mind will do in order to help the body adapt. Enter the world of anthropomorphism and personification. I began carving “wood spirits” and purchased some wooden idols online. When I felt distressed or lonely, I talked to them…then I began to talk to them even when I wasn’t distressed or lonely. I talked to my plants, insects and trees. Over time, without being aware, I began to view them as human: complex, sophisticated beings with a real mind.

If this sounds strange to you, it is actually not that uncommon. People do it all the time: when they swear their pets know what they are saying (personification); when they talk to their cell phones or believe their computer wants them to have a bad day. The AI chatbot Replika has more than 8M downloads on Android alone. And studies have been conducted in nursing homes where the patients interact with an AI and by the end of the study they attribute human characteristics to the AI like compassion and believed the AI really listened to them.

Humans can get attached to literally anything. We look at the world and see ourselves reflected back to us. When we are faced with hardship, grief, and distress some turn to the natural world, or inanimate objects. Others to a God or Gods…or a community of people. But I think where a person turns when the shit hits the fan…that will determine what they truly believe and where their true source of comfort lies.

May you find your true source of comfort in times of need.

Raysdottir

Ants

Up and down the wall they climb

Like there’s no where they can’t go.

Crawling here and there and everywhere

Just to get a drink from my water bowl.

This way, that way, crawling around

As if to smell things out.

Left and right then left they go

Making their way in a winding route.

In and out and through the cracks.

Seems like there’s nothing they can’t do.

Stop and greet then carrying on

Where there’s one, there’s more than few.

Such a tiny bug, this thing called ant

How I marvel at your strength.

Roads here and there and everywhere

Seemingly of great length.

Inspired by watching ants and a poem by Gary Bryson

MP Raysdottir  07/13/22

Phantom man

****Notice: Possible trigger entry****

It has been almost a year since I posted anything here. Although some might view me as “high functioning” because I can hold down a job, I have not been well. Childhood trauma never leaves you and something is always hidden just beneath the surface.

A few months ago, I decided to see mental health treatment again after a long absence. I have been graced with the diagnosis of Chronic PTSD… and Chronic Borderline Personality Disorder. While I am grateful to finally have a diagnosis I feel is accurate, knowing what is true is not necessarily helpful.

For example, even though I have known for a long time that I have BPD, it did not stop me from retaliating against my employer last week when I felt I had been slighted. I felt hatred toward her for it, so I had my primary care physician excuse me from work during the four days I was most needed.

Similarly, knowing that I have Chronic PTSD does not stop me from having insomnia or keep me from being afraid of the dark. Knowing about it does not stop me from seeing a threat around every corner or suddenly make me trust another person. I am aware of where these and many other symptoms stem from now. But still no way to contain them in any real world situation.

I was given Depakote ER for what I call: my unstable temperament. The last time I seen the psychiatrist, she asked if it was working. Isolation is another symptom, so it had been tested only once with a coworker. An epic failure. So she increased the dosage. The nausea alone makes me want to stop taking it, but I will attempt to presevere.

On another note, my brother died last month of liver and kidney failure due to alcoholism. ( Just because someone is not seeking treatment does not mean they are not sick. ) We were not close and had somewhat of a complicated relationship. We were estranged, I suppose. The last time I had spoken with him was November of 2021, after which I had to block his number. I was aware of his drinking, his daughter was not, so I felt pity for her. None of us were aware of his living conditions prior to him being hospitalized. If he had been elderly, he could of easily passed for someone with Diogenes Syndrome.

I wonder though, could it be that his lifelong drinking was due to the fact that when we were children, he was present on many occasions when I was being sexual abused by a family member? Did he drink to escape the fact that he never tried to help me? When he was alive, I hated him for not saving me from the years of abuse and rape. Now that he is dead, I wonder if he was just as frozen as I was by the horror…the torture…the fear…of the man that lurked in the dark.

“Crazy people”

During my early 20’s, I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 (later changed to ADHD) and Borderline Personality Disorder. I was a frequent flyer at various mental hospitals, often being wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and taken by police car. At one point, I was in a state mental hospital where armed guards roamed the grounds, and the entire compound was enclosed with barbed wire. Once when my parents visited me there, they were shocked and appalled to be forced to exit their vehicle at the gate, so an armed police officer and drug dog could search their vehicle. My mother told me it was a prison for “crazy people”. I never forgot that stigmatic statement that I attached to myself.

I was outrageous back then for sure. But the older I got the more successful I became at mimicking behaviors that were considered desirable and hiding those less desirable. Something switched in me and I went from punching and attacking others to turning inward and using that same intense anger toward myself. My angry outbursts changed to screaming and throwing things. I think most counselors (I went through a lot of them) I encountered either didn’t know that the symptoms related to Borderline were what caused the most problems in my life or they just didn’t know how to help me. So it went untreated for the most part.

I went to therapy on and off for years. Sometimes I would pretend to have it all together for months just so they would close my case…who knows when I might need their services again so I didn’t want to burn all my bridges.

A few years before my parents died, I decided that I needed therapy again. I had no support system, my parents’ health was failing and I had no idea how I would respond to their deaths. In 2017, my father and I found my mother laying in a pool of her own blood. I had never seen so much blood. (She had fallen and hit her face on the corner of a door frame…breaking several facial bones). She was taken to the hospital where it was discovered she had brain cancer and about three weeks later she was sent home. My father and I took care of her for a few more weeks before she died. My relationship with my mother throughout my life was that typical “I hate you, don’t leave me” relationship.

Now is probably a good time to tell you that my relationship with my parents was not a close one. To me, mother was cold and aloof and ruled with an iron fist. That is how I remember her. To be fair though, I was constantly getting into trouble, fighting, drug use, overspending, couldn’t keep a job…and my parents spent thousands of dollars to keep me out of prison for writing worthless checks and committing fraud against the state.

A year after my mother died, my father also died. But before he died, while he was still in the hospital…for the first time I was alone in their house. It was a place in which I never felt safe. It was the place of years of childhood sexual abuse and rape by a close family member.

At first, laying down to go to sleep terrified me. So I just didn’t do it for a few days. During the day, I would rehearse over and over how many steps it would take me to get to the closest exit from different parts of the house. I spent hours every day doing these “exit drills” over and over again. I was preparing for what I called the “phantom man”. I’ll explain.

When I was a kid, I was terrified of monsters. I believed they dwelled in my closet, under my bed and in dark corners. As I grew up, I was still terrified of the dark and those monsters evolved into the “phantom man”. So anytime I become…unstable…sometimes I become paranoid of the “phantom man” who seems very real at the time, even though I have never seen him.

I quit therapy about four months ago. Through circumstances beyond my control, it was the fourth counselor in a year. I was getting tired of being passed off to the next person. Everything is temporary and everyone leaves. Sometimes it becomes too much and I just can’t do it anymore. That is why I left. Because, you see, I am allergic to people: to their criticisms, to their judgments, to their rejection, and to their abandonment.

Therapists used to ask: what is causing you significant distress in your life right now? I don’t even know what that means. Most of the time I don’t even know what I am feeling until I’m drowning. My measure rod determines whether something is safe or unsafe. Boredom and emptiness is unsafe for me because it gives birth to an array of other symptoms like: drug binging, excessive spending, depression and suicidal thoughts. It used to cause cutting, but I guess I grew out of that.

I am writing now because this is supposed to be helpful when I feel unsafe. So is visual journaling. I end this with two visual journaling pages I created: one from a couple of years ago, and the other I created right before writing this.

Hey the gifts

Hey the gifts, ho the gifts,
Hey the gifts, on the living.

Rising of dawn, movement of clouds;
Life from the sun, light from the moon.
Hey the gifts, ho the gifts,
Hey the gifts, on the living.

Falling of rain, cleansing of dew;
Vast of the welkin, sublime of sky.
Hey the gifts, ho the gifts,
Hey the gifts, on the living.

Spirit of flame, giver of light;
Mother of sphere, bounty of globe.
Hey the gifts, ho the the gifts,
Hey the gifts on the living.

Spirits of land, high-glider of sky;
Mysterious sea and life from the sun.
Hey the gifts, ho the gifts
Hey the gifts, on the living.

Raydottir MP 08/08/2021 adapted from Carmina Gadelica

Invocation of Justice

I will wash my face
In the nine rays of the sun,
As Rhiannon washed her son
In the rich fermented milk.

Love be in my countenance,
Benevolence in my mind,
Dew of honey in my tongue
My breath as the incense.

Black is yonder town,
Black are those within,
I am a white swan,
Queen above them.

I will travel in the name of the Goddess,
In likeness of deer, in likeness of horse,
In likeness of serpent, in likeness of queen:
Stronger will it be with me than with all persons.

Raydottir MP 8/1/2021 adapted from Carmina Gadelica

To be a tree

My back against a tree
As my mind aimlessly wonders
Til at last
I begin to ponder.

Oh I love how
The wind caresses my skin,
And how it swirls
The leaves into a spin.

What does the tree think
Of this silent whisper?
Of the whipping air
When it grows crisper?

I wonder about
The life of a tree,
Who never speaks
Nor have eyes to see.

Yet they all have
A story to tell,
Wrapped up inside
It’s strong bark shell.

Look at their branches
And ponder their shape.
Think about the vine
Of which it cannot escape.

Look at their leaves
Of various shape and color.
Consider it’s life,
Does it know dolor?

I wonder what it’s like
To be a tree.
I wonder what it’s like
To be free.

Raydottir MP 07/12/2016

Action-oriented person

Happy is the person who takes action,
who does not procrastinate about every decision,
nor becomes idle by doing nothing,
but are driven by a desire to do what they say
and are accountable for themselves.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water
that bring forth fruit in due season
because they are a person of action.
Not so for the indolent.
They are like a stone that never moves.
But the one who takes the bull by the horns
gets things done,
while the idle person will never accomplish anything.

Raydottir MP adapted from Psalm 1 10/02/2019

Ketuvim 7

When I put my trust in others, they betray me.
Like a coyote stalking in the dark,
They lay in wait for me.
What have I done that I should be treated so?
I have my own faults and I am not blameless.
Yet I have not trampled others without cause.
In my wrath I say I will stand up;
I will rise up against them.
But I must wait for the opportunity.
Meanwhile, I turn inwardly,
Bending my bow and turning it on myself.
I prepare weapons of death,
And make ready my arrow shafts of fire.
I beat myself up for trusting others,
And in my pain, I scream that I should keep my distance.
Look at all those who are pregnant with deceit,
Who give birth to lies.
They will dig a pit, make it deep
And fall into the hole they have made.
Their betrayal turns back on their own head;
Their deceit falls onto their own scalp.

Adapted from Psalm 7 Raydottir MP 2018