It’s been a challenging day. Oddly it started off pretty good. I thought I was in a healthy space and was offering a friend support in a support group that I’m part of that has a long history and means the world to me. We were talking about depression and offering apps and workbooks and other tools that have helped us. One of my friends said she kept a gratitude journal and I was shocked I forgot to suggest that, as it’s usually the first thing I suggest, particularly because it truly helps. There was a time when I got mad when people wouldn’t even bother to try it, but I know how depression can be and I regret that I sounded so judgemental in my first book about a friend who wouldn’t try my suggestions, yet kept saying he was depressed and didn’t know what to do. Ultimately, I felt I knew best, based on my own experience from having been chronically suicidal for 20 years and lifting myself out of it. I had the tools and was trying to share them, but I’d forgotten how hard it was to be THAT miserable and not have faith it was gonna get better. It’s hard to see clearly when you’re at the bottom. It’s certainly understandable to me now that if he was drowning in depression, he wasn’t gonna see how making a simple gratitude list would do anything to change his situation. I tried to explain to him how that was where he was wrong, but that probably wasn’t the best approach. While I may not have been in a deep depression myself when I wrote about my frustrations with my depressed friend not trying my suggestions in 2013, I was still dealing with severe mental health issues and brain damage from a psychosis 3 years prior. It wasn’t really until I was editing my book during my 3rd psychosis in 2018/2019 that I realized how cold and judgemental I sounded about some things I’d written, but it was the truth of where I was at during that time and I didn’t wanna change too much of it. As long as I continue to live, I can retell my stories from new perspectives as I learn them.
Today was a rough day because I’ve started to put more of the pieces together lately about things I’ve been through and what the true capacity of my situation is, and it’s a lot. It’d be a lot for anyone, to say the least, and it’s a lot for me. As proud as I am of myself for telling my story and putting it out there for the world, almost no one read it, and out of the portion who DID read it, probably only a small percentage believe me, but I was reminded today, when I reached out in my misery, the best I was able, that there are people who care and who believe me. I knew I could have asked “better”, but I wanted people to see it wasn’t just another post, another day… I needed immediate attention, and I got it, and I’m grateful… and like, I DID need immediate attention. I was screaming and pounding on the table. I tried to take a hot bath to relax but started screaming in the tub and violently splashing the water. I was thinking about how I’ve spent the last decade in therapy talking about my trauma, and they still think I’m fucking delusional about REAL trauma that THEY can’t compute in their heads because they don’t wanna believe that they might be working with people who don’t have the clients best interests in mind. I know how crazy it sounds, and yet I’ve had non-crazy, legit people confirm it over and over to me through the years, but they aren’t on trial, defending me to my therapy people! I have to deal with this diagnosis of Schizophrenia that some asshole doctor came up with to shut me up because I was accusing them of something they ARE part of but knew very well I couldn’t prove, and I am not alone in being a victim of this in the system. I wrote my book to try to explain that it’s not just happening to me, but so many of us…yet a year has gone by and my book has got me and my story nowhere… at least it feels like that, and as I continue to get rejections for my new books and life is kicking my ass in all kinds of ways like it always does, I just felt like shit. Plus, it’s Easter weekend and that brings up a lot. It’s the anniversary of a lot of hard shit right now, but even if I only have a small crew of friends who’ve read my books and who can tell I’m being honest and who actually understand because they’ve seen the things I talk about and know that kind of corruption is everywhere and inside their own families or schools or hospitals or whatever and so they know I’m not crazy, but I’m talking openly about the inner workings of the system that no one is supposed to know or at least talk about, and right now I feel like I’m in danger and that people are working against me… not just because I’m paranoid from sharing more of the story with publishers all over the world, trying to get representation, but because I can see and feel that things are off right now with the people I don’t trust but have to keep in my life at arm’s length. I feel angry that when I try to talk about this stuff in therapy, they act concerned like I’m saying unusual things, but I’ve been saying it all along and believed it all along because it’s fucking real, yet they act like I only bring it up because I’m having a “symptom”, and of course when I get all riled up and angry from being gaslit for forty years, they act like that’s a symptom too. It hurts me deeply.
I was grateful for the support though, especially since I know most of them really meant it. I’m very lucky to have great friends.
I saw that my aunt posted 3 gratitudes on Facebook today and my other aunt asked her if she was doing something she saw in the paper today saying that writing 3 gratitudes a day for a month could significantly change your situation for the better, and she said yes, she was doing that. Interesting, as I have been saying this for years but it’s just like my family to listen to an article in the Globe over what I’ve been saying for a decade, cuz who am I? My parents didn’t even start to accept me as gay until Ellen came out and made gay people okay. Their gay child was not okay, even to them, until the mainstream society accepted a famous gay as their own.
But, I’m going to take my own advice and list some stuff I’m grateful for…
I played the keyboard for a bit and was having fun with that. Music is good for the soul, as is crying which I also did.
I did good at the Open Mic last night. This was my song. It’s called “The Story Of the Godchild” This was me performing, and I enjoyed everyone else a lot as always too.
I am grateful for my boyfriend, who is currently my only boyfriend at the moment. I recently went from 2 boyfriends to 3, back down to 2, and now just have the one. The newest one was just someone I was kind of trying out and vice versa, but I don’t think he really wanted to be in a poly relationship and I didn’t wanna be the reason he settled for something he didn’t really want, so we were over quickly, but I was still a little bummed because I did like him, and my other boyfriend was a 3 year relationship that just ended, but it was my decision, even though nothing was especially terrible, we’d lost our connection and I didn’t feel like we should continue on as we were. It went fine but I hope I didn’t hurt him more than he let on. I’m kind of sad about it too, but I think it was the right choice.
I’m grateful for music… my record player and records are such a joy for me, as well as the hip hop vinyl collectors group I’m in that’s such a welcoming community for hip hop nerds like myself. I’m grateful for my home and my bed and my weighted blanket, for my cat Moo, for hot baths with awesome scented soaps, delicious food and people who bring me the food whether it’s already made or for me to cook, nurses who come to do my injections, my mental health workers, my family, my art, computer, phone, social media, self help apps, the weather getting nice, the cleaning I’ve done, fresh air when I get it, medicine, health insurance, weed, caffeine, vitamins, my upcoming art show, my web site, the fact that I keep occasionally selling more books and t-shirts, and that I’m not locked up during my favorite season. I have all this and more to be grateful for.
Here is some new art….
and a friend sent me this…
My friend, an artist named James Welch in my t-shirt (see his Instagram below)
https://www.instagram.com/thatsmyjimmyjam/
I made this from that Tik Tok recipe. It’s a block of feta cheese in a pan with olive oil, a package of cherry tomatoes, garlic, and Italian herbs, all mixed together and baked for a half hour at 400, then broiled for 15 more minutes. Take it out of the oven, add fresh basil and a box of cooked pasta and mix it up, yum.
Today is officially Easter and I’m gonna make a whole chicken and a casserole later, but I’m heading to bed soon, exhausted after a day of extreme feelings…
Here’s a song i like… kinda psychedelic
Happy Easter everyone, from this nobody of a Godchild.
