writing about life

[Guest guest]

Okay -- its long , again, and i dont know if anyone will have time to read or reply, but i thought I would give it a try anyway.i do very much appreciate the support i get on this lisrt.

And this seemed liek a universal enogh theme - what to do with your life- that i thought it might be appreciated.

Eastland is the apt complex i was forced out of because of the smell.

Thanks

Kate

****

Sometimes the greatest challenge of all is to live a life that you are able to explain to others. By that I mean, to explore and share your inner landscape, the unique way you experience things.

To do that is to feel truly connected to someone, to feel truly known, understood, and loved. To not have that is to often live a life of loneliness, alienation, and misunderstanding. To always feel you are alone.

It is for that reason I have been striving all my life to try to get people to understand me. As I seem to be an unusually complex and unorthodox person this has not been an easy task. But I keep trying.

Of course, maybe the real task is not so much to get people to understand where I am, but for me to find a way to understand that they understand where I am. Or for them to find a way to express this to me more explicitly so that I do understand. I don't know exactly where the missing link lies but hopefully I will find it some day.

I compare my life to climbing a difficult, rocky mountain. Always climbing. Very treacherous. You'll fall to your death if you dont keep going, if you dont keep climbing, if you're not completely aware and always planning for the next step Every. Single. Minute you are awake. And when you are asleep - well, that takes planning too.

The people down in the valley are walking the pretty nature paths, seeing the pretty waterfalls and wildlife and sunsets. They tell you to relax. They point out the good things in the scenery, tell you to enjoy them. From where they are there might be some rough spots but they have every confidence they['ll get over them. But from where you are, you can SEE the fun things in the scenery they talk about, but you can't touch them. They are too far away. The people down below cannot understand why you can't enjoy the thigns they enjoy. But there are mountains and cliffs and hyenas seperating you from the rivers and streams and flowers and picnics. You can look and dream but not too much because you have to concentrate on the path you're on or you'll fall off.

This is especially how I have felt the last two weeks, with my different living situation every several nights, not knowing where I'm going to sleep or when I'm going to find anything more permanent. It has been very frustrating not having any sense of security or comfort or anything to fall back on. I keep setting myself little goals, trying to look forward to the future, trying to push myself forward a few hours at a time. Waiting until things will get better. Not having a workable computer has been extremely challenging, far more challeneging than anything with the room or anything else I've been dealing with. But I've been patient and tried to take it one day, indeed one hour, at a time. I've tried to move my focus to other things, to be happy for little things, like food anbd music and junk food and rare human connections.

I am strong and I will keep going. I structure my days in such a way that I feel like I can survive them. I focus on good things. I try not to think about the rest. But it something that takes 100% of my energy and people do not understand how hard it is for me to just about anything. And that really annoys me.

Every single minute I am trying to keep my moods and feelings and worries under control. Every

single minute I am evaluating the environment, mostly ythe sensory aspects, around me to see if it will be safe, do i need to change anything, do i need to leave, what are my alternative plans, how can i get myself calm and stable again if i get overloaded. I have to think before i do just abou anything, from using the computer to riding a bus to using a bathroom. To reading or talking to someone on the phone or eating dinner. Every single thing I do requires the right sensory environment or I will be overwhelmed, lose my balance, get lost in an emotional abyss which is frankly as scary as HELL, frightens and terrifies me when I feel like this, feel liek it's the end of the world.

The example of late of course is all the people that say why cant you just stay at the eastland or imply it. They might start to understand ,but they dont understand it fully and it kills me, sometimes at least when I let it. dont they think i would do everything in my power to stay here if i could, of course id rather be in portland on my own than at my dads in the middle of nowhere. But I know very well what I can handle and what I cant. and a thousand relatively minor insults at my dads are better than the one big sensory insult of the smell problem in my room. when bad enough it takes away my ability to function, it overwhelmes me completely, it leaves me with a shell of a person and i quitefrankly am fucking terrified of that. I know when I had to leave a place no matter how much I want to stay. I do the best I can to work around my limitations.

And then when I say, that the smell is much better, but still there; that it is still uncomfortable but that it is tolerable, probably, they pounce on the world tolerable. Well if its tolerable why arent you staying there?!?!?! I should look up the meaning of the world tolerable. Tolerable doesnt mean CAN DO; it means MAY BE ABLE TO DO WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY. Intolerable is impossible; tolerable is a possibility but by no means an easy guarantee. They think, no problem, she can stay in there then, obviously this is better than her dad's. I want to scream, you dont undertaand. Tolerable WITH the right mindset. Tolerable if I am in the mindset where I can deal with the challenges. Saturday it wasn't feasible. Today i decided to try. I figured the smell was no worse than those first two nights I spent here. I decided, even if I cant be in the room except to sleep, I can probably manage sleeping; I will be brave and try, and it is worth it so I will have access to portland sunday night and monday. And another day if I decide, after the first night, that it is still tolerable. There are so many factors that go into it. They dont see it. Its so simple for them, I freaking wish it was rhat simple for me.

They are so eager for me to just do it already, but they dont see the monster in the corner, threatening to overtake me, jump on me, devour me if Im not careful. they dont see how easily it is for me to get overwhelmed to the point of losing functioning and how terrified that makes me and how I've structured my whole life around my need to not be in any situation that could make me lose my functioning (and oh how long the list can be.) And that can be frustrating. Maybe I'm a victim of my own success - maybe I plan things so well and deal so well that people don't even see me as particularly impaired or as having that many problems. Overreacting, maybe. But those who know me the best know or should know just how quickly everything can change and how overwhelmed I can get. How many problems I have with everyday things, even though I do such an admirable job of dealing with them.

I am scared. I need to look for good synonms of scared because I can not express it strongly enough.

I am scared of the night, at my dad's, where I got so overwhelmed by things that I started crying at dinner and could not stop. Where I went to the PC computer room, sat on the couch, felt too awful to move, decided to get something from my room to make me feel better, could hardly walk, opened the door and collapsed, on the floor, lying on the cold, icky tile floor stretched out like a corpse between the two rooms, in such an ungainly, unseeming, disgraceful position, could not believe I was lying on the floor, dog sniffing me, can't get up, and I am SOBBING MY HEART OUT. Snot running from my face, tears pooling on the floor in front of me. Can't find a reason to get up. Crying on the floor. Worst I've ever been or felt, I do think, except for a few notable examples mostly in college or junior high that we should not discuss now. It might have only lasted a few minutes - 5? 10? Probably not more than 10 - but it seemed like an eternity to me. And I don't know how much longer it would have lasted if Diane had not come by and I had not been able to force mysel f to talk to her to make myself feel better.

If that's not a breakdown, what is? Okay, I know there are different stages and degrees and kinds and all that of breakdowns. I know that far worse could happen, that some people cant get out of bed for days and cant do anything once they do, that people lose touch with reality. I'm not talking anything that major scale - I don't think. I don't really know. How does one know?

How do I know that I'm not going to crack, to break in the middle? How do I know that one day

in the not so distant future I'm not going to fall on the ground and really not be able to get up, not be able to push myse;f through one more day? The thought has terrified me as long as I can remember, but is terrifiying me five times as much now because of all the stresses I am dealing with and not having any outlet, even the computer most of the time, to release it. It REALLY fucking burns me up to not have the computer.

I am doing the best I can. I am trying an awful lot. I always have, in times of trial and any other time. I am focusing on anything, and I mean anything, positive and happy that I can. I am trying just to keep my mind off the things that bother and worry me. Distract myself. Focus on junk food and music and rare connections with other people, as I alway say, like I always do, but even more than I always do. Try to structure the day so that you can get through it. Up, shower, breakfast, DO SOMETHING, read, message boards on computer, walk, lunch, DO SOMETHING, call someone?, just fill the time, eat some cookies, that'll make you feel better. I am trying. Or if I get out - go somewhere do somethign to make you happy. Don't worry about the future. Etc.

But I just cant help but think, its almost like my life is being built from scratch. Well it is, everyone's is, especia;lly that of a 20 something. But most people my age have more they can count on at this age. Much more. friends, a job, a car, more emotional stability than I have, agreater ease at being able to use , live in and access the world. WHAT DO I HAVE? oh god its scary to think of how little I have, I want to build a world and a life for myself but there is so much to do. I just have nothing to count on , nothing that feels safe, nothing i enjoy that much other than music and junk food and writing when I fucking can do it which hasnt been in the last two weeks and seems an eternity to me although other people would tell me that its not that its a very short amount of time but it sure doesnt feel like it to me. I have very little ability for a job, a vocation, to make friends, I need something to build my life around. There is nothing that I can get up in the morning for, you know? Everyone needs something like that. And thats just plain scary.

hell, fuck, it was scary even when my life was routine and going along as well as it could/. But its five times as scary when there is no fucking routine to my life, nothing sure and secure and stable, nothing I can count on. It makes me worried. What can I fall back on?

Yeah I have family, i am lucky for that i know but there is nothing they can really do, all the really important parts of life, anything that really matters i have to provide for myself. They can only understand so much.

So Im going to have this brand new apartment, to me at least, June 1, ten days away which also seems like an eternity, and this brand new life and a shot to make it. And thats good. I am glad and excited and cant wait for it to start. But I also have to wonder how it's going to happen.

I know the basics. I need to find a comfortable computer setup and not panic aboutt that. Believe it will happen have patience all that. Need to rein in my budget, cook at home. I can do that, its a bit scary but I think I can do it. The sensory stuff I am hoping will be ok wit the apt. The location is great.

The part time job I will most likely keep.

But thats as far as I know. I dont know the rest. I have some ideas how to make life at least functional, and thats good functional is important and i will quite frankly at this point be happy just get functional, reliably functional that is, but I also have to wonder how I am going to make it meaningful too. Because a person cannot survive on functional alone forever.

All I can do is to keep holding on. To grasp the rope I am climbing up and blind myself to the fall below. In some ways I feel like this is not so different from the day we climbed Katahdin. That was probably one of the hardest single experiences, at least well physically not as much emotionally but was emotionally hard too. But what I mean was, the whole freaking way down. Coming down that mountain after dark with all those hours to go. Tired. And telling myself, KNOWING, right away, that if I even so much as thought about how far we had to go, I would never make it down that freaking mountain. And being able to turn off my thoughts like that, singing songs about mountains and doing I dont know what else but just taking it one step at a time, focusing on the road ahead and what needed to be done to get down, and just not thinking about it or I'd panic. 3-4 hrs maybe? This is a longer marathon than that, and indeed far less in intensity too, (well in some ways not all), but has many things in common with that experience. I need to take it one step at a time and not panic about what is ahead of me. I just want to know, though, I REALLY want to know, that the end of the road will be a reward worth working for. That I wont keep trying and collapse before I get there. That if I keep working at it there will be achance for respite and relaxatio nand recovery. Thats all I want to know. I can only hope.

Today, when I was leaving the Eastland to go to work, already somehow in a pretty good mood and spirit maybe jsut because I had freedom for the first time in two weeks, even if it did come at a potentially big price, I heard on the radio a very good song - O'Neals God Dont Make Mistakes. I was amazed and so happy; I dont think I have once heard this song on the radio before! No one at all has played it but I love it so much. I danced around that little park by the eastland; no one was there, luckily. I tried to sing; throat wasnt having much of it but I tried. I was jubilant, and joyful for the first time in at least two weeks, and it felt great. For the three minutes the song lasted that is. It was just nice to remember I had that capacity in me, for joy and lightness and what it felt like.

Then of course I was exhausted afterwards and almost sorry I had been so exbuerant because apparently even posittive intensity can be stressfufl somtimes. But. it was good.

And then there was jimmy gilmer and the fireballs BOTTLE OF WINE 1963 later on on the oldies show, made me laugh, right as i wads about to panic about something ,came o n the radio and I felt good again.

And I was thinking to myselfd, at least I still have music. the radio. Music and radio is one thing I have never lost. through all my trials since i got into it in 9th grade, radio has always made me happy, made me relax, i have been able to count on it. and i am just glad to have one thing in my life tocount on however small/.

In the end I need to focus on good things, redefine priorities, lower expectations, structure things so i can survive. believe better things are waiting. trust in myself and my ability to be strong.

And hope. And eat chocolate.

And that is all there really is to it.