Tag: mental health

Wow!

~ Elliott

I’m reading a new book called Healing Trauma by Philip Levine. It has somatic exercises and I’ve started doing them. So far, tapping and squeezing my body and muscles and becoming conscious of them. I am amazed by how well it’s working. My mood is good, and tonight I sat down to play guitar and I felt like a completely different person. I was aware of what I was doing…I could vary the volume and the roughness of my strumming, and I was able to fingerpick with precision. I have to credit this to the exercises. 

I don’t feel all that chatty tonight, but I wanted to note this because it’s a really big deal for me. Mostly, because it means I’m healing from trauma, but also because I’d like to become skilled at guitar. I’ve felt like I was in a rut in both these areas, so I’m excited. 

I think I’ll write more tomorrow. Reminder to self, talk about starting Prososin!

Art-stress, and a poem about nature

~ Elliott

Aw man, tonight I’m not feeling great. I made a self-portrait and it seems to have really messed me up. I feel agitated….really on edge and spacey. I did it in my old style I used to in high school. I guess it just took me back to that time in my life. I wasn’t thinking about it while I was working, I was just sort of in a trance for hours. It’s a really good piece too. I wish I could just feel good about it.

It’s been really frustrating lately that creativity triggers me. Joey suggested that maybe I draw nature and not people if I’m going to do black and white pencil drawings. I do want to make some art of nature, but I want to be able to do all kinds of things. It’s frustrating. I really have to watch out for my mental health though.

I want to take another writing course that will help me hopefully write some short stories. I’m worried about this though, too. Can I no longer do any art that has a dark side to it? I don’t want everything I make to be light and positive. Do I? I mean, it’s a valid question. What is the point of making art that doesn’t feel good? Does it serve a higher function? Or bring a deeper satisfaction long term? I dunno.

Can I write happy short stories? I guess. It’s interesting that it seems shallow for some reason. That seems like an immature outlook, of the suffering artist. I just want to be able to express a range of things in my work. Hmm…

Well, I don’t have to figure it all out at once. What I discovered tonight is that doing portraits in my old high school style probably isn’t healthy for me right now. It doesn’t mean I have to stick with light subject matter forever. I just need to be careful of this. I think I’m going to have to develop new styles, which is actually exciting.

I’m writing this all largely in an attempt to calm myself down. I want to go to bed pretty soon, because I go to bed pretty early and wake up around 5 am. I slept a lot today though. I’m trying to just apply some self love and forgiveness. Here, also, is a new poem about nature. Typing that out will calm me down.

In The Early January Light

In the early January light

yellow-white sun with an orange halo

the song of the cardinal

Blue shadows around snowy foot tracks

mostly human

A trail of paw prints

leading across the frozen pond

to the island

where a fox beds down in the tall grasses

Spots along the bank 

where the snow is dug up

from the deer, eating the grass

The wind whistles low in my ears

I have cold hands

and the world seems just a little bit

fuzzy

Tree-covered hills in the distance

grey

while the trees in the foreground

appear almost black

Four crows

cut across that grey expanse

beneath the white-yellow orb

and the encroaching clouds. 

A Difficult Day

~ Elliott

I’m reading live on Zoom in a couple days. Right now I’m freaking out that what I have isn’t good enough. It was a hard day. Why am I insecure? I hold onto past events and project a negative future. I sit in a brain state of judgement, rather than just letting it be. On days like this, I forget what it feels like to even enjoy myself.

*

Sometimes when I look at the horizon I feel nothing. Sometimes I feel empty and lonely and uninspired. I don’t feel I belong. I feel sad and afraid, and sometimes I’m not even sure why. All I can do is accept this, and breathe. Fighting it makes it worse. 

When I was a child, I avoided these feelings by constantly living in a fantasy world. When I got to be a teen, that magic ability wore off and I became depressed. I still miss that escape. My Neverland. It’s what I try to return to when I’ve abused substances or lost myself in another person.

We tell these stories about who we are again and again.We form grooves in our brain. We wear down pathways. Who am I if not my trauma? It’s a very good question with which to start. 

Self-criticism is a knife with which I cross out and delete words. Heaven forbid I appear trite. When sometimes it’s these words that are most true. But I cut out what might seem like crap to others. Who? 

Forget them. What is it I need from writing this piece? 

I’m trying to focus on how much I’ve grown. My resilience is amazing. Just this year alone, I am more independent, happy, steady, calm, secure, creative, confident, and stable than I have been in a long time. I am valuing and taking care of myself. I have an awareness of my mind and body. 

What would it feel like to be secure in myself as an artist? What would it feel like to be secure in myself, period? 

Cravings are intense. For sex, for drugs, even for too much coffee and chocolate. I am still an addict, and maybe one forever. It’s learning how to ride those waves, I suppose. What to consume in moderation and what to abstain from and when.

I hope I feel better tomorrow. That is my intention. But if not, I do think I am doing a good job of accepting my state. No matter what, I’ll be okay. I learned that with the trauma of losing Joey for a while. I lived. The chickens being killed was also a horror I survived. I can deal with sadness. It’s better than the anxiety to avoid it. It will pass. I will remember how to feel good again.

*

Here’s a link to info about my reading on New Year’s Day: https://www.facebook.com/events/730537194245523

A life worth living, pt. 4

~ Elliott

I was at a group for addiction and PTSD recovery this week. We had to come up with a word. We started with lemon, and said it aloud enough times until it was just sounds. Then we were supposed to choose a judgmental word and do the same. Consequently, I found myself repeating the phrase “Loser,” over and over again. It then became, in our minds, “I am a ___” In my case, loser. We were supposed to overcome it, or see that it was just a word. I guess it’s stuck with me though.

That was the first word I thought of. It was immediate. “I am a loser.”

Evidence: I am in mental health recovery. I am in substance abuse recovery. I wear sweatpants a lot (Caveat: my boyfriend says they are stylish sweatpants). I’ve gained weight. I was a stoner. I have no money or income. I find cooking meals, doing the dishes and going to the grocery store to be daunting tasks.

I have put a lot of pressure on myself to accomplish external things. I haven’t been successful in any conventional sense as an adult. The closest I came was when I was working at the library in Syracuse, as well as working on CNY for Solidarity. I am also proud that I self-published four books. The first three especially were accomplishments. I got some recognition for my writing, in the past. And I travelled many places to give readings.

But lately, I feel… like a loser. More than ever. I want to challenge this, rather than dwell in it. Often, I find writing in the third person and past tense helps. Watch this.

That was the first word he thought of. It was immediate. “I am a loser. “

Evidence: He was in mental health and substance abuse recovery. He wore sweatpants a lot (Caveat: his boyfriend said they were stylish sweatpants). He’d gained weight. He had no money or income. He found cooking meals, doing the dishes, and going to the grocery store to be daunting tasks.

He had never been successful as an adult, in any traditional sense. He was a writer, and had some success and acknowledgement for the books he’s self-published: mostly fictionalized accounts of his own life…

OK it’s getting too meta 😊

Really though, I almost am finding this guy charming, and I feel for him. I guess in that sense, writing fiction is more therapeutic than memoir. If fiction is third person and past tense, conventionally. I need to keep this in mind. Who knows, maybe that will be the answer to my next novel.

A life worth living, pt. 3

~ Elliott

For the first time this evening, it occurred to me that I am a “recovering addict.” I guess that’s kind of a loaded, stereotyped term. I have been aware for a while that I struggled with addiction. But I went to my first groups related to the issue this week. My addictions were marijuana and alcohol. Alcohol was more problem in the past, but I would switch between the two. I am not against marijuana usage, and I haven’t ruled out that I will never use it again. It had many benefits and many fond memories attached. But at the level I was smoking, for me, it was causing psychosis. And yet I still couldn’t back off even a little. A lot of people don’t think marijuana is a serious drug, but in this case, it was at risk of really fucking up my life. I wrote more about that in a previous post.

Anyway, today I had a meeting with my partner and my drug counselor and I realized I’m really really hard on myself. I’ve realized this before. But it is to the point where I don’t believe I’m deserving of love. This was a breakthrough for me. I’ve had people suggest it to me, but it never really sank in until today. I don’t trust that I deserve a loving relationship. And that’s why I’m always scared of losing it. That was a lot of the paranoia related to marijuana, and it was a self-fulfilling prophecy as I became a more and more difficult person not to love, but with whom to be in a relationship.

I’m looking back on many things differently now. There was a guy I very much wanted to be with, before I met Joey. I took his rejection very hard, because I took it as more evidence that I was not lovable- even though he was saying he did have love for me, he just didn’t want to be in a relationship with me because my life was honestly a wreck. I think about that differently now. I’m glad things happened the way they did, and I feel really lucky that I found someone who was able to be with me, through my struggles. And we’re still together.

Anyway, this is the part where I would usually berate myself for being touchy feeley or something but I don’t want to do that anymore. I feel blessed tonight and I wanted to share in writing.

The day I did nothing.

~ Elliott

Today is already difficult. It’s 8:49 AM and I don’t have plans. I’ll be spending the day alone. I tried working a bit on my novel over coffee, but it feels very strained. My interest isn’t there. I have a number of creative projects in my queue that I don’t feel like doing. I want something new.

It’s at least sunny. I struggle worse on days without sunlight. The trees are bare, but from where I’m sitting, I can see a bird nest. The light is refreshing. November through February are hard in upstate New York. I’m trying to appreciate the sunlight, rather than wish I were somewhere else.

And so, I decided today would be the day I did nothing and to try to feel good about it. It was nearly impossible to feel all that good. I spent most the day sleeping, after picking up the apartment. I read over some of my literature for my mental health-related classes, particularly DBT. “Today,” I thought, “I will just observe.” My legs were sore from walking around Ithaca so much lately anyway. I noted colors of things. I stood outside and practiced 4-point breathing.

The most that can be said about today is I haven’t gotten really upset over anything. So there is the silver lining I suppose.

A life worth living, pt 2

~ Elliott

Tonight I auditioned for a play. I have never been in a play before. Regardless of whether I get the part, it went really well. The play is about loneliness in the LGBTQ community. The judges responded well, and I felt elated afterwards. This is making me think I might want to try acting and/or public speaking again.

It’s funny how you can be shy but still love having an audience.

Working on DBT skills was a little difficult today. I was doing really well yesterday when working at Joey’s company. I did a repetitive task, for several hours, just losing myself in the activity. Today I was more distracted, but that’s OK. I am impressed that I really threw myself into acting, without dissociating.

I do think my people skills are getting better. My friend told me the other day at coffee that I seem much more present. That meant a lot.

Anyway! That’s all for tonight. Peace.

A life worth living, pt 1.

~ Elliott

I judge so much that I cannot even enjoy things. I knew this, but it was something that kind of existed in the back of my head. A DBT class was what brought it to the forefront. DBT stands for Dialetical Behavioral Therapy.

“Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a cognitive behavioral treatment developed by Marsha Linehan. It emphasizes individual psychotherapy and group skills training classes to help people learn and use new skills and strategies to develop a life that they experience as worth living. DBT skills include skills for mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.”

I took a class on this in high school when I was diagnosed with Borderline. I don’t disagree with that assessment, though I have a lot of feelings about the subject. A better diagnosis is “trauma.” Or, “on the autism spectrum with trauma and a lack of coping and life skills.” Anyway. If you know me, which few people do, you know that I definitely needed a brush-up.

Judging happens the worst when I am unhappy with myself. I realized this today when I was walking. I was listening to music I’d never heard before on Spotify on my phone. I was so wrapped up in judging whether I thought the music was “good” that I realized I wasn’t really hearing it. Worse, I realized that when music is “good” I feel sad, because I am jealous I didn’t create it. The same goes for writing. Where I used to find inspiration, I find reminder that I am not creating up to my own standards.

People ask me if I have been writing, and I say no. This is because I do not have a novel or project that I am working on diligently and passionately. I write every single day, in my journal for starters, and I also start and abandon short pieces on Word several times a week. This is how writing works—how anything works. You stick with it, you keep doing it, even when it isn’t perfect. Even when you don’t feel great about it for a while. Instead of appreciating and celebrating my tenacity, I beat myself up.

The same goes for art and music. I draw almost daily. I play my guitar several times a week. But because I’m not recording anything — again, this isn’t true, I experiment with recordings all the time and even keep them. I’m just not satisfied– or because I’ve never been displayed in a gallery, I discount it.

Writing in a way removes me from my experience. Right now for instance, I am drinking chamomille tea. There is Indian fusion music playing. I am in a dimly lit café, sitting alone on a floral couch. The mug I sip from if floral patterned as well. I like this café, because the aesthetics calm me. I would like to have a house that feels this way eventually. It all sounds quite romantic when I write about it. I want to experience my life more that way. When I’m living, I am largely bored and unhappy.

Anyway. This is one of my main goals of DBT, and that is what I think I will be writing more about in the coming weeks. My journey to “experiencing a life worth living.” It’s funny that I haven’t prioritized that. I’m a little afraid that I will lose my impetuous to create art. But seeing as I am already unhappy with that, I can’t see where there is anything to lose.

A mental health post

~ Elliott

It seems like I am always acquiring more mental illness labels. This time, it’s psychosis. Of course, it was drug induced. I was smoking marijuana daily. But I think I was still smoking less than a lot of people do. I think I have a predisposition. I read today of a schizophrenia spectrum. I find that really interesting.

I have exhibited some traits of schizophrenia throughout my life. It got really bad this summer, with a combination of pressure and marijuana over-usage. My official diagnosis was, again, Depression with Psychotic Features. It’s a bit embarrassing to talk about, but a lot of it centered on the release of the movie England is Mine and Morrissey’s new album, Low In High School. I avoided these things for a while, because I think I had a subconscious sense that Morrissey is a trigger for my psychosis. I wonder if other people experience this… It makes sense, because so much of his work is about mental illness. But its always been kinda weird, how I have felt like he was singing to/ for me. Other people describe this. I guess it was more like, he was singing an opera of my life. Like our experiences were linking up.

I fall into a line of thinking where I believe he and I are spiritually related. And this summer, when my life and relationship was in flux, there was the new album. And a movie, which I was quite convinced was informed by my books.

I remember, at it’s worse, I was very high, standing in my room with my partner. I had just played “I Wish You Lonely,” I believe. And I said, trembling, “I think he read Refuse, and I think he liked it, and I think it influenced him. And I think he wants to meet me. And I think I am going to finally be in a band and my books will sell and I am going to be rich.”

This wasn’t what prompted my partner to suggesting I be hospitalized. It was when I announced I was leaving, and I wouldn’t say where. We called my doctors. Everyone agreed I needed to be hospitalized….except me. I thought everyone was overreacting. I was also being pretty abusive and accusing others of being crazy.

All through hospitalization, I still held out hope that Morrissey and his band and people were coming for me. I also believed I was on the government watch list…and something to do with Chelsea Manning…and that they would be helping my family and I flee the U.S.

I still believed I was going to meet Morrissey when I went to see him perform in Philadelphia. My friend had bought my front row tickets, and I was going to try to give him Refuse for the third time. I wrapped it and included a neclace. Unfortunately, Morrissey cancelled.

I still was convinced this had something to do with me.

My anti-psychotics were raised. I started to see how foolish I was being. I realized how horrible and paranoid I had been about people in my life. I also lost a great deal of my creative drive.

What is it about Morrissey’s music that has this weird effect on certain people?

I have now accepted that there was no plan for us to meet up. But the malady lingers on. Not psychosis. Depression. Unemployment. The meds make me sleep way too much. I attend classes that are supposed to help me, and I think they are. “Mindfully living with depression.” “Dialectical Behavioral Therapy” ( a more Buddhist, feminist approach to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Maybe even “Help with Employment” eventually. I am lucky that my partner has supported me through all this.

I miss marijuana on a daily and nightly basis. It’s like grief. It made me happy in a way that I hadn’t experienced since childhood. I hope one day, I can smoke again in a safe, controlled way.

Now, my days are mostly empty. This is the most I’ve written in awhile that I’ve felt pretty good about. I’m still in Ithaca. I have shelter. I have food. I have my cats, and some crappy old instruments, a computer, and notebooks. I have some friends that I am trying to get to know better. It looks like we will be here for awhile.

I enjoy yoga. I’m not drinking or smoking. I’m also going to addiction related programming.

I lost my therapist and got a new one. This was hard, but probably for the best. I had come to see her as more of a very close friend. Still, I grieve the loss.

I’m not really able to get into any project. I’m hoping that changes soon. I’m trying to lessen my negative self-talk about being a burden for my family, etc. It doesn’t fix anything. It will get better in time.

I am having lately some horrible conundrum of gender identity. I begin to feel I want to be feminine and lay off T some, and dress differently. But then it switches. Call it DID, being bigender…I don’t know. It’s saddening.

Anyway. This is a blog entry. I feel good getting it out. It makes me hopeful more will come soon.

The Southwest

~ Elliott

The past few weeks have been a blur. That’s sort of cliché to say, but it’s accurate. I can’t believe how far we’ve travelled. We went from Syracuse, down through the southeast, and then headed west. We’ve been through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and now Arizona. We’ve been doing a lot of boondocking, over-nighting in Walmart parking lots and such to save money, but also staying at some lovely parks.

Some of the more memorable moments would have to be:

  • Swimming in the warm ocean waters at Buckroe Beach in Hampton, Virginia in mid September. I love bodies of water and swimming so, so much. I’m trying to find a way to swim several times a week.
  • The wonderful audience I had for my reading at the LGBT Center of Hamptons Road in Norfolk, Virginia. It was a support group for trans folks and I read an except of my first book about the struggles, limitations, and ultimately beauty of human connection at a trans support group. So it was pretty perfect. People loved it, and I sold a lot of books. Then we stayed for the group. It was a much more positive experience than I had in Syracuse at such groups. It was really good for both Joey and me, I think. We sometimes lose our hope for community.
  • Staying at a camp in North Carolina where we had to literally be the only campers without at least one confederate flag on our RV. Yikes.
  • Things started getting really, really beautiful awesome when we arrived at Caprock Canyon in Quitaque, Texas. That’s when it started to feel like the West. They have a herd of buffalo there! I seriously fell in love with them. They were…adorable and ferocious herbavores. I. Love. Them. The canyons were also beautiful as hell.
  • At Caprock Canyon we were able to go out into the canyons and find the perfect spot to view the lunar eclipse. You can read my partner Joey’s story about that here.
  • Albuquerque was pretty cool. We stayed in the parking lot of a casino for free. But they had good gluten free and veggie options for us at local grocery stores.
  • Joey and I jumped in “the Blue Hole” which is a very small but deep swimming hole in New Mexico. The water was super cold and clear. It was fun.
  • Last night we stayed at Meteor Crater RV Park in Arizona, and now we are at another park, south of Flagstaff. It’s beautiful here too. Tomorrow we are going to find rivers and swimming holes.

Let’s talk about my state of mind. How am I feeling? Good question, self. I feel like I’m finally living a life I want. I used to always wake up every morning, feeling like today wasn’t the day. Like I was waiting for something to make me happy. I don’t have the feeling so much anymore. That’s seriously profound for me.

I’ve struggled a lot with mental health, as a trans/queer survivor of repeated sexual, physical, verbal and emotional abuse throughout my life. That struggle has included a lot of depression. I don’t feel depressed right now. I’m having some PTSD stuff still. Nightmares. Flashes of unpleasant childhood memories. Things piecing themselves together, slowly. I’m still very shy and anxious around people outside my family and my cats. I’m even anxious around Drew a lot of the time. But I feel like I’m living something worthwhile. There’s a lot of practical stuff that needs to be done, so I haven’t had all that much energy for creativity. I say that, but it’s not exactly true. I’m just hard on myself. Still, I feel like these adventures will inspire wonderful things. Art. I have to be patient with myself.

On a side note, I’m actually making more money from booksales than ever. The future is ever unpredictable, but I think it’s gonna be alright. This is surprisingly an affordable way to live so far. I’m privileged to have Joey, who can afford to make some investments upfront. That’s been the key. But it’s seeming to work out so far, for all of us. I’m not losing money.

Bottom line: I’m happy and hopeful. Pictures forthcoming. What I’d really love is to just install a stream of them from my instagram show up on the main page, and then use these entries for text . Maybe there’s a widget for that. I’ll investigate.

Anyway. The stars are out. The air is warm but arid and pleasant. Goodnight, readers.