Sometimes You Need to Lay Down After Talking Quantum Physics and Mortality

Sometimes You Need to Lay Down After Talking Quantum Physics and Mortality

Getting older, relative to time,

past and future 

exist to form

our present, our now, 

our ever 

fleeing moments...

Like holding a child's hand in a crowd, 

being pulled in all directions, 

the moments pull to the past 

-Fuck this kid has been working out-

Sometimes the little bastard 

wants to rip

your arm towards

the future, 

which really doesn't

look that big,

and isn't a real threat.

We all know where we end up...the act of death that is.

After that, who knows and who cares?

They say with age, 

relative to time that doesn't exist, brings wisdom.

Wisdom in the moment

dictates I act

in the moment. 

a refutable law of physics 

made possible 

by the moment 

we look back, 

or to the future...that doesn't exist.

Anger is an Energy

I totally stole the title to this from John Lydon of PiL and Sex Pistols fame. A hero of my youth...now not so much. We grew apart, sorry dear Johnny. However, your words have stuck with me. 

I live, rather successfully I might add, with PTSD. At times it has been pretty severe. It is the one part of my mental illness where I can  dissociate and don't remember much after an episode. But, like I said, I'm rather successful controlling my shit. 

There are times though. 

Through therapy I started looking backwards in time at my childhood, the abuse, neglect, rape, and anger at it all. That anger has been at the surface most of my life, definitely my whole adult life. 

That's a part of PTSD. All that anger comes from circumstances beyond my control. It is a natural reaction when trying to make sense of trauma. 

My path these days is more of identifying my triggers, accessing if they are anger worthy (more often they're not) and isolate until I calm down. It doesn't happen often anymore. 

When I woke up this morning I could feel anger tapping my shoulder. This morning my voices were louder and more aggressive than usual. It's my normal but it doesn't mean it doesn't mess with me at times. I admit, I started letting it get worse. I don't know why, I entertained it, but by mid morning I was a short fuse looking for a flame. That flame took the form of my puppy eating my sandwich off the table. I flipped shit, she ran, I had a sudden urge to hit something and even raised my fist, but stopped in a instant realization of what was happening. The dog running from me probably helped that along. So, I immediately started my ritual of isolation and music. I'm happy that I didn't dissociate. 

This hasn't happened in awhile. That I caught it in the midst of it is a win for me. 

Anger is an energy that gains inertia if you let it. My whole day is one of maintaining some sort of control of the shit going on in my head. I'm not always successful. Most times I am though. 

Anger is a destructive energy always. Over the years my anger has hurt people. The fucked up thing is that it makes me angry thinking about how my anger has destroyed. Angry at my anger. Really, it comes down to me being angry with myself. That I lost control and hurt people. Anger is a powerful energy.

I own it all. Owning it helps me deal with it all. It gives me a frame of reference that helps me remember that person is not who I really am. It shows me how far I've come and that my life right now is on the right path. Even if I have a little episode now and then. 

I refuse to let anger own me. 

I just need to keep reminding myself of that.

Compassion Through Understanding

This is my father. On the back of this photo he wrote, in his squiggly, septuagenarian handwriting,

Bob Scott

1943

Age 19

Silver Star

Midway and Sub Crew

I chose this picture because it reminds me that at one time my dad was a kid and the person I saw growing up wasn't the same person. Just knowing that helps me come to terms with all the shit my brothers and sisters went through as children. 

My father was in the Navy during WW2. He told me multiple times that his small stature ensured he would serve on subs. And he did...on the USS Pickerel. For what ever reason (because my dad always had a different story as to why) he stayed back at Midway while the Pickerel went on it's last mission. It was sunk off the coast of Japan. The first sub lost in that area. He was on that sub when it was hit roughly a year earlier. 

After WW2 my dad enlisted in the Army. He served as a warrant officer as a CID investigator during the Korean War. It was in Korea where he was shot in the leg by some low level black market vendor, an American...his words, not mine. Other accounts vary, sometimes it was a Korean. A lot of the variations depended on how much Seagram's he drank that night. He had the DD214 and Purple Heart to prove something happened. The details were always bullshit. These days I tend to think those stories were a way for him to forget what really happened.

My father was an interesting person in a character development sort of way. I could never create a character with such complexity well enough. My father did it though. 

My whole conscious life I have looked at my father as full of shit.

It's all justified. 

From the time he left our family to start a new family when I was four, me sitting in front of our apartment at ten, waiting three hours for my dad to pick me up for a Dodgers game, being left stranded at multiple locations in the US and Mexico, and everything in between, I have abandonment issues. 

I'm working on it.

I hated my dad for a long time. All my life I saw the conman, the grifter. I bought into what I saw as his humanitarian side, then rejected it. Now, years later I find myself seeing it for what it was...a broken person wanting to help other broken people.

This is where a potential mindfuck comes into play. 

My father was an alcoholic and junky on and off all of my life. He had some clean moments typical of a lifelong addiction. Most of my memories are a mix of both clean and using. My father was also a master's level psychologist, and later got an honorary doctorate. He worked in the field of addiction as a counselor, and later executive director of treatment centers in Southern California, Arizona and Indiana. 

Years earlier, after getting out of prison in Florida he was clean. He moved back to my grandparents, and enrolled in college. While there, in the throes of newfound sobriety, he helped start a lot of AA groups in Southern Indiana as well as getting involved in the General Baptist Church, eventually being ordained. It was also during college that my dad met my mom. 

I recently found out that my parent's marriage was one of convenience for my pops. Religious beliefs of others had a part. That's a whole story in and of itself. It's one I'm still processing, but I will write about it I'm sure. 

This year has been one of healing. In the process of figuring out why I am the way I am I have been able to see the why in those closest to me. It's like I have grown in empathy for those who have hurt me. At least those with a blood attachment.

My relationship with both of my dead parents has been a rollercoaster of love and hate. But now the cars have stopped and the bar is lifting and it's time to exit the ride on the love side. 

I'm not saying what they did is cool. I will never justify it. But I understand the why now. 

My whole life has been spent alone, yelling, "WHY!" into the wilderness. I am starting to get an understanding. 

And with understanding there is compassion. 

And with compassion there is love. 

Do You Remember...

The other night we had a guest stay over. We are around the same age, have similar backgrounds, so we had plenty to talk about. Somehow we got on to remember when topics. There were a lot of them, but one sticks out. Remember when cops did cool things like have you follow their taillights because you were obviously drunk and underage? Ok, maybe that's a bad example.

Here's one. Back in the mid 80s I owned a 72 Nova SS. On the outside the car was a shoebox of rust and faded paint. It was pretty much stock everything. But it was fast, and people can't see the rust when you whiz by. That was a problem for me at times. One time I was driving home from a friends. It was late, after midnight. I'm driving on Boston rd at maybe 85. It was hard to tell because the speedo needle bounced at higher speeds. Lucky for me there was a cop at the bottom of the hill to tell me. Fuck!

I had the plates of my old Pontiac on this car.

I didn't have insurance.

I dont have bail money.

The lights went on before I got to him. I pulled over. I got out of the car because back then it wasn't a big deal. I asked how fast he clocked me. 83. Then he asks me to pop the hood.

I see where it was going quickly and go full on gearhead with this cop. We talk about cars for a good bit. He tells me about his first car and lamenting that he has a station wagon now, but its fast off the line. As we part ways he tells me to slow down. I tell him I will. I lied. He knew it.

I shared that story and another story that involved a fat cop who I would see every morning at Dunkins eating a jelly donut and drinking black coffee. He was a slob. But he was a nice guy. He'd always greet me the same way, in his thick Massachusetts accent, "Kevin, how in the hell ah ya?"

"Been better, you know?"

"That's good, son."

I had a habit of giving cops false names back then. I still will in the right situation. That situation is on a need to know basis, and sometimes they don't need to know. This guy was an idiot, but he was a pleasant enough person.

These days I don't see that interaction. Nowadays our interactions are tense from the beginning. Both sides sizing each other up. Both sides expecting the worst. In general, that's a really fucked up way for people to first meet. Imagine if every interaction we had, with cashiers, the post office clerk, the drive thru speaker at an In and Out Burger, was adversarial from the start.

It would suck. Clearly we can agree on that. Maybe not. Some people are assholes. Most aren't though.

Right here I want to say that this isn't us, we can do better. I'm hesitant. Can we? I mean, look at history. If precedent dictates the future, we're fucked, folks.

Ok, I feel I need to apologize for the following quote only because I really do beat the bag out of it. But it's timeless advice.

"There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

Kurt Vonnegut

,

My Delusions

Many, if not all of you reading this, know that I live with mental illness. My original diagnosis is major depression with psychotic features. Upon reading that it would appear that I'm a psycho sad boy. What it means is that I hear and see shit, and have delusional thoughts, not all at once, and not all the time.

My other diagnosis is schitzoaffective. Basically that is schizophrenia with a mood disorder. In my case that would be major depression. This diagnosis was brought up in my last appointment just before I moved from KC to California. I haven't been to the Dr since moving here. My delusional thoughts had me convinced the VA wanted to harm and violate me.

I'll go into that particular delusion in a bit.

We should probably define what a delusion is and isn't.

I took this from Cleveland Clinics website. A link is provided at the end of this.

Erotomanic. Someone with this type of delusional disorder believes that another person, often someone important or famous, is in love with him or her. The person might attempt to contact the object of the delusion, and stalking behavior is not uncommon.

Grandiose. A person with this type of delusional disorder has an over-inflated sense of worth, power, knowledge, or identity. The person might believe he or she has a great talent or has made an important discovery.

Jealous. A person with this type of delusional disorder believes that his or her spouse or sexual partner is unfaithful.

Persecutory. People with this type of delusional disorder believe that they (or someone close to them) are being mistreated, or that someone is spying on them or planning to harm them. It is not uncommon for people with this type of delusional disorder to make repeated complaints to legal authorities.

Somatic. A person with this type of delusional disorder believes that he or she has a physical defect or medical problem.

Mixed. People with this type of delusional disorder have two or more of the types of delusions listed above.

I tend to stay within the persecutory vein of delusions. I had a delusion that centered on god and me being his conduit to speak to his people. One of my voices identified as god and I believed it.

Side note: I still have that voice, I call him "The voice formerly known as god". He's not so godlike these days. In fact, hes an asshole.

Right about the time I was admitted into the VA hospital I somehow acquired a new delusion where I believe that the VA only wants to admit me to harvest my organs for returning wounded soldiers. I stood outside a clinic in the cold one time for what seemed like forever, crippled with fear that they were going to drug me and steal my organs. Irrational yes. But it felt every bit as real as standing in front of a speeding bus waiting for the inevitable.

Another delusion I have been carrying around since my military service involves a thought transmitter in my right ear. Through that transmitter they can follow me anywhere in the universe.

I should note that these delusions are pretty fixed, meaning, with the exception of my god delusion, they have been floating around my head for a hot minute.

Now, I don't always hold a strong belief in these delusions. My belief is kind of like an erratic waveform, with random highs and lows. Meaning that I don't always fully believe my delusions. If I catch it early enough I can usually keep them at least at bay

What I have been finding out is that my anxiety tends to trigger my delusions, and hallucinations.

My anxiety plays a big role in my illness. It is the trigger for my auditory hallucinations volume. The noise is always there, the level of intensity changes with my levels of anxiety.

For me, delusions are never random. The paranoia associated with it, the stares from strangers, play within my two delusions. They have a fixed topic. They will ebb and flow with intensity, but the delusion never changes. There is always the possibility of a new delusion in my future. My most recent is the VA harvesting organs impasse. So yeah, yay brain!

This is my personal experience with my illness. Since we live in the age of social media, I have joined a couple groups that center on my particular illness. In those groups I can say things that only a schizo will understand. Shared experiences, different manifestations. One thing I think we all share is that we feel invisible at times.

One last thing about delusions. They do not hinder intelect in any way other than what is directly related to that delusional topic. My worldview does not change. My normal, socially acceptable, views remain intact in my psychosis. I possess strong feelings about what is right and wrong that is based on common human decency and what it means. Those feelings do not change because I happen to think that the battery in the thought transmitter is leaking into my ear.

I'm glad to say that through CBT and meds I have not had an issue in about eight months that I couldn't stop before it got out of hand. Intelect still intact.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9599-delusional-disorder

We Need to Speak a New Language

"But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."

Martin Luther King J

We need to throw violence aside. We need speak a new language, the language of the oppressor. I guarantee that we will get their attention if it has some outrageous price tag. Just a one day, national strike, excluding emergency and medical workers, would make them, the billionaires and their lackey politicians, start to listen.

But that would hurt the economy. First, have you seen our economy lately? Second, that's kind of the point. And third, they would be forced to listen to the demands of the people to fix all the problems of systemic racism, marginalization and willful ignorance of the the abject poor, police brutality, corporate welfare, all of it.

Violence will never do that. Violence begets more violence, and so on. Its an infinite line of falling dominos. Messing with their money is a swift kick to the nuts that will get their attention every time. A general strike is a valuable tool for we the people. It's the only one we have that ensures we are heard. 

Its always been we the people. We...are the majority! Time to take it!

Another Summer Almost Gone

The heatwave broke so we are back to our normal 110 to 115 days. Eight more days until September. I'm riding it out like this...in this chair, with a full misting bottle, my remote, and water. I am in the end of summer conservation mode. I am not the master of my own reality, I am merely a player. Sedentary as I am lately, maybe a prop. 

It is hot. It is the desert... hydrate or die.

This last week has been an endurance test. With temperatures staying above one hundred degrees for twenty hours, and the low temps in the upper eighties, I have had to change my sleep schedule. This can be problematic for me, more so than the heat. A key thing to remember with heat is simple...hydrate or die. When I start majorly messing with my sleep schedule I can, and most usually, get a little crazy.

I am actively psychotic most times. The degree of intensity is what varies for me. I'd call them episodes, but its been about three years since I can remember full silence in my head. So maybe I'll call them my symptoms. That's what my therapist calls them.

These symptoms range from crowd noise, two regular voices, to seeing my shadow buddy, or random figures run across my periphery. The visuals have slowed down a lot. It's been a few weeks, I believe, since I've seen anything. Mostly it's noise. I get random explosions and gunshots from time to time. It's a cacophony of noise.

This time is different, in a good way. This time I really exacerbated my symptoms by drastically changing my sleep pattern. At the time I didn't even think about it. I just did it. I don't recommend that though. The good that came from this was that I can control this to a point. Last year I accepted that this was going to be my new normal. (I can't believe I just strung those two words together.) By accepting the hallucinations for what they really are... hallucinations, it freed me in a sense. Don't get me wrong, they still scare the shit out of me sometimes. I just realize what they are quicker, I suppose.

Its funny that, due to some issues with VA, I haven't had my meds for the past couple months, but I feel that I am doing alright. I haven't yelled at God, Jesus, or the devil in a long time. Ironically I was on meds when that last one happened. I talk to my voices when I'm in the store, but its so muffled, like a little kid muttering that cool new swear word they learned on the playground. In a voice so faint, a butterfly flying by would muffle the sound...I just got a taste of Zest in my mouth. No wonder I was a chickenshit. But I talk softly with a mask over my face, a look that suits me fine, and nobody is the wiser. Thank you pandemic.

Oh, and this heat is a bitch on cellphone batteries. I am starting to do all my important things, like typing this thumb jumbled mess, in the evening when it is cooler...kinda.

Oooh, theres a breeze starting. Time to watch the stars.

My Depression Today

Depression is a snaggletooth hag intent on eating your soul.

All of this recent reflection has opened up the door for my depression to waltz on in, like a familiar antagonist, so familiar that I gave it a label...My Dark Soul. It reads like a book you've read twenty times. It becomes predictable, but you entertain it nonetheless. You have no choice. Depression is a bitch!

With the exception of me reliving the darker parts of my past, I've had a relatively stable life recently. My unconventional living arrangements have brought me stability. Right now my vision is for intentional community. --Ok, I've had that vision for years.-- I'm also writing more, eating well, and managing my symptoms.

And I still get depressed.

An easy way to keep depression away, I suppose, would be to stuff it back into those dank boxes in my mind's equally dank basement. I want resolution. I want closure. So that's out.

The only way to deal with it is to deal with it.

I've come to look at the pain of depression like a healing wound. The depression, for me, always goes away. The length of time varies. It is more an endurance test for me these days. But the pain is going away, there's healing and ugly scars, so thick that they protect that wound from ever experiencing pain again. I am not going to let it kill me. No, I will save that for whatever the healthy American lifestyle throws my way.

I'm still depressed. I'm dealing with it. I have a wonderful campmate who is aware of my brain's faults and keeps the day to day stuff caught up while I do my little sad boy shit of laying around because I literally feel a physical heaviness, like gravity got turned up to ten, or a hundred. At this point my voices are their worst. Sometimes I fight back. Other times, most times if I'm honest, I ignore them. During those times I am worthles. It takes a lot of energy to fight your brain.

It is getting better. I can feel it lifting. I actually did the dishes today. I'm taking showers. I am able to write this little hacky blog post. I'm not laying around as much. This time next week my mood will be better. At least I hope so.

It still sucks, but its getting better.

My Thoughts While Waiting for Armageddon

When I was growing up I moved a lot. I went to nine schools before I dropped out in 10th grade. Those last two years I don't consider actual learning. My high school experience consisted of attending only two classes. One was English comp, and the other was Teens and Law...it was the early 80s.

My delinquency isn't my point. (Focus dumbass)

I was always the new kid. I would find myself in the awkward position of making new friends and hoping I wouldn't get my ass kicked on the first day. The second day is ok, but on the first day is not a good introduction.

I've been on a journey of sorts lately. After my hospitalization I resolved to fix my shit no matter how painful, and embarrassing I thought it would inevitably be. Its not as bad as I thought, I always think the worst; in fact it has been healing.

This journey has me remembering a lot from my past. I was remembering those first days at all those new schools. The uneasy feeling of not knowing a soul. The apprehension of not knowing if I was going to get in a fight before the day ended. Having to stand up in class to introduce myself...all of it got jumbled up into my little body and made the first day of a new school hell.

Most of those fears were more fabrications in my head than truth. I got in one fight on the first day of second grade because I told a another kid, a pasty blonde headed tough guy that there is no such thing as a white Indian when he told me he was Native American. I have always had a problem speaking such stuff out loud.

Still working on it.

That was one instance. Most times I would get settled in to my desk after my introduction and would invariably make friends with some of the kids in class.

With the exception of a few places I've lived, everwhere I have lived has been pretty diverse. I feel fortunate to have lived in such diversity. Having done so has given me an appreciation for other cultures. More importantly, it opened my eyes to the broad spectrum of humanity.

The other day I was thinking about an old friend from Saudi Arabia. I knew Amir from 5th grade. We sat next to each other in class. His father was an engineer for some petroleum company. Amir was like me in that he went to as many schools as I did, except his were in other countries. We found a commonality quickly. For what little time we were together we were able to learn about each other's cultures, day to day life stuff, and that when we shared that we realized we really weren't that different. In fact, the only difference oftentimes being skin color. What I saw when I went to dinner at Amir's house was family, something I didn't have in that sense, but yearned for. His mother insisting I eat more, " You're so tiny." She would tell me as she scraped more kabasa on my plate. I couldn't refuse.

In hindsight what I received was basic human kindness. And I realized that we have the same desires for those we care about, and humanity at large.

We have more in common than we don't.

As always, I feel like I'm rambling. So I'm going to close with this quote from Mark Twain. Yeah, I know, he's probably going to be cancelled pretty soon, if not already. But do you know what? He is right.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

You don't have to travel far.