Elephants Eventually Shit...Even the Maggots Choke

The elephant took a big shit

in the room and the flies 

are circling. 

I stand in the windowless room,

choking back the bile.

Freud comes to me, blaming all my problems on wanting my father's cock...dad's tool of destruction. 

I am starting to feel uneasy 

and excuse myself.

Rapid thought change

turns my attention away from

that pretentious,

self projecting,

perverted,

coke fiend. 

Kinsey walks by

whispering, "They know I'm a cuck."

I laugh...

He was.

That big shit 

still sits there, unnoticed,

people milling about the rotting waste.

Jung jumps up, waving his hands

in the air.

I try to look like I don't notice...

Persistent fucker comes

towards me. 

"Oh hi, Carl."

He leans into my ear 

and whispers, 

"Word to your mother."

and the he's gone,

consumed by the 

ever rotting

pile of 

elephant shit. 

The room is starting to smell

like rotting lies

and facades.

Maggots are eating the corpses

of moral-less-humans.

Of the diddlers of 

mop top boys and

pony tailed girls, 

even the maggots choke. 

Santa Plays Favorites While Capitalists Monetize False Gods, and Children Shrink Back in Horror

It's December, 25th, 2020,

Christmas, a shit year,

and the general consensus

is that

nobody enjoys it.

I know I don't...

Growing up, you know,

that moment

I believed in it,

I knew Santa 

played favorites.

It was obvious 

in comparison

to my friends.

For me

Christmas exposed 

the fraud

that continues

to this day,

of peace on Earth,

good will to man... Happy Holidays!

Hark, the herald angels 

sing,

glory to the

gifted bling

More people

suicide

this time of year...than any other.

Probably

from all

this peace,

and love.

Christmas has

historically been

a co-opted holiday.

Right now it's

the capitalist's turn,

at peace, 

and love. 

So far

they're

fucking it up too.

While we,

those forgotten by

Christmas past

try to forget 

past Christmases. 

You Smell of Babylon

You smell of Babylon, the desert breeze carries over the scent of laundry detergent and fabric softener. 

The smell of Babylonian excess oozes from your pores like the pink sludge used to make your convenient, microwavable, processed burgers. 

The smell of Babylon, pollution, pretty smog orange sunsets, overflowing sewers emitting gasses through manhole covers, a byproduct of our consumption, hidden by reality TV, and the real pox on humanity, erectile disfunction. 

Nearsighted gazing at genitalia as the fires burn, siren's wail, and millions bitch that their favorite reality shows are interrupted by reality. 

The smell of Babylon is unrecognizable to you anymore. Like cat ladies who can't smell cat piss any longer because they got used to it... You got used to it. The smell, hidden in plain sight...which is what that whore wants. 

Complacent submission. Your heart doesn't have to be in it as long as you follow the path of destruction. Subconscious obedience to outlandish comodified schemes, live, laugh, love even though you lost ability to do either. Platitudes of happiness and your best life now fall on programmed ears, that devour it like a dog lapping up it's own vomit. Animation powered by new and improved, gluten free, consumption of products designed to dull the senses into submission, while pre-planned gears of control turn and grind away effortlessly. 

Just thought you should know I smell it on you. 

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. 

A Little Milestone to Share

I don't know why this is so important to me right now, but I have been thinking a lot about my mental illness and how I have been seeing positive changes in how I deal with it on a daily basis. I have said many times that I don't suffer from mental illness, I live with it. What I have found is that by changing my perspective I have been able to navigate past obstacles previously debilitating.

I have, at times, extreme social anxiety. My normal is a 1 to 2 these days. Sometimes situations will cause it to spike. When that happens it intensifies the noise in my head, I become paranoid and believe people are judging me, hate me and wish me dead. At this point one voice will point out these thoughts from other people. One situation is shopping. How I have navigated this in the past is to bring someone with me. I don't want that for the rest of my life. This week I did a couple test runs. They were just  runs, by myself, no safety net folks, to the hardware store and Dollar General. Both trips were successful. I maintained my normal. I even had a quick conversation with the cashier at Dollar General. 

I haven't been able to do that in a year and a half. I've done it before, but never that easy. What is happening to me?

I feel a sense of accomplishment, and progress. PMA saves the day.

Maybe that's why it's so important to me right now. 

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

,

Sharing is Caring

Part of why I have found myself sharing my life with mental illness is that I believe there is an ignorance problem related to mental illness itself. That problem leads to misconceptions about mental illness, and unintended judgement towards those of us living with it.

I have always, as far back as I can remember, have been angry and depressed. A lot of that stemmed from physical abuse as a child at the hands of a equally, if not more depressed, single mom. Along with that, later sexual abuse added to the depression which would manifest in explosive anger and flat out rage. I hate that about myself. It is really not my nature.

For the last year I have been scouring the internet, looking for answers to my illness, looking for cures, therapies, anything really. What I learned is that anger is a manifestation of depression from those who suffer from it. And, as of this writing, I am happy to say that knowing that has helped me recognize what ever the trigger is, and then I can deal with it through breathing exercises, isolation, and CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy). The anger is still there. Its not as strong as it has been in the past. I have had three morning outbursts since moving here. Through CBT I have been able to identify the trigger, which is the voice formally known as God.

Most mornings I wake up to just crowd noise. The crowd noises started when I was admitted to the hospital. Once in awhile I will wake up to fake god calling me names in an extremely loud voice. I'm just waking up, this has the potential to trigger rage, complete with me running away, yelling at the top of my lungs at my voices. At that point I am doing all I can to get away from people so they don't have to see it. I'm pretty sure they hear me though. Honestly, I think I get away so I don't have to apologize later. The last time it happened was five months ago.

This particular aspect of my illness is easily distracted by music. Specifically 70s soul and r&b. No kidding. When I wake up and the voices are loud, I put in the ear buds or play music out loud. Bill Withers, Lovely Day has pulled me up on more than one occasion. I pace, make coffee, try to remember lyrics, eventually sitting down and getting lost in the music. It's about a two to three hour process. And it works.

That, the depression and rage that is, is just one aspect of the chemical gymnastics going on in my head. Since I'm in a sharing mood, let's crack open my skull and see what's going on.

First, my diagnosis is in limbo right now. I was originally diagnosed with major depression with psychotic features, social anxiety disorder, and PTSD in March of 2019. That diagnosis was done by the psychiatrist on duty when I was admitted. After about 6 months of appointments my primary therapist and psychologist started thinking I was schitzoaffective bipolar type, along with the social anxiety and PTSD.

When I left in December for California I stopped all treatment until I could get set up with VA in San Diego. I never followed through. I would make appointments, only to cancel them a few days later. I did that four or five times. My reasoning for it all centered on an ongoing, sometimes fully believable, delusion that the VA wants to harvest my organs for incoming war wounded.

It's ok to laugh at that. I do. Its how I can half assed keep it in check.

I have recently gotten set up with VA in San Diego with a little help from another vet here. Since covid the appointments are telehealth. It's convenient, and I'm sure my organs are safe.

You can laugh at that too. Its ok.

My whole life is a bunch of work arounds. From therapy I have learned to reflect. Yeah, that's the word, reflect. I have been reflecting on my past, looking at the times where I wondered how everything would be going great, my family would be content, not a want in the world, and then I would make some irrational decision that uprooted our family more than once, all because I had some delusional, grandiose plan to do something better. How I got to those points was by working around my illness, mostly through denial.

I hurt my family. I managed to make us homeless, penniless on more than one occasion, and failed to provide a stable home at times. All a result of my stubbornness, and denial of what was really going on in my head. I will say this though. I probably would have gotten treatment sooner had I not got involved in the charismatic church.

A couple of years into my marriage, we decided that it would be the responsible parent thing to raise our kids in the church. I had heard voices on and off since my last year in the Army. I was twenty three then. This was ten years past that, and they were starting to become more regular. One of those voices identified itself as God while I was praying one day. I believed it. That voice provided the confirmation I needed to prove I was chosen by God.

That delusion had a shelf life of about 15 years, until the voice started turning on me. I was in my late 40s by then, and started thinking I may have a problem. I tried self medicating with weed and alcohol. Remarkably that worked for a bit. Towards the end I left a great paying job to start my own business. I started the business on a hypomanic whim. I lost the business in a psychotic and deep depression.

My illness was getting worse. I had enough sense to realize it, but it took a splendidly botched suicide attempt, followed by another attempt that was, for no other explaination, the universe intervening, to make me own it. Without treatment, without medication, I know I would not be writing this today. I wish I had done it sooner than later. But at least I did it.

My typical day is a lot less distressing now. I wake up early, usually around 4am. If it's just the crowd noise I'll lay in bed, daydream, commit to doing something productive. If the crowd noise is light, it's somewhat soothing, and I may nod off for thirty minutes. Most of the time I just get up.

As I'm making the coffee the voices start. One of my voices, the lesser of the two, always yells just one word. There's variety from day to day most times. The last month or so it has stayed with, shitgibbon. That makes me giggle, probably like a crazy man. It helps me cope with God calling me little faggot and reminding me of past traumas. How I look on the outside is a crying, giggling mess. On the inside I am vibrating and super tense, feeling like I used to just before a fight.

That last part is PTSD

I hate PTSD. Dealing with it has pointed to the festering, untreated wounds from past traumas. I know I need to hit it head on, and that in doing so I can get better. I'm not going to lie. These wounds are painful. There's pain in healing, so I continue. Still hate it though.

That's just part of what's up with Chuck. I plan on delving deeper into my illness and sharing all of it as time goes on. On January 1, 2020 I made a new year resolution. It was the only one I have ever made, and so far I'm keeping to it. Until I die, can't speak, or get shot by a cop for being out of my mind, I will share everything, not for sympathy. I don't want that. I don't think any of us living with mental Illness want that. No, we want understanding. And if I can help in others understanding I believe we can break the stigma of mental illness. Seriously, no question is wrong. How can you understand if you don't ask?

Ask away.

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