Part 29: The Post Credits Fallacy

So there's this point in each movie where the credits roll and everything has played out. Well before we find out who played that one actor we can't place... we begin to search for faults with what we've just witnessed. We pick it apart with the beautiful precision of seasoned film critics. One visual slight here, one audible slight here. Sooner or later the film is assassinated in minds, destroyed by our negative mindsets and our addiction to perfection. So when I tell you that I've been viewing myself with this critical lens all my life. I'm the critic. I used to get bullied folks and I gotta tell you some days I miss it... because at least then it was someone else doing the evisceration. I hope someday that some peace will come to me, that anxiety will no longer drive me to pick apart the aspects of my life I cannot control. I hope I will allow myself some zen and stop putting so many negative expectations on myself. I want to be safe from myself and I no longer wish to wear the mantle of my own harshest critic. I'm figuring it out though, I've hired a new critic that's been telling it to me straight where my head's at and how to best proceed. I'm sick of reviewing my past and tearing it apart but it does look like progress is going to require me to dig deep and re-watch some pretty horrific scenes in my film to get my feelings out properly. I think the Therapy I started recently is going to be fantastically helpful, in my case it's like fixing a bone that's healed poorly though... as it's reset it's going to be agony but in the long run I'll be better for it. I have to have hope at least, unlike a bad film... people don't get a reboot. MoonLite

Part 28: Cosmic Collision

I started therapy this week, I know what you are thinking... it's about time! I'm never afraid to admit that my emotional and mental health fluctuates like a change in weather. I think it's good to focus on the attack on a mental health front at the same time as trying to make some good physical changes.

I say this but I must admit that I was a little stumped as to where to start with outlining where everything went wrong. It became clear though that digging through the past for that one moment that everything spiraled out of control is so damn pointless. There are so many small things that contribute to the slow breaking point where "Ok" becomes "Woah, I wanna get off this ride".

I guess as I have moved on from past failures it has no longer been the initial impacts of the meteors on the Moon that I'm suffering from, it's the craters that remained after that lingered. Fixing a physical wound is really simple, you get better... or you don't. A psychological wound is such a huge echoing chasm that you might look at and think well... that's broken. Dotted over my psych were all these little vulnerable wounds that wanted me to pick at them.

For a long time I could only be this wounded creature, I didn't know how to heal. I thought at some point It'd just happen. Like I'd wake up one day and one of the wounds would have closed and then slowly they'd all follow suit until I was whole.

I think I first started making progress when I abandoned the concept of ever being whole again, life is always going to take swings at you and the meteors will undoubtedly continue to rain down. With age comes good experience, some of the meteors you may deflect, some you may recover from quicker. I think mostly though I have begun to accept my flaws as some of my beauty and I've taken some of my power back from my own negativity.

I'm wounded, some days I'm broken. That's just part of who I am. A Moon dotted with craters and shining despite or maybe... because of it.

Part 27: Rise of the Supermoon.

Life's been crazy... but that quiet kind of creeping still crazy where nothing seems to be happening externally and it's all inner turmoil and stress. Most of us are going through the same strain as we wait to see what shape the world takes when this thing is in the past.

Normally for myself the world is a place where I take refuge in from myself. Every part of life is a cultivated distraction to stop myself from turning my thoughts inwards... because honestly my horrid depression and self loathing play a rough and ruthless game of tag team destruction if left to run rampant. I thought to myself as lockdown began, oh god don't lock me in here with myself.

Recent discussions though have begun to shed some light on how I have changed, sometimes without realizing that it was happening. I began to have better standards for myself, for what I owed to myself... and for how I lived my life.

I got tired of administering myself insults when kindness would suffice, I admitted my faults from a position of strength rather than weakness and I learnt to own the qualities others saw in me... both the good and the bad. Admittedly most of my qualities were both at the same time.

While I don't necessarily always like the person I have become it gives me great strength to know that they are someone I can coexist with. Even when the sounds of the distractions die down to a mere murmur I am able to avoid spiraling into the loathing I found unavoidable in my former years.

I hope other people are engaging on safe journeys of self reflection and notice something they like about themselves that they had not before. We can chose to some extent who is in our own bubble but we are always going to have to live with ourselves.

Part 26: Exhale

Lately everything seems pointless. I have the presence of mind to know that this is fleeting. This is just the message my brain likes to send me. I don't view it as a challenge to overcome anymore, it's just this glitch that keeps sending the wrong signals. It screams a cold, dark series of syllables at me, this depression wants to be feed. I hold my breath.

I know what it wants, It wants something to gnaw on, something to consume. Depression is a sudden but ultimately predictable creature, when it rears it's ugly head it's easy to know how to sate it. Some people describe it as a black dog that follows them around... but I prefer to view it as a carnivorous cloud. It can fit under doors, take new shapes and it can make even the finest day dim. So when this hungry cloud comes calling I hold my breath and I grab an umbrella.

An umbrella can take any shape, it might be a call from a friend, a blast of music or more recently a work out. I don't want to give in to this vapor, this strange emotive thing that disappears and reappears like bad weather. Depression is a self inflicted cruelty some of us never master. Normally the umbrellas I own are capable of making this cloud a bother and an obstacle but a manageable one. Lately it seems though that all my umbrellas have holes in them and the cloud is getting in.

It's all too clear to me why my umbrellas are all in disarray, the world's in a bit of havoc right now and I've never been good with sudden change, dire circumstances or loved ones in peril. I have this dire need to exhale and take a big deep breath but sometimes I can only see this cloud... and the breathing that in isn't something I want to do. Previously I'd numb myself with food. I'd give this cloud something to eat... but I desperately don't want to be him. Not anymore. I just fucking can't.

So yesterday in lieu of breaking down I went and punched the punching bag again. This wasn't the daily work out anymore... This was an assassination attempt, but yet it still swung there mocking me after I had finished with my knuckles and emotions raw. I have no perfect fix right now, my ability to help my loved ones through a pandemic is non existent, my ability to help myself is being sorely tasked, my willingness to fight fluctuating minute from minute.

I lean against the punching bag and I exhale.